Enhancing Learning and Retention with Distinctive Virtual Reality Environments and Mental Context Reinstatement

Memory is inherently context-dependent: internal and environmental cues become bound to learnt information, and the later absence of these cues can impair recall. Here, we developed an approach to leverage context-dependence to optimise learning of challenging, interference-prone material. While navigating through desktop virtual reality (VR) contexts, participants learnt 80 foreign words in two phonetically similar languages. Those participants who learnt each language in its own unique context showed reduced interference and improved one-week retention (92%), relative to those who learnt the languages in the same context (76%)—however, this advantage was only apparent if participants subjectively experienced VR-based contexts as “real” environments. A follow-up fMRI experiment confirmed that reinstatement of brain activity patterns associated with the original encoding context during word retrieval was associated with improved recall performance. These findings establish that context-dependence can be harnessed with VR to optimise learning and showcase the important role of mental context reinstatement

Three- and four-year-old children represent mutually exclusive possible identities

How do children think about and plan for possible outcomes of events that could happen in the future? Previous work that has investigated children’s ability to think about mutually exclusive possibilities has largely focused on children’s reasoning about one type of possibility – the possible locations of an object. Here, we investigated children’s reasoning about another type of possibility – mutually-exclusive possible identities. In two experiments (n = 201 US 3- and 4-year-olds), children were told that two animal characters (e.g., a bunny and a monkey) were going to take turns sliding down a playground slide. Children were told that the animals wanted to eat their favorite foods (e.g., carrots and bananas, respectively) as soon as they got to the bottom of the slide. In an Unambiguous Identity condition, we told children the identity of the animal that would slide down. In an Ambiguous Identity condition, we told children that which animal would slide down first was unknown. To examine children’s representations of possible identities, we asked children to “get snack ready”. We found that children in the Unambiguous Identities condition selected only one of the snacks (i.e., the favorite snack of the animal they were told would slide down), while children in the Ambiguous Identities condition selected both snacks, suggesting that they were accounting for both possible identities. These results extend the literature on the development of modal reasoning to include reasoning about possible identities, and suggest that this ability may be available to children as young as 3 years

Ensuring Transparency and Trust in Supervised Machine Learning Studies: A Checklist for Organizational Researchers

Machine learning (ML) algorithms are rapidly being incorporated into the work of organizational practitioners, given their capability and flexibility in analyzing big data (i.e., large-scale messy datasets). However, in organizational science, ML is still in its relative infancy, and in both research and practice arenas, there is little consistency in reporting ML information. This lack of consistency in result reporting is concerning because ML offers a wide range of analytic options. Therefore, it is important that organizational research and practice in ML are conducted in a transparent, understandable, and ethical manner. To address this concern, we summarize the necessary information to report in organizational studies using supervised ML, along with examples of how such information has been reported to-date in published organizational studies. We earnestly hope that organizational researchers will benefit from this checklist about ML result reporting, adapting and extending it further in the future

Examining the robustness and generalizability of the shape bias: a meta-analysis

The “shape bias” – the bias to generalize new nouns by their shape rather than other features such as color or texture – has been argued to facilitate early noun learning for children. However, there is conflicting evidence about the magnitude and nature of this bias, as well as how it changes developmentally and how it varies across cultures. In this paper, we synthesize evidence about the shape bias using meta-analysis and meta-regression. We find strong overall evidence for the shape bias, but the literature is dominated by studies of English speaking children, making it difficult to assess cross-cultural differences. Large between-study heterogeneity also highlights procedural variation in the literature. Overall, publication bias and heterogeneity may limit the ability to distinguish theoretical accounts of the shape bias

Comparing Methods to Study Intentional Forgetting in the Lab and in the Field: Insights and Recommendations

Research on intentional forgetting is relevant for a wide range of applied contexts such as clinical psychology, work and organizational psychology and in everyday live as well. In view of the increasing amount of digital data and information overload, staying focused and working effectively are growing problems in the world of work. These issues are assumed to be mitigated by mechanisms of intentional forgetting. The present paper presents a collection and overview of methods used and results achieved in the priority programme Intentional Forgetting in Organizations funded by the DFG (SPP1921) and its subprojects. We start with addressing the research questions of the individual tandems involved, clustering and sketching their various methods for capturing intentional forgetting. In the next step, the different methodological approaches are differentiated from each other, and specific, context-related advantages and disadvantages are elaborated (method differentiation). Based on this, recommendations for action are developed to facilitate the choice of the appropriate method for future, thematically similar research projects (method recommendation). The paper also intends to provide a collection of materials, such as newly developed experiments, questionnaires, and stimulus materials

The modulatory mechanism of spatial distance on the role of internal attention in unattended working memory representations

