Toward a theory of episodic memory: the frontal lobes and autonoetic consciousness

Detecting recollection: Human evaluators can successfully assess the veracity of others' memories

Humans have the highly adaptive ability to learn from others' memories. However, because memories are prone to errors, in order for others' memories to be a valuable source of information, we need to assess their veracity. Previous studies have shown that linguistic information conveyed in self-reported justifications can be used to train a machine-learner to distinguish true from false memories. But can humans also perform this task, and if so, do they do so in the same way the machine-learner does? Participants were presented with justifications corresponding to Hits and False Alarms and were asked to directly assess whether the witness's recognition was correct or incorrect. In addition, participants assessed justifications' recollective qualities: their vividness, specificity, and the degree of confidence they conveyed. Results show that human evaluators can discriminate Hits from False Alarms above chance levels, based on the justifications provided per item. Their performance was on par with the machine learner. Furthermore, through assessment of the perceived recollective qualities of justifications, participants were able to glean more information from the justifications than they used in their own direct decisions and than the machine learner did.

Enhancing Agency in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Therapies through Sensorimotor technologies

UNSTRUCTURED

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a significant public health concern, with only a third of patients recovering within a year of treatment. While PTSD often disrupts the sense of body ownership and the sense of agency (SA), attention to SA in trauma has been lacking. This perspective article explores the loss of SA in PTSD and its relevance in the development of symptoms. Trauma is viewed as a breakdown of SA, related to a freeze response, with peritraumatic dissociation increasing the risk of PTSD. Drawing from embodied cognition, we propose an "enactive" perspective of PTSD, suggesting therapies that restore the SA through direct engagement with the body and environment. We discuss the potential of agency-based therapies and innovative technologies like gesture sonification (GS), which translates body movements into sounds to enhance the SA. GS offers a screen-free, non-invasive approach that could complement existing trauma-focused therapies. We emphasize the need for interdisciplinary collaboration and clinical research to further explore these approaches in preventing and treating PTSD.

Mental Time Travel as Self-Affirmation

ACADEMIC ABSTRACT

This article integrates and advances the scope of research on the role of mental time travel in bolstering the self. We propose that imagining the self in the future (prospection) or in the past (retrospection) highlights central and positive self-aspects. Thus, bringing to mind one's future or past broadens the perceived bases of self-integrity and offers a route to self-affirmation. In reviewing corresponding research programs on self-prospection and nostalgia, we illustrate that mental time travel serves to affirm the self in terms of self-esteem, coherence, and control. Mental time travel could be implemented as a source of self-affirmation for facilitating coping and behavior change in several domains such as relationships, health, education, and organizational contexts.

PUBLIC ABSTRACT

People can mentally travel to their future or to their past. When people imagine what they will be like in the future, or what they were like in the past, they tend to think about themselves in terms of the important and positive attributes that they possess. Thinking about themselves in such an affirming way expands and consolidates their self-views. This broader image of themselves can increase self-esteem (the extent to which one likes who they are), coherence (the extent to which one perceives life as meaningful), and control (the extent to which one feels capable of initiating and pursuing goals or effecting desirable outcomes). Mental time travel, then, has favorable or affirming consequences for one's self-views. These consequences can be harnessed to modify one's behavior in such life domains as relationships, health, education, and work.

Kinematic observation reduces effect of aging on episodic memory performance

This study investigated the influence of kinematics observation (i.e., observing action from only the motion of the main joints of an actor) on episodic memory performance differences between young and older adults. To this end, 42 young (20-35 years) and 45 older (60-75 years) participants performed a free recall task in two different conditions: either after an encoding phase consisting of the visual presentation and reading of action verbs or after an encoding phase consisting of the visual presentation and naming of point-light displays of humans performing the same actions. Results showed a beneficial effect of point-light display encoding for both young and older participants but with a more pronounced benefit for the older participants compared to young adults. These findings are discussed in relation to the embodied view of memory which considers that memory is directly linked to the sensorimotor experiences and the environmental support hypothesis which postulates that elaborate processing can improve memory performance. In conclusion, kinematic observation could constitute an interesting potential intervention for supporting memory in older adults.

Bittersweet memories and somatic marker hypothesis: adaptive control in emotional recall facilitates long-term decision-making in the Iowa Gambling Task

The somatic marker hypothesis states that emotional recall and its somatic influence guide long-term decision-making. However, the mechanism through which decision-making benefits from emotional recall is unclear; whether emotional recall and the induced affect increase the regulatory demand or amplify the affect state that requires inhibition. It is unclear if controlling the automatic flow of emotion in recall improves adaptive decision-making. Two studies examine the hypothesis that affect control in emotional recall facilitates inhibitory control and benefits long-term decision-making. In Experiment 1 (n = 137), affect control was assessed in emotional recall to examine if switching of affect in recall of positive and negative valence (order: positive-negative memory recall vs. negative-positive memory recall) is linked with long-term decision-making. Results for long-term decision-making showed that negative-positive recall sequence was associated with higher long-term decision-making, whereas automatic frequency-based decision-making remained unaffected by the recall sequence. In experiment 2 (n = 71, all male), emotional recall (positive vs. negative), recall specificity (i.e., specific vs. overgeneralized recall), and post-recall mood regulation (post-recall positive mood regulation vs. no regulation) was expected to facilitate long-term decision-making. Results showed that emotional recall and post-recall mood regulation (i.e., negative recall - positive mood and positive recall - negative mood) were associated with higher long-term decision-making (decks C' and D'). Results of frequency decision-making showed that positive emotional recall, and poor recall specificity led to infrequent punishment deck choices (decks B' and D'). Hierarchical regression indicated that emotional recall increased infrequent deck choices and accounted for 10% of choices made, recall specificity increased the explanatory power to 19%, and higher recall specificity was associated with fewer infrequent punishment deck choices. Affect control engaged via negative emotional recall, post-recall mood regulation, and recall specificity might be a potential mechanism through which affect control in emotional recall might facilitate long-term decision-making.

Metamemory Mediates the Effects of Age on Episodic and Working Memory across the Adult Lifespan

BACKGROUND

Previous studies have examined the direct relationship between metamemory and memory performance in young and older adults, but the results of these studies have been inconsistent. Therefore, we examined whether metamemory mediates the effects of age on memory performance.

METHODS

We examined episodic memory and working memory through computerized tasks performed by a lifespan sample of 1554 healthy adults. Seven metamemory traits were measured with the Metamemory in Adulthood (MIA) questionnaire. Separate structural equation modeling analyses were conducted to investigate potential metamemory mediators that intervened between age and the accuracy and speed of accessing information from episodic and working memory.

