How infants relate looker and object: evidence for a perceptual learning account of gaze following in infancy

In two experiments, it was investigated how preverbal infants perceive the relationship between a person and an object she is looking at. More specifically, it was examined whether infants interpret an adult's object-directed gaze as a marker of an intention to act or whether they relate the person and the object via a mechanism of associative learning. Fourteen-month-old infants observed an adult gazing repeatedly at one of two objects. When the adult reached out to grasp this object in the test trials, infants showed no systematic visual anticipations to it (i.e. first visual anticipatory gaze shifts) but only displayed longer looking times for this object than for another before her hand reached the object. However, they showed visual anticipatory gaze shifts to the correct action target when only the grasping action was presented. The second experiment shows that infants also look longer at the object a person has been gazing at when the person is still present, but is not performing any action during the test trials. Looking preferences for the objects were reversed, however, when the person was absent during the test trials. This study provides evidence for the claim that infants around 1 year of age do not employ other people's object-directed gaze to anticipate future actions, but to establish person-object associations. The implications of this finding for theoretical conceptions of infants' social-cognitive development are discussed.     

Learning Psychoanalysis: A Classification Based on Students' Learning Trajectories

This study was undertaken in an effort to sharpen selection procedures and improve faculty response to the learning needs of students. Eschewing a traditional anticipatory approach in determining suitability for training, the authors undertook a retrospective study to investigate the learning trajectories of candidates. A learning trajectory is defined as the particular way individuals learn, or fail to learn, as they advance through an Institute's training program. The database of this study grew out of the authors' experience with students in classrooms, in supervision, and from discussions about them in Progression, Selection, and The Evaluation of Learning committees. Realizing the reductionism of categorizing a highly complex and diverse group of individuals, the authors, nonetheless, found that candidates tended to group into five rather distinct categories. This paper discusses in detail the characteristics of these five categories and suggests ways in which this grouping may help in both selection and in planning more effective training for candidates. The authors are fully aware that this study has impressionistic qualities and warrants more rigorous research methods, but hope that it will arouse interest in other psychoanalytic centers and stimulate studies to corroborate, refine, or reject the conclusions reached by this group.     

Children show heightened memory for threatening social actions

Three experiments investigated whether a negativity bias in social perception extends to preschool-aged children's memory for the details of others' social actions and experiences. After learning about individuals who committed nice or mean social actions, children in Experiment 1 were more accurate at remembering who was mean compared with who was nice. In Experiment 2, children showed a memory advantage for the specific details of actions committed by mean individuals compared with nice individuals. In Experiment 3, children exhibited better memory for the details of mean actions compared with nice actions when the vignettes were presented from the perspective of the recipients instead of the perpetrators of these actions. Taken together, these findings suggest that children show heightened memory for the details of negative social actions over positive social actions. Such a memory bias may be advantageous in helping children to predict potentially threatening situations in the future.     

Future-Oriented Positive Mental Imagery Reduces Anxiety for Exposure to Public Speaking

Exposure therapy is the recommended treatment for anxiety disorders, but many anxious individuals are unwilling to expose themselves to feared situations. Episodic simulation of future situations contributes to adaptive emotion regulation and motivates behavior. This study investigated whether future-oriented positive mental imagery reduces anticipatory anxiety and distress during exposure, and increases exposure willingness and duration. Forty-three individuals with moderate public speaking anxiety were randomized to a standardized positive mental imagery exercise about future public speaking or no-task. All participants were then asked to present in a virtual reality environment. Anticipatory anxiety reduced in the positive mental imagery group, but not in the control group. Additionally, the positive mental imagery group reported lower distress during exposure than the control group, but groups did not differ in exposure willingness. Due to limited variance, effects on exposure duration could not be tested. Future-oriented positive mental imagery is promising to prepare individuals for exposure to previously avoided situations.     

