Toddlers' Learning From Socially Meaningful Video Characters

Toddlers' performance on a seriation sequencing task was measured after exposure to a video as a function of the social meaningfulness of the character. Forty eight 21-month-old toddlers were randomly assigned to a socially meaningful character video demonstration, a less socially meaningful character video demonstration, or a no exposure control group. Results indicated that toddlers learned the seriation sequencing task better from a video when a socially meaningful character, rather than a less socially meaningful character, demonstrated the task. Our findings demonstrate that toddlers under age two can learn cognitive, logical reasoning skills from a video presentation when the onscreen character is socially meaningful to them.     

Bibliometric Review of the Repertory Grid Technique: 1998–2007

This bibliometric review covers the scientific production with or about the repertory grid technique (RGT; Kelly, 1955/1991) between 1998 and 2007. An analysis of previous reviews suggests the need for a more careful and broad process of bibliographic research. With this aim, 24 bibliographic sources were used to cover a wide range of specialties. We began by drawing up an explicit protocol in which the research terms were detailed. Then we consulted the bibliographic sources, taking into account a specification of inclusion and exclusion criteria. As a result of this process, 973 references were obtained: 468 journal papers, 335 book chapters, 108 doctoral theses, and 62 books. The review also evaluates the types of documents found, the evolution of the number of works published, the repertory grid's fields of application, and the degree of openness to other disciplines. The most relevant authors, their affiliations, countries, and the publication language are also revealed in this article, as well as the major journals contributing to dissemination of the work done with this technique.     

Gender Specific Effect of Psychological Stress and Cortisol Reactivity on Adolescent Risk Taking

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how psychological stress, gender and cortisol response to stress relate to risk behavior among 132 14–18 year old adolescents. Participants completed a laboratory based risk task prior to and immediately after a computerized psychological stress task, and salivary cortisol was collected from pre-stress to 60 min following initial stress exposure. Results indicate that adolescent boys (n?=?59) and girls (n?=?73) demonstrate different patterns of risk taking (RT) in response to stress, such that boys evidenced an increase in RT following stress exposure, whereas girls evidenced a decrease in RT. In addition, a gender by cortisol interaction demonstrated that for boys, both a smaller total cortisol output (AUCg) and peak cortisol response to stress (PC) was associated with greater stress-induced RT. Both cortisol measures were unrelated to stress-induced RT among girls. Taken together, data suggest that among boys, a blunted cortisol response to stress underlies an increase in risk taking in the context of psychological stress. Further research with an additional behavioral stress task is needed prior to drawing conclusions regarding the relation between female gender, cortisol response to stress, and risk taking in the context of psychological stress.     

William James and the ‘willfulness’ of belief

This paper explicates and defends some of William James' more controversial claims in ‘The Will to Believe’. After showing some of the weaknesses in standard interpretations of James' position, I turn to James' Principles of Psychology and The Varieties of Religious Experience to spell out in more detail James' account of the nature of the attitudes of belief, doubt, and disbelief and link them to an account of the subject. In so doing, the moral force of the argument comes to the fore by casting the question ‘Can we believe at will?’ in a new light. Through a discussion of the conversion experiences of The Varieties of Religious Experience and the kinds of self‐transformations in which beliefs that once appeared dead become live (or vice versa) that appear throughout James' psychology, the moral urgency of James' position in ‘The Will to Believe’ is clarified.     

Think ahead before you regulate: A focus on future consequences predicts choices of and beliefs about strategies for the down-regulation of negative emotions

Considering future consequences predicts many self-regulatory behaviors. Moreover, emotion regulation choices often involve trade-offs between immediate hedonic benefits and future well-being and mental health. We propose that focusing on future consequences may also predict emotion regulation choices. We examined whether people who consider future consequences of their actions are more likely to choose adaptive strategies and less likely to choose maladaptive strategies (Study 1) and whether people believe that adaptive and maladaptive strategies have differential short- and long-term consequences (Study 2). In Study 1, consideration of future consequences was related to choosing more adaptive and fewer maladaptive strategies for regulating negative emotions. In Study 2, participants believed that adaptive strategies are more effective in the short-term than in the long-term and that maladaptive strategies are more effective in the long-term than in the short-term. Moreover, commonalities in favored strategies were observed across the two studies. Taken together, the findings suggest that trait future time focus plays a significant role in emotion regulation preferences and that people have some knowledge about the varied temporal consequences of different strategies.     

Children and Adolescents with Medically Unexplained Symptoms: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Abstract

Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) in children and adolescents are confounding and concerning for patients, parents, and health care practitioners. Our goal was to review and summarize the literature for family therapists working with a diverse, challenging patient population coping with MUS. A search of multiple databases from 1994 to 2018 was conducted using MUS and related terms. The literature was then organized into subcategories based on its relevance to family therapists, particularly medical family therapists collaborating with primary care physicians. We conclude with a discussion about gaps in the literature and suggestions for clinical management.     

An exploratory investigation of coffee and lemon scents and odor identification

Fragrance sellers often provide coffee beans to their customers as a "nasal palate cleanser," to reduce the effects of olfactory adaptation and habituation. To test this idea, college students smelled three fragrances multiple times, rating odors each time. After completing nine trials, participants sniffed coffee beans, lemon slices, or plain air. Participants then indicated which of four presented fragrances had not been previously smelled; Coffee beans did not yield better performance than lemon slices or air.     

Human newborns match tongue protrusion of disembodied human and robotic mouths

No evidence had been provided so far of newborns’ capacity to give a matching response to 2D stimuli. We report evidence from 18 newborns who were presented with three types of stimuli on a 2D screen. The stimuli were video-recorded displays of tongue protrusion shown by: (a) a human face, (b) a human tongue from a disembodied mouth, and (c) an artificial tongue from a robotic mouth. Compared to a baseline condition, neonates increased significantly their tongue protrusion when seeing disembodied human and artificial tongue movements, but not when seeing a 2D full-face protruding tongue. This result was interpreted as revealing the exploration of top-heavy patterns of the 2D face that distracted infants’ attention from the tongue. Results also showed progressively more accurate matching (full tongue protrusion) throughout repeated exposure to each kind of stimulus. Such findings are not in line with the predictions of the innate releasing mechanism (IRM) model or of the oral exploration hypothesis. They support the active intermodal mapping (AIM) hypothesis that emphasizes not only the importance of repeated experience, as would the associative sequence learning (ASL) hypothesis, but also predicts a differential learning and progressive correction of the response adapted to each stimulus.     

Space Fortress game training and executive control in older adults: a pilot intervention

We investigated the feasibility of using the Space Fortress (SF) game, a complex video game originally developed to study complex skill acquisition in young adults, to improve executive control processes in cognitively healthy older adults. The study protocol consisted of 36 one-hour game play sessions over 3 months with cognitive evaluations before and after, and a follow-up evaluation at 6 months. Sixty participants were randomized to one of three conditions: Emphasis Change (EC)--elders were instructed to concentrate on playing the entire game but place particular emphasis on a specific aspect of game play in each particular game; Active Control (AC)--game play with standard instructions; Passive Control (PC)--evaluation sessions without game play. Primary outcome measures were obtained from five tasks, presumably tapping executive control processes. A total of 54 older adults completed the study protocol. One measure of executive control, WAIS-III letter-number sequencing, showed improvement in performance from pre- to post-evaluations in the EC condition, but not in the other two conditions. These initial findings are modest but encouraging. Future SF interventions need to carefully consider increasing the duration and or the intensity of the intervention by providing at-home game training, reducing the motor demands of the game, and selecting appropriate outcome measures.