Identifying distinct sets of predictors of specific functions of autobiographical memory

ABSTRACT

Grounded in the ecological approach, research has charted several adaptive functions of autobiographical remembering. Each represents a rather different psychosocial domain (i.e., self, social, directive). The goal of this research was to determine the contributions of each of a set of variables, controlling for all others, in predicting use of autobiographical memory to serve each specific function. In two studies, participants (N?=?100; N?=?195) rated frequency of functional use of specific event memories and completed a brief battery of memory-related measures. Most Study One results were replicated in Study Two. Self-relevance of memories was related to their functional use regardless of domain. Each function was also, however, predicted by a unique set of variables consistent with its use in a given psychosocial domain. Findings emphasise how a combination of factors come into play to allow humans to use autobiographical memory to serve various different functions in navigating daily life.     

Peer influence on event reports among adolescents and young adults

When two or more people witness an event together, the event report from one person can influence others’ reports. In the current study we examined the role of age and motivational factors on peer influence regarding event reports in adolescents and young adults. Participants (N=249) watched a short video of a robbery then answered questions with no co-witness information or with information believed to be from a co-witness. Public and private response conditions were included to explore motivations for peer influence. Co-witness information influenced participants’ responses, although the effect was equally strong in the private and the public co-witness conditions. Peer influence on event reports was steady across a large age range (11- to 25-year-olds).     

Locke,Kierkegaard and the Phenomenology of Personal Identity

Abstract

Personal Identity theorists as diverse as Derek Parfit, Marya Schechtman and Galen Strawson have noted that the experiencing subject (the locus of present psychological experience) and the person (a human being with a career/narrative extended across time) are not necessarily coextensive. Accordingly, we can become psychologically alienated from, and fail to experience a sense of identity with, the person we once were or will be. This presents serious problems for Locke’s original account of “sameness of consciousness” constituting personal identity, given the distinctly normative (and indeed eschatological) focus of his discussion. To succeed, the Lockean project needs to identify some phenomenal property of experience that can constitute a sense of identity with the self figured in all moments to which consciousness can be extended. I draw upon key themes in Kierkegaard’s phenomenology of moral imagination to show that Kierkegaard describes a phenomenal quality of experience that unites the experiencing subject with its past and future, regardless of facts about psychological change across time. Yet Kierkegaard’s account is fully normative, recasting affective identification with past/future selves as a moral task rather than something merely psychologically desirable (Schechtman) or utterly contingent (Parfit, Strawson).     

Diagrams: Socrates and Meno's slave

Abstract

When do two mental items belong to the same life? We could be content with the answer ‐just when they have certain volitional qualities in common. An affinity is noted between that theory and Berkeley's early doctrine of the self. Some rivals of the volitional theory invoke a spiritual or physical owner of mental items. They run a risk either of empty formality or of causal superstition. Other rivals postulate a non‐transitive and symmetrical relation in the set of mental items. They must allow in consequence either for joint ownership of one and the same mental item, or for incompatible simultaneous decisions by one and the same person, or for new forms of death. This makes them disquieting. Another rival invokes a transitive and symmetrical relation defined in terms of co‐consciousness. Even that allows for incongruous simultaneities. The volitional theory is free from such disadvantages.     

重新认识心衰机制中的心脏舒张期耗能

长期以来,对心衰和心衰机制的认识一直存在争议,所以心衰的治疗一直是国内外心血管领域中的一个挑战.为了澄清心衰机制的内涵,本文用弗兰克-斯塔灵定律以及能量守恒定律作为重建心脏理论以及心衰机制的依据,论证了心脏的做功是从动能向势能,又从势能向动能的转换过程.并根据临床事实等来证实心脏舒张是在作功,与收缩期作功是等同的.没有心脏的舒张就没有心脏的收缩,心脏功能下降实际上是舒张与收缩功能同时的下降.不存在有收缩功能正常的舒张功能下降.心功能的判定标准不能采用射血分数,而应该采取能量消耗的定量方法来测定.     

