Memory (Cognitive Psychology)

In this essay, I attempt to outline a feminist philosophical approach to the debate concerning (allegedly) false memories of childhood sexual abuse. Bringing the voices of feminist philosophers to bear on this issue highlights the implicit and sometimes questionable epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical-political commitments of some therapists and scientists involved in these debates. It also illuminates some current debates in and about feminist philosophy.

This essay was published in The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology, edited by Christopher A. Beeley and Mark E. Weedman, for the CUAP Studies in Early Christianity (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2018); this is the uncorrected proofs. Exploring the humanity and divinity of Jesus, the Son's relation to the Father, and the agency of the Holy Spirit, it is one of five essays suggesting Johannine contributions to trinitarian discussions in the early church.

Despite the popularity that the embodied cognition thesis has gained in recent years, explicit memories of events personally experienced are still conceived as disembodied mental representations. It seems that we can consciously remember our personal past through sensory imagery, through concepts, propositions and language, but not through the body. In this article, I defend the idea that the body constitutes a genuine means of representing past personal experiences. For this purpose, I focus on the analysis of bodily movements associated with the retrieval of a personal memory, which have certain features that make them different from procedural memories, pragmatic actions and common gestures, as well as other forms of embodied memories found in recent literature. I refer to these as “kinetic memories” and analyse their representative nature as well as their adaptive functions. Kinetic memories are bodily movements in which some event or action that took place in the past can be seen, because they are an externalisation of the subject’s inner intention of representing a past personal experience. Kinetic memories represent a past experience sometimes by imitation of a past movement, and other times through embodied symbols and metaphors. Furthermore, although sometimes they present direct pragmatic benefits, such as communicative benefits, they seem to enhance the whole reexperience of the past event and memory recall, which I argue is one important adaptive value.

Przysługujący widmom wywrotowy, niemalże rewolucyjny potencjał został odsunięty oraz zagubiony poprzez pozbycie się tej kontrowersyjnej kategorii z terytorium metafizyki i zbyt pośpieszne odesłanie jej do przestrzeni badań nad literaturą, sprowadzając ją jedynie do roli użytecznego, bezpiecznego narzędzia interpretacji.

Książka Andrzeja Marca odzyskuje niepokojący charakter widmontologii i ponownie wprowadza widma do myśli metafizycznej. Czym nawiedzona i przeniknięta jest tradycyjna metafizyka, co właściwie ją dręczy, nie daje spokoju oraz nieustannie podmywa jej stabilność?

Kategoria widma Derridy posłużyła Marcowi przede wszystkim do rozważań nad charakterem współczesności i przeobrażeń, jakie dokonały się w obrębie myśli ponowoczesnej. Współczesna kultura, zdaniem Marca, stała się miejscem powstawania widm, nieustannie powracających z przeszłości. Uznając, że nie jesteśmy już w stanie tworzyć utopijnych wizji przyszłości, autor stara się zdać sprawę z widmowego charakteru współczesnej kultury, analizując m. in. strategie vintage, retro, nurt no future w kulturze lat 70. czy nurt fantastyki naukowej w literaturze.

Suspendus aux lèvres d’un conteur, incapables d’interrompre la lecture d’un roman, captivés par un film haletant, nous faisons tous l’expérience quotidienne de ce plaisir apparemment paradoxal que nous tirons de notre insatisfaction provisoire face à un récit inachevé. Bien qu’une mode esthétique et théorique ait tenté de nous convaincre que ce plaisir était honteux, on peut néanmoins avoir l’intuition que le cœur vivant de la narrativité réside précisément dans ce nœud coulant, toujours plus serré à mesure que nous progressons dans l’histoire, qui nous attache à l’intrigue et creuse la temporalité par l’attente impatiente d’un dénouement. Si le récit a quelque chose à voir avec la manière dont nous éprouvons le temps, cette expérience n’apparaît jamais avec autant d’éclat que dans le suspense, la curiosité ou la surprise qui font la force des intrigues fictionnelles. La compréhension des fonctions narratives engage donc non seulement l’analyse littéraire, linguistique et sémiotique, mais aussi l’analyse cognitive et la psychologie des émotions.

This paper attempts to describe two approaches to psychotherapy; Existential-Phenomenological Psychotherapy (EPP) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in the context of the governance role of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and its demand for evidence based practice, exploring how the two modalities interact with each other, where they are opposed, and where they come together.

We tend to think, that what happened in the past stays in the past. We can't change it; it's gone, done with and sometimes it is just best to forget. However, real, lived experience suggests otherwise. People's experiences in life, particularly the early experiences, have a strong influence on the people they become. It seems that there is nothing as powerful as a memory created by a child's experience. They impact the adult's life in a profound way. Conversations regarding childhood memories are most often brought up as stories to connect to others. It is like saying "I was always this way". The listener will understand a childhood story. We all have them; we can relate to them, we know the importance they have for us.

