In search of the proximal cause of the animacy effect on memory: Attentional resource allocation and semantic representations.

People recall and recognize animate words better than inanimate words, perhaps because memory systems were shaped by evolution to prioritize memory for predators, people, and food sources. Attentional paradigms show an animacy advantage that suggests that the animacy advantage in memory stems from a prioritization of animate items when allocating attentional resources during encoding. According to the attentional prioritization hypothesis, the animacy effect should be even larger when attention is divided during encoding. Alternatively, the animacy effect could be due to more controlled processing during encoding, and so should be reduced when attention is divided during encoding. We tested the attentional prioritization hypothesis and the controlled processing hypothesis by manipulating attention during encoding in free recall (Experiment 1) and recognition (Experiment 2) but failed to find interactions between word type and attentional load in either free recall or recognition, contrary to the predictions from both hypotheses. We then tested whether the semantic representations of animate and inanimate items differ in terms of number of semantic features, using existing recall data from an item-level megastudy by Lau, Goh, and Yap (Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71 (10), 2207-2222, 2018). Animate items have more semantic features, which partially mediated the relationship between animacy status and recall.

Cognitive control constrains memory attributions.

Cognitive control constrains retrieval processing and so restricts what comes to mind as input to the attribution system. We review evidence that older adults, patients with Alzheimer's disease, and people with traumatic brain injury exert less cognitive control during retrieval, and so are susceptible to memory misattributions in the form of dramatic levels of false remembering.

Correcting fake news headlines after repeated exposure: memory and belief accuracy in younger and older adults.

The efficacy of fake news corrections in improving memory and belief accuracy may depend on how often adults see false information before it is corrected. Two experiments tested the competing predictions that repeating fake news before corrections will either impair or improve memory and belief accuracy. These experiments also examined whether fake news exposure effects would differ for younger and older adults due to age-related differences in the recollection of contextual details. Younger and older adults read real and fake news headlines that appeared once or thrice. Next, they identified fake news corrections among real news headlines. Later, recognition and cued recall tests assessed memory for real news, fake news, if corrections occurred, and beliefs in retrieved details. Repeating fake news increased detection and remembering of corrections, correct real news retrieval, and erroneous fake news retrieval. No age differences emerged for detection of corrections, but younger adults remembered corrections better than older adults. At test, correct fake news retrieval for earlier-detected corrections was associated with better real news retrieval. This benefit did not differ between age groups in recognition but was greater for younger than older adults in cued recall. When detected corrections were not remembered at test, repeated fake news increased memory errors. Overall, both age groups believed correctly retrieved real news more than erroneously retrieved fake news to a similar degree. These findings suggest that fake news repetition effects on subsequent memory accuracy depended on age differences in recollection-based retrieval of fake news and that it was corrected.

Experiences of Alaskan parents with children hospitalized for respiratory syncytial virus treatment.

The purpose of this study was to describe the experiences of Alaskan parents with children hospitalized for the treatment of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Six parents participated in a qualitative descriptive study composed of individual interviews. Using content analysis, three major themes emerged: "RSV is scary," "Lots of stress; little rest" and "At what point does it become a Bingo? He's going to the hospital." Findings provided further insight into the educational needs of the participants. Advanced practice registered nurses can translate insights provided by the participants into crucial knowledge needed for the care of families at heightened risk and currently experiencing RSV.

Nursing home recruitment: trials, tribulations, and successes.

Many challenges are inherent when conducting research in the older adult population as well as in the nursing home environment. The safety and quality of care provided in nursing homes need further examination through research. The purpose of this paper is to discuss research issues and recruitment barriers experienced by a research team collecting data for a study assessing the education and learning needs of nursing home nurses in central Illinois and related resident outcomes. Research barriers identified in this study include organizational and administrative barriers in addition to staff barriers. The strategy that was most helpful in gaining access to nursing homes in central Illinois was face to face contact. Future nursing home researchers are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the nursing home environment, communicate with nursing home trade associations, and develop personal contacts with area nursing home administrators.

