Separation—Individuation,Self-Concept,and Object Relations in Fraternal Twins,Identical Twins,and Singletons

Identical twins, fraternal twins, and singletons (n = 30 in each group) were compared on objective measures of separation–individuation, object relations, and self-esteem. No significant differences were found. The data did not support the popular notion that twins face special problems with respect to personality development or the idea that twins have more difficulty than others in establishing and maintaining close relationships. Twins and nontwins did not differ significantly with respect to marital status, number of years married, whether married before, number of previous marriages, number of years divorced, or living arrangements if single. The majority of twins had been raised in a way that encouraged at least some individual differences.     

Effects on Episodic Memory of Stimulus Richness, Intention to Learn, and Extra-Study Repetition: Similar Profiles Across the Adult Life Span

The ability to benefit from various kinds of cognitive support in episodic memory was studied in a population-based sample of healthy adults aged 35–80 years (N = 1,000). The participants studied pictures of faces and names of 10-year-old children with instructions to remember the faces and the surnames. After study, an implicit name stem-completion test was administered, followed by face- and name-recognition tests. There was a negative age effect across all task variables. Across age, recognition was higher for faces than for names. An age-invariant positive effect of intention to learn was observed. Also, name completion and recognition performance showed a positive relationship across the adult life span. Overall, the results are in agreement with the views that (a) age-related episodic memory deficits are highly generalizable and (b) effects of cognitive support on memory are typically of equal size across the adult life span.     

Two modes of confidence rating: An effect of episodic information of participant's own past responses in a repeated-question paradigm

Abstract: General knowledge questions with two answer alternatives were employed in experimental session 1; in session 2, the same questions were presented together with participants' own session-1 responses. In order to examine whether or not the episodic information of participant's own responses would suppress standard confidence-rating mode in session 2, rates of answer- and confidence-changes between sessions were analyzed. In session 2, participants were able to change the confidence value to another, if they thought the initial value inadequate. They then had a chance to change the answer to the other and rated their confidence in the new answer. The major results were as follows: (a) Between-session answer change rate was very low; (b) Between-session answer change rate was not a monotonic decreasing function of confidence; (c) However, the rate depended on confidence change from session 1 to before-answer-change rating. These results clearly contrasted with a previous study ( Saito, 1998 ) in which episodic information of participant's own session 1 answers and confidence values was not presented. It was argued that the episodic information triggered another mode of confidence rating or a decision inertia effect.     

Effortful semantic decision-making boosts memory performance in older adults

A major concern in age-related cognitive decline is episodic memory (EM). Previous studies indicate that both resource and binding deficits contribute to EM decline. Environmental support by task manipulations encouraging stronger cognitive effort and deeper levels of processing may facilitate compensation for these two deficits. To clarify factors that can counteract age-related EM decline, we assessed effects of cognitive effort (four levels) and level of processing (LoP, shallow/deep) during encoding on subsequent retrieval. Young (YAs, N?=?23) and older (OAs, N?=?23) adults performed two incidental encoding tasks, deep/semantic and shallow/perceptual. Cognitive effort was manipulated by varying decision-making demands. EM performance, indexed by d-prime, was later tested using a recognition task. Results showed that regardless of LoP, increased cognitive effort caused higher d-primes in both age groups. Compared to YAs, OAs showed a lower d-prime after shallow encoding across all cognitive effort levels, and after deep encoding with low cognitive effort. Deep encoding with higher levels of cognitive effort completely eliminated these age differences. Our findings support an environmental-compensatory account of cognitive ageing and can have important therapeutic implications.     

Self-projection in younger and older adults: a study of episodic memory,prospection, and theory of mind

Self-projection is the ability to orient the self in different places in time and space. Episodic memory, prospection, and theory of mind (ToM) are all cognitive abilities that share an element of self-projection. Previous research has posited that each of these abilities stems from the same neural network. The current study compared performance of cognitively healthy older adults and younger adults on several self-projection tasks to examine the relatedness of these constructs behaviorally. Episodic memory and prospection were measured using an episodic interview task where the participants were asked to remember or imagine events that either had happened in the past or could happen in the future and then gave ratings describing the extent to which they were mentally experiencing the event and from what perspective they viewed it. ToM was measured by asking participants to make judgments regarding the intentions of characters described in stories that involved cognitive, affective, or ironic components. Our results demonstrate that aging influences episodic memory, prospection, and ToM similarly: older adult participants showed declines on each of these measures compared to younger adults. Further, we observed correlations between performance on the measures of episodic memory and prospection as well as between episodic memory and ToM, although no correlation between prospection and ToM was observed after controlling for chronological age. We discuss these results in the light of theories suggesting that each of these abilities is governed by a common brain system.     

人类记忆再巩固研究现状及临床应用

巩固的记忆被提取后,进入不稳定状态,再重新稳定下来,这个过程称为记忆再巩固。本文首先阐述人类记忆再巩固主要研究方法和经典范式,梳理记忆再巩固在人类恐惧记忆和情景记忆两个方面的相关研究,并从认知神经科学角度整理记忆再巩固的加工机制。然后总结记忆再巩固应用于创伤性应激障碍和药物成瘾等心理障碍临床治疗的相关文献。最后本文提出未来研究的方向和建议,希冀对人类记忆再巩固的理论研究和临床应用提供新思路。     

双特征空间客体捆绑关系的存储机制——来自ERP的证据

利用事件相关电位技术(ERPs),采用延迟匹配任务的实验范式,测查了16名正常被试完成位置客体、方向客体和位置—方向捆绑客体的工作记忆诱发的皮层慢电位。实验发现:在第1个客体呈现后的300ms到600ms之间,在顶叶皮层(CP5、P7、P3),位置客体、方向客体比捆绑客体诱发了一个更负的成分; 在右额(F4、FC6、FC2、F8)、右后颞(TP10)、左颞(T7)、左后颞(TP9)等脑区,捆绑客体比单一特征客体诱发出了一个更正的成分; 在800至1400ms的慢波成分上,位置和方向捆绑客体在F4、FC6和F8三个记录点诱发的波形比单一特征客体的波形波幅更正。右侧前额叶参与了客体整合表征的存储,该结果支持了情景缓冲器的假设。     

Mean Level Differences in the Vividness,Meaning, and Coherence of Life Story High and Low Points: How Valenced Life Stories Do and Do Not Differ

The current paper examines systematic differences in life story high and low points. Narratives from a young adult sample (n = 145) and a late midlife adult sample (n = 154) were coded for vividness, meaning, and coherence. An automated linguistic coding technique was also used. Mean level comparisons found high and low points had similar levels of vividness and coherence. Among the young adults, but not the late midlife adults, there was greater total meaning making (positive and negative combined) in low points than in high points. Across high and low points, levels of positive meaning were greater than negative meaning, in both samples, suggesting a positivity bias in meaning making in valenced life stories. Moreover, the bias was large in both samples (68% in young adults, 450% in late midlife adults). Preliminary analyses suggested midlife adults, when compared to young adults, had a greater bias towards producing more positive than negative meaning. In both samples, automated linguistic analyses indicated that low points displayed greater word counts and usage of cognitive mechanism words, suggesting greater cognitive processing in low points at the level of word usage. Findings are framed within autobiographical memory and narrative research and socioemotional selectivity theory.