How parents introduce new words to young children: The influence of development and developmental disorders

This study documents how parents weave new words into on-going interactions with children who are just beginning to speak. Dyads with typically developing toddlers and with young children with autism spectrum disorder and Down syndrome (n = 56, 23, and 29) were observed using a Communication Play Protocol during which parents could use novel words to refer to novel objects. Parents readily introduced both labels and sound words even when their child did not respond expressively or produce the words. Results highlight both how parents act in ways that may facilitate their child's appreciation of the relation between a new word and its referent and how they subtly adjust their actions to suit their child's level of word learning and specific learning challenges.     

How people explain actions performed by groups and individuals.

The authors explore whether people explain intentional actions performed by groups differently from actions performed by individuals, A theoretical framework is offered that distinguishes between 2 modes of explanation: the agent's reasons (beliefs or desires in light of which the agent decided to act) and causal histories of reasons (CHRs; factors that preceded and brought about the agent's reasons). The authors develop the hypothesis that people use more CHR explanations when explaining group actions than when explaining individual actions. Study 1 demonstrates this asymmetry. Studies 2 and 3 explore 2 necessary conditions for the asymmetry: that the group be perceived as an aggregate of individual actors rather thin as a jointly acting group and that explainers have general information available about the group. Discussion focuses on people's perception of groups as entities and agents.     

Young children make scale errors when playing with dolls

Prior research (DeLoache, Uttal & Rosengren, 2004) has documented that 18- to 30-month-olds occasionally make scale errors: they attempt to fit their bodies into or onto miniature objects (e.g. a chair) that are far too small for them. The current study explores whether scale errors are limited to actions that directly involve the child's body. We investigated whether children would also make scale errors with a doll and objects that were much too small for the doll (e.g. a chair, a bed). Many participants did try to fit the doll into or onto the miniature objects. Thus, the previously documented phenomenon of scale errors extends to situations in which the relevant size difference is between two objects. This finding supports the view that scale errors occur when visual information about object size fails to influence the decision to act on an object. The results are discussed in terms of the use of visual information for the planning and control of actions.     

Recording achievement and action planning: A basis for progression to higher education?

A questionnaire developed to establish experience of recording achievement and action planning was administered to 812 students commencing undergraduate study in 1994. While one-to-one tutorial opportunities appeared to be a key element which was associated with positive outcomes, more than one-third of the sample group reported no such opportunities. For the majority of students, recording achievement was not seen as a means of planning and managing learning. Those who participated in a process which they scored highly on criteria associated with quality practice, however, were more likely to see the process as having a role in learning management and were also more confident that they could identify achievements and present evidence for these achievements. Similarly, students involved in planning future actions were more confident when it came to setting goals within higher education. Some implications of these results for guidance practice are highlighted.     

On the action of social groups

This paper deals with the question of whether and when it is appropriate or inappropriate to say that a social group performs an action. After some remarks on the concept of action three kinds of groups are distinguished, i.e. assemblies, institutions, and classes. It is found that in the first two of these cases predication of action is possible: an assembly can act in that all its members act, or some of them do who are interchangeable with any others; and an institution can act because it has a structure and some individuals can act on its behalf. A class, however, cannot be said to act, for its concept may be freely formed, its members cannot be assembled, and it has no organs through which actions could be performed.     

The relation between measures of cognitive and motor functioning in 5- to 6-year-old children

Specific relations between executive functions (working memory capacity, planning and problem-solving, inhibitory control) and motor skill performance (anticipatory motor planning, manual dexterity) were examined in 5- to 6-year-old children (N = 40). Results showed that the two motor skill components were not correlated. Additionally, it was found that response planning performance was a significant predictor of anticipatory motor planning performance, whereas inhibitory control and working memory capacity measures were significant predictors of manual dexterity scores. Taken together, these results suggest that cognitive and motor skills are linked, but that manual dexterity and anticipatory motor planning involve different specialized skills. The current study provides support for specific relations between cognitive and motor performance, which has implications for early childhood cognitive-motor training and intervention programs.     

