Associative memory deficits are pervasive with age. Memory for complex pictures, however, also seems to require the association of several scene elements into one representation, but picture memory is often age-invariant. We speculated that the natural relationships contained in pictures may explain this distinction and that memory for scenes with unusual novel relationships would be affected w...

Tests of visual reproduction are used to assess visual memory. However, when the test is based on geometrical elements results could be influenced by schooling. Objective To evaluate the influence of different schooling levels on performance of a visual reproduction task. Methods A sample of 253 individuals (66 male and 187 female), aged 60 to 92 years were evaluated on a visual reproductio...

Prior research suggests emotional picture-viewing modulates motoric (nociceptive flexion reflex), autonomic (skin conductance response, heart rate acceleration), and subjective (pain rating) reactions to noxious electrodermal stimulation. The present study sought to determine whether emotional valence and arousal contribute to nociception modulation. To do so, pictures varying in emotional cont...

The vigilance-avoidance attention pattern is found in anxious adults, who initially gaze more at threatening pictures than nonanxious adults (vigilance), but subsequently gaze less at them than nonanxious adults (avoidance). The present research, using eye tracking methodology, tested whether anxious children show the same pattern. Children with separation anxiety disorder or no mental disorder...

BACKGROUND Alcohol research may benefit from controlled and validated picture sets. We have constructed the Amsterdam Beverage Picture Set (ABPS), which was designed for alcohol research in general and cognitive bias measurement and modification in particular. Here, we first formulate a position on alcohol stimulus validity that prescribes that alcohol-containing pictures, compared to nonalcoho...

In the present PET study, we examined brain activity related to processing of pictures and printed words in episodic memory. Our goal was to determine how the perceptual format of objects (verbal versus pictorial) is reflected in the neural organization of episodic memory for common objects. We investigated this issue in relation to encoding and recognition with a particular focus on medial tem...

The influence of affect and attention on sensory and affective pain as well as on somatosensory evoked potentials in response to painful and nonpainful electrical stimuli was investigated in a single experimental design. Affect was induced by pictures from the International Affective Picture System; attention was manipulated by asking participants to focus attention either on the pictures or on...

We examined how responses to aversive pictures affected performance and stimulus-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded during a demanding cognitive task. Numeric Stroop stimuli were brief ly presented to either left or right visual hemifield (LVF and RVF, respectively) after a centrally presented aversive or neutral picture from the International Affective Picture System. Subjects ind...

When people are presented simple and complex pictures and then tested in a same-changed recognition test with a simple or complex form of each, d' is greater for the simple than the complex picture (Pezdek & Chen, 1982). The results of three experiments confirm the robustness of this "asymmetric confusability effect" and test a model of the processes underlying this effect. According to the mod...

This research examined the effects of motion expectations on memory for static pictures. The central hypothesis was that as implied motion for a picture increases, memory distortions will also increase in the direction of implied motion. A secondary hypothesis predicted that people will find pictures with increased implied motion more interesting than pictures with less implied motion. Experime...