Working memory representations persist in the face of unexpected task alterations

It is well known that information can be held in memory while performing other tasks concurrently, such as remembering a color or number during a separate visual search task. However, it is not clear what happens to stored information in the face of unexpected tasks, such as the surprise questions that are often used in experiments related to inattentional and change blindness. Does the unpredicted shift in task context cause memory representations to be cleared in anticipation of new information? To answer this question, we ran two experiments where the task unexpectedly switched partway through the experiment with a surprise question. Half of the participants were asked to report the same attribute (Exp. 1?=?Identity, Exp. 2?=?Color) of a target stimulus in both presurprise and postsurprise trials, while for the other half, the reported attribute switched from identity to color (Exp. 1) or vice versa (Exp. 2). Importantly, all participants had to read an unexpected set of instructions and respond differently on the surprise trial. Accuracy on the surprise trial was higher for the same-attribute groups than the different-attribute groups. Furthermore, there was no difference in reaction time on the surprise trial between the two groups. These results suggest that information participants expected to report can survive an encounter with an unexpected task. The implication is that failures to report information on a surprise trial in many experiments reflect genuine differences in memory encoding, rather than forgetting or overwriting induced by the surprise question.     

Children lose confidence in their potential to “be scientists,” but not in their capacity to “do science”

Over the course of middle childhood, children's interest and beliefs about their own capacities for success in science often decline. This pernicious decline is especially evident among underrepresented groups, including girls, members of some racial and ethnic minorities, and children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The present research (N = 306, ages 6–11) found that while children lose interest and feelings of efficacy about their potential to “be scientists” across middle childhood, they maintain more robust interest and efficacy about “doing science.” These patterns were confirmed in both longitudinal and cross‐sectional analyses; effects were stable or increased across time and age. Mediation analyses revealed that the positive effect of action framing is partially accounted for by children's views that the group of people who do science is more inclusive than the category of scientists. These findings suggest that using action‐focused language to encourage children in science is more inclusive and may lead to more science engagement across middle childhood than language that emphasizes scientists as an identity category. Implications for educational practices will be discussed.     

Survey Experiments on Candidate Religiosity,Political Attitudes,and Vote Choice

Because identification with and affect toward social groups is a primary heuristic for citizens, the social group profiles of candidates are important for electoral behavior. We focus on an increasingly important element of candidates’ social characteristics: their levels of religiosity and secularism. We argue that as religious groups and identities become structured less by what religion they are and more by how religious they are (or are not), candidate religiosity and secularism should condition the impact of political orientations such as partisanship and cultural policy attitudes on vote choice. Highly religious candidates should attract more support from Republicans and from cultural conservatives, while overtly secular candidates should appeal more to Democrats and cultural liberals. Using a survey experiment in which respondents evaluate a state legislative candidate with varying levels of religiosity and secularism, we find strong support for our argument.     

Examination of the Extent to which Employment Factors are Associated with Reduced Child Maltreatment Potential and Drug Use

Job assistance programs are commonly recommended for parents of children who have been victimized by child maltreatment, particularly when illicit drugs are indicated. However, the relationship between employment factors, substance abuse, and risk of child maltreatment has received limited empirical attention. Therefore, the current study examines employment factors in a sample of 72 mothers, who were referred by child protective services for treatment of substance abuse and child neglect. Child maltreatment potential was found to be negatively associated with number of hours employed and self-reported happiness with employment. The association between child abuse potential and personal income of participants approached significance (p?=?.057), and the results were not influenced by social desirability. Employment satisfaction significantly contributed to the prediction of child maltreatment potential over and above other employment factors and control variables. These findings suggest that when mothers are involved in child protective services their risk of perpetrating child maltreatment may be reduced when they are assisted in gainful employment that is personally satisfying. Happiness with employment was the only employment factor correlated (inversely) with substance use (biological testing, self-report of participants). Future directions are discussed in light of the results, including the importance of considering employment satisfaction when conducting vocational assistance programs in this population.     

