Everyday autobiographical memory and mood interactions were explored in a small clinical sample of women with premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and a matched control group. Subjects kept daily records of memorable events for two consecutive menstrual cycles. Two recognition memory tests were given after a one-cycle delay. Mood, or affect, was self-assessed retrospectively over a week, at the end of each day during data collection and at testing, and when events occurred. Women with PMS were more depressed and more negative (angry) than positive (experiencing bursts of energy) in their daily moods than controls. Memory accuracy was poorer overall for PMS than control subjects, although no direct effects of menstrual cycle phase on memory were found. Instead, mood affected memory indirectly through moodrelated self-schemata which subsequently mediated mood-congruity effects. Memory accuracy for events experienced in negative mood states and associated with negative affective reactions was higher for PMS subjects when tested in negative mood states than for controls. No group differences were found on events associated with positive affect or positive daily moods when mood state at the time of testing was also positive. Women with PMS processed information selectively from negative events and events experienced in negative moods compared to controls. Negative events and negative moods appeared to interfere with remembering for control subjects. Women in the control group appeared to be biased towards selectively remembering positive events and events experienced on days when their mood states were relatively positive. Autobiographical memories are reconstructions of self-referenced information (Barclay, 1986(Barclay, , 1988Brewer, 1986Brewer, , 1988. Understanding how everyday self-referenced information is accessed and reconstructed is a central problem for any theory of autobiographical memory. One solution to this problem is to determine the factors facilitating, inhibiting or attenuating reconstructive memory processes. Selfschemata, as generic attitudes and beliefs people hold about themselves as cognitive, emotional and social beings, represent one such set of factors (Markus, 1977). Selfschemata, acquired through varied mundane and, at times, unusual and transitional life experiences, are therefore hypothesized to influence the selection, processing, and remembering of self-referenced information (Barclay, 1988; Barclay and 0888-4080/9
Mental arithmetic abilities were studied among unschooled African adults and American college students. A set of problems tested the use of the four basic arithmetic operations. Performance was analyzed for: strategies, implicit arithmetic principles, and explicit explanations of the principles. Both groups showed accurate mental arithmetic strategies related to the base ten structure of their native counting systems. The American students' mental strategies additionally made use of algorithms based on written place values. Several principles were implicit in the calculation strategies of both groups, and both used these principles to short‐cut calculations. Though the African subjects did not, the American subjects did describe these abstract principles in explicit common language or algebraic expressions. Relationships between schooling and cognition are discussed.
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