RESULTS

The use of internal or external strategies mediated the effects of age on episodic memory and spatial working memory performance. The perception of one's own memory capacity and the experience of anxiety when using memory functions mediated the effects of age on working memory performance in both domains.

CONCLUSIONS

Metamemory traits have the power to strengthen or weaken the course of episodic and working memory decline throughout adulthood.

Scene construction ability in neurotypical and autistic adults

LAY ABSTRACT

People with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) have difficulties imagining events, which might result from difficulty mentally generating and maintaining a coherent spatial scene. This study compared this scene construction ability between autistic (N = 55) and neurotypical (N = 63) adults. Results showed that scene construction was diminished in autistic compared to neurotypical participants, and participants with fewer autistic traits had better scene construction ability. ASC diagnosis did not influence the frequency of mentions of the self or of sensory experiences. Exploratory analysis suggests that scene construction ability is associated with the ability to understand our own and other people's mental states, and that these individual-level preferences/cognitive styles can overrule typical group-level characteristics.

Journeying to the past: time travel and mental time travel, how far apart?

Spatial models dominated memory research throughout much of the twentieth century, but in recent decades, the concept of memory as a form of mental time travel (MTT) to the past has gained prominence. Initially introduced as a metaphor, the MTT perspective shifted the focus from internal memory processes to the subjective conscious experience of remembering. Despite its significant impact on empirical and theoretical memory research, there has been limited discussion regarding the meaning and adequacy of the MTT metaphor in accounting for memory. While in previous work I have addressed the general limitations of the MTT metaphor in explaining memory, the objective of this article is more focused and modest: to gain a better understanding of what constitutes MTT to the past. To achieve this objective, a detailed analysis of the characteristics of MTT to the past is presented through a comparison with time travel (TT) to the past. Although acknowledging that TT does not refer to an existing physical phenomenon, it is an older concept extensively discussed in the philosophical literature and provides commonly accepted grounds, particularly within orthodox theories of time, that can offer insights into the nature of MTT. Six specific characteristics serve as points of comparison: (1) a destination distinct from the present, (2) the distinction between subjective time and objective time, (3) the subjective experience of the time traveler, (4) their differentiation from the past self, (5) the existence of the past, and (6) its unchangeability. Through this research, a detailed exploration of the phenomenal and metaphysical aspects of MTT to the past is undertaken, shedding light on the distinct features that mental time travel to the past acquires when it occurs within the realm of the mind rather than as a physical phenomenon. By examining these characteristics, a deeper understanding of the nature of mental time travel is achieved, offering insights into how it operates in relation to memory and the past.

Direct retrieval as a theory of involuntary autobiographical memories: evaluation and future directions

I evaluate the conception of direct retrieval as originally formulated in the Self-Memory System model (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce [2000]. The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review, 107(2), 261-288. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.107.2.261). In the hierarchical memory organisation proposed in the Self-Memory System model, direct retrieval is described as a bottom-up associative process. While its theoretical role within this model is clear, systematic empirical examination of direct retrieval, viewed as a natural and observable phenomenon, has been hampered by inconsistent operationalisations. Here, I suggest that direct retrieval should be treated as a theoretical concept, aiming at explaining the phenomenon of involuntary (spontaneously arising) autobiographical memories. I evaluate predictions derived from the concept of direct retrieval against findings on involuntary autobiographical memories obtained over the past 25 years. Most of these predictions are consistent with the evidence, notably, the enhanced episodic specificity and constructive nature of involuntary autobiographical memories. However, the theory also has critical limitations. It did not predict the frequent occurrence of involuntary recollections in daily life, exceeding the prevalence of voluntary memories. Additionally, it overlooked the early emergence of spontaneously arising event memories in ontogenesis and their presence in other species, such as great apes. Future advancements of the Self-Memory System model should integrate evolutionary perspectives to address these limitations.

Does the Sensory Experience of Words Boost Recollection in Aging?

OBJECTIVES

We examine age-related differences in recollection and test the impact of words with high vs low sensory experience ratings (SER) in older and younger adults. We expected that the recollection of words with high SER would be similar in older and young adults, as they depend on knowledge, unlike recollection of words with a low SER, which would depend on executive functions.

METHODS

We manipulated the sensory experience of words (high vs. low) in encoding in young and older adults. The participants then took a word-recognition test using the Remember/Know paradigm (Gardiner, 1988). We also evaluated executive functions using several measures.

RESULTS

Results show that the age-related difference in recollective experience was eliminated under the high SER encoding condition. Moreover, Remember (R) responses in the low SER condition seem to be related to executive functioning, unlike R responses in the high SER condition and Know (K) responses in both low and high SER conditions.

DISCUSSION

Our study shows that the memory benefit of high-SER words is greater for older than younger adults. The study also supports the observation that older adults can compensate for their deficits by using sensory experience to consciously recollect information.

My Turning Point Tells the Story: A Longitudinal Examination of Greater Episodic Detail and Youth Depressive Symptoms

Although research findings show that the personal memories of people who are depressed are characterized by sparse episodic detail, under some circumstances, the opposite pattern emerges. Specifically, a recent study (Salmon et al., 2021) has shown that for community youth, greater episodic detail in a highly self-relevant narrative (a life turning point) predicted increased depressive symptoms concurrently and one year later. In a new longitudinal study of young people (N = 320 at Time 1, M = 16.9 years; 81% female) followed up over six months, we aimed to replicate and extend this finding. In Study A, we compared the turning point with a narrative about a conflict event, to establish whether the detail in a turning point memory uniquely predicted depressive symptoms. Supporting the first hypothesis, at both time-points, greater episodic detail was concurrently positively associated with depressive symptoms for turning point narratives only. Contrary to our second hypothesis, greater detail did not predict increased depressive symptoms longitudinally. The reverse pattern was significant, however, in that greater initial depressive symptoms predicted greater detail uniquely in the turning point narrative six months later. In Study B, we determined that the concurrent association between episodic detail and depressive symptoms in turning points (but not conflict events) was exacerbated by linguistic markers of self-focus (greater I-talk and lower distancing language). These findings suggest that greater detail in a turning point narrative may uniquely signify risk of psychological distress when youth narrate the experience with heightened self-focus.