Variations in constrained retrieval.

Mentally reinstating encoding operations at retrieval might improve access to memories; however, such constrained retrieval is an effortful process that may not always be used. The memory-for-foils procedure (Jacoby, Shimizu, Daniels, & Rhodes, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 12, 852-857, 2005) infers participant-initiated mental reinstatement of encoding operations during attempts at recognition from the differential memory that accrues to foils during a test of deeply processed items versus during a test of shallowly processed items, as indicated by performance on a final recognition memory test for the foils. Experiment 1 tested whether differential memory for foils is due to the evocation of task context during recollection of neighboring old items. Experiment 2 tested whether inducing a set to respond without much effort on a prior recognition test affects the likelihood of constrained retrieval on later tests. Experiment 3 tested whether constrained retrieval is less likely to occur when the deep versus shallow source of test items is intermixed, rather than blocked in separate tests. These experiments provide evidence that people query memory by mentally reinstating encoding operations and identify conditions that affect the probability of constrained retrieval.

Remembering to forget: the amnesic effect of daydreaming.

Daydreaming mentally transports people to another place or time. Many daydreams are similar in content to the thoughts that people generate when they intentionally try to forget. Thus, thoughts like those generated during daydreaming can cause forgetting of previously encoded events. We conducted two experiments to test the hypothesis that daydreams that are more different from the current moment (e.g., in distance, time, or circumstance) will result in more forgetting than daydreams that are less different from the current moment, because they result in a greater contextual shift. Daydreaming was simulated in the laboratory via instructions to engage in a diversionary thought. Participants learned a list of words, were asked to think about autobiographical memories, and then learned a second list of words. They tended to forget more words from the first list when they thought about their parents' home than when they thought about their current home (Experiment 1). They also tended to forget more when they thought about an international vacation than when they thought about a domestic vacation (Experiment 2). These results support a context-change account of the amnesic effects of daydreaming.

The importance of time to think back: The role of reminding in retroactive effects of memory.

Change has been described as detrimental for later memory for the original event in research on retroactive interference. Popular accounts of retroactive interference treat learning as the formation of simple associations and explain interference as due to response competition, perhaps along with unlearning or inhibition of the original response. By such accounts, providing additional study time for a changed response in a classic A-B, A-D learning paradigm should increase retroactive interference. In contrast, our experiments show that changing a response produces retroactive facilitation rather than retroactive interference but that outcome requires that the change be detected in the form of a reminding. When reminding does not occur, retroactive interference is observed. Increasing time to study the changed response increases the likelihood of being reminded. Accounts in terms of simple associations cannot explain the importance of reminding. We do so by assuming that being reminded results in a recursive representation that includes both the original and changed response along with the order in which they occurred. We discuss the importance of our results for application as well as for theory. (PsycINFO Database Record

Sources of individual differences in working memory: contributions of strategy to capacity.

Some research on attentional control in working memory has emphasized theoretical capacity differences. However, strategic behavior, which has been relatively unexplored, can also influence attentional control and its relationship to cognitive performance. In two experiments, we examined the relationship between attentional control (measured with operation span) and interference in a part-list cuing paradigm. Paradoxically, the results indicated that superior attentional control was related to increased interference. This relationship reflected the participants' use of more complex encoding strategies, rather than superior interference control at retrieval, and was eliminated following brief encoding strategy training. The results suggest that complex span measures sometimes predict individual differences in task strategies related to interference control and that these strategies may be amenable to training. The implications for working memory research and the roles of strategies in basic memory and attention paradigms are briefly discussed.

Caregiver burden and perceived health competence when caring for family members diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and related dementia.

