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Individuals revise their beliefs based on the evidential strength of others' claims. Unlike English, in languages such as Turkish evidential marking is obligatory; speakers must express whether their claims are based on direct observation or not. We investigated whether Turkish- and English-speaking 3- and 5-year-olds (N = 146; 72 girls; based in Turkey and Canada) differed in their belief revision after hearing claims based on direct observation, indirect observation, or inference. We found the same pattern in both linguistic groups; the 3-year-olds revised their beliefs more often when they heard claims based on direct observation and inference than on indirect observation, whereas the 5-year-olds showed no difference across different claims. By age 3, Turkish- and English-speaking children are sensitive to the strength of claims when revising their beliefs.

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Speakers employ co-speech gestures when thinking and speaking; however, gesture's role in autobiographical episodic representations is not known. Based on the gesture-for-conceptualization framework, we propose that gestures, particularly representational ones, support episodic event representations by activating existing episodic elements and causing new ones to be formed in the autobiographical recollections. These gestures may also undertake information-chunking roles to allow for further processing during remembering, such as a sense of recollective experience. Participants (N = 41) verbally narrated three events (a past autobiographical, a future autobiographical, and a non-autobiographical event) and then rated their phenomenological characteristics. We found that, even though gesture use was not different across the three event conditions, representational gestures were positively associated with the episodic event details as well as their recollective quality within the past autobiographical event narratives. These associations were not observed in future event narrations. These findings suggest that gestures are potentially instrumental in the retrieval of details in autobiographical memories.

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Do the reasons why we think about our memories and share them with others have implications for our romantic relationship quality? In the present series of studies (total N = 1,102), we aimed to answer this question by examining whether the self (e.g., creating a stable self-image), social (e.g., connecting with others) and directive (e.g., guiding future behavior) functions of regular memories (Study 1, Study 2) and relationship memories (Study 2, Study 3) were related to intimacy and satisfaction in the current relationship. We further investigated these links when relationship memories were shared with the romantic partner (Study 3). Results showed no association between the self-reported uses of memory for regular events and relationship quality. In contrast, the social function served by the relationship events was positively associated, and the directive function was negatively associated with intimacy and relationship satisfaction. When the memories were to be shared with the partner, only social function was related, positively, to the relationship satisfaction. Findings were discussed in terms of the importance of considering the self-reported reasons for recalling an event and understanding of the contextual factors in remembering.

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OBJECTIVE: Prior work examining the role of cultural self-goals on the retrieval of early memories treated the presence of self-goals; such as autonomy and relatedness, as a binary category which has led to overlooking within-group nuances. Here, based on the idea that these goals co-exist in varying degrees in individuals, we explore the relative contributions of self-goals on age-at-event and the level of detail in positive and negative early memories. METHOD: Participants (N = 119) recalled and dated two earliest positive and negative memories that they were highly confident were memories, and answered a set of questions about event-specific details. They also completed a self-construal scale. RESULTS: For positive memories, Autonomous-Related Self scores predicted both the age-at-event and the amount of detail in early memories, while. no such relationship was observed for negative memories. CONCLUSIONS: Together these findings indicate that cultural self-goals operate on the accessibility of early memories not only at the level of the boundaries of childhood amnesia but also on how much is recalled from early experiences.