Confabulations in a teenager with a right frontal hemispherotomy: Possible underlying mechanisms

Objective: Confabulations, i.e. false memories without intention to deceive, can be observed in adults with frontal brain damage. Confabulations are typically associated with episodic memory and/or executive disorders although the severity of these impairments is highly variable. Confabulations may also be associated with emotional/motivational particularities, as a positive bias seems to prevail in such situations. Several distinct cognitive and socio-affective processes may account for the various types of confabulations and these issues remain open. Method: We present the case of a teenager with an early acquired frontal damage, referred for "strange lies." Besides a standard neuropsychological assessment, we explored (1) source memory, using a reality-monitoring task, (2) episodic autobiographical memory, including both the recollection of the past memories and the ability to imagine future personal events, with an episodic future thinking task (EFT), (3) the sense of self, with questionnaires targeting self-representations, self-esteem and self-competence. Results: The results showed the expected source memory deficits and poor episodic future thinking, whereas episodic autobiographical memory was preserved, contrary to the episodic memory dysfunction usually evidenced in adult confabulators. The confabulations produced by this teenager displayed a clear positive bias, seemed to fit to personal/social goals and to wishful ideations, and were associated with an above average self-esteem and self-representation. Conclusions: These results support the hypothesis of self-identity and emotional regulatory roles of the confabulations. Although the literature on confabulating children/teenagers is nearly non-existent, a more systematic screening of confabulations should be conducted in order to avoid false interpretation to strange discourse or behavior.

The Italian Validation of the Beck Cognitive Insight Scale: Underlying Factor Structure in Psychotic Patients and the General Population

Cognitive insight refers to the ability to question one's judgments and cognitive biases and is underpinned by specific metacognitive processes. The Beck Cognitive Insight Scale was developed to assess cognitive insight and includes two subscales, Self-Reflectiveness and Self-Certainty (SC). The present study aimed to investigate the underlying factor structure of the Italian version of the BCIS in patients with schizophrenia (SZ) and in the general population (GP) for the first time. A cross-sectional design was adopted and a GP sample of 624 subjects and an SZ sample of 130 patients were enrolled. In the SZ group, a two-factor solution was supported. The internal reliability of each factor was satisfactory. Two items were eliminated and one item moved from the SC to the SR subscale. In the GP group, a two-factor solution was highlighted. The internal reliability of each factor was satisfactory. However, four items of the SR subscale were deleted. The Italian-validated version of the BCIS shows different structures for the SZ and the GP and is characterized by different features concerning previous studies. This evidence suggests new interpretations of metacognitive processes in the two populations and implies specific therapeutic approaches.

Lifelong impairment in episodic re-experiencing: Neuropsychological and neuroimaging examination of a new case of Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory

Autobiographical memory (AM) represents a complex and multimodal cognitive function, that allows an individual to collect and retrieve personal events and facts, enabling to develop and maintain the continuity of the self over time. Here we describe the case of DR (acronym of the fictional name Doriana Rossi), a 53-year-old woman, who complains of a specific and lifelong deficit in recalling autobiographical episodes. Along with an extensive neuropsychological assessment, DR underwent a structural and functional MRI examination to further define this impairment. The neuropsychological assessment revealed a deficit in episodic re-experiencing of her own personal life events. DR showed reduced cortical thickness in the Retrosplenial Complex in the left hemisphere, and in the Lateral Occipital Cortex, in the Prostriate Cortex and the Angular Gyrus in the right hemisphere. An altered pattern of activity in the calcarine cortex was detected during ordering of autobiographical events according to her own personal timeline. The present study provides further evidence about the existence of a severely deficient autobiographical memory condition in neurologically healthy people, with otherwise preserved cognitive functioning. Furthermore, the present data provide new important insights into neurocognitive mechanisms underpinning such a developmental condition.

Behavioral, neurological, and psychiatric frailty of autobiographical memory

Autobiographical-episodic memory is considered to be the most complex of the five long-term memory systems. It is autonoetic, which means, self-reflective, relies on emotional colorization, and needs the features of place and time; it allows mental time traveling. Compared to the other four long-term memory systems-procedural memory, priming, perceptual, and semantic memory-it develops the latest in phylogeny and ontogeny, and is the most vulnerable of the five systems, being easily impaired by brain damage and psychiatric disorders. Furthermore, it is characterized by its fragility and proneness to distortion due to environmental influences and subsequent information. On the brain level, a distinction has to be made between memory encoding and consolidating, memory storage, and memory retrieval. For encoding, structures of the limbic system, with the hippocampus in its center, are crucial, for storage of widespread cortical networks, and for retrieval again a distributed recollection network, in which the prefrontal cortex plays a crucial role, is engaged. Brain damage and psychiatric diseases can lead to what is called "focal retrograde amnesia." In this context, the clinical picture of dissociative or functional or psychogenic amnesia is central, as it may result in autobiographical-emotional amnesia of the total past with the consequence of an impairment of the self as well. The social environment therefore can have a major impact on the brain and on autobiographical-episodic memory processing. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory.

Temporal dynamics of the semantic versus affective representations of valence during reversal learning

Valence, the representation of a stimulus in terms of good or bad, plays a central role in models of affect, value-based learning theories, and value-based decision-making models. Previous work used Unconditioned Stimulus (US) to support a theoretical division between two different types of valence representations for a stimulus: the semantic representation of valence, i.e., stored accumulated knowledge about the value of the stimulus, and the affective representation of valence, i.e., the valence of the affective response to this stimulus. The current work extended past research by using a neutral Conditioned Stimulus (CS) in the context of reversal learning, a type of associative learning. The impact of expected uncertainty (the variability of rewards) and unexpected uncertainty (reversal) on the evolving temporal dynamics of the two types of valence representations of the CS was tested in two experiments. Results show that in an environment presenting the two types of uncertainty, the adaptation process (learning rate) of the choices and of the semantic valence representation is slower than the adaptation of the affective valence representation. In contrast, in environments with only unexpected uncertainty (i.e., fixed rewards), there is no difference in the temporal dynamics of the two types of valence representations. Implications for models of affect, value-based learning theories, and value-based decision-making models are discussed.

Mentalization Psychotherapy for Patients Presenting with a Psychotic Personality Structure: A Contemporary Approach

Overt psychotic symptoms, currently understood as resulting from both neurobiological and developmental etiological factors, are also associated with deficits in mentalization in a subgroup of patients presenting with psychotic personality structure. Neurodevelopmental and traumatic impairments seen in this subtype of psychotic disorders create a pressure or need for what has been called a transformational mentalizing process. This specific form of mental elaboration focuses explicitly on finding words and images that help patients to grasp their emotional and mental states. It thus differs from mainstream mentalization treatment, which puts a greater emphasis on reflective functioning. A psychodynamically informed mentalization-based individual and group psychotherapy for this subgroup of patients was developed, aiming at augmenting the patient's psychological resources through explicit transformational mentalization, rather than primarily targeting symptom reduction. This program stimulates curiosity about one's mental states, progressively aiming to give shape to and explore affectively charged mental states, and is integrated with other treatment modalities. This article presents a psychological model of psychotic personality structure and its psychotherapeutic implications, as well as clinical illustrations. Preliminary findings from a pilot study provide encouraging support for the model, including emerging reflective capacities and symptom reduction, as well as overall improvement of social and occupational functioning.

