One night of sleep is insufficient to achieve sleep-to-forget emotional decontextualisation processes

Neutral memories unbind from their emotional acquisition context when sleep is allowed the night after learning and testing takes place after two additional nights of sleep. However, mood-dependent memory (MDM) effects are not abolished after a restricted sleep episode mostly featuring non rapid-eye-movement (NREM) or rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. Here, we tested whether (1) one night of sleep featuring several NREM-REM sleep cycles is sufficient to suppress MDM effects and (2) a neutral mood is a sufficiently contrasting state to induce MDM effects, i.e. interfere with the recall of information learned in happy or sad states. Results disclosed MDM effects both in the post-learning sleep and wake conditions, with better recall in congruent than incongruent emotional contexts. Our findings suggest that the emotional unbinding needs several consecutive nights of sleep to be complete, and that even subtle mood changes are sufficient to produce MDM effects.     

Robust anger: Recognition of deteriorated dynamic bodily emotion expressions

In two studies, the robustness of anger recognition of bodily expressions is tested. In the first study, video recordings of an actor expressing four distinct emotions (anger, despair, fear, and joy) were structurally manipulated as to image impairment and body segmentation. The results show that anger recognition is more robust than other emotions to image impairment and to body segmentation. Moreover, the study showed that arms expressing anger were more robustly recognised than arms expressing other emotions. Study 2 added face blurring as a variable to the bodily expressions and showed that it decreased accurate emotion recognition—but more for recognition of joy and despair than for anger and fear. In sum, the paper indicates the robustness of anger recognition in multileveled deteriorated bodily expressions.     

Fear of negative evaluation augments negative affect and somatic symptoms in social-evaluative situations

The aim of this study was to determine whether fear of negative evaluation (FNE) moderates effects of eye contact on mood, bodily symptoms and physiological activity during social-evaluative situations. Facial blood flow, skin conductance, heart rate and respiration rate were recorded in 42 participants while they sang a children's song, while they were observed or made direct eye contact with the experimenter, and while they listened to an audiotape of themselves singing. Physiological responses were similar in high and low FNE groups. However, differences lay in the perception of bodily symptoms and ratings of negative affect, with the high FNE group reporting greater ratings. In addition, prior eye contact enhanced the perception of bodily symptoms in the high FNE group when they listened to the audiotape. Concern about the social consequences of displaying bodily disturbances such as trembling, blushing and sweating may explain these findings.     

Spatial location and emotion modulate voice perception

ABSTRACT

How do we perceive voices coming from different spatial locations, and how is this affected by emotion? The current study probed the interplay between space and emotion during voice perception. Thirty participants listened to nonverbal vocalizations coming from different locations around the head (left vs. right; front vs. back), and differing in valence (neutral, positive [amusement] or negative [anger]). They were instructed to identify the location of the vocalizations (Experiment 1) and to evaluate their emotional qualities (Experiment 2). Emotion-space interactions were observed, but only in Experiment 1: emotional vocalizations were better localised than neutral ones when they were presented from the back and the right side. In Experiment 2, emotion recognition accuracy was increased for positive vs. negative and neutral vocalizations, and perceived arousal was increased for emotional vs. neutral vocalizations, but this was independent of spatial location. These findings indicate that emotional salience affects how we perceive the spatial location of voices. They additionally suggest that the interaction between spatial (“where”) and emotional (“what”) properties of the voice differs as a function of task.     

The development of young children's memory strategies: First findings from the Würzburg Longitudinal Memory Study

This article reports the first findings of the Würzburg Longitudinal Memory Study, which focuses on children's verbal memory development, particularly the acquisition of memory strategies. At the beginning of the study, 100 kindergarten children (mean age 6 1/2 years) were tested on various memory measures, including sort-recall, text recall, short-term memory capacity, and metamemory. Assessments were repeated twice, with adjacent measurement points separated by 6-month time intervals. One major goal of the initial phase of the study concerned the exploration of the utilization deficiency phenomenon, which refers to the fact that young children who spontaneously use a memory strategy for the first time do not experience immediate memory benefits. Results obtained for the sort-recall task showed that, among those children who acquired a sorting strategy between Times 1 and 2, only a small proportion experienced the utilization deficiency problem. Additional analyses demonstrated that these few children also performed more poorly on the short-term memory tasks and the text recall measure when compared with the groups of efficient strategy users, suggesting that utilization deficiency is accompanied by a more general memory capacity problem. Overall, the findings revealed enormous variability in the early acquisition of memory strategies, indicating that the utilization deficiency phenomenon might not be as frequent as is assumed in the relevant literature.     

