Remembering versus knowing during face recognition in unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy patients with or without hippocampal sclerosis

Recognition memory involves knowing an item was learned (familiarity) and remembering contextual details about the prior learning episode (recollection). We tested three competing hypotheses about the role of the hippocampus in recollection and familiarity. It mediates either recollection or familiarity, or serves both processes. We further tested whether the left temporal lobe mediates recollection and the right temporal lobe familiarity (modes of processing view), or whether the two temporal lobes mediate remembering material specifically (material specificity view). We investigated 24-h face recognition using the "remember-know" procedure. We studied 23 left and 24 right temporal lobe epilepsy (LTLE/RTLE) patients with and without hippocampal sclerosis (HS+/HS-) and 31 healthy participants. HS+ patients made fewer know responses than HS- patients or healthy participants. RTLE was related to fewer remember responses than LTLE. Our results suggest the hippocampus has a critical role in familiarity. Further, our findings support the material specificity hypothesis of laterality.     

Ruminative self-focus, negative life events, and negative affect

Ruminative thinking is believed to exacerbate the psychological distress that follows stressful life events. An experience-sampling study was conducted in which participants recorded negative life events, ruminative self-focus, and negative affect eight times daily over one week. Occasions when participants reported a negative event were marked by higher levels of negative affect. Additionally, negative events were prospectively associated with higher levels of negative affect at the next sampling occasion, and this relationship was partially mediated by momentary ruminative self-focus. Depressive symptoms were associated with more frequent negative events, but not with increased reactivity to negative events. Trait rumination was associated with reports of more severe negative events and increased reactivity to negative events. These results suggest that the extent to which a person engages in ruminative self-focus after everyday stressors is an important determinant of the degree of distress experienced after such events. Further, dispositional measures of rumination predict mood reactivity to everyday stressors in a non-clinical sample.     

The phenomenological role of affect in the Capgras delusion

This paper draws on studies of the Capgras delusion in order to illuminate the phenomenological role of affect in interpersonal recognition. People with this delusion maintain that familiars, such as spouses, have been replaced by impostors. It is generally agreed that the delusion involves an anomalous experience, arising due to loss of affect. However, quite what this experience consists of remains unclear. I argue that recent accounts of the Capgras delusion incorporate an impoverished conception of experience, which fails to accommodate the role played by ‘affective relatedness’ in constituting (a) a sense of who a particular person is and (b) a sense of others as people rather than impersonal objects. I draw on the phenomenological concept of horizon to offer an interpretation of the Capgras experience that shows how the content ‘this entity is not my spouse but an impostor’ can be part of the experience, rather than something that is inferred from a strange experience.

Assessing human reorientation ability inside virtual reality environments: the effects of retention interval and landmark characteristics

The purpose of the present study was to assess the navigational behaviour of adult humans following a disorientation procedure that perturbed their egocentric frame of reference. The assessment was carried out in a virtual reality (VR) environment by manipulating the disorientation procedure, the retention interval, the relative positions of target and landmark. The results of experiment I demonstrated that adding a physical rotation to a virtual disorientation procedure did not yield an additional decrease in searching performance. The results of experiment II showed that shortening the delay between study and test phase decreased the errors more markedly for geometric than landmark ones. An orientation specificity effect due to the manipulation of the relative position between target and landmark was discussed across the experiments. In conclusion, VR seemed to be a valuable method for studying human reorientation. Moreover, the virtual experimental setting involved here promoted knowledge of the relationship between working memory and spatial reorientation paradigm.     

Positive mood, attribution, and the illusion of familiarity

We investigated the positivity-cues-familiarity effect and the hypothesis that it is caused by a misattribution of positivity to a sense of familiarity. Participants were put in a positive or neutral mood state, and then either did or did not complete a mood-manipulation check question. Participants then rendered old/new judgments of stimuli to which they allegedly had been subliminally exposed. When participants did not complete the mood-manipulation check question, and thus the source of their affect was unclear, they showed the positivity-cues-familiarity effect: those in a positive mood identified more of the stimuli as old than did those in a neutral mood. However, those who had completed the mood-manipulation check question, and for whom the source of their affect was obvious, did not show the positivity-cues-familiarity effect. These findings support the notion that a misattribution process is responsible for the positivity-cues-familiarity effect.     

When approach motivation and behavioral inhibition collide: Behavior regulation through stimulus devaluation

In the present article a theory is outlined that explains why and when behavioral inhibition alters stimulus evaluations. In addition, some initial evidence is presented that supports the theory. Specifically, results of three experiments show that refraining from responding to stimuli results in devaluation of these stimuli, but only when these stimuli are positive. These findings suggest automatic behavior-regulation, in terms of devaluation of positive stimuli, in situations in which environmental cues triggering approach (because of the positive valence of the stimulus) run counter to situational demands (cues that elicit behavioral inhibition). Relations of the present research to self-perception, cognitive dissonance, and psychological reactance are discussed.     

真实线和想象线的朝向辨别学习及其相互迁移

以往的朝向辨别学习普遍采用真实刺激作为材料,其特异性与迁移性是研究争论的焦点之一。该研究以实线和想象线为刺激,采用朝向辨别任务训练被试,系统考察两者朝向辨别学习的特点和相互关系。结果发现,训练实线和想象线任务的两组被试行为都有显著提高,并且这两种学习效果能部分地彼此迁移,且都能迁移到不同位置。该研究结果提示,不论是想象线的学习还是实线的学习都涉及高级脑区的参与,并且两者的学习有部分共同的脑机制。     

视觉系统中类别信息加工区的特异性

近年来, 神经成像的研究结果显示, 在人类的腹侧视觉皮层内可能存在与特定类别刺激加工一一对应的类别信息加工区。但是, 类别信息加工区是否具有特异性仍然存在争议。文章总结了相关研究领域对这一颇具争议的问题的研究结果, 同时指出了末来研究可能深入的方向。这些方向包括：进一步探讨不同抽象水平的类别信息加工区域的特异性问题、检验类别信息加工区的拓扑分布观点、回答不同类别信息加工区之间的信息如何交流的问题、揭示类别信息加工区的学习机制。     

急性心理性应激诱发的神经内分泌反应及其影响因素

急性心理性应激源分别通过下丘脑-脑垂体-肾上腺轴(hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis,HPAA)和交感神经-肾上腺髓质轴(sympathetic-adrenal medulla axis)诱发神经内分泌反应。唾液皮质醇被认为是检测急性心理性应激所诱发的HPA轴反应的稳定指标。以特里尔社会应激测试(Trier Social Stress Test,TSST)及其变式作为应激源, 以HPA轴的反应作为应激指标, 影响个体在急性心理性应激情境中发生特异性神经内分泌反应的因素主要包括人口统计学、环境和应激频率三大方面, 未来应加强急性心理性应激所诱发的神经内分泌反应的纵向研究。     

Relating momentary affect to the five factor model of personality: A Japanese case1

Abstract: This article shows that fundamental aspects of the structure of momentary affect are similar in Japanese and Canadian societies. We developed questionnaire scales in Japanese in four different formats for assessing self-reported momentary affect. Scales can be scored for dimensions defined by Feldman Barrett and Russell (1998 ), Thayer (1996 ), Larsen and Diener (1992 ), and Watson and Tellegen (1985 ). We administered these newly developed affect scales and NEO five-factor inventory ( Costa & McCrae, 1992 ) to a sample of 450 Japanese respondents. The affect scales were found to be psychometrically sound and to be interrelated, as found with English-speaking Canadians. Dimensions could be integrated into a two-dimensional affective space. Personality correlated with momentary affect, though not in the same pattern as found in Canada.