Development of self‐produced locomotion in the first year: changes in parent perceptions and infant behaviour

Self‐produced locomotion is regarded as a setting event for other developmental transitions in infancy with important implications for socioemotional development and parent–child interaction. Using an age‐held‐constant design, this study examined changes in reported infant behaviour and maternal proactive/reactive control and compared them with direct observations of infant and maternal behaviour associated with the development of self‐produced locomotion. Maternal reports were obtained prior to the locomotor transition and, for half the sample, after infants had transitioned to effective mobility. Observations of all infants were conducted shortly after the second interview. Prelocomotor and transitioning infants showed none of the expected behavioural differences (e.g. emotionality and compliance) associated with the locomotor transition. There was modest confirmation of expected differences in maternal behaviour, particularly in the use of reactive control techniques, and mothers of transitioning infants showed higher proactive controls before their infants began to crawl. These findings suggest that the changes in parent–child interaction associated with the locomotor transition may have as much to do with parental expectations than with changes in infant socioemotional behaviour. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bayley‐III: Cultural differences and language scale validity in a Danish sample

The purpose of this study was to investigate cultural differences between Danish and American children at 2 and 3 years as measured with the developmental test Bayley‐III, and to investigate the Bayley‐III Language Scale validity. The Danish children (N = 43) were tested with the Bayley‐III and their parents completed an additional language questionnaire (the MacArthur‐Bates CDI). Results showed that scores from the Danish children did not differ significantly from the American norms on the Cognitive or Motor Scale, but the Danish sample scored significantly higher on the Language Scale. A comparison of the Bayley‐III Language subtests with the CDI showed that the two measures correlated significantly, but the percentile score from the CDI was significantly higher than the percentile score from the Bayley‐III Language subtests. This could be because the two instruments measure slightly different areas of language development, or because the Bayley‐III overestimates language development in Danish children. However, due to the limitations of the current study, further research is needed to clarify this issue.     

Cultural differences in attention: Eye movement evidence from a comparative visual search task

Individual differences in visual attention have been linked to thinking style: analytic thinking (common in individualistic cultures) is thought to promote attention to detail and focus on the most important part of a scene, whereas holistic thinking (common in collectivist cultures) promotes attention to the global structure of a scene and the relationship between its parts. However, this theory is primarily based on relatively simple judgement tasks. We compared groups from Great Britain (an individualist culture) and Saudi Arabia (a collectivist culture) on a more complex comparative visual search task, using simple natural scenes. A higher overall number of fixations for Saudi participants, along with longer search times, indicated less efficient search behaviour than British participants. Furthermore, intra-group comparisons of scan-path for Saudi participants revealed less similarity than within the British group. Together, these findings suggest that there is a positive relationship between an analytic cognitive style and controlled attention.     

The evolutionary psychology of small‐scale versus large‐scale politics: Ancestral conditions did not include large‐scale politics

The current research question sought to examine political psychology as it relates to evolutionary mismatch. The basic hypothesis is that people will be more cognitively prepared to think about political situations that are relatively small in scale compared with political situations that are large in scale. This research also examined the effects of whether the political situation is highly relevant to oneself. To test these questions, 49 young adults were presented with four sets of instructions. They were asked to write paragraphs describing (i) a large‐scale, self‐relevant political situation, (ii) a large‐scale non‐self‐relevant political situation, (iii) a small‐scale self‐relevant political situation, and (iv) a small‐scale non‐self‐relevant political situation. Paragraphs generated by the participants were analyzed using Tyler's ( 2013 ) Writing Sample Readability Analyzer. Results demonstrated that paragraphs designed for large‐scale political situations had more sentences and were less readable than paragraphs designed for small‐scale situations—while paragraphs designed for small‐scale political situations were relatively readable and included more words per sentence, suggesting that, consistent with the core hypothesis, participants had an easier time processing information related to small‐scale political situations than large‐scale political situations. Implications for the nature of modern politics are discussed.     

