Virtual Week: Validity and psychometric properties of a Polish adaptation

IntroductionProspective memory (PM) refers to memory for future intentions and it is essential for safe and independent living. This paper focuses on Virtual Week (VW), a measure that was developed to closely represent everyday PM tasks in an English language setting in North America and Australia.ObjectivesThe main objective of the present study is to offer the results of a Polish adaptation of VW and present the validity and psychometric properties of the adapted version.MethodThe Spearman-Brown split-half reliability coefficients and Cronbach's alphas were estimated in 77 young adults and 83 healthy older adults. To confirm the validity of the Polish VW, we analyzed whether it is sensitive to the pattern of PM deficits in the healthy elderly that is consistent with mechanisms underlying PM performance as well as theories of normal aging.ResultsThe Polish VW was found to have strong psychometric properties and be sensitive to theory- and data-based effects on PM.ConclusionThe findings strongly encourage the use of VW for experimental purposes in healthy older adults. They provide further evidence that VW has a universal appeal and may be used in non-English speaking European samples.     

Imaginary Companions in Childhood: What Can Prospective Longitudinal Research Tell Us About Their Fate by Adolescence?

Do adolescents remember imaginary companions (ICs) from early childhood? Researchers interviewed 46 adolescent participants in a prospective longitudinal study about their ICs from early childhood (age 5½). The existence of one or more ICs was documented in early childhood for 48% of children (G. Trionfi & E. Reese, 2009). At age 16, most adolescents had forgotten their early childhood ICs: Only 5 of the 23 participants who had early childhood ICs recalled those ICs later. Eight participants who had forgotten their early childhood ICs recalled a later IC, and four participants who did not have an IC at age 5 ½ reported one by age 16. Ten of the 23 participants who had early childhood ICs claimed never to have had an IC. Girls were more likely to recall their early childhood ICs. Retrospective reports of ICs in adolescence or later life may be unreliable for investigating differences between those with and without imaginary companions. Those with ICs may not be a homogenous group, with some creating ICs throughout childhood and some desisting from this behavior in early childhood. Findings indicate that both the remembering and forgetting of ICs has potential to illuminate cognitive and creative processes surrounding both memory and imagination.     

高中生的亲子沟通质量对情绪性刺激注意偏向的影响

为了探讨高中生亲子沟通质量对情绪性刺激注意偏向的影响,实验一采用亲子沟通量表,筛选出亲子沟通高分组和低分组,两组被试参加点探测任务,要求被试迅速判断情绪性图片出现后呈现的圆点的位置。实验为2（组别：高亲子沟通组、低亲子沟通组）×2（情绪类型：负性和正性）×2（探测点位置一致性：一致、不一致）的混合实验设计。结果发现,负性和正性刺激的不一致条件反应时均显著短于一致条件的反应时。实验二采用事件相关电位（ERP）记录了情绪性图片诱发的信号反应。结果发现,亲子沟通高分组对负性刺激所诱发的注意指向和集中（P2成分）及选择和巩固（P3成分）显著高于低分组。以上结果表明,亲子沟通较好,在注意早期定向和选择中会对负性情绪刺激产生注意偏向。亲子沟通较差,则对情绪性的刺激没有明显的偏向性,类似于“漠不关心”的状态。     

An Experimental Investigation of Election Promises

We analyze the effect of election promises on electoral behavior in a laboratory experiment. In the experiment, politicians can make nonbinding election promises about how to split an endowment between themselves and the group. We find that promises affect both voting and voter beliefs about how much the politician will contribute to the public fund. The relationship is inverted U‐shaped with decreasing credibility of higher promises. Contributions of politicians are correlated with their promises in a similar pattern. The election promises are generally credible unless particularly high. Politicians keep promises more often if a reelection is possible and if the politician came into power by vote rather than by random draw. Voters reward high contributions in the previous period and punish promise breaking even after controlling for the contribution in the previous period or voters' beliefs about future contributions. By controlling for voters' beliefs, we distinguish retrospective from prospective voting. Our results suggest that voters both use promises for prospective voting and retrospectively punish broken promises.     

Collaboration and prospective memory: comparing nominal and collaborative group performance in strangers and couples

To perform prospective memory (PM) tasks in day-to-day life, we often enlist the help of others. Yet the effects of collaboration on PM are largely unknown. Adopting the methodology of the “collaborative recall paradigm”, we tested whether stranger dyads (Experiment 1) and intimate couples (Experiment 2) would perform better on a “Virtual Week” task when working together or each working separately. In Experiment 1, we found evidence of collaborative inhibition: collaborating strangers did not perform to their pooled individual potential, although the effect was modulated by PM task difficulty. We also found that the overall collaborative inhibition effect was attributable to both the retrospective and prospective components of PM. In Experiment 2 however, there was no collaborative inhibition: there was no significant difference in performance between couples working together or separately. Our findings suggest potential costs of collaboration to PM. Intimate relationships may reduce the usual costs of collaboration, with implications for intervention training programmes and for populations who most need PM support.     

