Semantic activation and episodic memory: Age similarities and differences.

In 2 experiments, 48 19–35 yr olds and 48 59–75 yr olds were engaged in semantic and nonsemantic orienting tasks and were subsequently given incidental or expected recall and recognition tasks. Reaction time (RT) patterns from the orienting tasks suggested that all Ss experienced similar semantic activation during encoding. Under incidental conditions, age differences in memory performance were minimal. When memory tests were expected, younger Ss recalled and recognized more items than did older Ss, suggesting that younger Ss were more effective in their deployment of mnemonic strategies. The age difference was particularly pronounced for unattended items, which suggests an age difference in the capacity to encode all of the episodic information. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic knowledge and episodic memory for faces in semantic dementia.

Previous studies have documented poor recognition memory for faces in patients with semantic dementia. Preserved face recognition memory was found in this study, however, so long as atrophy was confined predominantly to the left temporal lobe. Patients with structural damage to the right temporal lobe were typically impaired, with the status of the hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus (including the perirhinal cortex) on the right being critical. Two single-case studies of patients with predominantly left temporal lobe pathology confirmed good recognition memory for famous faces, even if semantic knowledge about the celebrities depicted was severely degraded. An effect of semantic knowledge on recognition memory became apparent only when perceptually different photographs of the famous people were used at study and test. These results support the view that new episodic learning typically draws on information from both perceptual and semantic systems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic activation and episodic odor recognition in young and older adults.

Young, young–old, and old adults were examined in immediate and delayed episodic recognition of common odors. Items were presented in 3 different formats: name-only, odor-only, or odor-name. Ss made familiarity ratings for all items at study. In the delayed recognition test, Ss were asked to name the odors. Young Ss outperformed the 2 older age groups in both recognition tests, although the 2 older groups did not differ. Performance was higher in the odor-name condition than in the single-format conditions. Both familiarity and naming were related to recognition in all age groups. Most important, when naming was statistically controlled, age differences in odor recognition disappeared, suggesting that access to verbal labels largely determine age differences in recognition of common odors. Finally, the finding that recognition was enhanced in both young and older Ss in the odor-name condition suggests that odor memory may involve a similar degree of plasticity as other varieties of episodic memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic priming of category relations in schizophrenia.

Four automatic semantic priming experiments were conducted with 19 chronic schizophrenic patients and 22 normal controls. One pronunciation and 1 lexical decision priming experiment used vertically related (category subordinate–superordinate) pairs; another set of experiments used horizontally (intracategory) related pairs with pair members being typical or atypical exemplars of the category. In all experiments, schizophrenic participants showed reaction time slowing, but their semantic priming effects were not significantly different from controls. These findings provide evidence for the preservation of associative connections and automatic spread of activation in the semantic network of schizophrenic participants. In the horizontal lexical decision experiment, the priming effect for the schizophrenic group was nonsignificant, suggesting a possible abnormality in postlexical semantic matching for the intracategory pairs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retrieval interference in the independent storage of related episodic traces.

S. D. Moeser (see record 1978-04923-001) found that Ss who stored interrelated sentences independently of each other were poorer at retrieving these sentences than Ss who stored them as an integrated unit. She argued that this difference was due to interference in the retrieval process rather than to differences in ease of encoding. The present 3 experiments with 60 undergraduates tested the suggestion that the difference was due instead to a greater elaboration of connections in the integrated condition. The integrated and independent storage conditions were compared with a random sentences condition, wherein the traces formed to represent the information would be no more elaborate than the traces formed in the independent condition, but because no concepts were repeated there would be no interference produced when competing traces were activated by the test probe. Results support Moeser's retrieval interference explanation. (French summary) (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic integration as a boundary condition on inhibitory processes in episodic retrieval.

Recalling an experience often impairs the later retention of related traces, a phenomenon known as retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF). Research has shown that episodic associations protect competing memories from RIF (Anderson & McCulloch, 1999). We report 4 experiments that examined whether semantic associations also protect against RIF. In all experiments, robust RIF occurred when there were few associations between practiced and nonpracticed sets, but RIF was abolished when there were many. The benefits of semantic integration were independent of episodic integration strategies and were not mediated by intentional use of the associations. Rather, these results establish a new boundary condition on RIF—semantic integration—that has a potent impact on the magnitude of RIF and may explain variability in the RIF phenomenon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic relations and Alzheimer's disease: Typicality and direction of testing.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and elderly controls verified semantic attributes of common concepts. For each attribute tested (superordinate category, part, property, and function), typicality of the semantic relation was varied, as well as the order in which relations were tested (e.g., category-concept or concept-category). Like controls, AD patients showed decreased accuracy and increased response times as typicality decreased across the range of attributes tested and for both test orders. Overall, the findings indicate that the early stages of AD result in a systematic deficit in which the relations among semantic concepts remain orderly rather than in a disordering of the relations among concepts. The findings are discussed in relation to 2 major theoretical interpretations of semantic deficits in AD: degraded structure and disrupted processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Target-to-target repetition cost and location negative priming are dissociable: Evidence for different mechanisms.

