Visuospatial bootstrapping: Long-term memory representations are necessary for implicit binding of verbal and visuospatial working memory

It has recently been shown that presenting additional visuospatial information alongside to-be-remembered numbers in a digit span task enhances participants’ memory for those items. However, the mechanisms behind this visuospatial bootstrapping effect have remained unspecified. In this article, we report evidence that this effect involves an integration of information from verbal and visuospatial temporary memory with long-term-memory (LTM) representations and that the existence of a relevant LTM representation is necessary for bootstrapping to occur.     

The Multi-Trajectory Theory of Adult Firesetting (M-TTAF)

The assessment and treatment of adults who set fires deliberately are underdeveloped relative to other areas of forensic-clinical psychology. From a scientist–practitioner perspective, all clinical assessment and treatment should be guided by a theoretical and empirically based understanding of the presenting clinical phenomena. In this paper, we critically review current typologies, motives, and theories regarding the etiological features of deliberate adult firesetting. Then, using a theory knitting perspective, we synthesize the prime parts of this information into a comprehensive multifactorial framework of deliberate firesetting. The resulting Multi-Trajectory Theory of Adult Firesetting (M-TTAF) is an integration of current theory, typological, and research knowledge into a comprehensive etiological theory of firesetting along with its maintenance, and desistence. In addition to this overall theoretical framework, we summarize five associated prototypical firesetting trajectories (or patterns of characteristics leading to the firesetting behavior) that stem from our theoretical work. We examine this new theory according to key evaluative components associated with theory construction and conclude by highlighting the M-TTAF's potential application in future research and practice innovation with adult firesetters.     

Weight attitudes in 3- to 5-year-old children: Age differences and cross-sectional predictors

We examined weight attitudes in 118 3- to 5-year-old girls and boys. Children completed an interview in which they were asked to select a figure to represent a child with positive or negative characteristics from an array of figures varying from very thin to large, and also a figure representing their own perceived size. Mothers’ body dissatisfaction, internalization of the thin ideal and dieting were assessed. Children chose larger figures to represent negative compared to positive characteristics. The figure size selected for negative characteristics was significantly greater in 5- than 3-year-olds but there was no age variation in figure size selected for positive characteristics. Children's own perceived body size positively predicted the figure size selected for positive characteristics. Maternal body image attitudes predicted figure size selection for both positive and negative characteristics. Findings suggest children's social environments are important in the development of negative and positive weight attitudes.     

Finding evidence of dispositional coping

Data from college students and their parents were used in this longitudinal investigation, the primary goal of which was to examine the conditions under which coping style and coping behaviors are related. Participants completed a dispositional coping measure and reported on their coping with the most stressful event of the week for six weeks. Reports about the participants’ dispositional coping were also collected from the participants’ parents. Findings were consistent with the expectation that style would be a fairly weak predictor of coping in a given encounter but would predict more strongly aggregated coping responses across encounters. Additionally, parents tended to agree with each other about their child’s coping style, but the correlations between child and parental reports were generally small and nonsignificant.     

Police officers ability to detect deception in high stakes situations and in repeated lie detection tests

Thirty‐seven police officers, not identified in previous research as belonging to groups that are superior in lie detection, attempted to detect truths and lies told by suspects during their videotaped police interviews. In order to measure consistency in their ability, the officers each participated in four different tests, each of which was on a different day. They were asked to indicate their confidence in being able to distinguish between truths and lies prior to the first test and after completing all four tests. We predicted that accuracy rates would be higher than those typically found in research with police officers; that good or poor performances on an individual test would be partly caused by luck, and, consequently, participants' accuracy scores were likely to progress towards the mean if their performance on all four tests was to be combined; and that officers would underestimate their own performance. These hypotheses were supported. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The acquisition of catching under monocular and binocular conditions

The effects of binocular and monocular viewing on spatial and temporal errors in one-handed catching were investigated in two experiments. The first experiment-using expert catchers-recorded more spatial errors under the monocular than under the binocular condition. No significant differences in the number of temporal errors were apparent. In a second experiment, which paradigm, relatively poor catchers were trained under both vision conditions. Its objective was to investigate whether the superior results obtained under the binocular condition in the first experiment, for the number of catches and number of spatial errors, could be attributed simply to the fact that subjects had more experience with binocular than monocular viewing. The following results occurred after a period of training (a) a significant reduction in the number of spatial errors under the monocular condition, reaching a level similar to that under the binocular condition; (b) no significant reduction in the number of spatial errors when subjects transferred from monocular to binocular viewing, and significantly more spatial errors when subjects transferred from binocular to monocular viewing; and (c) a training-sequence effect. The latter effect indicates that subjects had more benefit from training in the sequence monocular-binocular than vice versa. These findings are discussed in the context of the strategies of specificity of learning and use of multisources.     

Sex role stereotyping in Australian television advertisements

Television has attracted considerable attention in recent years because of alleged bias in its sex-role content. Studies of television in Great Britain and the United States have generally fuelled concerns that the medium presents male and female characters in traditionally stereotyped ways. Comparatively little research has focused on the way men and women are depicted in other nations' television. Such analyses contribute towards a more comprehensive account of sex role stereotyping and to cross cultural investigation. The present study examined the portrayal of male and female characters in a sample of contemporary Australian television advertisements. A sample of evening commercials was analyzed using measures developed in North American and British work. Strong evidence of differences in the presentation of male and female characters was obtained, and the differences were consistent with those reported in studies of television content in the northern hemisphere. There is little reason to suppose that this area of Australian media is changing substantially in response to public debate. The implications of possible differences between nations in terms of sex role stereotyping in commercials are discussed.     

Modern views on motor skill learning are not ‘representative’!

Approaches to the explanation of (motor) behaviour deriving from basic Cybernetic principles are contrasted with that based on Skinner's principle of operant conditioning. The reliance of the former on systems of representation (comparators, transducers, schemas etc.), not open to observation, is shown to give rise to a number of theoretical and applied problems. While Skinner's approach is shown to avoid such assumptions it is, in turn, limited in the explanations it provides for behavioural change by its undue emphasis on why things are done at the expense of how they are done. It is argued that recent developments in Ecological Psychology, particularly dynamical systems approaches, provide novel solutions to the question of how things are done but, in so doing, lose track of the why. In spite of the limitations of either perspective on its own, there does seem to be sufficient (fundamental) communality and complementarity to provide the basis for a rapprochement that can lead to a better understanding of behaviour in general and motor behaviour in particular.     

Atypical development of language and social communication in toddlers with Williams syndrome

Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder which results in an uneven cognitive profile. Despite superior language compared to other syndromes in the phenotypic outcome, toddlers with WS are as delayed in their language onset and early linguistic development as are toddlers with other syndromes. The cause of this delay in WS is as yet unknown. In a series of experiments, we examined whether atypical socio‐interactive precursors to language could contribute to the explanation of the late language onset and atypical developmental pathways observed in WS. Experiment 1 showed that despite superficially good social skills, toddlers with WS were only proficient at dyadic interaction. They were impaired in triadic interaction, essential for the referential uses of language, and showed none of the correlations between socio‐interactive markers and language seen in the typical controls. Experiment 2 focused on the comprehension and production of referential pointing. Again, the WS group was impaired, despite vocabulary levels higher than those of typically developing controls. Finally, Experiment 3 examined fine motor skills. The WS lack of pointing could not be explained in terms of motor impairments, since the WS toddlers were proficient at fine motor control, such as the pincer grip. Overall, our data indicate that the early stages of WS language follow an atypical pathway. The findings challenge the frequent claims in the literature that individuals with Williams syndrome have preserved linguistic and social skills.