Memorabeatlia: a naturalistic study of long-term memory.

Seventy-six undergraduates were given the titles and first lines of Beatles' songs and asked to recall the songs. Seven hundred and four different undergraduates were cued with one line from each of 25 Beatles' songs and asked to recall the title. The probability of recalling a line was best predicted by the number of times a line was repeated in the song and how early the line first appeared in the song. The probability of cuing to the title was best predicted by whether the line shared words with the title. Although the subjects recalled only 21% of the lines, there were very few errors in recall, and the errors rarely violated the rhythmic, poetic, or thematic constraints of the songs. Acting together, these constraints can account for the near verbatim recall observed. Fourteen subjects, who transcribed one song, made fewer and different errors than the subjects who had recalled the song, indicating that the errors in recall were not primarily the result of errors in encoding.

Telescoping is not time compression: a model of the dating of autobiographical events.

A model of telescoping is proposed that assumes no systematic errors in dating. Rather, the overestimation of recent occurrences of events is based on the combination of three factors: (1) Retention is greater for recent events; (2) errors in dating, though unbiased, increase linearly with the time since the dated event; and (3) intrusions often occur from events outside the period being asked about, but such intrusions do not come from events that have not yet occurred. In Experiment 1, we found that recall for colloquia fell markedly over a 2-year interval, the magnitude of errors in psychologists' dating of the colloquia increased at a rate of .4 days per day of delay, and the direction of the dating error was toward the middle of the interval. In Experiment 2, the model used the retention function and dating errors from the first study to predict the distribution of the actual dates of colloquia recalled as being within a 5-month period. In Experiment 3, the findings of the first study were replicated with colloquia given by, instead of for, the subjects.

Memorability as a measure of processing: a unit analysis of prose and list learning.

The percentage of subjects recalling each unit in a list or prose passage is considered as a dependent measure. When the same units are recalled in different tasks, processing is assumed to be the same; when different units are recalled, processing is assumed to be different. Two collections of memory tasks are presented, one for lists and one for prose. The relations found in these two collections are supported by an extensive reanalysis of the existing prose memory literature. The same set of words were learned by 13 different groups of subjects under 13 different conditions. Included were intentional free-recall tasks, incidental free recall following lexical decision, and incidental free recall following ratings of orthographic distinctiveness and emotionality. Although the nine free-recall tasks varied widely with regard to the amount of recall, the relative probability of recall for the words was very similar among the tasks. Imagery encoding and recognition produced relative probabilities of recall that were different from each other and from the free-recall tasks. Similar results were obtained with a prose passage. A story was learned by 13 different groups of subjects under 13 different conditions. Eight free-recall tasks, which varied with respect to incidental or intentional learning, retention interval, and the age of the subjects, produced similar relative probabilities of recall, whereas recognition and prompted recall produced relative probabilities of recall that were different from each other and from the free-recall tasks. A review of the prose literature was undertaken to test the generality of these results. Analysis of variance is the most common statistical procedure in this literature. If the relative probability of recall of units varied across conditions, a units by condition interaction would be expected. For the 12 studies that manipulated retention interval, an average of 21% of the variance was accounted for by the main effect of retention interval, 17% by the main effect of units, and only 2% by the retention interval by units interaction. Similarly, for the 12 studies that varied the age of the subjects, 6% of the variance was accounted for by the main effect of age, 32% by the main effect of units, and only 1% by the interaction of age by units.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Olfactory cuing of autobiographical memory.

In Experiment 1, subjects were presented with either the odors or the names of 15 common objects. In Experiment 2, subjects were presented with either the odors, photographs, or names of 16 common objects. All subjects were asked to describe an autobiographical memory evoked by each cue, to date each memory, and to rate each memory on vividness, pleasantness, and the number of times that the memory had been thought of and talked about prior to the experiment. Compared with memories evoked by photographs or names, memories evoked by odors were reported to be thought of and talked about less often prior to the experiment and were more likely to be reported as never having been thought of or talked about prior to the experiment. No other effects were consistently found, though there was a suggestion that odors might evoke more pleasant and emotional memories than other types of cues. The relation of these results to the folklore concerning olfactory cuing is discussed.