The present study aimed to provide evidence outlining whether the type of stimuli used in teaching would provoke differing levels of recall across three different academic age groups. One hundred and twenty-one participants, aged 11–25 years, were given a language based memory task in the form of a wordlist consisting of 15 concrete and 15 abstract words,
presented either visually, acoustically, or a combination of both audio and visual presentation. The study found that the presence of cognitive overload was greater in the older academic age participants than in the younger groups and that as academic experience increased, the visual presentation of the target stimuli produced greater levels of recall than was the case with acoustic and audio-visual presentation. Overall the findings indicate that cognitive overload increases with age, as the younger-age groups were found to have significantly higher levels of word recall in the audio-visual condition than the older groups.

full paper attached.

This paper unites current philosophical thinking on imagination with a burgeoning debate in the philosophy of memory over whether episodic remembering is simply a kind of imagining. So far, this debate has been hampered by a lack of clarity in the notion of 'imagining' at issue. Several options are considered and constructive imagining is identified as the relevant kind. Next, a functionalist account of episodic memory is defended as a means to establishing two key points: first, one need not defend a factive (or "causalist") view of remembering in order to hold that causal connections to past experiences are essential to how rememberings are typed; and, second, current theories that equate remembering with imagining are in fact consistent with a functionalist theory that includes causal connections in its account of what it is to remember. This suggests that remembering is not a kind of imagining and clarifies what it would take to establish the contrary.

Background: It has been suggested that the ADAS-Cog is not uniformly sensitive to measuring cognitive decline in Alzheimer disease across mild and moderate patients. As a result, the NTB (neuropsychological test battery) was introduced as an alternative which measures cognitive de- cline in both mild and moderate patients equally well (Harrison et al, Arch Neurol 64:1323-9, 2007). Methods: The psychometric properties of NTB are examined in two randomized, double-blind trials; one 12-week placebo- and active-controlled (w 350 patients) and the other 24-week placebo-con- trolled (w 330). The test-retest reliability, ratio of within subject variability to between subject variability, and internal consistency of NTB in addition to correlation of NTB with other cognitive and functional measures are evaluated using data from the placebo patients. The sensitivities of NTB and ADAS-Cog are assessed as a function of baseline MMSE (Mini-Mental State Examination) scores using data from the active and the placebo arms. Results: It is confirmed that the NTB has good psychometric properties. Although the NTB and ADAS-Cog are equally sensitive in detecting change in the overall population, differences are observed when stratified by baseline MMSE scores. While the NTB is more sensitive than ADAS-Cog among the mild patients, the reverse is observed among the moderate patients. Conclusions: The NTB has good psychometric proper- ties. Based on two studies of relatively short duration, both the NTB and ADAS-Cog are shown to be good instruments for detecting drug effects on cognitive decline among AD patients. The sensitivity of these instruments needs to be evaluated in validation studies of longer duration.

Are Flashbulb memories special or ordinary memory formations? Are emotional, cognitive, or social factors highly relevant for the formation of Flashbulb memories? How can sociological, historical, and cultural issues help us to understand the process? What is the difference between Flashbulb memories, memories of traumatic experiences, and highly vivid personal memories? How can we provide a valid and reliable measure for Flashbulb memories?

This edition of Flashbulb Memories: New Challenges and Future Perspectives revisits these questions, considering significant new evidence and research in the field. It now includes additional chapters focusing on experimental investigations, and review studies on positive vs. negative Flashbulb memories.

Bringing together leading international researchers, the book presents significant progress in this area of research, which has remained divisive for the past 40 years. The discussion of Flashbulb memories also contributes to the understanding of the general functioning of autobiographical memory. It will provide essential reading for researchers in Flashbulb memories and will be of great interest to those in related areas such as cognitive psychology, social psychology, cross-cultural psychology, sociology, political sciences, and history, as well as clinicians dealing with those who have strong Flashbulb memories after personal traumatic events.

According to theories of embodied cognition, language comprehenders simulate sensorimotor experiences to represent the meaning of what they read. Previous studies have shown that picture recognition is better if the object in the picture matches the orientation or shape implied by a preceding sentence. In order to test whether strategic imagery may explain previous findings, language comprehenders first read a list of sentences in which objects were mentioned. Only once the complete list had been read was recognition memory tested with pictures. Recognition performance was better if the orientation or shape of the object matched that implied by the sentence, both immediately after reading the complete list of sentences and after a 45-min delay. These results suggest that previously found match effects were not due to strategic imagery and show that details of sensorimotor simulations are retained over longer periods.