Individual Differences in Early Executive Functions: A Longitudinal Study from 12 to 36 Months

It has been proposed that executive functions develop in a hierarchical fashion, such that early, simple abilities seen already during the first year of life become increasingly coordinated with development, thereby enabling the emergence of more complex abilities. Although this hierarchical model has received support from empirical studies comparing executive function task performance across age groups, necessary support from longitudinal studies taking an individual differences perspective on development is missing. In addition, the model stresses the importance of attention in executive function development, but we do not know in what way attention contributes to the continued development once the earliest forms of simple functions have emerged. Using a longitudinal design, the present study investigated the relations between individual differences in simpler forms of executive functions as well as sustained attention at age 12 months and more complex executive functions at 24 and 36 months. The results indicated partial support for the hierarchical model, with infant inhibition being predictive of working memory in toddlerhood. In addition, at 12 months, sustained attention contributed to the development of toddler executive functions via the simple executive functions. This suggests that by this age, sustained attention has become an integrated part of early, simple executive functions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Individual differences in 10‐month‐olds' performance on the A‐not‐B task

This study used the classical A‐not‐B task (Piaget, 1954 ) to explore individual differences in cognitive flexibility in 10‐month‐old infants by: (1) examining how differences in search performance during A trials relate to search performance during B trials; (2) studying the relation between temperamental dimensions and A‐not‐B performance; and (3) investigating differences in search performance between looking and reaching responses within the same task. Forty infants were tested on a fixed‐design‐version of the A‐not‐B task, not allowing for training or individual adjustment, but instead eliciting additional search behaviors than the common correct responses in A trials and perseverative errors in B trials. Infants were also rated by their parents on the temperamental scales Activity level and Attention span. The main findings were: (1) performance on A trials affected B trial performance, with infants being more correct on A trials having more incorrect and less ‘no search’ responses on B trials; (2) activity level, but not attention span, was related to performance on the A‐not‐B task, with infants performing better on A trials having a lower activity level; and (3) there were a few differences in performance with regard to modality, indicating that responding correctly by looking may be less cognitively demanding than doing so by reaching. This study demonstrated that 10‐month‐olds show a wide variation of search behaviors on this A‐not‐B task, resulting in individual differences in performance. These differences are suggested to reflect variation in temperamental activity level as well as maturity of short term/working memory, inhibition and cognitive flexibility.     

Opportunities for learning and social interaction in infant sitting: Effects of sitting support,sitting skill,and gross motor delay

The development of independent sitting changes everyday opportunities for learning and has cascading effects on cognitive and language development. Prior to independent sitting, infants experience the sitting position with physical support from caregivers. Why does supported sitting not provide the same input for learning that is experienced in independent sitting? This question is especially relevant for infants with gross motor delay, who require support in sitting for many months after typically developing infants sit independently. We observed infants with typical development (n = 34, ages 4–7 months) and infants with gross motor delay (n = 128, ages 7–16 months) in early stages of sitting development, and their caregivers, in a dyadic play observation. We predicted that infants who required caregiver support for sitting would spend more time facing away from the caregiver and less time contacting objects than infants who could sit independently. We also predicted that caregivers of supported sitters would spend less time contacting objects because their hands would be full supporting their infants. Our first two hypotheses were confirmed; however, caregivers spent surprisingly little time using both hands to provide support, and caregivers of supported sitters spent more time contacting objects than caregivers of independent sitters. Similar patterns were seen in the group of typically developing infants and the infants with motor delay. Our findings suggest that independent sitting and supported sitting provide qualitatively distinct experiences with different implications for social interaction and learning opportunities.

