What do pre-adolescents and adolescents understand about HIV/AIDS?

Abstract

Pre-adolescents and adolescents (N= 80, aged 10, 12, 15, and 18 years) were tested on their knowledge of HIV/AIDS. Knowledge was assessed using a self-report questionnaire (examining levels of factual knowledge) and a semi-structured interview (examining cognitive developmental levels of understanding). Examination of the developmental shifts in understanding of HIV/AIDS revealed an increase in conceptual complexity on causal and prevention dimensions. The main conceptual changes included a shift from single cause to multiple cause solutions and a shift from identifying surface or immediate features to implicating less salient features. Additionally, with age, concepts about HIV/AIDS were increasingly organised around internal, physiological principles. Questionnaire responses yielded significant age-related increases in knowledge. Level of knowledge, as measured by the questionnaire, was higher than that assessed by the interview for the three youngest age groups. Thus, factual information acquired about HIV/AIDS is not automatically accompanied by understanding. In light of these findings the past conclusion that adolescents have high levels of knowledge of HIV/AIDS is questioned.     

Short-term memory stages in sign vs. speech: the source of the serial span discrepancy

Speakers generally outperform signers when asked to recall a list of unrelated verbal items. This phenomenon is well established, but its source has remained unclear. In this study, we evaluate the relative contribution of the three main processing stages of short-term memory – perception, encoding, and recall – in this effect. The present study factorially manipulates whether American Sign Language (ASL) or English is used for perception, memory encoding, and recall in hearing ASL-English bilinguals. Results indicate that using ASL during both perception and encoding contributes to the serial span discrepancy. Interestingly, performing recall in ASL slightly increased span, ruling out the view that signing is in general a poor choice for short-term memory. These results suggest that despite the general equivalence of sign and speech in other memory domains, speech-based representations are better suited for the specific task of perception and memory encoding of a series of unrelated verbal items in serial order through the phonological loop. This work suggests that interpretation of performance on serial recall tasks in English may not translate straightforwardly to serial tasks in sign language.     

Reactivity to Stress: When Does a History of Medical Adversity Foster Resilience Versus Vulnerability?

Young adults with (or without) a history of medical or physical disorders (MPDs) were exposed to repeated laboratory stress. The effects of MPD status on habituation (as measured by changing levels of cortisol) were found to be moderated by the extent to which respondents reported “attachment feelings” in their relationships (as measured by the Social Provisions Scale). Students in the MPD group who reported attachment feelings showed (a) cortisol increases during their first exposure to a laboratory stressor; and (b) cortisol decreases during a second exposure to the same stressor 1 week later. No equivalent benefit was found for students who lacked this medical history. Findings suggest the extent to which medical adversity—under the right interpersonal circumstances—promotes resilience.     

Increases in parental investment and child health as a result of an early intervention

Parental investment (involving time or money invested in 3-year-olds) and child health were assessed as an outcome of (a) children’s risk status (preterm vs. full-term birth) and (b) maternal resources (defined here in terms of their problem-solving skills in resolving caregiving challenges). Resources were varied systematically as a function of maternal participation in a traditional home visitation program versus a novel cognitively enhanced program that facilitated parenting skills more successfully. As predicted, mothers in the traditional home visitation condition invested preferentially in low-risk children, whereas mothers in the cognitively enhanced condition invested preferentially in high-risk children (who, in turn, showed maximal health benefits). Maternal investment of time in care provision mediated the relationship between predictor variables and children’s health. This pattern supports an evolutionary model of parental investment in which parents show discriminative solicitude based on the reproductive potential of the child and parents’ access to relevant resources.     

The effect of categorisation on sensitivity to second-order relations in novel objects

Adults appear to be more sensitive to configural information, including second-order relations (the spacing of features), in faces than in other objects. Superior processing of second-order relations in faces may arise from our experience of identifying faces at the individual level of categorisation (eg Bob versus John) but other objects at the basic level of categorisation (eg table versus chair; Gauthier and Tarr, 1997 Vision Research 37 1673- 1682). We simulated this learning difference with novel stimuli (comprised of blobs) by having two groups view the same stimuli but learn to identify the objects only at the basic level (based on the number of constituent blobs) or at both the basic level and individual level (based on the spacing, or second-order relations, of the blobs) of categorisation. Results from two experiments showed that, after training, observers in the individual-level training group were more sensitive to the second-order relations in novel exemplars of the learned category than observers in the basic-level training group. This is the first demonstration of specific improvement in sensitivity to second-order relations after training with non-face stimuli. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that adults are more sensitive to second-order relations in faces than in other objects, at least in part, because they have more experience identifying faces at the individual level of categorisation.     

The colour of Os: naturally biased associations between shape and colour

Many letters of the alphabet are consistently mapped to specific colours by English-speaking adults, both in the general population and in individuals with grapheme-colour synaesthesia who perceive letters in colour. Such associations may be naturally biased by intrinsic sensory cortical organisation, or may be based in literacy (eg 'A' is for 'apple', apples are red; therefore A is red). To distinguish these two hypotheses, we tested pre-literate children in three experiments and compared their results to those of literate children (aged 7-9 years) and adults. The results indicate that some colour letter mappings (O white, X black) are naturally biased by the shape of the letter, whereas others (A red, G green) may be based in literacy. They suggest that sensory cortical organisation initially binds colour to some shapes, and that learning to read can induce additional associations, likely through the influence of higher-order networks as letters take on meaning.     

Influence of intensity on children’s sensitivity to happy, sad, and fearful facial expressions

Most previous studies investigating children’s ability to recognize facial expressions used only intense exemplars. Here we compared the sensitivity of 5-, 7-, and 10-year-olds with that of adults (n = 24 per age group) for less intense expressions of happiness, sadness, and fear. The developmental patterns differed across expressions. For happiness, by 5 years of age, children were as sensitive as adults even to low intensities. For sadness, by 5 years of age, children were as accurate as adults in judging that the face was expressive (i.e., not neutral), but even at 10 years of age, children were more likely to misjudge it as fearful. For fear, children’s thresholds were not adult-like until 10 years of age, and children often confused it with sadness at 5 years of age. For all expressions, including even happy expressions, 5- and 7-year-olds were less accurate than adults in judging which of two expressions was more intense. Together, the results indicate that there is slow development of accurate decoding of subtle facial expressions.     

The production of gender among Black and White women and men: The case of household labor

Using the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 13,017; 11.09% Black, 79.99% White), we compare the household labor time of Black and White women and men, and assess the extent to which the time constraint, relative resource, and ideology explanations account for racial and gender differences in housework time. We find that although time constraint, relative resource, and ideology explanations account for some of the variation in housework time, they do not account for all of the gender and racial differences. We also find that paid work and housework trade off differently for Black men than for White men and also for women and men. Finally, a variety of relative resource, time constraint, and ideology factors are associated differently with women’s and men’s housework time. We argue that our findings lend support to the production of gender approach to understanding the division of household labor and that this approach can be used to help us understand racial differences in housework time as well. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

The scanning of compound figures by young infants

We studied infants' scanning of two compound stimuli, in each case by presenting features inside a frame, the frame alone, and the features alone. One stimulus was composed of squares and was like that studied by P. Salapatek (in L. Cohen & P. Salapatek (Eds.), New York: Academic Press, 1975); the other was a schematic face. Newborns and 1-month-olds looked at the small square when it was presented alone, but rarely looked at it when it was framed by the larger square. In contrast, 2-month-olds looked at the small square for long periods whether or not it was framed. However, when newborns and 1-month-olds were shown a schematic face, they looked at its internal features at least half the time. Thus, young infants show no external bias when scanning a schematic face.