Directed forgetting in direct and indirect tests of memory: Seeking evidence of retrieval inhibition using electrophysiological measures

We investigated whether directed forgetting as elicited by the item-cueing method results solely from differential rehearsal of to-be-remembered vs. to-be-forgotten words or, additionally, from inhibitory processes that actively impair retrieval of to-be-forgotten words. During study, participants (N = 24) were instructed to remember half of a series of presented words (TBR) and to forget the other half (TBF), as indicated by an instruction cue shown shortly after each word. During test, accuracy and reaction time measures from lexical decisions (indirect memory test) followed by recognition-memory judgements (direct memory test) were supplemented with event-related potential (ERP) recordings. Results from the behavioural measures revealed directed forgetting in the recognition-memory test but not the lexical-decision test. ERPs obtained during recognition indicated that TBR words elicited a larger parietal old/new effect than TBF words overall, suggesting that remember/forget instructions impaired conscious recollection processes more severely than familiarity processes. Moreover, TBF words that were successfully forgotten elicited less parietal activity than correctly rejected new words (the reversed old/new effect; Nowicka, A., Jednorórog, K., Wypych, M., & Marchewka, A. (2009). Reversed old/new effect for intentionally forgotten words: An ERP study of directed forgetting. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 71, 97–102). This was taken to implicate that inhibitory processes likely affected these items. Enhanced negativities for successfully forgotten TBF words relative to new words were observed in the lexical-decision task at early (150–250 ms) and late (800–1000 ms) time windows, suggesting that inhibitory influences disrupt more than just conscious recollection when memory retrieval is tested indirectly.     

自我职业选择测验(SDS)的试用报告

本研究对自我职业选择测验 (SDS) 1 985年版进行了修订 ,并在武汉市中学生中进行了适用性的验证。在原测验中译本基础上 ,进行了项目修改、项目分析、信效度检验等标准化工作。结果表明 :①该测验具有良好的项目特性 ;②该测验同质性信度、分半信度均达到一般心理测验要求标准 ;③该测验结构效度与效标关联效度亦较为理想 ;④个别项目仍有待于进一步修改 ,取样还应面向全国 ,以利于进一步的推广作用。在武汉市中学生中的试用结果表明 :①该测验可以作为中学生职业辅导的选用工具 ;②在该测验中使用标准分代替粗分更具科学性。     

立体视觉研究中心理物理学和生理学实验的系统及其方法

双眼立体视觉涉及复杂的神经机制,因此在研究这个问题时,一般只能从某一侧面或某种方法入手,本文重点研究采用计算机控制的多功能刺激图形的产生及其在心理物理学研究中的效果,同时介绍了一种可以广泛用于立体视觉研究中的多功能刺激图形发生系统的工作原理和结构设计。     

Retrieval of concrete words involves more contextual information than abstract words: multiple components for the concreteness effect

The current study used the directed forgetting paradigm in implicit and explicit memory to investigate the concreteness effect. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to explore the neural basis of this phenomenon. The behavioral results showed a clear concreteness effect in both implicit and explicit memory tests; participants responded significantly faster to concrete words than to abstract words. The ERP results revealed a concreteness effect (N400) in both the encoding and retrieval phases. In addition, behavioral and ERP results showed an interaction between word concreteness and memory instruction (to-be-forgotten vs. to-be-remembered) in the late epoch of the explicit retrieval phase, revealing a significant concreteness effect only under the to-be-remembered instruction condition. This concreteness effect was realized as an increased P600-like component in response to concrete words relative to abstract words, likely reflecting retrieval of contextual details. The time course of the concreteness effect suggests advantages of concrete words over abstract words due to greater contextual information.     

Adult Age Differences in Inhibitory Processes and their Predictive Validity for Fluid Intelligence

ABSTRACT

According to the inhibition-deficit hypothesis age differences in working memory capacity and fluid intelligence have been attributed to a decline in inhibitory efficiency. Conceptualizing inhibition as multifaceted, 88 participants (49 younger and 39 elderly) completed two versions of the negative priming paradigm (identification and localization), and two variants of the directed forgetting paradigm (listwise and itemwise). Two tasks of the Wechsler Intelligence Test with high loadings on general fluid intelligence (Gf) served as validation criteria. Results revealed task-specific and speed-independent inhibitory deficits in the elderly (lower negative priming in both paradigms; more intrusions in the directed forgetting tasks), as well as higher levels of repetition priming. Significant correlations between measures of inhibition and the Wechsler scores were found in both age groups. Results support the view of multiple inhibitory-like capabilities that play a central role in the decline of higher-order cognitive functions in old age.     

