Preschool Children's Multimodal Word Learning

Two studies used a new paradigm to examine preschool children's (i.e., 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) word learning across multiple sense modalities. In Study 1 (n = 60), children heard a word for an object that they touched but did not see, while word learning was examined using objects that were seen but not touched. In Study 2 (n = 60), children heard a word for an object that they saw but did not touch, while word learning was examined using objects that were touched but not seen. Findings from both studies revealed that children were able to learn words by coordinating information across multiple sense modalities and that word learning improved with age. These findings are discussed in terms of E. J. Gibson's differentiation theory (1969 Gibson , E. J. ( 1969 ). Principles of perceptual learning and development . Englewood Cliffs , NJ : Prentice Hall . [Google Scholar], 1988 Gibson , E. J. ( 1988 ). Exploratory behavior in the development of perceiving, acting, and the acquiring of knowledge . Annual Review of Psychology , 39 , 1 – 41 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).     

Suggestibility From Stories: Can Production Difficulties and Source Monitoring Explain a Developmental Reversal?

Children's memories improve throughout childhood, and this improvement is often accompanied by a reduction in suggestibility. In this context, it is surprising that older children learn and reproduce more factual errors from stories than do younger children (Fazio & Marsh, 2008 Fazio , L. K. , & Marsh , E. J. ( 2008 ). Older, not younger, children learn more false facts from stories . Cognition , 106 , 1081 – 1089 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The present study examined whether this developmental reversal is limited to production tests, or whether younger children are still less suggestible when the final test (multiple-choice) asks them to recognize the answer. A second goal was to explore the role of source monitoring in children's suggestibility by examining children's awareness of learning within, versus before, the experiment. Five-year-olds and 7-year-olds listened to stories containing correct, neutral, and misleading references and later took either a multiple-choice or short-answer general knowledge test. In addition, they judged whether each answer had appeared in the stories and whether they had known it before the experiment. Critically, a developmental reversal in suggestibility was observed on both tests; younger children were less suggestible even when faced with the story errors at test. Although older children showed superior source discriminability for whether their answers had appeared in the stories, they showed an illusion of prior knowledge, believing they had known their misinformation answers all along. To this effect, older children's increased suggestibility may be due not only to their superior memory capacity for specific story errors, but also to their ability and tendency to integrate story information into their knowledge base.     

Anatomically plausible illusory posture affects mental rotation of body parts

During mental rotation (MR) of body parts, people internally simulate the movement of their corresponding body segments. These sensory–motor mechanisms render MR sensitive to proprioceptive information (e.g., posture). Similar mechanisms can alter illusory hand ownership following synchronous visuotactile stimulation (e.g., the rubber hand illusion [RHI]). In the present study, we first showed that illusory ownership for a fake hand can also be induced when the posture of the fake hand (palm-up) does not correspond with the subject’s physical hand posture (palm-down). Then we tested whether illusory ownership for a fake hand in such a posture impacts the MR of hands carried out immediately and repeatedly after the RHI. The results showed that MR was altered for the view corresponding to the fake hand’s posture, but not for other views. Additionally, these effects depended on illusory ownership, as only synchronous visuotactile stimulation was found to lead to these changes, characterized by a modulation of the rotation-dependent profile of MR response times. These findings show that similar sensory–motor mechanisms are recruited during the MR of hands and illusory hand ownership manipulated through multisensory mismatch, and that bottom-up visuotactile stimulation interferes with high-level imagery processes.     

Body size over-estimation in women with anorexia nervosa is not qualitatively different from female controls

Over-estimation of body size is a cardinal feature of anorexia nervosa (AN), usually revealed by comparing individuals who have AN with non-AN individuals, the inference being that over-estimation is pathological. We show that the same result can be reproduced by sampling selectively from a single distribution of performance in body size judgement by comparing low BMI individuals with normal BMI individuals. Over-estimation of body size in AN is not necessarily pathological and can be predicted by normal psychophysical biases in magnitude estimation. We confirm this prediction in a dataset from a morphing study in which 30 women with AN and 137 control women altered a photograph of themselves to estimate their actual body size. We further investigated the relative contributions of sensory and attitudinal factors to body-size overestimation in a sample of 166 women. Our results suggest that both factors play a role, but their relative importance is task dependent.     

