What Is the Buzz About Iconicity? How Iconicity in Caregiver Speech Supports Children's Word Learning

One cue that may facilitate children's word learning is iconicity, or the correspondence between a word's form and meaning. Some have even proposed that iconicity in the early lexicon may serve to help children learn how to learn words, supporting the acquisition of even noniconic, or arbitrary, word–referent associations. However, this proposal remains untested. Here, we investigate the iconicity of caregivers’ speech to young children during a naturalistic free-play session with novel stimuli and ask whether the iconicity of caregivers’ speech facilitates children's learning of the noniconic novel names of those stimuli. Thirty-four 1.5-2-year-olds (19 girls; half monolingual English learners and half bilingual English-Spanish learners) participated in a naturalistic free-play task with their caregivers followed by a test of word-referent retention. We found that caregivers’ use of iconicity, particularly in utterances in which they named the novel stimuli, was associated with the likelihood that children learned that novel name. This result held even when controlling for other factors associated with word learning, such as the concreteness and frequency of words in caregiver speech. Together, the results demonstrate that iconicity not only can serve to help children identify the referent of novel words (as in previous research) but can also support their ability to retain even noniconic word-referent mappings.     

Towards a Cognitive Theory of Cyber Deception

This work is an initial step toward developing a cognitive theory of cyber deception. While widely studied, the psychology of deception has largely focused on physical cues of deception. Given that present-day communication among humans is largely electronic, we focus on the cyber domain where physical cues are unavailable and for which there is less psychological research. To improve cyber defense, researchers have used signaling theory to extended algorithms developed for the optimal allocation of limited defense resources by using deceptive signals to trick the human mind. However, the algorithms are designed to protect against adversaries that make perfectly rational decisions. In behavioral experiments using an abstract cybersecurity game (i.e., Insider Attack Game), we examined human decision-making when paired against the defense algorithm. We developed an instance-based learning (IBL) model of an attacker using the Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational (ACT-R) cognitive architecture to investigate how humans make decisions under deception in cyber-attack scenarios. Our results show that the defense algorithm is more effective at reducing the probability of attack and protecting assets when using deceptive signaling, compared to no signaling, but is less effective than predicted against a perfectly rational adversary. Also, the IBL model replicates human attack decisions accurately. The IBL model shows how human decisions arise from experience, and how memory retrieval dynamics can give rise to cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias. The implications of these findings are discussed in the perspective of informing theories of deception and designing more effective signaling schemes that consider human bounded rationality.     

Hostility and quality of life among Hispanics/Latinos in the HCHS/SOL Sociocultural Ancillary Study

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine if hostility is associated with physical and mental health-related quality of life (QoL) in US. Hispanics/Latinos after accounting for depression and anxiety.

Methods: Analyses included 5313 adults (62% women, 18–75 years) who completed the ancillary sociocultural assessment of the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos. Participants completed the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, Spielberger Trait Anxiety Scale, Spielberger Trait Anger Scale, Cook–Medley Hostility cynicism subscale and Short Form Health Survey. In a structural regression model, associations of hostility with mental and physical QoL were examined.

Results: In a model adjusting for age, sex, disease burden, income, education and years in the US., hostility was related to worse mental QoL, and was marginally associated with worse physical QoL. However, when adjusting for the influence of depression and anxiety, greater hostility was associated with better mental QoL, and was not associated with physical QoL.

Conclusions: Results indicate observed associations between hostility and QoL are confounded by symptoms of anxiety and depression, and suggest hostility is independently associated with better mental QoL in this population. Findings also highlight the importance of differentiating shared and unique associations of specific emotions with health outcomes.     

Delivering Parent-Teen Therapy for ADHD through Videoconferencing: a Preliminary Investigation

Adolescents with ADHD demonstrate notoriously poor treatment utilization. Barriers to access have been partially addressed through tailored therapy content and therapist delivery style; yet, additional challenges to engaging this population remain. To leverage modern technology in support of this aim, the current study investigates parent-teen therapy for ADHD delivered over a videoconferencing format. In this preliminary feasibility study, teens and parents (N = 20) received an empirically supported dyadic therapy that incorporates skills-based modules with motivational interviewing. The videoconferencing interface was deemed feasible with nearly all families completing treatment. Acceptable therapeutic alliance was reported and key mechanisms of change were engaged (i.e., adolescent motivation to meet goals, parent strategy implementation). Families reported high satisfaction, despite minor disturbances associated with delivering therapy via videoconferencing. Treatment integrity and fidelity were acceptable, though slightly reduced compared to clinic-based trials of the same protocol. Therapists perceived that videoconferencing enhanced treatment for 50% of families. Reductions in participant ADHD symptoms and organization, time management, and planning problems from baseline to post-treatment were noted by parents and teachers. However, open trial results of this study should be interpreted with caution due to their uncontrolled and preliminary nature.     

Children's understanding of posterior probability

Do young children have a basic intuition of posterior probability? Do they update their decisions and judgments in the light of new evidence? We hypothesized that they can do so extensionally, by considering and counting the various ways in which an event may or may not occur. The results reported in this paper showed that from the age of five, children's decisions under uncertainty (Study 1) and judgments about random outcomes (Study 2) are correctly affected by posterior information. From the same age, children correctly revise their decisions in situations in which they face a single, uncertain event, produced by an intentional agent (Study 3). The finding that young children have some understanding of posterior probability supports the theory of naive extensional reasoning, and contravenes some pessimistic views of probabilistic reasoning, in particular the evolutionary claim that the human mind cannot deal with single-case probability.     

Phoneme-based rehabilitation of anomia in aphasia

This study investigated the effects of phonologic treatment for anomia in aphasia. We proposed that if treatment were directed at the level of the phonologic processor, opportunities for naming via a phonological route, as opposed to a strictly whole word route, would be enhanced, thereby improving naming. The participants, ten people with anomia and aphasia due to left hemisphere stroke, received 96 h of phoneme based treatment in 12 weeks. To learn if treatment improved naming, a single-subject, repeated probe design with replication was employed. The primary outcome measure was confrontation naming. Secondary outcome measures included phonologic production, nonword repetition and discourse production. Results suggest a positive treatment effect (confrontation naming), improvements in phonologic production and nonword repetition, and generalization to discourse production. When tested 3 months after the completion of treatment the effects appeared to be maintained.     

Brief Behavioral Therapy for Pediatric Anxiety and Depression: Piloting an Integrated Treatment Approach

Mood and anxiety disorders in youth are disabling, distressing, and prevalent. Furthermore, depression and anxiety frequently co-exist, may share several etiological factors, and respond to similar interventions. In this paper, we report preliminary results from a treatment adaptation project designed to condense existing cognitive behavioral therapy protocols for anxiety and depression to their core components and combine them into a brief, integrated treatment suitable for the broad population of internalizing youth seen in primary care. Specifically, we discuss: (a) the rationale for targeting anxiety and depression in pediatric primary care and the deployment-focused treatment development model; (b) the content of our behaviorally based treatment program; and (c) clinical outcomes of 2 sample cases with comorbid depression and anxiety.