What's in a cue? The role of cue orientation in object displacement tasks

The current study looked at two theoretical proposals explaining toddlers’ abilities to use cue information for recovering a hidden object that had rolled down a ramp behind an occluded screen. These two approaches, the theory of object directed attention and a landmark-based account, make different predictions regarding the efficacy of an obliquely aligned cue to object position. Accordingly, the search by forty 24-month olds, forty-two 30-month olds, and forty-one 36-month olds for a hidden toy that was cued using either a short versus a long cue, or a vertically aligned versus an obliquely aligned cue, were compared. Analyses of search accuracy revealed that children were more successful when faced with short as opposed to long cues, and when using vertical as opposed to oblique cues. These findings support a landmark-based approach, as opposed to an object-directed attention account, and are discussed with reference to their implications for spatial orientation more generally.     

Infants’ ability to associate motion paths with object kinds

The goal of the present research was to examine whether infants associate different paths of motion with animate beings and inanimate objects. An infant-controlled habituation procedure was used to examine 10–20-month-old infants’ ability to associate a non-linear motion path (jumping) with animals and a linear (rebounding) motion path with vehicles (Experiment 1) and furniture (Experiment 2). During the habituation phase, infants saw a dog jumping over a barrier and either a vehicle or a piece of furniture rebounding off the barrier. In the test phase, infants looked longer when another inanimate object jumped rather than rebounded, but showed no such differential looking in the case of another animate object. The ability to restrict the animate motion path of jumping to animate beings was present by 10 months of age. The present findings support the hypothesis that motion path is associated with the animate–inanimate distinction early in infancy.     

Assessment of cognitive function across pregnancy using CANTAB: A longitudinal study

Significant changes in endogenous plasma hormone levels are required to sustain pregnancy which provides a unique opportunity to study their effect on cognitive function.     

Proactive Personality at Work: Seeing More to Do and Doing More?

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a model relating proactive personality to job behaviors (task and citizenship behaviors) through the intervening mediator of perceived role breadth.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey data were obtained from 530 faculty members in 69 U. S. research universities.

Findings

Proactive personality was positively related to task behavior and OCB. Perceived role breadth mediated the relationship between proactive personality and OCB, but did not mediate the relationship between proactive personality and task behavior. Despite not viewing their role more broadly, individuals higher in proactive personality engaged more frequently in both task behavior and OCB; and also worked more hours per week.

Implications

Having a better understanding of proactive individuals is important in terms of managing them. Because these individuals tend to do more in their jobs and subsequently work more hours, they may be more susceptible to burnout and may require additional help in determining priorities and balancing their work and lives.

Originality/value

This is the first study to show that proactive personality is positively related to the frequency with which these individuals engage in task and citizenship behavior. Although role breadth is generally an antecedent of such job behaviors, individuals higher in proactive personality engage more frequently in task behaviors regardless of whether or not they perceive them as part of their role. This is one of the first studies to show that working more hours each week is a potential cost of having a proactive personality.     

Posttraumatic stress disorder is associated with limited executive resources in a working memory task

Patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can show declines in working memory. A dual-task design was used to determine whether these impairments are linked to executive control limitations. Participants performed a Sternberg memory task with either one or four letters. In the dual-task condition, the maintenance period was filled with an arrow flanker task. PTSD patients were less accurate on the working memory task than were controls, especially in the dual-task condition. In the single-task condition, both groups showed similar patterns of brain potentials from 300 to 500 ms when discriminating old and new probes. However, when taxed with an additional task, the event-related potentials (ERPs) of the PTSD group no longer differentiated old and new probes. In contrast, interference resolution processes in both the single- and dual-task conditions of the flanker task were intact. The lack of differentiation in the ERPs reflects impaired working memory performance under more difficult, dual-task conditions. Exacerbated difficulty in performing a working memory task with concurrent task demands suggests a specific limitation in executive control resources in PTSD.     

Are Deaf Dating Scripts Really Different from Those of Their Hearing Peers?

An initial study found that Deaf participants have a different definition of a date than the Traditional Sex Script (TSS). In the TSS, the man is viewed as the initiator who pushes for sex and the woman is expected to limit sex if they do not want to have intercourse; neither of these ideas were included in Deaf participants’ responses when asked what happens on a typical date. These findings may relate to early experiences in childhood. At an early age, hearing children are exposed to the TSS through popular culture. Deaf children are not exposed to these cues at the same level because of their lack of communication access. Here we compare Deaf college students to hearing college students to further investigate these issues using a more quantitative design.     

Auditory access,language access,and implicit sequence learning in deaf children

Developmental psychology plays a central role in shaping evidence‐based best practices for prelingually deaf children. The Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis (Conway et al., 2009) asserts that a lack of auditory stimulation in deaf children leads to impoverished implicit sequence learning abilities, measured via an artificial grammar learning (AGL) task. However, prior research is confounded by a lack of both auditory and language input. The current study examines implicit learning in deaf children who were (Deaf native signers) or were not (oral cochlear implant users) exposed to language from birth, and in hearing children, using both AGL and Serial Reaction Time (SRT) tasks. Neither deaf nor hearing children across the three groups show evidence of implicit learning on the AGL task, but all three groups show robust implicit learning on the SRT task. These findings argue against the Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis, and suggest that implicit sequence learning may be resilient to both auditory and language deprivation, within the tested limits. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/EeqfQqlVHLI [Correction added on 07 August 2017, after first online publication: The video abstract link was added.]     

Taking religion to heart: the relationship between the Five Factor Model and the New Indices of Religious Orientation among religious students

The relationship between religious orientation and personality has been investigated using several different measures and diverse samples. As part of a larger study, 114 undergraduate students were given the Duke University Religion Index (DUREL) to include only those participants who were considered religious. The final sample of 80 participants were given the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R) and the New Indices of Religious Orientation (NIRO). Based on the results of the bivariate correlations, higher levels of intrinsic religious orientation were associated with greater Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Multivariate analyses further revealed that Agreeableness was the most important personality variable when predicting intrinsic and quest religious orientations, with higher levels of Agreeableness predicting greater intrinsic and lower quest orientations. While lower levels of Neuroticism predicted greater intrinsic orientation, higher levels of Neuroticism predicted greater quest orientations. Higher Conscientiousness predicted greater intrinsic and lower quest orientations. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Patients’ Views of Treatment-Focused Genetic Testing (TFGT): Some Lessons for the Mainstreaming of <Emphasis Type="Italic">BRCA1</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">BRCA2</Emphasis> Testing

This paper explores patients’ views and experiences of undergoing treatment-focused BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic testing (TFGT), either offered following triaging to clinical genetics (breast cancer) or as part of a mainstreamed care pathway in oncology (ovarian cancer). Drawing on 26 in-depth interviews with patients with breast or ovarian cancer who had undergone TFGT, this retrospective study examines patients’ views of genetic testing at this point in their care pathway, focusing on issues, such as initial response to the offer of testing, motivations for undergoing testing, and views on care pathways. Patients were amenable to the incorporation of TFGT at an early stage in their cancer care irrespective of (any) prior anticipation of having a genetic test or family history. While patients were glad to have been offered TFGT as part of their care, some questioned the logic of the test’s timing in relation to their cancer treatment. Crucially, patients appeared unable to disentangle the treatment role of TFGT from its preventative function for self and other family members, suggesting that some may undergo TFGT to obtain information for others rather than for self.