The effects of preexposure-test and conditioning-test intervals on the magnitude of latent inhibition

Using the conditioned taste aversion paradigm, two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of the interval between preexposure and test and that between conditioning and test on the magnitude of latent inhibition. Experiment 1 revealed that the degree of latent inhibition was attenuated when rats were given a 21‐day interval between preexposure and test. It was also found that this attenuation was more marked in subjects which were given conditioning immediately after preexposure than those which were conditioned shortly before the test. Retention interval between preexposure and test was reduced to 12 days in Experiment 2, and exactly the same pattern of results as those found in Experiment 1 was obtained. These findings suggest that the memory of conditioning as well as that of preexposure decreases its retrievability after a long retention interval, although the former is more retainable than the latter.     

Why Not Interfere With Nature?

Advocates of an environmental ethic frequently claim that what makes an ethical theory truly and uniquely environmental is its commitment to the principle that environmental wholes such as species, ecosystems, and biotic communities are morally considerable. The prevailing view is that our primary duty towards these wholes is to respect their integrity, stability, and beauty, and that the best way to do this is to leave them alone, not interfere with them, and let nature follow its own course. But is that correct? Why should be refrain from interfering with nature? There are two ways an environmentalist might try to justify an exceptionaless, prima facie principle of noninterference. First, she might claim that there is a contingent but universal connection between human interference and ecosystemic harm. There is also an epistemic variant of this view. When faced with a decision concerning whether to interfere with an ecosystem, there will always be overwhelming reasons for thinking that interference will be harmful, regardless of the specific circumstances. Send, there might be some conceptual connection between interference and harm to ecosystems. For example, if the well-being of an ecosystem is identified with its wildness, and wildness is understood as the absence of human intervention or manipulation, then any human interference necessarily detracts from an ecosystem's wildness and thereby has a detrimental effect on its well-being. In this paper I examine these justifications in detail and argue that none can support an exceptionaless principle of noninterference.     

前、后注意网络的关系--返回抑制和Stroop干扰效应

将IOR范式与Stroop任务相结合,试图从探讨IOR与Stroop干扰效应之间的关系来推测AAN和PAN之间的关系以及IOR与注意之间的关系。结果表明,在控制条件下出现了显著的IOR,在Stroop条件下没有出现明显的IOR;提示和非提示位置上均出现了显著的Stroop干扰效应,但提示位置上的干扰量要显著低于非提示位置。从IOR和Stroop干扰效应之间的关系可推知,PAN和AAN是两个有交互影响的注意网络,AAN对PAN有压制作用,而PAN对。AAN也有一定的影响。最后,作者对返回抑制与注意问的关系进行了深入的讨论。     

Walking impairs cognitive performance among people with multiple sclerosis but not controls

People with multiple sclerosis (MS) complain of problems completing two tasks simultaneously; sometimes called ‘dual-tasking’ (DT). Previous research in DT among people with MS has focused on how adding a cognitive task interferes with gait and few have measured how adding a motor task could interfere with cognition. We aimed to determine the extent to which walking affects a concurrent working memory task in people with MS compared to healthy controls. We recruited MS participants (n = 13) and controls (n = 10) matched by age (±3 years), education (±3 years) and gender. Participants first completed the cognitive task (subtracting 7’s from the previous number) and then again while walking on an instrumented walkway. Although there were no baseline differences in cognition or walking between MS participants and controls, MS participants demonstrated a 52% decrease in number of correct answers during DT (p < 0.001). Mental Tracking Rate (% correct answers/min) correlated strongly with MS-related disability measured using the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS; r(11) = −0.68, p < 0.01). We propose that compromised mental tracking during walking could be related to limited neural resource capacity and could be a potentially useful outcome measure to detect ecologically valid dual tasking impairments.     

