An investigation of serial learning and retention processes in children

Three studies investigated both serial learning (SL) and retention processes among first through sixth graders. SL processes were evaluated for both pictorial and verbal materials by use of a probing methodology, and retention processes were studied as a function of the amount of intratask interference during original learning. All three SL stimuli considered (prior item, serial position, and prior-item cluster) were found to be functional, although the prior-item stimulus was most frequently used. Additionally, SL rate was found to improve with increasing age. The introduction of interference into SL through acoustic, associative, or semantic similarity facilitated retention in control as well as proactive and retroactive inhibition conditions. Pictorial serial list items improved SL performance only for second, third, and fourth graders, while fifth graders performed better with verbal materials and sixth-grade performance was comparable in both presentation modes.     

Semantic and formational clustering in deaf and hearing subjects’ free recall of signs

To investigate whether formational properties of sign language are used spontaneously to organize long-term memory, 16 deaf college students were given a free recall task with items that could be categorized either by shared semantic category or by shared sign language hand shape. Both presentation and response modes (signed or written) were varied between subjects. Analyses revealed no effects of mode on trials to criterion or number of items recalled at 1 week. The clustering that occurred was exclusively semantic, with significantly higher clustering scores during acquisition trials in subjects required to sign their responses. In Experiment 2, formational clustering was encouraged by including formational similarity as the only experimenter-defined basis of categorization, by increasing formational similarity within categories, and by testing only subjects with high signing skills. Input and output modes were again varied between subjects. Subjects were deaf college students with deaf parents (n = 10) or hearing parents (n = 16), and hearing adults with deaf parents (n = 8). Again, spontaneous clustering by formational similarity was extremely low. In only one case— deaf subjects with hearing parents given signed input—did formational clustering increase significantly across the eight acquisition trials. After the categorical nature of the list was explained to subjects at a 1-week retention session, all groups clustered output by formational categories. Apparently, fluent signers do have knowledge of the formational structure of signs, but do not spontaneously use this knowledge as a basis of mnemonic organization in long-term memory.     

Elements of a counter‐exhibition: Excavating and countering a Canadian history and legacy of eugenics

Into the Light, a recently mounted collectively curated museum exhibition, exposed and countered histories and legacies of 20th‐century “race betterment” pedagogies taught in Ontario's postsecondary institutions that targeted some groups of people, including Anishinaabe, Black, and other racialized populations, and disabled and poor people, with dehumanizing ideas and practices. This article advances understandings of the transformative potential of centralizing marginalized stories in accessible and creative ways to disrupt, counter, and draw critical attention to the brutal impacts of oppressive knowledge. The “counter‐exhibition” prioritized stories of groups unevenly targeted by such oppression to contest and defy singular narratives circulating in institutional knowledge systems of what it means to be human. The authors draw on feminist, decolonial and disability scholarship to analyze the exhibition's curation for the ways it collectively and creatively: (1) brought the past to the present through materializing history and memory in ways that challenged archival silences; and (2) engaged community collaboration using accessible, multisensory, multimedia storytelling to “speak the hard truths of colonialism” (Lonetree) while constructing a new methodology for curating disability and access (Cachia). The authors show how the exhibition used several elements, including counter‐stories, to end legacies of colonial eugenic violence and to proliferate accounts that build solidarity across differences implicated in and impacted by uneven power (Gaztambide‐Fernández).     

I know a dog when I see one: dogs (Canis familiaris) recognize dogs from videos

Animal Cognition - Several aspects of dogs’ visual and social cognition have been explored using bi-dimensional representations of other dogs. It remains unclear, however, if dogs do...     

Hating among adolescents: Common contributions of cognitive distortions and maladaptive personality traits

The phenomenon of hating is becoming common in adolescence, but it has been rarely investigated. The study aimed to examine the relationships between hating behaviors, maladaptive personality traits, and cognitive distortions, and to explore whether cognitive distortions might intervene in the relationship between personality traits and hating. Method: Participants (200 boys and 202 girls) completed the Hating Adolescents Test (HAT), the Personality Inventory for DSM-5-Brief Form-Children (PID-5), and the How I Think Questionnaire (HITQ). Results: Preliminary results showed significant gender differences in the study’s variables: boys reported higher scores than girls on hating and on cognitive distortion minimizing, whereas no significant differences emerged on maladaptive personality traits. The mediation model showed that the cognitive distortion blaming others mediated the relationship between psychoticism and hating. Conclusions: Data suggested a mediating role of cognitive distortion blaming others in the relationship between psychoticism trait and hating behaviors.