Careful assessment of purported scientific discoveries and the resulting
interpretations is a responsibility of every scientist. The area of memory, particularly memory
for abuse, has recently seen new, highly publicized claims. These include the proposal of a
new diagnostic category, the false memory syndrome; claims about the ease with which
extensive autobiographical memories can be implanted; and estimates of the extent therapists
use risky practices likely to cause false memory syndrome. This article suggests questions to
evaluate these claims and the methods used to promote them. Implications for clinical
standards and malpractice are discussed.

Within the framework of a M.Sc. Neurosciences Master’s thesis, the present study assessed context-dependent memory (CDM) reactivation in the waking state and oscillatory activity in the brain during music listening at rest. CDM reactivation is a phenomenon with which memory consolidation can be experimentally manipulated by repeating the context in which memories were initially created. Music has been shown to be sufficient for the effects of context-dependent memory, but experimental reactivation using music as a context has not yet been shown. Further, many students use background music as a study aid, and it is therefore relevant to research in memory, cognition, and education. The present study investigated oscillatory activity in the brain during music listening at rest, specifically in the alpha (8-12 Hz) and beta (15-30 Hz) ranges. After performing a non-spatial face memory task with background music (Chopin’s Nocturnes), memory traces were manipulated through repeating context in a waking-state consolidation phase. Testing immediately following the consolidation phase demonstrated no effect of repeating context on performance, suggesting that CDM reactivation does not work during wakefulness. This is in line with many other studies, but should further be investigated during slow-wave sleep to determine the usefulness of music as context on CDM reactivation as a whole. Further, the condition in which there was no music during consolidatiion exhibited lower power in the alpha (8-12 Hz) range compared to the music conditions. This is in line with previous research and supports the idea of alpha activity representing cortical inhibition. Moreover, alpha activity was localized to the occipital electrodes, suggesting localization to the visual cortex. No effect of condition was found on beta power, but it was found to be higher over temporal and temporoparietal electrodes, suggesting localization to temporal cortical areas, including auditory cortex. The results presented here clarify some discrepancies in previously published literature, but the question remains of the effectiveness of CDM reactivation in wakefulness and of the nature of oscillatory neural activity during music listening and its functional effects on memory task performance.

Most contemporary text books of neurology and of psychology pay little attention to the function of the cerebellum beyond noting it to be an organ of motor control. A historical overview of research on cerebellar function is presented, from pre-Sherrinton suggestions of sensory and motor function, through the post-Sherrinton and dominant 20 th . Century view of "motor" function, to the 21 st . century perspective of "sensorimotor" function. The intrinsic capability of the cerebellum is briefly considered in terms of: its size/complexity/capacity; its information representation/processing characteristics (with "a particular computational function"); its sensory information processing capability; and, its role in sensorimotor regulatory control. It is suggested that the cerebellum can process sensorimotor stimulus information in a statistical (connectionist type) manner and respond to in on the basis of its own learning based sensorimotor representations, albeit at a "level" that does not necessarily involve cerebral "awareness".

Turning points and transitions are both life events marked by significant change. Whereas turning points are personal changes in life direction, transitions are external changes in daily circumstances. Transition-linked turning points are events that fit both of these definitions. Although transitions and turning points have been examined separately, the current study is the first empirical comparison of these types of events and their overlap. Differences in the characteristics of adults’ autobiographical memories of turning points, transitions, and transition-linked turning points were compared using a within-subjects design. Memories of transition-linked turning points and turning points were more central to participants’ life stories than transitions, whereas memories of transitions had more similarities in content, particularly location, with related memories. These results suggest that transitions organize autobiographical memory whereas turning points anchor the life story

Previous research has shown that episodic retrieval
recruits inhibitory processes that impair memory for related
events. We report two experiments examining whether inhibitory
processes may also be involved in causing semantic memory
lapses. In a semantic retrieval-practice paradigm, subjects were
given trials presenting a cue (a homograph in Experiment 1, a
category in Experiment 2) linked to many different items in
semantic memory. For each cue, subjects used general knowledge
to generate no (baseline), one, four, or eight different items
of semantic knowledge. Afterward, we determined through an
apparently unrelated free-association test whether a critical
nonpracticed concept associated to the cue had been inhibited.
Both experiments found that generating items from semantic
memory suppressed competing concepts, and that this impairment
was cue independent. These findings show that inhibitory
control processes overcome interference during semantic retrieval
and that recruitment of these processes may contribute to
semantic forgetting.

This brief paper provides a review of some of the literature regarding the constructs and nature of memory as formed through the hippocampus. It examines the processes of explicit memory, key neurotransmitters as well as structural differences with internal functioning in the hippocampus.

