Being proven wrong elicits learning in children – but only in those with higher executive function skills

This study investigated whether prompting children to generate predictions about an outcome facilitates activation of prior knowledge and improves belief revision. 51 children aged 9–12 were tested on two experimental tasks in which generating a prediction was compared to closely matched control conditions, as well as on a test of executive functions (EF). In Experiment 1, we showed that children exhibited a pupillary surprise response to events that they had predicted incorrectly, hypothesized to reflect the transient release of noradrenaline in response to cognitive conflict. However, children's surprise response was not associated with better belief revision, in contrast to a previous study involving adults. Experiment 2 revealed that, while generating predictions helped children activate their prior knowledge, only those with better inhibitory control skills learned from incorrectly predicted outcomes. Together, these results suggest that good inhibitory control skills are needed for learning through cognitive conflict. Thus, generating predictions benefits learning – but only among children with sufficient EF capacities to harness surprise for revising their beliefs.     

Is 26 + 26 smaller than 24 + 28? Estimating the approximate magnitude of repeated versus different numbers

It has recently been suggested that regardless of the dimension at hand (i.e., numerosity, length, time), similar operational mechanisms are involved in the comparison process based on approximate magnitude representation. One piece of evidence for this hypothesis lies in the presence of similar behavioral effects for any comparison (i.e., the distance effect). In the case of length comparison, the comparison process can be biased by summation toward either an underestimation or an overestimation: The sum of equal-size stimuli is underestimated, whereas the sum of different-size stimuli is overestimated. Relying on the hypothesis that similar operational mechanisms underlie the comparison process of any magnitude, we aim at extending these findings to another magnitude dimension. A number comparison task with digit numbers was used in the two experiments reported presently. The objective was to investigate whether summation also biases magnitude representation of numerical and symbolic information. The results provided evidence that the summation bias can also apply to numerical magnitude comparison, since the sum of repeated numbers (26 + 26) was underestimated whereas the sum of different numbers (24 + 28) was overestimated. We propose that these effects could be accounted for by a heuristic linking cognitive effort and magnitude estimation.     

Atypical EEG power correlates with indiscriminately friendly behavior in internationally adopted children

While effects of institutional care on behavioral development have been studied extensively, effects on neural systems underlying these socioemotional and attention deficits are only beginning to be examined. The current study assessed electroencephalogram (EEG) power in 18-month-old internationally adopted, postinstitutionalized children (n = 37) and comparison groups of nonadopted children (n = 47) and children internationally adopted from foster care (n = 39). For their age, postinstitutionalized children had an atypical EEG power distribution, with relative power concentrated in lower frequency bands compared with nonadopted children. Both internationally adopted groups had lower absolute alpha power than nonadopted children. EEG power was not related to growth at adoption or to global cognitive ability. Atypical EEG power distribution at 18 months predicted indiscriminate friendliness and poorer inhibitory control at 36 months. Both postinstitutionalized and foster care children were more likely than nonadopted children to exhibit indiscriminate friendliness. Results are consistent with a cortical hypoactivation model of the effects of early deprivation on neural development and provide initial evidence associating this atypical EEG pattern with indiscriminate friendliness. Outcomes observed in the foster care children raise questions about the specificity of institutional rearing as a risk factor and emphasize the need for broader consideration of the effects of early deprivation and disruptions in care.     

The first glimpse determines the perception of an ambiguous figure

The ambiguous rat-man figure was tachistoscopically presented to 36 subjects in successive segments to test the hypothesis that the starting segment would determine the perception of the figure. Starting segments were selected which were expected to produce the perception of a rat, a man, or either a rat or man. The remaining segments came from figures evaluated in a preliminary study. The selected figures differed in drawn bias and tended to be seen as a rat, a man, or either a rat or a man. The three starting segments were combined factorially with the three levels of drawn bias of the remaining segments. The effect of the starting segment was significant; the effect of drawn bias was not. A further experiment showed that presentation of the rat vs. man starting segments by themselves did not produce a reliable difference. The results support a constructive model of form perception in which the stimulus material first presented establishes a hypothesis which is used to interpret the remaining material.     

