Recognition and recall of invisible objects

Three experiments examined recognition and recall of items that people imagined as being invisible. When one item hid another, the hidden item suffered in recognition, but so did the one that remained visible; the demand to imagine items invisibly made both items less recognizable than in control conditions. Cued recall did not depend on whether the visible item or the invisible item was the cue, but it did depend on whether the initial task required relational processing of the items. When both items were invisible in a dark imaginary scene, there was a general loss in all measures of memory, including memory for the scene. None of the results requires recourse to the “out of sight, out of mind” principle that memory depends on the visual characteristics of images. The results attest, instead, to the importance of the informational characteristics of memorial records.     

Similarity and contrast in memory for relations

The paper reports four experiments concerned with memory for sets of categorically related or unrelated nouns, as a function of the extent to which initial processing focused on categorical or distinctive features of the nouns. The general finding is that distinctive features are valuable for later intracategory discrimination in recall and recognition, but categorical features are not, as judged by cued recall, recognition, measures of association between items, and categorical intrusion errors. A theoretical framework, based on the diagnostic value of features for various classifications, is offered as an account of the results.     

Problem-oriented training promotes spontaneous analogical transfer: Memory-oriented training promotes memory for training

Spontaneous analogical transfer is the use of information from one problem to solve another problem, without an explicit hint to use the previous information. The results of five experiments were that if subjects tried to solve a training problem before hearing its solution, or tried to explain a training story's solution before hearing the correct explanation, spontaneous transfer was more likely than it was if subjects had studied the same training passage for memory before hearing its solution or explanation. The advantage of problem-oriented processing over memory-oriented processing occurred even though solution attempts nearly always failed, and the advantage was not reduced if the target problem was tested 15 min later rather than immediately after training. We propose that problem-oriented processes performed at study are appropriate processes to use at test. Further support for the account comes from subjects' memory for the training passages; the advantage for problem-oriented processing on solution tasks was mirrored by an equally substantial advantage for the memory-oriented subjects on a recall task.     

Prediction of foot clearance parameters as a precursor to forecasting the risk of tripping and falling

Tripping and falling is a serious health problem for older citizens due to the high medical costs incurred and the high mortality rates precipitated mostly by hip fractures that do not heal well. Current falls prevention technology encompasses a broad range of interventions; both passive (e.g., safer environments, hip protectors) and active (e.g., sensor-based fall detectors) which attempt to reduce the effects of tripping and falling. However the majority of these interventions minimizes the impact of falls and do not directly reduce the risk of falling. This paper investigates the prediction of gait parameters related to foot-to-ground clearance height during the leg swing phase which have been physically associated with tripping and falling risk in the elderly. The objective is to predict parameters of foot trajectory several walking cycles in advance so that anticipated low foot clearance could be addressed early with more volitional countermeasures, e.g., slowing down or stopping. In this primer study, foot kinematics was recorded with a highly accurate motion capture system for 10 healthy adults (25-32 years) and 11 older adults (65-82 years) with a history of falls who each performed treadmill walking for at least 10 min. Vertical foot displacement during the swing phase has three characteristic inflection points and we used these peak values and their normalized time as the target prediction values. These target variables were paired with features extracted from the corresponding foot acceleration signal (obtained through double differentiation). A generalized regression neural network (GRNN) was used to independently predict the gait variables over a prediction horizon (number of gait cycles ahead) of 1-10 gait cycles. It was found that the GRNN attained 0.32-1.10 cm prediction errors in the peak variables and 2-8% errors in the prediction of normalized peak times, with slightly better accuracies in the healthy group compared to elderly fallers. Prediction accuracy decreased linearly (best fit) at a slow rate with increasing prediction horizon ranging from 0.03 to 0.11 cm per step for peak displacement variables and 0.34 × 10(-3) - 1.81 × 10(-3)% per step for normalized peak time variables. Further time series analysis of the target gait variable revealed high autocorrelations in the faller group indicating the presence of cyclic patterns in elderly walking strategies compared to almost random walking patterns in the healthy group. The results are promising because the technique can be extended to portable sensor-based devices which measure foot accelerations to predict the onset of risky foot clearance, thus leading to a more effective falls prevention technology.     