Making sense of the world around us depends upon selectively retrieving information relevant to our current goal or context. However, it is unclear whether selective semantic retrieval relies exclusively on general control mechanisms recruited in demanding non-semantic tasks, or instead on systems specialised for the control of meaning. One hypothesis is that the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) is important in the controlled retrieval of semantic (not non-semantic) information; however this view remains controversial since a parallel literature links this site to event and relational semantics. In a functional neuroimaging study, we demonstrated that an area of pMTG implicated in semantic control by a recent meta-analysis was activated in a conjunction of (i) semantic association over size judgements and (ii) action over colour feature matching. Under these circumstances the same region showed functional coupling with the inferior frontal gyrus — another crucial site for semantic control. Structural and functional connectivity analyses demonstrated that this site is at the nexus of networks recruited in automatic semantic processing (the default mode network) and executively demanding tasks (the multiple-demand network). Moreover, in both task and task-free contexts, pMTG exhibited functional properties that were more similar to ventral parts of inferior frontal cortex, implicated in controlled semantic retrieval , than more dorsal inferior frontal sulcus, implicated in domain-general control. Finally, the pMTG region was functionally correlated at rest with other regions implicated in control-demanding semantic tasks, including inferior frontal gyrus and intraparietal sulcus. We suggest that pMTG may play a crucial role within a large-scale network that allows the integration of automatic retrieval in the default mode network with executively-demanding goal-oriented cognition, and that this could support our ability to understand actions and non-dominant semantic associations, allowing semantic retrieval to be 'shaped' to suit a task or context.

I once was offered by a jasare — a genealogist and historian griot — to meet the descendants of a great warrior; he wanted to tell me the former’s story and glorious feats on Ghanaian soil. Both the jasare and I were astonished to find out that the men of that lineage didn’t know this ancestor, no matter how famous he was. Only those who had moved to Ghana had heard his name and knew he came from their actual village.
Both my survey of the jasare in the songhay-zarma region of Niger and that peculiar case where transmission of memory seems lacking, have led me to be deeply concerned about the issue of memory ; therefore, I wish to develop four different aspects ; though, what is at stakes here goes far beyond Zarma society. 
1) What kind of learning process do the jasare(s) provide for? I shall first describe the memory process of recalling ancestors and narratives, starting from my own learning and jasare metadiscourse. Then I shall deal with the role and experiences of the jasare. Finally, I will link these practices and representations to research in the field of psychology and cognitive anthropology on « semantic memory » and « autobiographical memory ».
2) Putting in perspective this learning process, situated speaking (enunciation) shows how central the genealogical list is. If it forms a mnemonic basis for the jasare, its role is especially to spot a person out of the crowd, vouching him with historic importance by admitting him into a lineage, but above all into History. How then, shall omissions be considered? Either circumstantial or systematic, unwilling or deliberate, they are definitely meaningful; and when noticed, they are construed. Nevertheless, only the jasare’s metadiscourse lets us know. Is it the jasare’s agency that has to be understood here?
3) What does it mean for a dominating social group, as M. Bloch (1995) puts it, « to delegate its historic memory of the past » and its public enunciation to an inferior social group such as the jasare, considering the former cannot claim to power?
4) According to M. Maurice Halbwachs (1925) memorization occurs in social environments. But when a society is changing, its environment does the same ; and what was considered essential to remember has become meaningless and can create conflict ; similarly to what is happening to the jasare whose presence during the ceremonies is disputed. Thus, how shall we as anthropologists question these changes ?

Brief note on the contributor
Anthropolinguiste, Sandra Bornand est actuellement chargée de recherche au CNRS et membre du Llacan (UMR 8135). Docteur ès Lettres à l’Université de Lausanne (2002), ses recherches sont consacrées à l’anthropologie linguistique, la littérature orale et à l’anthropologie sociale des sociétés songhay-zarma. Elle est membre du comité éditorial de la revue  des Cahiers de Littérature Orale et des Classiques Africains, édition d’ouvrages bilingues. Auteur de nombreux articles, elle a également publié Le discours du griot généalogiste chez les Zarma du Niger (Karthala, 2005), Parlons zarma (L’Harmattan, 2006) et Anthropologie des pratiques langagières (avec Cécile Leguy, Colin, 2014) et dirigé plusieurs ouvrages collectifs dont Pratiques d’enquêtes (avec Brunhilde Biebuyck et Cécile Leguy, Cahiers de Littérature Orale, n°63/64, 2008), Autour de la performance (avec Ursula Baumgardt, Cahiers de Littérature Orale n°65, 2009) et D’un rythme à l’autre (avec Maria Manca, Cahiers de Littérature Orale n°73-74, 2013). 
Anthropolinguist, Sandra Bornand is currently researcher (CNRS, LLacan, UMR 8135). Doctor ès Lettres from the University of Lausanne (20029, her research is devoted to linguistic anthropology, oral literature and social anthropology of the songhay-zarma societies. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal Cahiers de Littérature Orale et and Classiques Africains, an edition of bilingual books. Author of numerous papers, she notably published Le discours du griot généalogiste chez les Zarma du Niger (Karthala, 2005), Parlons zarma (L’Harmattan, 2006) and Anthropologie des pratiques langagières (with Cécile Leguy, Colin, 2014). She directed many collective works as Pratiques d’enquêtes (with Brunhilde Biebuyck and Cécile Leguy, Cahiers de Littérature Orale n°63-64, 2008), Autour de la performance (with Ursula Baumgardt, Cahiers de Littérature Orale n°65, 2009) or D’un rythme à l’autre (with Maria Manca, Cahiers de Littérature Orale n°73-74, 2013).

