Spatial representation of a two-dimensional pattern

The purpose of this study was (a) to determine if vision and kinesthesis contribute differentially to the coding of a specific two-dimensional pattern and (b) to identify the effect of repetition on the spatial representation of this pattern. The reproductions of a specific pattern presented visually were compared with those of a pattern presented kinesthetically. The results showed that vision and kinesthesis had contributed equally to the coding of the directional components of the pattern. However, there was dominance of visual information over kinesthetic information when coding the distance between the intersecting points of the pattern, especially at the beginning of the process. Generally speaking, the visual or kinesthetic repetition, or both, have increased favourably the precision with which a specific pattern was reproduced in distance and direction.     

Mothers' representations of their 13-month-old twins and child-raising attitudes

The purpose of this study was to describe maternal representations of the twin sibling relationship and of the children's differences and similarities. Mothers' mental representations were also analyzed with regard to two aspects of their child-raising attitudes: individualization of childcare routines, and the question of differentiation by “external signs of twinship” (dress, toys, and first names). Data from interviews with 44 mothers of twins conducted 13 months after the birth were analyzed in terms of 8 categories—complicity, rivalry/jealousy, agonistic relations, dominance, imitation, physical appearance, development, and personality. A multiple correspondence analysis of the data pointed out that the first dimension describing the mothers' representations concerns the contrast between the “unalike” representation of dizygotic twins and the “alike” representation of monozygotic twins. The second dimension corresponds to the casual, twinship-minimizing representations generated by the twin condition. Two other dimensions express the issues of aggression and dominance. The relationship between the child-raising behavior of the mothers and their representations of the twin couple turned out to be more complex than expected. The results are discussed in terms of the specificity of the psychological issues facing mothers of twins. Defense mechanisms used by some mothers to cope with the exceptional nature of the twin phenomenon are also suggested. © 1998 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Sex differences and effects of aging on visuomotor coordination.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of aging on men and women in processing information required to reproduce direction and distance on a visuomotor task. Subjects (45 men and 45 women) selected from three age groups (25-34 yr., 45-54 yr., 65-74 yr.) were required to estimate blindly the exact criterion location of a target-point they had identified under one of the following conditions: visual, kinesthetic, and visuokinesthetic. Errors in direction (degrees) and in distance (cm) were recorded. The analysis of the total variability in responding (E) indicated that the women of the 65- to 74-yr. age group were significantly less accurate in estimating distance than were the men of the two older age groups (45 to 54 yr., 65 to 74 yr.) and less accurate than were the women of the 25- to 34-yr. age group. No significant differences in estimating distance were found among the three age groups of men. No significant differences for direction were found between men and women.     

What the Liar Taught Achilles

Zeno's paradoxes of motion and the semantic paradoxes of the Liar have long been thought to have metaphorical affinities. There are, in fact, isomorphisms between variations of Zeno's paradoxes and variations of the Liar paradox in infinite-valued logic. Representing these paradoxes in dynamical systems theory reveals fractal images and provides other geometric ways of visualizing and conceptualizing the paradoxes.     

A case study of mediated learning, delayed auditory feedback, and motor repatterning to reduce stuttering

A case study of DW, an 11-yr. old monolingual, English-speaking boy who exhibits stuttering, language delay, and ADHD is presented. DW experienced only limited improvement during stuttering therapy received in public schools, according to parents and the public school clinician. The purpose of this case study was to assess whether fluency treatment which incorporated Mediated Learning, Delayed Auditory Feedback, and Speech Motor Repatterning would enhance progress. Therapy was delivered in two treatments, with each treatment being 5 wk. of intense therapy, separated by one year. Treatment 1 of combined Mediated Learning and Delayed Auditory Feedback yielded improvement in fluency, judged by parents and the teacher to be clinically significant. The improved fluency was maintained for one year when DW was pretested for participation in Treatment 2, which combined Mediated Learning, Delayed Auditory Feedback, and Speech Motor Repatterning Exercises. As no conclusions are possible, further study is needed.     

Merging race models and adaptive networks: A parallel race network

This article presents a generalization of race models involving multiple channels. The major contribution of this article is the implementation of a learning rule that enables networks based on such a parallel race model to learn stimulus—response associations. This model is called aparallel race network. Surprisingly, with a two-layer architecture, a parallel race network learns the XOR problem without the benefit of hidden units. The model described here can be seen as a reduction-of-information system (Haider & Frensch, 1996). An emergent property of this model is seriality: In some conditions, responses are performed with a fixed order, although the system is parallel. The mere existence of this supervised network demonstrates that networks can perform cognitive processes without the weighted sum metric that characterizes strength-based networks.     

The "what" and "where" of object representations in infancy

Four-month-olds' memory for surface feature and location information was tested following brief occlusions. When the target objects were images of female faces or monochromatic asterisks infants showed increased looking times following a change in identity or color but not following a change in location or combinations of feature and location information. When the target objects were images of manipulable toys, the infants showed increased looking times following a change in location but not identity or the binding of location and identity information. This evidence is consistent with the idea that young infants are unable to maintain the information processed separately in both the dorsal and ventral visual streams during occlusions. Our results suggest that it is the target's affordance for action that determines whether the dorsal or ventral information is selectively maintained during occlusion.     

Constructing a short form of the Smoking Consequences Questionnaire with adolescents and young adults

The goal of the present studies was to construct and validate a short form of the 50-item Smoking Consequences Questionnaire (SCQ; T.H. Brandon & T. B. Baker, 1991), a measure of smoking outcome expectancies. In Study 1, a 21-item short form (S-SCQ) was derived from a sample of 107 young adults previously treated for substance abuse. In Study 2, the measure was cross-validated on 125 adolescents in treatment for substance abuse. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed good model fit and factorial invariance for the 4 S-SCQ subscales across both samples. Validation analyses on each sample found that subscale scores generally correlated significantly with smoking-related variables. The present studies provide initial evidence for the utility of the S-SCQ when used with young adults and adolescents.