Young children's comprehension of English SVO word order revisited: Testing the same children in act-out and intermodal preferential looking tasks

Act-out and intermodal preferential looking (IPL) tasks were administered to 67 English children aged 2–0, 2–9 and 3–5 to assess their comprehension of canonical SVO transitive word order with both familiar and novel verbs. Children at 3–5 and at 2–9 showed evidence of comprehending word order in both verb conditions and both tasks, although children at 2–9 performed better with familiar than with novel verbs in the act-out task. Children at 2–0 showed no evidence of comprehending word order in either task with novel verbs; with familiar verbs they showed competence in the IPL task but not in the act-out task. The difference in performance for familiar and novel verbs from the same children at 2–0, on the IPL task, and at 2–9, on the act-out task, is consistent with the hypothesis that early linguistic/cognitive representations are graded in strength, with early representations still weak and very task dependent. However, these representations also become more abstract with development, as indicated by the familiarity effect even in the more sensitive IPL task.     

The recognition of emotional prosody in students with blindness: Effects of early visual experience and age development

This study examined the role of early visual experience and age in the recognition of emotional prosody among students with visual impairments in China. A total of 75 primary and junior high school students participated in the study. The ability of participants to recognize the prosody of four basic emotions (sadness, anger, happiness, and neutrality) was explored. The findings were as follows. (1) Early visual experience had a significant effect on the recognition of emotional prosody. The accuracy rate of students with congenital blindness was lower than that of students with adventitious blindness, and the performance of students with congenital blindness was lower than that of sighted students. The students with congenital blindness exhibited the slowest recognition speeds. (2) Age had a significant effect on the emotional prosody recognition accuracy of the sighted students, but it had no effect on the students with blindness.     

High regularities in eye-movement patterns reveal the dynamics of the visual working memory allocation mechanism

With only two to five slots of visual working memory (VWM), humans are able to quickly solve complex visual problems to near optimal solutions. To explain the paradox between tightly constrained VWM and impressively complex human visual problem-solving ability, we propose several principles for dynamic VWM allocation. In particular, we propose that complex visual information is represented in a temporal manner using only a few slots of VWM that include global and local visual chunks. We built a model of human traveling salesman problem solving based on these principles of VWM allocation and tested the model with eye-movement data. Exactly as the model predicted, human eye movements during traveling salesman problem solving have precise quantitative regularities with regard to both the general statistical pattern of attentional fixations and how they vary across individuals with different VWM capacities. Even though VWM capacity is very limited, eye movements dynamically allocate VWM resources to both local and global information, enabling attention to fine details without loss of the big picture.     

The role of visual imagery in the enhanced cognitive interview: guided questioning techniques and individual differences

The cognitive interview utilises mnemonics and other techniques to facilitate obtaining information from victims and witnesses. Research has indicated superior recall to standard police interviews. However, there has been minimal research regarding the role of individual differences. One area that has generated spirited theoretical debate is imagery ability, as guided imagery questioning is an important part of the enhanced cognitive interview. Imagery is also arguably an integral part of several mnemonics employed in the technique. The present study investigated the role of individual differences in imagery ability, as well as the effect of explicit instructions to image, on recall performance. Participants completed the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ), witnessed a film of a simulated crime, and were interviewed using the cognitive interview or a structured interview. While recall in the cognitive interview was superior, VVIQ scores had little relationship with recall of information. Further, recall elicited by guided imagery differed only minimally from that obtained using standard questioning in the structured interview. These results suggested that the relaxation and rapport building common to questioning in both interview conditions may evoke spontaneous imagery that is comparable to explicit instructions to image, regardless of individuals' inherent imagery ability. Future directions are discussed, including research focused on individual differences and a practical emphasis on context reinstatement and social facilitative techniques. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influences on communicative development at 24 months of age: child temperament, behaviour problems, and maternal factors

Within a longitudinal study using a large representative, community sample of infants recruited at mean age 8 months, we examined influences on infant communication development at 24 months, including child gender, shy temperament, behavioural and emotional problems, and several variables relating to maternal psychosocial health. On most developmental measures girls were in advance of boys and they also showed shyer temperament. Child gender, shy temperament and maternal psychosocial indices were associated with both vocabulary development as measured by the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI), and communication and symbolic development assessed via the Communication and Symbolic Behaviour Scales-Developmental Profile (CSBS) at 24 months. No prediction was found using scores at 8 or 12 months, although moderate stability between measures between 12 and 24 months was evident. Predictors of 24 month outcomes were all concurrently measured variables, and included temperamental shyness, but very little variance in communication outcomes was explained. Children whose mothers were experiencing clinical levels of depression and life difficulties reported more child behavioural problems.     

