Deferred Imitation in 6-Month-Old German and Cameroonian Nso Infants

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Goertz ◽  
Bettina Lamm ◽  
Frauke Graf ◽  
Thorsten Kolling ◽  
Monika Knopf ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Declarative Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Imitative Behavior ◽  
White Female ◽  
Baseline Phase ◽  
Deferred Imitation ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
The One

Deferred imitation is well accepted as a method to assess declarative memory in preverbal infants. Until now, mostly Western middle-class infants were tested with this paradigm. Therefore, early cultural differences in imitative behavior and/or declarative memory performance are largely unknown. This study investigated deferred imitation performance in two samples from two cultural contexts: 6-month-old Cameroonian Nso farmer infants (N = 38) and German middle-class infants (N = 46). Both samples were tested with one of two types of pillow tasks, similar to the hand puppet task: a pillow with either a White female face or a Cameroonian Nso female face. After a baseline phase, four target actions were demonstrated. Memory performance was assessed after a delay of 10 minutes. Infants’ imitative behavior was observed and compared with baseline behavior. Both the Cameroonian Nso and the German infants showed significantly more target actions in the test than in the baseline phase (memory effect). These results clearly demonstrate that imitation as a learning process in infancy is found in various cultures. Although infants of both samples showed more proximal interactions such as caressing, hugging, and kissing the pillow from their own cultural context than the one from the unfamiliar cultural context, the cultural nature of the material in memory tests did not influence memory-based performance.

Parenting styles and the development of the categorical self: A longitudinal study on mirror self-recognition in Cameroonian Nso and German families

2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 496-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Keller ◽  
Joscha Kärtner ◽  
Joern Borke ◽  
Relindis Yovsi ◽  
Astrid Kleis
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Prospective Study ◽  
Parenting Style ◽  
Parenting Styles ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Parenting Strategies ◽  
Self Recognition ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Middle Class Families

This prospective study contributes to the understanding of the development of self-conceptions in cultural context. We examined the influence of maternal contingent responsiveness towards their 3-month-old infants on toddlers’ self-recognition at the age of 18 to 20 months. We contrasted two samples that can be expected to differ with respect to contingent responsiveness as a parenting style: German middle-class families and Cameroonian Nso farmers. As hypothesized, German mothers reacted more contingently than Nso mothers. Furthermore, German toddlers recognized themselves more often than Nso toddlers. Finally, we found that the level of contingent responsiveness was one of the mechanisms that accounted for mirror self-recognition. The results are discussed with respect to different cultural emphases on parenting strategies.

Deferred imitation in 9-month-olds

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Teiser ◽  
Bettina Lamm ◽  
Mirjam Böning ◽  
Frauke Graf ◽  
Helene Gudi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Test Material ◽  
Deferred Imitation ◽  
Target Action ◽  
Rural Cameroon ◽  
Adult Model ◽  
Older Child

Studies investigating imitation are usually conducted with adult models in Western contexts; therefore, the influence of cultural context and the model’s age on infants' imitation is largely unknown. This study assessed deferred imitation in 9-month-old infants from the German middle-class ( N = 44) and the ethnic group of Nso in rural Cameroon ( N = 43). Infants either received an adult or an older child as a model. Moreover, the test material comprised varying degrees of target action difficulty. Across cultures and target actions infants imitated more when an adult model demonstrated the target actions. However, results revealed that infants did not show an adult model advantage for easier target actions, but only for those that were considered more difficult.

Learning and Consolidation of Verbal Declarative Memory in Patients with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

2010 ◽  
Vol 218 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Slawomira J. Diener ◽  
Herta Flor ◽  
Michèle Wessa
Keyword(s):  
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder ◽  
Posttraumatic Stress ◽  
Verbal Memory ◽  
Stress Disorder ◽  
Declarative Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Verbal Learning ◽  
Depression Scale ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Ptsd Symptoms

Impairments in declarative memory have been reported in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Fragmentation of explicit trauma-related memory has been assumed to impede the formation of a coherent memorization of the traumatic event and the integration into autobiographic memory. Together with a strong non-declarative memory that connects trauma reminders with a fear response the impairment in declarative memory is thought to be involved in the maintenance of PTSD symptoms. Fourteen PTSD patients, 14 traumatized subjects without PTSD, and 13 non-traumatized healthy controls (HC) were tested with the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) to assess verbal declarative memory. PTSD symptoms were assessed with the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale and depression with the Center of Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Several indices of the CVLT pointed to an impairment in declarative memory performance in PTSD, but not in traumatized persons without PTSD or HC. No group differences were observed if recall of memory after a time delay was set in relation to initial learning performance. In the PTSD group verbal memory performance correlated significantly with hyperarousal symptoms, after concentration difficulties were accounted for. The present study confirmed previous reports of declarative verbal memory deficits in PTSD. Extending previous results, we propose that learning rather than memory consolidation is impaired in PTSD patients. Furthermore, arousal symptoms may interfere with successful memory formation in PTSD.

