Coherence and cross-situational generality in personality: A new analysis of old problems.

An analysis of personality constructs indicates that the research supporting these beliefs has failed to provide an adequate test of either coherence or cross-situational generality. Specifically, it is proposed that when personality constructs are measured by sampling the occurrence of multiple referents of the construct in multiple situations, both coherence and cross-situational generality can be demonstrated. To test this, 56 3–5 yr olds' dominance and dependency behaviors were observed in multiple situations. Results indicate that (a) multiple-referent sampling increased the coherence of both constructs, (b) dominance exhibited greater coherence than dependency, and (c) predictive accuracy across situations was enhanced by multiple-situation sampling for dominance but not for dependency. Data support the usefulness of appropriately measured personality constructs in predicting behavior. (44 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The rank-order consistency of personality traits from childhood to old age: A quantitative review of longitudinal studies.

The present study used meta-analytic techniques to test whether trait consistency maximizes and stabilizes at a specific period in the life course. From 152 longitudinal studies, 3,217 test–retest correlation coefficients were compiled. Meta-analytic estimates of mean population test–retest correlation coefficients showed that trait consistency increased from .31 in childhood to .54 during the college years, to .64 at age 30, and then reached a plateau around .74 between ages 50 and 70 when time interval was held constant at 6.7 years. Analysis of moderators of consistency showed that the longitudinal time interval had a negative relation to trait consistency and that temperament dimensions were less consistent than adult personality traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relating age at encoding in early childhood to adult recall: Development of flashbulb memories.

Asked 338 college and high school students, who had been 1–7 yrs old in 1963, to state their personal memories surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy and 6 other significant public events. The probability and degree of elaboration of recall showed a gradual growth with increasing age at the time of the event for the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy but not for the other events. Self-reports of amount of rehearsal showed a low correlation with recall. Recall was high for the resignation of President Nixon in 1974, suggesting that surprise is not necessary for the formation of enduring memories of significant events. Methodological advantages and disadvantages of studying early memories for public events are discussed. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental changes in time estimation: Comparing childhood and old age.

Participants from ages 5 to 99 years completed 2 time estimation tasks: a temporal generalization task and a temporal bisection task. Developmental differences in overall levels of performance were found at both ends of the life span and were more marked on the generalization task than the bisection task. Older adults and children performed at lower levels than young adults, but there were also qualitative differences in the patterns of errors made by the older adults and the children. To capture these findings, the authors propose a new developmental model of temporal generalization and bisection. The model assumes developmental changes across the life span in the noisiness of initial perceptual encoding and across childhood in the extent to which long-term memory of time intervals is distorted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Animism in childhood thinking: A new look at an old question.

48 preschool-aged children's knowledge of the distinctions between animate and inanimate objects was assessed by showing them stimulus films of animate and inanimate objects that moved in different ways. Responses gathered included attributions of animate or inanimate properties, justifications for attribution choices and accuracy in labeling objects as alive or not. Results indicate that 5-yr-olds and some 4-yr-olds performed near the levels of 16 college-aged adults, whereas 3-yr-olds did not, although the animate–inanimate distinction did mediate their behavior. A generalized "animistic" attitude was not found: rather, developmental changes appeared to accrue from increasing precision about the specific properties that do and do not distinguish animate from inanimate objects. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-esteem development from young adulthood to old age: A cohort-sequential longitudinal study.

The authors examined the development of self-esteem from young adulthood to old age. Data came from the Americans’ Changing Lives study, which includes 4 assessments across a 16-year period of a nationally representative sample of 3,617 individuals aged 25 years to 104 years. Latent growth curve analyses indicated that self-esteem follows a quadratic trajectory across the adult life span, increasing during young and middle adulthood, reaching a peak at about age 60 years, and then declining in old age. No cohort differences in the self-esteem trajectory were found. Women had lower self-esteem than did men in young adulthood, but their trajectories converged in old age. Whites and Blacks had similar trajectories in young and middle adulthood, but the self-esteem of Blacks declined more sharply in old age than did the self-esteem of Whites. More educated individuals had higher self-esteem than did less educated individuals, but their trajectories were similar. Moreover, the results suggested that changes in socioeconomic status and physical health account for the decline in self-esteem that occurs in old age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dream recall and dream recall failure: An arousal-retrieval model.

