Index of suspicion: feeling not believing

Throughout the U.S., state laws require professionals who work with children to report cases of suspected child abuse to child protection services. Both practically and conceptually, however, significant problems arise from a lack of clarity regarding the threshold that has been set for reporting. Specifically, there is no consensus as to what constitutes reasonable suspicion, and little direction for how mandated reporters should gauge their legal and professional responsibilities when they harbor suspicion. In this paper we outline the context of the problem, discuss the nature and scope of its conceptual underpinnings, and offer recommendations for moving towards a concrete, practical solution.     

When development and learning decrease memory. Evidence against category-based induction in children

Inductive inference is crucial for learning: If one learns that a cat has a particular biological property, one could expand this knowledge to other cats. We argue that young children perform induction on the basis of similarity of compared entities, whereas adults may induce on the basis of category information. If different processes underlie induction at different points in development, young children and adults would form different memory traces during induction, and would subsequently have different memory accuracy. Experiment 1 demonstrates that after performing an induction task, 5-year-olds exhibit more accurate memory than adults. Experiment 2 indicates that after 5-year-olds are trained to perform induction in an adultlike manner, their memory accuracy drops to the level of adults. These results, indicating that sometimes 5-year-olds exhibit better memory than adults, support the claim that, unlike adults, young children perform similarity-based rather than category-based induction.     

Creating a stem cell donor: a case study in reproductive genetics

During the nearly 10 years since its introduction, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) has been used predominantly to avoid giving birth to a child with identified genetic disease. Recently, PGD was used by a couple not only to test IVF-created embryos for genetic disease, but also to test for a nondisease trait related to immune compatibility with a child in the family in need of an hematropoetic stem cell transplant. This article describes the case, raises some ethical and policy issues, highlights gaps in U.S. policy, and finally makes some recommendations for addressing advancing genetic and reproductive technologies.     

Senior capstone design and ethics: A bridge to the professional world

A senior level capstone design experience has been developed and offered with a particular emphasis on many of the professional issues raised in Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) Engineering Criterion IV. The course has sought to develop student awareness of the ethical foundation of the engineering profession, the global and societal framework within which engineers practice, and the environmental impact on engineering. The capstone design course also focused upon improving the technical communications skills of the graduating senior class with both extensive instruction in writing and multiple workshops dealing with the art of making an effective oral presentation. The effectiveness of the design course was assessed using Kirkpatrick’s model for evaluating training programs. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the “Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology” meeting, New Orleans, 2003.     

Semantic priming of different affective categories

The authors investigated affective semantic priming using a lexical decision task with 4 affective categories of related word pairs: neutral, happy, fearful, and sad. Results demonstrated a striking and reliable effect of affective category on semantic priming. Neutral and happy prime-targets yielded significant semantic priming. Fearful pairs showed no or modest priming facilitation, and sad primes slowed reactions to sad targets. A further experiment established that affective primes do not have generalized facilitatory-inhibitory effects. The results are interpreted as showing that the associative mechanisms that support semantic priming for neutral words are also shared by happy valence words but not for negative valence words. This may reflect increased vigilance necessary in adverse contexts or suggest that the associative mechanisms that bind negative valence words are distinct.     

Self-directed affiliation and autonomy across acute and continuation phase cognitive therapy for recurrent depression

Using Benjamin's (2000) Structural Analysis of Social Behavior, we evaluated change in "self-directed" affiliation and autonomy and prediction of treatment response and relapse/recurrence among adult outpatients with recurrent major depressive disorder consenting to acute phase cognitive therapy (A-CT; Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979; N=156); A-CT responders randomized (N=84) to 8 months of continuation phase cognitive therapy (C-CT; Jarrett, 1989; Jarrett et al., 1998; Jarrett & Kraft, 1997) or assessment-only control; and C-CT and control patients entering a 16-month, assessment-only follow-up (N=74). Self-directed affiliation and autonomy increased after A-CT, and C-CT further increased affiliation and autonomy. Affiliation and autonomy did not predict A-CT response, but lower affiliation and higher autonomy pre-A-CT predicted relapse/recurrence post-A-CT. We discuss potential clinical implications of these results and present case examples to illustrate patterns of change.     

Transitive responding in hooded crows requires linearly ordered stimuli

Eight crows were taught to discriminate overlapping pairs of visual stimuli (A+ B-, B+ C-, C+ D-, and D+ E-). For 4 birds, the stimuli were colored cards with a circle of the same color on the reverse side whose diameter decreased from A to E (ordered feedback group). These circles were made available for comparison to potentially help the crows order the stimuli along a physical dimension. For the other 4 birds, the circles corresponding to the colored cards had the same diameter (constant feedback group). In later testing, a novel choice pair (BD) was presented. Reinforcement history involving stimuli B and D was controlled so that the reinforcement/nonreinforcement ratios for the latter would be greater than for the former. If, during the BD test, the crows chose between stimuli according to these reinforcement/nonreinforcement ratios, then they should prefer D; if they chose according to the diameter of the feedback stimuli, then they should prefer B. In the ordered feedback group, the crows strongly preferred B over D; in the constant feedback group, the crows' choice did not differ significantly from chance. These results, plus simulations using associative models, suggest that the orderability of the postchoice feedback stimuli is important for crows' transitive responding.     

Induction and categorization in young children: a similarity-based model

The authors present a similarity-based model of induction and categorization in young children (SINC). The model suggests that (a). linguistic labels contribute to the perceived similarity of compared entities and (b). categorization and induction are a function of similarity computed over perceptual information and linguistic labels. The model also predicts young children's similarity judgment, induction, and categorization performance under different stimuli and task conditions. Predictions of the model were tested and confirmed in 6 experiments, in which 4- to 5-year-olds performed similarity judgment, induction, and categorization tasks using artificial and real labels (Experiments 1-4) and recognition memory tasks (Experiments 5A and 5B). Results corroborate the similarity-based account of young children's induction and categorization, and they support both qualitative and quantitative predictions of the model.