     

Doddering but dear … even in the eyes of young children? Age stereotyping and prejudice in childhood and adolescence

This study aims to explore age prejudice, and to examine age stereotyping in children and adolescents by adopting the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) as a theoretical framework. It was hypothesised that children are socialised into adopting an ambivalent representation of old age (socialisation hypothesis) and that this cognitive bias becomes weaker in adolescence due to greater cognitive maturity (developmental hypothesis). By analysing representative data from Portugal (European Social Survey; N = 2367), it was ascertained that the ambivalent age stereotype (higher evaluations of warmth than competence for older people) is indeed a shared social representation of older people in Portuguese society. A total of 103 Portuguese children (6–10 year olds) and adolescents (11–15 year olds) were then sampled from a local school and responded to age‐appropriate measures assessing age prejudice as well as age stereotypes. Contrary to previous studies, the findings do not provide evidence for the existence of age prejudice because both children and adolescents reported positive feelings towards older people. However, the socialisation hypothesis was corroborated by showing that the ambivalent old age stereotype was already present in childhood. Contrary to the stipulated developmental hypothesis, the magnitude of this cognitive bias was very similar in adolescence.     

Do Perceptual Instructions Lead to Enhanced Performance Relative to Behavioral Instructions?

As people we commonly instruct people in terms of physical actions to carry out to perform any task. However, according to perceptual control theory (Powers, 1973 Powers, W. T. (1973). Behavior: The control of perception. Chicago, IL: Aldine. [Google Scholar]), human action serves to control perception. Using a drawing task, it was hypothesized that instructions describing the perceivable effects of the movement would result in greater accuracy of image drawing than those describing the movement. Participants were asked to draw images using different instructions; describing the expected perceptions and describing the movements. As predicted, it was found that describing the perceptual outcome of the task led to significantly more accurate drawings than describing the movements did. This highlights the importance of instructions based on desired perceptions when precise execution of a skill is necessary.     

Adolescent Effortful Control as Moderator of Father's Psychological Control in Externalizing Problems: A Longitudinal Study

This longitudinal study investigates the moderating role of a temperamental trait, the effortful control, in the relation between father's psychological control and externalizing problems. In Wave 1, the participants included 507 adolescents attending the second classes of two public schools situated in two Italian cities; in Wave 2, 482 adolescents attending the fifth classes of high school participated again in the study. The results demonstrated a positive contribution of paternal achievement-oriented psychological control to externalizing problems and a moderator effect of effortful control in the relationship between the father's psychological control and externalizing problems. These findings extend current knowledge on the role of the father in the difficult task of balancing the promotion of individuality without falling into psychological control that can trigger externalizing problems among adolescents, especially when the temperament of the latter does not foresee the availability of self-regulating abilities that mediate disadvantageous reactivity.     

Response to MacIntosh’s Review and Discussion of the Psychoanalytic Couple Therapy Journal Literature: A Self Psychological,Intersubjective Perspective

ABSTRACT

After expressing my appreciation to Heather MacIntosh and highlighting her article’s significant contributions to the field, I comment briefly on some of the implications of her methodology and findings. I then elaborate on her summary of the history of the application of self psychology (Kohut, 1971) and intersubjective systems theory (Stolorow, Brandshaft, and Atwood, 1987) to couple therapy, highlighting the key contributions of both theories and describing the current state of the field.     

The curse of knowledge: first language knowledge impairs adult learners' use of novel statistics for word segmentation

We investigated whether adult learners' knowledge of phonotactic restrictions on word forms from their first language impacts their ability to use statistical information to segment words in a novel language. Adults were exposed to a speech stream where English phonotactics and phoneme co-occurrence information conflicted. A control where these did not conflict was also run. Participants chose between words defined by novel statistics and words that are phonotactically possible in English, but had much lower phoneme contingencies. Control participants selected words defined by statistics while experimental participants did not. This result held up with increases in exposure and when segmentation was aided by telling participants a word prior to exposure. It was not the case that participants simply preferred English-sounding words, however, when the stimuli contained very short pauses, participants were able to learn the novel words despite the fact that they violated English phonotactics. Results suggest that prior linguistic knowledge can interfere with learners' abilities to segment words from running speech using purely statistical cues at initial exposure.