Selective cues to forget can fail to cause forgetting

Recent research has found that individuals can selectively forget a subset of items through directed forgetting. The goal of the present study was to replicate this selective directed forgetting effect and elucidate its underlying mechanisms. Unfortunately, results from four experiments failed to find any evidence of selective directed forgetting. Participants failed to forget any items when instructed to forget a subset of items from a first list before learning a second list. Participants were only successful in forgetting items from the first list when they were instructed to forget all items from the first list before learning the second list.     

Don't Predict the Future–Direct it! Comments on the intellectual history,the Logical and Applicative Visibility,and the Underlying Assumptions of Directed Evolution (DE)

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

—Alan Kay ¹ 1. Alan Kay is one of the inventors of the Smalltalk programming language and one of the originators of the idea of Object Oriented Programming. He is the conceiver of the laptop computer and the architect of the modern windowing GUI.

It is obvious that there are patterns of cultural change—evolution in the neutral sense—and any theory of cultural change worth more than a moment's consideration will have to be Darwinian in the minimal sense of being consistent with the theory of evolution by natural selection of Homo sapiens.

—Daniel Dennett ² 2. Daniel C. Dennett is a Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He is the author of several books, including Consciousness Explained (1991), Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995), and Kinds of Minds (1996). This quote is taken from his forward to Darwinizing Culture (Aunger 2000 Aunger, R. 2000. Darwinizing culture: The status of memetics as a science, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar], ix).

The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.

—William Gibson ³ 3. In the early 1980s William Gibson wrote Neuromancer, coining the term “cyberspace” to describe computer-generated virtual realities long before we saw the similarities with today's Internet.

It is the magician's wand, by means of which he may summon into life whatever form and mould he pleases.

—Charles Darwin commenting on the power of artificial selection ⁴ 4. Here Darwin is explaining the power of artificial selection and its potential for the directed evolution of biological systems (domestication and commercially oriented breeding) in his Origin of Species (1859, 68).      

Directed forgetting of autobiographical memory in mild Alzheimer's disease

Using the autobiographical directed forgetting method (Barnier et al., 2007), the present paper addressed the intentional inhibitory processes of episodic and semantic autobiographical memory in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Mild AD patients and healthy elderly people were instructed to either forget or to continue remembering previously generated autobiographical events. In a later recall test they were asked to reconstruct the early-generated memories regardless of the forget/remember instruction. Autobiographical reconstruction was further distributed into episodic and semantic memories. Results showed no forget instruction effect on episodic or semantic autobiographical recall with AD patients, whereas healthy elderly people were able to inhibit only episodic autobiographical memories. The findings suggest an impairment of the intentional inhibitory processes in autobiographical memory with AD and a relative preservation of these mechanisms with normal ageing. They also demonstrate an earlier decline in the intentional inhibitory processes compared to the autobiographical deterioration in AD.     

Additive factors and stages of mental processes in task networks

To perform a task a subject executes mental processes. An experimental manipulation, such as a change in stimulus intensity, is said to selectively influence a process if it changes the duration of that process leaving other process durations unchanged. For random process durations a definition of a factor selectively influencing a process by increments is given in terms of stochastic dominance (also called “the usual stochastic order”). A technique for analyzing reaction times, Sternberg’s Additive Factor Method, assumes all the processes are in series. When all processes are in series, each process is called a stage. With the Additive Factor Method, if two experimental factors selectively influence two different stages by increments, the factors will have additive effects on reaction time. An assumption of the Additive Factor Method is that if two experimental factors interact, then they influence the same stage. We consider sets of processes in which some pairs of processes are sequential and some are concurrent (i.e., the processes are partially ordered). We propose a natural definition of a stage for such sets of processes. For partially ordered processes, with our definition of a stage, if two experimental factors selectively influence two different processes by increments, each within a different stage, then the factors have additive effects. If each process selectively influenced by increments is in the same stage, then an interaction is possible, although not inevitable.     

Methodological Challenges in Causal Research on Racial and Ethnic Patterns of Cognitive Trajectories: Measurement, Selection, and Bias

Research focused on understanding how and why cognitive trajectories differ across racial and ethnic groups can be compromised by several possible methodological challenges. These difficulties are especially relevant in research on racial and ethnic disparities and neuropsychological outcomes because of the particular influence of selection and measurement in these contexts. In this article, we review the counterfactual framework for thinking about causal effects versus statistical associations. We emphasize that causal inferences are key to predicting the likely consequences of possible interventions, for example in clinical settings. We summarize a number of common biases that can obscure causal relationships, including confounding, measurement ceilings/floors, baseline adjustment bias, practice or retest effects, differential measurement error, conditioning on common effects in direct and indirect effects decompositions, and differential survival. For each, we describe how to recognize when such biases may be relevant and some possible analytic or design approaches to remediating these biases.