Maternal regulation of infant reactivity from 2 to 6 months

Previous research has investigated the effect of maternal soothing behaviors on reducing infant reactivity but not the differential effects of specific maternal behaviors on infant stress responses. The present study investigated maternal regulation of 2- and 6-month-olds' responses to an inoculation and found a significant decline with age in both the intensity and duration of infants' crying. Maternal affection and touching decreased from 2 to 6 months, whereas maternal vocalizing and distraction behaviors increased. At both ages, the combination of maternal holding/rocking and vocalizing was associated with decreases in all levels of infant reactivity. Neither strategy alone, however, was found to be effective. Feeding/ pacifying behaviors were effective only when initial distress was at a low or moderate level, which suggests that the effectiveness of maternal regulatory behaviors may depend on the intensity of infants' crying.     

Temporal specificity of extinction in autoshaping

Three experiments investigated the effects of varying the conditioned stimulus (CS) duration between training and extinction. Ring doves (Streptopelia risoria) were autoshaped on a fixed CS-unconditioned stimulus (US) interval and extinguished with CS presentations that were longer, shorter, or the same as the training duration. During a subsequent test session, the training CS duration was reintroduced. Results suggest that the cessation of responding during an extinction session is controlled by generalization of excitation between the training and extinction CSs and by the number of nonreinforced CS presentations. Transfer of extinction to the training CS is controlled by the similarity between the extinction and training CSs. Extinction learning is temporally specific.     

The effects of motor neurone disease on language: further evidence

It might sound surprising that Motor Neurone Disease (MND), regarded still by many as the very example of a neurodegenerative disease affecting selectively the motor system and sparing the sensory functions as well as cognition, can have a significant influence on language. In this article we hope to demonstrate that language dysfunction is not only a pronounced and well documented symptom in some MND patients but also that the study of language in MND can address interesting theoretical questions about the representation of language and conceptual knowledge in the brain. After a brief introduction delineating clinical and pathological features of the disease we discuss the evidence available in the literature for language dysfunction in MND. We then present linguistic data from our own study of seven patients with MND/dementia/aphasia syndrome focusing on the dissociation between noun and verb processing. To illustrate the clinical, neuropsychological and linguistic aspects of MND we describe in more detail the patient E.N., a pathologically confirmed case of MND/dementia. Finally, we attempt to characterise the nature of the linguistic impairment in MND in the light of current debates about the mechanisms underlying noun/verb dissociation.     

Verb deficits in Alzheimer's disease and agrammatism: implications for lexical organization

This study examined the nature of verb deficits in 14 individuals with probable Alzheimer's Disease (PrAD) and nine with agrammatic aphasia. Production was tested, controlling both semantic and syntactic features of verbs, using noun and verb naming, sentence completion, and narrative tasks. Noun and verb comprehension and a grammaticality judgment task also were administered. Results showed that while both PrAD and agrammatic subjects showed impaired verb naming, the syntactic features of verbs (i.e., argument structure) influenced agrammatic, but not Alzheimer's disease patients' verb production ability. That is, agrammatic patients showed progressively greater difficulty with verbs associated with more arguments, as has been shown in previous studies (e.g., Kim & Thompson, 2000; Thompson, 2003; Thompson, Lange, Schneider, & Shapiro, 1997), and suggest a syntactic basis for verb production deficits in agrammatism. Conversely, the semantic complexity of verbs affected PrAD, but not agrammatic, patients' performance, suggesting "bottom-up" breakdown in their verb lexicon, paralleling that of nouns, resulting from the degradation or loss of semantic features of verbs.     

An outcome evaluation of the implementation of the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program in Hong Kong

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of the Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) with a sample of Chinese parents of children with early onset conduct-related problems in Hong Kong. The participants consisted of 91 parents whose children attended maternal and child health centers and child assessment centers for service, and were between three to seven years old. Participants were randomly assigned to the intervention (TP) and a waitlist control group (WL). There was no significant difference in pre-intervention measures between the two groups. However, at post intervention, participants in the TP group reported significantly lower levels of child behavior problems, lower dysfunctional parenting styles, and higher parent sense of competence, compared to the WL group. Implications of these findings for the use of Triple P with families of Chinese descent are discussed.     

The role of video in facilitating perception and action of a novel coordination movement

Two groups (n = 10 in each) practiced a novel, bimanual coordination pattern that was demonstrated on video. One of the groups received augmented video feedback of their own responses after each trial following a demonstration. The video-feedback group showed better performance in acquisition and retention than the no-feedback group. On error-detection tests, the video-feedback group was better able to distinguish between correct and incorrect movement patterns. The authors concluded that video feedback helps to make relative phase information salient by aiding the discrimination process. Prepractice ability on a scanning task revealed that individuals who persevered with in-phase-type movements, even though the task demands dictated otherwise, had the most difficulty determining and subsequently performing the required movement. Video feedback helped them to compensate for those difficulties.