Visual working memory (VWM) is a cognitive system that temporarily stores visual information, which is essential for higher cognitive functions. Previous research has demonstrated that internal attention can selectively prioritize specific items within VWM using cues, enhancing memory performance for cued items while potentially impacting uncued items based on their proximity to the cued item. The aim of this study was to investigate how spatial distance affects the role of internal attention in maintaining unattended VWM representations. Two experiments were conducted to explore how spatial distance between cued and uncued items modulates this effect. Experiment 1 used a lateralized change detection task with four items to examine how varying distances influence retro-cue effects. The results showed that the uncued item located closer to cued items experienced less memory decline compared to those farther away, supporting the existence of an attentional spatial proximity effect. However, the presence of additional uncued items between cued and uncued items may have confounded these effects. Experiment 2 reduced memory load and systematically manipulated the distance between cued and probed uncued item, finding that proximity to the cued item still protected uncued items from significant memory loss. The results also suggested that the effects of spatial distance are independent of the presence of other uncued items. These findings confirm that internal attention can extend its benefits to nearby uncued items, highlighting a flexible and spatially sensitive mechanism within VWM. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of how attentional processes manage limited memory resources

Head models of healthy and depressed adults for simulating the electric fields of non-invasive electric brain stimulation

During the past decade, it became clear that the electric field elicited by non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) are substantially influenced by variations in individual head and brain anatomy. In addition to structural variations in the healthy, several psychiatric disorders are characterized by anatomical alterations that are likely to further constrain the intracerebral effects of NIBS. Here, we present high-resolution realistic head models derived from structural magnetic resonance imaging data of 19 healthy adults and 19 patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD). By using a freely available software package for modelling the electric fields induced by different NIBS protocols, we show that our head models are well-suited for assessing inter-individual and between-group variability in the magnitude and focality of tDCS-induced electric fields for two protocols targeting the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

The evolutionary functions of imagination and fiction and how they may contribute to psychological wellbeing during a pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread social disruption and lockdowns, with negative consequences for psychological wellbeing worldwide. We argue that imaginative-narrative simulation - the mental simulation of events, sourced from memory and fiction, brought together through narrative - may have had substantial positive contributions to psychological wellbeing during restrictions of the pandemic. In particular, we propose that this simulation is a tool to support (i) planning and future thought, (ii) coping and emotion regulation, (iii) bonding and social needs, and (iv) identity and worldviews. We suggest that these functions can contribute to coping during the pandemic restrictions, though we also address potential maladaptive effects of the functions on psychological wellbeing, such as rumination. We put forward our framework, include relevant research on the evolutionary functions of simulation through imagination and fiction, and review relevant studies of the effects of imagination and fiction on psychological wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. In light of previous research and the negative psychological effects of COVID-19 disruptions and lockdowns, we suggest that there is much scope for future directions on this topic

Sex/gender differences in how plurisexual attractions contribute to young adults’ thoughts and feelings about their sexual selves

Purpose: Sexual self-schema (SSS) are cognitive frameworks for one’s thoughts and feelings about oneself as a sexual being. These schema interpret and organize sexual information and attitudes, and can guide sexual behavior. This study examined how plurisexual attractions may interact with gender to predict SSS. Materials and Methods: I surveyed 602 young adults about their gender, patterns of attractions to men, women, and gender non-binary people, and SSS using the validated SSS Scale. Results: In this sample, SSS were similar across participants with monosexual vs. plurisexual patterns of attraction. However, a few significant effects emerged. Cisgender women with low attraction to any gender reported significantly lower romantic/passionate self-schema relative to women with at least some attraction to one or more genders. In contrast, cisgender men with exclusively same-gender attractions reported higher open/liberal self-schema relative to men with either exclusively other-gender or plurisexual attractions. Novel to this study, 22% percent of participants reported attractions to gender non-binary and gender non-conforming people, and these attractions significantly predicted SSS. Conclusion: These findings point to subtle gender differences in how attractions interact with young people’s conceptualization of their sexual selves

Getting the blues: negative affect dynamics mediate the within-person association of maladaptive emotion regulation and depression

Temporal patterns of affective functioning such as emotional inertia and instability may predict increases in depressive symptoms. However, the investigation of maladaptive emotion regulation’s role in affect dynamics and depressive symptoms at the within-individual level is still lacking. We collected intensive longitudinal data regarding momentary maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (rumination and expressive suppression) and negative affective states (NA) (measured multiple times a day), perceived stressors and depressive symptoms (measured every three days) from a general population sample during the COVID-19 pandemic’s first wave in Hungary. The final dataset included 7117 affective states surveys from 125 participants, which were aggregated in 460 three-day measurement windows. Multilevel SEM models were fit to test whether affect dynamics mediate the association between maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, negative affect intensity, and two domains of depression, anhedonia, and negative mood and thoughts. Within and between individuals, rumination indirectly predicted NA intensity and negative mood and thoughts through elevated NA instability and NA inertia. Expressive suppression had a negative indirect effect on NA intensity via NA inertia at the within-person level, while this mediation effect was positive at the between-person level. Moreover, affect dynamics were positively connected to depressive symptoms and these associations were mediated by NA intensity. These suggest that disturbances in emotion regulation are indirectly connected to depressive symptoms, mediated by specific temporal patterns in affective functioning. These findings hold both at the within- and the between-individual level. Our findings may facilitate automated depression risk assessment based on simple affective and emotion regulation time series