Decomposing the encoding of action events: A dual conception

Two experiments are reported in which we tested the hypothesis that encoding of verbal features of subject-performed tasks or SPTs (e.g., bounce the ball, lift the spoon) is attention-demanding and effortful, whereas physical features of this memory task (e.g., color, weight) are acquired with little effort, and without deliberate encoding strategies. In Experiment 1, subjects were asked to perform a series of SPTs and were examined on recall of verbal instructions and colors of objects involved under conditions of focused or divided attention. In Experiment 2, performance of a series of SPTs was followed by recall of verbal instructions and recall of weights of objects involved. Results of both experiments indicated that recall of the verbal task component was negatively affected by requirements of dual-task performance, whereas recall of both physical task features was equally good in both encoding conditions. The obtained pattern of outcome is interpreted as supportive of the dual conception hypothesis of the nature of the encoding of action events.     

False memories in obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome: evidence from the divided attention paradigm at encoding or retrieval

ABSTRACT

Patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) exhibit impaired retrieval of item-specific information, increasing their propensity to generate false recognitions. The present study investigated the effect of OSAS on false recognition, using a divided-attention paradigm to examine whether reducing the availability of attentional resources during encoding or retrieval in healthy participants mimics the effect of OSAS. We tested four groups of participants, using the Deese – Roediger – McDermott paradigm: patients with OSAS and controls, either under full attention or under divided attention at encoding or retrieval. Results showed that divided attention at retrieval, but not at encoding, mimicked the effects of OSAS on memory performance, as controls in this group exhibited a higher level of false recognition than those under full attention, but a similar level of correct recognition. Our results suggest that the greater susceptibility of patients with OSAS to false recognition may be due to a limited availability of attentional resources, which may specifically disrupt retrieval processes.     

EDITORIAL

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the usefulness of Barkley’s (1997a) model of inhibition and executive functioning in describing the deficits associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Besides group differences, the present study addressed the question of independent effects of inhibition and the other executive functions in discriminating between children with ADHD and controls and how well, in terms of sensitivity and specificity, these measures can classify the children into the correct group. The results showed that children with ADHD differed significantly from controls with regard to measures of inhibition as well as all other executive function measures, except repetition of hand movements. In logistic regression models, three different measures tapping inhibition, working memory and emotion regulation were shown to be significant independent predictors of group membership. The sensitivity for these three variables as a set was 76.2, the specificity was 90.5, with a total of 86% of the sample correctly classified. When excluding the parental rating of emotion regulation, the overall classification rate decreased some, but was still relatively high in comparison with previous studies within this area of research.     

Is Happy Facial Expression Identified by the Left or Right Hemisphere？

1IntroductionCorrectly identifying other people′s facial ex-pressions of emotions is important to human socialinteraction in all societies.Many studies suggestthat the identification of facial expressions in par-ticular and perceptual processing of emotional infor-mation is carried out mainly by the right hemi-sphere of the brain[1￣7].Damage to the righthemisphere generally produces more significant im-pairment in recognition of all facial expressions ofemotion than damage to the left hemisp…     

Semantic and visual relatedness of distractors impairs episodic retrieval of pictures in a divided attention paradigm

We used a divided attention (DA) paradigm to infer the representational codes needed to support episodic retrieval of pictures, by measuring susceptibility to memory interference from different distracting tasks. Participants made recognition memory decisions to semantically categorized sets of pictures while simultaneously making size judgments to a set of visually-presented distractor pictures. Recognition accuracy was worse and response times were slower under DA conditions relative to full attention (FA), regardless of semantic relatedness of distractors to targets (Experiment 1). Similarly, we found no differential memory interference under DA relative to FA when distractor pictures were either visually (but not semantically), semantically (but not visually), or unrelated to the targets (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, memory interference was significantly larger under DA at retrieval when distractors were both semantically and visually similar to the targets. Findings suggest episodic memory for pictures requires access to either visually- or semantically-based representations for optimal performance.     