Online and Traditional Lectures: Evaluating Effects of Social Presence and Learner Control

Online courses are rapidly replacing traditional, face-to-face lectures in American universities (Allen & Seaman, 2011). As technology improves, this trend will likely continue and accelerate. Researchers must evaluate the impact of online courses compared to their traditional counterparts. This two-part study quantifies the effect of two variables – social presence and learner control – on students’ recall, application and perceived learning levels in different lecture formats. Students in introductory courses at a four-year, public, American university were randomly assigned into three groups to view distinct lecture formats, one in a traditional classroom and two via the Internet. Upon viewing the single lecture, the students were asked to fill out a test and survey to quantify teacher immediacy, recall and application, and perceived learning levels across lecture formats. The study found that different levels of social presence and learner control affected students’ perceived learning levels but did not impact recall or application.

All my children: The roles of semantic category and phonetic similarity in the misnaming of familiar individuals.

Despite knowing a familiar individual (such as a daughter) well, anecdotal evidence suggests that naming errors can occur among very familiar individuals. Here, we investigate the conditions surrounding these types of errors, or misnamings, in which a person (the misnamer) incorrectly calls a familiar individual (the misnamed) by someone else's name (the named). Across 5 studies including over 1,700 participants, we investigated the prevalence of the phenomenon of misnaming, identified factors underlying why it may occur, and tested potential mechanisms. We included undergraduates and MTurk workers and asked questions of both the misnamed and the misnamer. We find that familiar individuals are often misnamed with the name of another member of the same semantic category; family members are misnamed with another family member's name and friends are misnamed with another friend's name. Phonetic similarity between names also leads to misnamings; however, the size of this effect was smaller than that of the semantic category effect. Overall, the misnaming of familiar individuals is driven by the relationship between the misnamer, misnamed, and named; phonetic similarity between the incorrect name used by the misnamer and the correct name also plays a role in misnaming.

Accounting for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Severity With Pre- and Posttrauma Measures: A Longitudinal Study of Older Adults.

Using data from a longitudinal study of community-dwelling older adults, we analyzed the most extensive set of known correlates of PTSD symptoms obtained from a single sample to examine the measures' independent and combined utility in accounting for PTSD symptom severity. Fifteen measures identified as PTSD risk factors in published meta-analyses and 12 theoretically and empirically supported individual difference and health-related measures were included. Individual difference measures assessed after the trauma, including insecure attachment and factors related to the current trauma memory, such as self-rated severity, event centrality, frequency of involuntary recall, and physical reactions to the memory, accounted for symptom severity better than measures of pre-trauma factors. In an analysis restricted to prospective measures assessed before the trauma, the total variance explained decreased from 56% to 16%. Results support a model of PTSD in which characteristics of the current trauma memory promote the development and maintenance of PTSD symptoms.

Antigen-specific interferon-gamma responses and innate cytokine balance in TB-IRIS.

Tuberculosis-associated immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (TB-IRIS) remains a poorly understood complication in HIV-TB patients receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART). TB-IRIS could be associated with an exaggerated immune response to TB-antigens. We compared the recovery of IFNγ responses to recall and TB-antigens and explored in vitro innate cytokine production in TB-IRIS patients.

Age-related immune reconstitution during highly active antiretroviral therapy in human immunodeficiency virus type 1-infected children.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the immune reconstitution in HIV-1-infected children in whom highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) controlled viral replication and to assess the existence of a relation between the magnitude of this restoration and age. METHODS: All HIV-1-infected children in whom a new HAART decreased plasma viral load below 400 copies/ml after 3 months of therapy were prospectively enrolled in a study of their immune reconstitution. Viral load, lymphocyte phenotyping, determination of CD4+ and CD8+ T cell receptor repertoires and proliferative responses to mitogens and recall antigens were assessed every 3 months during 1 year. RESULTS: Nineteen children were evaluated. Naive and memory CD4+ percentages were already significantly increased after 3 months of HAART. In contrast to memory CD4+ percentages, naive CD4+ percentages continued to rise until 12 months. Age at baseline was inversely correlated with the magnitude of the rise in naive CD4+ cells after 3, 6 and 9 months of therapy but not after 12 months. Although memory and activated CD8+ cells were already decreasing after 3 months, abnormalities of the CD8 T cell receptor repertoire and activation of CD8+ cells persisted at 1 year. HAART increased the response to mitogens as early as 3 months after starting therapy. CONCLUSIONS: In children the recovery of naive CD4+ cells occurs more rapidly if treatment is started at a younger age, but after 1 year of viral replication control, patients of all ages have achieved the same level of restoration. Markers of chronic activation in CD8+ cells persist after 1 year of HAART.

