Anticipation skill and susceptibility to deceptive movement

The ability to detect deceptive movement was examined in skilled and novice rugby players. Participants (14 per group) attempted to predict direction change from video of expert and recreational rugby players changing direction with and without deceptive movement. Confidence associated with judgments was recorded on each trial to seek evidence regarding use of inferential (heuristic-based) and direct-perceptual (invariant-based) judgments. Novices were found to be susceptible to deceptive movement whereas skilled participants were not; however, both skilled and novice participants were more confident on trials containing deceptive movement. The data suggest that the skill-level difference in sensitivity to advance visual information extends to deceptive information. The implications of this finding, and the importance of considering the underlying process of anticipation skill, are discussed.     

Children's use of the temporal dimension of gaze for inferring preference

This study examined 4- and 5-year-olds' ability to spontaneously use the relative duration and frequency of another's object-directed gaze for inferring that person's preference. In Experiment 1, analysis revealed a strong age effect for judgment accuracy, which could not be accounted for by cue-monitoring proficiency. Reducing the saliency of the objects in Experiment 2 yielded significant improvement in the younger children's performance. Thus, at 4 years, children already show signs of attending to the temporal dimension of gaze for making mentalistic inferences of preferential liking, but their competence may be undermined by the object choices themselves. By 5 years, they appear to overcome this competition. The obtained developmental difference is discussed in terms of concurrent transitions in attention regulation.     

Stability and change in children's division strategies

Age-related changes in children's performance on simple division problems (e.g., 6/2, 72/9) were investigated by asking children in Grades 4 through 7 to solve 32 simple division problems. Differences in performance were found across grade, with younger children performing more slowly and less accurately than older children. Problem size effects were also found in that children were faster and more accurate on small problems than on large problems. Two strategies changed across age, with children in Grade 4 relying heavily on the strategy of "addition" (adding the divisor until the dividend was reached) to solve the problems and children in Grades 5 through 7 relying primarily on the strategy of "multiplication" (recasting the division problem as a multiplication problem) to solve the problems. Surprisingly, the frequency of direct retrieval (retrieving the answer directly from memory) did not increase across grade and never became the dominant strategy of choice. Reasons for why retrieval use remains infrequent and age invariant are discussed. Overall, the results suggest that division is a unique operation and that the continued study of division may have implications for further understanding of how procedural and conceptual knowledge of arithmetic develops.     

The Personal Acquaintance Measure: a tool for appraising one's acquaintance with any person

The authors developed and evaluated the psychometric properties of the 18-item Personal Acquaintance Measure (PAM) and investigated how the PAM relates to self- other agreement in personality ratings. Results support that 6 factors represent the PAM (Duration, Frequency of Interaction, Knowledge of Goals, Physical Intimacy, Self-Disclosure, Social Network Familiarity), which showed evidence of internal consistency, test-retest reliability over 3 weeks, sensitivity to known group differences, discriminant validity from socially desirable responding, and convergent validity with other relationship inventories. Results also show that the PAM positively predicted self-other agreement. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for the PAM and research in person perception, although this measure may also be used in other research areas.     

Stereotype activation and control of race bias: cognitive control of inhibition and its impairment by alcohol

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that alcohol increases race-biased responding via impairment of self-regulatory cognitive control. Participants consumed either a placebo or alcohol and then made speeded responses to stereotypic trait words presented after White and Black face primes while behavioral and event-related brain potential (ERP) data were recorded. Alcohol did not affect stereotype activation in either experiment. Experiment 2 showed that alcohol significantly impaired the ability to inhibit race-biased responses but did not reliably influence control of counterstereotypic responses. This disinhibition appears driven by impairment of regulative cognitive control, as indexed by amplitude of the negative slow wave ERP component. These findings suggest that controlling racial bias can be a function of effective implementation of basic self-regulatory processes in addition to the motivational processes identified in other research.     

Review of three tests of motor proficiency in children

The present purpose is to provide clinicians, occupational and physical therapists, and educators with a comparative analysis of three tests of motor proficiency. The Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Movement Assessment Battery for Children, and Tufts Assessment of Motor Performance were developed to assess the motor skills of children with developmental delays. The selection criteria, interrater reliability, reproducibility, and recommended use of each test are reported here. Recommendations for use of each test include standardization of the sample population to ensure its appropriateness.     

Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior: Potential Sex Differences

Evidence of the effects of playing violent video games on subsequent aggression has been mixed. This study examined how playing a violent video game affected levels of aggression displayed in a laboratory. A total of 43 undergraduate students (22 men and 21 women) were randomly assigned to play either a violent (Mortal Kombat) or nonviolent (PGA Tournament Golf) video game for 10 min. Then they competed with a confederate in a reaction time task that allowed for provocation and retaliation. Punishment levels set by participants for their opponents served as the measure of aggression. The results confirmed our hypothesis that playing the violent game would result in more aggression than would playing the nonviolent game. In addition, a Game × Sex interaction showed that this effect was larger for men than for women. Findings are discussed in light of potential differences in aggressive style between men and women.     

Medical Decision-Making: An Argument for Narrative and Metaphor

This study examines the processes ofdecision-making used by intensive care(critical care) specialists. Ninety-ninespecialists completed a questionnaire involvingthree clinical cases, using a novel methodologyinvestigating the role of uncertainty andtemporal-related factors, and exploring a rangeof ethical issues. Validation and triangulationof the results was done via a comparison studywith a medically lay, but highly informed groupof 37 law students. For both study groups,constructing reasons for a decision was largelyan interpretative and imaginative exercise thatwent beyond the data (as presented), commonlyresulting in different reasons supporting thesame conclusions and similar reasons supportingopposite conclusions. The skills of ethicalimagination and interpretation were related toan individual's prior lived experience,construed in the broadest sense. Application ofthese skills of ethical imagination andinterpretation always occurred, to some degree,in a state of uncertainty and almost alwaysinvolved temporal relationships.Using these results, a theory of ethicaldecision-making is proffered. Three levels ortypes of reasoning processes may be present.Type I decision-making involves the applicationof rules, usually in a deductive fashion. TypeII decision-making is characterised by aprocess where a plurality of reasons arebalanced, weighed and sifted with each other.Type III decision-making is intimately linkedwith respondents lived experiences and `crafts'the content of type I and II reasoningprocesses, via the application of ethicalimagination and interpretation. Relationshipsbetween these three types of reasoningprocesses, and with narrative ethics, are alsodiscussed.     

Efficacy of two behavioral treatment programs for comorbid geriatric insomnia

Older adults with comorbid insomnia and medical illness have been excluded from behavioral treatment research, but recent evidence suggested that such treatments would be effective with this population. In this study, 38 older adults with comorbid insomnia were randomized to 1 of 3 conditions: classroom cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT), home-based audio relaxation treatment (HART), or delayed-treatment control. Compared to the control group, the CBT group had significant changes in 5 of 7 self-report measures of sleep at the 4-month follow-up. The HART group obtained significant outcomes on 3 of 7 measures. Wrist actigraphy measures and secondary-outcome measures did not yield significant findings for either treatment. Clinically significant changes at follow-up were obtained for 54% of patients in CBT, 35% in HART, and 6% in the control group when treatment dropouts were included. Although not as effective as in-person CBT, home interventions may have utility as a first-line, low-cost treatment.