Music cognition is typically studied with instrumental stimuli. Adults remember melodies better,
however, when they are presented in a biologically significant timbre (i.e., the human voice) than in
various instrumental timbres (Weiss, Trehub, & Schellenberg, 2012). We examined the impact of vocal
timbre on children’s processing of melodies. In Study 1, 9- to 11-year-olds listened to 16 unfamiliar folk
melodies (4 each of voice, piano, banjo, or marimba). They subsequently listened to the same melodies
and 16 timbre-matched foils, and judged whether each melody was old or new. Vocal melodies were
recognized better than instrumental melodies, which did not differ from one another, and the vocal
advantage was consistent across age. In Study 2, 5- to 6-year-olds and 7- to 8-year-olds were tested with
a simplified design that included only vocal and piano melodies. Both age groups successfully differentiated
old from new melodies, but memory was more accurate for the older group. The older children
recognized vocal melodies better than piano melodies, whereas the younger children tended to label vocal
melodies as old whether they were old or new. The results provide the first evidence of differential processing of vocal and instrumental melodies in childhood.

The face overshadowing effect (FOE) has been noted in cases where recognition of voices is impaired if they are presented simultaneous to a face at encoding. The current study investigated the effect of facial concealment  (with and without wearing a balaclava) and emotionality of vocal tone on the face overshadowing effect in voice identification. It was predicted that the FOE would be reduced in the case of presentation of a concealed face along with voices, as the lack of facial feature information would result in greater attention being paid to the voice. It was further anticipated that angry voices would attract more attention and result in better voice recognition and reductions in the FOE than neutral voices, as hostile voices represent a level of threat that captures attention analogous to the weapon focus effect in eyewitness memory. Results replicated the FOE in a voice plus face video presentation but, contrary to  expectations; a concealed face presentation also
demonstrated a FOE, with highest accuracy of voice identification in the voice only condition. Angry vocal tone had a slight tendency to result in better recognition of voices across groups and somewhat improve performance in the visual conditions. It was concluded that voice identification is as fallible and prone to error as eyewitness identification but that conditions where the voice is made salient and visual information is absent result in higher accuracy. Implications for the criminal justice system are discussed.

An argument in the cognitive enhancement literature is that using stimulants in populations of healthy but socially disadvantaged individuals mistakenly attributes pathology to nonpathological individuals who experience social inequalities. As the argument goes, using stimulants as cognitive- enhancing drugs to solve the social problem of poorly educated students in inadequate schools, misattributes the problem as an individual medical problem, when it is really a collective socio-political problem. I challenge this argument on the grounds that not all types of enhancement have to be explained in medical terms, but rather at least one conception of enhancement can be explained in social terms—opportunity maintenance. Therefore I propose that as a moral requirement we ought to explore whether stimulants could be a means of remedying underprivileged children’s experiences of social inequalities that are borne from inadequate schools for the sake of increasing their chances for opportunities and wellbeing (Forthcoming in American Journal of Bioethics).