Autobiographical memory impairment in chronic schizophrenia: Significance and clinical correlates

Previous studies of autobiographical memory (AM) in schizophrenia yielded a reduction of specificity, richness of details and conscious recollection, which indicate both, quantitative and qualitative AM changes. However, their associations with psychopathological symptoms and neuropsychological deficits were not resolved. Therefore, we sought to investigate AM with respect to psychopathology and neuropsychology in patients with chronic schizophrenia to rule out the influence of different courses of the disease. AM of four lifetime periods was examined in 75 patients and 50 healthy controls by using a semi-structured interview. The recalled episodes were rated for memory specificity. Subsequently, one single event of each period of life was rated for details and experiential aspects of reliving (originality, vividness/visual imagery, emotional re-experiencing and emotional valence). When contrasted with healthy controls, patients recalled a significantly reduced number of episodes and personal semantic facts; moreover, memory specificity of AM was significantly lower in patients than controls. While the richness of details calculated for single events showed only minor, non-significant group differences, vividness and emotional re-experiencing were significantly less pronounced in the patient group. Along with this, AM performance correlated significantly with negative symptoms including apathy as well as verbal memory and executive functions. Our results underline the significance of overgenerality as a key feature of AM in schizophrenia as well as a dissociation between intact number of details of single events and reduced vividness and emotional re-experiencing. The extent of negative symptoms including apathy and impairments of verbal memory/executive functions may explain AM deficits in chronic schizophrenia.

Episodic Events as Spatiotemporal Memory: The Sequence of Information in the Episodic Buffer of Working Memory for Language Comprehension

Memory and language are the two higher-order cognitive abilities intertwined for communication and other cognitive skills. Memory is the storage capacity of all the information we perceive. Where the sensory memory perceives the stimuli, the working memory actively stores the information and passes it to the long-term memory. However, there is a question that how is the continuous perception of stimuli transformed into meaningful information and organized for proper execution and retrieval from the memory? This paper focuses on the episodic memory that perceives information that is spatial and temporal based on our everyday experiences. Though the spatiotemporal information we receive is continuous; the episodic memory arranges the information as to episodes in the working memory before the information is stored for a longer period. The episodic buffer is one of the components of the working memory model which holds the episodic memory that is organized concerning time. To this point, the paper tries to understand the working of the episodic buffer in maintaining the episodic memory and also about the process of episodic events into meaningful units. Further, the paper also concentrates on the hippocampus which is considered to be the location of the episodic buffer.

What about "space" is important for episodic memory?

Early cognitive neuroscientific research revealed that the hippocampus is crucial for spatial navigation in rodents, and for autobiographical episodic memory in humans. Researchers quickly linked these streams to propose that the human hippocampus supports memory through its role in representing space, and research on the link between spatial cognition and episodic memory in humans has proliferated over the past several decades. Different researchers apply the term "spatial" in a variety of contexts, however, and it remains unclear what aspect of space may be critical to memory. Similarly, "episodic" has been defined and tested in different ways. Naturalistic assessment of spatial memory and episodic memory (i.e., episodic autobiographical memory) is required to unify the scale and biological relevance in comparisons of spatial and mnemonic processing. Limitations regarding the translation of rodent to human research, human ontogeny, and inter-individual variability require greater consideration in the interpretation of this literature. In this review, we outline the aspects of space that are (and are not) commonly linked to episodic memory, and then we discuss these dimensions through the lens of individual differences in naturalistic autobiographical memory. Future studies should carefully consider which aspect(s) of space are being linked to memory within the context of naturalistic human cognition. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory.

Nonhuman primate genetic models for the study of rare diseases

Pre-clinical research and development relies heavily upon translationally valid models of disease. A major difficulty in understanding the biology of, and developing treatments for, rare disease is the lack of animal models. It is important that these models not only recapitulate the presentation of the disease in humans, but also that they share functionally equivalent underlying genetic causes. Nonhuman primates share physiological, anatomical, and behavioral similarities with humans resulting from close evolutionary relationships and high genetic homology. As the post-genomic era develops and next generation sequencing allows for the resequencing and screening of large populations of research animals, naturally occurring genetic variation in nonhuman primates with clinically relevant phenotypes is regularly emerging. Here we review nonhuman primate models of multiple rare genetic diseases with a focus on the similarities and differences in manifestation and etiologies across species. We discuss how these models are being developed and how they can offer new tools and opportunities for researchers interested in exploring novel therapeutics for these and other genetic diseases. Modeling human genetic diseases in translationally relevant nonhuman primates presents new prospects for development of therapeutics and a better understanding of rare diseases. The post-genomic era offers the opportunity for the discovery and further development of more models like those discussed here.

Afterlife future thinking: imagining oneself beyond death

Studies on episodic future thinking (the capacity to simulate possible experiences in one's personal future) have ignored future thinking that extends beyond death. We here examined personal afterlife projections in comparison with autobiographical memories and future projections in Thai (Study 1) and American (Study 2) samples. Participants reported all three types of events and rated their characteristics. In both studies, the characteristics of afterlife events were rated lower than those of memories and future events. Participants who believed in the afterlife generally rated afterlife events higher than non-believers and those who were uncertain, although this effect was most pronounced in Study 2. The content of afterlife events followed religious beliefs in the afterlife, and the majority of afterlife events were expected to take place immediately after death. The findings show that afterlife thoughts demonstrate characteristics that are comparable to memories and episodic future thoughts, and are shaped by religious beliefs.

The effect of changes in negative feedback on task performance: the role of goal orientation and feedback utility

Purpose

Drawing upon the feedback intervention theory, this study aims to focus on the concept of negative feedback change (increase or decrease) to analyze the dynamics of performance feedback and its relationships with goal orientation, feedback utility and task performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a two-wave survey by tracking 195 employees and their supervisors from two representative semiconductor-related equipment companies in China for one month.

Findings

Results showed that learning goal orientation positively moderates, and performance-approach goal orientation negatively moderates the indirect relationship between negative feedback change and employees’ task performance through employees’ perceptions of feedback utility.