Spearman's Law of Diminishing Returns

2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 199-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hartmann
Keyword(s):  
Principal Axis ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Longitudinal Survey ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Diminishing Returns ◽  
The One ◽  
Armed Services ◽  
Principal Axis Factor

Spearman's Law of Diminishing Returns (SLODR) with regard to age was tested in two different databases from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The first database consisted of 6,980 boys and girls aged 12–16 from the 1997 cohort ( NLSY 1997 ). The subjects were tested with a computer-administered adaptive format (CAT) of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) consisting of 12 subtests. The second database consisted of 11,448 male and female subjects aged 15–24 from the 1979 cohort ( NLSY 1979 ). These subjects were tested with the older 10-subtest version of the ASVAB. The hypothesis was tested by dividing the sample into Young and Old age groups while keeping IQ fairly constant by a method similar to the one developed and employed by Deary et al. (1996) . The different age groups were subsequently factor-analyzed separately. The eigenvalue of the first principal component (PC1) and the first principal axis factor (PAF1), and the average intercorrelation of the subtests were used as estimates of the g saturation and compared across groups. There were no significant differences in the g saturation across age groups for any of the two samples, thereby pointing to no support for this aspect of Spearman's “Law of Diminishing Returns.”

Accentuating Your Masculine Side

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chongzeng Bi ◽  
Oscar Ybarra ◽  
Yufang Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Gender Role ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
Self Evaluation ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Agency And Communion

Recent research investigating self-judgment has shown that people are more likely to base their evaluations of self on agency-related traits than communion-related traits. In the present research, we tested the hypothesis that agency-related traits dominate self-evaluation by expanding the purview of the fundamental dimensions to consider characteristics typically studied in the gender-role literature, but that nevertheless should be related to agency and communion. Further, we carried out these tests on two samples from China, a cultural context that, relative to many Western countries, emphasizes the interpersonal or communion dimension. Despite the differences in traits used and cultural samples studied, the findings generally supported the agency dominates self-esteem perspective, albeit with some additional findings in Study 2. The findings are discussed with regard to the influence of social norms and the types of inferences people are able to draw about themselves given such norms.

scholarly journals Individual differences in experienced and observational decision-making illuminate interactions between reinforcement learning and declarative memory

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Batel Yifrah ◽  
Ayelet Ramaty ◽  
Genela Morris ◽  
Avi Mendelsohn
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Reinforcement Learning ◽  
Declarative Memory ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Subjective Memory ◽  
Types Of Information ◽  
Reinforcement Learning Models ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

AbstractDecision making can be shaped both by trial-and-error experiences and by memory of unique contextual information. Moreover, these types of information can be acquired either by means of active experience or by observing others behave in similar situations. The interactions between reinforcement learning parameters that inform decision updating and memory formation of declarative information in experienced and observational learning settings are, however, unknown. In the current study, participants took part in a probabilistic decision-making task involving situations that either yielded similar outcomes to those of an observed player or opposed them. By fitting alternative reinforcement learning models to each subject, we discerned participants who learned similarly from experience and observation from those who assigned different weights to learning signals from these two sources. Participants who assigned different weights to their own experience versus those of others displayed enhanced memory performance as well as subjective memory strength for episodes involving significant reward prospects. Conversely, memory performance of participants who did not prioritize their own experience over others did not seem to be influenced by reinforcement learning parameters. These findings demonstrate that interactions between implicit and explicit learning systems depend on the means by which individuals weigh relevant information conveyed via experience and observation.

scholarly journals Investigating the Effects of Seizures on Procedural Memory Performance in Patients with Epilepsy

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 261
Author(s):  
Frank J. van Schalkwijk ◽  
Walter R. Gruber ◽  
Laurie A. Miller ◽  
Eugen Trinka ◽  
Yvonne Höller
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Declarative Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Total Sample ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Procedural Memory ◽  
Memory Retention ◽  
Motor Sequence ◽  
Performance Improvements ◽  
Patients With Epilepsy

