Relation of birth weight, maternal intelligence and mother–child interactions to cognitive and play competence of Jamaican two-year old children

The present study assessed whether birth weight, maternal child rearing behaviors, and maternal intelligence combine in an additive or in a non-linear interactive fashion to influence cognitive performance in a sample of 24-month old full-term appropriate and low birth weight Jamaican children. Child cognitive performance was measured using the Griffiths Scale and a laboratory based assessment of the amount of time the child utilized different levels of play behavior. Mothers were videotaped while playing with their children under different instructional conditions and videotapes were coded for 8 maternal interaction patterns. Maternal verbal intelligence was assessed using the PPVT. Results supported the operation of both additive co-action as well as non-linear interactive processes. Birth weight, maternal behaviors toward her child and maternal intelligence predicted child cognitive performance. In addition, low birth weight infants were either less sensitive to facilitative aspects of maternal behaviors and/or more sensitive to maternal inhibitory behaviors than were appropriate birth weight infants. Further, child rearing behaviors of more intelligent mothers were a stronger influence on their child's cognitive performance than those of less intelligent mothers, even when there were no differences in the level of behaviors of more or less intelligent mothers.     

Randomized prevention trial for early conduct problems: effects on proactive parenting and links to toddler disruptive behavior.

Despite knowledge of early pathways to conduct problems, few preventive interventions are specifically designed to modify disruptive behavior in toddlerhood. One potential prevention target is proactive and positive parenting, which is associated with reduced risk of conduct problems in preschoolers. This randomized trial with 120 low-income 2-year-old boys examined whether a brief family-centered intervention that reduces disruptive behavior (D. Shaw, T. Dishion, L. Supplee, F. Gardner, & K. Arnds, 2006) also leads to increases in proactive and positive parenting. It also explored whether change in parenting predicts change in disruptive behavior. In the intervention group, proactive and positive parenting skills increased among parents of 3-year-olds. Change in proactive and positive parenting of 2- to 3-year-old toddlers correlated with change in child disruptive behavior, although the mediation effect of positive parenting was of only borderline significance. Findings suggest that even within a brief and multifaceted preventive intervention, change in proactive parenting skills contributes modestly but significantly to change in child problem behavior.     

The role of the self-concept and the social context in determining the behavior of power holders: self-construal in intergroup versus dyadic dispute resolution negotiations

In this work, the authors explored how a person's view of himself or herself might determine his or her use of power in a complex dispute resolution negotiation. In 3 studies of asymmetric power in negotiations, the authors demonstrated that the impact of power on motivation and behavior is moderated by both a person's self-view and the social context. In Study 1, the results revealed that in a one-on-one dispute, powerful individuals primed to hold an interdependent (as opposed to independent) self-construal are more generous in resolving their disputes with low-powered opponents. Study 2 replicated this finding but revealed a different pattern in intergroup disputes, in which powerful interdependent teams of negotiators are actually less generous than are independent teams. Study 3 provided a conceptual replication of Study 2, with the use of chronic measures of self-construal and self-reported measures of behavior. Results suggest that an interdependent self-construal may lead to a more benevolent use of power in dyadic conflicts but more exploitive uses of power in intergroup conflicts. Implications for the understanding of power and self-construal are discussed.     

Physiological arousal of obese persons to food stimuli

Physiological arousal was measured in 20 obese and 20 normal-weight subjects during presentation of imagery tasks with food- and nonfood-related stimuli and during presentation and eating of food. No differential arousal, as measured by skin conductance, was obtained between the groups for any of the stimuli. Presentation and eating of the food did produce significant arousal in subjects.     

The Social N400 effect: how the presence of other listeners affects language comprehension

During conversation, it is necessary to keep track of what others can and cannot understand. Previous research has focused largely on understanding the time course along which knowledge about interlocutors influences language comprehension/production rather than the cognitive process by which interlocutors take each other’s perspective. In addition, most work has looked at the effects of knowledge about a speaker on a listener’s comprehension, and not on the possible effects of other listeners on a participant’s comprehension process. In the current study, we introduce a novel joint comprehension paradigm that addresses the cognitive processes underlying perspective taking during language comprehension. Specifically, we show that participants who understand a language stimulus, but are simultaneously aware that someone sitting next to them does not understand the same stimulus, show an electrophysiological marker of semantic integration difficulty (i.e., an N400-effect). Crucially, in a second group of participants, we demonstrate that presenting exactly the same sentences to the participant alone (i.e. without a co-listener) results in no N400-effect. Our results suggest that (1) information about co-listeners as well as the speaker affect language comprehension, and (2) the cognitive process by which we understand what others comprehend mirrors our own language comprehension processes.     

Body-size estimations in children six through fourteen: a longitudinal study.

Estimates of perceived and ideal body size were collected in 216 boys and girls ages 6 through 14 years. Video methodology was used to adjust the width of a life-size frontal image of the children. Longitudinal data were collected annually for three years, beginning at ages 6, 9, and 12. Three psychological methods were used, including the method of adjustment, staircase method, and adaptive probit estimation technique which permitted separate measures of the children's point of subjective equality and just noticeable difference values. The point of subjective equality is the body size which is subjectively equal to the child's perception of self. The just noticeable difference is the amount of change in body size necessary to detect the difference 50% of the time. Acceptable size boundaries were also measured, using the method of adjustment. Over-all, children were accurate in estimating their body width, with average overestimation of less than 2%. Overestimation decreased within each age group during the three years of the study. There were no differences between ages or sexes. Both point of subjective equality and just noticeable difference values decreased significantly during the three years of the study. The latter values significantly decreased as children became older. Body dissatisfaction (the discrepancy between perceived and ideal size) remained low for boys in all age groups. Girls' body dissatisfaction significantly increased across ages, beginning at age 9. Test-retest consistency of both perceived and ideal size judgments at intervals of one and two years were low. Acceptable boundaries in body width were similar between sexes and across age cohorts.     

A note on temporal relations between language and gestures

The initiation of the spontaneous gestures of Wernicke's aphasics was analyzed in relation to shifts in semantic content between the syntactic boundaries of main clauses and embedded clauses. Gestures proved more likely to arise at the initial boundaries of embedded clauses when these were semantically discontinuous with the main clause than when these were semantically related to the main clause. Spontaneous gestures may signal underlying shifts in semantic intention, thereby reflecting the difficulties encountered by Wernicke's aphasics in maintaining a coherent stream of thought across syntactic boundaries.     

A comparison of binary and rating techniques in the signal detection analysis of recognition memory

Forty-eight subjects were run on a recognition memory task employing low, medium, or high meaningfulness (m) CVC items and utilizing either a binary (yes—no) or rating response technique. Significant differences were obtained between levels of m with higher m items resulting in larger d' values. The interaction term was also significant reflecting a large difference between the binary-rating techniques with high meaningfulness items. The results indicate that the binary and rating techniques do not reveal identical findings in the analysis of recognition memory data and that the frequent use of the rating technique by researchers in the analysis of memory data may not be appropriate.