Highlights

• During seated free play, supported sitters spent more time facing away from their caregivers and less time handling objects than independent sitters.
• Caregivers who spent more time supporting infants with both hands spent less time handling objects; however, caregivers mostly supported infants with one or no hands.
• A continuous measure of sitting skill did not uniquely contribute to these behaviors beyond the effect of binary sitting support (supported vs. independent sitter).
• The pattern of results was similar for typically developing infants and infants with gross motor delay, despite differences in age.

     

Cultural differences in visual attention: Implications for distraction processing

We investigated differences between participants of East Asian and Western descent in attention to and implicit memory for irrelevant words which participants were instructed to ignore while completing a target task (a Stroop Task in Experiment 1 and a 1‐back task on pictures in Experiment 2 ). Implicit memory was measured using two conceptual priming tasks (category generation in Experiment 1 and general knowledge in Experiment 2 ). Participants of East Asian descent showed reliable implicit memory for previous distractors relative to those of Western descent with no evidence of differences on target task performance. We also found differences in a Corsi Block spatial memory task in both studies, with superior performance by the East Asian group. Our findings suggest that cultural differences in attention extend to task‐irrelevant background information, and demonstrate for the first time that such information can boost performance when it becomes relevant on a subsequent task.     

Learning from others in 9‐18‐month‐old infants

The use of an adult as a resource for help and instruction in a problem solving situation was examined in 9, 14, and 18‐month‐old infants. Infants were placed in various situations ranging from a simple means‐end task where a toy was placed beyond infants' prehensile space on a mat, to instances where an attractive toy was placed inside closed transparent boxes that were more or less difficult for the child to open. The experimenter gave hints and modelled the solution each time the infant made a request (pointing, reaching, or showing a box to the experimenter), or if the infant was unable to solve the problem. Infants' success on the problems, sensitivity to the experimenter's modelling, and communicative gestures (requests, co‐occurrence of looking behaviour and requests) were analysed. Results show that older infants had better success in solving problems although they exhibited difficulties in solving the simple means‐end task compared to the younger infants. Moreover, 14‐ and 18‐month‐olds were sensitive to the experimenter's modelling and used her demonstration cues to solve problems. By contrast, 9‐month‐olds did not show such sensitivity. Finally, 9‐month‐old infants displayed significantly fewer communicative gestures toward the adult compared to the other age groups, although in general, all infants tended to increase their frequency of requests as a function of problem difficulty. These observations support the idea that during the first half of the second year infants develop a new collaborative stance toward others. The stance is interpreted as foundational to teaching and instruction, two mechanisms of social learning that are sometime considered as specifically human. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Irrelevant‐action imitation is short‐term and contextual: Evidence from two under‐studied populations

Across the lifespan and across populations, humans ‘overimitate’ causally unnecessary behaviors. Such irrelevant‐action imitation facilitates faithful cultural transmission, but its immediate benefits to the imitator are controversial. Over short time scales, irrelevant‐action imitation may bootstrap artifact exploration or interpersonal affiliation, and over longer time scales it may facilitate acquisition of either causal models or social conventions. To investigate these putative functions, we recruited community samples from two under‐studied populations: Yasawa, Fiji, and Huatasani, Peru. We use a two‐action puzzle box: first after a video demonstration, and again one month later. Treating age as a continuous variable, we reveal divergent developmental trajectories across sites. Yasawans (44 adults, M = 39.9 years, 23 women; 42 children, M = 9.8 years, 26 girls) resemble documented patterns, with irrelevant‐action imitation increasing across childhood and plateauing in adulthood. In contrast, Huatasaneños (48 adults, M = 37.6 years, 33 women; 47 children, M = 9.3 years, 13 girls) evince a parabolic trajectory: adults at the site show the lowest irrelevant‐action imitation of any demographic set in our sample. In addition, all age sets in both populations reduce their irrelevant actions at Time 2, but do not reduce their relevant‐action imitation or goal attainment. Taken together, and considering the local cultural contexts, our results suggest that irrelevant‐action imitation serves a short‐term function and is sensitive to the social context of the demonstration.     