Beyond the Isolated Self: Extended Mind and Spirituality

Extended Cognition is a theory from philosophy of mind that has its roots in the more general notion of Embodied Cognition. Embodied cognition understands all human thought as involving the body (not just the brain), and as always situated in particular contexts. Cognitive extension goes further to suggest that intelligent mental processes often include things outside the brain and body, involving interactions with other persons or external artifacts that significantly enhance cognitive capacities. Thus, while intelligence was once thought to be an attribute of a single individual’s brain, it is now understood to extend into processes outside the person within immediate interactive space. For example, smart phones or problem-solving groups expand cognitive capacities beyond what is possible on one’s own. This article explores the possibility of supersizing-through-extension spirituality and Christian life within the interactive space of congregations and religious communities.     

Revised Diagnostic Profile 2016: Revisions,Rationale, and Further Thoughts

ABSTRACT

In 2001, a working party at the Anna Freud Centre undertook the task of looking at Anna Freud’s original Provisional Diagnostic Profile and seeing if, in the light of current knowledge, modifications should be made. A broad view of the mind as a complex dynamic system sculpted out of biopsychosocial forces underpins the chapter with reference to allied disciplines and research. The chapter considers the rationale for adding certain features and highlighting and/or reframing others. In shifting the emphases from the original drive theory perspective to an explicitly object relational one, the authors acknowledge the altered metapsychology while arguing that the revisions preserve the original psychoanalytic and developmental template, including the importance of the psychosexual organization. The authors offer their suggestions to the question in 2015: would yet further revisions need to be made and if so which? The working party reconvened in 2016 to further revise the Provisional Diagnostic Profile.     

The Micro-Category account of analogy

Here, we investigate how activation of mental representations of categories during analogical reasoning influences subsequent cognitive processing. Specifically, we present and test the central predictions of the "Micro-Category" account of analogy. This account emphasizes the role of categories in aligning terms for analogical mapping. In a semantic priming paradigm, a four-word analogy task was compared to two other four-word tasks. Stimuli were identical in all tasks; only the instructions given to participants differed. Participants were instructed to identify analogy relations, category relations, or conventionalized semantic relations in the four-word sets. After each four-word set, a single target word appeared and participants named this word aloud. Target words that referred to category relations in the preceding four-word sets were primed as strongly when participants identified analogies as when participants identified categories, suggesting that activation of category concepts plays an important role in analogical thinking. In addition, priming of category-referent words in the analogy and category tasks was significantly greater than priming of these words when participants identified conventionalized semantic relations. Since identical stimuli were used in all conditions, this finding indicates that it is the activation of category relations, distinct from any effect of basic semantic association, that causes analogical reasoning to prime category-referent words. We delineate how the "Micro-Category" account of analogy predicts these phenomena and unifies findings from diverse areas of research concerning analogical reasoning.     

Supportive adult relationships and the academic engagement of Latin American immigrant youth

The central aim of this study was to explore the academic engagement trajectories of a sample of recently arrived immigrant students from Latin America. Using an analytic framework that can dynamically model time-sensitive fluctuations (HLM; [Raudenbush, S. W., & Bryk, A. S. (2002). Hierarchicical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods (2nd Edition ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications]), we explored how initial engagement, gender, and support from caring adults at school shaped youths' engagement over time. Students reported a range of engagement trajectories, with gender and support emerging as important predictors of youths' engagement trajectories. Additionally, perceptions of support fluctuated from year to year, and these fluctuations were linked to youths' academic engagement. The findings point to associations between support perceptions and engagement, including links between students' current academic motivation and effort and their current connections with adults. Taken together, the findings present a nuanced portrait of academic engagement and suggest how relationships at school might facilitate positive academic adjustment among Latin American immigrant students over time. Implications for future research, public policy, and practice are discussed.     

Kicking the (barking) dog effect: the moderating role of target attributes on triggered displaced aggression

Sometimes aggression is displaced onto a target who is not totally innocent but emits a mildly irritating behavior called a triggering event. In three experiments, the authors examine stable personal attributes of targets that can impact such triggered displaced aggression (TDA). Lower levels of TDA were directed to targets whose attitudes were similar as compared to dissimilar to those of the actor (Experiment 1) and to targets who were ingroup as compared to out-group members (Experiment 2). Conceptually replicating the findings of Experiments 1 and 2, the manipulated valence of the target (viz., liked, neutral, and disliked) functioned in a similar manner, with positive valence serving a buffering function against a triggering action that followed an initial provocation (Experiment 3). The results from all three experiments are consistent with cognitive neoassociationist theory.