Inhibitory neurotransmission and olfactory memory in honeybees

In insects, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate mediate fast inhibitory neurotransmission through ligand-gated chloride channel receptors. Both GABA and glutamate have been identified in the olfactory circuit of the honeybee. Here we investigated the role of inhibitory transmission mediated by GABA and glutamate-gated chloride channels (GluCls) in olfactory learning and memory in honeybees. We combined olfactory conditioning with injection of ivermectin, an agonist of GluCl receptors. We also injected a blocker of glutamate transporters (L-trans-PDC) or a GABA analog (TACA). We measured acquisition and retention 1, 24 and 48 h after the last acquisition trial. A low dose of ivermectin (0.01 ng/bee) impaired long-term olfactory memory (48 h) while a higher dose (0.05 ng/bee) had no effect. Double injections of ivermectin and L-trans-PDC or TACA had different effects on memory retention, depending on the doses and agents combined. When the low dose of ivermectin was injected after Ringer, long-term memory was again impaired (48 h). Such an effect was rescued by injection of both TACA and L-trans-PDC. A combination of the higher dose of ivermectin and TACA decreased retention at 48 h. We interpret these results as reflecting the involvement of both GluCl and GABA receptors in the impairment of olfactory long-term memory induced by ivermectin. These results illustrate the diversity of inhibitory transmission and its implication in long-term olfactory memory in honeybees.     

Clinical application of attachment theory in permanency planning for children in foster care: The importance of continuity of care

Permanency planning is a critical issue facing all children in foster care. Foster children frequently suffer from developmental delays and severe behavior problems, often leading to repeated displacements that in turn increase the risk for attachment disorders. To prevent the emergence of such disturbances, an Attachment Clinic was developed in Montreal to offer consultation to Youth Protection workers. A specific problem has frequently been identified in this Clinic: Should a child who has developed a significant attachment to his or her foster parents return to the biological parents or stay in the foster family? The choice between the two families is even more difficult when the parenting competencies of the biological parents seem to have progressed while the child has developed secure attachments in the foster family. Clinical cases will be presented to illustrate such dilemmas. Concepts rooted in attachment theory have been very useful to understand such problems, and have led us to believe that children's best interests lie in the preservation of their attachment ties and that repeated ruptures of such ties constitute a severe trauma. Resistances of the milieu to our position will be discussed as well as the Court's decisions in light of Canadian jurisprudence.     

Gender differences in egalitarian behavior and attitudes in early childhood

It is axiomatic that human females are more egalitarian than males. However, surprisingly little empirical research exists that empirically assesses this stereotype. We created two studies designed to objectively examine egalitarian behavior in 3‐ to 5‐year‐old children. In Study 1 we compared the egalitarian behavior and attitudes of American girls versus boys by tabulating the extent to which each gender awarded the same number of stickers to, and liked to the same degree, two puppets. One puppet followed the child's instructions or actions while the other did not during a drawing task in which the child played the roles of leader and peer. In the peer role, girls exhibited more egalitarian behavior than boys. In Study 2, French‐Canadian children were shown two drawings by unknown peers—one messily and one neatly colored—, then asked to distribute stickers to each peer's drawing. Again, girls exhibited more egalitarian behavior than boys. Results suggest the origins of gender differences in egalitarian behavior occur early in life and merit further investigation.     

Laterality effects in the recognition of depth-rotated novel objects

The dissociable neural subsystems theory proposes that left-hemisphere (LH) performance is dominated by a viewpoint-invariant (VI) recognition subsystem, whereas right-hemisphere (RH) performance is dominated by a viewpoint-dependent (VD) subsystem (Marsolek, 1999). Studies supporting this theory have used familiar objects and, therefore, may have been confounded by characteristics beyond perceptual features. Experiment 1, a lateralized sequential-matching task with novel objects, showed VD recognition in both hemispheres. In Experiment 2, some participants learned semantic associations for four novel objects, whereas others were exposed to the novel objects without the semantic associations. Both groups later performed a depth-rotated lateralized sequential-matching task. The participants who had learned semantic associations showed greater VD performance in the RH than in the LH; however, the participants in the control group showed equivalent VD performance in both hemispheres. The results suggest that hemispheric differences in VD performance may be partially attributable to an LH advantage for semantic processing.     

