Cognitive Bias for Pictorial and Linguistic Threat Cues in Children

The present study was designed to test the conditions under which threat-related cognitive bias can be observed in anxious children. Measures of cognitive bias for threatening words and pictures were obtained from spider fearful children (N = 55) and non-fearful children (N = 58) aged 8–11 in the first experiment, and from spider fearful children (N = 44), and two control groups (N = 41; N = 36) aged 8 in the second experiment. Cognitive bias was assessed by the emotional Stroop task. In line with our previous findings, all children aged 8 showed a bias for spider words, but not for spider pictures. However, a relation between spider fear and bias was observed when age was taken into account: bias for spider words decreased with age in the non-fearful children whereas this bias maintained in the fearful group. This differential age effect too replicated earlier findings (Kindt, Bierman, & Brosschot, 1997). It is suggested that a bias for threat words is a normal characteristic in children aged 8. During development, normal children learn to inhibit this processing bias, whilst fearful children fail to learn this ability.     

Cooperativity and Selectivity in Conversation

Conversing with others is a mundane, daily activity of nearly all humans, yet it is an extraordinary feat of social collaboration that depends on cooperation, social learning, and collective coordination across an array of caring relationships. This article briefly considers the cooperative and selective nature of language and something of its contributions to the structural, social, and developmental character of human action and cognition. In doing so, it introduces 3 other articles that form a special section of this issue that is a continuation of an earlier special issue (Fowler & Hodges, 2015). The evidence reviewed here points to the possibility that the integrated, synergistic, cooperative character of language may prove to be a particular strength of ecological approaches to cognition and action rather than a liability.     

Meta-analysis of the association between rumination and reduced autobiographical memory specificity

The CaRFAX model, proposed by Williams J. M. G. (2006. Capture and rumination, functional avoidance, and executive control (CaRFAX): Three processes that underlie overgeneral memory. Cognition and Emotion, 20, 548–568. doi:10.1080/02699930500450465; Williams, J. M. G., Barnhofer, T., Crane, C., Herman, D., Raes, F., Watkins, E., &; Dalgleish, T. (2007). Autobiographical memory specificity and emotional disorder. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 122–148. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.122) posits that reduced autobiographical memory specificity, a key factor associated with the emergence and maintenance of emotional disorders, may result from heightened rumination. We provide the first meta-analysis of the relation between autobiographical memory specificity and trait rumination. PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES and MEDLINE databases were searched and the following were extracted: the correlation between the number of specific memories recalled in the Autobiographical Memory Test and self-reported trait rumination scores, and its sub-factors – brooding and reflection. The pooled effect size for the correlation between memory specificity and trait rumination was small (d?=??.05) and did not differ significantly from zero (p?=?.09). The effect sizes for the correlation with brooding and reflection were not significantly different from zero. There is limited support for the association between trait rumination and memory specificity suggested in CaRFAX.     

Are Arabic numerals processed as pictures in a Stroop interference task?

In a picture-word interference task, picture naming is interfered by an incongruent word, but word naming is hardly hindered by the presence of an incongruent picture. In this study, we investigated whether Arabic digits are processed more like pictures or like words. We report two experiments in which Arabic digits and verbal numerals were confronted in a Stroop task. Arabic digit naming is interfered by the presence of an incongruent verbal numeral, while naming the verbal numeral is not influenced by the presence of an incongruent Arabic digit. In a second experiment, we excluded the hypothesis that the results are due to ignoring the Arabic digits: interferences from an incongruent distracter were similar for both notations in a semantic classification task. It seems that an asemantic conversion for Arabic digits is too slow to influence naming times, and that Arabic digit naming, like picture naming, is semantically mediated.     