Emotional Responses to Disfigured Faces: The Influences of Perceived Anonymity,Empathy, and Disgust Sensitivity

Two experiments investigated self-reported emotional reactions to photographs of people with attractive, unattractive, or structurally disfigured faces. In Experiment 1, participants viewing disfigured faces reported raised levels of sorrow and curiosity but not raised levels of negative emotions. In Experiment 2, there was more negative emotion and less positive emotion reported under conditions of relatively high anonymity, compared to low anonymity, specific to disfigured faces, suggesting that self-reports are influenced by social desirability. Trait empathy was associated with sorrow and negative emotions when viewing disfigured faces. Disgust sensitivity was associated with negative emotions and inversely associated with positive emotions.     

Cultural differences in emotion regulation during self-reflection on negative personal experiences

Reflecting on negative personal experiences has implications for mood that may vary as a function of specific domains (e.g., achievement vs. interpersonal) and cultural orientation (e.g., interdependence vs. independence). This study investigated cultural differences in the social-cognitive and affective processes undertaken as Easterners and Westerners reflected on negative interpersonal and performance experiences. One hundred Asian Americans and 92 European-American college students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: interpersonal rejection, achievement failure, or a control condition. Results revealed that Asian Americans experienced greater distress than European Americans after self-reflecting over a failed interpersonal experience, suggesting cultural sensitivity in the relational domain. Consistent with theoretical predictions, analysis of the social cognitive and affective processes that participants engaged in during self-reflection provided some evidence that self-enhancement may buffer distress for European Americans, while emotion suppression may be adaptive for Asian Americans.     

QUANTUM ASPECTS OF LIFE: RELATING EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY WITH THEOLOGY VIA MODERN PHYSICS

Abstract In the present paper, I shall argue that quantum theory can contribute to reconciling evolutionary biology with the creation hypothesis. After giving a careful definition of the theological problem, I will, in a first step, formulate necessary conditions for the compatibility of evolutionary theory and the creation hypothesis. In a second step, I will show how quantum theory can contribute to fulfilling these conditions. More precisely, I claim that (1) quantum probabilities are best understood in terms of ontological indeterminism, but (2) reflect nevertheless causal openness rather than divine indifference or arbitrariness, and (3) such a genuinely creative universe can be considered as the work of a loving Creator. I ask subsequently whether these necessary conditions are also sufficient for the compatibility of evolutionary theory and the creation hypothesis. Finally, I will show that relating evolutionary biology with theology via quantum theory could also shed some light on the nature of life.     

The 1-2-3 Magic Program: Implementation Outcomes of an Australian Pilot Evaluation With School-Aged Children

No abstract available for this article.     

Adult Attachment Interview and Psychoanalytic Perspective: A Single Case Study

In this single case study we present a female patient diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder and a borderline organization. The interplay between attachment and psychoanalytic perspective will be focused. The analyst describes his impressions of the initial interview with the patient and essential steps during treatment. The patient was interviewed with the Adult Attachment Interview and classified as “insecure preoccupied” with an “unresolved state of mind” concerning loss and abuse. The analyst was asked to comment the AAI's essential characteristics of this patient. We discuss converging and diverging aspects of clinical and attachment interpretation in this single case.     

What I like is How I Am: Impact of Alexithymia on Aesthetic Preference

Aim of this work was to explore the impact of alexithymia on art works appreciation, to examine the influence of emotion regulation on art judgment. While observing a painting, the viewer's cognitive structure contains several types of information (semantic, episodic, and strategic) and is the repository of personal traits, motivations, and emotional dispositions that are involved in this interaction. The study of how personal traits influence work of art appreciation, and especially the study of the way emotion regulation impacts on art judgment, was aimed at improving the comprehension of the aesthetic experience costruct. One hundred adults, divided into 2 groups (high and low scores in alexithymia), observed 20 works of art and were then asked to give an evalutative judgment on three dimentions: cognitive, emotional, aesthetic. As hypothesized, the two groups had significant differences in their aesthetic preferences. Although subjects without affective regulation disorders preferred excitation related pictures, subjects with alexithymia appreciated works evoching emotions of pleasure inhibition. These results confirm the impact of personality traits on aesthetic preference and support the need to include emotional regulation in a comprehensive model of aesthetic experience.