Adults' beliefs about children and mathematics: how important is it and how do children learn about it?

A series of studies was conducted which focused on US adults' beliefs about the relative importance of acquiring mathematical skills for preschool children and about how children acquire these skills. In Study 1, adults rated general information, reading and social skills as all being more important than mathematical skills. They also claimed that parents have the most influence on preschool children's learning regardless of content area. In Study 2, the parents of kindergarten children also rated reading, general information and social skills as all being more important than mathematics in preparing children for the first grade. The more important parents felt mathematics were, the more they reported engaging in a variety of mathematical-related activities with their children. However, the importance they placed on mathematics was not related to their child's actual mathematical performance. In summary, adults seem to value mathematics less than other skills in preparing young children to enter elementary school. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What is free association and what does it measure?

This paper reports the results of a study of free association in which participants were asked to produce the first two words to come to mind. The findings were used to estimate the reliability of indices of strength and set size for different types of items and to model free association as a retrieval task. When confined to first responses, reliability was generally high for both indices, particularly for words with smaller sets of associates and stronger primaries. When second responses were included, reliability declined. A second response added new but weak items to the set, and, when the primary associate was not produced on the first opportunity, it tended not to be produced on the second. Relative to when multiple responses are requested, first-response free association provides more reliable indices of the relative strength and set size for a word's strongest associates. A model of free association assuming that a strength distribution underlies each response provided a good fit to the data.     

The capacity for music: what is it, and what's special about it?

We explore the capacity for music in terms of five questions: (1) What cognitive structures are invoked by music? (2) What are the principles that create these structures? (3) How do listeners acquire these principles? (4) What pre-existing resources make such acquisition possible? (5) Which aspects of these resources are specific to music, and which are more general? We examine these issues by looking at the major components of musical organization: rhythm (an interaction of grouping and meter), tonal organization (the structure of melody and harmony), and affect (the interaction of music with emotion). Each domain reveals a combination of cognitively general phenomena, such as gestalt grouping principles, harmonic roughness, and stream segregation, with phenomena that appear special to music and language, such as metrical organization. These are subtly interwoven with a residue of components that are devoted specifically to music, such as the structure of tonal systems and the contours of melodic tension and relaxation that depend on tonality. In the domain of affect, these components are especially tangled, involving the interaction of such varied factors as general-purpose aesthetic framing, communication of affect by tone of voice, and the musically specific way that tonal pitch contours evoke patterns of posture and gesture.     

Heavy drinking in college students: who is at risk and what is being done about it?

Problem drinking and related consequences are a major social issue plaguing college campuses across the United States. Each year, alcohol is responsible for fatalities, assaults, serious injuries, and arrests that occur among college students. The authors review and discuss the risk factors, drinking patterns, and consequences that are relevant to the general student population. In addition, the authors highlight individuals at an increased risk of experiencing alcohol-related problems, such as Greek-letter social organization members and student athletes. The authors also discuss the interventions that attempt to reduce risky drinking and related problems in these subgroups as well as the future directions for research.     

Defending victims: What does it take to intervene in bullying and how is it rewarded by peers?

Defending is considered important in reducing bullying and victimization in schools. Yet, the prevalence of defending is quite low and there is little insight into aspects that explain why students intervene in bullying situations. The current study used a longitudinal design to simultaneously examine the antecedents and status outcomes of defending behavior. It was expected that affective and social-cognitive factors explain involvement in defending. Moreover, it was proposed that defending would be rewarded with popularity among peers, but only for defenders who were not victimized themselves. Unconflated multilevel path models were used and data came from students in grades 4–6 of Finnish elementary schools (N = 4209 students from 210 classrooms and 38 schools; M_age 11.25; 50% boys). Affective empathy and students' self-efficacy beliefs were predictive of defending behavior over time, whereas cognitive empathy was not. Additionally, defenders increased their popularity among their peers. No substantial differences between victims and non-victims were found. This pattern of results suggests that, irrespective of victim status, specific children are more likely to defend in bullying situations and are rewarded with increased popularity.     

Rater bias in psychological research: when is it a problem and what can we do about it?

Rater bias is a substantial source of error in psychological research. Bias distorts observed effect sizes beyond the expected level of attenuation due to intrarater error, and the impact of bias is not accurately estimated using conventional methods of correction for attenuation. Using a model based on multivariate generalizability theory, this article illustrates how bias affects research results. The model identifies 4 types of bias that may affect findings in research using observer ratings, including the biases traditionally termed leniency and halo errors. The impact of bias depends on which of 4 classes of rating design is used, and formulas are derived for correcting observed effect sizes for attenuation (due to bias variance) and inflation (due to bias covariance) in each of these classes. The rater bias model suggests procedures for researchers seeking to minimize adverse impact of bias on study findings.     

The variability of practice hypothesis in motor learning: does it apply to Alzheimer's disease?

Based on Schmidt's (1975) variability of practice hypothesis, this study examined acquisition and transfer of a gross motor skill, namely tossing, in 58 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 58 healthy older adults under constant, blocked, and random practice conditions. While healthy older adults were able to learn the tossing task equally well under the three practice conditions, only AD patients receiving constant practice showed significant improvements. Tests of intermediate transfer yielded the expected random practice advantage in healthy controls but not AD patients. None of the practice conditions facilitated intermediate transfer in AD patients; however, constant practice did benefit these impaired individuals on tests of near transfer. These results indicate that the variability of practice hypothesis does not extend to AD patients. As motor learning and transfer were clearly a function of constant practice, future attempts to retrain basic activities of daily living in AD patients should emphasize consistency in training.     