In a location-selection task, the repetition of a prior distractor location as the target location would slow down the response. This effect is termed the location negative priming (NP) effect. Recently, it has been demonstrated that repetition of a prior target location as the current target location would also slow down response. Because such target-to-target repetition cost is similar to the phenomenon of inhibition of return (IOR), the possibility of a common mechanism underlying target-to-target repetition cost, location NP, and IOR has been proposed. The current study evaluated this hypothesis by combining a spatial-cuing task with a location NP task. The results of three experiments demonstrated that although IOR interacted with target-to-target repetition cost, there was no interaction between IOR and location NP. These findings suggest that target-to-target repetition cost is more likely to share a common mechanism with IOR, and target-to-target repetition cost and location NP should be attributed to different processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

How independent are independent psychological examinations? A workers' compensation dilemma.

In recent years there has been an increasing demand for clinicians to conduct independent psychological examinations (IPEs) of persons involved in work-related injuries, with referrals coming from insurance carriers and attorneys. This article discusses the role of the psychologist in the workers' compensation system, specifically focusing on the challenges facing psychologists who accept the IPE assignment. Potential abuses of the workers' compensation process by psychologists and ethical considerations are also discussed. Several recommendations for improving the system are offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic categorical flexibility and aging: Effect of semantic relations on maintenance and switching.

The authors studied the effects of aging on the flexible use of categorization rules based on thematic and taxonomic relations. Two components of flexibility were distinguished: maintenance of a categorical relation, and switching between two relations. Results showed that age affects these two components. In older adults, an effect of the nature of the categorical relations to be used was revealed. Older adults demonstrated a specific difficulty in the flexible use of taxonomic relations. Moreover, all adults, independent of their age, showed better performance in maintaining the use of a categorical relation than in switching between two categorical relations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic factors in episodic recognition of common odors in early and late adulthood: a review

Information on long-term memory for common odors is discussed. Olfactory parameters (i.e. familiarity, recognition, identification) and their relationship to current memory theory are highlighted. Emphasis is focused on the impact of semantic memory on episodic odor recognition. In contrast to previous research suggesting that verbal/semantic factors play a negligible role in olfactory memory, the present review indicates that episodic odor information is mediated by factors that can be subsumed under the rubric of semantic memory. Specific odor knowledge, such as perceived familiarity and identifiability, is strongly and positively related to episodic odor memory performance. Age-related impairments in various olfactory and cognitive parameters and the potential detrimental effects in episodic odor memory are discussed. Finally, the issue of whether olfactory memory should be conceptualized as an independent process, or whether it shares characteristics with memory for verbal and visual information, is addressed.     

Rated associability and episodic memory.

There is some conflict in the literature over the question of whether paired-associate episodic memory improves systematically with the "associability" of the word pairs in question. In the present 3 studies with summer school students, associability was measured by ratings. Results show that under certain circumstances, episodic memory performance was affected by ceiling effects such that a simple relationship between episodic memory for paired associates and the rated associability of the pairs was difficult to demonstrate. However, when ceiling effects were avoided, either by having Ss study a great many pairs at once or by using unusually long lists, episodic memory was monotonically related to rated associability. It is suggested that word frequency should also be considered along with rated associability in this context. (French abstract) (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Building episodic connections: Changes in episodic priming with age and dementia.

Previous studies of associative encoding that used explicit retrieval tasks have shown both age- and dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT)-related declines, but such results may be biased by group differences in explicit retrieval. In the present experiment, the authors assessed implicit associative encoding for 25 younger adults (ages 18–25), 73 healthy older adults (ages 59–91), and 65 adults with DAT (ages 59–91) during a speeded word-naming task using an episodic priming measure. Episodic priming refers to the facilitation in responding to a target word after repetition of both words in a prime–target pair, in comparison with simple repetition of the target word with a new prime on each presentation. In contrast with other studies of implicit associative encoding that did not use an implicit episodic priming measure, the present study found both age- and DAT-related declines in associative encoding under conditions of massed learning trials. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coffee with jelly or unbuttered toast: Commissions and omissions are dissociable aspects of everyday action impairment in Alzheimer's disease.

