Community, Communication and Multiplicity in Proust

The essay examines the relation between the explicit aesthetic ideology of Proust’s Recherche and the structure of the “involuntary memory” that is supposed to serve as that ideology’s empirical basis. I challenge the apparent solipsism and idealism of the narrator’s aesthetics by focusing on the one experience of involuntary memory that he omits from his final reflections, in Time Regained, on the relation between memory and art: this is the involuntary memory, in the earlier volume Sodom and Gomorrah, of his dead grandmother, a memory that he describes there as an experience of true otherness. Through a close reading of this passage, I argue that Proust’s interest in involuntary memory implies a concept of literary art as above all ethical in nature, in so far as it is the only means by which individuals can emerge from the solitude to which they are otherwise existentially condemned. In both the Sodom and Gomorrah passage and a later passage from Time Regained this emergence is cast in terms of a rhetoric of multiplicity that emphasizes both the disturbing and the productive dimensions connecting literature with life.

A pawn by any other name? Social information processing as a function of psychopathic traits

Past research has linked psychopathic traits with the ability to manipulate others, either through deception or violence. Recent observations in corporate settings suggest that enhanced interpersonal assessments might underlie this process, giving psychopathic individuals the ability to detect useful and/or vulnerable victims. To test this hypothesis, a non-forensic sample of males participated in a social memory experiment involving the recognition of faces and recalling the biographical details of artificially created characters differing in their relative career success and emotional vulnerability. High-psychopathy participants had near-perfect recognition for sad, unsuccessful female characters, but impaired memory for other characters. The findings suggest that psychopathic personality is associated with “predatory memory” even in the absence of overt criminality.     

Coupling kinematics of memory and kinematics of movement: the conditions for a psychological relativity

The organization of spatial and temporal information relative to memory-movement interactions was studied in a recall task. Stimuli consisted of four different configurations of eight dots, presented sequentially. In two configurations, the stimuli were spatiotemporal congruent, with (constant or variable) inter-stimulus distances corresponding to (constant or variable) inter-stimulus time intervals. In the other two configurations, the stimuli were spatiotemporal incongruent, with (constant or variable) inter-stimulus distances not corresponding to (variable or constant) inter-stimulus time intervals. After a learning phase consisting of 20 presentations of the target configuration, participants performed a series of pointing movements to reproduce both spatial and temporal characteristics of the stimulus 60 times in succession without ever re-examining the target configuration. Classically, in incongruent spatiotemporal conditions, the reproduction of, respectively, constant distances or constant time intervals are strongly disturbed by the simultaneous perception of variable inter-stimulus time intervals (Tau effect) or variable distances (Kappa effect). We assume that these spatiotemporal dependencies, which occur when the response relates to one dimension only, crucially depend on the non-integration of motoric aspects in memory.     

Everyday cognitive failures and memory problems in Parkinson's patients without dementia

There is growing evidence that Parkinson’s disease patients without dementia exhibit cognitive deficits in some executive, memory and selective attention tasks. However, the impact of these deficits on their everyday cognitive functioning remains largely unknown. This issue was explored using self-report questionnaires. Twenty-four Parkinson’s patients and 24 age-matched controls rated how frequently they make particular cognitive errors, such as forgetting what they were about to say. In addition, a partner or significant other also rated each participant’s propensity for making cognitive errors. Rather than simply rating themselves as making more of all types of errors, these results indicate that PD patients make more of specific types of error. Further analysis suggests that some of these errors are related to attentional processes (being more distractible) whereas others are related to retrieval processes (being unable to recall important details from the previous day).     

Memory abilities in Williams syndrome: Dissociation or developmental delay hypothesis?

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder often described as being characterized by a dissociative cognitive architecture, in which profound impairments of visuo-spatial cognition contrast with relative preservation of linguistic, face recognition and auditory short-memory abilities. This asymmetric and dissociative cognition has been also proposed to characterize WS memory ability, with sparing of auditory short-term memory and impairment of spatial and long-term memory abilities. In this study, we explored the possibility of a double memory dissociation in WS (short- versus long-term memory; verbal versus visual memory). Thus, verbal memory abilities were assessed using California Verbal Learning Test and Digit Span and Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure and Corsi Blocks was used to assess visual-spatial memory abilities. Overall, WS subjects were found to present a generalized significant impairment in verbal and visuo-spatial components either in short- or long-term memory. In sum, data from this study brings support for a developmental delay hypothesis, rather than a double dissociation within memory systems in WS.     

Effects of green tea extract on learning, memory, behavior and acetylcholinesterase activity in young and old male rats

Objective

To study the effects of green tea extract administration on age-related cognition in young and old male Wistar rats.

Methods

Young and old rats were orally administered 0.5% green tea extract for a period of eight weeks and were evaluated by passive avoidance, elevated maze plus paradigm and changes in acetylcholinesterase activity.

Results

Treatment of young and old rats with the extract resulted in no significant difference in performance on the rota rod treadmill test/righting reflex time. Green tea extract significantly improved learning and memory in older rats, with increased retention latency to enter difference in passive avoidance test. In the elevated maze test, green tea treatment resulted in significantly more number of entries in the enclosed arm by the young and old rats. Decline in acetylcholinesterase activity was observed in the cerebrum of green tea treated old rats in comparison to the green tea treated young rats.

Conclusion

Green tea extract administration is effective in enhancing learning and memory in aged rats, and hence, may serve useful in reversing age-related deficits.     

Older, not younger, children learn more false facts from stories

Early school-aged children listened to stories that contained correct and incorrect facts. All ages answered more questions correctly after having heard the correct fact in the story. Only the older children, however, produced story errors on a later general knowledge test. Source errors did not drive the increased suggestibility in older children, as they were better at remembering source than were the younger children. Instead, different processes are involved in learning correct and incorrect facts from fictional sources. All ages benefited from hearing correct answers because they activated a pre-existing semantic network. Older children, however, were better able to form memories of the misinformation and thus showed greater suggestibility on the general knowledge test.     

Recognition memory: a review of the critical findings and an integrated theory for relating them

The development of formal models has aided theoretical progress in recognition memory research. Here, I review the findings that are critical for testing them, including behavioral and brain imaging results of single-item recognition, plurality discrimination, and associative recognition experiments under a variety of testing conditions. I also review the major approaches to measurement and process modeling of recognition. The review indicates that several extant dual-process measures of recollection are unreliable, and thus they are unsuitable as a basis for forming strong conclusions. At the process level, however, the retrieval dynamics of recognition memory and the effect of strengthening operations suggest that a recall-to-reject process plays an important role in plurality discrimination and associative recognition, but not necessarily in single-item recognition. A new theoretical framework proposes that the contribution of recollection to recognition depends on whether the retrieval of episodic details improves accuracy, and it organizes the models around the construct of efficiency. Accordingly, subjects adopt strategies that they believe will produce a desired level of accuracy in the shortest amount of time. Several models derived from this framework are shown to account the accuracy, latency, and confidence with which the various recognition tasks are performed.