Working memory and fine motor skills predict early numeracy performance of children with cerebral palsy

Early numeracy is an important precursor for arithmetic performance, academic proficiency, and work success. Besides their apparent motor difficulties, children with cerebral palsy (CP) often show additional cognitive disturbances. In this study, we examine whether working memory, non-verbal intelligence, linguistic skills, counting and fine motor skills are positively related to the early numeracy performance of 6-year-old children with CP. A total of 56 children (M = 6.0, SD = 0.61, 37 boys) from Dutch special education schools participated in this cross-sectional study. Of the total group, 81% of the children have the spastic type of CP (33% unilateral and 66% bilateral), 9% have been diagnosed as having diskinetic CP, 8% have been diagnosed as having spastic and diskinetic CP and 2% have been diagnosed as having a combination of diskinetic and atactic CP. The children completed standardized tests assessing early numeracy performance, working memory, non-verbal intelligence, sentence understanding and fine motor skills. In addition, an experimental task was administered to examine their basic counting performance. Structural equation modeling showed that working memory and fine motor skills were significantly related to the early numeracy performance of the children (β = .79 and p < .001, β = .41 and p < .001, respectively). Furthermore, counting was a mediating variable between working memory and early numeracy (β = .57, p < .001). Together, these findings highlight the importance of working memory for early numeracy performance in children with CP and they warrant further research into the efficacy of intervention programs aimed at working memory training.     

Generating nonsymbolic number stimuli

Studies investigating nonsymbolic numbers (e.g., dot arrays) are confronted with the problem that changes in numerosity are always accompanied by changes in the visual properties of the stimulus. It is therefore debated whether the visual properties of the stimulus rather than number can explain the results obtained in studies investigating nonsymbolic number processing. In this report, we present a program (available at ; note that the program is designed to work with the Psychophysics Toolbox in MATLAB) that exports information about the visual properties of stimuli that co-vary with number (area extended, item size, total surface, density, and circumference). Consequently, insight into the relation between the visual properties of the stimulus and numerical distance can be achieved, and post hoc analyses can be conducted to directly reveal whether numerical distance or (some combinations of) the visual properties of a stimulus could be the most likely candidate underlying the results. Here, we report data that demonstrate the program’s usefulness for research on nonsymbolic number stimuli.     

Where To From Here for the Psychology of Social Change? Future Directions for Theory and Practice

For a vibrant and viable psychology of social change it is necessary to examine its place and contribution to the societal processes it seeks to understand, explain, and (potentially) affect. In this article, we first consider the impact that research and theorizing on social change (should) have and related issues of how we communicate about our work (and to whom) and dilemmas around researchers being active participants in the change process. Second, we consider emerging trends in the field and comment on meta‐theoretical and “meta‐methodological” issues in going forward, including the interaction between individual and society, having theoretical models of the person that allow us to account for such an interaction, as well as rethinking our methodology and ways of “doing” psychology to better reflect people's experiences of mobilization and participation. In line with the proposed rethinking of our theories and methods, the final section introduces a new paradigm for investigating the nexus of social change and leadership dynamics. The overall aim of the article is to reflect on key questions and dilemmas facing the field and provide some starting points for debating and shaping its future.     

The interplay between nonsymbolic number and its continuous visual properties

To date, researchers investigating nonsymbolic number processes devoted little attention to the visual properties of their stimuli. This is unexpected, as nonsymbolic number is defined by its visual characteristics. When number changes, its visual properties change accordingly. In this study, we investigated the influence of different visual properties on nonsymbolic number processes and show that the current assumptions about the relation between number and its visual characteristics are incorrect. Similar to previous studies, we controlled the visual cues: Each visual cue was not predictive of number. Nevertheless, participants showed congruency effects induced by the visual properties of the stimuli. These congruency effects scaled with the number of visual cues manipulated, implicating that people do not extract number from a visual scene independent of its visual cues. Instead, number judgments are based on the integration of information from multiple visual cues. Consequently, current ways to control the visual cues of the number stimuli are insufficient, as they control only a single variable at the time. And, more important, the existence of an approximate number system that can extract number independent of the visual cues appears unlikely. We therefore propose that number judgment is the result of the weighing of several distinct visual cues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Measuring Spirituality as a Universal Human Experience: A Review of Spirituality Questionnaires

Spirituality is an important theme in health research, since a spiritual orientation can help people to cope with the consequences of a serious disease. Knowledge on the role of spirituality is, however, limited, as most research is based on measures of religiosity rather than spirituality. A questionnaire that transcends specific beliefs is a prerequisite for quantifying the importance of spirituality among people who adhere to a religion or none at all. In this review, we discuss ten questionnaires that address spirituality as a universal human experience. Questionnaires are evaluated with regard to psychometric properties, item formulation and confusion with well-being and distress. Although none of the questionnaires fulfilled all the criteria, the multidimensional Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire is promising.