Monolingual and bilingual children's social preferences for monolingual and bilingual speakers

Past research has shown that young monolingual children exhibit language‐based social biases: they prefer native language to foreign language speakers. The current research investigated how children's language preferences are influenced by their own bilingualism and by a speaker's bilingualism. Monolingual and bilingual 4‐ to 6‐year‐olds heard pairs of adults (a monolingual and a bilingual, or two monolinguals) and chose the person with whom they wanted to be friends. Whether they were from a largely monolingual or a largely bilingual community, monolingual children preferred monolingual to bilingual speakers, and native language to foreign language speakers. In contrast, bilingual children showed similar affiliation with monolingual and bilingual speakers, as well as for monolingual speakers using their dominant versus non‐dominant language. Exploratory analyses showed that individual bilinguals displayed idiosyncratic patterns of preference. These results reveal that language‐based preferences emerge from a complex interaction of factors, including preference for in‐group members, avoidance of out‐group members, and characteristics of the child as they relate to the status of the languages within the community. Moreover, these results have implications for bilingual children's social acceptance by their peers.     

Evolution and human motivation: A fundamental motives framework

An evolutionary perspective on human motivation provides a means of identifying conceptually distinct motivational systems (including motives pertaining to self‐protection, disease avoidance, affiliation, status, mate acquisition, mate retention, and parental care), each of which has unique implications for affect, cognition, and behavior. We provide an illustrative summary of some of these empirically documented implications—including those pertaining to individual differences in chronic motivational tendencies, as well as additional implications that follow from temporary activation of these motivational systems. We also summarize a variety of broader implications—both conceptual and practical—that follow from this framework.     

Uncertainty,Indeterminacy, and Agent-Centred Constraints

Common-sense morality includes various agent-centred constraints, including ones against killing unnecessarily and breaking a promise. However, it's not always clear whether, had an agent ?-ed, she would have violated a constraint. And sometimes the reason for this is not that we lack knowledge of the relevant facts, but that there is no fact about whether her ?-ing would have constituted a constraint-violation. What, then, is a constraint-accepting theory (that is, a theory that includes such constraints) to say about whether it would have been permissible for her to have ?-ed? In this paper, I canvass various possible approaches to answering this question and I argue that teleology offers the most plausible approach—teleology being the view that every act has its deontic status in virtue of how its outcome (or prospect) ranks, relative to those of its alternatives. So although, until recently, it had been thought that only deontological theories can accommodate constraints, it turns out that teleological theories not only can accommodate constraints, but can do so more plausibly than deontological theories can.     

The problem of invoking infinite polytheisms: a response to Raphael Lataster and Herman Philipse

Raphael Lataster and Herman Philipse present an argument which they think decisively demonstrates polytheism over monotheism, if theism is assumed. Far from being decisive, the argument depends on very controversial and likely false assumptions about how to treat infinities in probability. Moreover, these problems are well known. Here, we focus on three objections. First, the authors rely on both countable additivity and the Principle of Indifference, which contradict each other. Second, the authors rely on a particular way of dividing up the possibility space, when there are equally as reasonable alternative divisions which give different answers to the one the authors arrived at. Third, the authors’ argument proves too much, giving us an argument against many positions we should not be able to argue against so easily.     

Maximalism versus omnism about reasons

The performance of one option can entail the performance of another. For instance, I have the option of baking a pie as well as the option of baking, and baking a pie entails baking. Now, suppose that I have both reason to bake and reason to bake a pie. Which, if either, grounds the other? Do I have reason to bake in virtue of my having reason to perform some instance of baking, such as pie baking? Or do I have reason to bake a pie in virtue of my having reason to bake? Or does neither ground the other? Perhaps, the reason in each case is grounded in the fact that each option would itself have optimal consequences. The aim of this paper is to compare two alternative responses to this issue—omnism and maximalism—and to argue that the latter is more plausible. Omnism is the view that what grounds a reason for performing an option is always that it has some feature F (such as that of having optimal consequences). By contrast, maximalism holds that sometimes what grounds a reason for performing an option is not that it is itself F, but that it is entailed by some other option that is F. I’ll argue that maximalism is more plausible, for it avoids two critical problems that befall omnism.     

