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

No abstract available for this article.     

A Study of low scores in Canadian children and adolescents on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children,Fourth Edition (WISC-IV)

Knowing the prevalence of low neurocognitive scores for the WISC-IV Canadian normative sample (WISC-IV^CDN) is an important supplement for clinical interpretation of test performance. On the WISC-IV^CDN, it is uncommon for children and adolescents to have 4 or more subtest scores or 2 or more Index scores ≤ 9th percentile when all scores on the battery are considered simultaneously. As the level of the child's intelligence increases or the number of years of parental education increases, the prevalence of low scores decreases. These results are consistent with existing studies of the base rates of low scores in children and adolescents on pediatric cognitive batteries, including the WISC-IV American normative sample. Tables provided are ready for clinical use.     

Pragmatic inference, not semantic competence, guides 3-year-olds' interpretation of unknown number words

Before children learn the specific meanings of numerals like six, do they know that they represent precise quantities? Previous studies have reported conflicting evidence and have found that children expect numerals to label precise quantities in some tasks but not in others (Condry & Spelke, 2008; Sarnecka & Gelman, 2004). In this article, we present evidence that some of children's apparent successes are best explained not by domain-specific semantic understanding of number but instead by language-general pragmatic abilities. In Experiment 1, we replicated the findings of the previous studies in a within-subject design. When 3-year-olds saw a set labeled with a number (e.g., five) and an item was added, they preferred a new label (six) over the old one, as though they believed that number words have precise meanings. However, when 1 of 2 sets was labeled (e.g., as five) and children were asked to find the same quantity (five) or a new quantity (six), they performed identically whether the original set was changed in quantity or merely rearranged. Thus, when 2 numerals were offered as alternative labels for 1 set, children behaved as though they had precise meanings, whereas when they were asked to determine which of 2 sets a single numeral referred to, they did not. In Experiment 2, children were tested using similar methods but with novel nouns and objects that were transformed, instead of sets. Children showed the identical pattern of results despite lacking meanings for these words, suggesting that their judgments for numerals may not have relied on semantic knowledge that numerals have precise meanings. We propose that children's behavior can be explained by the use of domain-general pragmatic inference and does not require positing domain-specific numerical knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).     

The Relative Strength of Job Attitudes and Job Embeddedness in Predicting Turnover in a U.S. Military Academy

This longitudinal study explored the relative strength of job satisfaction, components of organizational commitment, dimensions of job embeddedness and person–organization fit as predictors of voluntary turnover at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Using survey data from 643 first- and second-year cadets, we found that job satisfaction, affective commitment, on-the-job embeddedness, and person–organization fit were significantly negatively related to turnover. Based on relative weights analysis, we found the most powerful predictor of cadet turnover was person–organization fit, which has important implications for military leaders.     

The buffering effects of job embeddedness on negative shocks

Unpleasant events are a fact of organizational life. The way in which people respond to such events, however, varies. In the present study, we hypothesized and found that some individuals choose to respond to negative events in ways that helped the organization. Instead of withdrawing in an attempt to “get even” by reducing work outputs, these individuals improved their in-role and extra-role performance. The study examined the role that job embeddedness plays in creating this work enhancement reaction. Specifically, we discovered that on-the-job embeddedness helps reduce the impact of negative shocks on organizational citizenship and overall job performance. The findings of this study have important implications for both theory and practice.     

Amodal completion in bonobos

We trained two bonobos to discriminate among occluded, complete, and incomplete stimuli. The occluded stimulus comprised a pair of colored shapes, one of which appeared to occlude the other. The complete and incomplete stimuli involved the single shape that appeared to have been partially covered in the occluded stimulus; the complete stimulus showed the full shape, whereas the incomplete stimulus showed the same portion of the shape that was visible in the occluded stimulus. The correct response was to select the two-part occluded stimulus. Consistent with amodal completion, the bonobos committed a higher percentage of errors to the complete stimuli than to the incomplete stimuli. As well, the percentage of errors to the complete stimuli rose after repeated training with several different shapes. Extensive experience with two-dimensional images enhances amodal completion of partially occluded stimuli in bonobos.     

Episodic effects on picture identification: implications for theories of concept learning and theories of memory

The effects of differences in study processing on free recall of picture names and on generalization in picture identification were investigated. Experience with degraded pictures produced poorer subsequent free recall of picture names than did naming intact pictures. For the test of picture identification, pictures that were identical to a studied picture, pictures that shared a name with a studied picture (same name), and new test pictures were presented, and the amount of clarification required to identify a picture was measured. Experience with degraded pictures produced better subsequent identification of identical test pictures but poorer later identification of same-name test pictures than did naming intact pictures. The importance of these episodic effects for theories of concept learning and theories of memory is discussed. It is argued that distinctions between memory systems (e.g., episodic-semantic) must be couched in terms of a theory of concept learning and that the data are inconsistent with a simple distinction.     

Same/different discrimination learning with trial-unique stimuli

A long-standing issue in same/different discrimination learning concerns the possible role of individual stimulus memory through repeated presentation. The aim of eliminating any effect of repetition prompted us to devise a new method for generating trial-unique stimuli. These stimuli were arrays of 16 mosaics, each containing 16 cells, which could be filled with 16 possible luminance levels. In Experiment 1, we successfully trained 4 pigeons with these trial-unique stimuli in a two-alternative forced choice same/different discrimination task to 80% correct-choice performance. We later conducted two tests that explored the nature of this discrimination and suggested that pigeons compared the mosaics in the arrays on the basis of their spatial configurations, not on the basis of lower level perceptual properties. In Experiment 2, college students responded similarly to the same sequence of training and testing. Our results suggest that pigeons and people may use similar mechanisms in relational discrimination learning.     

Enhancing precision in the prediction of voluntary turnover and retirement

The present research examines the differential validity of the facets of organizational commitment and job embeddedness to predict who will reenlist or retire from a branch of the armed services. We tested hypotheses with survey data from 1839 enlisted personnel in the U.S. Air Force. For personnel facing the decision to reenlist or separate, continuance commitment and organizational job embeddedness predicted reenlistment. For those eligible to retire, affective and normative commitment as well as organizational job embeddedness predicted who would reenlist rather than retire. However, unlike previous studies, for both criteria (reenlistment and retirement), people who were more embedded in their communities were more likely to voluntarily leave. This finding identifies an important boundary condition for job embeddedness theory.