Attention effects of moving and stationary single-element and multiple-element precues: Limits of automaticity

A multiple-element precue (MEP), in which one unique element defines the actual precue, results in efficient precuing for identification of a target. The time course for identification in this case is similar to that for a central precue, even though it is presented peripherally (Chastain, 1996; Chastain & Cheal, in press). Five experiments were conducted to gain further information on the function of MEPs and to question what advantage prior knowledge of the precue may give. In Experiments 1 and 2, it was shown that for “pop-out” features, accuracy of identification of a target was higher if the precue type was known in advance. In contrast, as shown in Experiments 3, 4, and 5, when the precue was defined by apparent motion, there was no difference in accuracy due to advanced knowledge of the precue. Further, accuracy was considerably better for motion precues than for stationary precues.     

Does Manning Men's Studies Emasculate Women's Studies?

Defends “The New Men's Studies: From Feminist Theory to Gender Scholarship” (Hypatia 2:1, Winter 1987) against what is argued are Mary Libertin's misreadings. The argument for men's studies is logically independent of though related to the debate about essentialism in women's studies. Men's studies studies men in and as particular groups. Intellectual should not be equated with institutional autonomy. The feminist study of men should be supported by feminist scholars.     

Differentiating falsely recognized faces from incompletely remembered faces

This study describes an experimental method for determining whether people who recognize a face containing both some target features and some new features are falsely recognizing the face or whether they are incompletely remembering it. Twenty min. after studying a target face either one time or a third time, 136 participants were instructed to examine six test faces similar to the target and to select two test faces sharing only target features and no unstudied features. The likelihood of selecting two test faces sharing four target features and no incorrect features was significantly greater than chance only for the 67 participants who studied the target three times. Because the two faces selected as containing only target features did not share any unstudied features, they were not falsely recognized; instead, they were indicative of correct but incomplete memory for the thrice-studied target.     

Neural activation patterns during retrieval of schema‐related memories: differences and commonalities between children and adults

Schemas represent stable properties of individuals’ experiences, and allow them to classify new events as being congruent or incongruent with existing knowledge. Research with adults indicates that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is involved in memory retrieval of schema‐related information. However, developmental differences between children and adults in the neural correlates of schema‐related memories are not well understood. One reason for this is the inherent confound between schema‐relevant experience and maturation, as both are related to time. To overcome this limitation, we used a novel paradigm that experimentally induces, and then probes for, task‐relevant knowledge during encoding of new information. Thirty‐one children aged 8–12 years and 26 young adults participated in the experiment. While successfully retrieving schema‐congruent events, children showed less medial PFC activity than adults. In addition, medial PFC activity during successful retrieval correlated positively with children's age. While successfully retrieving schema‐incongruent events, children showed stronger hippocampus (HC) activation as well as weaker connectivity between the striatum and the dorsolateral PFC than adults. These findings were corroborated by an exploratory full‐factorial analysis investigating age differences in the retrieval of schema‐congruent versus schema‐incongruent events, comparing the two conditions directly. Consistent with the findings of the separate analyses, two clusters, one in the medial PFC, one in the HC, were identified that exhibited a memory × congruency × age group interaction. In line with the two‐component model of episodic memory development, the present findings point to an age‐related shift from a more HC‐bound processing to an increasing recruitment of prefrontal brain regions in the retrieval of schema‐related events.     

Word-to-letter inhibition: Word-inferiority and other interference effects

Four experiments were run to determine whether the interactive activation model would more accurately reflect the effect of context in letter perception by including word-to-letter inhibition resulting from word-to-word inhibition produced when multiple word units become active. The first three experiments found less accurate target letter discrimination in word than in nonword strings when a string was altered halfway through the exposure through adding or dropping a nontarget letter. The alteration changed a word to a different word or a nonword to a different nonword. Unaltered strings produced the typical word-superiority effect. The last experiment found an inverse relationship between target discrimination performance and the number of word substrings contained in each of a set of word quadrigrams that were individually exposed.