Increased liking for a solution is not necessary for the attenuation of neophobia in rats.

Recent evidence suggests that liking and wanting of food rewards can be experimentally dissociated (e.g., Berridge, 1996); this dissociation extends to attenuated neophobia in the present study. Rats tend to eat less of a novel food than a familiar food, a phenomenon called neophobia. The present experiments evaluated whether attenuation of neophobia by prior exposure reflects enhanced liking of the flavor using the Taste Reactivity (TR) test. In Experiment 1, rats given five 10-s TR trials with water or various concentrations of saccharin solution (0.1%, 0.2%, 0.5%) did not show a change in the number of hedonic reactions displayed across trials. However, in a subsequent consumption test from a bottle containing 0.25% saccharin solution, rats with no prior saccharin exposure (group water) consumed less than rats with prior saccharin exposure; that is they displayed neophobia. In Experiment 2, whether rats received five 10-s TR trials with water or 0.5% saccharin solution, they did not display a difference in hedonic reactions to 0.25% saccharin solution in two 5-min TR test trials. These results suggest that the attenuation of neophobia is evidenced as an increase in the tendency to approach a bottle containing the flavored solution (wanting), but not as an enhanced liking of that solution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When does length cause the word length effect?

The word length effect, the finding that lists of short words are better recalled than lists of long words, has been termed one of the benchmark findings that any theory of immediate memory must account for. Indeed, the effect led directly to the development of working memory and the phonological loop, and it is viewed as the best remaining evidence for time-based decay. However, previous studies investigating this effect have confounded length with orthographic neighborhood size. In the present study, Experiments 1A and 1B revealed typical effects of length when short and long words were equated on all relevant dimensions previously identified in the literature except for neighborhood size. In Experiment 2, consonant–vowel–consonant (CVC) words with a large orthographic neighborhood were better recalled than were CVC words with a small orthographic neighborhood. In Experiments 3 and 4, using two different sets of stimuli, we showed that when short (1-syllable) and long (3-syllable) items were equated for neighborhood size, the word length effect disappeared. Experiment 5 replicated this with spoken recall. We suggest that the word length effect may be better explained by the differences in linguistic and lexical properties of short and long words rather than by length per se. These results add to the growing literature showing problems for theories of memory that include decay offset by rehearsal as a central feature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Protease activity higher in postmortem water buffalo meat than Brahman beef

We previously demonstrated that postmortem water buffalo meat had higher tenderness than Brahman beef. In order to explain this difference in tenderness, the objective of the current study was to investigate the protease activity in these two meats. Five female crossbred water buffalo (Philippine Carabao×Bulgarian Murrah) and five female crossbred cattle (Brahman×Philippine Native) were slaughtered at 30months of age, followed by immediate sampling of Longissimus thoracis muscle for measurement of protease activity. Results showed that buffalo meat had significantly higher protease activity compared to beef (P<0.05). Furthermore, calpain inhibitor 1, a specific inhibitor of calpains 1 and 2, was the most effective inhibitor of protease activity. There was no difference in calpastatin activity, and no major differences were observed in calpains 1, 2, and calpastatin expression by Western blotting. This study suggests that higher calpain activity in early postmortem buffalo meat was responsible for the increased tenderness of water buffalo meat compared to beef.     

Retrospective analysis of 19 cases of isolated torsion of the splenic pedicle in dogs

Nineteen cases of isolated splenic torsion in the dog were reviewed retrospectively. Perioperative data were analysed in order to determine prognostic indicators of morbidity and mortality for animals with this disease. This Great Dane and German shepherd dog were found to be at increased risk for this condition. The historical features of splenic torsion were non-specific and included intermittent signs of gastrointestinal disease and abdominal discomfort. Mean duration of malaise was eight days, but 17 dogs were presented because of a rapid deterioration in their condition. Abdominal ultrasound findings assisted in the decision to perform surgery in all the dogs on which it was performed. Eighteen animals had splenic torsion confirmed at surgery and were treated by total splenectomy. All 18 surgically managed dogs survived. Analysis of pre- and postoperative data failed to reveal preoperative parameters that consistently predicted postoperative complications.     

The shift from recency to primacy with increasing delay.

