Cardiac autonomic reactivity and recovery in predicting carotid atherosclerosis: the cardiovascular risk in young Finns study.

The present study examined the association of cardiac autonomic task-induced reactivity and recovery to preclinical atherosclerosis. Thirty-three men and 33 women aged 24-39 years participated in the ongoing epidemiological Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study. The authors measured heart rate (HR), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and preejection period (PEP) during the mental arithmetic and speech tasks in 1999. Carotid atherosclerosis was assessed by measuring the thickness of the common carotid artery intima-media complex (IMT) with ultrasound in 2001. Higher HR, RSA, and PEP reactivity were associated with lower IMT values even after adjusting for cardiovascular risk factors (lipid levels, obesity, and blood pressure). In addition, better HR recovery after the mental arithmetic task was associated with lower IMT values, and this association persisted after all adjustments. Thus, higher task-induced cardiac autonomic reactivity and better HR recovery were related to less preclinical atherosclerosis. The authors concluded that cardiac pattern of reactivity and quick recovery may be associated with better cardiovascular health, and therefore all reactivity occurring in challenging situations should not automatically be considered as potentially pathological.     

Merging familiar and new senses to perceive and act in space

Our experience of the world seems to unfold seamlessly in a unitary 3D space. For this to be possible, the brain has to merge many disparate cognitive representations and sensory inputs. How does it do so? I discuss work on two key combination problems: coordinating multiple frames of reference (e.g. egocentric and allocentric), and coordinating multiple sensory signals (e.g. visual and proprioceptive). I focus on two populations whose spatial processing we can observe at a crucial stage of being configured and optimised: children, whose spatial abilities are still developing significantly, and naïve adults learning new spatial skills, such as sensing distance using auditory cues. The work uses a model-based approach to compare participants’ behaviour with the predictions of alternative information processing models. This lets us see when and how—during development, and with experience—the perceptual-cognitive computations underpinning our experiences in space change. I discuss progress on understanding the limits of effective spatial computation for perception and action, and how lessons from the developing spatial cognitive system can inform approaches to augmenting human abilities with new sensory signals provided by technology.

     

Predicting attitudes toward operation Iraqi freedom

98 male and female college students ranging in age from 17 to 22 years (M= 19.2, SD= 1.1) were administered a questionnaire that contained Altemeyer's 20-item Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale (RWA), questions about the legitimacy of the 2000 presidential election, Mayton's Physical Nonviolence Subscale, and a scale designed to measure attitudes toward Operation Iraqi Freedom. RWA scores, perceptions of the legitimacy of the 2000 presidential election, and scores on the Physical Nonviolence subscale were independent predictors of attitudes toward Operation Iraqi Freedom. In addition, those who had higher RWA scores were more likely to perceive the 2000 presidential election as legitimate. There was no significant correlation between RWA scores and attitudes toward physical nonviolence.     

Personal information in searching for faces

Participants searched for a target on a television monitor either after they viewed pictures and received physical information about the target or received that information augmented by personal information. Based on a levels of processing perspective we predicted that the addition of personal information would stimulate deeper processing and result in better identification performance. Personal information did increase identification accuracy, as anticipated. Personal information also increased the duration of time spent on the search task relative to a distractor task, suggesting that personal information may have done more than deepen the processing at the time of encoding. In the current climate of terrorism, this increase in identification performance via a surveillance camera has clear applied significance.     

Cell phone-induced failures of visual attention during simulated driving

This research examined the effects of hands-free cell phone conversations on simulated driving. The authors found that these conversations impaired driver's reactions to vehicles braking in front of them. The authors assessed whether this impairment could be attributed to a withdrawal of attention from the visual scene, yielding a form of inattention blindness. Cell phone conversations impaired explicit recognition memory for roadside billboards. Eye-tracking data indicated that this was due to reduced attention to foveal information. This interpretation was bolstered by data showing that cell phone conversations impaired implicit perceptual memory for items presented at fixation. The data suggest that the impairment of driving performance produced by cell phone conversations is mediated, at least in part, by reduced attention to visual inputs.     

Adaptive memory: Stereotype activation is not enough

Studies have shown that survival processing leads to superior memorability. The aim of the present study was to examine whether this survival recall advantage might result from stereotype activation. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a pilot study and two experiments in which participants were primed with stereotypes (Experiment 1, professor and elderly person; Experiment 2, survival-stereotype). In Experiment 1, 120 undergraduates were randomly assigned to a survival, professor stereotype, elderly person stereotype, or moving scenario and rated words for their relevance to the imagined scenario. In Experiment 2, 75 undergraduates were given a survival, survival-stereotype (based on our pilot study), or moving scenario. Both experiments showed that survival processing leads to a greater recall advantage over the stereotype groups and control group. These data indicate that the mere activation of stereotypes cannot explain the survival recall advantage.