Beyond Single-Mindedness: A Figure-Ground Reversal for the Cognitive Sciences

A fundamental fact about human minds is that they are never truly alone: all minds are steeped in situated interaction. That social interaction matters is recognized by any experimentalist who seeks to exclude its influence by studying individuals in isolation. On this view, interaction complicates cognition. Here, we explore the more radical stance that interaction co-constitutes cognition: that we benefit from looking beyond single minds toward cognition as a process involving interacting minds. All around the cognitive sciences, there are approaches that put interaction center stage. Their diverse and pluralistic origins may obscure the fact that collectively, they harbor insights and methods that can respecify foundational assumptions and fuel novel interdisciplinary work. What might the cognitive sciences gain from stronger interactional foundations? This represents, we believe, one of the key questions for the future. Writing as a transdisciplinary collective assembled from across the classic cognitive science hexagon and beyond, we highlight the opportunity for a figure-ground reversal that puts interaction at the heart of cognition. The interactive stance is a way of seeing that deserves to be a key part of the conceptual toolkit of cognitive scientists.     

Preliminary report: psychological assessment of Greek women with diabetes during pregnancy

23 Greek pregnant women with type 1 diabetes had a higher mean score on the Maudsley Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy than 13 women with gestational diabetes. Long-term changes in the lifestyle of the former may apparently lead to this higher mean. For those with gestational diabetes, higher scores of alexithymia were correlated with slightly worse glycemic control.     

Comorbidity and WISC-III profiles of Greek children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, learning disabilities, and language disorders

The aim of the present study was to (a) examine the prevalence of ADHD and the comorbid difficulties in a sample of 114 children, 3.6 to 17.6 yr. of age (89 boys, 25 girls) referred to our Unit and (b) evaluate the discriminative ability of the WISC-III scores for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (n = 22), Learning Disability (n = 50), and Language Disorder (n = 42). Analysis showed only 18% of 114 children had an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder diagnosis. Multivariate analysis of variance and stepwise discriminant function analysis were applied. Vocabulary and similarities were the best predictors for distinguishing between language disorders and the other two groups. Moreover, the Language Disorder group scored significantly lower on all the subtests while the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Learning Disability groups scored lower on coding and information, respectively. Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Learning Disability could not be accurately identified from the WISC-III test or their ACID profile.     

Middle-School Students’ Reasoning About Alternative Hypotheses in a Scaffolded,Software-Based Inquiry Investigation

The examination of alternative hypotheses can initiate students into scientific practices and equip them with scientific literacy skills that will help them participate in ongoing debates involving complex socio-scientific problems. Hypothesis testing, in which the examination of alternative hypotheses is situated, has received much attention in the literature. However, the topic of alternative hypotheses has not been examined as extensively in scaffolded data-rich instructional interventions. This article contributes to that body of knowledge by reporting on middle-school students’ inquiry practices as they relate to considering alternative hypotheses of their data. Specifically, the article reports a multiple-case study examining six pairs’ reasoning as they try to solve a data-rich, scientific problem, scaffolded by the software investigation, the task setup, and the teacher. The students’ generation and testing of alternative hypotheses was examined through students’ discourse, actions, inquiry products, and interactions with their teacher and peers. Pre–post assessment analyses showed statistically significant learning gains while the analyses of the students’ inquiry discourse and actions indicated that the scaffolding contributed to students’ inquiry. However, several epistemological problems surfaced relating to students’ perception of the usefulness of examining and communicating alternative explanations. These findings indicate the importance of epistemologically targeted discourse alongside guided inquiry experiences, and underline the need for further examination of appropriate scaffolding to support students’ scientific reasoning processes.     

Associations between authoritative parenting and the sun exposure and sun protective behaviours of adolescents and their friends

Associations between the sun exposure and sun protective behaviours of adolescents and their friends were examined along with the role played by authoritative parenting and other family and peer socialisation factors. Four hundred and two adolescents (198 males, 204 females) participated in the research. It was found that these adolescents and their friends shared similar sun exposure and sun protective behaviours and had similar parenting backgrounds. Parental authoritativeness was positively associated with the use of sun protection, even after the effects of other familial and peer variables were controlled, but not with the time spent sunbathing which was associated with friends’ behaviours. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Word reading practice reduces Stroop interference in children

Stroop interference is thought to index reading automaticity and is expected to increase with reading practice and to decrease with improved color naming. We investigated the effects of practice in word reading and color naming on interference in 92 adults and 109 children in Grades 4–5. For children, interference was reduced after reading practice with color words. In neither group was interference affected by practice in color naming of neutral stimuli. These findings are consistent with a direct negative relationship between reading ability and interference and challenge the automaticity account in favor of a blocking mechanism whereby interference is determined by the delay to inhibit the reading response rather than by the efficiency of color naming.     

Enhancing technologies: transformatio ad quod optimum?

The aim of the present paper is to bring out that the way in which we understand the enhancing and genetic interventions is closely related to the notion of health we adopt and this, in turn, to the worldview which underlies it. I explore the two notions of health which have prevailed since antiquity and which continue to co-exist in our era, and I point out that, if either of these makes sense, this is because each presupposes a different worldview with its own normative framework and moral values. As a consequence, when we argue about the enhancing interventions, we are not so much disagreeing about the application of this or that genetic technology as about the different ways in which we conceive our life and place in the world.