Children's use of gaze and limb movement cues to infer deception

A sample of 96 children from kindergarten, 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades judged the truthfulness of peers who varied in gaze and limb movement while providing verbal communications. Results indicated that children attributed greater lying to the peers who displayed indirect rather than direct gaze and active rather than nonactive limb movement. The use of these cues was more evident in 4th- and 6th-grade children than it was in kindergarten and 2nd-grade children. Pilot studies indicated that adults and children as young as 5-6 years of age associated indirect gaze and active limb movement with anxiety. The findings are discussed with respect to children's theory of mind, concepts of lying, understanding of display rules, and learning of physiological cues associated with deception.     

Objects are individuals but stuff doesn't count: perceived rigidity and cohesiveness influence infants' representations of small groups of discrete entities

Young infants construct models of the world composed of objects tracked through time and occlusion. To date little is known about the degree to which these models are sensitive to the material make-up of the represented individuals. Two experiments probed 8-month-olds' ability to represent different kinds of entities: rigid, cohesive objects, flexible, cohesive objects, and non-rigid, non-cohesive portions of sand. In Experiment 1, infants represented an array of two rigid, cohesive objects hidden behind a single screen, but failed to represent hidden arrays of two flexible objects or two portions of sand. In Experiment 2, entities were hidden behind two screens instead of one, thereby reducing the information processing demands of the task. In that case, infants succeeded in representing arrays of both types of object stimuli, but again failed to represent the portions of sand. It is argued that (1) the processes by which infants individuate and track entities are sensitive to material kind, (2) rigid cohesive objects occupy a privileged status in this system, and (3) early knowledge about objects and substances has a quantificational aspect.     

Spontaneous representation of number in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus)

The "violation of expectancy" looking-time methodology has proven a powerful tool for exploring prelinguistic mental representations in human infants as well as in nonhuman primates. Four studies applying this methodology to the question of spontaneous number representations in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) are reported here. Monkeys were shown 1 + 1 events in which objects were placed behind a screen, 1 by 1. The screen was removed, revealing consistent (2 objects) and inconsistent (1, 3, or 1 large object twice the mass of original object) outcomes. In all studies, monkeys looked longer at the inconsistent than at the consistent outcome. When the monkeys view a 1 + 1 operation, they expect exactly 2 objects. It is likely that these numerical representations are spontaneously available to a variety of primate species and could provide a foundation on which humans' number sense was constructed over evolution and development.     

Do action systems resist visual illusions?

Arguments about the relative independence of visual modules in the primate brain are not new. Recently, though, these debates have resurfaced in the form of arguments about the extent to which visuomotor reaching and grasping systems are insensitive to visual illusions that dramatically bias visual perception. The first wave of studies of illusory effects on perception and action have supported the idea of independence of motor systems, but recent findings have been more critical. In this article, I review several of these studies, most of which (but not all) can be reconciled with the two-visual-systems model.     

Sources

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Glasnost, Christen und Genossen (Glasnost’, Christians and Comrades) edited by Norbert Sommer. Berlin: Wichern‐Verlag, 1988. Paperback, 188 pp.

Soviet Charismatics: the Pentecostals in the USSR by William C. Fletcher. New York: Peter Lang, 1985. 200 pp.

The KGB: Police and Politics in the Soviet Union by Amy W. Knight. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988. 348 pp.

Every Person is First of all a History by Fr Mykhaylo Havryliv. Rome: Ukrainian Press Service, 1987. 158 pp.

The Razing of Romania's Past by Diav C. Giurescu. New York: United States Committee/International Council on Monuments and Sites, 1989. 68 pp. plus photographs     

Children's Use of Gaze and Limb Movement Cues to Infer Deception

A sample of 96 children from kindergarten, 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades judged the truthfulness of peers who varied in gaze and limb movement while providing verbal communications. Results indicated that children attributed greater lying to the peers who displayed indirect rather than direct gaze and active rather than nonactive limb movement. The use of these cues was more evident in 4th- and 6th-grade children than it was in kindergarten and 2nd-grade children. Pilot studies indicated that adults and children as young as 5-6 years of age associated indirect gaze and active limb movement with anxiety. The findings are discussed with respect to children's theory of mind, concepts of lying, understanding of display rules, and learning of physiological cues associated with deception.     

Chaplaincy and Mental Health Care in Aotearoa New Zealand: An Exploratory Study

This paper summarizes an initial exploratory study undertaken to consider the ministry of New Zealand chaplaincy personnel working within the mental health care context. This qualitative research (a first among New Zealand mental health care chaplains) was not concerned with specific health care institutions per se, but solely about the perspectives of chaplains concerning their professional contribution and issues they experienced when trying to provide pastoral care to patients, families, and clinical staff involved in mental health care. Data from a single focus group indicated that chaplains were fulfilling various WHO-ICD-10AM pastoral interventions as a part of a multidisciplinary and holistic approach to mental health care; however, given a number of frustrations identified by participants, which either impeded or thwarted their professional role as chaplains, a number of improvements were subsequently identified in order to develop the efficiency and effectiveness of chaplaincy and thus maximize the benefits of pastoral care to patients, families, and clinical staff. Some implications of this exploratory study relating to mental health care chaplaincy, ecclesiastical organizations, health care institutions, and government responsibilities and the need for further research are noted.     

Reactions to the implicit association test as an educational tool: A mixed methods study

We examined reactions to the Race Implicit Association Test (IAT), which has been widely used but rarely examined as an educational tool to raise awareness about racial bias. College students $(N=172)$ were assigned to read that the IAT reflected either personal beliefs or both personal and extrapersonal factors (single vs. multiple explanation conditions). They then completed the IAT and quantitative measures of affect, attitudes, and belief in bias. A subset of participants $(n=32)$ also wrote reaction papers, which were used to develop qualitative themes to more fully describe reactions to the IAT. Quantitative results revealed that participants with a stronger implicit preference for European Americans more strongly believed in implicit bias in the multiple (vs. single) explanation condition. Mixed methods analyses using data transformation and typology development indicated that participants whose qualitative IAT responses were more negative were subsequently more likely to help an African American.     

Math Weaknesses in Survivors of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Compared to Healthy Children

Difficulties in math are the most frequently reported area of academic deficit in survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and the most frequent academic complaint among parents of ALL survivors. However, previous studies that included measures of math skills have been limited by the use of only a single measure of math skills, most often a measure of written calculations, without any assessment of math reasoning or math application skills. Further, the nature of these math difficulties has not been adequately investigated. The purpose of this study was to examine the performance of ALL survivors using multiple measures of math skills. Performance was compared to a group of healthy controls matched for age and sex as well as to normative levels. Other measures of neuropsychological function were also administered, and the relationships between these measures and the math measures were explored. Converging evidence for math difficulties in ALL survivors compared to healthy controls and normative levels was found. While ALL survivors generally performed within the average range on measures of math skills, math performance was mostly related to memory function and dominant-hand psychomotor speed. By contrast, math performance of healthy children was mostly related to basic reading skills and visual-motor integration. These findings shed light on the nature of math difficulties in ALL survivors and have implications for intervention.