Action relevance induces an attentional weighting of representations in visual working memory

Information maintained in visual working memory (VWM) can be strategically weighted according to its task-relevance. This is typically studied by presenting cues during the maintenance interval, but under natural conditions, the importance of certain aspects of our visual environment is mostly determined by intended actions. We investigated whether representations in VWM are also weighted with respect to their potential action relevance. In a combined memory and movement task, participants memorized a number of items and performed a pointing movement during the maintenance interval. The test item in the memory task was subsequently presented either at the movement goal or at another location. We found that performance was better for test items presented at a location that corresponded to the movement goal than for test items presented at action-irrelevant locations. This effect was sensitive to the number of maintained items, suggesting that preferential maintenance of action relevant information becomes particularly important when the demand on VWM is high. We argue that weighting according to action relevance is mediated by the deployment of spatial attention to action goals, with representations spatially corresponding to the action goal benefitting from this attentional engagement. Performance was also better at locations next to the action goal than at locations farther away, indicating an attentional gradient spreading out from the action goal. We conclude that our actions continue to influence visual processing at the mnemonic level, ensuring preferential maintenance of information that is relevant for current behavioral goals.     

Neuropsychological deficits in preschool as predictors of ADHD symptoms and academic achievement in late adolescence

High levels of ADHD symptoms are related to severe negative outcomes, which underscore the importance of identifying early markers of these behavior problems. The main aim of the present study was therefore to investigate whether neuropsychological deficits in preschool are related to later ADHD symptoms and academic achievement, over and above the influence of early ADHD symptom levels. The present study is unique because it includes a broader range of predictors compared to previous studies and the participants are followed over time for as long as 13 years (i.e., ages 5–18 years). Preschool data included measures of executive functioning and reaction time variability as well as emotional reactivity and emotion regulation of both positive and negative emotions. When controlling for early ADHD symptom levels, working memory, reaction time variability, and regulation of happiness/exuberance were significantly related to inattention whereas regulation of happiness/exuberance and anger reactivity were significantly related to hyperactivity/impulsivity. Furthermore, working memory and reaction time variability in preschool were significantly related to academic achievement in late adolescence beyond the influence of early ADHD symptoms. These findings could suggest that it is possible to screen for early neuropsychological deficits and thereby identify children who are at risk of negative outcomes. Furthermore, our results suggest that interventions need to look beyond executive functioning deficits in ADHD and also target the role of emotional functioning and reaction time variability. The importance of including both the positive and negative aspects of emotional functioning and distinguishing between emotion regulation and emotional reactivity was also demonstrated.     

Barriers to Adherence to Child Assessment Recommendations

We conducted a one-year follow-up study of child psychoeducational assessment cases to examine whether and how the assessments were helpful to families. The current report focuses on parents’ views of their child’s assessment as well as the parents’ adherence with the written recommendations provided to them following their child’s assessment. Fifty-one of 72 eligible parents whose child received an assessment in an urban, Midwest university clinic participated. Based on semistructured interviews with the parents about the assessment recommendations, we grouped the recommendations and any barriers to adherence the parents mentioned into categories, and we also rated the clarity and complexity of the recommendations. Findings showed that, on average, parents identified the assessment process as useful and attempted or fully adhered to 71.5?% of recommendations. Parents reported the lowest adherence when referrals were recommended for their child to be seen by other professionals such as a pediatrician or psychiatrist; and they cited significantly more stigma barriers for recommendations to seek counseling/therapy or psychotropic medication than for recommendations pertaining to changes at home or school. Higher parental compliance was predicted by a combination of parents reporting fewer barriers and receiving more home based recommendations. The results support the utility of psychological assessments from parents’ perspectives and suggest ways in which psychologists may increase the likelihood that parents will adhere to their recommendations.     

Neuropsychological impairment as a consequence of football (soccer) play and football heading: a preliminary analysis and report on school students (13-16 years).

Footballers run the risk of incurring mild head injury from a variety of sources, including the intentional use of the head to play the ball, known as heading. This paper presents a preliminary exploratory analysis of data collected to examine whether cumulative incidence of mild head injury, or cumulative heading frequency, are related to neuropsychological functioning in male adolescent footballers. In a quasi-experimental cross-sectional design, neuropsychological test scores of school team footballers were compared with those of similarly aged rugby players and noncontact sport players. Cumulative mild head injury incidence was estimated using self-reports, and cumulative heading was estimated using a combination of observation and self-reports. No participants had sustained a head injury within 3 months of testing. There was no relationship between head injury and neuropsychological performance, and there were no decrements in either the footballers or the rugby players in comparison with the noncontact sport players. Within the footballers, cumulative heading did not predict any of the neuropsychological test scores. These findings indicate the absence of neuropsychological impairment arising due to cumulative mild head injury incidence, or cumulative heading. Although these null findings may be reassuring to players, parents, and football organizers, we stress that they are preliminary. Further data is being collected from the same populations to provide more reliable effect estimates.