PURPOSE: To identify if there is a relationship between perceived health competence and burden of care of informal caregivers of family members with Alzheimer's disease and related dementia (ADRD). DATA SOURCES: Informal caregivers 18 years and older who received services from the Alzheimer's Resource of Alaska were invited to complete a survey. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate that there was a negative correlation between perceived health competence and burden of care (N = 64, r = -.54, p < .001). Additionally, there was a negative correlation within the three subscales of the Modified Montgomery-Borgatta Caregiver Burden Scale: objective burden (r = -.65, p = < .001), stress burden (r = -.41, p = .001), and relationship burden (r = -.29, p = .021, p = .001). IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Based on the findings of an association between increased caregiver burden and the perception of decreased health competence, nurse practitioners (NPs) can play an important role in assessing caregiver burden. The results of this study enlighten NPs about informal caregiver burden and will help guide discussions and assessments during routine healthcare visits with the goal of achieving optimal health for informal caregivers.

When asking the question changes the ultimate answer: Metamemory judgments change memory.

Self-report measurements are ubiquitous in psychology, but they carry the potential of altering processes they are meant to measure. We assessed whether a common metamemory measure, judgments of learning, can change the ongoing process of memorizing and subsequent memory performance. Judgments of learning are a form of metamemory monitoring described as conscious reflection on one's own memory performance or encoding activities for the purpose of exerting strategic control over one's study and retrieval activities (T. O. Nelson & Narens, 1990). Much of the work examining the conscious monitoring of encoding relies heavily on a paradigm in which participants are asked to estimate the probability that they will recall a given item in a judgment of learning. In 5 experiments, we find effects of measuring judgments of learning on how people allocate their study time to difficult versus easy items, and on what they will recall. These results suggest that judgments of learning are partially constructed in response to the measurement question. The tendency of judgments of learning to alter performance places them in the company of other reactive verbal reporting methods, counseling researchers to consider incorporating control groups, creating alternative scales, and exploring other verbal reporting methods. Less directive methods of accessing participants' metacognition and other judgments should be considered as an alternative to response scales.

Nutritional adequacy in patients receiving mechanical ventilation who are fed enterally.

BACKGROUND: Inadequate nutritional intake in critically ill patients can lead to complications resulting in increased mortality and healthcare costs. Several factors limit adequate nutritional intake in intensive care unit patients given enteral feedings. OBJECTIVE: To examine the adequacy of enteral nutritional intake and the factors that affect its delivery in patients receiving mechanical ventilation. METHODS: A prospective, descriptive design was used to study 60 patients receiving enteral feedings at target or goal rate. Energy requirements were determined for the entire sample by using the Harris-Benedict equation; energy requirements for a subset of 25 patients were also determined by using indirect calorimetry. Energy received via enteral feeding and reason and duration of interruptions in feedings were recorded for 3 consecutive days. RESULTS: Mean estimated energy requirements (8996 kJ, SD 1326 kJ) and mean energy intake received (5899 kJ, SD 3058 kJ) differed significantly (95% CI 3297-3787; P < .001). A total of 41 patients (68.3%) received less than 90% of their required energy intake, 18 (30.0%) received within +/-10%, and 1 (1.7%) received more than 110%. Episodes of diarrhea, emesis, large residual volumes, feeding tube replacements, and interruptions for procedures accounted for 70% of the variance in energy received (P<.001). Procedural interruptions alone accounted for 45% of the total variance. Estimated energy requirements determined via indirect calorimetry and mean energy received did not differ. CONCLUSIONS: Most critically ill patients receiving mechanical ventilation who are fed enterally do not receive their energy requirements, primarily because of frequent interruptions in enteral feedings.

Memory consequences of looking back to notice change: Retroactive and proactive facilitation.