Proposes an arousal/retrieval model to account for difficulties in sleep learning and dream recall. The model is based on 2-stage memory theory, which assumes that information processing in a short-term memory store facilitates subsequent retrieval from long-term memory storage. It is proposed that the effectiveness of processing of target material is impaired during sleep. Thus, dreams and information contained in stimulus presentations to a sleeping person very likely can only be retrieved if an awakening occurs during the life of the short-term memory trace. It is further proposed that experiences occurring during or shortly after awakening compete with the target material for space in the limited-capacity processing system, with the most salient of the set favored in the competition. Interference and repression effects are assumed as additional factors in retrieval from long-term storage. (11/2 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The primacy model: a new model of immediate serial recall

A new model of immediate serial recall is presented: the primacy model. The primacy model stores order information by means of the assumption that the strength of activation of successive list items decreases across list position to form a primacy gradient. Ordered recall is supported by a repeated cycle of operations involving a noisy choice of the most active item followed by suppression of the chosen item. Word-length and list-length effects are attributed to a decay process that occurs both during input, when effective rehearsal is prevented, and during output. The phonological similarity effect is attributed to a second stage of processing at which phonological confusions occur. The primacy model produces accurate simulations of the effects of word length, list length, and phonological similarity.     

Short-term retention of habituation in the rat: A developmental study from infancy to old age.

Allowed 168 infant, weanling, adult, and elderly Blue Spruce hooded and albino rats to habituate to a simple exploratory situation and then tested them for retention after 1 min, 1 hr, or 24 hrs. Infants habituated more slowly than older Ss as indicated by time to habituate and response frequency measures. No age differences were found after a 1-min retention interval, which suggests that the final levels of original habituation did not differ. However, after longer intervals (1 hr and 24 hrs), infants showed poorer retention of habituation than the older Ss. (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The generality of the effects of cue structure similarity on cue discrimination and recall.

Investigated the effect of cue similarity on associative learning, recall, and cue discrimination in 5 experiments involving a total of 634 undergraduates as Ss. In all experiments, cues consisted of 3 elements shared with other cues. Position and consistency of these elements varied among different conditions. In each experiment, Ss associated some kind of target information with a meaningless string of consonants or meaningful words. The procedures for acquisition included (1) single vs multiple study presentations, (2) a long mixed list containing various structures, (3) incidental learning involving semantic processing of cues and targets, (4) use of sentences containing both cues and targets, and (5) embedding cues and targets in a story. Results show that shared elements produced interference with all procedures and materials. (French abstract) (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A processing resource account of age differences in recall.

Hypothesized that age deficits in recall are due to a reduction in available processing resource. It is also argued that the formation of a distinct encoding, in which unique aspects of the context are integrated with the target item, requires a substantial amount of attentional resource but that the core semantic features of words are encoded relatively automatically. Thus, under conditions of reduced processing resource, a general, stereotyped encoding is predicted. The effectiveness of general, categorical retrieval cues was compared to the effectiveness of contextually specific retrieval cues in 3 experiments with 84 undergraduates and 60 elderly (approximately 66–69 yrs old) Ss. Young adults recalled more than older adults when they were cued with specific retrieval cues, but no age differences were observed when general retrieval cues were used. A similar pattern of results was obtained when the amount of processing resource was experimentally reduced by requiring young adults to perform a concurrent task during encoding. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the unconstrained recall of acquaintances: A sampling-traversal model.

In a study of unconstrained recall, 18 undergraduates named as many acquaintances as possible in 10 min. One month later, Ss sorted these acquaintances into person types and into naturally occurring social groups. Timing results indicate that the Ss generated person memories in discrete bursts: After naming several acquaintances, Ss paused before naming several more. The temporal bursts were usually social groups. The process of unconstrained recall can be simulated by a simple model that samples items and traverses networks in a cognitive domain. After reproducing Ss' memory protocols with a computerized version of this sampling/traversal model, alternative models and the structure of naturally acquired person memories are discussed. It is suggested that pauses between clusters rise over a recall session because of an increase in the number of trials needed to locate a new item when sampling from the domain at large. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A retrieval model for both recognition and recall.

