Look over there! Unilateral gaze increases geographical memory of the 50 United States

Based on their specialized processing abilities, the left and right hemispheres of the brain may not contribute equally to recall of general world knowledge. US college students recalled the verbal names and spatial locations of the 50 US states while sustaining leftward or rightward unilateral gaze, a procedure that selectively activates the contralateral hemisphere. Compared to a no-unilateral gaze control, right gaze/left hemisphere activation resulted in better recall, demonstrating left hemisphere superiority in recall of general world knowledge and offering equivocal support for the hemispheric encoding asymmetry model of memory. Unilateral gaze- regardless of direction- improved recall of spatial, but not verbal, information. Future research could investigate the conditions under which unilateral gaze increases recall. Sustained unilateral gaze can be used as a simple, inexpensive, means for testing theories of hemispheric specialization of cognitive functions. Results support an overall deficit in US geographical knowledge in undergraduate college students.     

Can clouds dance? Part 2: An ERP investigation of passive conceptual expansion

Conceptual expansion, one of the core operations in creative cognition, was investigated in the present ERP study. An experimental paradigm using novel metaphoric, nonsensical and literal phrases was employed where individual differences in conceptual knowledge organization were accounted for by using participants’ responses to categorize the stimuli to each condition. The categorization was determined by their judgment of the stimuli on the two defining criteria of creativity: unusualness and appropriateness. Phrases judged as unusual and appropriate were of special interest as they are novel and unfamiliar phrases thought to passively induce conceptual expansion. The results showed a graded N400 modulation for phrases judged to be unusual and inappropriate (nonsense) or unusual and appropriate (conceptual expansion, novel metaphorical) relative to usual and appropriate (literal) phrases. The N400 is interpreted as indexing greater effort to retrieve semantic information and integrate the novel concepts presented through the phrases. Analyses of the later time-window showed an ongoing negativity that was graded in the same manner as the N400. The findings attest to the usefulness of investigating creative cognition using event-related electrophysiology.     

Influence of cryomilling on the microstructural features in HVOF-sprayed NiCrAlY bond coats for thermal barrier coatings: Creation of a homogeneous distribution of nanoscale dispersoids

Previous research has revealed that thermal barrier coatings with cryomilled bond coats exhibit improved thermal cycling lifetime by growing a continuous and uniform oxide layer at a slower rate; yet the mechanism controlling the ultimate failure remains unclear. In an effort to provide a foundation for understanding the improved behavior, the influence of cryomilling on the microstructure of the NiCrAlY bond coat material is investigated in this article. Rather than focusing on the alumina scale formation, the microstructural features and their evolution within the high-velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF)-sprayed NiCrAlY bond coats themselves, prepared from conventional powder and cryomilled powder, were carefully compared through extensive scanning electron microscope/energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy characterization. In addition, the as-cryomilled NiCrAlY powder is characterized to provide evidence of the direct influence of cryomilling and to exclude the impact from the HVOF spraying. It is found that the essential change in microstructural features resulting from the cryomilling is the creation of a homogeneous distribution of ultrafine (nanoscale) Al-rich oxide/nitride dispersoids, which remain thermally stable even after exposure at 1100°C for 100 h. The TEM study on the as-cryomilled powder, prior to the HVOF spraying, indicates that some Al and Y-rich oxides are already present within the material as a direct result of the cryomilling process.     

Memory for emotional words: The role of semantic relatedness,encoding task and affective valence

Emotional stimuli have been repeatedly demonstrated to be better remembered than neutral ones. The aim of the present study was to test whether this advantage in memory is mainly produced by the affective content of the stimuli or it can be rather accounted for by factors such as semantic relatedness or type of encoding task. The valence of the stimuli (positive, negative and neutral words that could be either semantically related or unrelated) as well as the type of encoding task (focused on either familiarity or emotionality) was manipulated. The results revealed an advantage in memory for emotional words (either positive or negative) regardless of semantic relatedness. Importantly, this advantage was modulated by the encoding task, as it was reliable only in the task which focused on emotionality. These findings suggest that congruity with the dimension attended at encoding might contribute to the superiority in memory for emotional words, thus offering us a more complex picture of the underlying mechanisms behind the advantage for emotional information in memory.     

