Visual search and autism symptoms: What young children search for and co‐occurring ADHD matter

Superior visual search is one of the most common findings in the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) literature. Here, we ascertain how generalizable these findings are across task and participant characteristics, in light of recent replication failures. We tested 106 3‐year‐old children at familial risk for ASD, a sample that presents high ASD and ADHD symptoms, and 25 control participants, in three multi‐target search conditions: easy exemplar search (look for cats amongst artefacts), difficult exemplar search (look for dogs amongst chairs/tables perceptually similar to dogs), and categorical search (look for animals amongst artefacts). Performance was related to dimensional measures of ASD and ADHD, in agreement with current research domain criteria (RDoC). We found that ASD symptom severity did not associate with enhanced performance in search, but did associate with poorer categorical search in particular, consistent with literature describing impairments in categorical knowledge in ASD. Furthermore, ASD and ADHD symptoms were both associated with more disorganized search paths across all conditions. Thus, ASD traits do not always convey an advantage in visual search; on the contrary, ASD traits may be associated with difficulties in search depending upon the nature of the stimuli (e.g., exemplar vs. categorical search) and the presence of co‐occurring symptoms.     

The pseudodiagnosticity trap: Should participants consider alternative hypotheses?

The pseudodiagnosticity task has been used as an example of the tendency on the part of participants to incorrectly assess Bayesian constraints in assessing data, and as a failure to consider alternative hypotheses in a probabilistic inference task. In the task, participants are given one value, the anchor value, corresponding to P(D1|H) and may choose one other value, either P(D1|¬!H), P(D2|H), or P(D2|not;!H). Most participants select P(D2|H), or P(D2|¬!H) which have been considered inappropriate (and called pseudodiagnostic) because only P(D1|¬!H) allows use of Bayes' theorem. We present a new analysis based on probability intervals and show that selection of either P(D2|H), or P(D2|¬!H) is in fact pseudodiagnostic, whereas choice of P(D1|¬!H) is diagnostic. Our analysis shows that choice of the pseudodiagnostic values actually increases uncertainty regarding the posterior probability of H, supporting the original interpretation of the experimental findings on the pseudodiagnosticity task. The argument illuminates the general proposition that evolutionarily adaptive heuristics for Bayesian inference can be misled in some task situations.     

Medical family therapy: an emerging arena for family therapy

This paper describes an important recent development in American family therapy. Medical family therapy uses a biopsychosocial systems model to work with families who have a member with a chronic illness or disability. The authors maintain that family therapy has tended to embrace the mind–body split and to view itself too narrowly as a mental health specialty. Medical family therapists work collaboratively with physicians and other health professionals to help families achieve a sense of agency and communion in facing some of the greatest challenges that life brings.     

Judgments About Sexism: A Policy Capturing Approach

Different definitions of sexism have been usedby different experimenters and little attention has beengiven to the possibility that participants' definitionsof sexism might vary across individuals and across situations, just as the definitions ofinvestigators vary. Judgments about sexism areinextricably based on individual perceptions, values,and beliefs. It would seem reasonable, therefore toexamine individual conceptions of what constitutessexism. A total of 95 primarily middle-class Caucasianparticipants (68 females, 27 males) participated inthree studies investigating what information people use in deciding whether or not a male actor issexist. Six specific categories of information (or cues)were examined: (1) comments (or lack thereof) by theactor on a female target's physical appearance, (2) unwanted or inappropriate physical contact(or lack thereof), (3) assumptions (or lack thereof)about the target's work, personality, etc., based on hergender, (4) the target being interrupted (or not) by the actor, (5) an apparent powerdifferential (or lack thereof) between the actor and thetarget, and (6) assumptions by the actor aboutappropriate gender role behaviors. A policy capturingmethodology was employed in which three different sets ofscenarios, each describing a number of interactions(called profiles) between a target and an actor, werepresented to male and female participants who rated the degree of sexism exhibited by the actor ineach scenario. Policy capturing represents anideographic approach to research in which the primaryfocus is on establishing statistical parameter estimates that describe each individual's behavior in avariety of environmental situations. Only when that isaccomplished does the researcher examine the possiblenomothetic aggregations across participants. Thus many fewer participants are required than intraditional nomothetic approaches. Each profile set useda different subset of the cues which contained eithersubtle (Study 1), overt (Study 2), or very overt (Study 3)levels of the cues. Multipleregression analysis revealed that when relatively overtacts of sexism were described, most participants hadreliable policies; that is, their judgments werepredictable from the cues. However, when relatively subtleacts of sexism were described, most participants did nothave reliable policies; that is, their judgments werenot very predictable from the cues. There were large individual differences in howparticipants weighted the importance of various cues,especially with subtle cue levels, and in participants'mean sexism ratings.     

