The Book of Vinesprouts of Koszeg (Hungary): a documentary source for reconstructing spring temperatures back to the eighteenth century.

Following an age-old tradition, since 1740, in the town of Koszeg in western Hungary, samples of grapevine shoots are annually harvested on St. George's Day, 24 April, and then are pictorially reproduced in the so-called Book of Vinesprouts. Given the strong relationships between temperature and grapevine phenology, the book represents a potential source for reconstructing past spring temperatures. However, this document has been little utilized so far, due to high varietal heterogeneity and lingering uncertainty regarding cultivar identity. This research developed an approach to address these difficulties, by means of a single-cultivar-based modeling analysis, associated with a set of alternative hypotheses about cultivar early development for the period to be reconstructed. Each hypothesis allowed the calculation of a different past temperature reconstruction, which was evaluated against contemporary independent observational data. The results showed that all the development stages recorded before 1900 were compatible with a vine type with a very low heat requirement for bud burst. Estimates were derived from a model calibrated on a subset of drawings of unknown cultivars executed between 1875 and 1898. The model based on this data subset was the only one giving a consistent reconstruction of spring temperatures, expressed as accumulated growing degree days going back to 1740. Although some uncertainty still exists regarding the reconstruction, the research shows that the Book of Vinesprouts contains generally consistent information about spring temperatures for a period of over 269 years for this region of Hungary.

Partitioning the grapevine growing season in the Douro Valley of Portugal: accumulated heat better than calendar dates.

Temperature and water status profiles during the growing season are the most important factors influencing the ripening of wine grapes. To model weather influences on the quality and productivity of the vintages, it is necessary to partition the growing season into smaller growth intervals in which weather variables are evaluated. A significant part of past and ongoing research on the relationships between weather and wine quality uses calendar-defined intervals to partition the growing season. The phenology of grapevines is not determined by calendar dates but by several factors such as accumulated heat. To examine the accuracy of different approaches, this work analyzed the difference in average temperature and accumulated precipitation using growth intervals with boundaries defined by means of estimated historical phenological dates and intervals defined by means of accumulated heat or average calendar dates of the Douro Valley of Portugal. The results show that in situations where there is an absence of historical phenological dates and/or no available data that makes the estimation of those dates possible, it is more accurate to use grapevine heat requirements than calendar dates to define growth interval boundaries. Additionally, we analyzed the ability of the length of growth intervals with boundaries based on grapevine heat requirements to differentiate the best from the worst vintage years with the results showing that vintage quality is strongly related to the phenological events. Finally, we analyzed the variability of growth interval lengths in the Douro Valley during 1980-2009 with the results showing a tendency for earlier grapevine physiology.

Individualism and the field viewpoint: cultural influences on memory perspective.

Two perspectives from which memories can be retrieved have been distinguished: field resembles the view from the first-person vantage point of original experience, whereas observer resembles the view from the third-person vantage point of a spectator. There is evidence that the incidences of the two types of perspective differ between at least two different cultural groups. It is hypothesised here that this is a special case of a more general relation between memory perspective and cultural individualism, such that field and observer perspectives are more prevalent among people from, respectively, relatively individualist and relatively collectivist societies. Memory perspectives adopted by participants from a range of different countries were recorded, and were found to vary in the predicted manner. Regression analysis showed that the potential effects of three other cultural variables - uncertainty avoidance, masculinity and, to a lesser extent, power distance - were eclipsed by the influence of individualism, and the implications are discussed.

Sex and location as determinants of handedness: reply to Vuoksimaa and Kaprio (2010).

In response to the comment by Vuoksimaa and Kaprio (2010) on our previous article on sex differences in left-handedness (Papadatou-Pastou, Martin, Munafò, and Jones, 2008), we carried out an additional meta-analysis to explore whether the widely observed tendency for rates of left-handedness to be greater among male than female individuals is also found in Scandinavian (Nordic) studies. The overall male-to-female ratio for left- to right-handedness odds provides evidence in favor of this hypothesis. However, the results were subject to a significant moderating effect related to nation of origin. We discuss the potential impact on observed measures of additive rather than multiplicative processes that may underlie sex differences in handedness and also the date-of-study effect on handedness rates.

Language dominance, handedness and sex: recessive X-linkage theory and test.

The possibility is investigated that cerebral dominance for language and handedness share a common X-linkage and that the relation between the two is therefore a function of sex. In particular, an X-linked recessive account is shown to predict an overall configuration of language dominance, handedness and sex within which there is a sex effect in the pattern of language dominance among right-handed but not left-handed people. The recent accurate determination of cerebral dominance among relatively large samples of the general population by means of functional transcranial Doppler ultrasonography makes it possible to test this new theory rigorously, and its parameter-free pattern of predictions is found to be supported.

Living with dementia: a systematic review of the influence of relationship factors.

