Browsing by Author "Pandeirada, Josefa N. S."
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- Adaptive memory: The mnemonic value of contaminationPublication . Fernandes, Natália Lisandra; Pandeirada, Josefa N. S.; Soares, Sandra Cristina de Oliveira; Nairne, James S.Humans likely evolved an adaptive disease avoidance system, the Behavioral Immune System, to mitigate the fitness costs posed by pathogens. This system is specially attuned to cues connoting infection risk:When perceived, these cues drive affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses, which work in an articulated way to enhance the organism's chances of survival. The current work investigated the cognitive aspect of this system, specifically if human memory preferentially retains potentially contaminated items. Participants were shown pictures of objects that were touched by sick or healthy people. Each object was linked to verbal descriptions (Experiment 1a and 1b) or visual cues (faces; Experiment 2 and 3) about the person initiating the contact. During encoding participants were required to decide whether each object had been touched by a sick or a healthy person. Then, after a short distractor task, a surprise free recall task for the objects was given. In all experiments, objects touched by sick people were remembered better than those touched by healthy people. This mnemonic advantage was obtained using the same procedure in two different countries suggesting its robustness. Finally, it seems not to rely on the visual cues accompanying the objects, but rather onwhether the context presented establishes a real opportunity for contamination. These results suggest that memory might play a key role in the Behavioral Immune System.
- Norming studies of European Portuguese words : a literature reviewPublication . Félix, Sara B.; Pandeirada, Josefa N. S.Abstract: Words are widely used as stimuli in cognitive and linguistic research. As words may vary on various domains (e.g., lexicosemantic and affective), which can influence performance in many ways, it is essential to select them carefully. However, databases of European Portuguese words are still relatively scarce, and their presentation is spread in various sources. The aims of this work were: (1) to provide a review of the databases containing information on lexicosemantic, affective, and free association norming data for European Portuguese words published since the year 2000; (2) to summarize the definitions of the different variables; and (3) to combine in a single database the norming data available at this point. We found 25 databases with 18 containing lexicosemantic and affective norming data and seven containing word free association norms. These databases include words from various categories (e.g., nouns and adjectives), characterized on different variables (e.g., familiarity, imagery, valence, age of acquisition and animacy). This review provides a useful tool for researchers looking for Portuguese word-related resources. A thorough review of the databases, including some details about each one, is presented. The combined database is shared with the scientific community via the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/9ta3y/.
- Um olhar funcional sobre a memória humana : O paradigma de sobrevivênciaPublication . Pandeirada, Josefa N. S.; Vasconcelos, MarcoMotivados por uma abordagem funcional, Nairne, Thompson e Pandeirada (2007) demonstraram pela primeira vez que o desempenho mnésico humano é potenciado quando a informação alvo é codificada num contexto de sobrevivência comparativamente com uma variedade de situações de controlo. Este padrão de resultados tem sido designado por “efeito de sobrevivência”. Neste artigo é apresentada uma síntese do trabalho inicial que estabeleceu as linhas orientadoras do paradigma de sobrevivência bem como as principais variações metodológicas utilizadas para obter o efeito. São depois consideradas algumas das explicações teóricas que têm sido avançadas para o efeito, nomeadamente a explicação funcional/evolutiva que motivou toda esta linha de investigação e explicações baseadas em princípios tradicionais da literatura da memória humana. Finalmente, são brevemente descritos outros trabalhos que têm usado uma perspetiva funcional no estudo de outros aspectos relevantes para a sobrevivência e/ou reprodução.