Guarding the perimeter: The outside-inside dichotomy in disgust and bodily experience

Blending phenomenological and evolutionary approaches, three studies explored the relationship between the body, the self, and disgust. Study 1 demonstrated that body parts that interface with the environment are sensed more than internal body parts, and are more intimately associated with the self. Studies 2 and 3, exploring the bodily distribution of disgust via organ transplantation scenarios, revealed that (a) transplantation of interface body parts is more disgusting than transplantation of internal parts; (b) others' interface parts elicit greater disgust than others' internal parts; and (c) individual differences in disgust sensitivity manifest primarily in reasoning about interface parts. The outer/inner dichotomy is a fundamental feature of the relationship between body and self, reflecting the adaptive utility of concentrating attention on the interface with the environment. Correspondingly, disgust, the emotion that protects the organism from contamination, is focused on the intersection between the body and the environment.     

An inkblot for sexual preference: A semantic variant of the Affect Misattribution Procedure

A newly developed Semantic Misattribution Procedure (SMP), a semantic variant of the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP), was used in three studies as an indirect measure of sexual interest. Using a known-group approach, homosexual men (Studies 1 and 2), heterosexual men (Studies 1 to 3) and heterosexual women (Study 3) were asked to guess the meaning of briefly presented Chinese ideographs as “sexual” or “not sexual”. The ideographs were preceded by briefly presented primes depicting male and female individuals of varying sexual maturity. As hypothesised, the frequency of “sexual” responses increased after priming with pictures of individuals of the preferred sex and increasing sexual maturation. The SMP showed satisfactory reliability and convergent validity as indicated by correlations with direct and two indirect measures of sexual interest. In two further studies, the hypothesised pattern was replicated whereas a standard AMP with the identical prime stimuli did not produce this result. The potential usefulness of semantic variants of the AMP is discussed.     

Facial expression discrimination varies with presentation time but not with fixation on features: A backward masking study using eye-tracking

The current study investigated the effects of presentation time and fixation to expression-specific diagnostic features on emotion discrimination performance, in a backward masking task. While no differences were found when stimuli were presented for 16.67 ms, differences between facial emotions emerged beyond the happy-superiority effect at presentation times as early as 50 ms. Happy expressions were best discriminated, followed by neutral and disgusted, then surprised, and finally fearful expressions presented for 50 and 100 ms. While performance was not improved by the use of expression-specific diagnostic facial features, performance increased with presentation time for all emotions. Results support the idea of an integration of facial features (holistic processing) varying as a function of emotion and presentation time.     

A familiar pattern? Semantic memory contributes to the enhancement of visuo-spatial memories

In this study we quantify for the first time electrophysiological components associated with incorporating long-term semantic knowledge with visuo-spatial information using two variants of a traditional matrix patterns task. Results indicated that the matrix task with greater semantic content was associated with enhanced accuracy and RTs in a change-detection paradigm; this was also associated with increased P300 and N400 components as well as a sustained negative slow wave (NSW). In contrast, processing of the low semantic stimuli was associated with an increased N200 and a reduction in the P300. These findings suggest that semantic content can aid in reducing early visual processing of information and subsequent memory load by unitizing complex patterns into familiar forms. The N400/NSW may be associated with the requirements for maintaining visuo-spatial information about semantic forms such as orientation and relative location. Evidence for individual differences in semantic elaboration strategies used by participants is also discussed.     

The effects of gender on the retrieval of episodic and semantic components of autobiographical memory

Despite consistent evidence that women exhibit greater episodic memory specificity than men, little attention has been paid to gender differences in the production of episodic details during autobiographical recall under conditions of high and low retrieval support. Similarly the role of gender on the production of semantic details used to support autobiographical memory recollections of specific events has been largely unexplored. In the present study an undergraduate sample of 50 men and 50 women were assessed using the Autobiographical Interview (Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, & Moscovitch, 2002). Women recalled more episodic information compared to men in the high retrieval support condition, whereas no gender differences were found in the low retrieval support condition. In addition, women produced more repetitions compared to men in the high retrieval support condition. No gender differences were found in the production of semantic details. These results are interpreted in terms of gender differences in encoding and reminiscence practices. This research adds to the literature on gender differences in memory recall and suggests that gender is an important variable in explaining individual differences in AM recall.