INTRODUCTION: Many people with dementia are enabled to live at home by the support of a close family member, who takes on the role of a carer. Considerable research has investigated the impact of caring for a person who has dementia. In early research, there was a tendency to overlook the experiences of the person with dementia and, in particular, the relationship between the two persons. This has now been corrected by a growing body of research on the relationships between people with dementia and the family members who care for them. METHOD: Peer-reviewed publications on the influence of relationship factors in dementia caregiving were reviewed. RESULTS: The impact of dementia on the quality of relationships is examined, together with the impact of relationship quality on the experience of living with dementia. The different forms that relationships can take in the context of dementia are considered, and an integrative theoretical framework is proposed. DISCUSSION: A neglect of direct evidence from the person with dementia is identified, and possible ways of combating this are considered. Clinical implications are drawn with regard to supporting the carer, the person with dementia, and their relationship.

Affect and alexithymia determine choice among valued objects.

Why do people choose to surround themselves with possessions? An explanation has been offered by D. A. Norman (2004) in terms of the stimulation of 3 levels of psychological processing that map onto an object's appearance, its usability, and its ability to evoke reflective processing, including emotion. Two experiments were carried out to investigate participants' choices among valued objects, and found that affective factors (including links to current and past, euphoric and dysphoric emotion) played a dominant role in predictive modeling. The role was, however, significantly modulated by alexithymia. The extent to which object choice could be predicted was lower for those with higher levels of alexithymia than for those with lower levels. Nevertheless, a prominent linkage to current dysphoria was observed to emerge for higher levels of alexithymia, whose implications are considered.

Spatial recall improved by retrieval enactment.

Evidence from studies of intentional learning suggests that the accuracy of recall is not assisted by appropriate enactment at retrieval, as opposed to encoding. In the present study, long-term recall of spatial arrays following incidental learning (text messaging or calculator use) was tested under three different motor conditions at retrieval. For both letter and number arrays, the accuracy of recall was found to be improved by relevant enactment at the time of retrieval, relative to retrieval with no movement. In contrast, irrelevant movement was found to produce an impairment in accuracy. The overall accuracy of recalling a letter array was found to be a power-law function of the frequency of exposure to the array. The findings are discussed in terms of the hypothesis that appropriate movement during memory retrieval recruits egocentric representations that supplement allocentric representations subserving longer term spatial recall.

Encouraging the perceptual underdog: positive affective priming of nonpreferred local-global processes.

Two experiments examined affective priming of global and local perception. Participants attempted to detect a target that might be present as either a global or a local shape. Verbal primes were used in 1 experiment, and pictorial primes were used in the other. In both experiments, positive primes led to improved performance on the nonpreferred dimension. For participants exhibiting global precedence, detection of local targets was significantly improved, whereas for participants exhibiting local precedence, detection of global targets was significantly improved. The results provide support for an interpretation of the effects of positive affective priming in terms of increased perceptual flexibility.

Category-specific enhancement of retrieval due to field perspective.

Two memory perspectives have been distinguished: a field perspective where events are re-experienced in the first person, and an observer perspective where events are witnessed in the third person. Two experiments examined the influence of memory perspective on objective memory performance. In both experiments participants were presented with a series of verbal passages, each of which contained several different categories of information. For four of these categories (pertaining to affective reactions, physical sensations, psychological states, and associated ideas), recall was significantly higher when a field perspective was adopted than when an observer perspective was adopted, but for the five other categories (pertaining to physical actions, personal appearance, fine details, spatial relations, and peripheral details) there was no significant effect of perspective upon recall. The study is examined in the context of mental models and imagined episodic events.

Sex differences in left-handedness: a meta-analysis of 144 studies.

Human handedness, a marker for language lateralization in the brain, continues to attract great research interest. A widely reported but not universal finding is a greater male tendency toward left-handedness. Here the authors present a meta-analysis of k = 144 studies, totaling N = 1,787,629 participants, the results of which demonstrate that the sex difference is both significant and robust. The overall best estimate for the male to female odds ratio was 1.23 (95% confidence interval = 1.19, 1.27). The widespread observation of this sex difference is consistent with it being related to innate characteristics of sexual differentiation, and its observed magnitude places an important constraint on current theories of handedness. In addition, the size of the sex difference was significantly moderated by the way in which handedness was assessed (by writing hand or by other means), the location of testing, and the year of publication of the study, implicating additional influences on its development.

Seasonal anisotropy in handedness.

The preference for using either the left or the right hand has been linked to important human characteristics such as language lateralisation within the cerebral hemispheres, and evidence has been reported that the proportions of different types of handedness may be influenced by factors such as levels of maternal hormones and anxiety. Under such influences, it is possible in principle that distributions of handedness provide evidence of seasonal anisotropy, that is, variation in the direction of handedness for births in different parts of the year. The results of a number of studies are compared here, and shown to provide evidence of a significant tendency for the incidence of left-handed people to be higher among those born in the spring and ensuing months (March-July in the northern hemisphere) than among those born in the remainder of the year, at least among the male population.