Verbal cues facilitate memory retrieval during infancy

In three experiments, 18-month-olds were tested in a deferred imitation paradigm. Some infants received verbal information during the demonstration and at the time of the test (full narration), and some did not (empty narration). When tested after a 4-week delay, infants given full narration exhibited superior retention relative to infants given empty narration (Experiment 1). This retention advantage appears to be due to the effects of verbal cues at the time of memory retrieval. There was no effect of verbal cues that were presented only at the time of original encoding (Experiment 2A). Furthermore, infants who received verbal cues only at the time of retrieval exhibited superior retention relative to infants who received verbal cues only at the time of original encoding (Experiment 2B). These findings demonstrate that verbal cues can enhance memory retrieval by participants who are not yet fluent speakers themselves.     

Understanding the emotional past: relations between parent and child contributions in emotionally negative and nonnegative events

The past event conversations of 33 mothers with their 3-year-old children (18 girls and 15 boys) were selected from a larger sample based on their discussion of negative events. Negative events included both those that were negative in topic and those that contained negative incidents but were otherwise positively themed. Within-subjects comparisons were made between the negative events and a neutral or positive event. There were few differences in how mothers and their children talked about negative and nonnegative events. Children did include more interpretations (internal state and causal references) in their negative event conversations. For both event types, mothers who talked more about the past events had children who reported more. When maternal talkativeness was controlled, involving children in the negative event conversations through deflecting the conversational turn predicted children's total contributions and number of interpretations. Repeating information and requests for information while constraining the topic was negatively related to the number of details children reported for nonnegative past events. Conversations about minor negative experiences demonstrate that mothers can influence children's involvement in discussions and understanding of the past.     

Cognitive function and depression in symptom resolution in schizophrenia patients treated with an atypical antipsychotic

OBJECTIVE: To investigate which cognitive and affective features contribute most to responder/non-responder group separation during a switching trial with atypical antipsychotic. DESIGN: A prospective open trial with an atypical antipsychotic (olanzapine). PATIENTS: One hundred and thirty-four patients meeting diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, schizophreniform or schizoaffective disorder began an 8-week open-label olanzapine treatment at a dose of 5 mg/day which was increased to 10 mg/day after one week. INTERVENTIONS: Olanzapine during 8 weeks. Patients were considered as responders if their BPRS score decreased of at least 20% (n = 96) and non-responders if it did not (n = 38). Neuropsychological assessments were carried out at baseline, at four and at eight weeks. RESULTS: Neurocognitive measures were analyzed for discriminate factors between responder and non-responder groups. A regression analysis was applied to explain the effects of depression on each cognitive variable. Depression was found to be a weak discriminant factor, however this finding could not firmly establish that depression is a potential factor in explaining deficits and improvements in cognition.     

Multiple memory systems: the power of interactions

Two relatively simple theories of brain function will be used to demonstrate the explanatory power of multiple memory systems in your brain interacting cooperatively or competitively to directly or indirectly influence cognition and behaviour. The view put forth in this mini-review is that interactions between memory systems produce normal and abnormal manifestations of behaviour, and by logical extension, an understanding of these complex interactions holds the key to understanding debilitating brain and psychiatric disorders.     

Talking about parts of a past experience: The impact of discussion style and event structure on memory for discussed and nondiscussed information

This experiment examined the impact of selective postevent discussion of high- and low-elaborative styles on 5- and 6-year-olds' (N = 47) memory for discussed and nondiscussed aspects of a staged event ("Visiting the Pirate"). The event contained both logically and arbitrarily connected scenes. Discussion was spaced over 3 days, and memory was assessed 1 day later. Compared with a no-discussion condition, memory for discussed information was enhanced after high- but not low-elaborative discussion for both logically and arbitrarily connected scenes. For arbitrarily connected scenes, memory for nondiscussed aspects was impaired relative to the no-discussion condition, with the degree of impairment being equal after high- and low-elaborative discussion. In contrast, for logically connected scenes, memory for nondiscussed information was not impaired after discussion of either style.