Listening comprehension in preschoolers: The role of memory

The current study analyzed the relationship between text comprehension and memory skills in preschoolers. We were interested in verifying the hypothesis that memory is a specific contributor to listening comprehension in preschool children after controlling for verbal abilities. We were also interested in analyzing the developmental path of the relationship between memory skills and listening comprehension in the age range considered. Forty‐four, 4‐year‐olds (mean age = 4 years and 6 months, SD =4 months) and 40, 5‐year‐olds (mean age = 5 years and 4 months, SD =5 months) participated in the study. The children were administered measures to evaluate listening comprehension ability (story comprehension), short‐term and working memory skills (forward and backward word span), verbal intelligence and receptive vocabulary. Results showed that both short‐term and working memory predicted unique and independent variance in listening comprehension after controlling for verbal abilities, with working memory explaining additional variance over and above short‐term memory. The predictive power of memory skills was stable in the age range considered. Results also confirm a strong relation between verbal abilities and listening comprehension in 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children.     

Living Well Together Online: Digital Wellbeing from a Confucian Perspective

The impact of social media technologies (SMTs) on digital wellbeing has become an increasingly important puzzle for ethicists of technology. In this article, we explain why individualised theories of digital wellbeing (DWB) can only solve part of this puzzle. While an individualised conception of DWB is useful for understanding online self-regulation, we contend that we must seek greater understanding of how SMTs connect us. To build an account of this, we locate the conceptual resources for our account in Confucian ethics. In contrast to individualised conceptions of human flourishing that are found in the Western tradition, Confucian thinkers strongly emphasise that individuals cannot flourish alone, but need wider social structures (partner, family, society, nation). Not only do strands of Confucian ethics explain how individuals are defined by the roles they take up in relationships, but this perspective also makes practical suggestions for how these roles can be cultivated. We conclude our article by identifying the Confucian notions that seem to have most promise for the future design of SMTs.     

Dispositional and Psychosocial Variables as Longitudinal Predictors of Acculturative Stress

As societies become more multicultural, citizens need to develop self‐regulatory mechanisms in order to successfully cope with the increasing levels of psychosocial stress related to acculturation. In this study, a longitudinal theoretical model was tested in order to evaluate the role of implicit theories of cultural intelligence, causal attributions, perceived social support, and cultural identity as predictors of acculturative stress. The research was carried out in Spain across three consecutive years with a multicultural sample of 292 students (natives and immigrants). The results confirm the proposed theoretical model using multi‐group structural equation modelling to test the equivalence of the longitudinal causal structure in immigrants and natives. Moreover, mediation analyses confirmed the mediating effect of cultural identity between the implicit theories of cultural intelligence and acculturative stress, as well as the mediating effect of perceived social support between causal attributions and acculturative stress. The model indicates the relevance of promoting psychosocial interventions with native and immigrant adolescents in intercultural contexts. In those interventions, it will be relevant to promote incremental implicit theories of cultural intelligence and internal causal attributions, as well as to highlight a more intercultural identity and to encourage greater social support networks.     

Automatic activation of multiplication facts: Evidence from the nodes adjacent to the product

Adult observers are widely assumed to be equipped with a specific memory store containing arithmetic facts. The present study was aimed at exploring the possibility of obtaining an automatic activation of multiplication facts by using the number-matching paradigm (LeFevre, Bisanz, & Mrkonjic, 1988), in which mental arithmetic is task irrelevant. In particular, we were interested in exploring whether the nodes that precede or follow the product node in the multiplication table can also be automatically activated as a consequence of the mere presentation of two numbers. In Experiments 1 and 2, we showed that participants were slower in responding “no” to probes that were numbers adjacent to the product in the table related to the first operand of the initial pair than to probes that were unrelated to the initial pair. In Experiments 3 and 4, we showed a similar pattern for probes that were numbers adjacent to the product in the table related to the second operand of the initial pair. Experiments 5 and 6 ruled out alternative accounts and confirmed the results of the previous experiments. Taken together the present findings suggest that multiplication facts are stored in a highly related network in which activation spreads from the product node to adjacent nodes.     

Language Signaling High Proportions and Generics Lead to Generalizing,but Not Essentializing,for Novel Social Kinds

Generics (e.g., “Dogs bark”) are thought by many to lead to essentializing: to assuming that members of the same category share an internal property that causally grounds shared behaviors and traits, even without evidence of such a shared property. Similarly, generics are thought to increase generalizing, that is, attributing properties to other members of the same group given evidence that some members of the group have the property. However, it is not clear from past research what underlies the capacity of generic language to increase essentializing and generalizing. Is it specific to generics, or are there broader mechanisms at work, such as the fact that generics are terms that signal high proportions? Study 1 (100 5–6 year-olds, 140 adults) found that neither generics, nor high-proportion quantifiers (“most,” “many”) elicited essentializing about a novel social kind (Zarpies). However, both generics and high-proportion quantifiers led adults and, to a lesser extent, children, to generalize, with high-proportion quantifiers doing so more than generics for adults. Specifics (“this”) did not protect against either essentializing or generalizing when compared to the quantifier “some.” Study 2 (100 5–6 year-olds, 112 adults) found that neither generics nor visual imagery signaling high proportions led to essentializing. While generics increased generalizing compared to specifics and visual imagery signaling both low and high proportions for adults, there was no difference in generalizing for children. Our findings suggest high-proportion quantifiers, including generics, lead adults, and to some extent children, to generalize, but not essentialize, about novel social kinds.