Vision and touch: multiple or multisensory representations of objects?

The relationship between visually and haptically derived representations of objects is an important question in multisensory processing and, increasingly, in mental representation. We review evidence for the format and properties of these representations, and address possible theoretical models. We explore the relevance of visual imagery processes and highlight areas for further research, including the neglected question of asymmetric performance in the visuo-haptic cross-modal memory paradigm. We conclude that the weight of evidence suggests the existence of a multisensory representation, spatial in format, and flexibly accessible by both bottom-up and top-down inputs, although efficient comparison between modality-specific representations cannot entirely be ruled out.     

Use of Brief Instructional Trials to Identify Small Group Reading Strategies: A Two Experiment Study

The Instructional Hierarchy (IH) has proven useful for understanding the functional properties of empirically valid instructional strategies. Investigators have relied heavily on the IH as a heuristic in conceptualizing instructional components used in brief experimental analyses. To date, only one investigation has applied brief experimental analysis results to small group reading interventions. The purpose of this paper is to describe two studies which used single session instructional trials to identify interventions that were subsequently applied to small group reading instruction. In both studies, individualized instructional trials that probed for skill and performance deficits were carried out and results suggested that all students benefited from the instructional intervention. Next, the intervention was implemented in a small group format. In Experiment 2, however, validation of the instructional package was carried out by the classroom teacher who delivered the instructional package to the small group. In both cases, extended experimental analyses suggested that the intervention was effective at improving all participants’ generalized reading fluency. Results of both studies are discussed in terms of how future studies can refine procedures for validating instructional and motivational components before classroom applications.     

Precursors of learning experiences in Social Cognitive Career Theory

This study extended the research on Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT; [Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D., & Hackett, G. (1994). Toward a unifying social cognitive theory of career and academic interest, choice, and performance. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 45, 79-122]) by examining the contributions of 3 person inputs (personality, gender, and conformity to gender role norms) to career-related learning experiences for each of Holland’s [Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources] 6 RIASEC themes. Participants (144 female and 113 male college students) completed measures of personality, conformity to feminine and masculine role norms, and learning experiences for Holland’s RIASEC themes. Results of path analyses indicated that the combination of person inputs explained a significant proportion of variance in each of the RIASEC-based learning experiences. Results supported 9 of 13 hypothesized relations involving personality, and suggested that for some personality traits, the relation to RIASEC-based learning experiences is both direct and indirect, via conformity to gender role norms. Results also revealed that gender predicted learning experiences for 5 of the 6 Holland themes; however, 4 of those relations were partially or completely mediated by conformity to gender role norms. Finally, findings supported 5 of 12 hypothesized relations involving conformity to gender role norms, and suggested that gender role conformity may be most relevant to learning experiences in the Realistic and Social domains.     

Effortful control among low-income preschoolers in three cities: Stability, change, and individual differences

Existing developmental models of effortful control focus more on the roles of child characteristics and parenting and focus less on the contributions of poverty-related stressors to individual differences in children's self-regulatory competence. Using a representative sample of low-income, predominantly African American and Latino children (n = 439), the author examined effortful control at ages 2-4 and again 16 months later. Delayed gratification showed moderate stability and improvement over time. Risk factors were associated with individual differences in these developmental patterns, net of child age, gender, temperament, and child-mother connectedness. Low birth weight compromised preschoolers' delayed gratification and executive control. Exposure to more sociodemographic and residential stressors jeopardized children's executive control but did not jeopardize delayed gratification.     

Development of a mentoring program for Chinese immigrant adolescents' cultural adjustment

The development and evaluation of a peer mentoring program for Chinese immigrant adolescents' cultural adjustment is described. Twenty-three high school students who recently immigrated from Mainland China participated in the year-long program and 4 high school students served as their peer mentors. Data analyses revealed that the students who participated in the mentoring program had significantly higher peer attachment-trust and need for closeness scores at post-test than at pre-test. Implications for working with adolescent immigrants are discussed.     