Three experiments contrasted recollection of change with differentiation as means of avoiding retroactive interference and proactive interference. We manipulated the extent to which participants looked back to notice change between pairs of cues and targets (A-B, A-D) and measured the effects on later cued recall of either the first or second response. Two lists of word pairs were presented. Some right-hand members of pairs were changed within List 2, whereas others were changed between lists. Participants in a Within-List Back condition were instructed to detect changes that occurred only during List 2, in an effort to reduce noticing changes in pairs between lists while simultaneously differentiating the 2 lists. In contrast, participants in an N-Back condition were instructed to detect both within-list and between-list changes. Recall of first list responses that changed between lists produced retroactive facilitation for the N-Back condition but not for the Within-List Back condition. Similarly, recall of second list responses that changed between lists produced proactive facilitation for the N-Back condition but not for the Within-List Back condition. The greater extent of looking back increased detection of change and later recollection of change, which produced facilitation. When change was not recollected, detected change produced proactive interference. The recursive reminding produced when change is noticed contrasts with the simple associations of classic interference theory, and memory performance when change is recollected contrasts with the predictions of interference theory.

A contextual change account of the directed forgetting effect.

The authors propose that the costs and benefits of directed forgetting in the list method result from an internal context change that occurs between the presentations of 2 lists in response to a "forget" instruction. In Experiment 1 of this study, costs and benefits akin to those found in directed forgetting were obtained in the absence of a forget instruction by a direct manipulation of cognitive context change. Experiment 2 of this study replicated those findings using a different cognitive context manipulation and investigated the effects of context reinstatement at the time of recall. Context reinstatement reduced the memorial costs and benefits of context change in the condition where context had been manipulated and in the standard forget condition. The results are consistent with a context change account of directed forgetting.

Self-evaluation as a moderating factor of strategy change in directed forgetting benefits.

In list method directed forgetting, instructing people to forget a studied word list usually results in better recall for a newly studied list. Sahakyan and Delaney (2003) have suggested that these benefits are due to a change in encoding strategy that occurs between the study of the first list and the study of the second list. To investigate what might mediate such strategy change decisions, in two experiments we induced both forget and remember participants to evaluate their memory performance on the two lists. In Experiment 1, they were asked to explicitly recall the items from the first list before studying the second list. In Experiment 2, after the study of the first list, the participants provided a rapid aggregate judgment of learning. Evaluation eliminated the differences between the forget and remember groups for the second list in both experiments, because the remember group achieved recall levels comparable to those for the forget group. The role of performance evaluation in mediating directed forgetting benefits is discussed.

Embodiment meets metamemory: weight as a cue for metacognitive judgments.

Weight is conceptualized as an embodiment of importance, according to recent research on embodied cognition (Ackerman, Nocera, & Bargh, 2010; Jostmann, Lakens, & Schubert, 2009). Is importance as embodied by weight used as a cue that items are memorable? Four experiments varied participants' perceptual experiences of weight as they studied words and predicted later memory performance via judgments of learning (JOLs) for a recall (Experiment 1) or recognition (Experiments 2-4) memory test. Greater weight was associated with higher JOLs, although weight did not affect actual memory performance. The relationship between weight and JOLs disappeared when participants were primed to think of cases where lightweight is a positive attribute and heavyweight is a negative attribute (Experiment 4). Even cognition about our own cognition is embodied.

Solve the problem first: constructive solution strategies can influence the accuracy of retrospective confidence judgments.

Two experiments tested whether differences in problem-solving strategies influence the ability of people to monitor their problem-solving effectiveness as measured by confidence judgments. On multiple choice problems, people tend to use either a constructive matching strategy, whereby they attempt to solve a problem before looking at the response options, or a response elimination strategy, whereby they work backward from response options trying to find one that fits as a solution. Constructive matching gives rise to different cues that may enhance confidence monitoring. Experiment 1 showed that spontaneous constructive matching in nonverbal spatial reasoning problems was associated with better confidence calibration and resolution than response elimination. We manipulated strategy in Experiment 2 by requiring constructive matching and found improved monitoring. Implications for research on monitoring, overconfidence, and the association between skill and monitoring are discussed.

In vitro study of the effects of precore and lamivudine-resistant mutations on hepatitis B virus replication.

