Effects of hierarchical organization on children's judgments of distance and direction

The impact of the hierarchical organization of a space on judgments of direction and distance was assessed in two studies using two-dimensional models analogous to those used by A. Stevens and P. Coupe (1978, Cognitive Psychology, 10, 422–437). In each study the models contained two stars and were divided into two parts by a curved boundary line. In the Homogeneous condition the stars were located in the same subsection. In the Congruent condition the leftmost star was in the left subsection and the rightmost star was in the right subsection. In the Incongruent condition the rightmost star was in the left subsection and the leftmost star was in the right subsection. In Experiment 1 first graders, third graders, and college students were required to remember the location of the stars. Results indicated that the first and third graders tended to use the relationship between the subsections as a clue to the relationship between the sites within them, thus extending the results of Stevens and Coupe (1978) to children. In Experiment 2 preschoolers, first, and third graders were asked to judge with the materials directly in front of them, which of the two stars was closer to a site located in one of the subsections. Results indicated that the Incongruent condition led to errors among the preschoolers and first graders but not the third graders, thus indicating that these groups tended to judge as closer the site within the same subsection even though it was really farther away. The results of both studies are discussed as indicative of a tendency among young children to impose organization on information encoded in memory and in relation to increases in metric accuracy, decentration, and efficient scanning which enable them to more accurately evaluate when such organization is and is not appropriate. Implications for behavior in large-scale environments are also discussed, with particular reference to the effect of barriers on perceptions of distance and direction.     

Testing measures of the quality of residential care: A pilot study

This paper summarizes the results from a pilot study, designed to test a method of measuring the quality of care provided in two residential units for severely mentally handicapped children. The overall aim has been to devise general measures of the learning conditions (the quality of care) within residential units, which relate to groups of clients, and which are equally applicable at different times of the waking day. Such measures will only constitute a helpful monitoring instrument if they are shown to be reliable; to have, at least, face-validity: to be based upon representative and accurate data; and if they differentiate between settings which, intuitively, appear to differ in the extent to which the clients' appropriate behaviour is prompted and reinforced.     

Cognitive engagement variations among students of different ability level and sex in a computer problem solving game

The study investigated the cognitive engagement processes used by more and less successful learners in a computer problem solving game. These engagement variations were also related to sex and ability differences among students. Performance and engagement were monitored interactively as students learned a computer problem solving game; student comments and notes were also recorded. Results showed the records of more and less successful students to be distinguished by the spontaneous use of self-regulated learning processes — a sophisticated form of cognitive engagement. More successful students also appeared to shift cognitive engagement levels in response to computer game feedback. Success on the computer task and cognitive engagement variations were correlated with student differences in both ability and sex in this sample.This study was funded by the National Institute of Education, Grant No. 400-83-0017. Opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this study do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Institute of Education. The authors wish to thank Marcia Linn and Charles Fisher for their helpful advice, and Susanne Lajoie who served as second rater. Mary Rohrkemper and the Education and Child Development doctoral students at Bryn Mawr College also provided critical suggestions.     

Cognitive reappraisal attenuates the association between depressive symptoms and emotional response to stress during adolescence

Depression is associated with increased emotional response to stress. This is especially the case during the developmental period of adolescence. Cognitive reappraisal is an effective emotion regulation strategy that has been shown to reduce the impact of emotional response on psychopathology. However, less is known about whether cognitive reappraisal impacts the relationship between depressive symptoms and emotional responses, and whether its effects are specific to emotional reactivity or emotional recovery. The current study examined whether cognitive reappraisal moderated the relationship between depressive symptoms and trait or state measures of emotional reactivity and recovery. A community sample of 127 adolescents (M-age?=?15.28; 49% female, 47% Caucasian), at an age of risk for depression, completed self-report measures of trait emotional responding and depressive symptoms. In addition, they completed an in vivo social stress task and were assessed on state emotional reactivity and recovery from the stressor. Findings suggested that cognitive reappraisal was associated with an attenuated impact of depressive symptoms on trait and state emotional recovery. These results provide evidence that cognitive reappraisal may be an effective strategy for improving some aspects of emotional responding in relation to depressive symptoms among adolescents.     

The Behavioral Approach System (BAS) Model of Vulnerability to Bipolar Disorder: Evidence of a Continuum in BAS Sensitivity across Adolescence

Behavioral Approach System (BAS) sensitivity has been implicated in the development of a variety of different psychiatric disorders. Prominent among these in the empirical literature are bipolar spectrum disorders (BSDs). Given that adolescence represents a critical developmental stage of risk for the onset of BSDs, it is important to clarify the latent structure of BAS sensitivity in this period of development. A statistical approach especially well-suited for delineating the latent structure of BAS sensitivity is taxometric analysis, which is designed to evaluate whether the latent structure of a construct is taxonic (i.e., categorical) or dimensional (i.e., continuous) in nature. The current study applied three mathematically non-redundant taxometric procedures (i.e., MAMBAC, MAXEIG, and L-Mode) to a large community sample of adolescents (n = 12,494) who completed two separate measures of BAS sensitivity: the BIS/BAS Scales Carver and White (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 319–333. 1994) and the Sensitivity to Reward and Sensitivity to Punishment Questionnaire (Torrubia et al. Personality and Individual Differences, 31, 837–862. 2001). Given the significant developmental changes in reward sensitivity that occur across adolescence, the current investigation aimed to provide a fine-grained evaluation of the data by performing taxometric analyses at an age-by-age level (14–19 years; n for each age ≥ 883). Results derived from taxometric procedures, across all ages tested, were highly consistent, providing strong evidence that BAS sensitivity is best conceptualized as dimensional in nature. Thus, the findings suggest that BAS-related vulnerability to BSDs exists along a continuum of severity, with no natural cut-point qualitatively differentiating high- and low-risk adolescents. Clinical and research implications for the assessment of BSD-related vulnerability are discussed.     

