Young Children's Reports of When Events Occurred: Do Event Type and Assessment Method Matter?

Studying young children's reporting about when various events occurred informs about the development of episodic memory and metacognition. In two experiments, 55 3‐ to 5‐year‐old children participated in two activity sessions, a week apart. During the activity sessions, they learned novel animal facts and body movements, and they coloured animal pictures and posed for body movement photos. Immediately after the second activity session, children were interviewed about when they experienced the various events. Overall, children were as accurate about learning events as physical events, but they were more accurate when asked temporal distance (e.g. ‘Which did you learn a longer time ago, “X” or “Y”?’) than temporal location questions (e.g. ‘Which did you learn before today, “X” or “Y”?’). The results suggest that young children's apparent difficulty recognizing new learning is not due to a rapid ‘remember‐to‐know shift’. Rather, the way we ask young children about when they experienced various events determines their accuracy. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“But Many of These Problems are About Funds…”: The Challenges Immigrant Settlement Agencies (ISAs) Encounter in a Suburban Setting in Ontario,Canada

A large number of studies have focused on the neoliberal political and economic restructuring of non-profit immigrant settlement agencies (ISAs) through a policy analysis framework. While policy analysis is key to determining how resources are distributed among non-profit organizations, the challenges that ISAs encounter in planning and delivering services extend beyond limited financial resources in the sector. This research focuses on the system-level challenges ISAs encounter in planning and delivering services to newcomers in the suburban municipality of the Peel Region, Ontario, Canada. Twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with frontline staff and executive directors in settlement organizations in Peel Region, Ontario, Canada, to understand the complex challenges they face within a highly federalized and neoliberal policy environment. The results indicate that although funding dollars are a large concern for ISAs, the conditions attached to funding, such as the types of programs settlement providers are able to offer, mandatory quotas, and restrictive eligibility criteria, hinder ISAs from being able to plan and implement programs that better respond to the needs of immigrants in Peel Region. The results also demonstrate that restrictive funding criteria contribute to competition with other ISAs for limited resources and challenge the structure and continuity of programs. Many of these challenges are exacerbated by the transportation system unique to suburban settings.     

EYE MOVEMENTS REVEAL THE SPATIOTEMPORAL DYNAMICS OF VISUAL SEARCH

Abstract— Given that attention precedes an eye movement to a target it becomes possible to use fixation sequences to probe the spatiotemporal dynamics of search Applying this method to a realistic search task, we found eye movements directed to the geometric centers of progressively smaller groups of objects rather than accurate fixations to individual objects in a display Such a binary search strategy is consistent with zoom-lens models panting an initially broad distribution of search, followed by a narrowing of this search region until only the target is selected We also interpret this oculo-motor averaging behavior as evidence for an initially parallel search analysis that becomes increasingly serial as the search process converges on the target.     

Response conformity in recognition testing

In a recognition memory test for a just-studied word list, subjects responded positively or negatively to each test word in the presence of another subject, with the two taking turns to call out their responses. Responses given second tended to conform to those given first. This was so for responses to both targets and lures and following both positive and negative first responses, although the effect was sharply reduced for targets given a negative first response. The same pattern of results was obtained in a second experiment, in which an incognito confederate replaced one of the subjects and so brought one set of responses under full experimenter control. These experiments illustrate a powerful effect of social pressure on recognition responses.     

Culturally competent assessment practice in the United States

Assessment practice with multicultural populations in the United States requires cultural competence. Culturally competent assessment includes culture-specific styles of service delivery, use of the client's first language, and an evaluation of the client as a cultural being prior to test administration using cultural orientation categories. This information is essential for understanding health/illness beliefs, to indicate the possible presence of culture-specific symptoms, and to select standard or culture-specific tests. Assessment ethics recognize the desirability of alteration or modification of standard tests by translation and development of new norms. Cross-cultural construct validity, response sets, and cultural variables are also research priorities. Culture-specific tests should be constructed and validated for some clients as determined by cultural orientation status. Feedback of test findings to clients and significant others should be consistent with cultural expectations. Professional and societal benefits of cultural competence in assessment are suggested.