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Metaphors are increasingly recognized as influencing cognition and consumption. While these linkages typically have been qualitatively generated, this article presents a framework of convergent quantitative methodologies that can further document the validity of a metaphor. To illustrate this multimethod framework, the authors explore whether there is a metaphoric link between meat and maleness in Western cultures. The authors address this in six quantifiable studies that involve (1) implicit associations, (2) free associations, (3) indirect-scenario-based inferences, (4) direct measurement profiling, (5) preference and choice, and (6) linguistic analysis and conclude that there is a metaphoric relationship between mammal muscle meat and maleness.

Background Traditional pen‐and‐paper neuropsychological assessments are not sensitive to subtle cognitive changes in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD), limiting their use for monitoring of cognitive performance over shorter timeframes. Here, we show that frequently administered remote and unsupervised digital cognitive assessments are better suited to capture short‐term cognitive decline in early AD. Method We investigated episodic memory trajectories using self‐administered remote digital testing in 202 participants (52–85 years) who completed unsupervised tests for at least 30 weeks. Linear mixed modeling was used to investigate main effects of cognitive status, n =  152 cognitively unimpaired (CU), n =  50 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and interaction effects of cognitive status by time spent in the study. Analyses were repeated, stratifying the MCI group by amyloid‐β (Aβ) burden (n Aβ− = 21, n Aβ+ = 24). Baseline and change‐change associations with in‐person neuropsychological assessments were also examined using Pearson correlations. Result At baseline, MCI performed worse than CU on an associative memory task (Object‐in‐Room Recall, ORR), memory precision tasks for objects and scenes (Mnemonic Discrimination Task for Objects and Scenes, MDT‐OS), and a familiarity‐based memory task (Complex Scene Recognition, CSR). A short‐term decline in the familiarity‐dependent task was observed in all patients with an MCI diagnosis, while both the familiarity‐dependent memory task and memory precision for objects task were sensitive to decline in the MCI Aβ+ group specifically. Change in the remotely assessed familiarity‐dependent memory was correlated with multi‐year change on annual in‐person neuropsychological assessments. Finally, in‐person tests were not sensitive to short‐term cognitive changes in MCI. Conclusion Altogether, these findings show that frequent remote cognitive testing is a promising tool to feasibly capture subtle and short‐term cognitive decline.

Background Traditional pen‐and‐paper neuropsychological assessments are not sensitive to subtle cognitive changes in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD), limiting their use for monitoring of cognitive performance over shorter timeframes. Here, we show that frequently administered remote and unsupervised digital cognitive assessments are better suited to capture short‐term cognitive decline in early AD. Method We investigated episodic memory trajectories using self‐administered remote digital testing in 202 participants (52–85 years) who completed unsupervised tests for at least 30 weeks. Linear mixed modeling was used to investigate main effects of cognitive status, n = 152 cognitively unimpaired (CU), n = 50 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and interaction effects of cognitive status by time spent in the study. Analyses were repeated, stratifying the MCI group by amyloid‐β (Aβ) burden (nAβ− = 21, nAβ+ = 24). Baseline and change‐change associations with in‐person neuropsychological assessments were also examined using Pearson correlations. Result At baseline, MCI performed worse than CU on an associative memory task (Object‐in‐Room Recall, ORR), memory precision tasks for objects and scenes (Mnemonic Discrimination Task for Objects and Scenes, MDT‐OS), and a familiarity‐based memory task (Complex Scene Recognition, CSR). A short‐term decline in the familiarity‐dependent task was observed in all patients with an MCI diagnosis, while both the familiarity‐dependent memory task and memory precision for objects task were sensitive to decline in the MCI Aβ+ group specifically. Change in the remotely assessed familiarity‐dependent memory was correlated with multi‐year change on annual in‐person neuropsychological assessments. Finally, in‐person tests were not sensitive to short‐term cognitive changes in MCI. Conclusion Altogether, these findings show that frequent remote cognitive testing is a promising tool to feasibly capture subtle and short‐term cognitive decline.

Complex cognition relies on both on-line representations in working memory (WM), said to reside in the focus of attention, and passive off-line representations of related information. Here, we dissected the focus of attention by showing that distinct neural signals index the on-line storage of objects and sustained spatial attention. We recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) activity during two tasks that employed identical stimulus displays but varied the relative demands for object storage and spatial attention. We found distinct delay-period signatures for an attention task (which required only spatial attention) and a WM task (which invoked both spatial attention and object storage). Although both tasks required active maintenance of spatial information, only the WM task elicited robust contralateral delay activity that was sensitive to mnemonic load. Thus, we argue that the focus of attention is maintained via a collaboration between distinct processes for covert spatial orienting and object-based storage.

