You were always on my mind: The importance of “significant others” in the attenuation of retrieval‐induced forgetting in Japan

Research on memory has demonstrated that remembering material can cause forgetting of related information, which is known as retrieval‐induced forgetting (RIF). Macrae and Roseveare identified “self” as one of the boundary conditions of this effect in the Western cultural context, showing that RIF was eliminated when material was encoded to be related to the self (known as self‐referential effect), but not to significant others. In this study, we predicted and found that significant others could be another boundary condition in Japanese cultural contexts in which self and agency are more interdependent or conjoint; RIF was observed neither under best‐friend‐related encoding nor under family‐related encoding in Japan. The effect of significant others is found uniquely in Japanese cultural contexts, suggesting that the cultural model of self has significant power in the spontaneous system of memory.     

The Oneness Beliefs Scale: Connecting Spirituality with Pro‐Environmental Behavior

The inherent unity of all phenomena, or oneness, is a central concept of mysticism, but there have heretofore been no measures of oneness beliefs. We developed the Oneness Beliefs Scale, with spiritual and physical oneness subscales. The spiritual oneness subscale fills a need in the field for a short, reliable measure of spirituality not characterized by the language of traditional Western religiousness. The physical oneness subscale allows researchers to juxtapose spiritual beliefs with a nonspiritual, materialist counterpart. We found that spiritual oneness beliefs were more strongly related to mystic experiences and spirituality than to traditional religiousness. Physical oneness was not strongly associated with either religiousness or spirituality. Both spiritual and physical oneness were positively associated with pro‐environmental attitudes but not with depression, anxiety, or negative affect. Spiritual oneness was a better predictor of pro‐environmental attitudes than was religiousness. Spiritual oneness also predicted donating to a pro‐environmental group, making this to our knowledge the first empirical study to show a positive association between a religion or spirituality measure and observed, rather than self‐reported, pro‐environmental behavior.     

Assessing vividness of mental imagery: The Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire

Mental imagery may occur in any sensory modality, although visual imagery has been most studied. A sensitive measure of the vividness of imagery across a range of modalities is needed: the shorter version of Bett's Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery (Sheehan, 1967 , J. Clin. Psychology, 23, 386) uses outdated items and has an unreliable factor structure. We report the development and initial validation of the Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire (Psi‐Q) comprising items for each of the following modalities: Vision, Sound, Smell, Taste, Touch, Bodily Sensation, and Emotional Feeling. An exploratory factor analysis on a 35‐item form indicated that these modalities formed separate factors, rather than a single imagery factor, and this was replicated by confirmatory factor analysis. The Psi‐Q was validated against the Spontaneous Use of Imagery Scale (Reisberg et al., 2003 , Appl. Cogn. Psychology, 17, 147) and Marks' ( 1995 , J. Mental Imagery, 19, 153) Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire‐2 (VVIQ‐2). A short 21‐item form comprising the best three items from the seven factors correlated with the total score and subscales of the full form, and with the VVIQ‐2. Inspection of the data shows that while visual and sound imagery is most often rated as vivid, individuals who rate one modality as strong and the other as weak are not uncommon. Findings are interpreted within a working memory framework and point to the need for further research to identify the specific cognitive processes underlying the vividness of imagery across sensory modalities.     

A Probabilistic and Individualized Approach for Predicting Treatment Gains: An Extension and Application to Anxiety Disordered Youth

The objective of this study was to extend the probability of treatment benefit method by adding treatment condition as a stratifying variable, and illustrate this extension of the methodology using the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study data. The probability of treatment benefit method produces a simple and practical way to predict individualized treatment benefit based on pretreatment patient characteristics. Two pretreatment patient characteristics were selected in the production of the probability of treatment benefit charts: baseline anxiety severity, measured by the Pediatric Anxiety Rating Scale, and treatment condition (cognitive-behavioral therapy, sertraline, their combination, and placebo). We produced two charts as exemplars which provide individualized and probabilistic information for treatment response and outcome to treatments for child anxiety. We discuss the implications of the use of the probability of treatment benefit method, particularly with regard to patient-centered outcomes and individualized decision-making in psychology and psychiatry.