Learning by observation and learning by doing in Down and Williams syndromes

New skills may be learned by active experience (experiential learning or learning by doing) or by observation of others’ experience (learning by observation). In general, learning by observation reduces the time and the attempts needed to learn complex actions and behaviors. The present research aimed to compare learning by observation and learning by doing in two clinical populations with different etiology of intellectual disability (ID), as individuals with Down syndrome (DS) and individuals with Williams syndrome (WS), with the hypothesis that specific profiles of learning may be found in each syndrome. To this end, we used a mixture of new and existing data to compare the performances of 24 individuals with DS, 24 individuals with WS and 24 typically developing children on computerized tasks of learning by observation or learning by doing. The main result was that the two groups with ID exhibited distinct patterns of learning by observation. Thus, individuals with DS were impaired in reproducing the previously observed visuo‐motor sequence, while they were as efficient as TD children in the experiential learning task. On the other hand, individuals with WS benefited from the observational training while they were severely impaired in detecting the visuo‐motor sequence in the experiential learning task (when presented first). The present findings reinforce the syndrome‐specific hypothesis and the view of ID as a variety of conditions in which some cognitive functions are more disrupted than others because of the differences in genetic profile and brain morphology and functionality. These findings have important implications for clinicians, who should take into account the genetic etiology of ID in developing learning programs for treatment and education.     

Optimal versus heuristic planning of object manipulations: A review and a computational model of the continuous end-state comfort effect

Human beings select actions that facilitate the execution of later actions. For example, humans tend to select grasps that ensure that forthcoming object manipulations end in a comfortable posture (“end-state comfort effect”). Basic experimental results and their explanation within the optimal control framework are reviewed. I conclude that the discrete grasp selection tasks, which are commonly used to study anticipatory planning, leave room for alternative explanations. Moreover, the results of seven experiments employing a continuous grasp selection task seem incompatible with the optimal control (of end-state comfort) account. I introduce the weighted integration of multiple biases (WIMB) model, which accounts for many aspects of the selection of human grasp orientations in continuous tasks. Additionally, it accounts for the precision effect and hysteresis effect. The model shows that the brain may rely on a simple heuristic and does not actually has to anticipate the end-state of a movement to select effective grasps for object manipulations.     

A perceiver’s own abilities influence perception,even when observing others

Perceptual judgments of objects, such as judgments of their size, distance, and speed, are influenced by the perceiver’s ability to act on these objects. For example, objects that are easier to block appear to be moving slower than objects that are more difficult to block. These effects are known as action-specific effects. Recent research has found similar patterns when a person observes someone else act: When the other person’s task is more difficult, objects look farther away and faster to the observer, whereas when the other person’s task is easier, the objects look closer and slower to the observer. These previous findings that another person’s ability penetrates into perceptual judgments challenge the idea that action-specific effects are specific to the perceiver’s own abilities. However, in the present study, we show that the apparent effects of another person’s ability on the observer’s judgments are actually due to the observer’s own abilities as if he or she was in the other person’s situation. This implicates a type of self-projection motor simulation mechanism. The results also preserve the critical idea that action-specific effects are perceiver specific and, consequently, that they could be adaptive for planning future actions.     

Action preferences and the anticipation of action outcomes

Skilled performers of time-constrained motor actions acquire information about the action preferences of their opponents in an effort to better anticipate the outcome of that opponent's actions. However, there is reason to doubt that knowledge of an opponent's action preferences would unequivocally influence anticipatory responses in a positive way. It is possible that overt information about an opponent's actions could distract skilled performers from using the advance kinematic information they would usually rely on to anticipate actions, particularly when the opponent performs an ‘unexpected’ action that is not in accordance with his or her previous behaviour. The aim of this study was to examine how the ability to anticipate the outcome of an opponent's actions can be influenced by exposure to the action preferences of that opponent. Two groups of skilled handball goalkeepers anticipated the direction of penalty throws performed by opponents before and after a training intervention that provided situational probability information in the form of action preferences (AP). During the training phase participants in an AP-training group anticipated the action outcomes of two throwers who had a strong preference to throw in one particular direction, whilst participants in a NP-training group viewed players who threw equally to all directions. Exposure to opponents who did have an action preference during the training phase resulted in improved anticipatory performance if the opponent continued to bias their throws towards their preferred direction, but decreased performance if the opponent did not. These findings highlight that skilled observers use information about action preferences to enhance their anticipatory ability, but that doing so can be disadvantageous when the outcomes are no longer consistent with their generated expectations.     