Hauntology is a trend in music, and more broadly in culture, defined by Mark Fisher, Simon Reynolds and Adam Harper. It is linked with who are artists interested in exploring memory and its close connections with the transmission of media (hence its frequent references to radio and television). This paper is an attempt to summarize the phenomenon in the form of an alphabetic breakdown, taking into account both the main inspirations behind the movement and profiles of the artists in it.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of question order on recall accuracy.
Previous research on working memory by Baddeley (2000) proposed the theory of the “episodic buffer” slave system in working memory was thought to be linked to semantic processing of memories.  Research by Bower & Clarke, (1969) found that using a narrative technique, individuals could remember a greater amount of information and with greater accuracy, providing evidence that placing events in a coherent narrative order improves later recall.  Research by Craik & Tulving, (1975) provided evidence of shallow and deep processing, information processed at the deep level (in terms of its semantic content and how it linked to other pieces of information) was easier to recall.
This research is also based on evidence from Fischer & Geiselman (1990) who found that reverse recall can enhance the accuracy of recalled memories and on research by Geiselman & Callot, (1990) who found that reverse recall following forward recall improved participants recall accuracy.
Cognitive interviewing techniques claim that questions can act as contextual prompts to aid recall of events by reinforcing the narrative structure of the event to aid recall of events proceeding and preceding the question.
It was predicted that questions listed in an ordered fashion (chronologically ordered or reverse-chronologically ordered) would provide more accurate recall than questions listed in a mixed/random order.
Participants were presented with a single trial during which they watched a short (around five minute) film clip.  Participants were given a short break after watching the clip to control for the recency effect and were then provided with an answer sheet and were presented with 20 questions using PowerPoint which were ordered in one of three ways (chronological, reverse-chronological and mixed/random).  Participants were given 20 seconds to answer each question; answer sheets were then marked by the researchers.
The independent variable was question order and it had three levels (chronological, reverse-chronological and mixed/random), the dependent variable was accuracy (number of questions answered correctly).
The experiment found that there was a significant difference between accuracy on mixed and reverse-chronological question order.  When an outlier in the chronological condition was controlled for it was found that there was a significant difference between mixed and reverse-chronological question order and between mixed and chronological question order.  The hypothesis was accepted and the null hypothesis rejected.

Summary:
This book introduces a principled approach to conceptualizing and measuring working memory in first and second language research. It presents comprehensive, thorough and updated reviews of relevant literatures of WM and SLA research in cognitive sciences, cognitive psychology and applied linguistics. Drawing on multidisciplinary research insights, it advocates an integrated framework for implementing working memory and second language acquisition research. In light of the basic tenets and general principles of this integrated perspective, the book then proposes an overarching theoretical model that clearly specifies the distinctive roles of phonological and executive working memory as they relate to specific second language acquisition domains and processing activities. The implications of this innovative Phonological/Executive Model are further discussed and elaborated, first for the specific realm of L2 task-based speech planning and performance, and then within the broader context of foreign language aptitude.

Reviews:
"One of the most encouraging features of the development of the multicomponent model of working memory has been its application beyond the laboratory to a range of  issues of which language learning is among the most important. Work was initially focused on native language acquisition but subsequently exciting developments are increasingly occurring in the hugely significant field of second language learning. This book surveys the field in detail , producing a synthesis of evidence and theory that will make a substantial contribution to this important field." Alan Baddeley, University of York, U.K.

"There are perhaps few predicaments as frustrating as being unable to communicate with another person because he or she does not speak the same language as you. In this volume, Dr. Wen comprehensively considers the importance for second-language learning of the individual’s working memory, the small amount of information that can be readily held in mind to carry out cognitive tasks. Different theoretical views are considered in detail and they are judiciously applied in an up-to-date treatment of various facets of language learning. The volume will be of great interest to students of both memory and language, ranging from novices to experts." Nelson Cowan, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA

"A well-informed, up-to-date, and comprehensive review of phonological and executive aspects of working memory, their  components and measurement, their roles in second language acquisition and processing, and their status as language aptitudes. An excellent overview for scholars in these areas." Nick Ellis, University of Michigan, U.S.A.

"A thorough analysis of how the various components of the working memory system relate to different aspects of second language processing and learning. This is a very timely and useful contribution to a centrally important topic in the field of individual differences."  John Williams, University of Cambridge, UK

Author Biography:
Zhisheng (Edward) Wen is Associate Professor at School of Languages and Translation at Macao Polytechnic Institute (MPI). Dr. Wen has been lecturing undergraduate and postgraduate courses in applied linguistics and psycholinguistics for over 15 years. He has published extensively in these areas. His paper publications have appeared in key academic journals (e.g., Language Teaching, ELT Journal, InJAL). He is recipient of the ‘Language Learning Roundtable Conference Grant’ and lead-editor of “Working memory in second language acquisition and processing” (2015, Multilingual Matters).  His another forthcoming monograph “Cognitive individual differences in second language acquisition” will be published by Mouton de Gruyter in 2017.

This study examined witnesses' memories for an event experienced 2 years earlier. Ss in 4 age groups (6-, 8-and 10-year-olds and adults; N= 79) answered repeated questions about an ambiguous incident that occurred as part of an earlier study (D. A. Poole & L. T. . Surprisingly, the effects of question repetition were similar to the patterns observed 2 years ago. There were important differences in the testimonies of children and adults, however, that were not observed in the initial study: Children were less consistent than adults across sessions on yes-no questions, less accurate in response to open-ended questions, and more likely to fabricate answers to a question about a man's occupation. Some children also confused the actions of 2 research assistants. These results indicate the need for additional research on qualitative and quantitative changes in children's testimonies over long delays.

UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGÓGICA NACIONAL Maestría en Estadios Sociales Seminario de estrategias y técnicas de investigación social Reseña 4. Historiando un pasado traumático: Entre la seducción de la memoria y el hallazgo de fuentes Dutrénit, Silvia (2007) "Historiando un pasado traumático: Entre la seducción de la memoria y el hallazgo de fuentes". En: De Garay, Graciela (coord.) Para pensar el tiempo presente. Aproximaciones teórico-metodológicas y experiencias empíricas. México: Instituto Mora. Silvia Dutrénit es una historiadora uruguaya de la Universidad de la República y doctora en Estudios Latinoamericanos de la UNAM. Actualmente, Dutrénit es profesora del Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora de México. Su producción académica está asociada a la historia reciente de América Latina, en especial, sus líneas de investigación están asociadas a temas como el exilio, el asilo, la violación de derechos humanos, la memoria, entre otros. Justamente el artículo Historiando un pasado traumático nace a partir de la reflexión y trabajo hermenéutico sobre las situaciones de asilo diplomático en las embajadas mexicanas del Cono Sur, con el objetivo de evidenciar los problemas éticos, epistémicos y metodológicos que se asume el investigador al aplicar la historia oral en contextos marcados por acontecimientos traumáticos a través de: hacer la historia del tiempo presente, hacer historia con la historia oral y situar a la investigadora como participante de los procesos históricos analizados. El documento se posiciona en la perspectiva de la historia del tiempo presente de América Latina, por lo que subraya puntos sobre su selección epistémica y metodológica. Lo primero que destaca es que estos son parte del pasado traumático, esto quiere decir que surgieron en escenarios donde la violencia y la represión fueron elementos constitutivos de la cotidianeidad de las relaciones sociales; en segundo lugar, explica que seleccionó la historia oral, pues le permite dar cuenta de la existencia de múltiples relatos y la posterior ubicación interpretativa de los acontecimientos enunciados; finalmente, señala que al escribir desde la historia del tiempo presente, se recurre a la experiencia y participación del en los acontecimientos relatados. En primer lugar, la autora presenta su cercanía con la unidad de análisis del trabajo, muestra unos elementos de contexto para ubicar los acontecimientos a los que hace referencia en el desarrollo del trabajo, por ejemplo, la obligación internacional, vía convenciones interamericanas, que tiene el Estado para otorgar asilo diplomático por derechos humanos, la gama de articulación que le permitió al Estado, no sólo nación sino a nivel regional, librarse

To determine what effect the set size of a group of colors has on the time required to recognize whether or not a target color belongs to the set. FINDINGS Increasing set size-from one to two colors results in a significant increase in time to recognize individual colors; however, further increases in set size, up to seven colors, causes little, if any, additional increase in time to recognition. APPLICATION It appears that the use of up to seven colors on sonar displays, where memory for color would be important, will have little or no detrimental effect on the time to recognize color set members. Thus it may be possible to use as many as half a dozen colors, even for tasks involving absolute identification, without any significant decrement in performance.

Ao consideramos o discurso cotidiano ou especializado uma forma de comunicação consciente e ordenada segundo a lógica linguística, precisamos considerar suas motivações e interesses, geralmente, submersos aos códigos de linguagem, embora ajam fortemente na constituição da mensagem discursiva. A "comunicação inconsciente" transportada pelo discurso pode informar muitas vezes mais do que a mensagem denotada das palavras.

Cell phones are becoming an inevitable part of the classroom, but extant research suggests that using cell phones in the classroom impairs academic performance. The present study examined the impact of different cell phone policies on learning and emotion-regulation style. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: cell phone usage allowed, cell phone possession allowed but without usage, cell phones removed, and a no-instruction control group. All participants watched a 20-minute lecture and were sent text messages to mimic classroom distractions. Afterward, participants took a multiple-choice test and filled out questionnaires assessing their level of obsessiveness, nomophobia, and mindfulness. Participants who had their cell phone taken away performed best on the test with no other differences. None of the emotional-regulation measures moderated the results. These findings provide important insight as to how cell phone policies can optimize learning in the classroom.

This is practice-based research, aiming to explore the experimental form of animated documentary, which is a unique form that can explore the mysteries and complexity of memories. Animated documentary is a medium through which one can reveal an individual’s memories within the context of a narrative that is historically situated and influenced. The marriage of animation and documentary gave birth to a new form of film. How should academic critics and practitioners categorize this new form? Is it an animated short or documentary short? This raises issues that question the very nature of animation and documentary. Following Shuibo Wang’s works, more young Chinese artists began to experiment with symbols (related to the Political Pop Trend) in visual narration, which could also be seen as a reflection of an advance in structuralism and semiology in the contemporary Chinese art field. As a case study, this article demonstrates how animated short ‘Ketchup’ revealed the problems of youth and social turmoil through the memories of a six-year-old boy. At Festivals and conferences, the public have been shocked to know that ‘Ketchup’ was based on true memories, and they became more curious about why such crucial things have almost been forgotten. Actually ‘forgetfulness’ is one of the layers of memory and animated documentary offers new ways to explore how our memories are shaped.

