Does class size in first grade relate to children's academic and social performance or observed classroom processes?

This study evaluated the extent to which first-grade class size predicted child outcomes and observed classroom processes for 651 children (in separate classrooms). Analyses examined observed child-adult ratios and teacher-reported class sizes. Smaller classrooms showed higher quality instructional and emotional support, although children were somewhat less likely to be engaged. Teachers in smaller classes rated typical children in those classes as more socially skilled and as showing less externalizing behavior and reported more closeness toward them. Children in smaller classes performed better on literacy skills. Larger classrooms showed more group activities directed by the teacher, teachers and children interacted more often, and children were more often engaged. Lower class sizes were not of more benefit (or harm) as a function of the child's family income. First-grade class size in the range typical of present-day classrooms in the United States predicts classroom social and instructional processes as well as relative changes in social and literacy outcomes from kindergarten to first grade.     

An analysis of the time course of attention in preview search

We used a probe dot procedure to examine the time course of attention in preview search (Watson & Humphreys, 1997). Participants searched for an outline red vertical bar among other new red horizontal bars and old green vertical bars, superimposed on a blue background grid. Following the reaction time response for search, the participants had to decide whether a probe dot had briefly been presented. Previews appeared for 1,000 msec and were immediately followed by search displays. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated a standard preview benefit relative to a conjunction search baseline. In Experiment 2, search was combined with the probe task. Probes were more difficult to detect when they were presented 1,200 msec, relative to 800 msec, after the preview, but at both intervals detection of probes at the locations of old distractors was harder than detection on new distractors or at neutral locations. Experiment 3A demonstrated that there was no difference in the detection of probes at old, neutral, and new locations when probe detection was the primary task and there was also no difference when all of the shapes appeared simultaneously in conjunction search (Experiment 3B). In a final experiment (Experiment 4), we demonstrated that detection on old items was facilitated (relative to neutral locations and probes at the locations of new distractors) when the probes appeared 200 msec after previews, whereas there was worse detection on old items when the probes followed 800 msec after previews. We discuss the results in terms of visual marking and attention capture processes in visual search.     

New heads for Freud's hydra: psychoanalysis in Los Angeles

This paper describes the transplantation of psychoanalysis from Europe to Los Angeles and the similarities and differences in followers, cultural attitudes, institutional organization, and patient symptoms. Psychoanalysis in both places attracted psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, artists, writers, and movie people, all committed to "modernism" and cultural change. But special American conditions created greater institutional rigidity, medicalization, and a more diffuse patient symptomatology centered on the maternal relationship. Such conditions also fostered bitter disputes over modifications of psychoanalytic theory and practice which have only recently become less acute as the status of psychoanalysis has declined in America.     

Transcranial direct-current stimulation enhances implicit motor sequence learning in persons with Parkinson's disease with mild cognitive impairment

Implicit motor sequence learning (IMSL) is affected in Parkinson's disease (PD). Research in healthy young participants shows the potential for transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) over the primary motor cortex (M1) to enhance IMSL. In PD, only null effects have been reported to date. We determined concurrent, short-term, and long-term effects of anodal tDCS over M1 on IMSL, as measured by the serial reaction time (SRT) task, in persons with PD with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Concurrent (anodal/sham tDCS intervention during the SRT task), short-term (5 min post-intervention), and long-term (1 week post-intervention) effects on IMSL were evaluated in persons with idiopathic PD (Hoehn and Yahr stage II-III) with MCI. Results of 11 persons with PD (8 men and 3 women; mean age = 77.1 years; mean disease duration = 7.7 years) showed significant IMSL in the anodal (p = .016), but not in the sham tDCS condition (p = .937). Post-hoc analyses showed that IMSL reached statistical significance at 1 week post-intervention (p < .001). Anodal tDCS over M1 exerted beneficial effects on IMSL in persons with PD with MCI, in particular one week post-intervention. Our study is the first to report a positive effect of tDCS on IMSL in PD. Further research should include a larger, more cognitively diverse sample and additional follow-up periods.     

Rational Inference of Beliefs and Desires From Emotional Expressions

We investigated people's ability to infer others’ mental states from their emotional reactions, manipulating whether agents wanted, expected, and caused an outcome. Participants recovered agents’ desires throughout. When the agent observed, but did not cause the outcome, participants’ ability to recover the agent's beliefs depended on the evidence they got (i.e., her reaction only to the actual outcome or to both the expected and actual outcomes; Experiments 1 and 2). When the agent caused the event, participants’ judgments also depended on the probability of the action (Experiments 3 and 4); when actions were improbable given the mental states, people failed to recover the agent's beliefs even when they saw her react to both the anticipated and actual outcomes. A Bayesian model captured human performance throughout (rs ≥ .95), consistent with the proposal that people rationally integrate information about others’ actions and emotional reactions to infer their unobservable mental states.     

Adopting a student-led pedagogic approach within higher education: the reflections of an early career academic

The current paper presents a reflective account of the adoption of a student-led pedagogic approach, based upon the first author’s experiences of working within a new academic institution. Carl Rogers’ writings around student-centred learning and the role of the facilitator provide the theoretical underpinning for the reflections put forward, and contextual information regarding the institution’s learning and teaching strategy, and the first author’s teaching background are also provided. Observations and reflections relating to ‘power’ within teaching and learning, and the challenges (and successes) encountered when adopting the role of a ‘facilitator of learning’ are considered from a critical standpoint. The paper closes with some key questions and considerations surrounding the first author’s ongoing exploration of this innovative pedagogic approach.     

When Extremists Win: Cultural Transmission Via Iterated Learning When Populations Are Heterogeneous

How does the process of information transmission affect the cultural or linguistic products that emerge? This question is often studied experimentally and computationally via iterated learning, a procedure in which participants learn from previous participants in a chain. Iterated learning is a powerful tool because, when all participants share the same priors, the stationary distributions of the iterated learning chains reveal those priors. In many situations, however, it is unreasonable to assume that all participants share the same prior beliefs. We present four simulation studies and one experiment demonstrating that when the population of learners is heterogeneous, the behavior of an iterated learning chain can be unpredictable and is often systematically distorted by the learners with the most extreme biases. This results in group‐level outcomes that reflect neither the behavior of any individuals within the population nor the overall population average. We discuss implications for the use of iterated learning as a methodological tool as well as for the processes that might have shaped cultural and linguistic evolution in the real world.     

Relations of trauma exposure with current religiousness and spirituality

Many theorists posit that religiousness/spirituality (RS) may change after trauma. However, empirical findings regarding RS following trauma are inconclusive. The present study examined the relationship between potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and current RS by considering the cumulative effect of PTEs and multiple dimensions of RS. In our sample of 245 undergraduates (60% female, 79% White), there were no differences in RS between participants who did and did not have PTEs. When analysed as a continuous variable, the number of PTEs was positively correlated with many RS dimensions (i.e., daily spiritual experiences, religious strain, religious comfort, provident and challenging God images, belief in God) but not all (i.e., organised religious involvement, belief in afterlife, benevolent God image). These results suggest that PTEs relate distinctly to different aspects of RS and that examining multiple dimensions of RS may be a more informative way of studying this association.