Dyadic co-regulation,affective intensity and infant's development at 12 months: A comparison among extremely preterm and full-term dyads

Extremely low gestational age children (ELGA, born below 28 weeks of GA) represent the most at-risk preterm group in terms of survival, developmental sequelae and rates of impairment and cognitive delays. However, the impact of an extremely preterm birth on mother–infant co-regulation and affective intensity which may affect early infant's development has not been investigated. Based on a relational dynamic system approach, our study aimed to investigate the quality of co-regulation and affective intensity during spontaneous play interaction in 20 mother–infant ELGA dyads compared to 20 full-term (FT) dyads at 12 months (corrected age for ELGA infants). Relationships between the quality of dyadic co-regulation and the infant's level of cognitive, motor and language development were also investigated. The quality of dyadic co-regulation was assessed using the Revised Relational Coding System (R-RCS) by Fogel et al. (2003), the mothers’ and infants’ affective intensity was coded using a coding system by Lunkenheimer, Olson, Hollenstein, Sameroff, and Winter (2011). Infants’ development was assessed using the Bayley Scales (BSID-III, 2006). With respect to FT dyads, ELGA dyads were characterised by less frequent symmetric and more frequent unilateral co-regulation patterns and by less positive and more neutral affective intensity of both infants and mothers. Cognitive, motor and language scores were lower in ELGA infants than in FT infants. Symmetrical co-regulation was related to motor scores in ELGA infants, and to cognitive scores in FT infants. Our findings contribute to the literature by demonstrating the difficulties of ELGA mother–infant dyads at 12 months in sharing the symmetric co-regulation and positive affective intensity and how symmetric co-regulation is strictly related to motor development in ELGA infants. Based on these findings, intervention programmes to foster joint attention, active involvement and positive affective intensity in ELGA dyads and infants’ development in the first year of life should be designed.     

The visual cliff: cardiac and behavioral responses on the deep and shallow sides at five and nine months of age

Cardiac and behavioral reactions of 5- and 9-month-old infants placed directly atop the two sides of the visual cliff were studied. Evidence of a developmental shift in infant responses on the deep side of the cliff was obtained in heart rate, which shifted from the deceleration previously obtained with younger subjects, to the acceleration obtained with the 9-month-olds of the present study. Behaviorally, visual attention on the two sides was similar at 5 months, but differed at 9 months, being significantly greater on the deep side. Limb movement showed less of an increase on the deep side than on the shallow at both ages tested. Negative vocalization and positive vocalization recordings failed to show any significant effects. The cardiac data are interpreted as indicating a possible shift from attentiveness to fearfulness on the deep side with age.     

视觉工作记忆回溯线索效应的产生机制：认知阶段分离

以往研究关于视觉工作记忆回溯线索效应的产生机制主要存在5种假设,目前依然存在争议。本研究通过改进前人研究实验范式,采用包含内源性回溯线索的颜色回忆报告范式,进一步对这5种假设进行检验。在实验1中,我们调控了线索与探测阵列之间的时间间隔,发现不同时间间隔不影响无线索条件的行为表现,而在正常线索条件中被试的记忆精度以及能记住的项目数量均优于无线索条件;在实验2中,我们对回溯线索伴随的干扰刺激类型进行控制,结果显示,在不同条件下记忆精度不存在差别,但当回溯线索伴随干扰刺激呈现时,被试能记住的项目数量会被降低,降低程度受干扰刺激的类型调制;在实验3中,我们对伴随回溯线索的干扰刺激的呈现时间进行控制,发现虽然回溯线索效应仍然存在,但干扰刺激的呈现时间不会影响效应程度。研究结果表明,回溯线索的出现使得被试能够在决策加工前完成内部注意资源的再分配,从而避免了同时进行这两种认知加工与记忆表征维持本身竞争认知资源。本研究为认知阶段分离假设提供了支持证据,对解决回溯线索效应产生机制的争议以及理解内部注意与视觉工作记忆的关系有重要意义。     

中文阅读中预视阶段和注视阶段内词汇视觉编码的过程特点:来自消失文本的证据

研究采用消失文本范式考察中文阅读中双字词汇视觉信息编码的过程特点。实验一操控词n+1上字词消失方式及其延迟时间,结果发现,注视词n时,词n+1上不同位置的汉字及时消失(延迟时间为0 ms)都影响总阅读时间,且影响程度与消失汉字的具体位置与消失汉字的数量有关;延迟时间为60 ms时,词n+1上的左侧字消失不再影响总阅读时间,而词n+1上的右侧字消失仍会影响总阅读时间。实验二操控词n上字词消失方式及其延迟时间,结果发现,注视词n时,词n上不同位置的汉字及时消失对总阅读时间的影响程度完全一致,说明词n上汉字视觉编码不受消失汉字的具体位置与消失汉字的数量的调节;延迟时间为60 ms时,各消失条件都不影响总阅读时间,说明词n上不同汉字的视觉编码同时完成。基于两项实验结果可得出,在预视阶段内中文读者以汉字单元编码内双字词汇的视觉信息,在注视阶段内以整词为单元编码双字词汇的视觉信息。     