Suddenly included: Cultural differences in experiencing re‐inclusion

In the current research, we examined whether re‐inclusion (i.e. the change from a previous state of exclusion to a new state of inclusion) was perceived differently by people with individualistic and collectivistic cultural backgrounds. Individualists (German and Austrian participants) but not collectivists (Chinese participants) experienced re‐inclusion differently than continued inclusion: While collectivistic participants did not differentiate between both kinds of inclusion, individualistic participants showed reduced fulfilment of their psychological needs under re‐inclusion compared to continued inclusion. The results moreover revealed that only participants from individualistic cultures expressed more feelings of exclusion when re‐included than when continually included. These exclusionary feelings partially mediated the relationship between the different states of inclusion and basic need fulfilment.     

Cross‐cultural similarities and differences in the theoretical predictors of cyberbullying perpetration: Results from a seven‐country study

The Barlett Gentile cyberbullying model (BGCM) posits that correlated anonymity perceptions and the belief in the irrelevance of muscularity for online bullying (BIMOB) predict positive cyberbullying attitudes to predict subsequent cyberbullying perpetration. Much research has shown the BGCM to be the only published theory that differentiates traditional and cyberbullying while validly predicting cyberbullying. So far, however, the cross‐cultural ubiquity has gone understudied. Thus, 1,592 adult participants across seven countries (USA, Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, and Singapore) completed measures germane to the BGCM. Supporting the BGCM, the variables were significantly correlated for the entire sample, participants from independent cultures, and participants from interdependent cultures. However, the relationship between BIMOB and positive cyberbullying attitudes as well as the relationship between positive cyberbullying attitudes and cyberbullying perpetration were stronger for independent cultures. These results suggest that the BGCM postulates are mostly universal, but several relations appear to be culturally different. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

婴儿期母语音位范畴习得：来自言语知觉的证据

婴儿期言语知觉研究表明婴儿最初（1~4个月）可以分辨几乎所有的语音范畴对比;随母语经验增加,婴儿言语知觉逐渐表现出母语语音特征的影响,辅音知觉表现为对母语语音范畴界限敏感性的提高和对非母语范畴界限敏感性的下降,非母语范畴开始同化到母语音系中去,母语元音知觉表现出知觉磁体效应。这些证据表明婴儿逐渐习得母语音位范畴,音位范畴习得顺序可能依赖范畴例子本身的声学特征、发生频率等因素     

Static and dynamic seductive illustration effects on text‐and‐graphic learning processes,perceptions, and outcomes: Evidence from eye tracking

This study aimed to examine how different forms (still pictures vs. animations) of seductive illustrations impact text‐and‐graphic learning processes, perceptions, and outcomes. An eye‐tracking experiment of three groups (static, dynamic, and control) was conducted with 60 college and graduate students while learning with PowerPoint slides about infant motor development milestones. Prior knowledge, learning performance, learning perception, and visual attention were assessed by achievement tests, self‐rated scales, and eye‐tracking measures. Analysis of variance and t test results showed that, under a low task‐load condition, no seductive details effect was found for learning achievement but was found for learning process and perception. Decreased attention was found in the relevant pictures in both experimental groups. With more deeply and intensively processing on the seductive animations, the dynamic group perceived more distractions than the static group. Lag sequential analysis results revealed different visual transitional patterns for the groups, providing deep understandings about the process of seductive details effects.     