Cellular immune responses in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1-infected children: Is immune restoration by highly active anti-retroviral therapy comparable to non-progression?

The objective of this study was to investigate whether the restored immune functions of vertically human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected children who were severely immunodeficient before the initiation of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) are comparable to those of untreated slow progressors. We therefore assessed T cell proliferation and cytokine [interferon (IFN)-γ, interleukin (IL)-5 and IL-13] secretions after mitogen, recall antigens and HIV-1-specific stimulation in 12 untreated slow progressors, 16 untreated progressors and 18 treated patients. Treated children were profoundly immunodeficient before the initiation of HAART and had long-lasting suppression of viral replication on treatment. We demonstrated that slow progressors are characterized not only by the preservation of HIV-1-specific lymphoproliferative responses but also by the fact that these responses are clearly T helper type 1 (Th1)-polarized. Children on HAART had proliferative responses to HIV-1 p24 antigen, purified protein derivative (PPD) and tetanus antigen similar to slow progressors and higher than those of progressors. However, in contrast to slow progressors, most treated children exhibited a release of Th2 cytokines accompanying the IFN-γ secretion in response to the HIV-1 p24 antigen. Moreover, despite higher proliferative responses to phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) than the two groups of untreated children, treated children had lower levels of IFN-γ secretion in response to PHA than slow progressors. These data show that in severely immunodeficient vertically HIV-infected children, a long-lasting HAART allows recovering lymphoproliferative responses similar to untreated slow progressors. However, alterations in IFN-γ secretion in response to the mitogen PHA persisted, and their cytokine release after HIV-specific stimulation was biased towards a Th2 response. © 2011 The Authors. Clinical and Experimental Immunology © 2011 British Society for Immunology.

Finite groups and geometries: a view on the present state and on the future

The model: groups of Lie-Chevalley type and buildingsThis paper is not the presentation of a completed theory but rather a report on a search progressing as in the natural sciences in order to better understand the relationship between groups and incidence geometry, in some future sought-after theory Τ. The search is based on assumptions and on wishes some of which are time-dependent, variations being forced, in particular, by the search itself.A major historical reference for this subject is, needless to say, Klein's Erlangen Programme. Klein's views were raised to a powerful theory thanks to the geometric interpretation of the simple Lie groups due to Tits (see for instance), particularly his theory of buildings and of groups with a BN-pair (or Tits systems). Let us briefly recall some striking features of this.Let G be a group of Lie-Chevalley type of rank r, denned over GF(q), q = pn, p prime. Let Xr denote the Dynkin diagram of G. To these data corresponds a unique thick building B(G) of rank r over the Coxeter diagram Xr (assuming we forget arrows provided by the Dynkin diagram). It turns out that B(G) can be constructed in a uniform way for all G, from a fixed p-Sylow subgroup U of G, its normalizer NG(U) and the r maximal subgroups of G containing NG(U).

Model sensitivity and uncertainty analysis using roadside air quality measurements

Most of the air quality modelling work has been so far oriented towards deterministic simulations of ambient pollutant concentrations. This traditional approach, which is based on the use of one selected model and one data set of discrete input values, does not reflect the uncertainties due to errors in model formulation and input data. Given the complexities of urban environments and the inherent limitations of mathematical modelling, it is unlikely that a single model based on routinely available meteorological and emission data will give satisfactory short-term predictions. In this study, different methods involving the use of more than one dispersion model, in association with different emission simulation methodologies and meteorological data sets, were explored for predicting best CO and benzene estimates, and related confidence bounds. The different approaches were tested using experimental data obtained during intensive monitoring campaigns in busy street canyons in Paris, France. Three relative simple dispersion models (STREET, OSPM and AEOLIUS) that are likely to be used for regulatory purposes were selected for this application. A sensitivity analysis was conducted in order to identify internal model parameters that might significantly affect results. Finally, a probabilistic methodology for assessing urban air quality was proposed.