Bridging ears and eyes when learning spoken words: On the effects of bilingual experience at 30 months

From the very first moments of their lives, infants selectively attend to the visible orofacial movements of their social partners and apply their exquisite speech perception skills to the service of lexical learning. Here we explore how early bilingual experience modulates children's ability to use visible speech as they form new lexical representations. Using a cross‐modal word‐learning task, bilingual children aged 30 months were tested on their ability to learn new lexical mappings in either the auditory or the visual modality. Lexical recognition was assessed either in the same modality as the one used at learning (‘same modality’ condition: auditory test after auditory learning, visual test after visual learning) or in the other modality (‘cross‐modality’ condition: visual test after auditory learning, auditory test after visual learning). The results revealed that like their monolingual peers, bilingual children successfully learn new words in either the auditory or the visual modality and show cross‐modal recognition of words following auditory learning. Interestingly, as opposed to monolinguals, they also demonstrate cross‐modal recognition of words upon visual learning. Collectively, these findings indicate a bilingual edge in visual word learning, expressed in the capacity to form a recoverable cross‐modal representation of visually learned words.     

Maternal avoidance,anxiety cognitions and interactive behaviour predicts infant development at 12 months in the context of anxiety disorders in the postpartum period

BackgroundFew studies have examined the relation between anxiety disorders in the postpartum period and cognitive as well as language development in infancy.AimsThis longitudinal study investigated whether anxiety disorder in the postpartum period is linked to infant development at twelve months. A closer look was also taken at a possible link between maternal interaction and infant development.Study designSubjects were videotaped during a Face-to-Face-Still-Face interaction with their infant (M = 4.0 months). Specific maternal anxiety symptoms were measured by self-report questionnaires (Anxiety Cognition Questionnaire (ACQ), Body Sensations Questionnaire (BSQ), Mobility Inventory (MI)) to check for a connection with infant development. The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-III (Bayley-III) were used to assess infant language and cognitive development at one year of age.Subjectsn = 34 mothers with anxiety disorder (SCID-I; DSM-IV) and n = 47 healthy mothers with their infant.Outcome measuresInfant performance on Bayley-III language and cognitive scales.ResultsInfants of mothers with anxiety disorder yielded significantly lower language scores than infants of controls. No significant group differences were found regarding infant cognitive development. Exploratory analyses revealed the vital role of “maternal avoidance accompanied” in infant language and cognitive development. Maternal neutral engagement, which lacks positive affect and vocalisations, turned out as the strongest negative predictor of cognitive development. Maternal anxiety cognitions and joint activity in mother-infant interaction were the strongest predictors of infant language performance.ConclusionsResults underline the importance to also consider the interaction behaviour of women with anxiety disorders to prevent adverse infant development.     

Cognitive habilitation in schizophrenia: A theoretical review and model of treatment

Evidence has accumulated for information processing deficits in schizophrenia. The functional significance of these deficits is only beginning to be understood. There are indications that these deficits may respond to intervention. Training on deficient functions has been demonstrated to relate to improvements in performance. A treatment program of cognitive rehabilitation is deduced from the literature and induced from clinical experience. The treatment is designed to impact directly on the information processing deficits of schizophrenic patients and indirectly to ameliorate functional deficits.     

Developmental psychology in the real world: A paradigm of parent education

Twenty years ago, William Kessen, Greta Fein and I developed and tested a model of parent education, a model which involved variation in curricular content, didactic approaches, and child outcomes–experimentally contrasted. Our experience yielded some valuable lessons about the extent to which researchers can influence parents' behaviour, and parents their children's development. In the present article I suggest that these lessons might be useful for researchers now as they were for us then. I present some observations about the research that developmental psychologists have done in the intervening two decades and suggest that we could learn much by using such a model of parent education to answer questions about the effets of parents' behaviour on children's development. Carefully done, parent education studies can yield valuable information about many of the questions raised in recent correlational research. Parent training research can suggest hypotheses that can be tested with data collected non-interventively and analysed in causal model analyses–and vice versa. What is more, because one reason for studying parent effects is so that we can offer guidance to parents about rearing their children, this design has a particular advantage; it is both the medium and the message.     

