Degree of illiteracy and phonological and metaphonological skills in unschooled adults

Phonological and metaphonological skills are explored in 97 Brazilian illiterate and semiliterate adults. A simple letter- and word-reading task was used to define the degree of illiteracy. Phonemic awareness was strongly dependent on the level of letter and word reading ability. Phonological memory was very low in illiterates and unrelated to letter knowledge. Rhyme identification was relatively preserved in illiterates and semiliterates, and unrelated to letter and word reading level. Phonetic discrimination (minimal pairs) was fairly good and marginally related to reading ability. These results suggest that phonological sensitivity, phonological memory, rhyme identification, and phonemic awareness are distinctive cognitive processes, and that only phonemic awareness is clearly and strongly dependent on the alphabetical acquisition.     

Gravity biases in a non-human primate?

Pre-school children expect falling objects to travel in a straight line even when there are clear physical mechanisms that deviate the object's path (Hood, 1995). The current study set out to determine whether this expectancy is limited to humans. Cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus oedipus), a New World monkey species, were tested on Hood's (1995) experimental task where objects are dropped down a chimney connected by an opaque tube to one of three containers. Like human children, there was a significant tendency to search in the container underneath the chimney where the food was dropped on the first trial, even though aligned chimneys and containers were never connected. These search errors suggest that there may be a gravity bias that operates when both primate species fail to understand the constraints operating on object trajectories. Unlike human children however, tamarins were generally more likely to perseverate in making errors even though repeated testing and cost incentives were used.     

The commitment of young soccer players

The main purpose of this study was to test the Sport Commitment Model in young soccer players. Participants' ( N = 437) age ranged from 14 to 16 years. Based on the sport commitment model proposed by Scanlan and colleagues, 6 scales and 28-items constitute the Sport Commitment Questionnaire (SCQ). Results of this study provide some support for the reliability and validity of the SCQ, using a sample of young soccer players. Reliability analysis provided acceptable internal consistency for four scales: Sport Commitment, Sport Enjoyment, Involvement Alternatives and Social Constraints. Sport Enjoyment (Beta= .56, p <.001) and Involvement Alternatives (Beta= -.40, p <.001) were the strongest sport commitment predictors. Further studies with a broader age range, different genders, and other sports or competitive levels are required to continue analyzing the sport commitment model.     

Body dysmorphic symptoms: phenomenology and ethnicity

Differences in the presentation of clinical features of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) across ethnic groups have received little investigation. The current study assessed BDD symptoms in an ethnically diverse sample of adults (n=401) using an online survey. Participants completed self-report measures assessing BDD symptoms, body parts of concern and BDD behaviors. Compared to Caucasian participants, no significant differences were found in body parts or behaviors reported by Latino or African American participants. Significant group differences did emerge between Asian and Caucasian participants. Specifically, Asians reported more concern with straight hair and dark skin and fewer body shape concerns than Caucasians. Asians also endorsed lower rates of grooming, touching body parts, and camouflaging and higher rates of exercise compared to Caucasians. Although most clinical features of BDD appear similar across ethnic groups, results showed some differences in body parts and behaviors between Caucasians and Asian Americans with BDD symptoms.     

Monkeys represent others' knowledge but not their beliefs

The capacity to reason about the false beliefs of others is classically considered the benchmark for a fully fledged understanding of the mental lives of others. Although much is known about the developmental origins of our understanding of others' beliefs, we still know much less about the evolutionary origins of this capacity. Here, we examine whether non-human primates - specifically, rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) - share this developmental achievement. We presented macaques with a looking-time measure of false belief understanding, one that had recently been developed for use with 15-month-old human infants. Like human infants, monkeys look longer when a human experimenter fails to search in the correct location when she has accurate knowledge. In contrast to infants, however, monkeys appear to make no prediction about how a human experimenter will act when she has a false belief. Across three studies, macaques' pattern of results is consistent with the view that monkeys can represent the knowledge and ignorance of others, but not their beliefs. The capacity to represent beliefs may therefore be a unique hallmark of human cognition.     

Means-means-end tool choice in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus): finding the limits on primates’ knowledge of tools

Most studies of animal tool use require subjects to use one object to gain access to a food reward. In many real world situations, however, animals perform more than one action in sequence to achieve their goals. Of theoretical interest is whether animals have the cognitive capacity to recognize the relationship between consecutive action sequences in which there may be one overall goal and several subgoals. Here we ask if cotton-top tamarins, a species that in captivity uses tools to solve means-end problems, can go one step further and use a sequence of tools (means) to obtain food (end). We first trained subjects to use a pulling tool to obtain a food reward. After this initial training, subjects were presented with problems in which one tool had to be used in combination with a second in order to obtain food. Subjects showed great difficulty when two tools were required to obtain the food reward. Although subjects attended to the connection between the tool and food reward, they ignored the physical connection between the two tools. After training on a two-tool problem, we presented subjects with a series of transfer tests to explore if they would generalize to new types of connections between the tools. Subjects readily transferred to new connections. Our results therefore provide the first evidence to date that tamarins can learn to solve problems involving two tools, but that they do so only with sufficient training.     

Parametric induction of animacy experience

Graphical displays of simple moving geometrical figures have been repeatedly used to study the attribution of animacy in human observers. Yet little is known about the relevant movement characteristics responsible for this experience. The present study introduces a novel parametric research paradigm, which allows for the experimental control of specific motion parameters and a predictable influence on the attribution of animacy. Two experiments were conducted using 3D computer animations of one or two objects systematically introducing variations in the following aspects of motion: directionality, discontinuity and responsiveness. Both experiments further varied temporal kinematics. Results showed that animacy experience increased with the time a moving object paused in the vicinity of a second object and with increasing complexity of interaction between the objects (approach and responsiveness). The experience of animacy could be successfully modulated in a parametric fashion by the systematic variation of comparably simple differential movement characteristics.     

Global and Local processing in Williams Syndrome: Drawing versus Perceiving

It has been hypothesized that a local processing bias underlies overall visuospatial impairments in Williams syndrome (WS). However, recent studies have challenged this hypothesis by providing evidence against a local processing bias at the perceptual level. The aim of the present study was to further examine drawing and perceptual skills in children with WS using closely matched-hierarchical stimuli. In the drawing task children with WS exhibited a local processing bias. However, no significant preferential bias was found in the perceptual task. This indicates that children with WS do not systematically present a preferential bias for local information. Taken together the findings of the present study suggest that perceptual processing deficits per se are unlikely to explain local processing biases in visuoconstructive tasks often described in people with WS.