Hong Kong Chinese kindergartners learn to read English analytically

We examined the extent to which young Hong Kong Chinese children, taught to read English as a second language via a logographic "look and say" method, used information about letter names and letter sounds to learn English words. Forty children from each of three kindergarten grade levels (mean ages 3.8, 5.0, and 5.9 years old, respectively) were taught to pronounce novel English spellings that were based on letter-name (e.g., DK = Deke), letter-sound (DK = Dick), or visual (Dk= Jean) cues. By the 2nd year of kindergarten, children performed significantly better in the name condition than the other conditions. The 3rd-year kindergartners performed better in the sound condition than the visual condition as well. The results point to the importance of letter-name and letter-sound knowledge for learning to read English, regardless of native-language background or method of instruction.     

Computational models of the hippocampal region: linking incremental learning and episodic memory

The hippocampal region, a group of brain structures important for learning and memory, has been the focus of a large number of computational models. These tend to fall into two groups: (1) models of the role of the hippocampal region in incremental learning, which focus on the development of new representations that are sensitive to stimulus regularities and environmental context; (2) models that focus on the role of the hippocampal region in the rapid storage and retrieval of episodic memories. Rather than being in conflict, it is becoming apparent that both approaches are partially correct and might reflect the different functions of substructures of the hippocampal region. Future computational models will help to elaborate how these different substructures interact.     

Children's difficulties handling dual identity

Thirty-nine 6-year-old children participated in a longitudinal study using tasks that required handling of dual identity. Pre- and posttest sessions employed tasks involving a protagonist who was partially informed about an object or person; for example, he knew an item as a ball but not as a present. Children who judged correctly that the protagonist did not know the ball was a present (thereby demonstrating some understanding of the consequences of limited information access), often judged incorrectly (1) that he knew that there was a present in the box, and (2) that he would search as if fully informed. Intervening sessions added contextual support and tried to clarify the experimenter's communicative intentions in a range of ways. Despite signs of general improvement, the distinctive pattern of errors persisted in every case. These findings go beyond previous studies of children's handling of limited information access, and are hard to accommodate within existing accounts of developing understanding of the mind.     

Children's understanding that utterances emanate from minds: using speaker belief to aid interpretation.

Children interpreted an utterance made by a protagonist with a false belief, such as, 'I would like the car in the garage.' Calculating the speaker's belief in conjunction with the literal meaning of the utterance would lead to the correct interpretation that the intended referent is the car on the track, given that the car in the garage swapped places with the one on the track. In Experiments 1 and 2, many children aged around 4 and 5 years wrongly indicated the car in the garage. In contrast, many correctly indicated the car on the track when it was unnecessary to consider the speaker's belief because the utterance was, 'the car I put in the garage'. Six-year-olds found both kinds of utterance equally easy in Experiment 1, while 3-year-olds had equal difficulty with both. In Experiments 2 and 3, the speaker gave an ambiguous utterance and many children aged between 3 and 6 years successfully used information about the speaker's belief to identify which of several candidate referents was intended. We discuss the results in relation to characteristics of utterance comprehension and consider implications for developments in understanding the mind by children beyond 4 years.     

Emotion Display as a Strategy for Identity Negotiation

Affect control theory provides a formal model of emotions, behavior, and identity shifts during social interaction. According to the theory, emotions provide information about both the identity of an emoting actor and how well current social events are confirming that identity. Actors can avoid or mitigate identity damage resulting from inappropriate behaviors by displaying certain emotions (e.g. remorse). Alternately, actors can expose their identities to social damage by displaying inappropriate affect while behaving otherwise normatively. Here we present experimental tests of eight hypotheses based on affect control-based simulations. We find that (1) display of emotions that are affectively congruent with behaviors can reduce damage to identity from harmful behaviors; (2) display of evaluatively incongruent emotions can actually contribute to a spoiled identity, even in the context of socially positive behaviors; and (3) emotions that are evaluatively congruent with behaviors make actors seem more powerful. Respondents feel that they understand and like actors more when they display normative, affectively congruent emotions. These results are complicated somewhat by responses to the emotion of anger. One hypothesis—that low potency emotions will make actors seem more powerful—is not confirmed. We interpret these results and suggest avenues for future research.     

Pathways to Risk Among Inner-City African-American Adolescent Females: The Influence of Gang Membership

Differential rates of participation in three categories of risk behaviors (i.e., sexual activity, substance use, violence) were explored, comparing gang members to nonmembers, within a sample of 1,143 inner-city African American adolescent females. The relationship between gang membership and risk behavior also was examined, by exploring the association between a variety of microsystemic influences (e.g., gang, family, school) and participation in risk behaviors. MANOVA analyses indicated that gang members, relative to nonmembers, reported higher rates of participation in each of the three categories of risk behaviors. Stepwise linear regression analyses indicated that gang membership was the variable with the most consistent predictive ability, across all categories of risk, as it entered early in all equations and remained in all three final models after controlling for other statistically significant contextual variables. Findings suggest that intervention efforts aimed at reducing adolescent females' participation in sexual activity, substance use, and violence should consider the influence of gang membership on the participation in these behaviors.     

Role of Gender in Behavioral Interdependence and Relationship Outcomes for Premarital Couples

One aspect of gender identity, preferences forgender-related activities, was examined using gender andinterdependence theories for a sample of 59,predominately Caucasian, premarital couples. Respondents completed interviews in which they reported ontheir preferences for activities, relationshipsatisfaction, other relationship dimensions, and actualperformance of the activities. Groups of couples were created by using median splits to reflect thesimilarity and traditionality of coupled partners'preferences for gender-related activities. Two mainfindings were apparent: (a) couples in which bothpartners liked the activities and couples in which bothpartners held traditional preferences had positiverelationship outcomes, and (b) couples in which bothpartners disliked the activities had the least favorable outcomes.