Development of a vocabulary of object shapes in a child with a very-early-acquired visual agnosia: A unique case

We report a longitudinal study of an exceptional child (S.R.) whose early-acquired visual agnosia, following encephalitis at 8 weeks of age, did not prevent her from learning to construct an increasing vocabulary of visual object forms (drawn from different categories), albeit slowly. S.R. had problems perceiving subtle differences in shape; she was unable to segment local letters within global displays; and she would bring complex scenes close to her eyes: a symptom suggestive of an attempt to reduce visual crowding. Investigations revealed a robust ability to use the gestalt grouping factors of proximity and collinearity to detect fragmented forms in noisy backgrounds, compared with a very weak ability to segment fragmented forms on the basis of contrasts of shape. When contrasts in spatial grouping and shape were pitted against each other, shape made little contribution, consistent with problems in perceiving complex scenes, but when shape contrast was varied, and spatial grouping was held constant, S.R. showed the same hierarchy of difficulty as the controls, although her responses were slowed. This is the first report of a child's visual–perceptual development following very early neurological impairments to the visual cortex. Her ability to learn to perceive visual shape following damage at a rudimentary stage of perceptual development contrasts starkly with the loss of such ability in childhood cases of acquired visual agnosia that follow damage to the established perceptual system. Clearly, there is a critical period during which neurological damage to the highly active, early developing visual–perceptual system does not prevent but only impairs further learning.     

Basic visual perceptual processes in children with typical development and cerebral palsy: The processing of surface,length, orientation,and position

The present study aims to assess how the processing of basic visual perceptual (VP) components (length, surface, orientation, and position) develops in typically developing (TD) children (n = 215, 4–14 years old) and adults (n = 20, 20–25 years old), and in children with cerebral palsy (CP) (n = 86, 5–14 years old) using the first four subtests of the Battery for the Evaluation of Visual Perceptual and Spatial processing in children. Experiment 1 showed that these four basic VP processes follow distinct developmental trajectories in typical development. Experiment 2 revealed that children with CP present global and persistent deficits for the processing of basic VP components when compared with TD children matched on chronological age and nonverbal reasoning abilities.     

The effect of prenatal adversity on externalizing behaviors at 24 months of age in a high-risk sample: Maternal sensitivity as a moderator

The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating role of maternal sensitivity on the association between prenatal adversity and externalizing behaviors at 24 months of age in a diverse, high-risk sample. We hypothesized that among children with higher prenatal adversity, high maternal sensitivity would serve as a protective factor. Participants were 247 primarily low-income, diverse dyads. Results indicated a significant interaction effect of maternal sensitivity and prenatal adversity on externalizing problems. The association between prenatal adversity and externalizing behaviors was significant only among children who experienced low prenatal adversity, with higher maternal sensitivity associated with lower externalizing behaviors. These findings indicate that, in the absence of high prenatal risk, responsive and sensitive parenting can buffer children in an otherwise high-risk sample from the development of externalizing behaviors.     

Step by step: A microgenetic study of the development of strategy choice in infancy

To examine patterns of strategy choice and discovery during problem‐solving of a novel locomotor task, 13.5‐ and 18‐month‐old infants were placed at the top of a staircase and encouraged to descend. Spontaneous stair descent strategy choices were documented step by step and trial by trial to provide a microgenetic account of problem‐solving in action. Younger infants tended to begin each trial walking, were more likely to choose walking with each successive step, and were more likely to lose their balance and have to be rescued by an experimenter. Conversely, older infants tended to begin each trial scooting, were more likely to choose scooting with each successive step, and were more likely to use a handrail to augment balance on stairs. Documenting problem‐solving microgenetically across age groups revealed striking similarities between younger infants' strategy development and older children's behaviour on more traditionally cognitive tasks, including using alternative strategies, mapping prior experiences with strategies to a novel task, and strengthening new strategies. As cognitive resources are taxed during a challenging task, resources available for weighing alternatives or inhibiting a well‐used strategy are reduced. With increased motor experience, infants can more easily consider alternative strategies and maintain those solutions over the course of the trial.     

Changes in patterns of Early Mother-Child Interaction: A longitudinal study of the first 18 months of life

ObjectiveThe main objective of the present longitudinal study is to describe the progression of early adult-child interactions between the first and second years of life. Changes identified in interactions are described, focusing on both the qualitative aspects of maternal responses, as well as maternal response latency to the child's behavior using a microanalytical methodology that collected data on maternal and child behavior in real-time without losing sight of the temporal dimension.ParticipantsThis study examined 52 mother-child dyads from intact families that presented no psychological, social, or biological risk factors at 6, 12 and 18 months of age.InstrumentCITMI-R (early mother-child interaction coding system, revised edition) was used to assess early mother-infant interactions during free play sessions between mother and child the.ResultsThe results indicate that some components of maternal sensitivity improve as children progress towards the second year of life, detecting an increase in sensitive maternal behavior and a decrease in intrusive behavior in the evolutive observed period; moreover, regarding latency of maternal response, we observed that mothers of older children give more time for their children to explore, which stimulates autonomy. Finally, the implication of these results for intervention directed to optimizing early adult-child interactions are addressed.