Differences in child rearing attitudes between immigrant Chinese mothers and Anglo-American mothers

In order to explore cultural differences in child rearing attitudes, we studied 30 Anglo-American mothers and 30 immigrant Chinese mothers in the US, together with their preschool children and the children's teachers. Mothers completed a measure of child rearing attitudes, children were assessed for perceived competence, and teachers rated children's competence. Results showed that immigrant Chinese mothers were more authoritarian overall, as expected from previous research, but that they also were more likely to encourage independence and demand maturity from their children. Chinese-American children scored higher than Anglo-American children on cognitive competence, and their cognitive competence was related to authoritarian child rearing. The results are discussed in the context of Confucian and American cultural values. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of commitment on relative left frontal cortical activity: tests of the action-based model of dissonance

The action-based model of dissonance and recent advances in neuroscience suggest that commitment to action should cause greater relative left frontal cortical activity. Two experiments were conducted in which electroencephalographic activity was recorded following commitment to action, operationalized with a perceived choice manipulation. Perceived high as compared to low choice to engage in the action, regardless of whether it was counterattitudinal or proattitudinal, caused greater relative left frontal cortical activity. Moreover, perceived high as compared to low choice caused attitudes to be more consistent with the action. These results broaden the theoretical reach of the action-based model by suggesting that similar neural and motivational processes are involved in attitudinal responses to counterattitudinal and proattitudinal commitments.     

Limits of generalization between categories and implications for theories of category specificity

Both domain-specific and expertise accounts of category specialization assume that generalization occurs within a domain but not between domains. Yet it is often difficult to define the boundaries and critical features of object domains. Differences in how categories are defined make it difficult to adjudicate between accounts of category specificity and may lead to contradictory results. For example, evidence for whether car experts recruit the fusiform face area is mixed, and this inconsistency may be due to the inclusion of antique cars in one of those previous studies (e.g., Grill-Spector, Knouf, & Kanwisher, 2004). The present study tested the generalization of expertise from modern to antique cars and found that modern-car experts showed expert discrimination and holistic processing of modern cars but not of antique cars. These findings suggest that the neural specialization underlying perceptual expertise is highly specific and may not generalize to distinct subclasses, even when they share some degree of perceptual and conceptual features.     

Should we reject the expertise hypothesis?

On the basis of a review of the literature and the results of three experiments with dog experts, Robbins and McKone [Robbins, R. A., & McKone, E. (2006). No face-like processing for objects-of-expertise in three behavioural tasks, Cognition] argue that there is little or no evidence supporting an expertise account of the differences in configural processing that are typically observed between faces and non-face objects. In the spirit of a debate that has become overly polarized, we believe that R&M often emphasized relatively unimportant controversial issues at the expense of bigger, more important questions. We also feel that some of R&M's arguments are rooted in methodological confusions that should be clarified because they have implications beyond this specific debate. In this commentary, we first clarify issues surrounding the proper statistical analysis of the composite paradigm, a methodology that is commonly used to assess configural and holistic effects in both face and non-face objects. We then discuss several theoretical issues that we feel are central to the debate regarding accounts of face-specificity. We also briefly review positive evidence for the correlation between measures of behavioral expertise and neural markers of face-selectivity. Unlike R&M, we believe the positive evidence for expertise effects, both behavioral and neural, greatly outweighs evidence stemming from null results and that it clearly motivates the importance of future work on the role of experience in the specialization of visual cortex.     

老年人记忆补偿的长期稳定性和变异性：来自维多利亚纵向研究的证据

两种记忆状况组来自于参与加拿大维多利亚纵向研究(VLS)的老年人原样本。一种是未受损伤的控制组(NIC), 另一种是轻度记忆损伤组(MMD)。在基线水平和纵向水平上(即5次追踪或12年)比较了他们在日常生活中对记忆补偿技术的使用。我们使用多水平模型(以年龄和教育水平为协变量)来检验基线水平的差异和长期的变化模式。基线的结果表明MMD组被试报告了近期在日常生活中使用记忆补偿策略方面有更大的增长。纵向的结果表明记忆补偿的使用在12年中具有明显的稳定性, 但是与努力相关的补偿机制存在显著组间差异。教育水平这一协变量(可认为是潜在的认知储备指标)和三种记忆补偿策略随时间的不同变化相关。