分散注意条件下前瞻记忆的完成水平及其影响因素初探

本研究试图探讨在分散注意条件下前瞻记忆的完成水平及其影响因素。被试为98名大学生。在实验中,当前任务为数字听写,同时放映一段无声动画短片,将前瞻记忆任务(即看到某一靶线索画面时在相应数字上做记号)嵌入其中,动画片结束后要求被试完成若干与动画片内容有关的问题(事先通过指导语告知)。结果发现：1、前瞻记忆任务的成绩与被试的性别几乎无关,与材料熟悉程度也无显著相关;2、与被试对材料的喜好程度显著相关,提示即使在分散注意条件下,被试在完成前瞻记忆任务时也可能会根据偏好自动调整注意的分配。     

再认的两种机制及其与启动效应的关系

通过两个实验对两种再认所涉及的心理机制及其与启动效应的关系进行探讨。实验一用高频字和低频字作实验材料,分别测量集中注意和分散注意条件下,两种再认的成绩。结果表明：学习阶段的注意分散使以提取为基础的再认成绩下降,对以熟悉性为基础的再认成绩没有影响。低频字以熟悉性为基础的再认优于高频字,但字频对以提取为基础的再认没有影响。实验二分别测量两种再认项目的补笔正确率。结果表明：以熟悉性为基础的再认的补笔正确率显著高于以提取为基础的再认的补笔正确率。据此可以推论：两种再认可能有不同的心理机制。以提取为基础的再认属于有意识记忆的范畴,以熟悉性为基础的再认属于无意识记忆的范畴。后者和启动效应的心理基础可能是共同的。     

注意分心对定义一体化编码的影响

通过考察编码阶段注意分心对定义一体化条件下联结记忆成绩的影响,探究定义一体化编码对注意资源的依赖程度。使用注意分心范式,在记忆编码过程操作无分心、奇偶分心和大小分心条件,比较不同注意条件下的联结记忆成绩。结果发现:与无分心条件相比,定义一体化下的联结记忆成绩在两种分心条件下没有显著变化,而造句下的联结记忆成绩在两种分心条件下显著降低。当前发现表明了定义一体化编码较少依赖于注意资源,这深化了对定义一体化编码机制的认识。     

注意分散对老年人错误记忆的影响

该实验以经典DRM词表为实验材料,采用简化后的联合范式来探讨注意资源对老年人错误记忆的影响。比较老年人和青年人在注意集中和注意分散条件下的错误记忆成绩。结果发现,老年组的虚报率显著高于青年人的虚报率,特别在注意集中条件下。更重要的是,老年人在注意集中条件下的虚报率与青年人在注意分散条件下的虚报率相比无显著差异,同时两种条件下的判断标准差异也不显著。结果显示,老年人相比于青年人有更多错误记忆的原因可能是注意资源的不足。     

Conscious and unconscious processing of facial expressions: Evidence from two split‐brain patients

We investigated how the brain's hemispheres process explicit and implicit facial expressions in two ‘split‐brain’ patients (one with a complete and one with a partial anterior resection). Photographs of faces expressing positive, negative or neutral emotions were shown either centrally or bilaterally. The task consisted in judging the friendliness of each person in the photographs. Half of the photograph stimuli were ‘hybrid faces’, that is an amalgamation of filtered images which contained emotional information only in the low range of spatial frequency, blended to a neutral expression of the same individual in the rest of the spatial frequencies. The other half of the images contained unfiltered faces. With the hybrid faces the patients and a matched control group were more influenced in their social judgements by the emotional expression of the face shown in the left visual field (LVF). When the expressions were shown explicitly, that is without filtering, the control group and the partially callosotomized patient based their judgement on the face shown in the LVF, whereas the complete split‐brain patient based his ratings mainly on the face presented in the right visual field. We conclude that the processing of implicit emotions does not require the integrity of callosal fibres and can take place within subcortical routes lateralized in the right hemisphere.