Extended the search of associative memory model for recall proposed by J. G. Raaijmakers and R. M. Shiffrin (see record 1981-20491-001) by assuming that a familiarity process is used for recognition. The recall model posits cue-dependent probabilistic sampling and recovery from an associative network. The present recognition model is closely related to the recall model because the total episodic activation due to the context and item cues is used in recall as a basis for sampling and in recognition to make a decision. The model, formalized in a computer simulation program, correctly predicts a number of findings in the literature as well as the results from an experiment on the word-frequency effect in which 80 undergraduates participated. (3? p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hemophilia. A new approach to an old disease

The history of hemophilia diagnosis and therapy has been a turbulent one. We are coming full circle, back to the use of genetics as the main diagnostic tool for this disease. Therapeutically, the retroviruses that ravaged one generation of hemophiliac patients now may participate in the cure for the next generation. The hemophilia community hopes that the future of hemophilia care will follow a course guided by this modified quote from James Russell Lowell: "New times demand new measures, and men [and women]. As the world advances and in time outgrows the laws that in our fathers' [and mothers'] days were the best, doubtless after us some purer scheme will be shaped out by wiser man [and women] than we, made wiser by the steady growth of truth."     

Allocentric-heading recall and its relation to self-reported sense-of-direction.

A sense of direction (SOD) computes the body's facing direction relative to a reference frame grounded in the environment. The authors report on three experiments in which they used a heading-recall task to tap the functioning of a SOD system and then correlated task performance with self-reported SOD as a convergent test of the task's construct validity. On each heading-recall trial, the participant judged the photographer's allocentric heading when photographing a pictured outdoor scene. Participants were tested over the full range of SOD ratings in Experiment 1, and in Experiments 2 and 3 heading-recall at the SOD extremes was tested. In all experiments, there was wide variability in heading-recall accuracy that covaried with self-rated SOD. Parametric manipulation of various task parameters revealed some likely functional properties of the SOD system. The results support the psychological reality of a SOD system and further indicate that there are large individual differences in the efficacy with which the system functions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intellectual functioning in old and very old age: Cross-sectional results from the Berlin Aging Study.

This study documents age trends, interrelations, and correlates of intellectual abilities in old and very old age (70–103 years) from the Berlin Aging Study (N?=?516). Fourteen tests were used to assess 5 abilities: reasoning, memory, and perceptual speed from the mechanic (broad fluid) domain and knowledge and fluency from the pragmatic (broad crystallized) domain. Intellectual abilities had negative linear age relations, with more pronounced age reductions in mechanic than in pragmatic abilities. Interrelations among intellectual abilities were highly positive and did not follow the mechanic-pragmatic distinction. Sociobiographical indicators were less closely linked to intellectual functioning than sensory-sensorimotor variables, which predicted 59% of the total reliable variance in general intelligence. Results suggest that aging-induced biological factors are a prominent source of individual differences in intelligence in old and very old age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sensory functioning and intelligence in old age: A strong connection.

Relations among age, sensory functioning (i.e., visual and auditory acuity), and intelligence were examined in a heterogeneous, age-stratified sample of old and very old individuals (N?=?156, M age?=?84.9 yrs, age range?=?70–203). Intelligence was assessed with 14 tests measuring 5 cognitive abilities (speed, reasoning, memory, knowledge, and fluency). Together, visual and auditory acuity accounted for 49.2% of the total and 93.1% of the age-related reliable variance in intelligence. The data were consistent with structural models in which age differences in intelligence, including speed, are completely mediated by differences in vision and hearing. Results suggest that sensory functioning is a strong late-life predictor of individual differences in intellectual functioning. Explanations are discussed, including the possibility that visual and sensory acuity are indicators of the physiological integrity of the aging brain (common cause hypothesis). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memorizing while walking: Increase in dual-task costs from young adulthood to old age.

The dual task of memorizing word lists while walking was predicted to become more difficult with age because balance and gait are in greater need of "attentional resources." Forty-seven young (ages 20–30 years), 45 middle-aged (40–50), and 48 old (60–70) adults were trained to criterion in a mnemonic technique and instructed to walk quickly and accurately on 2 narrow tracks of different path complexity. Then, participants encoded the word lists while sitting, standing, or walking on either track; likewise, speed and accuracy of walking performance were assessed with and without concurrent memory encoding. Dual-task costs increased with age in both domains; relative to young adults, the effect size of the overall increase was 0.98 standard deviation units for middle-aged and 1.47 standard deviation units for old adults. It is argued that sensory and motor aspects of behavior are increasingly in need of cognitive control with advancing age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)