Developmental changes in the recognition of faces and facial features

The view that, as children get older, there is a decline in the use of feature‐based forms of face processing to more configurational forms of processing was examined by asking 6‐year‐old and 9‐year‐old children to judge which of two photographs matches an identical probe photograph. The probe and test stimuli were either photographs of whole faces or photographs of isolated facial features. Within this standard method, the stimuli also systematically varied in terms of the familiarity of the faces shown and in the orientation of presentation, both factors that have been interpreted as effecting configurational encoding. A number of age‐related effects are observed: (a) older children are better at recognizing whole faces than younger children, (b) older children exhibit a clear face inversion effect with whole faces while the younger children are equally adept at identifying upright and inverted whole faces, and (c) analysis of the recognition rates associated with the individual features reveals that younger children are better than older children when asked to recognize eye regions. It is argued that the data support the view that as children get older there is a change in the forms of piecemeal encoding employed and an increase in configurational processing. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic decision making: a comparison of approaches

This paper is concerned with a specific type of problem, namely dynamic decisions, for which most techniques fail to provide adequate solutions. Here, we present two of the most promising optimization techniques, partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDP) and dynamic decision networks (DDN), while arguing which is the most suitable for this problem domain. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Recidivism base rates,predictions of sex offender recidivism,and the “sexual predator” commitment laws

Predictions of future sexual offending have been mandated by various “Sexual Predator” commitment laws, despite historical arguments that clinicians are frequently inaccurate and over-predict violence. The basis for those arguments has been the perspective that sexual recidivism is a relatively rare event. Research is reviewed, however, with the finding that sexual recidivism for certain offenders is a rather common occurrence when the definition of recidivism is in keeping with the sex offender commitment laws. This finding is used to demonstrate that under-, rather than over-prediction of the designated violence is necessarily today's practice. Practical and ethical implications are discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Brief bimanual force pulses: correlations between the hands in force and time.

Three experiments assessed coupling phenomena in the coordination of bimanual force pulses. Experiment 1 required symmetric force pulses (equal target forces and rise times for both hands) using the index finger of each hand. As the authors expected, on the basis of bimanual pointing movement results, this experiment revealed positive correlations between both the force rise times and the force amplitudes of the two hands. Experiments 2 and 3 included asymmetric conditions with different target force amplitudes (Experiment 2) or target rise times (Experiment 3). In Experiment 2 force amplitudes but not rise times were fully decoupled in the asymmetric condition. In the asymmetric condition of Experiment 3, however, neither rise times nor force amplitudes were fully decoupled. The results suggest a hierarchical control structure with temporal control dominating nontemporal control of bimanual force coordination.     

Understanding of literal truth, ironic criticism, and deceptive praise following childhood head injury.

Children with closed head injury (CHI) have semantic-pragmatic language problems that include difficulty in understanding and producing both literal and nonliteral statements. For example, they are relatively insensitive to some of the social messages in nonstandard communication as well as to words that code distinctions among mental states. This suggests that they may have difficulty with comprehension tasks involving first- and second-order intentionality, such as those involved in understanding irony and deception. We studied how 6- to 15-year-old children, typically developing or with CHI, interpret scenarios involving literal truth, ironic criticism, and deceptive praise. Children with severe CHI had overall poorer mastery of the task. Even mild CHI impaired the ability to understand the intentionality underlying deceptive praise. CHI, especially biologically significant CHI, appears to place children at risk for failure to understand language as externalized thought.     

Elderly offenders in a maximum security mental hospital

Elderly offenders aged 60 and above constitute less than 8% of the population in a maximum security mental hospital. These offenders fall into 2 groups: 1) first admission at or after the age of 50 and 2) first admission before 50. Fewer first time offenders committed homicide in the first group than those in the second group. Neuropsychiatric disturbance and sex offending was common among male first time offenders in the first group; in contrast, schizophrenia and violent offending against persons was found more often in the second group. It is argued that elderly first time offenders should be given adequate neuropsychiatric assessment. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

The Law Says Corporations are Persons,but Psychology Knows Better

Psychologists interested in law and public policy have begun to examine the nature of corporations in American society and the serious consequences of corporate irresponsibility. The dominant trend identifies areas where corporate behavior falls short of ethical standards or leads to unacceptably risky decisions and suggests ways to reform corporations or the laws that regulate them. This well-intentioned approach is consistent with psychology's liberal reformist tendency. Unfortunately, it neither challenges the flawed psychological underpinnings of the legal fiction that corporations are legal persons nor compensates sufficiently for the dynamics of individual behavior in corporate settings. Instead, psychologists should advocate fundamental restructuring of our corporate society.     

Validity of the Five Minute Speech Sample in families with infants from low-income backgrounds

Caregivers of 169 infants from low-income and multi-ethnic backgrounds completed the Five Minute Speech Sample (FMSS). Validity of the FMSS was supported by demonstrating significant associations among positive and negative affect dimensions of the FMSS and other indices of the caregiving environment.     

Perceived slant: a dissociation between perception and action

Perceived slant is grossly overestimated, such that 5 degrees hills look to be about 20 degrees. However, overestimation is found only in visual and verbal measures of apparent slant; action measures are accurate. This dissociation is consistent with several lines of research that suggest that there exist two perceptual processes, one for visually guided actions and another for explicit awareness. However, studies in other contexts have shown that analogous effects can be the result of differences in the task demands associated with the responses themselves as opposed to the processes underlying the responses. Two experiments are reported in which these alternatives were tested. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that two perceptual processes underlie the dissociation between explicit awareness and visuomotor assessments of perceived slant.     

A latent variable modeling approach to identifying subtypes of serious and violent female juvenile offenders

Females have recently become an important population in research related to serious and violent juvenile offending. Although a small body of research exists on girls in the deep end of the system, very few studies have examined the degree of heterogeneity within high-risk female samples. This study applied latent class analysis (LCA) to identify subgroups of female juvenile offenders based on their self-report of offending profiles (N=133). Results supported a three-class solution with subgroups characterized by patterns of 'violent and delinquent', 'delinquency only', and 'low' offending patterns. The LCA solution was replicated in an independent sample of high-risk females. The 'violent and delinquent' class was characterized by significantly higher rates of DSM-IV diagnoses for internalizing disorders, affect dysregulation, exposure to violence (within the home, school and neighborhood), and familial histories of criminality. Implications for future research, policy and clinical practice are discussed.