The wide-ranging applications of mnemonic strategies in educational settings are reviewed through selected examples of research studies that have been undertaken during the past couple of decades. These studies point out the effectiveness of these strategies not just in teaching many kinds of information that students often find difficult to remember, but also in teaching those with special learning needs. The varieties of mnemonic strategies that exist are highlighted — from simple keywords for remembering new vocabulary words to a sophisticated method for remembering procedures that was developed in Japan. Common misconceptions about the use of mnemonic techniques are noted, followed by some of the more recent research findings on people’s use of these techniques that ought to dispel many of the misgivings associated with their use. Finally, possible future research directions on mnemonics and their uses are discussed.

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The lateral nucleus of the amygdala (LA) is believed to be the site through which an auditory conditioned stimulus (CS) is relayed in classical fear conditioning. However, how a visual CS is connected to the amygdala in rats is less well understood. The present study attempted to determine whether the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) was specifically involved in fear conditioning using a visual CS. Seven rats with lesions in the BLA (AMY-B group), 8 rats with lesions in both the LA and the BLA (AMY-L+B group), and 16 control rats were trained with a visual CS (25 W light, 3.7 sec) paired with footshock (1.0 mA, 0.5 sec). The behavioral index of fear conditioning was the potentiation of the startle reflex in the presence of the CS. As a result, although BLA-lesioned rats showed the potentiation whether the lesions of the LA were made or not, the extent of the potentiation in BLA-lesioned rats was less visible than that of control rats. These results suggest that the BLA may be a site where visual CS information enters the amygdala.

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Two arithmetic verification experiments with 60 adults were conducted to examine the effects of equation presentation format on arithmetic problem solving. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to verify the truth of the addition trials [3+5=7] while participants were asked to verify the truth of multiplication trials [4×3=12] in Experiment 2. Important variables manipulated are the equation presentation format and the level of difficulty. Convergent evidence indicated that the equation presentation format is crucial for the participants to process mathematical addition and multiplication questions as well as the selection of appropriate strategy to solve arithmetic problems. In addition, the author found that effects of this factor even exceed the difficulty level of the arithmetic problem itself in the course of cognitive processing.

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Responses to the Twenty Statements Test were obtained from 171 Nepalese university students assigned to respond either in English or Nepali. Contrary to the cultural accommodation hypothesis the respondents did not provide more idiocentric self-references in the English language condition. However, some language differences were found in specific aspects of the collective self. The respondents, tended to provide more small group self-references when responding in Nepali. Contrary to the Western literature there was little evidence of gender differences in self-construal. The need for finer-grained categorisation than a simple individual or collective self was emphasised.

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The symptoms of anxiety and depression, accompanied with low self-esteem, are increasing in Taiwanese undergraduates. It is essential for the school to assist them in reaching mental health. Hence, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of music therapy on anxiety, depression and self-esteem of undergraduates. Twenty-four I-Shou University undergraduates who showed greater anxiety and depression with lower self-esteem were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group was provided 20 hours of music therapy, whereas the control group did not receive any treatment. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were utilized to evaluate the changes of the participants. The findings indicated that the experimental group demonstrated a reduction in anxiety immediately after the music therapy and after a two-month follow-up, but only reduced depression after the follow-up. Moreover, the experimental group expressed that they experienced more positive changes, including more pleasure, relaxation, and confidence, and fewer negative emotions.

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English words have multi-letters that correspond to one phoneme (e.g., CHOP, SHIP, and THAT). The current competing hypotheses on the word recognition argue differently on whether these multi-letters would form a phonemic unit in the fast-time scale priming task. Using the nonword priming task, three experiments showed that CLEY → crop (the condition of equal number of phonemes for the initial two-letters between the prime and the target) was easier in processing the target than CHEY → crop (the condition of different number of phonemes for the initial two-letters) in the fast-time scale priming, but not in the slow-time scale priming. These results indicate that the phonological information, the phonemic unit, arises early in word naming, supporting the phonological recoding hypothesis.

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The biological perspective has dominated the psychiatric literature since the late 1960s. Today many articles and textbooks are written as though it has been established that major mental disorders are caused by brain disorders. The evidence of which these statements are founded however, is often equivocal. Biological theorists are reductionists. They assume that brain-behavior explanations proceed in one direction, from brain to behavior. Psychosocial factors are considered to be secondary influences, if they are considered at all, in explanations of mental disorders. These theorists tend to overlook two fundamental aspects of reductionistic explanatory models: (1) mental and social phenomena cannot be adequately understood at the level of physical processes, and (2) brain-behavior influences can proceed in either direction. This paper will review the reasons why much evidence of biological causality of mental disorders should be considered to be tentative rather than conclusive. It is argued that adequate explanatory models of mental disorders require adoption of a General Systems Theory model that will allow for the integration of knowledge from multiple levels of analysis, including biological, psychosocial, and cultural influences.

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