Asymptotic learning of alphanumeric coding in autobiographical memory.

Studies of autobiographical memory have shown that observed levels of incidental learning are often relatively low. Do low levels of retention result simply from a low learning rate, or is learning also asymptotic? To address this question, it is necessary to trace performance over a large number of learning opportunities, and this was carried out in the context of the recent development of widespread texting behaviour. It was found that memory for the alphanumeric layout of a phone improved as a function of sending approximately the first 500 texts, but then the improvement stopped. The incidence of memory error was incompatible with a simple power-law relation but was modelled closely by an asymptotic relation. It is suggested that this pattern reflects a movement towards automaticity in the primary task which progressively closes down the possibility that incidental learning can occur.

Visual sharpness contingency in recognition memory for orientation: mnemonic illusion suppressed by sensory signature.

A striking finding about human memory is that people's level of accuracy in remembering the orientation of heads on coins is often not simply at the chance level but significantly below it. However, S. W. Kelly, A. M. Burton, T. Kato, and S. Akamatsu (2001) reported that this is not so when two-alternative forced-choice visual recognition is employed. The Kelly et al. result could not be replicated here with a copy of their stimuli. However, the result was successfully replicated with newly created stimuli. A series of experiments provided converging evidence that the mnemonic illusion is suppressed when recognition alternatives possess sharp visual detail. The role of a sensory signature in suppressing the mnemonic illusion and in modulating visual recognition performance in general is delineated.

Is posttraumatic stress disorder associated with specific deficits in episodic memory?

People with PTSD often report difficulties remembering day to day information unrelated to their traumatic episode. In addition, structural and functional imaging techniques have identified abnormalities in the brains of people with PTSD in regions known to be important for memory functioning. Nevertheless, studies investigating cognitive functioning in people with PTSD have reported widely varying results. The aim of this review is to investigate studies reporting performance on tests of episodic memory. Specifically, papers were examined in relation to the hypothesised memory functions of the frontal lobes, the hippocampus and the amygdala. It is concluded that while there is reasonable evidence of frontal lobe involvement, memory deficits caused by hippocampal involvement have been more difficult to detect. There are no published studies looking at the involvement of the amygdala although preliminary evidence suggests that people with PTSD do have memory deficits resulting from dysfunction of this structure. Reasons for the inconclusiveness of the results are discussed.

Primacy of memory linkage in choice among valued objects.

Three psychological levels at which an object may be processed have been characterized by Norman (2004) in terms of the object's appearance, its usability, and its capacity to elicit memories. A series of experiments was carried out to investigate participants' choices among valued objects recalled in accordance with these three criteria. It was found consistently that objects selected for their capacity to elicit memories--here termed mnemoactive objects--were valued significantly more than the other objects. Even the financial or social importance of an object was outweighed by the importance of its memory link; possible implications for the economic analysis of subjective well-being are briefly discussed. The same pattern of mnemoactive dominance was found across age and gender. Appropriate choice of objects may allow an individual to exert a degree of indirect voluntary control over the activation of involuntary autobiographical memories, providing a new perspective on Proust's approach to memory.

Predicates as cantilevers for the bridge between perception and knowledge.

The predicate-argument approach, focused on perception, is compared with the ease-of-predication (or predicability) approach, focused on encyclopedic knowledge. The latter offers functional prediction and implementation in connectionist models. However, the two approaches characterise predicates in different ways. They thus resemble predicational cantilevers built out from opposite sides of cognition, with a gap that is yet to be bridged.

Predicability (ease of predication) as semantic substrate of imageability in reading and retrieval.

It was proposed by Jones (1985) that the apparent influence of a word's imageability upon the probability of the word being read correctly by a deep dyslexic person could be understood in terms of an underlying semantic variable, ease of predication (also termed predicability). In a recent critique, de Mornay Davies and Funnell (2000) claim to have identified a number of problems with the ease of predication proposal. It is shown here, however, that it is the critique itself which is fundamentally flawed. In contrast, the predicability approach continues to identify correctly the semantic substrate of apparent effects of imageability upon reading and memory retrieval.

Conjunction in the Language of Emotions.

Oatley and Johnson-Laird (1987) have proposed a cognitive theory of emotion. According to this theory, there are five basic emotions. A major prediction of the theory is that it should permit satisfactory definitions for all the emotion words in a language, and this was essayed for the English language by Johnson-Laird and Oatley (1989). The theory proposes that only one emotional state can be operative at a time, and therefore words referring to mixed emotions were defined by Johnson-Laird and Oatley as disjunctions of basic emotions. Two experiments are reported which com pared these disjunctive definitions with conjunctive definitions (i.e. definitions inconsistent with the theory). For a number of words, conjunctive definitions tended to be preferred. This tendency was increased when the disjunctions and conjunctions were made more explicit. This finding sug gests that Oatley and Johnson-Laird's theory should be modified so as to embrace the conjunction of emotion. That is, it should allow that two or more emotions can be exnerienced in parallel.