Originality/value

This study provides new directions for performance feedback research by treating negative feedback from a dynamic perspective and addressing the mediating and moderating mechanisms. Furthermore, the findings also remind managers to not only consider feedback actions at a single moment but also manage it as a series of actions in the ongoing stream of time.

Simulating the situated-self drives hippocampo-cortical engagement during inner narration of events

We often use inner narration when thinking about past and future events. The present paradigm explicitly addresses the influence of the language used in inner narration on the hippocampus-dependent event construction process. We assessed the language context effect during the inner narration of different event types: past, future, daydream, and self-unrelated fictitious events. The language context was assessed via a fluent bilingual population who used inner narration, either in their first language (L1) or second language (L2). Not all inner narration of events elicited hippocampo-cortical activity. In fact, only the angular gyrus and precuneus-retrosplenial cortex were activated by inner narration across all event types. More precisely, only inner narration of events which entailed the simulation of bodily self-location in space (whether or not they were time-marked: past, future, daydream) depended on the hippocampo-cortical system, while inner narration of events that did not entail bodily self-location (self-unrelated fictitious) did not. The language context of the narration influenced the bilinguals' hippocampo-cortical system by enhancing the co-activation of semantic areas with the hippocampus for inner narration of events in the L2. Overall, this study highlights 2 important characteristics of hippocampo-cortical-dependent inner narration of events: The core episodic hippocampal system is activated for inner narration of events simulating self-location in space (regardless of time-marking), and the inner language used for narration (L1 or L2) mediates hippocampal functional connectivity.

Prefrontal and Medial Temporal Lobe Cortical Contributions to Visual Short-Term Memory

A number of recent studies have indicated that the medial temporal lobe (MTL) plays a critical role in working memory (WM) and perception, but these results have been highly controversial given the traditional association of MTL with long-term memory. We review the research and highlight important factors that need to be considered in determining the role of MTL in WM including set-size of used stimuli and feature complexity and/or feature conjunctions/bindings embedded in those stimuli. These factors relate to hierarchical and, accordingly, domain-specific theories of functional organization within the temporal lobe. In addition, one must consider process-specific theories too, because two key processes commonly understood to contribute recognition memory, namely, recollection and familiarity, also have robust support from neurophysiological and neuroimaging research as to their functional dissociations within MTL. PFC has long been heavily implicated in WM; however, relatively less is known about how the PFC contributes to recollection and familiarity, although dynamic prefrontal coding models in WM may help to explain their neural mechanisms. The MTL and PFC are heavily interconnected and do not operate independently in underlying WM. We propose that investigation of the interactions between these two regions in WM, particularly their coordinated neural activities, and the modeling of such interactions, will be crucial for the advancing understanding of the neural mechanisms of WM.

Therapist reactions to patient personality: A pilot study of clinicians’ emotional and neural responses using three clinical vignettes from in treatment series

Introduction

Therapists’ responses to patients play a crucial role in psychotherapy and are considered a key component of the patient–clinician relationship, which promotes successful treatment outcomes. To date, no empirical research has ever investigated therapist response patterns to patients with different personality disorders from a neuroscience perspective.

Methods

In the present study, psychodynamic therapists (N = 14) were asked to complete a battery of instruments (including the Therapist Response Questionnaire) after watching three videos showing clinical interactions between a therapist and three patients with narcissistic, histrionic/borderline, and depressive personality disorders, respectively. Subsequently, participants’ high-density electroencephalography (hdEEG) was recorded as they passively viewed pictures of the patients’ faces, which were selected from the still images of the previously shown videos. Supervised machine learning (ML) was used to evaluate whether: (1) therapists’ responses predicted which patient they observed during the EEG task and whether specific clinician reactions were involved in distinguishing between patients with different personality disorders (using pairwise comparisons); and (2) therapists’ event-related potentials (ERPs) predicted which patient they observed during the laboratory experiment and whether distinct ERP components allowed this forecast.

Results

The results indicated that therapists showed distinct patterns of criticized/devalued and sexualized reactions to visual depictions of patients with different personality disorders, at statistically systematic and clinically meaningful levels. Moreover, therapists’ late positive potentials (LPPs) in the hippocampus were able to determine which patient they observed during the EEG task, with high accuracy.

Discussion

These results, albeit preliminary, shed light on the role played by therapists’ memory processes in psychotherapy. Clinical and neuroscience implications of the empirical investigation of therapist responses are discussed.

The Blursday database as a resource to study subjective temporalities during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns triggered worldwide changes in the daily routines of human experience. The Blursday database provides repeated measures of subjective time and related processes from participants in nine countries tested on 14 questionnaires and 15 behavioural tasks during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 2,840 participants completed at least one task, and 439 participants completed all tasks in the first session. The database and all data collection tools are accessible to researchers for studying the effects of social isolation on temporal information processing, time perspective, decision-making, sleep, metacognition, attention, memory, self-perception and mindfulness. Blursday includes quantitative statistics such as sleep patterns, personality traits, psychological well-being and lockdown indices. The database provides quantitative insights on the effects of lockdown (stringency and mobility) and subjective confinement on time perception (duration, passage of time and temporal distances). Perceived isolation affects time perception, and we report an inter-individual central tendency effect in retrospective duration estimation.

How do healthcare unit managers promote nurses' perceived organizational support, and which working conditions enable them to do so? A mixed methods approach

Healthcare unit managers are pivotal to promote nurses' Perceived Organizational Support and hence to ensure nurses' health and well-being, as well as high-quality care. Despite this fact, there is a dearth of studies addressing how healthcare unit managers act and organize their work to promote nurses' Perceived Organizational Support and which working conditions enable them to do so. Through a mixed methods approach, comprising qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys among healthcare unit managers and nurses, this paper underscores that healthcare unit managers' availability to their nursing staff was essential for their ability to promote nurses' Perceived Organizational Support, and that responsive support from the care unit managers' superior management, administration, and managerial colleagues constituted enabling working conditions. Superior manager support strongly promoted the care unit manager's own Perceived Organizational Support, which, in turn, was positively correlated with nurses' organizational climate of Perceived Organizational Support.