What results when firms implement practices: the differential relationship between specific practices, firm financial performance, customer service, and quality

Previous research on organizational practices is replete with contradictory evidence regarding their effects. Here, the authors argue that these contradictory findings may have occurred because researchers have often examined complex practice combinations and have failed to investigate a broad variety of firm-level outcomes. Thus, past research may obscure important differential effects of specific practices on specific firm-level outcomes. Extending this research, the authors develop hypotheses about the effects of practices that (a) enable information sharing, (b) set boundaries, and (c) enable teams on 3 different firm-level outcomes: financial performance, customer service, and quality. Relationships are tested in a sample of observations from over 200 Fortune 1000 firms. Results indicate that information-sharing practices were positively related to financial performance 1 year following implementation of the practices, boundary-setting practices were positively related to firm-level customer service, and team-enabling practices were related to firm-level quality. No single set of practices predicted all 3 firm-level outcomes, indicating practice-specific effects. These findings help resolve the theoretical tension in the literature regarding the effects of organizational practices and offer guidance as to how to best target practices to increase specific work-related outcomes. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.     

Task-dependent costs in processing two simultaneous auditory stimuli

A listener presented with two speech signals must at times sacrifice the processing of one signal in order to understand the other. This study was designed to distinguish costs related to interference from a second signal (selective attention) from costs related to performing two tasks simultaneously (divided attention). Listeners presented with two processed speech-in-noise stimuli, one to each ear, either (1) identified keywords in both or (2) identified keywords in one and detected the presence of speech in the other. Listeners either knew which ear to report in advance (single task) or were cued afterward (partial-report dual task). When the dual task required two identification judgments, performance suffered relative to the single-task condition (as measured by percent correct judgments). Two different tasks (identification for one stimulus and detection for the other) resulted in much smaller reductions in performance when the cue came afterward. We concluded that the degree to which listeners can simultaneously process dichotic speech stimuli seems to depend not only on the amount of interference between the two stimuli, but also on whether there is competition for limited processing resources. We suggest several specific hypotheses as to the structural mechanisms that could constitute these limited resources.     

Mothers’ Empathic Understanding of their Toddlers: Associations with Maternal Depression and Sensitivity

Mothers’ empathic understanding of their children’s motives, thoughts, and feelings is thought to guide parenting behaviors and shape the mother-child relationship. However, little is known about the relation between empathic understanding and parenting behaviors during developmental shifts that may be emotionally challenging for mothers, such as the transition from infancy to the toddler years, or how it may relate to maternal depressive symptoms. We assessed relations between maternal empathic understanding, depression, and sensitivity. We developed a coding system, the Empathic Understanding Assessment (EUA), to measure this construct in the mothers of 30-month old children. One hundred twenty eight mother-child pairs participated in a series of lab-based tasks designed to be challenging for the children. Mothers then watched these videotaped interactions and responded to questions regarding their children’s experiences. Interview content was coded using the EUA. Results indicated that mothers higher in empathic understanding and more intensely emotional were rated as more sensitive. Maternal depression was negatively related to empathic understanding. The importance of considering the role of maternal empathic understanding in parenting behavior is discussed, as are potential implications for child outcomes.     

Age-related changes and the attention network task: an examination of alerting, orienting, and executive function

The effects of aging on alerting, orienting, and executive function were examined with the use of the Attention Network Task, which combines the Posner spatial cuing task and the Eriksen flanker task into a single procedure. We found that older adults showed significantly less alerting than young adults in response to a warning cue, although there were no age differences in orienting or executive function once processing speed was taken into account. We suggest that age differences in alerting may depend in part upon the presentation duration or persistence of the warning cue.     

Audience effects on food caching in grey squirrels (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Sciurus carolinensis</Emphasis>): evidence for pilferage avoidance strategies

If food pilferage has been a reliable selection pressure on food caching animals, those animals should have evolved the ability to protect their caches from pilferers. Evidence that animals protect their caches would support the argument that pilferage has been an important adaptive challenge. We observed naturally caching Eastern grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) in order to determine whether they used any evasive tactics in order to deter conspecific and heterospecific pilferage. We found that grey squirrels used evasive tactics when they had a conspecific audience, but not when they had a heterospecific (corvid) audience. When other squirrels were present, grey squirrels spaced their caches farther apart and preferentially cached when oriented with their backs to other squirrels, but no such effect was found when birds were present. Our data provide the first evidence that caching mammals are sensitive to the risk of pilferage posed by an audience of conspecifics, and that they utilise evasive tactics that should help to minimise cache loss. We discuss our results in relation to recent theory of reciprocal pilferage and compare them to behaviours shown by caching birds.