Using "Bubbles" with babies: a new technique for investigating the informational basis of infant perception

The 'Bubbles' technique (Gosselin, F. & Schyns, P.G. (2001). Bubbles: A technique to reveal the use of information in recognition tasks. Vision Research, 41, 2261-2271) has been widely used to reveal the information adults use to make perceptual categorizations. We present, for the first time, an adapted form of Bubbles, suitable for use with young infants.     

Spatial dependence of color assimilation by the watercolor effect

Color assimilation with bichromatic contours was quantified for spatial extents ranging from von Bezold-type color assimilation to the watercolor effect. The magnitude and direction of assimilative hue change was measured as a function of the width of a rectangular stimulus. Assimilation was quantified by hue cancellation. Large hue shifts were required to null the color of stimuli < or = 9.3 min of arc in width, with an exponential decrease for stimuli increasing up to 7.4 deg. When stimuli were viewed through an achromatizing lens, the magnitude of the assimilation effect was reduced for narrow stimuli, but not for wide ones. These results demonstrate that chromatic aberration may account, in part, for color assimilation over small, but not large, surface areas.     

Psychoaffective immaturity in psychiatric disorders

This study investigated the prevalence of psychoaffective immaturity and tested the hypothesis that it associated with bad prognosis. For 135 psychiatric patients meeting criteria for personality, neurotic, affective, substance use, or psychotic disorders emotional immaturity was rated using the 1985 diagnostic criteria of Doutheau, Dubertret, Moutin, and Barrois. 58 subjects (42.96%, 95% Confidence Interval: 34.61-51.31) were classified as immature. Scores of the Nonimmature and Immature groups were compared for the Beck Depression Inventory and the Professional and Social Functioning Assessment Scale. Scores were, respectively, significantly higher and lower in those patients classified as Immature than those who were classified Nonimmature. When depression was controlled by a covariance analysis, the mean difference on the Professional and Social Functioning Assessment Scale remained significant. It appears that psychoaffective immaturity is a factor associated with severity of psychiatric disorders.     

Show me the features! Understanding recognition from the use of visual information

We propose an approach that allows a rigorous understanding of the visual categorization and recognition process without asking direct questions about unobservable memory representations. Our approach builds on the selective use of visual information in recognition and a new method (Bubbles) to depict and measure what this information is. We examine three face–recognition tasks (identity, gender, expressive or not) and establish the componential and holistic information responsible for recognition performance. On the basis of this information, we derive task–specific gradients of probability for the allocation of attention to the different regions of the face.     

Prosody-assisted head-driven access to spoken German compounds

Auditory processing of German 2-noun compound words was investigated with 328 participants in 4 experiments by monitoring semantic priming effects of the left constituents of the compound words. The authors demonstrated that there is no primacy of the left constituents in accessing auditorily presented German compound words in the mental lexicon. A clear priming effect of left constituents occurred only for compound words with a transparent right constituent that is the head of compound words in Germanic languages. The data suggest that the access to German compounds in the auditory domain involves 2 temporally overlapping routes: direct and decompositional. The prosodic structure (i.e., the duration) of the first morphemes of compound words appears to be a determining factor for activation of the decompositional route.     

On the hierarchical structure of self-determined motivation: a test of top-down, bottom-up, reciprocal, and horizontal effects

This article aimed to test some hypotheses about the hierarchical structure of self-determined motivation in two longitudinal studies. First, the authors verified the stability of global self-determined motivation and school self-determined motivation over time. Second, they tested top-down, bottom-up, reciprocal, and horizontal effects between global self-determined motivation and school self-determined motivation. In Study 1, 122 college students were evaluated on two occasions with a 5-year interval on their global and school self-determined motivation. In Study 2, 294 college students were evaluated on the same variables with a 1-year interval. Results from both studies revealed that (a) global self-determined motivation was not more stable than self-determined school motivation over time and (b) a cross-lag model including reciprocal effects between self-determined global and self-determined school motivation offered the best fit indices comparatively to a model involving only horizontal (or stability) effects. Discussion emphasizes the theoretical implications of the results.     

Determinants of Harsh Parenting in Mexico

This paper presents a structural model of the determinants of harsh parenting among Mexican mothers. One hundred five mothers (46 from the community; 59 referred to agencies for child maltreatment) were recruited from Sonora (Northern) Mexico and interviewed. In this model the use of physical punishment was explained by (1) authoritarian parenting style (mothers' beliefs concerning the effective use of physical punishment and mothers' lack of disciplinary skills) and (2) family dysfunction (a latent variable constructed from reports of interspousal violence and the parents' use of alcohol and drugs). In addition, the indirect effects of demographic and historical variables on harsh parenting was included. The findings show that the most important factor influencing the use of physical punishment in these families was authoritarian parenting style, exerting a significant direct effect on the mothers' reports of their use of harsh punishment. Family dysfunction had an indirect effect through parenting style. Some sociodemographic variables also indirectly influenced the use of beliefs maternal punishment It is concluded that cultural beliefs play a major role in parenting within the framework of Mexican family relations.     

Social context,student's motivation,and academic achievement: Toward a process model

The purpose of the present research was to propose and test a motivational process model of academic achievement. The model posits that parental, teachers, and school administration support for students' autonomy positively influences students' perceived school competence and autonomy. In turn, perceived school competence and autonomy affect positively self-determined school motivation which in turn influences academic achievement. Two studies using a prospective design tested the adequacy of the model. In Study I, participants were 1,623 ninth-grade students. Results from structural equation modeling supported the motivational model. Participants in Study 2 were 1,098 tenth-grade students. Results from this study corroborated those of Study 1 controlling for students' prior achievement in the ninth grade. The role of self-determinod school motivation in academic achievement is discussed and avenues for future research are considered.