A Psychoeducational Intervention in Prenatal Classes: Positive Effects on Anxiety, Self-Efficacy, and Temporal Focus in Birth Attendants

Background: Previous studies have reported associations between high maternal anxiety, temporal perceptions during pregnancy, and a poor sense of self-efficacy. One type of anxiety expecting mothers experience is associated with childbirth, which previous studies have shown can be reduced by antenatal training. Recent contributions have pointed out that current prenatal courses, while providing important and useful knowledge, do not devote sufficient content to the mental health of the parturient and to the psychological issues that can arise before and after the birth. Methods: In total, 80 pregnant women were provided with a special prepartum course in which ample space was devoted to topics such as maternal mental health, parenting skills and couple relationship, relaxation techniques, and assertiveness. Perception of threat, state anxiety, temporal focus, needs and expectations, and self-efficacy were assessed by comparing this psychoeducational intervention group with a traditional antenatal course group (n = 80), and a control group (n = 80). Two-way mixed ANOVAS (3 × 2) were performed for each dependent variable considered, including the time variable (pre-course–post-course) as a factor within the participants and the group variable as a factor between the subjects. Results: The psychoeducational intervention actually induced significant and positive changes primarily on four dimensions: state anxiety, perceived self-efficacy, the need for information, and reassurance of the pregnant women who participated in this trial. Conclusions: The study suggests improving the quality of prenatal classes by paying particular attention to the content and communication used within the group, in order to gratify at the highest level, the need for information, reassurance, and sharing that characterize the parturient’s request for support. The evidence collected recommends further replicating the intervention protocol described in order to improve the psychophysical well-being of women in a delicate moment such as pregnancy and preparation for childbirth, but especially in terms of the prevention and containment of the risks of psychological distress that currently affect a significant number of women after childbirth.

Self-projection in early childhood: No evidence for a common underpinning of episodic memory, episodic future thinking, theory of mind, and spatial navigation

Buckner and Carroll [Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2007), Vol. 11, pp. 49-57] argued that episodic memory (EM), episodic future thinking (EFT), theory of mind (ToM), and spatial navigation all build on the same mental mechanism-self-projection, that is, the ability to disengage from the immediate present and shift perspective to alternative temporal, mental, or spatial situations. Developmental studies indeed show that all four abilities undergo profound developmental changes around 4 years of age, and there are first indications of developmental interrelations between some of the abilities. However, strong evidence for the self-projection account, namely that all four abilities are interrelated in their emergence during early childhood, is still lacking. To thoroughly investigate the self-projection hypothesis, we tested 151 4-year-old children on 12 different tasks assessing their EM, EFT, ToM, and spatial navigation skills (3 tasks per ability). Structural equation modeling under maximum likelihood estimation was conducted on a final sample of 144 children to evaluate a model with the 12 tasks as indicators and self-projection as the latent factor. The model showed a very good fit to the data. However, the factor loadings, indicating the strength of association between the latent factor and the indicators, were very low-which speaks against the validity of the measurement model. In summary, the results do not support the assumption of a common latent factor underlying the various abilities EM, EFT, ToM, and spatial navigation. Implications of our results for the self-projection account and possible related theoretical and methodological challenges are discussed.

Effects of inhibitory control capacity and cognitive load on involuntary past and future thoughts: A laboratory study

The present study focused on involuntary thoughts about personal past events (i.e., involuntary autobiographical memories; IAMs), and involuntary thoughts about future events and plans (i.e., involuntary future thoughts; IFTs). The frequency of these involuntary thoughts is influenced by cognitive demands of ongoing activities, but the exact underlying mechanism(s) has yet to be revealed. The present study tested two possible explanations: (1) the special inhibitory mechanism switches on when one is engaged in attentionally demanding activities; (2) different levels of cognitive load interfere with cue-noticing that act as triggers for IAMs and IFTs. We report a study with pre-selected groups of participants that differed in terms of their individual level of inhibitory control capacity (high vs. low), and completed both standard and attentionally demanding versions of a laboratory vigilance task with irrelevant cue-words to trigger IAMs and IFTs, and random thought-probes to measure their frequency. To examine the level of incidental cue-noticing, participants also completed an unexpected cue-recognition task. Despite large differences between groups in inhibitory control capacity, the number of IFTs and IAMs, reported in the attentionally demanding condition, was comparable. In addition, high cognitive load reduced the number of IAMs, but not IFTs. Finally, the recognition of incidental cues encountered in the vigilance task was reduced under high cognitive load condition, indicating that poor cue-noticing may be the main underlying mechanism of cognitive load effect rather than the lack of inhibitory resources needed to suppress involuntary retrieval. This and other possible mechanisms and avenues for future research are discussed.

Compromised future thinking: another cognitive cost of temporal lobe epilepsy

The ability to mentally travel forward through time allows humans to envisage a diverse array of possible events taking place in the future, helping us to choose which pathway to take in life. In epilepsy, we assume that patients use this cognitive ability when deciding between various treatment options, but this assumption has not been robustly tested. The temporal lobes are key contributors to this ‘future thinking’ and its building blocks include cognitive functions commonly impaired in temporal lobe epilepsy such as memory and language, giving rise to a hypothesis that ‘future thinking’ is impaired in this patient cohort. Participants were 68 adults: 37 with neurosurgically-naïve, unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy (51% right lateralized) and 31 healthy controls of similar age, sex and intellectual ability to the participants with epilepsy. Future thinking was measured using an imagined experiences task validated in other neurological populations. Tools well-established in temporal lobe epilepsy were used to measure potential cognitive correlates of future thinking. Analysis of variance revealed significantly impoverished future thinking in both left and right temporal lobe epilepsy relative to controls (P = 0.001, η_p²=0.206), with no difference between temporal lobe epilepsy groups (P > 0.05). Future thinking deficits in left temporal lobe epilepsy were paralleled by deficits in scene construction, whereas impoverished future thinking in right temporal lobe epilepsy occurred in the setting of intact scene construction. Deficits in future thinking were associated with reductions in lexical access and episodic autobiographic memory in both epilepsy groups. In sum, future thinking is compromised in both left and right temporal lobe epilepsy. The deficit in left temporal lobe epilepsy is largely explainable by dysfunction in verbal cognitive processes including scene construction. While the basis of the deficits observed with right temporal foci shares features with that of left temporal lobe epilepsy, their intact scene construction raises questions about the role of the left and right temporal lobes in future thinking and scene construction and the relationship between these two constructs, including whether right temporal lobe might play a specific role in future thinking in terms of creative processing. Clinicians should take impaired future thinking into account when counselling temporal lobe epilepsy patients about various treatment options, as they may struggle to vividly imagine what different outcomes might mean for their future selves.