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INTRODUCTION: Anti-neuronal antibodies (ANA) are found in paraneoplastic neurological syndrome and autoimmune encephalitis patients. Our aim was to analyze prognostic factors related with ANA seropositivity. METHODS: Twenty-seven consecutive ANA seropositive patients were included in the study. ANA were detected by immunofluorescent staining, immunoblot and cell-based assay methods. All patients were followed with a standard treatment protocol. Clinical syndromes, tumor types, modified Rankin scores, cranial MRI and oligoclonal band (OCB) findings were recorded. Cases were divided into subgroups due to clinical-laboratory features and ANA types. Prevalence of good prognosis, response to treatment and survival were compared among these subgroups. RESULTS: Patients showed antibodies to N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) (6 cases), Hu (6 cases), Ma2 (5 cases), glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) (3 cases), Yo (3 cases), amphiphysin (1 case), gamma-amino butyric acid B receptor (GABABR) (1 case), Ri (1 case) and Zic4 (1 case). Associated neurological syndromes were limbic encephalitis (8 cases), subacute cerebellar degeneration (7 cases), brainstem encephalitis (5 cases), subacute sensory neuronopathy (4 cases), stiff-person syndrome (2 cases) and opsoclonus-myoclonus (1 case). A tumor (ductal breast, small cell lung cancer) was detected in six cases at first admission. Six patients died in an average follow-up time of 1.0±1.5 years. Detection of antibodies to extracellular or synaptic target antigens, but not presence of tumor, cranial MRI lesions or OCB, was associated with good prognosis and response to treatment. CONCLUSION: NMDAR, Hu and Ma2-antibodies were the most prevalent ANA in this first antibody screening study in a Turkish cohort. Antibody type was determined to be the foremost prognostic factor in ANA seropositive cases.

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There is a growing theoretical and empirical consensus on the central role of visual imagery in autobiographical memory. However, findings from studies that explore how individual differences in visual imagery are reflected on autobiographical thinking do not present a coherent story. One reason for the mixed findings was suggested to be the treatment of visual imagery as an undifferentiated construct while evidence shows that there is more than one type of visual imagery. The present study investigates the relative contributions of different imagery constructs; namely, object and spatial imagery, on autobiographical memory processes. Additionally, it explores whether a similar relation extends to imagining the future. The results indicate that while object imagery was significantly correlated with several phenomenological characteristics, such as the level of sensory and perceptual details for past events - but not for future events - spatial imagery predicted the level of episodic specificity for both past and future events. We interpret these findings as object imagery being recruited in tasks of autobiographical memory that employ reflective processes while spatial imagery is engaged during direct retrieval of event details. Implications for the role of visual imagery in autobiographical thinking processes are discussed.

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In two pilot studies, we investigate the possibility that patterns in our linguistic environment affect the likelihood of accepting misinformation. Turkish, which marks its verbs for the source of a speaker's evidence (first-hand perception vs. hearsay), was contrasted with English which does not mark its verbs but which, to signal strength of evidence, must employ optional lexical marking. In the first pilot study, Turkish adults were shown to be affected by that language's obligatory evidential markings: their free recall for details of the events changed as a function of the type of the tense-aspect marker in use, and strong evidential markers led to increased levels of suggestibility when employed with misleading questions. In the second pilot study, Turkish- and English-speaking children were shown to be differentially suggestible depending on combinations of evidential markers in the story presented and the evidential marker employed in the misinformation subsequently provided. Together, these two pilot studies show promise in this area of research, which has been ignored by the forensic community and yet would seem to be relevant when interviewing, taking statements, and giving testimony in cross-linguistic settings.

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Flashbulb memory (FBM) refers to the vivid memory for the context of learning about a public news event. Past research has identified a number of factors that influence the formation of FBM, such as the importance of the event, the experience of intense emotions, and the amount of post-event rehearsal. Although such factors may be universal in predicting FBM formation across cultures, they may differentially impact FBM given different cultural belief systems and practices. In the present study we investigated the moderating effect of culture for various predictors of FBM in five countries: China, Germany, Turkey, the UK, and the USA. Results indicated that the effects of national importance and rehearsal of the reception context were consistent across cultures. In contrast, culture moderated the effects of personal importance, emotionality, surprise, and event rehearsal. In all cases the effects of these variables were significantly smaller in the Chinese sample.

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Recent research suggests that acquisition of mental-state language may influence conceptual development. We examine this possibility by investigating the conceptual links between evidentiality in language and suggestibility. Young children are disproportionately suggestible and tend to change their reports or memories when questioned. The authors discuss the extent to which components of mental-state understanding, specifically representational understanding and understanding origins of knowledge, are implicated in improvements in resistance to suggestions and comprehending evidentiality. The authors also review social-psychological evidence that has implications for evidential understanding. Integration of the literature on both topics is followed by suggestions for new research directions.

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