How we interact with objects: learning from brain lesions

Motor deficits are the most common outcome of brain damage. Although a large part of such disturbances arises from loss of elementary sensorimotor functions, several syndromes cannot be explained purely on these bases. In this article, we briefly describe higher-order motor impairments, with specific attention to the characteristic ability of the human hand to interact with objects and tools. Disruption of this motor skill at several independent levels is used to outline a comprehensive model, in which various current proposals for a modular organization of hand-object interactions can be integrated. In this model, cortical mechanisms related to object interaction are independent from representations of the semantic features of objects.     

Cultural differences in neural function associated with object processing

Behavioral research suggests that Westerners focus more on objects, whereas East Asians attend more to relationships and contexts. We evaluated the neural basis for these cultural differences in an event-related fMRI study. East Asian and American participants incidentally encoded pictures of (1) a target object alone, (2) a background scene with no discernable target object, and (3) a distinct target object against a meaningful background. Americans, relative to East Asians, activated more regions implicated in object processing, including bilateral middle temporal gyrus, left superior parietal/angular gyrus, and right superior temporal/supramarginal gyrus. In contrast to the cultural differences in object-processing areas, few differences emerged in background-processing regions. These results suggest that cultural experiences subtly direct neural activity, particularly for focal objects, at an early stage of scene encoding.     

Life-span development of visual working memory: when is feature binding difficult?

We asked whether the ability to keep in working memory the binding between a visual object and its spatial location changes with development across the life span more than memory for item information. Paired arrays of colored squares were identical or differed in the color of one square, and in the latter case, the changed color was unique on that trial (item change) or was duplicated elsewhere in the array (color-location binding change). Children (8-10 and 11-12 years old) and older adults (65-85 years old) showed deficits relative to young adults. These were only partly simulated by dividing attention in young adults. The older adults had an additional deficiency, specifically in binding information, which was evident only when item- and binding-change trials were mixed together. In that situation, the older adults often overlooked the more subtle, binding-type changes. Some working memory processes related to binding undergo life-span development in an inverted-U shape, whereas other, bias- and salience-related processes that influence the use of binding information seem to develop monotonically.     

Stereotype Directionality and Attractiveness Stereotyping: Is Beauty Good or is Ugly Bad?

Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972), in their seminal article, labeled the attribution of positive characteristics to attractive people the "beauty-is-good" stereotype. The stereotyping literature since then provides extensive evidence for the differential judgment and treatment of attractive versus unattractive people, but does not indicate whether it is an advantage to be attractive or a disadvantage to be unattractive. Two studies investigated the direction of attractiveness stereotyping by comparing judgments of positive and negative attributes for medium vs. low and medium vs. high attractive faces. Taken together, results for adults (Experiment 1) and children (Experiment 2) suggest that most often, unattractiveness is a disadvantage, consistent with negativity bias (e.g., Rozin & Royzman, 2001) but contrary to the "beauty-is-good" aphorism.     

Risk factors for depression in early adolescence

The purpose of this study was to identify salient risk factors for depression in early adolescence from a group of common predictors. The following nine predictors were examined: (1) perceived quality of peer relationships, (2) perceived parental nurturance, (3) perceived parental rejection, (4) self-esteem, (5) body image, (6) pubertal status, (7) SES, (8) conduct problems, and (9) hyperactivity/inattention. The sample of 2,014 12 and 13 year olds was also divided by gender to examine potential sex differences in risk factors for depression. Finally, several mediational models were investigated. Self-esteem emerged as the strongest predictor of depression in both genders; parental behavior also emerged as an important risk factor. Therefore, these two variables are discussed as targets for those developing intervention and prevention programs.     

Transformations of mathematical and stimulus functions

Following a pretest, 8 participants who were unfamiliar with algebraic and trigonometric functions received a brief presentation on the rectangular coordinate system. Next, they participated in a computer-interactive matching-to-sample procedure that trained formula-to-formula and formula-to-graph relations. Then, they were exposed to 40 novel formula-to-graph tests and 10 novel graph-to-formula tests. Seven of the 8 participants showed substantial improvement in identifying formula-to-graph relations; however, in the test of novel graph-to-formula relations, participants tended to select equations in their factored form. Next, we manipulated contextual cues in the form of rules regarding mathematical preferences. First, we informed participants that standard forms of equations were preferred over factored forms. In a subsequent test of 10 additional novel graph-to-formula relations, participants shifted their selections to favor equations in their standard form. This preference reversed during 10 more tests when financial reward was made contingent on correct identification of formulas in factored form. Formula preferences and transformation of novel mathematical and stimulus functions are discussed.     

Adults' ability to detect children's lying

Adults are poor deception detectors when examining lies told by adults, on average. However, there are some adults who are better at detecting lies than others. Children learn to lie at a very young age, a behavior that is socialized by parents. Yet, less is known about the ability to detect children's lies, particularly with regard to individual differences in the ability to detect this deception. The current study explored adult raters' ability to discern honesty in children who lied or told the truth about committing a misdeed. Results showed that adults are no better at detecting children's lies than they are with adult lies. In particular, adults were very poor at identifying children's honest statements. However, individual differences did emerge, suggesting that the ability to detect lying in children might be facilitated by relevant experience working with children. Implications for legal and mental health contexts are discussed.     

Online Story Comprehension among Children with ADHD: Which Core Deficits are Involved?

Children with ADHD have difficulty understanding causal connections and goal plans within stories. This study examined mediators of group differences in story narrations between children ages 7-9 with and without ADHD, including as potential mediators both the core deficits of ADHD (i.e., inattention, disinhibition, planning/working memory) as well measures of phonological processing and verbal skills. Forty-nine children with ADHD and 67 non-referred children narrated a wordless book and completed tasks assessing the core deficits of ADHD, phonological processing, and verbal skills. Results revealed that, although no shorter than those of non-referred children, the narratives of children with ADHD contained fewer elements relating to the story's causal structure and goal plan. Deficits in sustained attention accounted for the most variance in these differences. Results have implications for understanding and ameliorating the academic problems experienced by children with ADHD.     

Anticipating partners’ responses: Examining item and source memory following interactive exchanges

Within the context of an interactive anagram-solving task, the present studies tested predictions about the role of cognitive anticipation in both source and item memory. After working in pairs to solve anagram problems, participants were surprised by a source-monitoring test focused on the source of solutions (self vs. partner, Experiment 1) or a standard recognition test focused on the solutions themselves (Experiment 2). With the intention of affecting the opportunity to anticipate partners' solutions, two variables were manipulated: anagram difficulty (easy vs. hard) and the delaybetween the presentation of an anagram problem and theprompt tha t designated one member of each pair as the anagram solver. Consistent w i th predictions, asthe opportunity t oanticipate partners'solutions increased, there was a decrease in source accuracy suggesting increased confusion about whether the solution had been self- or partner-generated. Generation-effect failures were observed in item memory. However, these failures reflected increases in item memory for partners' responses rather than decreases in memory for self-generated ones. These studies suggest that when opportunities to anticipate partners' responses are available, self-generative activities may be associated with both self-and partner-generated items, influencing the expression of the generation effect.