Promoting fluency of performance of self‐help tasks with a person with multiple disabilities

A combination of favorite songs and verbal prompts (automatically delivered through portable technology) was used to promote fluency of performance of self‐help tasks in a young man with multiple disabilities. Data indicated that the intervention was effective in reducing the time required by the man to complete the self‐help tasks (dressing and washing). A momentary withdrawal of the prompts after about 6 months from the beginning of the study was accompanied by performance deterioration. Implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Blinded by anger or feeling the love: how emotions influence advice taking

Across 2 experiments, the authors demonstrate that emotional states influence how receptive people are to advice. The focus of these experiments is on incidental emotions, emotions triggered by a prior experience that is irrelevant to the current situation. The authors demonstrate that people who feel incidental gratitude are more trusting and more receptive to advice than are people in a neutral emotional state, and people in a neutral state are more trusting and more receptive to advice than are people who feel incidental anger. In these experiments, greater receptivity to advice increased judgment accuracy. People who felt incidental gratitude were more accurate than were people in a neutral state, and people in a neutral state were more accurate than were people who felt incidental anger. The results offer insight into how people use advice, and the authors identify conditions under which leaders, policy makers, and advisors may be particularly influential.     

Do we listen to advice just because we paid for it? The impact of advice cost on its use

When facing a decision, people often rely on advice received from others. Previous studies have shown that people tend to discount others’ opinions. Yet, such discounting varies according to several factors. This paper isolates one of these factors: the cost of advice. Specifically, three experiments investigate whether the cost of advice, independent of its quality, affects how people use advice. The studies use the Judge–Advisor System (JAS) to investigate whether people value advice from others more when it costs money than when it is free, and examine the psychological processes that could account for this effect. The results show that people use paid advice significantly more than free advice and suggest that this effect is due to the same forces that have been documented in the literature to explain the sunk costs fallacy. Implications for circumstances under which people value others’ opinions are discussed.     

Age-trend-related differences in tasks involving conjunctive probabilistic reasoning

Conjunctive probabilistic reasoning has been studied at different ages to ascertain whether the conjunction fallacy is due to a task demand misinterpretation. Such a misinterpretation might occur because a task that requires a comparison between a superordinate class A and a subordinate class A&B is mistakenly interpreted as requiring a comparison between the two complementary subordinate classes of A (i.e., A&B and A¬B). Children (7- and 10-year-olds) and adults were required to make conjunctive probability judgments about problems for which explicit objective probabilities were provided. The total number of A items was kept constant and the frequencies of the A&B and of the A¬B items varied across problems. When the number of A&B items was smaller than the number of A¬B items, the frequency of congruent responses increased with age. When the number of A&B items was greater or equal to that of the A¬B items, the frequency of correct answers decreased. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).     

The ‘Fractionable Autism Triad’: A Review of Evidence from Behavioural,Genetic, Cognitive and Neural Research

Autism is diagnosed on the basis of a triad of impairments in social interaction, communication, and flexible imaginative functions (with restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests; RRBIs). There has been a strong presumption that these different features of the syndrome are strongly intertwined and proceed from a common cause at the genetic, cognitive and neural levels. In this review we examine evidence for an alternative approach, considering the triad as largely ‘fractionable’. We present evidence from our own twin studies, and review relevant literature on autism and autistic-like traits in other groups. We suggest that largely independent genes may operate on social skills/impairments, communication abilities, and RRBIs, requiring a change in molecular-genetic research approaches. At the cognitive level, we suggest that satisfactory accounts exist for each of the triad domains, but no single unitary account can explain both social and nonsocial features of autism. We discuss the implications of the fractionable-triad approach for both diagnosis and future research directions.     

A man with multiple disabilities using a head‐turning response to reduce the effects of his drooling

A man with multiple disabilities was taught to perform a head‐turning response to activate optic sensors embedded in a small spongy structure at his shoulder and produce preferred stimuli. By touching the spongy structure with chin and mouth (i.e., to activate the sensors), the man would clean these areas thus curbing the effects of his drooling. Data showed that the man increased the frequency of his head‐turning responses and reduced drooling effects (chin wetness) through the intervention and a 3‐month follow‐up. Forty university students, who were involved in a social validation assessment, indicated that the intervention was suitable and enjoyable to the man, had a social/educational function, and represented an approach that they supported. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developmental path between language and autistic‐like impairments: a twin study

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are diagnosed when individuals show impairments in three behavioural domains: communication, social interactions, and repetitive, restrictive behaviours and interests (RRBIs). Recent data suggest that these three sets of behaviours are genetically heterogeneous. Early language delay is strongly associated with ASD, but the basis for this association and the relationship with individual sub‐domains of ASD has not been systematically investigated. In the present study, data came from a population‐based twin sample with language development data at 2–4 years, measured by the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (MCDI), and data at 8 years using the Childhood Asperger Syndrome Test (CAST). For the total CAST and the three subscales at 8 years, approximately 300 same‐sex twin pairs were selected as showing extreme autistic‐like traits (ALTs), defined here as pairs in which at least one member of the twin pair scored in the highest 5% of the distribution. Phenotypic analyses indicated that children showing extreme social and communication ALTs (but not the RRBI subscale) at 8 years were below average in language development at 2–4 years. A regression model for selected twin data suggested that genetic influences account for this overlap, but that these effects are only in part mediated by genes that are shared between language and extreme autistic traits. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contagion and Differentiation in Unethical Behavior: The Effect of One Bad Apple on the Barrel

ABSTRACT— In a world where encounters with dishonesty are frequent, it is important to know if exposure to other people's unethical behavior can increase or decrease an individual's dishonesty. In Experiment 1 , our confederate cheated ostentatiously by finishing a task impossibly quickly and leaving the room with the maximum reward. In line with social-norms theory, participants' level of unethical behavior increased when the confederate was an in-group member, but decreased when the confederate was an out-group member. In Experiment 2 , our confederate instead asked a question about cheating, which merely strengthened the saliency of this possibility. This manipulation decreased the level of unethical behavior among the other group members. These results suggest that individuals' unethicality does not depend on the simple calculations of cost-benefit analysis, but rather depends on the social norms implied by the dishonesty of others and also on the saliency of dishonesty.     

Promoting foot–leg movements in children with multiple disabilities through the use of support devices and technology for regulating contingent stimulation

The present study assessed the possibility of promoting pre-ambulatory foot–leg movements in children with multiple disabilities by motivating their action through contingent stimulation combined with a support device. Two children aged 10 and 8 years participated. Microswitch technology (i.e., pressure sensors under the shoes or optic sensors at the front–inner side of the shoes) served for detecting the foot–leg movements and providing contingent stimulation on their occurrence. Sensor activation produced 5 s of stimulation during intervention. Data showed that both children had significant increases in foot–leg movements during the intervention phases. Implications of the data in terms of skill acquisition and further intervention prospects are discussed.     

Zeading and reazing: which is faster? The position of the diverging letter in a pseudoword determines reading time

We present evidence that (a) at least some components of the reading process are serial and (b) pseudoword reading is affected by lexical knowledge, even in a transparent orthographic system like Italian. Pseudowords deriving from five-letter words by changing either the first or the fourth letter were presented for reading aloud. Results showed an effect of the position of the diverging letter: Early diverging pseudowords were read more slowly than late diverging pseudowords. The dual-route cascaded (DRC) model (Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon, & Ziegler, 2001) successfully simulated the behavioural data.