Prospective emotion enables episodic prospection to shift time preference

The episodic effect suggests that episodic prospection (imagining future events) can effectively reduce time discounting, the propensity to discount the value of delayed rewards relative to immediate ones. However, less clear is how episodic prospection modulates time preference. As engagement in episodic prospection usually evokes prospective emotions, it was proposed that episodic prospection might work by inducing prospective emotions. Although one previous study has attempted to provide evidence to the emotional account of the episodic effect, shortcomings in its experimental design make its conclusion questionable. In this study, we replicated previous experimental design with improvements to further test the effects of prospective emotion on time preference. By manipulating the emotional valency associated with episodic prospection in a delay discounting task, we found that positive episodic prospection attenuated time discounting; negative episodic prospection exacerbated time discounting; and episodic prospection did not shift time preference when prospective emotion is removed. These results were essentially identical to the result of the previous study. Together, these studies suggested that the effects of episodic prospection depended on prospective emotion. Thus, one cannot ignore prospective emotion if counting on episodic prospection to combat humans’ impulsive behaviours.     

Conscientiousness and adherence to the oral contraceptive pill: A prospective study

Objective: We assess the association between conscientiousness and adherence to the oral contraceptive pill (OCP), and examine if such a relationship is independent of a measure of prospective memory and a range of social cognitive variables.

Method: Data were collected from 150 OCP users at baseline, and 99 provided follow-up data four weeks later. Conscientiousness, a range of social cognitive predictors and prospective memory were assessed at baseline. OCP adherence was measured at baseline, and again at Time 2. Data were analysed using correlation and multiple linear regression.

Results: Higher conscientiousness was associated with higher overall OCP adherence in both cross-sectional (r = ?0.28, p < 0.01) and prospective analysis (r = ?0.34, p < 0.01). Conscientiousness predicted OCP adherence at Time 2, adjusting for OCP adherence at Time 1 (R² change = 0.02, p = 0.04). The association was reduced to non-significance when social cognitive predictors and prospective memory were included in the multivariable model. Prospective memory was an independent predictor of OCP adherence at Time 2.

Discussion: This is the first study to identify an association between conscientiousness and OCP adherence. The association is not independent from social cognitive predictors and prospective memory. Facet-level analysis of conscientiousness and formal mediation analyses are recommended in future replications.     

Long-term autobiographical memory across middle childhood: patterns,predictors, and implications for conceptualizations of childhood amnesia

ABSTRACT

We examined recall of events by children 4–11 years to inform patterns of retention of autobiographical memories as well as factors that predict their survival. 101 children participated in a 4-year prospective study. At study inception, children were 4, 6, and 8 years. They were tested annually for three more years for a total of four waves of data collection. At each wave, we obtained narrative reports of recent (all waves) and distant (Waves 2–4) events, resulting in virtually continuous sampling of memories formed by 4- to 11-year-olds and recalled after 1–3-year delays. We also measured children's language, and domain-general and memory-specific cognitive skills. Multi-level modelling revealed age-related increases in the likelihood of survival of memories over the delays. Critically, the rate of increase in retention of individual memories was the same across the cohorts. In addition to age, thematic coherence of original memory reports predicted memory survivability. Other factors were not predictive. The dense sampling and prospective tracking of memories across the 4–11-year age period permitted an especially strong test for continuity versus discontinuity in autobiographical memory across the second half of the first decade of life. The data are strongly indicative of continuity and gradual change.     

Adaptation to Reversal of Retinal Feedback of Eyemovements

Both optical and hybrid-computer methods were devised to reverse the visual feedback which the eye gets of its own movements. Optical reversal by a contact lens device caused persisting, unstable, skittered, blurred vision, to which the subject made no effective adaptation. Using a hybrid analog-digital-analog computer, eyemovement-retinal feedback was reversed by yoking oscilloscope targets to the transduced electrical signals of ocular movements and reversing the sign of input-output control of the computer system. Vision with such computer-reversed feedback from ocular movements duplicated the experiences with the contact-lens method. Practice over five sessions of 50 trials indicated that three Ss showed no significant improvement in eye-tracking accuracy with the reversed vision. Perception of direction in vision and the basic signal processes of vision were thus found to be dependent on built-in direction specificity of eyemovement-retinal feedback interactions which also govern dynamic specialization and control of pursuit, saccadic, and fixation movements.