Understanding the consequences of mutation in the hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome on HBV replication is critical for treating chronic HBV infection. In this study, HBV replication in HepG2 cells initiated by transduction with precore (PC), rtM204I, and wild-type (wt) HBV recombinant baculoviruses was compared. The pattern and magnitude of HBV replication initiated by the PC HBV recombinant baculovirus were similar to those observed for wt HBV throughout the time course examined. In contrast, when the rtM204I mutation was introduced into wt HBV, by day 10 postinfection the levels of intra- and extracellular HBV DNA were markedly reduced compared to those for wt HBV. Although the rtM204I mutation reduced the production of HBV replicative intermediates, no effect on the level of covalently closed circular DNA or HBV transcripts was observed at late time points. Coinfection studies with different ratios of wt and rtM204I baculoviruses showed that the rtM204I variant did not produce a product that inhibited HBV replication. However, the combination of the wt and rtM204I baculoviruses yielded HBV DNA levels at late time points that were greater than those for the wt alone, suggesting that wt polymerase may function in trans to boost rtM204I replication. We concluded that the rtM204I mutation generates a polymerase that is not only resistant to lamivudine but also replicates nucleic acids to lower levels in vitro.

Comparison of anti-hepatitis B virus activities of lamivudine and clevudine by a quantitative assay.

In this study, we used a quantitative assay to measure the concentration-dependent effects of antivirals on extracellular hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA as well as on different cytoplasmic and nuclear forms of HBV DNA that participate in HBV replication. HBV recombinant baculovirus, which efficiently delivers the HBV genome to HepG2 cells, was used for this study because (i) antivirals can be administered prior to initiation of HBV infection or after HBV infection and (ii) sufficiently high HBV replication levels are achieved that HBV covalently closed circular (CCC) DNA can be easily detected and individual HBV DNA species can be quantitatively analyzed separately from total HBV DNA. The results showed that the levels of HBV replicative intermediate and extracellular DNA decreased in a concentration-dependent fashion following antiviral treatment. The 50% effective concentration (EC(50)) and EC(90) values and the Hill slopes differed for the different HBV DNA species analyzed. The data clearly indicated that (i) nuclear HBV DNAs are more resistant to antiviral therapy than cytoplasmic or extracellular HBV DNAs and (ii) nuclear HBV CCC DNA is more resistant than the nuclear relaxed circular form. This report presents the first in vitro comparison of the effects of two antivirals administered prior to initiation of HBV infection and the first thorough in vitro quantitative study of concentration-dependent antiviral effects on HBV CCC DNA.

Rebound of hepatitis B virus replication in HepG2 cells after cessation of antiviral treatment.

Treatment of patients with lamivudine (3TC) results in loss of detectable levels of hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA from serum; however, the relapse rate, with regard to both reappearance of virus in the bloodstream and hepatic inflammation, is high when therapy is terminated. Although the rebound observed in patients has also been seen in animal hepadnavirus models, rebound has not been analyzed in an in vitro cell culture system. In this study, we used the HBV recombinant baculovirus/HepG2 system to measure the time course of antiviral agent-mediated loss of HBV replication as well as the time course and magnitude of HBV production after release from antiviral treatment. Because of the sensitivity of the system, it was possible to measure secreted virions, intracellular replicative intermediates, and nuclear non-protein-bound HBV DNA and separately analyze individual species of DNA, such as single-stranded HBV DNA compared to the double-stranded form and relaxed circular compared to covalently closed circular HBV DNA. We first determined that HBV replication in the HBV recombinant baculovirus/HepG2 system could proceed for at least 35 days, with a 30-day plateau level of replication, making it possible to study antiviral agent-mediated loss of HBV followed by rebound after cessation of drug treatment. All HBV DNA species decreased in a time-dependent fashion following antiviral treatment, but the magnitude of decline differed for each HBV DNA species, with the covalently closed circular form of HBV DNA being the most resistant to drug therapy. When drug treatment ceased, HBV DNA species reappeared with a pattern that recapitulated the initiation of replication, but with a different time course.