Question asking and eye tracking during cognitive disequilibrium: Comprehending illustrated texts on devices when the devices break down

The PREG model of question asking assumes that questions emerge when there is cognitive disequilibrium, as in the case of contradictions, obstacles, and anomalies. Participants read illustrated texts about everyday devices (e.g., a cylinder lock) and then were placed in cognitive disequilibrium through a breakdown scenario (e.g., the key turns but the bolt does not move). The participants asked questions when given the breakdown scenario, and an eyetracker recorded their fixations. As was predicted, deep comprehenders asked better questions and fixated on device components that explained the malfunction. The eye fixations were examined before, during, and after the participants' questions in order to trace the occurrence and timing of convergence on faults, causal reasoning, and other cognitive processes.     

Predictors of resilience in maltreated and nonmaltreated Latino children

To date, few studies have sought to investigate the effects of child maltreatment and processes influencing maladaptation and resilience in Latino children. In the current investigation, multiple aspects of functioning, personal resources, and relationship features were examined in school-age maltreated and nonmaltreated Latino children. Maltreated Latino children were found to have fewer areas of resilient functioning. Ego-resiliency and ego-control, as personal resources, and the ability to form a positive relationship with an adult figure outside of the immediate family predicted resilience. However, certain aspects of interpersonal functioning were differentially related to resilience for maltreated and nonmaltreated Latino children. These findings have implications for understanding how resilience can be promoted in maltreated and nonmaltreated Latino children.     

What Front-Line CBO Staff Can Tell Us About Culturally Anchored Theories of Behavior Change in HIV Prevention for Asian/Pacific Islanders

Few rigorously tested primary prevention programs have been developed to prevent HIV infection among immigrant communities in the United States. This is in part because of the lack of culturally specific behavioral theories that can inform HIV prevention for immigrant communities in the United States. This article aims to develop such theories for a population—Asian/Pacific Islanders (A/PIs) immigrant communities—who have been overlooked in theory development and program evaluation. Frontline community-based organization (CBO) peer educators, an underutilized source of expertise regarding cultural factors specific to HIV infection among A/PI communities, are the sample of study Asian/Pacific Islander peer educators working at an urban AIDS service organization devoted to health promotion for this population; (N=35). They were interviewed to examine (1) detailed narratives describing instances of behavior change and (2) culturally anchored theories of behavior change which the narratives imply. Theories of the influence of positive cultural symbols on the taboo of HIV/AIDS, moderators of the effectiveness of social network influences on behavior change, and setting- and community-level processes predicting HIV risk behavior were implicit in the peer educators' narratives. Implications for future research, methodology and prevention practice are discussed.     

Validity and reliability of the Test of Early Reading Ability-Second Edition with preschool age children

Criterion validity and test-retest reliability across the two forms of the Test of Early Reading Ability-Second Edition were examined. 18 preschool age children, 4 boys and 14 girls, between the ages of 37 and 59 mo. (M = 48.5, SD = 7.6) were randomly administered Forms A and B as well as the sound-blending, letter-word identification, spelling, and sound-awareness reading subtests from the 2001 Woodcock Johnson-III. Correlations were moderate between the children's performance on the Test of Early Reading Ability-2 Forms A and B and their reading subtest scores from the Woodcock Johnson-III and also between Forms A and B of the Test of Early Reading Ability-2. However, Forms A and B of the Test of Early Reading Ability-2 were not clinically equivalent.     

Hierarchical stimulus processing by dogs (Canis familiaris)

The purpose of this study was to assess the visual processing of global and local levels of hierarchical stimuli in domestic dogs. Fourteen dogs were trained to recognise a compound stimulus in a simultaneous conditioned discrimination procedure and were then tested for their local/global preference in a discrimination test. As a group, dogs showed a non-significant trend for global precedence, although large inter-individual variability was observed. Choices in the test were not affected by either dogs’ sex or the type of stimulus used for training. However, the less time a dog took to complete the discrimination training phase, the higher the probability that it chose the global level of test stimulus. Moreover, dogs that showed a clear preference for the global level in the test were significantly less likely to show positional responses during discrimination training. These differences in the speed of acquisition and response patterns may reflect individual differences in the cognitive requirements during discrimination training. The individual variability in global/local precedence suggests that experience in using visual information may be more important than predisposition in determining global/local processing in dogs.     

Biases of attention in chronic smokers: Men and women are not alike

The activation of motivational systems by stimuli in the environment that are associated with rewarding experiences is able to trigger plastic changes in the brain, thereby altering the attentional priority of those stimuli. As a result, attentional deployment is often abnormal in addiction, with drug-related stimuli attracting attention automatically and gaining control over behavior. For example, smokers show attentional biases toward smoke-related cues, but the mechanisms underlying these effects and the nature of their link to addiction are still debated. Here, we investigated the influence of gender and individual factors on the temporal dynamics of attentional deployment toward smoke-related stimuli in young smokers. Crucially, we found a striking gender difference, with only males exhibiting a typical attentional bias for smoke-related items, and the bias revealed strong time dependency. Additionally, for both males and females, various personality traits and smoking habits predicted the direction and strength of the measured bias. Overall, these results unveil a crucial influence of several predictors—notably, gender—on the biases of attention toward smoke-related items in chronic smokers.     

Echoes of the Danish Cartoon Crisis 10 Years Later: Identity,Injury and Intelligibility from Copenhagen to Paris and Texas

ABSTRACT

The tenth anniversary of the Danish cartoon crisis of 2005–06 invites reflection on its historical significance and contemporary relevance. In the Danish context 10 years ago, the events generated substantial debate about issues such as terrorism, immigration, blasphemy and the place of Islam in Denmark and in the Danish folk. Furthermore, they raised complex questions about Danish identity in a society that had become significantly more religiously and culturally diverse in the preceding decades. Most of these questions, however, were eclipsed by the polarized public debate about free speech and religious respect. The year 2015 brought many of these questions back to the fore after the murders that January of 12 journalists at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and attacks at a kosher market in Paris, followed in February by shootings at a free speech event in Copenhagen and at a synagogue, and later attacks in May at a Muhammad cartoon contest exhibit in Garland, Texas. Despite their disparate contexts, these violent events have echoes of the original Danish cartoon crisis. This article suggests that the three concepts of identity, injury and intelligibility can together help to add complexity to popular interpretations of the original Danish cartoon crisis and recent related events, and prompt us to think beyond the dualistic categories of free speech and blasphemy.