A multigroup confirmatory factor analysis of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 among English- and Spanish-speaking Latinas

Depression is a significant problem for ethnic minorities that remains understudied partly due to a lack of strong measures with established psychometric properties. One screening tool, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), which was developed for use in primary care has also gained popularity in research settings. The reliability and validity of the PHQ-9 has been well established among predominantly Caucasian samples, in addition to many minority groups. However, there is little evidence regarding its utility among Hispanic Americans, a large and growing cultural group in the United States. In this study, we investigated the reliability and structural validity of the PHQ-9 in Hispanic American women. A community sample of 479 Latina women from southern California completed the PHQ-9 in their preferred language of English or Spanish. Cronbach's alphas suggested that there was good internal consistency for both the English- and Spanish-language versions. Structural validity was investigated using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. Results support a similar one-factor structure with equivalent response patterns and variances among English- and Spanish-speaking Latinas. These results suggest that the PHQ-9 can be used with confidence in both English and Spanish versions to screen Latinas for depression.     

The role of socio-communicative rearing environments in the development of social and physical cognition in apes

The cultural intelligence hypothesis (CIH) claims that humans’ advanced cognition is a direct result of human culture and that children are uniquely specialized to absorb and utilize this cultural experience ( Tomasello, 2000 ). Comparative data demonstrating that 2.5‐year‐old human children outperform apes on measures of social cognition but not on measures of physical cognition support this claim ( Herrmann et al., 2007 ). However, the previous study failed to control for rearing when comparing these two species. Specifically, the human children were raised in a human culture whereas the apes were raised in standard sanctuary settings. To further explore the CIH, here we compared the performance on multiple measures of social and physical cognition in a group of standard reared apes raised in conditions typical of zoo and biomedical laboratory settings to that of apes reared in an enculturated socio‐communicatively rich environment. Overall, the enculturated apes significantly outperformed their standard reared counterparts on the cognitive tasks and this was particularly true for measures of communication. Furthermore, the performance of the enculturated apes was very similar to previously reported data from 2.5‐year‐old children. We conclude that apes who are reared in a human‐like socio‐communicatively rich environment develop superior communicative abilities compared to apes reared in standard laboratory settings, which supports some assumptions of the cultural intelligence hypothesis.     

Cross-cultural comparison of drivers’ tendency to commit different aberrant driving behaviours

The first aim of the present study was to identify key items which are rated differently by drivers from Finland, Sweden, Greece and Turkey. The second aim was to examine how these key items relate to drivers’ self-reported accident involvement. Similar comparisons have previously been conducted in Europe but these have only included items classified as violations and errors, but not lapses. A sample of Finnish (N = 200), Swedish (N = 200), Greek (N = 200) and Turkish (N = 200) drivers completed the driver behaviour questionnaire (DBQ) and reported their accident involvement during the previous 3 years. The results showed that nine key items (which drivers from different countries rated differently) could be identified. These items included two aggressive violations, four ordinary violations, three lapses, but no errors. Out of these nine items, five items (Become angered by a certain type of driver and indicate your hostility by whatever means you can, Disregard the speed limit on a motorway, Overtake a slow driver on the inside, Pull out of a junction so far that the driver with right of way has to stop and let you out and Get into the wrong lane approaching a roundabout or a junction) could explain differences in drivers’ self-reported yearly accident involvement when all four countries were taken together. At the same time, none of the items could explain differences in self-reported yearly accident involvement in Finland and Sweden while one of the items (Overtake a slow driver on the inside) could explain differences in self-reported yearly accident involvement in Greece and two of the items (Become angered by a certain type of driver and indicate your hostility by whatever means you can and Disregard the speed limit on a residential road) could explain differences in self-reported yearly accident involvement in Turkey. This shows that different countries have different problems with regard to aberrant driving behaviours which need to be taken into account when promoting traffic safety interventions and the driver behaviour questionnaire (DBQ) can be used to diagnose risk areas and to better inform road safety practitioners within and between countries.     

The acquisition of scientific knowledge: the influence of methods of questioning and analysis on the interpretation of children's conceptions of the earth

Studies of children's knowledge of the Earth have led to very different conclusions: some appear to show that children construct their own, non‐scientific ‘theories’ (mental models) of the flat, hollow or dual Earth. Others indicate that many young children have some understanding of the spherical (scientific) Earth, and that their knowledge lacks the coherence of mental models. The reasons for these contrasting views were tested by interviewing French children (N = 178) aged 5–11 years and varying the different methods used in previous research, namely the types of questions (open and forced‐choice), the form of representation (two‐dimensional pictures and three‐dimensional models), and the method of analysis (the mental model theorists' coding scheme and a statistical test for associations using MANOVA). Forced‐choice questions resulted in higher proportions of scientific answers than open questions, and children appeared to have naïve mental models of the Earth only when the mental model theorists' coding scheme was used. These findings support the view that children tend to have ‘fragments’ of scientific knowledge, and that naïve mental models of the Earth are methodological artifacts. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.