Participating Despite Questions: Toward a More Confident Participatory Technology Assessment

While the important challenges of public deliberations on emerging technologies are crucial to keep in mind, this paper argues that scholars and practitioners have reason to be more confident in their performance of participatory technology assessments (pTA). Drawing on evidence from the 2008 National Citizens’ Technology Forum (NCTF) conducted by the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University, this paper describes how pTA offers a combination of intensive and extensive qualities that are unique among modes of engagement. In the NCTF, this combination led to significant learning and opinion changes, based on what can be characterized as a high-quality deliberation. The quality of the anticipatory knowledge required to address emerging technologies is always contested, but pTAs can be designed with outcomes in mind—especially when learning is understood as an outcome.     

The antecedents of anticipatory purchase: Reconciling the two routes to optimism

Consumers often behave optimistically, purchasing products that they are unable to use at the time of purchase, but anticipate being able to use in the future. This research investigates such anticipatory purchase behavior, and demonstrates that optimism exerts its influence on anticipatory purchase via two distinct routes. One is driven by the perceived ease of the process required to achieve a given outcome and prevails when sufficient cognitive resources are available, while the other is driven directly by the perceived favorability of the outcome itself and holds when cognitive resources are constrained. Within each route, the focus of thought (process vs. outcome-focus) moderates the influence of optimism, and the two routes converge on enhanced motivation. Multiple experiments provide support for predictions derived from this framework, illuminating the substantive domain of anticipatory purchasing and providing theoretical insights into the nature of optimism.     

Collective Responsibility

The basic bearer of responsibility is individuals, because that isall there are – nothing else can literally be the bearer of fullresponsibility. Claims about group responsibility therefore needanalysis. This would be impossible if all actions must be understoodas ones that could be performed whether or not anyone else exists.Individuals often act by virtue of membership in certain groups;often such membership bears a causal role in our behavior, andsometimes people act deliberately in order to promote the prospectsof members of a given group. Nevertheless, it is rational to awardproportionally to individual contributions to those actions andindividual shares in the production of the consequences of thoseactions.     

Beyond the image paradigm: Systemic evolution through participative planning

This paper is an attempt at introducing a formal framework for societal, participative, anticipatory, inner‐change oriented and open‐ended ‘’ learning for evolution.” The key point of our approach is that it considers the evolution of a social system not exclusively as an appropriate result of the given system structure, operating and behaving under external constraints; but mainly as an outer (or observable) consequence of some inner changes brought about from within the system of heterogenous actors‐designers in their effort to cope with complexities generated equally by external constraints and by the network of mutual relationships between them. The actors‐designers are thus trying to assess critically the courses the system could possibly take in the future and also to isolate —through a dialogue between them—the so‐called “evolutionary” ones. Consequently, a policy‐oriented approach to “social homcorhesis” is obtained. It opens the way to a participative planning outlook on societal learning.     

Inhibitory control differences following mild head injury

Complex inhibitory control, defined as the ability to inhibit a planned or ongoing action, was assessed in a sample of individuals with a history of mild head injury, case-matched with normal control subjects for age and gender. This central act of control was assessed using a modification of the stop-signal paradigm. The group with mild head injury took longer to inhibit their on going action and reported more accidents than the normal control subjects. The group that reported having had a mild head injury did not differ in terms of their go reaction time, number of correct responses, handedness, education level, or reported learning disabilities. Limitations of this design and directions for future research are discussed.