I owe you: age-related similarities and differences in associative memory for gains and losses

Older adults often experience associative memory impairments but can sometimes remember important information. The current experiments investigate potential age-related similarities and differences associate memory for gains and losses. Younger and older participants were presented with faces and associated dollar amounts, which indicated how much money the person “owed” the participant, and were later given a cued recall test for the dollar amount. Experiment 1 examined face-dollar amount pairs while Experiment 2 included negative dollar amounts to examine both gains and losses. While younger adults recalled more information relative to older adults, both groups were more accurate in recalling the correct value associated with high value faces compared to lower value faces and remembered gist-information about the values. However, negative values (losses) did not have a strong impact on recall among older adults versus younger adults, illustrating important associative memory differences between younger and older adults.

IHRM and expatriation in Japanese MNCs: HRM practices and their impact on adjustment and job performance

Studies of international human resource management (IHRM) have pointed out that Japanese multinational companies (MNCs) tend to use more parent-country nationals (PCNs) than do western MNCs. The ethnocentric staffing policies imply that the management of expatriation has a greater influence on the success of Japanese MNCs. We use survey data from 149 Japanese repatriates to examine the relationship between IHRM practices – selection, preparation and corporate support – and expatriate adjustment and job performance, as well as identify differences by the location of assignment. We find that selection criteria, language ability and familiarity with local cultures are positively related to work adjustment, and that leadership and relational abilities are slightly associated with job performance though there were no significant relationships between considerations for family situations and adjustment or job performance. The results also reveal that HRM practices while abroad, in particular the interactive exchange of information between expatriates and the headquarters, have a significant influence. Pre-departure preparation programs are not related to the dependent variables. The data also suggests that living and working in China is a particular problem for Japanese expatriates.

The king's champion: re-enacting Arthurian romance at the English coronation banquet

Recent scholarship has emphasised the extent to which historical events are reflected in medieval romance. This paper seeks to draw attention to an instance where that relationship appears to have been inverted and a romance motif was carefully recreated at a particularly important event in the historical world. From the fourteenth century onwards, a mounted knight ceremonially rode into the English coronation banquet and issued a challenge to all assembled. The visual detail of the ritual strikingly echoes that of the romance motif of the “intruder at the feast”. This motif crops up in numerous romances, and is particularly associated with Arthurian narratives where it usually serves as a catalyst for adventure, providing the court and the king with an opportunity to justify their authority and reputation. This paper analyses the precise nature of the historical ritual and explores how the romance resonances of the ceremony at the coronation feast could be used to underpin political authority and courtly identity. In doing so, it seeks to underscore the centrality of Arthurian romance to English monarchical self-imagining and the symbolic power which could be ascribed to the genre's themes and conventions.

Decimal growth stages for precision wheat production in changing environments?

The utility of the decimal growth stage (DGS) scoring system for cereals is reviewed. The DGS is the most widely used scale in academic and commercial applications because of its comprehensive coverage of cereal developmental stages, the ease of use and definition provided and adoption by official agencies. The DGS has demonstrable and established value in helping to optimise the timing of agronomic inputs, particularly with regard to plant growth regulators, herbicides, fungicides and soluble nitrogen fertilisers. In addition, the DGS is used to help parameterise crop models, and also in understanding the response and adaptation of crops to the environment. The value of the DGS for increasing precision relies on it indicating, to some degree, the various stages in the development of the stem apex and spike. Coincidence of specific growth stage scores with the transition of the apical meristem from a vegetative to a reproductive state, and also with the period of meiosis, is unreliable. Nonetheless, in pot experiments it is shown that the broad period of booting (DGS 41–49) appears adequate for covering the duration when the vulnerability of meiosis to drought and heat stress is exposed. Similarly, the duration of anthesis (61–69) is particularly susceptible to abiotic stresses: initially from a fertility perspective, but increasingly from a mean grain weight perspective as flowering progresses to DGS 69 and then milk development. These associations with DGS can have value at the crop level of organisation: for interpreting environmental effects, and in crop modelling. However, genetic, biochemical and physiological analysis to develop greater understanding of stress acclimation during the vegetative state, and tolerance at meiosis, does require more precision than DGS can provide. Similarly, individual floret analysis is needed to further understand the genetic basis of stress tolerance during anthesis.

Metacognition and proofreading: the roles of aging, motivation, and interest

Objectives: The current study examined younger and older adults’ error detection accuracy, prediction calibration, and postdiction calibration on a proofreading task, to determine if age-related difference would be present in this type of common error detection task. Method: Participants were given text passages, and were first asked to predict the percentage of errors they would detect in the passage. They then read the passage and circled errors (which varied in complexity and locality), and made postdictions regarding their performance, before repeating this with another passage and answering a comprehension test of both passages. Results: There were no age-related differences in error detection accuracy, text comprehension, or metacognitive calibration, though participants in both age groups were overconfident overall in their metacognitive judgments. Both groups gave similar ratings of motivation to complete the task. The older adults rated the passages as more interesting than younger adults did, although this level of interest did not appear to influence error-detection performance. Discussion: The age equivalence in both proofreading ability and calibration suggests that the ability to proofread text passages and the associated metacognitive monitoring used in judging one’s own performance are maintained in aging. These age-related similarities persisted when younger adults completed the proofreading tasks on a computer screen, rather than with paper and pencil. The findings provide novel insights regarding the influence that cognitive aging may have on metacognitive accuracy and text processing in an everyday task.