The pull of the group: Conscious conflict and the involuntary tendency towards conformity

Is the reason that majorities exert an undue influence on the actions of individuals revealed through changes in subjective experience? Using an adaptation of the response interference paradigm (Morsella, Wilson, et al., 2009) in which participants are trained to introspect on their own experience of conscious conflict, two studies reported here show that the mere act of recalling counter-majority stances or opinions is associated with stronger subjective effects than recalling stances or opinions that coincide with majorities. Thus, an intention to conform to a majority (even when the majority is known to be wrong, as shown in the second study) seems to interfere with people’s recall of their own stance or opinion. These results provide novel evidence for recent yet under-supported suggestions that majorities can influence individuals even when it is improper or illogical because human social cognition is primarily and involuntarily cooperative at the implicit level.     

Executive Function in Young Children and Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Evidence From a Nonverbal Dimensional Change Card Sort Task

In this article the authors compared chimpanzees’ executive function with that of children. They developed a nonverbal dimensional change card sorting task, which indexed the development of executive function. Three pairs of mother and offspring chimpanzees and 30 typically developed 5-year-old children were presented with 2 target stimuli and a test stimulus comprising 2 dimensions (size and shape) on a display; they were required to sort the test stimulus according to 1 dimension (e.g., shape). After 5 consecutive correct trials, the participants had to sort the test stimulus according to the other dimension (e.g., size). The results showed that the chimpanzees often failed to sort the test stimuli according to the first and reversed dimensions. On the other hand, the children were correctly able to use both dimensions. These results indicate that chimpanzees may have less developed executive skills than children.     

Age and Cognitive Stress Influences Motor Skill Acquisition,Consolidation, and Dual-Task Effect in Humans

This study examined motor skill learning using a weight-bearing and cognitive-motor dual-task that incorporated unexpected perturbations and measurements of cognitive function. Forty young and 24 older adults performed a single-limb weight bearing task with novel speed, resistance, and cognitive dual task conditions to assess motor skill acquisition, retention and transfer. Subjects performed a cognitive dual task: summing letters in one color/orientation (simple) or two colors/orientations (complex). Increased cognitive load diminished the rate of skill acquisition, decreased transfer to new conditions, and increased error rate during an unexpected perturbation; however, young adults had a dual-task benefit from cognitive load. Executive function predicted 80% of the variability in dual-task performance. Although initial learning of a weight-bearing cognitive-motor dual-task was poor, longer term goals of improved dual-task effect and retention emerged.     

Standard Scores for the Bay Area Functional Performance Evaluation Task Oriented Assessment

This paper presents normative data for the Bay Area Functional Performance Evaluation Task Oriented Assessment using a sample of 266 patients drawn from five psychiatric in-patient hospitals in Western New York and Canada. Use of the means, standard deviations and standard scores is discussed and related to treatment planning.     

Sex differences in the effects of disinhibition,perceived peer drinking,and delay discounting on drinking among Japanese college students

Disinhibition, perceived peer drinking, and delay discounting are considered significant predictors of drinking in young adults. This study examined whether perceived peer drinking and delay discounting mediate the association between disinhibition and drinking for young men and women. In this study, 258 Japanese college students (109 men and 149 women, mean age 19.17 (SD = 1.20) years old) completed a self-administered questionnaire that included four measures—the disinhibition subscale of the Sensation Seeking Scale for Japanese Adolescents, the proportion of friends who drink as an index of perceived peer drinking behaviors, the Monetary Choice Questionnaire, and participants’ own drinking behavior. In the multiple mediator models analyzed using structural equation modeling, for both sexes, perceived peer drinking had the largest direct effect on participants’ drinking, followed by disinhibition and delay discounting. However, the results of mediation analyses indicated that perceived peer drinking mediated the association between disinhibition and drinking for only women. The results of this study imply that it is important to consider sex differences in the association between personality traits and peer influence to develop programs aiming to reduce drinking among young adults in Japan.