A well-formulated research question should incorporate the components of a ‘problem’, an ‘intervention’, a ‘control’, and an ‘outcome’—at least according to the PICO mnemonic. The utility of this format, however, has been said to be limited to clinical studies that pose ‘which’ questions demanding correlational study designs. In contrast, its suitability for descriptive approaches outside of clinical investigations has been doubted. This paper disagrees with the alleged limitations of PICO. Instead, it argues that the scheme can be used universally for every scientific endeavour in any discipline with all study designs. This argument draws from four abstract components common to every research, namely, a research object, a theory/method, a (null) hypothesis, and the goal of knowledge generation. Various examples of how highly heterogenous studies from different disciplines can be grounded in the single scheme of PICO are offered. The finding implies that PICO is indeed a universal technique that can be used for teaching academic writing in any discipline, beyond clinical settings, regardless of a preferred study design.

The age-related declines observed in scores on paired-associate-learning (PAL) tests are widely taken as support for the idea that human cognitive capacities decline across the life span. In a computational simulation, we showed that the patterns of change in PAL scores are actually predicted by the models that formalize the associative learning process in other areas of behavioral and neuroscientific research. These models also predict that manipulating language exposure can reproduce the experience-related performance differences erroneously attributed to age-related decline in agematched adults. Consistent with this, results showed that older bilinguals outperformed native speakers in a German PAL test, an advantage that increased with age. These analyses and results show that age-related PAL performance changes reflect the predictable effects of learning on the associability of test items, and indicate that failing to control for these effects is distorting the understanding of cognitive and brain development in adulthood.

How does the mind produce creative ideas? Past research has pointed to important roles of both executive and associative processes in creative cognition. But such work has largely focused on the influence of one ability or the other—executive or associative—so the extent to which both abilities may jointly affect creative thought remains unclear. Using multivariate structural equation modeling, we conducted two studies to determine the relative influences of executive and associative processes in domain-general creative cognition (i.e., divergent thinking). Participants completed a series of verbal fluency tasks, and their responses were analyzed by means of latent semantic analysis (LSA) and scored for semantic distance as a measure of associative ability. Participants also completed several measures of executive function—including broad retrieval ability (Gr) and fluid intelligence (Gf). Across both studies, we found substantial effects of both associative and executive abilities: As the average semantic distance between verbal fluency responses and cues increased, so did the creative quality of divergent-thinking responses (Study 1 and Study 2 ). Moreover, the creative quality of divergent-thinking responses was predicted by the executive variables—Gr (Study 1 ) and Gf (Study 2 ). Importantly, the effects of semantic distance and the executive function variables remained robust in the same structural equation model predicting divergent thinking, suggesting unique contributions of both constructs. The present research extends recent applications of LSA in creativity research and provides support for the notion that both associative and executive processes underlie the production of novel ideas.

The idea of episodic memory implies the existence of a process that segments experience into episodes so that they can be stored in memory. It is therefore surprising that the link between event segmentation and the organization of experiences into episodes in memory has not been addressed. We found that after participants read narratives containing temporal event boundaries at varying locations in the narrative, their long-term associative memory for information across event boundaries was lower than their memory for information within an event. This suggests that event segmentation during encoding resulted in segmentation of those same events in memory. Further, functional imaging data revealed that, across participants, brain activity consistent with the ongoing integration of information within events correlated with this pattern of mnemonic segmentation. These data are the first to address the mechanisms that support the organization of experiences into episodes in long-term memory.

A few seconds of survival processing, during which people assess the relevance of information to a survival situation, produces particularly good retention. One interpretation of this benefit is that our memory systems are optimized to process and retain fitness-relevant information. Such a \"tuning\" may exist, in part, because our memory systems were shaped by natural selection, using a fitness-based criterion. However, recent research suggests that traditional mnemonic processes, such as elaborative processing, may play an important role in producing the empirical benefit. Boundary conditions have been demonstrated as well, leading some to dismiss evolutionary interpretations of the phenomenon. In this article, we discuss the current state of the evolutionary account and provide a general framework for evaluating evolutionary and purportedly nonevolutionary interpretations of mnemonic phenomena. We suggest that survival processing effects are best viewed within the context of a general survival optimization system, designed by nature to help organisms deal with survival challenges. An important component of survival optimization is the ability to simulate activities that help to prevent or escape from future threats which, in turn, depends in an important way on accurate retrospective remembering of survival-relevant information.