Determination of problems in patients with post‐laryngectomy

The purpose of this study is the determination of the physical and psychosocial problems of total and partial laryngectomies. A total of 25 patients, who were operated with the diagnosis of larynx carcinoma in 2010 at Gazi University Faculty of Medicine Otolaryngology Department, were included in the study. They were evaluated with the help of the Personal Information Form (PIF) and the Determination Form of Post Laryngectomy Problem (DFPLP) for the problems they encountered after the operation. Total laryngectomy (TL) was performed on 76% of patients. It was determined that patients undergoing total laryngectomy experienced some physical and psycho‐social problems such as problems in sleep (31.6%), smell (52.6%), taste (36.8%), and difficulty in swallowing solid foods (36.8%). Furthermore in patients with TL surgery whilst 47.4% of them think that their sexual lives were affected rather negatively, this rate was determined as 33.3% in patients with partial laryngectomy surgery (PL). The psychosocial score averages of the patients who had smell and taste disorders were significantly lower (p < 0.05). The patients, who underwent a laryngectomy operation, experienced many physical, social, and psychological problems. Thus, medical personnel also need to pay attention to these concomitant problems that occur during the treatment of the primary disease and the application of necessary supplementary treatments such as voice prosthesis, pre‐op and post‐op counseling, and anti‐depressants seems significant in terms of increasing the life quality of the patients.     

Trace loss and the recognition failure of unrecalled words

This paper addresses the phenomenon of recognition failure from the perspective of a theory in which recognition and recall are assumed to involve independent retrieval processes. However, even given independent retrieval, measures of recognition and recall success will covary if any traces are lost from storage, simply because such traces are unavailable for any memory test. In support of the theory, rote learning produced higher covariation between recognition and recall (i.e., fewer recognition failures) than did meaningful elaboration during study. Further, recognition and recall were approximately independent of each other with meaningful elaboration and imagery encoding, regardless of whether the latter involved interactive or separate images. The results of three experiments are discussed in terms of the present “vandal” theory and other theories of recognition failure.     

Understanding the School Experience of African-American Homeless Children

Homelessness is a devastating problem that breeds far-reaching negative impacts on all aspects of children's lives, including their school experience. Fifteen homeless, African-American children in grades 3 through 6 were interviewed about their experiences at school, as well as their future educational and career aspirations. Findings of a grounded theory analysis reveal that these children struggled to envision a safe future through seeking predictability, personal connections, and academic achievement, and provide insight for interventions. The study examines the ways the children constructed meaning out of their school experience, understood their transitions, and set life goals. By understanding the ways these youth experience their school experience, psychologists, counselors, and educators can be better equipped to serve their needs by providing support services that support their development, by developing educational practices that shape realistic educational goals, and by moving toward systemic change through collaborating with administrators and other stakeholders.     

Generating makes words memorable,but so does effective reading

In many experiments, memorial benefits have been found when subjects generate items from fragments rather than read items in their complete forms. Does generation cause-this-difference, or are subjects disposed to adopt different strategies when generating as opposed to reading? If generating causes the difference, items processed in the same way apart from a generative stage should therefore benefit from that generative stage. Our experiments did result in benefits for generating as opposed to reading, but only when the readers processed the words poorly—by pronouncing them. When the readers processed the items well, by imagining them, generating was no better than reading. A new generation effect was found in meta memory. Subjects thought they would remember more generated items than read items; however, the act of making the prediction entailed meaningful processing, and the generated items were not actually remembered better than the read ones.     

Contextual imagery in meaning and memory

Three hundred homonyms were selected, and sentence fragments were written to emphasize two meanings of each. The words were rated on image-arousing capacity both in and out of context and on frequency of occurrence in context. Imagery values for the words out of context were predicted quite well by an average of the contextual imagery ratings, weighted by their relative frequencies. The finding is consistent with the hypothesis that words presented in isolation are interpreted in specific senses according to a frequency bias, with imagery ratings reflecting those senses. In a memory experiment. words were selected to vary orthogonally on both contextual and out-of-context imagery. Recall of words in isolation was a function of out-of-context imagery, while recall of words presented in context was a function of contextual imagery, further supporting the hypothesis.