Memory complaints are frequently reported by patients with epilepsy and are associated with seizure occurrence. Yet, the direct effects of seizures on memory retention are difficult to assess given their unpredictability. Furthermore, previous investigations have predominantly assessed declarative memory. This study evaluated within-subject effects of seizure occurrence on retention and consolidation of a procedural motor sequence learning task in patients with epilepsy undergoing continuous monitoring for five consecutive days. Of the total sample of patients considered for analyses (N = 53, Mage = 32.92 ± 13.80 y, range = 18–66 y; 43% male), 15 patients experienced seizures and were used for within-patient analyses. Within-patient contrasts showed general improvements over seizure-free (day + night) and seizure-affected retention periods. Yet, exploratory within-subject contrasts for patients diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy (n = 10) showed that only seizure-free retention periods resulted in significant improvements, as no performance changes were observed following seizure-affected retention. These results indicate general performance improvements and offline consolidation of procedural memory during the day and night. Furthermore, these results suggest the relevance of healthy temporal lobe functioning for successful consolidation of procedural information, as well as the importance of seizure control for effective retention and consolidation of procedural memory.

The role of daytime napping in declarative memory performance: a systematic review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Negin Farhadian ◽  
Habibolah Khazaie ◽  
Mohammad Nami ◽  
Sepideh Khazaie
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Declarative Memory ◽  
Memory Performance

scholarly journals ‘Thrown in at the Deep End’: The Experience of Graduates of Transnational Western Medical Education Transitioning into Middle Eastern Clinical Practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Fiza Rashid-Doubell ◽  
Timothy P Doubell
Keyword(s):  
Medical Education ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Medical Teams ◽  
The One ◽  
And Coping

Background: Newly qualified doctors educated in their home country usually go on to work in their first hospital job in same country. These graduates are familiar with the socio-cultural context of clinical setting they work in. But, with many Western universities providing cross-border education to host countries in the Middle East and South East Asia in subjects such as medicine. The experiences of those graduating from transnational medical education and working in local hospitals are absent.The aim of the study was to explore the early transitional experiences of newly qualified doctors moving from a European branch campus to practice at hospitals affiliated to the medical school situated in a Middle-Eastern country.Methods: A qualitative study using an interpretive phenomenological approach through interviews to explore experiences of graduates of transnational medical education working in Middle Eastern hospitals. Results: The main findings can be summarised under the three themes generated: the essentials of practice, routine of practice and realities of practice. The results evidenced the transition as a challenging period for new doctors finding dissonance between the skills taught while in transnational education and the workplace. There were three particular areas of discord for the graduates in clinical practice: working in medical teams with a different arrangement to the one prepared for; adapting to a more patient-centred language and coping with differences in ethical norms, values and practices in the hospital.Conclusions: The graduates found transitioning from university to full-time clinical practice difficult and were disappointed by their experience not matching their expectations of work. These findings are valuable for transnational medical educators seeking to improve the experience of graduates who are moving from the clear ideals, norms and values of transnational medical education into the complexity of full-time clinical practice.  

Pharmacologically Increasing Sleep Spindles Enhances Recognition for Negative and High-arousal Memories

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (10) ◽  
pp. 1597-1610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik J. Kaestner ◽  
John T. Wixted ◽  
Sara C. Mednick
Keyword(s):  
Rem Sleep ◽  
Memory Consolidation ◽  
Declarative Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Emotional Memory ◽  
Limited Range ◽  
Sleep Spindles ◽  
Sleep Spindle ◽  
Emotional Stimuli ◽  
Valence And Arousal

Sleep affects declarative memory for emotional stimuli differently than it affects declarative memory for nonemotional stimuli. However, the interaction between specific sleep characteristics and emotional memory is not well understood. Recent studies on how sleep affects emotional memory have focused on rapid eye movement sleep (REM) but have not addressed non-REM sleep, particularly sleep spindles. This is despite the fact that sleep spindles are implicated in declarative memory as well as neural models of memory consolidation (e.g., hippocampal neural replay). Additionally, many studies examine a limited range of emotional stimuli and fail to disentangle differences in memory performance because of variance in valence and arousal. Here, we experimentally increase non-REM sleep features, sleep spindle density, and SWS, with pharmacological interventions using zolpidem (Ambien) and sodium oxybate (Xyrem) during daytime naps. We use a full spread of emotional stimuli to test all levels of valence and arousal. We find that increasing sleep spindle density increases memory discrimination (da) for highly arousing and negative stimuli without altering measures of bias (ca). These results indicate a broader role for sleep in the processing of emotional stimuli with differing effects based on arousal and valence, and they raise the possibility that sleep spindles causally facilitate emotional memory consolidation. These findings are discussed in terms of the known use of hypnotics in individuals with emotional mood disorders.

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