As soon as there was life, there was danger: the deep history of survival behaviours and the shallower history of consciousness

It is often said that fear is a universal innate emotion that we humans have inherited from our mammalian ancestors by virtue of having inherited conserved features of their nervous systems. Contrary to this common sense-based scientific point of view, I have argued that what we have inherited from our mammalian ancestors, and they from their distal vertebrate ancestors, and they from their chordate ancestors, and so forth, is not a fear circuit. It is, instead, a defensive survival circuit that detects threats, and in response, initiates defensive survival behaviours and supporting physiological adjustments. Seen in this light, the defensive survival circuits of humans and other mammals can be conceptualized as manifestations of an ancient survival function-the ability to detect danger and respond to it-that may in fact predate animals and their nervous systems, and perhaps may go back to the beginning of life. Fear, on the other hand, from my perspective, is a product of cortical cognitive circuits. This conception is not just of academic interest. It also has practical implications, offering clues as to why efforts to treat problems related to fear and anxiety are not more effective, and what might make them better. This article is part of the theme issue 'Systems neuroscience through the lens of evolutionary theory'.

Troubled past: A critical psychometric assessment of the self-report Survey of Autobiographical Memory (SAM)

The Survey of Autobiographical Memory (SAM) was designed as an easy-to-administer measure of self-perceived autobiographical memory (AM) recollection capacity. We provide a comprehensive psychometric evaluation of the SAM in younger and older adults. First, we evaluated the reliability of the SAM as a measure of self-perceived recollective capacity. Next, we tested whether the SAM was a valid measure of episodic and autobiographical memory performance, as assessed with widely used performance-based measures. Finally, we investigated associations between the SAM, cognitive measures and self-reported assessments of psychological functioning. The SAM demonstrated reliability as a self-report measure of perceived recollective capacity. High internal consistency was observed across subscales, with the exception of SAM-semantic. Evidence for independence among the subscales was mixed: SAM-episodic and SAM-semantic items showed poor correspondence with respective subscales. Good correspondence was observed between the future and spatial items and their SAM subscales. The SAM showed limited associations with AM performance as measured by the Autobiographical Interview (AI), yet was broadly associated with self-reported AI event vividness. SAM scores were weakly associated with performance-based memory measures and were age-invariant, inconsistent with known age effects on declarative memory. Converging evidence indicated that SAM-episodic and SAM-semantic subscales are not independent and should not be interpreted as specific measures of episodic or semantic memory. The SAM was robustly associated with self-efficacy, suggesting an association with confidence in domain general self-report abilities. We urge caution in the use and interpretation of the SAM as a measure of AM, pending revision and further psychometric validation.

Perceptual illusion of body-ownership within an immersive realistic environment enhances memory accuracy and re-experiencing

Our bodies provide a necessary scaffold for memories of past events. Yet, we are just beginning to understand how feelings of one's own body during the encoding of realistic events shape memory. Participants formed memories for immersive, lifelike events by watching pre-recorded 3D videos that involved a first-person view of a mannequin's body through head mounted displays. We manipulated feelings of body ownership over the mannequin using a perceptual full-body illusion. Participants completed cued recall questions and subjective ratings (i.e., degree of reliving, emotional intensity, vividness, and belief in memory accuracy) for each video immediately following encoding and one week later. Sensing the mannequin's body as one's own during encoding enhanced the following factors: memory accuracy across testing points, immediate reliving, delayed emotional intensity, vividness, and belief in memory accuracy. These findings demonstrate that a basic sense of bodily selfhood provides a crucial foundation for the accurate reliving of the past.

Impairment of aversive episodic memories during Covid-19 pandemic: The impact of emotional context on memory processes

The threatening context of the COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique setting to study the effects of negative psychological symptoms on memory processes. Episodic memory is an essential function of the human being related to the ability to store and remember experiences and anticipate possible events in the future. Studying this function in this context is crucial to understand what effects the pandemic will have on the formation of episodic memories. To study this, the formation of episodic memories was evaluated by free recall, recognition, and episode order tasks for an aversive and neutral content. The results indicated that aversive episodic memory is impaired both in the free recall task and in the recognition task. Even the beneficial effect that emotional memory usually has for the episodic order was undermined as there were no differences between the neutral and aversive condition. The present work adds to the evidence that indicates that the level of activation does not modify memory processes in a linear way, which also depends on the type of recall and the characteristics of the content to be encoded.

Episodic thought distinguishes spontaneous cognition in waking from REM and NREM sleep

Evidence suggests continuity between cognition in waking and sleeping states. However, one type of cognition that may differ is episodic thoughts of the past and future. The current study investigated this across waking, NREM sleep and REM sleep. We analyzed thought reports obtained from a large sample of individuals (N = 138) who underwent experience-sampling during wakefulness as well as serial awakenings in sleep. Our data suggest that while episodic thoughts are common during waking spontaneous thought, episodic thoughts of both the past and the future rarely occur in either N2 or REM sleep. Moreover, replicating previous findings, episodic thoughts during wakefulness exhibit a strong prospective bias and frequently involve autobiographical planning. Together, these results suggest that the occurrence of spontaneous episodic thoughts differs substantially across waking and dreaming sleep states. We suggest that this points to a difference in the way that human consciousness is typically experienced across the sleep-wake cycle.

Episodic Memory Reliving and Personality

Abstract. There are considerable individual differences in remembering past episodes. The current study aimed to examine the link between episodic memory reliving and the Five-Factor Model personality traits. Altogether 422 participants (67% women) described an autobiographical episode and rated the vividness and clarity of that recollection. Next, they assessed their general tendencies of autobiographical recollections, which resulted in two autobiographical episodic memory scores (AEMS) for each participant – episodic and general. Participants also filled in the Estonian version of the International Personality Item Pool NEO questionnaire. Findings from partial correlation analysis (controlling for age and gender) revealed distinguishable patterns of associations for the episodic and general-level reports of memory reliving: the episodic AEMS was positively associated with E4: Activity Level and E1: Friendliness, whereas the general AEMS was negatively correlated with N4: Self-Consciousness, and positively with E1: Friendliness, E6: Cheerfulness, O1: Imagination, O5: Intellect, C2: Orderliness, and C3: Dutifulness (all significant at p < .005). The associations between the general (but not the episodic) AEMS and personality facets were significantly correlated with the average social desirability ratings of the respective facets. We conclude that greater social adaptation together with the motivation of positive self-perception are plausible explanations of the links between personality traits and reporting the quality of reliving personal memories.

