Memory for details with self-referencing

Self-referencing benefits item memory, but little is known about the ways in which referencing the self affects memory for details. Experiment 1 assessed whether the effects of self-referencing operate only at the item, or general, level or whether they also enhance memory for specific visual details of objects. Participants incidentally encoded objects by making judgements in reference to the self, a close other (one's mother), or a familiar other (Bill Clinton). Results indicate that referencing the self or a close other enhances both specific and general memory. Experiments 2 and 3 assessed verbal memory for source in a task that relied on distinguishing between different mental operations (internal sources). The results indicate that self-referencing disproportionately enhances source memory, relative to conditions referencing other people, semantic, or perceptual information. We conclude that self-referencing not only enhances specific memory for both visual and verbal information, but can also disproportionately improve memory for specific internal source details.     

Evolutionary consumer psychology: Ask not what you can do for biology,but…

The commentaries raise questions about modularity, and about the evidence required to establish evolutionary influences on behavior. We briefly discuss evidence leading evolutionary psychologists to assume that human choices reflect evolutionary influences, and to assume some degree of modularity in human information processing. An evolutionary perspective is based on a multidisciplinary nomological network of evidence, and results of particular experiments are only one part of that network. The precise nature of, and number of, information processing systems, is an empirical question. Consumer psychologists need not retrain as biologists to profit from using insights and findings from evolutionary biology to generate new hypotheses, and to contribute novel insights and findings to the emerging nomological network of modern evolutionary science.     

Specificity of the 21-Item Test in two elderly samples

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to measure the specificity of the 21-Item Test for detecting malingering in an elderly sample. The 21-Item Test was administered to 20 community-dwelling elderly individuals with means for age, education, and Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ) error scores of 76.25 years (SD?=?7.19), 14.30 years (SD?=?3.89), and 0.30 (SD?=?4.70). None of these healthy elderly participants were cognitively impaired. A second group of 53 nursing home residents had means for age, education, and SPMSQ error scores of 82.79 years (SD?=?8.56), 11.14 years (SD = 2.46), and 3.17 (SD?=?2.46). Approximately 60% of the nursing home participants had cognitive impairment based on the SPMSQ. The cut offs provided by Iverson (1998 Iverson, G. L. 1998. 21 Item Test Research Manual, Vancouver, BC: Author.  [Google Scholar], 21 Item Test Research Manual) for interpretation of the forced-choice component of the 21-Item Test were insensitive to age and relatively insensitive to cognitive deficits. Specificity was 100% since no elderly participant from either group scored in the range indicative of sub-optimal effort or biased responding.     

Efficient spatio-temporal data mining with GenSpace graphs

We describe a method for spatio-temporal data mining based on GenSpace graphs. Using familiar calendar and geographical concepts, such as workdays, weeks, climatic regions, and countries, spatio-temporal data can be aggregated into summaries in many ways. We automatically search for a summary with a distribution that is anomalous, i.e., far from user expectations. We repeatedly ranking possible summaries according to current expectations, and then allow the user to adjust these expectations. We also choose a propagation path in the GenSpace subgraph that reduces the storage and time costs of the mining process.     

Relative accessibility of domain knowledge and creativity: The effects of knowledge activation on the quantity and originality of generated ideas

In brainstorming research, quantity is assumed to breed quality. However, little is known about the cognitive mechanisms underlying this relationship. A parsimonious explanation assumes a random process, in which every idea has an equal chance of being a high-quality (original and feasible) idea. In contrast, a ‘deep exploration’ approach suggests that the originality (but not the feasibility) of generated ideas is dependent on the degree to which people engage in deep exploration of their knowledge. We conducted two experiments to test the latter hypothesis. Prior to a brainstorming task, participants were primed with subcategories of the brainstorming topic. Priming caused a higher relative productivity and average originality within the primed subcategory, but did not affect global productivity and originality across categories. This effect was replicated in dyadic interactions. These results support the deep exploration hypothesis, and suggest that the relationship between quantity and quality is more complex than has previously been assumed.     

A Cross‐Cultural Study of Task Specificity in Creativity

This study provides new evidence concerning task specificity in creativity—examining through a cross‐cultural perspective the extent to which performance in graphic versus verbal creativity tasks (domain specificity) and in divergent versus convergent creativity tasks (process specificity) are correlated. The relations between different creativity tasks in monocultural and multicultural samples of Chinese and French children were compared. Electronic versions of the Wallach and Kogan Creativity Test (WKCT , W allach & K ogan, 1965; L au & C heung, 2010) and the Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EP oC; L ubart, B esançon, & B arbot, 2011; B arbot, B esançon, & L ubart, 2011) were used. Both measures showed satisfactory psychometric properties and cross‐cultural structural validity. The results showed that culture has an impact on the structure of creative ability: It appeared that correlation patterns were different across Chinese and French groups and across monocultural and multicultural groups. Such results show that it is crucial to take task specificity into account when investigating the effect of culture on creativity. Indeed, our study implies that cultural differences that are found using one specific creativity task might not be automatically generalizable to all sorts of creativity tasks. Limitations are discussed and perspectives for future research on culture and task specificity in creativity are proposed.     