Moral reasoning, interpersonal skills, and cognition of rapists, child molesters, and incest offenders

54 inmates were subdivided into four groups and classified according to their index offense. The groups included Rapists (n = 14), Incest Offenders (n = 9), Child Molesters (n = 11), General Offenders (n = 20). Nonoffenders (n = 20) were included as a control group. Psychometric tests including the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence, the Defining Issues Test, Survey of Interpersonal Values, Porteus Maze, and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory were administered to all inmate and control groups. Analysis showed the rapists and child molesters scored higher on moral reasoning on the Defining Issues Test; also rapists' scores were more elevated on the Psychopathic Deviate and Paranoia scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory than those of other offender and control groups. These results imply that rapists and child molesters have the ability to understand moral issues; however, given their personality orientation, they ignore these interpersonal social values.     

Attachment,self-esteem,and psychomotor development in extremely premature children at preschool age

The aim of the study was to evaluate concomitantly self-esteem and model of attachment to the mother in extremely premature (24–28 weeks of gestation) and full-term children, in relation to the child's variables (neonatal condition, gender, cognitive development) and family variables (family adversity, socioeconomic status). Forty-two extremely premature and 27 fullterm children were assessed at 5 years 9 months. For the premature children, neonatal status and developmental quotient (DQ) at 18 months were also obtained. Premature and fullterm children did not differ in attachment and self-esteem categories. For all subjects, IQ at 5 years 9 months differed significantly across self-esteem categories. Seventy percent of premature children who showed a decrease in IQ from 18 months to 5 years 9 months had a negative self-esteem. In the premature group, DQ at 18 months was lower for the children that were categorized at 5 years 9 months with nonsecure attachment to the mother. Attachment appeared sensitive to early neuromotor impairments, and self-esteem to the developmental level at the time of the evaluation.     

Learning phonetic categories by tracking movements

We explore in this study how infants may derive phonetic categories from adult input that are highly variable. Neural networks in the form of self-organizing maps (SOMs; ) were used to simulate unsupervised learning of Mandarin tones. In Simulation 1, we trained the SOMs with syllable-sized continuous F(0) contours, produced by multiple speakers in connected speech, and with the corresponding velocity profiles (D1). No attempt was made to reduce the large amount of variability in the input or to add to the input any abstract features such as height and slope of the F(0) contours. In the testing phase, reasonably high categorization rate was achieved with F(0) profiles, but D1 profiles yielded almost perfect categorization of the four tones. Close inspection of the learned prototypical D1 profile clusters revealed that they had effectively eliminated surface variability and directly reflected articulatory movements toward the underlying targets of the four tones as proposed by . Additional simulations indicated that a further learning step was possible through which D1 prototypes with one-to-one correspondence to the tones were derived from the prototype clusters learned in Simulation 1. Implications of these findings for theories of language acquisition, speech perception and speech production are discussed.     

Influence of feedback modality on sensorimotor adaptation: contribution of visual, kinesthetic, and verbal cues

In 4 studies, the authors tested the contributions of visual, kinesthetic, and verbal knowledge of results to the adaptive control of reaching movements toward visual targets. The same apparatus was used in all experiments, but the procedures differed in the sensory modality of the feedback that participants (N s = 5, 5, 6, and 6, respectively, in Experiments 1, 2, 3, and 4) received about their performances. Using biased visual, proprioceptive, or verbal feedback, the authors introduced a 5 degrees shift in the visuomanual relationship. Results showed no significant difference in the final amount of adaptation to the mismatch: On average, participants adapted to 79% of the perturbation. That finding is consistent with the view that adaptation is a multisensory, highly flexible process whose efficiency does not depend on the sensory channel conveying the error signal.     

Does response interference contribute to face composite effects?

Holistic processing of faces can be measured as a failure of selective attention to one face-half under instructions to ignore the other face-half in a naming or same/different matching task. But is interference from the irrelevant half due to response interference rather than to holistic processing? Here, participants learned to name two faces “Fred” and two “Bob.” At test, composites were created from top and bottom halves of different learned faces or of a novel face, and composites were either aligned or misaligned. Naming was slower when the irrelevant half was from a different face as opposed to the same face, regardless of whether it was associated with the same name, a different name, or no name, suggesting holistic processing. Interference was eliminated when composite halves were misaligned. These results suggest that, unlike Stroop effects, composite effects are not due to response interference.