When confronted with reminders to things that we would prefer
not to think about, we often attempt to put the unwanted memories out
of awareness. Here, I argue that the ability to control memory is a special
case of a broad class of situations thought to require executive control: response
override. In such situations, one must stop a strong habitual response
to a stimulus due to situational demands, a function thought to be
accomplished by inhibitory processes that suppress the response, enabling
more flexible, context-sensitive control over behavior. Recent behavioral
studies show that inhibitory mechanisms that control overt behavior are
also targeted at declarative memories to control retrieval. Recent neuroimaging
findings (Anderson et al., 2004) further establish that controlling
awareness of unwanted memories is associated with increased dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex activation, reduced hippocampal activation, and impaired
retention of the unwanted trace and that the magnitude of activation in prefrontal
cortex predicts memory suppression. These findings indicate that
cognitive and neural systems that support our ability to override prepotent
responses can be recruited to override declarative memory retrieval, and
that this cognitive act leads to memory failure. The relation between these
findings and those obtained with the directed forgetting procedure is also
discussed.

This book introduces a principled approach to incorporating the construct of working memory (WM) into second language acquisition (SLA) research. Towards that end, I argue for an integrated framework of WM for SLA that draws on insights from established WM research in cognitive psychology as well as initial findings from SLA studies looking into the effects of WM. Within the framework, I also propose a set of general principles that serve as a basis for further studies probing the WM-SLA nexus. Applying some tenets from this framework, I report on an empirical study investigating the differential effects of WM constructs on L2 task-based speech planning and performance, culminating in forged links bridging WM components and their corresponding L2 speech performance measures. Further implications of this integrated framework of WM for SLA are also discussed in the context of “WM as foreign language aptitude”.

Timing is essential for the development of cognitive skills known to be impaired in Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC), such as social cognition and episodic memory abilities. Despite the proposal that timing impairments may underpin core features of ASC, few studies have examined temporal processing in ASC and they have produced conflicting results. The present study first addressed discrepancies between previous experiments before testing the assumption that timing impairments may underpin key aspects of autism, by relating differences in temporal processing in the ASC group to memory abilities. Errors in duration reproduction in high functioning children with ASC were observed for the shortest and longest duration tested. While the former was due to attentional factors, the latter was due to deficient timing related to atypical episodic memory processing. These findings suggest that temporal processing abilities play a key role in the poor development of both social cognition and episodic memory abilities associated with ASC.

This writing appears as Appendix I in my book, Transitions in Consciousness from an African American Perspective: Original Essays in Psycho-Historical Context.  The book was published in 2004.  Appendix I is a comprehensive Timeline of African American Life, focused on Five Historical Time Frames For African American Life, with Consciousness Transition Themes and Examples of Historical Events.  The five time frames are: 1517-1863 (6 Themes)--The Beginning of Slavery in the New World Up to The Onset of a Civil War and The Emancipation of Slaves; 1863-1896 (4 Themes)--Resistance to the End of the Civil War and the Force of the Reconstruction Era Up to Early Popularized African American Cultural Influences; 1896-1929 (5 Themes)--Creative Tension of Two Ideologies for Black Progress: Vocational Education vs. College-Trained Leadership Up to The Second Black Nationalist Movement; 1929-1954 (4 Themes)—The Condoning of a Segregated American Lifestyle and the Treatment of African Americans As “Objects” By the U. S. Government Up To Challenges To U. S. Segregated Cultural Life Through Music, Art, Publications, Inventions, Sports, and Civic Symbols; 1954-2002 (Themes)—The Struggle of the Civil Rights Movement, Sit-In Movement, and Freedom Rides to Promote the Ideas of Freedom, Desegregation, and Full Equality for African Americans Up to The Struggle to Shift Race-Related Consciousness and to Urge Cultural Transformations By Infusing African American Cultural Influences and a Search for the Meaning of Race and Ethnicity Into The Mainstream Via The Mediums of Music, Dance, Film, Television, Publications, Sports, and Civic Symbols.  Even though the Time Line ends at 2002, the Themes are very instructive for understanding what is happening in today’s reality (2017) regarding race relations in the United States.  The Themes mirror how the mind, body, and spirit has been dealt with in the United States over time in regard to the phenomenon of race.