早老性痴呆病人早期记忆损害的检测方法

采用词语延迟回忆、记忆广度和双任务工作记忆测验,研究可能用于检测(Alzheimer’s disease,AD)早期记忆损害的方法。共有4组被试：两个正常年轻人组、一个正常老年人组、一个很可能患早老性痴呆病人(Probable AD,PAD)组。结果表明：(1)正常年轻人和正常老年人的词语延迟回忆保持率没有显著差异,而PAD患者表现出明显受损;(2)两个正常年轻人组的双任务工作记忆成绩也没有显著不同,与之相比,正常老年人组有一定程度的降低,而PAD患者表现出更大程度的损害;(3)4组被试的记忆广度都不相同。这些结果提示,词语延迟回忆和双任务工作记忆测验可能能够用于检测AD早期的记忆损害。     

Recommendation Recall and Satisfaction After Attending Breast/Ovarian Cancer Risk Counseling

This study examined women’s recall of physician recommendations as well as patient satisfaction following participation in a breast/ovarian cancer risk and prevention program. Participants were 41 high risk women who attended a cancer risk program 4–6 months earlier. Two-thirds of women who received recommendations for tamoxifen treatment and genetic testing did not recall these recommendations upon follow-up. A number of women misunderstood recommendations and a quarter of the sample recalled recommendations that were not made during the consultation. Although these high risk women were generally satisfied with their counseling visit, those individuals who received particularly complex sets of recommendations reported feeling less understood and were less satisfied with the counseling. Findings underline the importance of examining recommendation recall, in addition to perceptions of cancer risk, when evaluating the clinical implications of cancer risk assessment.     

The self and dreams during a period of transition

The content of dreams and changes to the self were investigated in students moving to University. In study 1, 20 participants completed dream diaries and memory tasks before and after they had left home and moved to university, and generated self images, “I am…” statements (e.g. I am an undergraduate), reflective of their current self. Changes in “I ams” were observed, indicating a newly-formed ‘university’ self. These self, images and related autobiographical knowledge were found to be incorporated into recent dreams but not into dreams from other periods. Study 2 replicated these findings in a different sample (N = 55). We suggest that these data reflect a period of self-consolidation in which new experiences and self images are incorporated into autobiographical memory knowledge structures representing personal goals during sleep.     

Reconsidering the two-second decay hypothesis in verbal working memory

A common belief in the study of short-term memory is that the verbal trace decays around two seconds after it is encoded. This belief is typically assumed to follow from the finding that in immediate serial recall, the time required to rapidly articulate a span-length list is around two seconds. Empirically, this belief is in opposition to a broad set of findings across a number of domains that establish mean decay times to be longer than two seconds. Theoretically, the available computational and mathematical models of immediate serial recall do not address this issue directly, because they typically rely on other mechanisms in addition to decay to account for forgetting. As such, they may show that decay times can be longer than two seconds, but they fail to show that they cannot be as short as two seconds. We address the issue directly and set a lower bound on mean trace decay times, even under the limiting assumption that all forgetting is due to trace decay. We do this by presenting a simple item-based model of trace decay that allows us to estimate values of mean trace duration. For a set of words whose span-length lists can be rapidly articulated in about two seconds, the model offers a conservative estimate for their mean decay times of around four seconds. Both the experimental and theoretical evidence show that items in verbal working memory decay considerably slower than the two-second decay hypothesis claims.     

个人信息的有意隐藏：藏秘及其后果和应对

藏秘在日常生活中十分常见, 但由于秘密的不公开性, 使得藏秘的研究发展缓慢。近年来学界主要关注藏秘的消极影响(如负担感及自我惩罚等), 而对藏秘的积极影响研究(如社会保护及亲社会谎言等)较少。学者们提出了秘密抑制模型、专注模型、持续性思维模型和共享现实理论等来解释消极影响的机制, 并发现通过吐露秘密、发挥创造性、训练情绪标记和自我意识等途径可以应对藏秘的消极影响。未来研究应对藏秘的概念做出更准确统一的界定, 并寻求更精准特定的测量与操纵方式, 探索藏秘的积极结果及影响机制, 深化藏秘的理论研究, 并推动藏秘研究在不同领域的应用。     

Is dream recall underestimated by retrospective measures and enhanced by keeping a logbook? An empirical investigation

In a recent review, Aspy, Delfabbro, and Proeve (2015) highlighted the tendency for retrospective measures of dream recall to yield substantially lower recall rates than logbook measures, a phenomenon they termed the retrospective-logbook disparity. One explanation for this phenomenon is that retrospective measures underestimate true dream recall. Another explanation is that keeping a logbook tends to enhance dream recall. The present study provides a thorough empirical investigation into the retrospective-logbook disparity using a range of retrospective and logbook measures and three different types of logbook. Retrospective-logbook disparities were correlated with a range of variables theoretically related to the retrospective underestimation effect, and retrospective-logbook disparities were greater among participants that reported improved dream recall during the logbook period. These findings indicate that dream recall is underestimated by retrospective measures and enhanced by keeping a logbook. Recommendations for the use of retrospective and logbook measures of dream recall are provided.     

Interviewing intoxicated witnesses: Memory performance in theory and practice

Memory encoding and recall involving complex, effortful cognitive processes are impaired by alcohol primarily due to impairment of a select few, but crucial, cortical areas. This review shows how alcohol affects some, but not all, aspects of eyewitnesses' oral free recall performance. The principal results, so far, are that: a) free recall reports by intoxicated witnesses (at the investigated BAC‐levels) may contain less, but as accurate, information as reports by sober witnesses; b) immediate reports given by intoxicated witnesses may yield more information compared to reports by sober witnesses given after a one week delay; c) an immediate interview may enhance both intoxicated and sober witnesses' ability to report information in a later interview; and d) reminiscence seems to occur over repeated interviews and the new information seems to be as accurate as the previously reported information. Based on this, recommendations are given for future research to enhance understanding of the multifaceted impact of alcohol on witnesses' oral free recall of violent crimes.     

Neuropsychological Functioning and Recall of Research Consent Information Among Drug Court Clients

Evidence suggests that research participants often fail to recall much of the information provided during the informed consent process. This study was conducted to determine the proportion of consent information recalled by drug court participants following a structured informed consent procedure and the neuropsychological factors that were related to recall. Eighty-five participants completed a standard informed consent procedure to participate in an ongoing research study, followed by a 17-item consent quiz and a brief neuropsychological battery 2 weeks later. Participants performed within the normal range on most of the neuropsychological measures, although roughly one third showed deficits on measures of executive functioning. Participants failed to recall over 65% of the consent information within 2 weeks of entering the study, and their recall was significantly correlated with verbal IQ, drug problem severity, reading ability, memory, and attention. These factors may be useful in determining whether research participants require enhanced consent procedures.