Present and future self in memory: the role of vmPFC in the self-reference effect

Self-related information is remembered better than other-related information (self-reference effect; SRE), a phenomenon that has been convincingly linked to the medial prefrontal cortex. It is not clear whether information related to our future self would also have a privileged status in memory, as medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) regions respond less to the future than to the present self, as if it were an 'other'. Here we ask whether the integrity of the ventral mPFC (vmPFC) is necessary for the emergence of the present and future SRE, if any. vmPFC patients and brain-damaged and healthy controls judged whether each of a series of trait adjectives was descriptive of their present self, future self, another person and that person in the future and later recognized studied traits among distractors. Information relevant to the present (vs future) was generally recognized better, across groups. However, whereas healthy and brain-damaged controls exhibited strong present and future SREs, these were absent in vmPFC patients, who concomitantly showed reduced certainty about their own present and anticipated traits compared to the control groups. These findings indicate that vmPFC is necessary to impart a special mnemonic status to self-related information, including our envisioned future self, possibly by instantiating the self-schema.

How rich are false memories in a naturalistic context in healthy aging?

The recall of factual and contextual information is a core characteristic of episodic memory sensitive to aging effects. The innovative aim of the present study was to assess in a naturalistic context the quantity and quality of correct and false free recalls among younger and older adults considering feature binding (What-Where-When-Details) and recollection (Remembering vs. Knowing). Thanks to virtual reality, we designed a multimodal environment simulating a lively town in which we implemented a variant of a DRM task rich in sets of semantically related items (e.g., fruits on a market stall). We asked 30 young and 30 older participants to navigate in the virtual environment, paying attention to the items, and then recall as many items and as much contextual information as possible and indicate the presence of recollection. As expected, older adults produced fewer correct recall but more intrusions than younger adults, and their correct recall was more deficient in binding and recollection. In both age groups, false recall was associated with the correct context inferred from a related set of items. However, the intrusions produced by older adults were highly recollected compared to those of the younger adults, and they were associated with false item-related contextual information.

Self-Processing and Self-Face Reaction Time Latencies: A Review

In this article, we detail the advantages of self-face identification latencies over more traditional tests of mirror self-recognition. Using reaction time latencies (measured in milliseconds) to identify different dimensions of the self, instead of relying on a simple dichotomous pass/fail mirror mark-test outcome, enables investigators to examine individual differences in self-processing time. This is a significant methodological step forward with important implications. The point of departure for our article is to detail research we and others have conducted on latencies for self-face identification, to show how self-processing occurs in the right side of the brain, how schizophrenia is a self-processing disorder, how self-face reaction time latencies implicate the existence of an underlying multiple modal self-processing system, and to explore ideas for future research.

Intolerance of Uncertainty, Looming Cognitive Style, and Avoidant Coping as Predictors of Anxiety and Depression During COVID-19: a Longitudinal Study

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in increased distress and uncertainty. Understanding the progression of mental health and factors underlying the perpetuation of distress during the pandemic is pivotal in informing interventions and public health messaging. This current study examined longitudinal effects of two cognitive vulnerabilities, looming cognitive style, and intolerance of uncertainty, as well as coping styles on anxiety and depression through online questionnaires at two time points in the pandemic, May 2020 (N = 1520) and August 2020 (N = 545). Depression, but not anxiety, significantly increased across time, which was moderated by coping style. Serial mediation modeling using path analysis demonstrated a significant pathway illustrating increased looming cognitive style in the beginning of the pandemic leads to increased intolerance of uncertainty, avoidant coping, and anxiety later in the pandemic. Results suggest a novel model in conceptualizing anxiety during the pandemic, namely highlighting looming cognitive style as an underlying cognitive vulnerability factor and antecedent of intolerance of uncertainty and illuminating the temporal directionality between looming cognitive style and intolerance of uncertainty. These findings provide important implications regarding intervention and public health messaging with modifiable behavioral and cognitive factors to improve mental health during a pandemic.

The role of inhibitory control and ADHD symptoms in the occurrence of involuntary thoughts about the past and future: An individual differences study

In everyday life, people often experience involuntary thoughts about their personal past and future events in response to incidental cues in the environment. Yet, despite the abundance of such cues, our consciousness is not constantly flooded by these involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) and involuntary future thoughts (IFTs). The main goal of the present study was to further investigate the possibility that cognitive inhibitory control keeps these involuntary cognitions at bay. To test this inhibition hypothesis, we conducted a large-scale study (n = 157) in which groups of participants with different levels of inhibitory control (low, medium, high) and individuals with ADHD spectrum symptoms were engaged in a laboratory vigilance task in which the frequency of IFTs and IAMs was assessed. Contrary to predictions, although participants across groups differed significantly in terms of their individual inhibitory control capacity, the number of IFTs and IAMs reported during the vigilance task was comparable. In addition, individuals with the ADHD spectrum symptoms did not report more spontaneous thoughts compared to other groups. Together, these findings lend little support for the idea that inhibition is a key mechanism that regulates the occurrence of IAMs and IFTs in everyday life. Other possible mechanisms and avenues for future research are discussed.

Specifying a relationship between semantic and episodic memory in the computation of a feature-based familiarity signal using MINERVA 2

Approaches to modeling episodic recognition memory often imply a separability from semantic memory insofar as an implicit tabula rasa (i.e., blank slate) assumption is apparent in many simulations. This is evident in the common practice of having new test probes correspond to zero memory traces in the store while old test probes correspond to traces representing instances of items' occurrence on a study list. However, in list-learning studies involving word lists, none of the test items would actually correspond to zero items in the person's memory, as all of the test words are generally known to participants, whether old or new. By focusing on a list-learning recognition phenomenon that likely results from feature-based familiarity detection and necessarily involves a role of preexisting knowledge in its mechanisms-the semantic-feature-based recognition without cued recall phenomenon-we show how incorporating preexisting knowledge into the MINERVA 2 model enables it to simulate previously shown empirical patterns with this phenomenon. The simulation patterns reported here raise new theoretical implications worth further exploration, such as the extent to which the variances change in the signal versus the noise distribution when preexisting knowledge is present versus absent in the simulations.

Preconditions for nurses' perceived organizational support in healthcare: a qualitative explorative study

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to inductively explore the context-specific preconditions for nurses' perceived organizational support (POS) in healthcare organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative interview study was performed, based on the critical incident technique (CIT), with 24 registered nurses in different specialities of hospital care.

Findings

The nurses perceived three actors as essential for their POS: the first-line manager, the overarching organization and their college. The preconditions affecting the nurses’ perceptions of organizational support were supportive structuring and structures at work, as well as individual recognition and professional acknowledgement.

Originality/value

Previous studies of POS have mostly had a quantitative outset. In this paper, context-specific preconditions for nurses' POS are described in depth, enabled by the qualitative approach of the study. The findings may be used to guide healthcare organizations and managers aiming to foster nurses' POS, and thereby, benefit nurses' well-being and retention, as well as healthcare quality and efficiency.