Domain specificity versus expertise: factors influencing distinct processing of faces

To explore face specificity in visual processing, we compared the role of task-associated strategies and expertise on the N170 event-related potential (ERP) component elicited by human faces with the ERPs elicited by cars, birds, items of furniture, and ape faces. In Experiment 1, participants performed a car monitoring task and an animacy decision task. In Experiment 2, participants monitored human faces while faces of apes were the distracters. Faces elicited an equally conspicuous N170, significantly larger than the ERPs elicited by non-face categories regardless of whether they were ignored or had an equal status with other categories (Experiment 1), or were the targets (in Experiment 2). In contrast, the negative component elicited by cars during the same time range was larger if they were targets than if they were not. Furthermore, unlike the posterior-temporal distribution of the N170, the negative component elicited by cars and its modulation by task were more conspicuous at occipital sites. Faces of apes elicited an N170 that was similar in amplitude to that elicited by the human face targets, albeit peaking 10 ms later. As our participants were not ape experts, this pattern indicates that the N170 is face-specific, but not specie-specific, i.e. it is elicited by particular face features regardless of expertise. Overall, these results demonstrate the domain specificity of the visual mechanism implicated in processing faces, a mechanism which is not influenced by either task or expertise. The processing of other objects is probably accomplished by a more general visual processor, which is sensitive to strategic manipulations and attention.     

Applying Research Domain Criteria to the study of emotion dysregulation in infancy and early childhood

Emotion regulation is a principal task of early development. The failure to develop effective emotion regulation skills is associated with behavioural, academic, psychological and socioemotional difficulties. Although researchers have studied emotion regulation for decades, work on emotion dysregulation—defined as the inability to maintain emotional control, engage with the environment or recover from distress in a developmentally appropriate manner—is rare and there are discrepancies in its conceptualisation among very young samples. While some scientists refer to emotion dysregulation as if it were a discrete concept, it may be more accurately depicted as a multidimensional system of developmental processes. The National Institute of Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) is a framework that allows researchers to track dysfunction across multiple areas of analysis and may be an ideal system for exploring the multidimensional nature of infant emotion dysregulation. In this paper, we draw on empirical studies to describe how the RDoC framework can be used to support studies of emotion dysregulation in infancy. This proposed model can also serve as a roadmap for future researchers to follow to generate the evidence base for a multidimensional conceptualisation of infant emotion dysregulation and its underlying mechanisms.     

Advancing measurement of work and family domain boundary characteristics

Recent research offers promising theoretical frameworks for thinking about the work–family interface in terms of the boundaries individuals develop around work and family. However, measures for important constructs proposed by these theories are needed. Using two independent samples, we report on the refinement of existing boundary flexibility measures. Additionally, inter-domain transitions are introduced as a theoretically sound conceptualization of the frequency with which the work and family domains come in contact. Results from Study 1 further support the existence of two flexibility factors, willingness and ability, for the work and family domains, respectively. Results from Study 2 provide evidence for the nomological network surrounding the flexibility and inter-domain transitions measures in relation to role centrality, perceptions of domain blurring, and family-supportive organizational perceptions. Also, as hypothesized, boundary flexibility predicted inter-domain transitions, and inter-domain transitions predicted work–family conflict, with additional support for several hypothesized mediated effects between these constructs.     

The Effects of Domain Knowledge and Instructional Manipulation on Creative Idea Generation

The experiment was designed to explore the effects of domain knowledge, instructional manipulation, and the interaction between them on creative idea generation. Three groups of participants who respectively possessed the domain knowledge of biology, sports, or neither were asked to finish two tasks: imagining an extraterrestrial animal and creating a new sport. Participants in each group were randomly assigned to one of three instructions, in order to encourage them to perform the tasks using a specific instance strategy (relying on specific instances), an abstract strategy (relying on abstract principles), or their habitual ways. Based on an analysis of the participants' verbal reports and their creations, the results suggested that domain knowledge enhanced the tendency to use the abstract strategy, and improved the originality and practicality of the generated ideas. Instructions also influenced the strategy participants used in creative idea generation. The instruction to use abstract principles brought forth the most original creations. Moreover, there was an interaction between domain knowledge and instructions. Encouraging participants to use the specific instance strategy blocked the knowledgeable people from developing novel ideas. Other factors, such as age, grade and gender, were found to be unrelated to either the originality or the practicality of the creations. The implications of the results were discussed in detail.