A New Look at Gaze: Preschool Children's Understanding of Eye-Direction

This study challenges the consensus view that children can judge what someone is looking at from infancy. In the first experiment 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old children were asked to judge what a person in a drawing was looking at and which of two people was “looking at” them. Only 6% of 2-year-olds and young 3-year-olds passed both gaze-direction tasks, but over 70% passed an analogous point-direction task. Most older 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds passed all three tasks. Experiment 2 compared children's ability to judge what the experimenter was looking at with performance on the picture tasks. Three-year-olds performed significantly worse than 4-year-olds on the real life and picture gaze tasks. Performances on the two types of gaze task were highly correlated. Experiment 3 included stimuli with the additional cue of head-direction. Even the younger children performed well on these stimuli. These results suggest that, regardless of task format, children cannot judge what someone is looking at from eye-direction alone until the age of 3 years. Weaknesses in the evidence supporting the consensus view are highlighted and discussed.     

Priority setting in family change and clinical practice: the Family FIRO Model.

We update a theoretical framework for understanding priority setting for the management of family change, with special emphasis on developmental change. We propose that three core dimensions of family interaction--inclusion, control, and intimacy--constitute an optimal priority sequence for managing major family change stemming from life-cycle transitions and other stressful experiences. In the next section of the article, we compare the Family FIRO Model and other models of family change. Finally, we suggest that therapists can benefit from an explicit, clinical decision-making model for setting priorities in treatment: issues of inclusion take precedence over issues of control, which in turn take precedence over issues of intimacy.     

A Mind of Her Own: Effects of Need for Closure and Gender on Reactions to Nonconformity

Research on opinion deviance suggests thatconformity and agreement with the established majorityis generally valued in groups. The present studyexamines how motivations for cognitive closure mayinfluence reactions to conforming and deviating membersbased on accessible gender role expectations. Caucasianmales and females participated in a group discussionwith confederates who either conformed or deviated from the majority opinion. Results showed thatgroup members motivated to reach cognitive closurenegatively evaluated female opinion deviants relative toconformists. However, contrary to previous research findings, they did not derogate male deviants.Motivation to avoid closure led to different evaluativepatterns by male and female evaluators. In addition toimportantly modifying results obtained by Kruglanski and Webster (1991) regarding closure motivationand conformity versus deviance, the current results arealso informative regarding gender role expectations andintra-group interactions. Limitations and implications of these results are alsodiscussed.     

The Predictive Validity of Parent and Teacher Reports of ADHD Symptoms

The objectives were to evaluate the ability of the Inattention and Hyperactivity–Impulsivity factors of the ADHD Rating Scale-IV to differentiate children with ADHD from a control group and to discriminate children with different subtypes of ADHD. Also, we sought to determine optimal cutoff scores on the teacher and parent versions of this scale for making diagnostic decisions about ADHD. In a sample of 92 boys and girls 6 to 14 years of age referred to a regional ADHD program, we assessed ADHD diagnostic status using categorical and dimensional approaches as well as parent- and teacher-report measures. Logistic regression analyses showed that the Inattention and Hyperactivity–Impulsivity factors of the ADHD Rating Scale-IV were effective in discriminating children with ADHD from a control group and differentiating children with ADHD, Combined Type from ADHD, Inattentive Type. Although both teacher and parent ratings were significantly predictive of diagnostic status, teacher ratings made a stronger contribution to the prediction of subtype membership. Using symptom utility estimates, optimal cutoff scores on the Inattention and Hyperactivity–Impulsivity scales for predicting subtypes of ADHD were determined.     

Spatial problem solving by rats: Exploration and cognitive maps

Two experiments were performed in an attempt to examine the contribution of the exploratory experience to performance on Maier's 3-table spatial problem-solving task. In the first experiment, the runway configurations were altered between exploration and testing. It was found that following an initial impairment animals exposed to the altered runway configurations could perform as well as animals not confronted with an altered runway configuration on the test trial. In the second experiment, animals were allowed to explore only elements of the problem space. Exploration of either the runways only or the tables only led to unsuccessful performance on the 3-table task. The results of both experiments were related to current theory of cognitive mapping.     

Job-seeking and job-acquisition in high school students

We surveyed 225 Year 9 and 10 students at T1 regarding their attitude, social norms, control, experience, plans and intentions to find a part-time job while at school. Of these, 149 did not have a job and were surveyed again four months later about their job-seeking and job outcomes (104 responded at T2). Job-seeking intentions at T1 were associated with past experience, plans and beliefs that getting a job was the right thing to do. Job-seeking at T2 was associated with beliefs about the value of job-seeking. Job interviews attended were related to job-seeking, and job offers were related to interviews attended. Students with higher job-seeking intentions and behaviours differed on most variables from students with lower intentions and behaviours. Students need to be aware of the relationship between job-seeking, interviews and offers, and be provided with strategies that increase their interviews and assist to manage unsuccessful job attempts.