Relative to our understanding of the memory and language deficits associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD), little is known about problems with everyday action performance (i.e., meal preparation, grooming). The resource theory proposes that everyday action problems are best explained by a unitary deficit in general cognitive resources. However, recent research suggests that omission and commission errors may reflect dissociable aspects of action impairment, with only omissions associated with resource limitations. This study examined everyday action performance in 70 participants with AD who also underwent a neuropsychological evaluation. First, correlation and principal component analyses were performed to examine the construct(s) that might explain everyday action impairment. Second, relations between everyday task component(s) and neuropsychological tests were examined by using correlation and regression analyses. Third, differences in everyday action error patterns were examined among participants of comparable overall impairment levels. Results showed omission and commission errors were uncorrelated and distinct components of everyday action performance, predicted by different neuropsychological tests, and differentially distributed even among participants with comparable overall impairment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interference effects in bimanual coordination are independent of movement type.

Simultaneously executed limb movements interfere with each other. Whereas the interference between discrete movements is examined mostly from a cognitive perspective, that between rhythmic movements is studied mainly from a dynamical systems perspective. As the tools and concepts developed by both communities are limited in their applicability to the other domain, it remains unclear if a common cause underlies motor interference in both domains. We investigated the interference between simultaneously executed discrete and rhythmic wrist movements. The discrete movements' reaction time and movement time decreased with increasing rhythmic movement frequency. The discrete movements accelerated or decelerated the rhythmic movements in a manner that depended on movement frequency and the discrete movement's initiation phase. The acceleration/deceleration profile was bimodal at low frequencies and unimodal at high frequencies, mimicking the hallmark feature of rhythmic-rhythmic coordination, thus suggesting that interference between movements may be invariant across different movement types. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inertial constraints on limb proprioception are independent of visual calibration.

When the coincidence of a limb's spatial axes and inertial eigenvectors is broken, haptic proprioception of the limb's position conforms to the eigenvectors. Additionally, when prisms break the coincidence between an arm's visual and actual positions, haptic proprioception is shifted toward the visual–spatial direction. In 3 experiments, variation of the arm's mass distribution was combined with prism adaptation to investigate the hypothesis that the proprioceptive effects of inertial and visual manipulations are additive. This hypothesis was supported across manipulations of plane of motion, body posture, proprioceptive target, and proprioceptive experience during prism adaptation. Haptic proprioception seems to depend on local, physical reference frames that are relative to the physical reference frames for the body's environmental position and orientation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Functional relations are not models: A note on covariation detection.

Reviews the main points made by the authors (1985) in their article on covariation judgment and argues that, while C. F. Surber's (see record 1986-16237-001) arguments about covariation detection models and about assessment of variable importance are essentially correct, they are inappropriately applied to the authors' analyses of functional relations. (3 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interprofessional relations or psychologists and psychiatrists are human too, only more so.

"Problems of interprofessional relations have been more productive of furor than fact." "Graduate students in psychology are expected to be skeptical and questioning; medical students begin their training with the absorption of static anatomical knowledge which has undergone little change in years." Psychiatry "… seems to represent the established order, and clinical psychology the force which seeks to change it." Conflicts stemming from differences in professional and social roles, from differences in professional training and potential roles, from differences in the preparation for and practice of pychotherapy, and from problems of collaborative research are discussed. Prospects for the future are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Selection difficulty and interitem competition are independent factors in rapid visual stream perception.

When observers try to identify successive targets in a visual stream at a rate of 100 ms per item, accuracy for the 2nd target is impaired for intertarget lags of 100-500 ms. Yet, when the same stream is presented more rapidly (e.g., 50 ms per item), this pattern reverses and a 1st-target deficit is obtained. M. C. Potter, A. Staub, and D. H. O'Connor (2002) accounted for these findings with a 2-stage competition theory (detection followed by identification) in which each stage is limited by its own pool of resources. In 5 experiments we varied the items that preceded the 1st target. The results show strong influences of these leading items on the 1st-target deficit, with almost no influence on 2nd-target accuracy. This is interpreted as strong support for multiple factors influencing target accuracy in rapid visual streams (J. Kawahara, J. T. Enns, & V. Di Lollo, 2006). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)