Information pick-up by infants: what is it, and how can we tell?

Young infants spend the better portion of their 1st year merely looking around, and what they notice can have critical cognitive consequences. Although looking measures are commonly used to predict what information infants pick up about objects and/or their relationship to other objects, these predictions are often ambiguous. Ultimately, that knowledge can be unambiguously revealed only by giving infants an opportunity to directly act on or use it.     

Distinguishing multi-voxel patterns and mean activation: Why, how, and what does it tell us?

The introduction of multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) to the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) community has brought a deeper appreciation for the diverse forms of information that can be present within fMRI activity. The conclusions drawn from MVPA investigations are frequently influenced by both the ability to decode information from multi-voxel patterns and mean activation levels. In practice, MVPA studies vary widely in why and how they test for differing overall response levels. In this article, I examine the place of univariate information in MVPA investigations. I first discuss the variety of interpretations given to finding univariate response differences. I go on to discuss some of the analysis approaches used to investigate and compare univariate and multivariate sources of information, which can illuminate their respective contributions. It will be important for the MVPA and general fMRI community to continue to discuss and debate these important issues.     

Tool use in left brain damage and Alzheimer's disease: What about function and manipulation knowledge?

Tool use disorders are usually associated with difficulties in retrieving function and manipulation knowledge. Here, we investigate tool use (Real Tool Use, RTU), function (Functional Association, FA) and manipulation knowledge (Gesture Recognition, GR) in 17 left‐brain‐damaged (LBD) patients and 14 AD patients (Alzheimer disease). LBD group exhibited predicted deficit on RTU but not on FA and GR while AD patients showed deficits on GR and FA with preserved tool use skills. These findings question the role played by function and manipulation knowledge in actual tool use.     

Learning under stress: how does it work?

The effects of stress on learning and memory are not always clear: both facilitating and impairing influences are described in the literature. Here we propose a unifying theory, which states that stress will only facilitate learning and memory processes: (i) when stress is experienced in the context and around the time of the event that needs to be remembered, and (ii) when the hormones and transmitters released in response to stress exert their actions on the same circuits as those activated by the situation, that is, when convergence in time and space takes place. The mechanism of action of stress hormones, particularly corticosteroids, can explain how stress within the context of a learning experience induces focused attention and improves memory of relevant information.     

The altruistic personality: in what contexts is it apparent?

Hypotheses concerning the specific contexts in which an altruistic personality might be most apparent were investigated. College students completed questionnaires tapping components of an altruistic personality, emotionality, and social desirability. At a 2nd session, the emotional evocativeness and ease of escape from the helping situation were experimentally manipulated. Ss were exposed to a distressed woman, completed state sympathy and personal distress indexes, and were given an opportunity to assist the woman. High scorers on dispositional altruism were expected to assist most when escape was easy, particularly when the distress cues were obvious. Altruistic and emotionally reactive persons were also expected to help most in a psychologically "weak" environment. Both predictions were supported. The relations between helping and the other predictors were also examined.     

Tigers and teapots: what does it mean to be alive?

The Symposium entitled 'Conceptual Knowledge: Developmental, Biological, Functional and Computational Accounts' was held at the British Academy, London, UK on 24-26 June 2002. It was funded by the British Academy with support from the Novartis Foundation, and organized by Lorraine Tyler (University of Cambridge, UK) and Tim Shallice (University College London, UK).     

1/f noise in human cognition: Is it ubiquitous, and what does it mean?

Researchers in psychology are paying increasing attention to temporal correlations in performance on cognitive tasks. Recently, Thornton and Gilden (2005) introduced a spectral method for analyzing psychological time series; in particular, this method is tailored to distinguish transient serial correlations from the persistent correlations characterized by 1/f noise. Thornton and Gilden applied their method to word-naming data to support the claimed ubiquity of 1/f noise in psychological time series. We argue that a previously presented method for distinguishing transient and persistent correlations (e.g., Wagenmakers, Farrell, & Ratcliff, 2004) compares favorably with the new method presented by Thornton and Gilden. We apply Thornton and Gilden’s method to time series from a range of cognitive tasks and show that 1/f noise is not a ubiquitous property of psychological time series. Finally, we assess the theoretical developments in this area and argue that the development of well-specified models of the principles or mechanisms of human cognition giving rise to 1/f noise is long overdue.     

Emotional intelligence: what is it,and do Anglican clergy have it?

The development of the term “emotional intelligence” (EI), its conceptualisation and three attempts to measure it are outlined. The Assessing Emotions Scale is used as part of a longitudinal study with Anglican clergy in England and Wales in their 14th year in ordained ministry. Clergy by their role are expected to be pastors, counsellors and visitors. Contrary to expectations, the clergy scored lower on EI than any other group reported by the authors of the Assessing Emotions Scale.     

Manipulating social cues in baboon gesture learning: what does it tell us about the evolution of communication?

Animal Cognition - Reading the attentional state of an audience is crucial for effective intentional communication. This study investigates how individual learning experience affects subsequent...