Auditory attentional blink: masking the second target is necessary, delayed masking is sufficient.

When two target items (T1 and T2) are presented in rapid succession among fillers, processing T2 is often impaired. This phenomenon is known as the attentional blink (AB). Within the visual modality, this second-target deficit generally occurs only if T2 is masked by a trailing item. The current study was designed to examine whether masking of T2 also plays a critical role in the auditory AB. Results showed a reliable AB effect even when the item following T2 was replaced by silence. However, the AB deficit was abolished when T2 was the last presented stimulus. Our results suggest that, as in vision, T2 masking is necessary for the AB to take place in audition, but that masking is effective even when delayed, providing evidence that the phenomenon shares some functional mechanisms across sensory modalities.     

Contemplative Pedagogy: Frequently Asked Questions

Contemplative Pedagogy is a new and sometimes controversial pedagogical practice. Faculty often have basic questions about how to implement the pedagogy in their classrooms, in addition to questions that challenge the educational value and appropriateness of the practice. Assembled here are the most frequently asked questions about Contemplative Pedagogy, with responses from six contemplative professors, each from a different institutional and philosophical location. The respondents are founding members of the Contemplative Studies Consultation of the American Academy of Religion. The diversity of views expressed by the respondents invites the reader to see that there is no single theory or praxis of contemplative pedagogy.     

I Matter to My Friend,Therefore I am Happy: Friendship,Mattering, and Happiness

Decades of empirical research have shown that friendship experiences are an essential predictor of happiness. However, what might account for the relationship between friendship and happiness? Two studies investigated perceived mattering (Marshall, J Adolesc 24:473–490, 2001) as a mediator of the association between friendship quality and happiness. Study 1 showed that perceived mattering to one’s best friend mediated the relationship between friendship and happiness. Study 2 replicated the findings of the first study and showed that mattering in friendships accounts for the role of friendship quality in happiness across the three closest friendships of the individual. The results are discussed in terms of the theoretical importance of understanding how friendship is related to happiness.     

Mismatch of vocational graduates: What penalty on French labour market?

This study explores individual effects of educational mismatch on wages, job satisfaction and on-the-job-search on French labour market. We distinguish between horizontal matches (job matches with field of studies) and vertical matches (job matches the level of qualification) on the one hand and skills matches (worker's assessment) on the other hand. We use data from the French survey “Generation 98,” conducted among a sample of 22780 young vocational graduates asked about their employment situation 3 years after leaving school. We show that whatever the criterion chosen, there is a minority of matched situations. We find that situations of vertical mismatch and skill mismatch have strong negative effects on wages, while situations of horizontal mismatch have not. However, horizontal mismatch increases both job dissatisfaction and the desire to find another job, even if their job is qualified, permanent and reasonably well paid. Implications for the evaluation of vocational training programs are discussed.     

Efficacy of the program "Testas's (mis)adventures" to promote the deep approach to learning

This paper provides information about the efficacy of a tutorial training program intended to enhance elementary fifth graders' study processes and foster their deep approaches to learning. The program "Testas's (mis)adventures" consists of a set of books in which Testas, a typical student, reveals and reflects upon his life experiences during school years. These life stories are nothing but an opportunity to present and train a wide range of learning strategies and self-regulatory processes, designed to insure students' deeper preparation for present and future learning challenges. The program has been developed along a school year, in a one hour weekly tutorial sessions. The training program had a semi-experimental design, included an experimental group (n=50) and a control one (n=50), and used pre- and posttest measures (learning strategies' declarative knowledge, learning approaches and academic achievement). Data suggest that the students enrolled in the training program, comparing with students in the control group, showed a significant improvement in their declarative knowledge of learning strategies and in their deep approach to learning, consequently lowering their use of a surface approach. In spite of this, in what concerns to academic achievement, no statistically significant differences have been found.     

Évolutions récentes de la responsabilité pour défaut d’information

It is wrongly that one would think that the question of the information due by the physician to the patient is not likely of any further developments. Four recent rulings provide the perfect illustration and lead to consider that this duty to inform has attained a genuine autonomy. In some instances, the compensation arising out of the failure to inform may depart from the strict framework of loss of chance in which many believed it was confined to.     

Sex differences in language first appear in gesture

Children differ in how quickly they reach linguistic milestones. Boys typically produce their first multi‐word sentences later than girls do. We ask here whether there are sex differences in children’s gestures that precede, and presage, these sex differences in speech. To explore this question, we observed 22 girls and 18 boys every 4 months as they progressed from one‐word speech to multi‐word speech. We found that boys not only produced speech + speech (S+S) combinations (‘drink juice’) 3 months later than girls, but they also produced gesture + speech (G+S) combinations expressing the same types of semantic relations (‘eat’ + point at cookie) 3 months later than girls. Because G+S combinations are produced earlier than S+S combinations, children’s gestures provide the first sign that boys are likely to lag behind girls in the onset of sentence constructions.     

A preliminary study of medial temporal lobe function in youths with a history of caregiver deprivation and emotional neglect

Previous research findings have linked caregiver deprivation and emotional neglect with sensitivity to threatening cues. The present preliminary study investigated whether dysfunctions of the medial temporal lobe could underlie these associations. Using fMRI, we measured medial temporal lobe responses to emotional faces (angry, fearful, happy, neutral) among 30 youths. Eleven of the youths had a history of caregiver deprivation and emotional neglect. Attention states (i.e., attention to anger, fear, or physical attributes, or passive viewing) were systematically manipulated. Relative to comparison youths, youths with a history of caregiver deprivation and emotional neglect showed significantly greater left amygdala and left anterior hippocampus activation during the processing of threatening information. To our knowledge, these findings are the first to demonstrate altered medial temporal lobe function during the processing of threat cues in youths with a history of caregiver deprivation and emotional neglect.