Five experiments examined the recency–primacy shift in which memory for early list items improves and memory for later items becomes worse as the delay between study and test increases. Experiment 1 replicated the shift in a recognition task in which the physical form of the study and test items differed, ruling out an explanation that invokes visual memory. Experiment 2 observed the change when only 1 serial position was tested, eliminating an explanation based on changing strategies or proactive interference. Experiment 3 showed a similar change from recency to primacy when the to-be-remembered stimuli were auditory. Experiments 4 and 5 demonstrated that the same recency–primacy trade-off occurs for words in a sentence. Although it is possible to offer piecemeal explanations for each experiment, the dimensional distinctiveness model accounts for the results in each of the 5 experiments in exactly the same way. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Directly assessing the relationship between irrelevant speech and irrelevant tapping.

The acoustic confusion effect is the finding that lists of to-be-remembered items that sound similar to one another are recalled worse than otherwise comparable lists of items that sound different. Previous work has shown that concurrent irrelevant speech and concurrent irrelevant tapping both reduce the size of this effect, suggesting similarities between the two manipulations. The authors assessed the relation between irrelevant speech and irrelevant tapping by correlating the disruption each causes to recall of similar- and dissimilar-sounding items. A significant correlation was obtained, indicating a relation between the two. The results indicate that researchers should be sensitive to changes in the magnitude of the effects rather than focusing exclusively on the presence or absence of particular effects. Implications for the 3 major explanations of the irrelevant speech effect are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abolishing the Word-Length Effect.

The authors report 2 experiments that compare the recall of long and short words in pure and mixed lists. In pure lists, long words were much more poorly remembered than short words. In mixed lists, this word-length effect was abolished and both the long and short words were recalled as well as short words in pure lists. These findings contradict current models that seek to explain the word-length effect in terms of item-based effects such as difficulty in assembling items, or in terms of list-based accounts of rehearsal speed. An alternative explanation, drawing on ideas of item complexity and item distinctiveness, is proposed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modeling distributions of immediate memory effects: No strategies needed?

Many models of immediate memory predict the presence or absence of various effects, but none have been tested to see whether they predict an appropriate distribution of effect sizes. The authors show that the feature model (J. S. Nairne, 1990) produces appropriate distributions of effect sizes for both the phonological confusion effect and the word-length effect. The model produces the appropriate number of reversals, when participants are more accurate with similar items or long items, and also correctly predicts that participants performing less well overall demonstrate smaller and less reliable phonological similarity and word-length effects and are more likely to show reversals. These patterns appear within the model without the need to assume a change in encoding or rehearsal strategy or the deployment of a different storage buffer. The implications of these results and the wider applicability of the distributionmodeling approach are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Critique of the retrieval/deblurring assumptions of the theory of distributed associative memory.

Critiques the retrieval assumptions proposed by S. Lewandowsky and B. B. Murdock (see record 1989-14457-001) in their application of Murdock's theory of distributed associative memory (TODAM) to problems in serial-order recall. Two different methods for "deblurring" the products of retrieval are described, along with simulations appropriate for each. It is demonstrated that the deblurring assumptions used by Lewandowsky and Murdock in their simulation version of the model, although appropriate for some aspects of serial-anticipation learning, provide an inadequate account of general serial recall and, in fact, predict several trends that are inconsistent with known data. The analytic version of the model is considered and some additional problems are noted. Overall, the deblurring assumptions critically affect the performance of TODAM, and it is these assumptions rather than the model per se that determine a sizable proportion of its behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The context-dependent stimulus suffix effect.

Precategorical acoustic store (PAS) explains stimulus suffix effects by assuming that the suffix enters into a precategorical auditory store and interferes with the last item in the list. Two experiments replicate the finding of T. J. Ayres et al (1979) that the potency of a token to function as a suffix depends on the context in which it is interpreted rather than on the structural properties of a hypothesized store. Ss were led to believe that the suffix, the onomatopoetic English word baa, was produced either by a human or by a sheep. Larger suffix effects were obtained when the suffix was labeled as speech rather than nonspeech, despite the fact that the suffix was the same physical token in both cases. Exp 2 found that while a previously effective suffix could lose its potency if relabeled from speech to nonspeech, the reverse was not observed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)