Time’s up! Involvement of metamemory knowledge,executive functions,and time monitoring in children’s prospective memory performance

This study examined time-based prospective memory (PM) in children and explored the possible involvement of metamemory knowledge and executive functions in the use of an appropriate time-monitoring strategy depending on the ongoing task’s difficulty. Specifically, a sample of 72 typically developing children aged 4, 6, and 9 years old were given an original PM paradigm composed of both an ongoing procedural activity and a PM task. Half of the participants (expert group) were trained in the ongoing activity before the prospective test. As expected, results show that time monitoring had a positive effect on children’s PM performance. Furthermore, mediation analyses reveal that strategic time monitoring was predicted by metamemory knowledge in the expert group but only by executive functions in the novice group. Overall, these findings provide interesting avenues to explain how metamemory knowledge, strategy use, and executive functions interact to improve PM performance during childhood.     

Building Buddhism in England: The Flourishing of a Minority Faith Heritage

From the earliest days of Buddhism in Britain, individuals and communities have sought out buildings to provide locations where they might practise and teach Buddhism. In this paper, we focus on this neglected area of the study of minority faith traditions in Britain. Our research, which was commissioned by Historic England, examines how Buddhist communities have used buildings and what this tells us about how a minority tradition is initially established and how it subsequently changes and develops. In this context, we suggest that buildings are more than bricks and mortar and provide a richly rewarding analytical lens to tell stories about migration, socio-economic status, religious diversity and integration and the complexity of processes around secularisation and religious change, as well shifting policy agendas in the UK that have begun to take faith seriously. This contributes to deepening the picture of the migration and adaptation of Buddhism and Buddhist practice across the globe.     

P300 amplitude variations,prior probabilities,and likelihoods: A Bayesian ERP study

The capability of the human brain for Bayesian inference was assessed by manipulating probabilistic contingencies in an urn-ball task. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in response to stimuli that differed in their relative frequency of occurrence (.18 to .82). A veraged ERPs with sufficient signal-to-noise ratio (relative frequency of occurrence > .5) were used for further analysis. Research hypotheses about relationships between probabilistic contingencies and ERP amplitude variations were formalized as (in-)equality constrained hypotheses. Conducting Bayesian model comparisons, we found that manipulations of prior probabilities and likelihoods were associated with separately modifiable and distinct ERP responses. P3a amplitudes were sensitive to the degree of prior certainty such that higher prior probabilities were related to larger frontally distributed P3a waves. P3b amplitudes were sensitive to the degree of likelihood certainty such that lower likelihoods were associated with larger parietally distributed P3b waves. These ERP data suggest that these antecedents of Bayesian inference (prior probabilities and likelihoods) are coded by the human brain.     

Effect of Parenting and Peer Stressors on Cognitive Vulnerability and Risk for Depression among Youth

Parenting behaviors influence clinical depression among youth, but little is known about the developmental processes that may account for this association. This study investigated whether parenting is associated with the onset of clinical depression and depressive symptoms through negative cognitive style, particularly under conditions of high exposure to stressors, in a community sample of children and adolescents (N = 275; 59% girls). Observational methods were used to assess positive and negative parenting during a laboratory social-evaluative stressor task. Depressive symptoms and clinical depressive episodes were repeatedly assessed over an 18-month prospective follow-up period. Results supported a conditional indirect effect in which low levels of observed positive parenting during a youth stressor task were indirectly associated with an increased likelihood of experiencing an episode of depression and worsening depressive symptoms over the course of the study through youth negative cognitive style, but only for youth who also experienced a high number of peer stressors. These findings elucidate mechanisms through which problematic parenting may contribute to risk for the development of clinical depression during the transition into and across adolescence. Implications for depression interventions are discussed.     

The effects of emotion regulation strategies on positive and negative affect in early adolescents

Recent research suggests that impaired emotion regulation (ER) may play an important role in the development of youth psychopathology. However, little research has explored the effects of ER strategies on affect in early adolescents. In Study 1 (n?=?76), we examined if early adolescents are able to use distraction and whether the effects of this strategy are similar to talking to one’s mother. In Study 2 (n?=?184), we compared the effects of distraction, cognitive reappraisal, acceptance, and rumination. In both studies, participants received instructions on how to regulate their emotions after a standardised negative mood induction. In general, the results indicated that distraction, but also cognitive reappraisal and acceptance, had promising short-term effects on positive and negative affect in early adolescents. These findings suggest that targeting adaptive ER skills, such as distraction, acceptance, and cognitive reappraisal, may be an important strategy to prevent or treat psychological problems in early adolescents.     

Truth and Wishful Thinking: How Interindividual Differences in Communal Motives Manifest in Momentary Partner Perceptions

Although rooted in reality, partner perceptions often reflect wishful thinking due to perceivers' needs. Dispositional needs, or motives, can differ between persons; however, little is known about their differential associations with everyday partner perception. The present study used data from a 4-week experience sampling study (N = up to 60942 surveys from 510 individuals nested in 259 couples) to examine the effects of perceivers' partner-related implicit and explicit communal motives on the perception of (i) global communal partner behaviour and (ii) specific communal and uncommunal partner behaviours. The results of truth and bias models of judgement and quasi-signal detection analyses indicate that strong implicit communal approach motives and strong explicit communal motives are associated with the tendency to overestimate the partner's communal behaviour. Additionally, strong implicit communal approach motives were associated with the tendency to avoid perceptions of uncommunal partner behaviour. Neither implicit nor explicit communal motives had an effect on accuracy in the perception of particularly communal partner behaviour. The results highlight the relevance of both implicit and explicit communal motives for momentary partner perceptions and emphasise the benefits of dyadic microlongitudinal designs for a better understanding of the mechanisms through which individual differences manifest in couples' everyday lives. © 2019 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

Antipredator behavior of Swiss-Webster mice in a visible burrow system

Swiss-Webster mice living in a visible burrow system (VBS) reacted to presentation of a live cat in the surface area of the VBS by retreat to the burrows and reductions in nondefensive behaviors such as eating and drinking. Live eat-exposed subjects remained in the burrows 14 hr or more, while subjects exposed to a toy (plush) cat prior to live cat exposure reemerged almost immediately and made many contacts with the toy cat. However, subjects exposed first to the cat and later to a toy cat showed intermediate surface reemergence times and cat contacts during toy cat tests, indicating strong sensitization effects of prior live cat exposure. Previous studies indicated that rats in this situation show retreat to the burrows, surface avoidance, and reduction in nondefensive behaviors. The mouse pattern was similar, with the notable exception that in the first 5min block after cat presentation, mice rapidly alternated retreat to the burrow chambers with reappearance in the tunnel segment near the surface, to scan the surface visually and sniff. Movement during this time block involved a stretch attend posture characteristic also of risk assessment activities in rats. Such visual and olfactory inspection of the cat is not seen in rats in the VBS. This difference may be related to the finding that rats, but not mice, emit ultrasonic “alarm cries” during and after cat exposure. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.