Consistently modeling the same movement strategy is more important than model skill level in observational learning contexts

The experiment undertaken was designed to elucidate the impact of model skill level on observational learning processes. The task was bimanual circle tracing with a 90° relative phase lead of one hand over the other hand. Observer groups watched videos of either an instruction model, a discovery model, or a skilled model. The instruction and skilled model always performed the task with the same movement strategy, the right-arm traced clockwise and the left-arm counterclockwise around circle templates with the right-arm leading. The discovery model used several movement strategies (tracing-direction/hand-lead) during practice. Observation of the instruction and skilled model provided a significant benefit compared to the discovery model when performing the 90° relative phase pattern in a post-observation test. The observers of the discovery model had significant room for improvement and benefited from post-observation practice of the 90° pattern. The benefit of a model is found in the consistency with which that model uses the same movement strategy, and not within the skill level of the model. It is the consistency in strategy modeled that allows observers to develop an abstract perceptual representation of the task that can be implemented into a coordinated action. Theoretically, the results show that movement strategy information (relative motion direction, hand lead) and relative phase information can be detected through visual perception processes and be successfully mapped to outgoing motor commands within an observational learning context.     

Train the child and teach the adult: Developing intervention strategies for increasing seafood consumption

Despite increasing levels of per capita seafood consumption globally, consumption levels across the population vary with many consumers eating less than recommended weekly intakes. This study investigates the influence of childhood patterns of seafood consumption, consumer confidence in selecting and preparing seafood, adult eating habits, and lifestyle on seafood consumption. Partial least squares structural equation modelling analysis was conducted using a sample of 1,318 Australian adults. The results show that consuming seafood regularly in childhood and developing the confidence to select and prepare seafood as an adult contribute to the development of seafood eating habits. Subsequently, a habit of consuming seafood leads to a lifestyle involving regular consumption of seafood. The results indicate the need to develop and implement intervention strategies for encouraging childhood seafood consumption (“train the child”) and increasing adults' confidence in selecting and preparing seafood (“teach the adult”). Intervention strategies proposed include educational programmes targeted at both children and adults, combined with the development of seafood products that appeal to children and suit the changing lifestyle needs of today's 21st century consumers.     

John H. Whittaker (ed.), The Possibilities of Sense: Essays in Honour of D. Z. Phillips.

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Still another confounded face in the crowd

Experiments using schematic faces developed by Öhman (Öhman, Lundqvist, &; Esteves, 2001) seem to document an anger-superiority effect, although we have come to question these experiments. Our work shows that the low-level features of these schematic faces interact with the face’s surround to produce effects that have been attributed to facial affect. Using relatively neutral faces that preserved the feature and surround spatial relationships of angry and happy schematic faces, we produced reaction times (RTs) that were indistinguishable from those found with angry and happy faces. We also found that the target face’s position within the crowd determined the magnitude of the advantage for angry faces as well as for relatively affect-neutral faces. Removing the facial surround reduces the advantage for angry faces, largely by improving performance on happy faces. There was an apparent small advantage for angry features without a surround. öhman faces avoid the problems associated with modified grayscale faces only to introduce an equally troubling confound.     

Episodic future thinking in 3- to 5-year-old children: The ability to think of what will be needed from a different point of view

Assessing children’s episodic future thinking by having them select items for future use may be assessing their functional reasoning about the future rather than their future episodic thinking. In an attempt to circumvent this problem, we capitalised on the fact that episodic cognition necessarily has a spatial format (Clayton and Russell, 2009, Hassabis and Maguire, 2007). Accordingly, we asked children of 3, 4, and 5 to chose items they would need to play a game (blow football) from the opposite side of the table on which they had never before played. The crucial item was the box that was needed by children to reach the table from the other side. Over four experiments, we demonstrated that, while children of 3 perform poorly on future questions and children of 5 generally perform quite well, children of 4 years find a question about what they themselves will need to play in the future harder to answer than a similar question posed about another child. We suggest that this result is due to the ‘growth error’ of over-applying newly-developed Level 2 perspective-taking skills (Flavell et al., 1981), which encourages the selection of non-functional items. The data are discussed in terms of perspective-taking abilities in children and of the neural correlates of episodic cognition, navigation, and theory of mind.     

"Till destruction sicken": the catastrophe of mind in Macbeth

The author examines the tragedy of Macbeth from the vertex of its portrait of the effects of the hero's abandonment to the "blindest fury of destructiveness" (Freud, 1930, p. 121), using aspects of psychoanalytic thought to illuminate the theme. She affirms that Macbeth's immediate transformation in phantasy from loyal subject to future assassin threatens to flood his psyche with the uncontainable energy of destruction and thus to produce a psychic catastrophe. The remainder of the play is then examined as a representation of Macbeth's attempts to defend himself from that catastrophe: the only objects whose existence he can tolerate are those that cannot challenge his possession of the crown, which leads him to attempt to destroy all opposition. Since this is impossible, his alternative is to denude his mind of its perception of the reality in which the actions of others will inevitably produce future transformations which he is unable to control. The play's last soliloquy anticipates the final state, the repose of emptiness; it portrays a mind, emptied of emotion, looking at a world which it has denuded of meaning.     

Introduction to the Special Series: Clinical Applications of the Inhibitory Learning Model

Exposure therapies (ETs) are treatments of choice for a number of mental health disorders, particularly anxiety and associated conditions, and problems due to avoidance. Exposure has received broad empirical support as a primary intervention. Recent efforts have focused on improving the efficacy and acceptability of exposure-based treatments. As proposed by Craske etal. (2014), strategies to improve ETs based on the inhibitory learning model have shown notable promise. However, surveys suggest that clinicians continue to avoid ETs, or implement them in a manner that interrupts their efficacy. In this special series, articles focus on specific inhibitory learning strategies in exposure, and their adaptation to multiple patient populations. The aim of the special series is to critically assess the research support for inhibitory learning approaches to exposure, and provide guidance for clinicians to implement these strategies in everyday practice.