Influence of bidirectional perspective on learning routes and spatial layout

The capacity to remain spatially oriented is an essential function in our day to day lives and it seems that the form in which we acquire the spatial information affects the way in which the spatial knowledge is represented in our memory. The goal of this research was to investigate whether the acquisition of spatial information through the learning of three routes within an immersive environment was improved or impaired when participants have access to the backward perspective in addition to the forward perspective. Results, both in reproduction and drawing tasks, showed a poorer performance of the bidirectional group maybe due to the extra-effort involved in updating the spatial information trial by trial. However it seems that the experience enhanced the performance of the bidirectional group in one respect, as they were able to reduce significantly the number of error directions in the last path.     

负性情绪背景和延迟对时间性前瞻记忆的影响

采用2（情绪效价：负性、中性）×2（延迟设置：无延迟、有延迟）的实验设计,探究负性情绪对时间性前瞻记忆的干扰效应。结果显示在无延迟条件下,负性情绪组的前瞻记忆成绩差于中性情绪组,负性情绪组的总时间监控次数和监控后期的时间监控次数均少于中性情绪组;在有延迟条件下,负性情绪组的前瞻记忆成绩和监控后期的时间监控次数与中性情绪组均无差异。结果说明负性情绪会干扰时间性前瞻记忆,而延迟可以消除这种干扰效应。     

Executive functions and linguistic performance in SCD older adults and healthy controls

Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) might represent the preclinical phase of Alzheimer’s disease. Given the interest to characterize it, the present study explores (1) if there are differences in lexical retrieval (LexR) and sentence comprehension (SComp) between SCD and matched controls, and (2) the predictive value of demographic variables and executive functions in relation to LexR and SComp in each group. A sample of 135 participants voluntarily took part in this study (66 with SCD). They all completed the Trail Making, the Stroop, the Boston Naming, and the ECCO-Senior tests, as well as verbal fluency tasks (VF). Results show that (1) groups differ in LexR and in inhibition efficiency, and (2) VF is explained by years of formal education, particularly in the control group; SComp in the most complex items seems to rely in different strategies, related to flexibility in controls and to inhibition efficiency in SCD patients.     

No evidence for a role of reconsolidation in updating of paired associates

Reconsolidation theory states that memories are labilized through reactivation, making them prone to change, before being re-consolidated. When information in memory requires updating, reconsolidation theory therefore predicts that reminders of previously learned information should facilitate updating of that information and should thus improve memory for the updated information. In two experiments, we tested this prediction by investigating memory for word pairs over a short time-scale. Participants studied word pairs (A–B), some of which were subsequently updated with word pairs that shared the first word (A–C). Half of the A–C pairs received a pre-study reminder of the first word in the pair so as to reactivate and labilize A–B memory. In a recognition memory test targeting the A–C list, reminders by and large had no effect on memory. Results thus failed to support the predictions of reconsolidation theory.     

Activation of semantic information at the sublexical level during handwriting production: Evidence from inhibition effects of Chinese semantic radicals in the picture‐word interference paradigm

Using a non‐alphabetic language (e.g., Chinese), the present study tested a novel view that semantic information at the sublexical level should be activated during handwriting production. Over 80% of Chinese characters are phonograms, in which semantic radicals represent category information (e.g., 椅 ‘chair,’ 桃 ‘peach,’ 橙 ‘orange’ are related to plants) while phonetic radicals represent phonetic information (e.g., 狼 ‘wolf,’ 朗 ‘brightness,’ 郎 ‘male,’ are all pronounced /lang/). Under different semantic category conditions at the lexical level (semantically related in Experiment 1; semantically unrelated in Experiment 2), the orthographic relatedness and semantic relatedness of semantic radicals in the picture name and its distractor were manipulated under different SOAs (i.e., stimulus onset asynchrony, the interval between the onset of the picture and the onset of the interference word). Two questions were addressed: (1) Is it possible that semantic information could be activated in the sublexical level conditions? (2) How are semantic and orthographic information dynamically accessed in word production? Results showed that both orthographic and semantic information were activated under the present picture‐word interference paradigm, dynamically under different SOAs, which supported our view that discussions on semantic processes in the writing modality should be extended to the sublexical level. The current findings provide possibility for building new orthography‐phonology‐semantics models in writing.