节奏在言语加工中的时间进程：来自元分析的证据

利用元分析考察了言语节奏在言语加工中起作用的时间进程及影响因素。对36篇脑电文献（共43个独立效应量）进行分析,发现节奏影响言语加工主要表现在早期阶段的N100和P200成分、中后期阶段的P300、LAN、N400和晚期正成分上;个体对节奏违反非常敏感,言语节奏加工早于句法加工,在言语加工的中后期阶段,节奏与语义和句法发生交互;任务类型调节言语节奏对言语加工过程的影响,在外显任务中,言语节奏对言语加工过程的影响大于内隐任务和同时包含多项任务要求的混合任务。注意和预期是言语节奏加工的内在机制,研究结果支持交互论的观点。     

Criterion Validity is Maintained When Items are Evaluatively Neutralized: Evidence from a Full‐scale Five‐factor Model Inventory

The original version and an evaluatively neutralized version (with items rephrased to reduce popularity) of a personality inventory were compared. The results revealed (i) similar criterion validity across three different sets of self‐rated behaviours, (ii) stronger relations to the rated social desirability of criteria for the original version and (iii) less correlation between factors for the neutralized version. We take the results to indicate that evaluative neutralization is a viable technique for reducing social desirability in self‐ratings. Implications for test construction are discussed. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Cultural differences in body dissatisfaction: Japanese adolescents compared with adolescents from China,Malaysia, Australia,Tonga, and Fiji

Cultural influences on the body image of 133 female and 99 male Japanese adolescents aged 12–18 years (M = 15.9, SD = 1.2) were compared to those of a databank of 1233 female and 1149 male adolescents also aged 12–18 years (M = 14.9, SD = 1.5) from five cultures – Chinese, Malaysian, Australian, Tongan, and indigenous Fijian – surveyed previously using identical body image measures (Fuller‐Tyszkiewicz et al., 2012). Japanese adolescents reported the highest levels of body dissatisfaction despite possessing among the lowest body mass index (BMI) and also reported among the highest levels of media influence on their body image. Subsequent path analyses revealed that for Japanese adolescents cultural identification with modern Japanese values were associated with increased body dissatisfaction, and that this association was mediated by level of media influence. These results highlight the importance of cultural influences, as well as individual differences in cultural values, in shaping Japanese adolescents' body image.     

Validation of the UPPS impulsive behaviour scale: a four‐factor model of impulsivity

The current study attempts to clarify the multi‐faceted nature of impulsivity through the use of the four‐factor UPPS Impulsive Behaviour scale. In order to build the nomological network surrounding this scale, the UPPS was administered to individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD), pathological gamblers (PG), alcohol abusers (divided into two groups based on the presence of antisocial features), and a control group. Several of the UPPS scales (e.g. Urgency, lack of Premeditation, and Sensation Seeking) differentiated the BPD, PG, and alcohol abusers with antisocial features from a group of non‐antisocial alcohol abusers and a control group. Overall, the UPPS scales accounted for between 7% (pathological gambling) and 64% (borderline personality disorder features) of the overall variance in the psychopathology measures. Individual UPPS scales also made unique contributions to several of these disorders, which may provide insight into which of these personality traits may predispose individuals to behave in maladaptive or problematic ways. The results provide support for the differentiation of impulsivity‐related constructs into the current four‐factor model. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

自我面孔对空间注意的调控：来自Posner空间线索范式的证据

利用Posner的空间线索范式,三个实验意在探寻自我面孔作为特殊的刺激对空间注意的调控作用。在实验一中,自我或者熟悉的面孔作为内源性线索出现在视野中央,通过朝左或者朝右来提示目标出现的位置。在实验二（小图）和实验三（大图）中,自我或熟悉的面孔与目标同时呈现,作为与任务无关的刺激出现在视野的左侧或右侧。实验一的结果发现,与熟悉的面孔相比较,自我面孔产生了更大的提示效应。这意味着当自我面孔与任务相关时,对提示位置易化优于熟悉的面孔。与之相反的是,在实验二和实验三中,自我面孔和熟悉的面孔同样捕获目标位置的空间注意。然而,研究并没有发现自我面孔与熟悉面孔在捕获注意上的差异。这一结果也许暗示着在注意捕获的过程中,面孔效应足够大而掩盖了自我效应的出现。这些发现表明自我面孔之所以是具有特殊性的刺激不仅受感知过程的影响,还依赖于与任务的关系。