Infant long-term memory for associations formed during mere exposure

We previously found that young infants spontaneously associate stimuli that they merely see together. Using a sensory preconditioning paradigm with 6- and 9-month-olds, we asked how long such associations remain latent before being forgotten and what exposure conditions affect their persistence. Groups were preexposed to two puppets for 1 h/day for 2 days, 1 h on 1 day, or 1 h on 1 day in two sessions; 1-27 days later, target actions were modeled on one puppet, and infants were tested with the other puppet 1 day later. The longest delay after which infants imitated the actions on the other puppet defined how long they remembered the association. The data revealed that the preexposure regimen determined retention. Regardless of exposure time, both ages remembered the association longer after two sessions, and younger infants remembered longer than older infants - for 4 weeks - after two 30-min sessions on 1 day.     

Validity of a Brief Measure of Parental Affective Attitudes in High-Risk Preschoolers

The current study investigated psychometric properties of the Family Affective Attitude Rating Scale (FAARS) for assessing parents' thoughts and feelings about their child, coded from a 5-min speech sample. Parental affective attitudes derive from previous experiences of parenting and child behavior, representations of the parent-child relationship and broader parental characteristics. Data were collected from mother-child dyads at ages 2 and 3 (N?=?731; 49?% female) from a multi-ethnic and high-risk community sample. Multi-informant observations of parenting and questionnaire measures were used to test construct and discriminant validity. FAARS showed good internal consistency and high inter-rater agreement. Affective attitudes were related to mothers' perceptions of their daily hassles, their reports of conflict with their child, and observed measures of positive and harsh parenting. Negative affective attitudes uniquely predicted later child problem behavior, over and above maternal reports of and observed measures of parenting. Overall, results support the validity of FAARS coding in mothers of preschoolers, a previously untested group. FAARS is a novel measure, directly assessing maternal perceptions of the parent-child relationship, and indirectly providing an index of maternal affect, stress, and depressive symptoms. Its brevity and cost-effectiveness further enhance the potential use of the FAARS measure for clinical and research settings.     

Gender and autistic personality traits predict perspective-taking ability in typical adults

Adopting another’s visual perspective is exceedingly common and may underlie successful social interaction and empathizing with others. The individual differences responsible for success in perspective-taking, however, remain relatively undiscovered. We assessed whether gender and autistic personality traits in normal college student adults predict the ability to adopt another’s visual perspective. In a task differentially recruiting VPT-1 which involves following another’s line of sight, and VPT-2 which involves determining how another may perceive an object differently given their unique perspective (VPT-2), we found effects of both gender and autistic personality traits. Specifically, we demonstrate slowed VPT-2 but not VPT-1 performance in males and females with relatively high ASD-characteristic personality traits; this effect, however was markedly stronger in males than females. Results contribute to knowledge regarding ASD-related personality traits in the general population and the individual differences modulating perspective-taking abilities.     

Therapeutic alliance and weight gain during cognitive behavioural therapy for anorexia nervosa

This study examined the relationship between therapeutic alliance and primary symptom change (weight gain) during CBT for anorexia nervosa. The aims were threefold: (1) to establish the strength of the therapeutic alliance across the treatment, (2) to determine whether early therapeutic alliance is associated with the completion of CBT for this client group, and (3) to determine the direction of the relationship between therapeutic alliance and weight gain. Adult outpatients (N = 65) with a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa (or atypical anorexia nervosa) completed a measure of alliance at session six and at the end of treatment. Weight was recorded at the start of treatment, session six and at the end of treatment. The strength of the alliance was consistently high in the sample. However, early therapeutic alliance was not associated with either the likelihood of completing treatment or subsequent weight gain. In contrast, both early and later weight gain were associated with the strength of subsequent alliance. These findings indicate that it might be advisable to focus on techniques to drive weight gain rather than rely on the therapeutic alliance to bring about therapeutic change.     

Time for Reflection: A Critical Examination of Polychronicity

Both researchers and practitioners are increasing their attention to the multitasking demands of contemporary work contexts, and previous work suggests polychronicity plays a central role in the motivation of individuals to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. However, our detailed examination of existing literature reveals a wide range of conceptualizations and operationalizations of this construct, as well as incongruent results concerning the effects of polychronicity on behavior and performance. In this article, we develop recommendations for defining and measuring polychronicity more precisely, we examine and compare existing work on predictors of polychronicity, and we address the equivocal relationship between polychronicity and performance. We conclude with implications for future research.     

Twelve steps to heaven: Successfully managing change through developing innovative teams

In this article we propose that work teams implement many of the innovative changes required to enable organizations to respond appropriately to the external environment. We describe how, using an input?–?process?–?output model, we can identify the key elements necessary for developing team innovation. We propose that it is the implementation of ideas rather than their development that is crucial for enabling organizational change. Drawing on theory and relevant research, 12 steps to developing innovative teams are described covering key aspects of the team task, team composition, organizational context, and team processes.     

Ethnic Identity Gratifications Selection and Avoidance by African Americans: A Group Vitality and Social Identity Gratifications Perspective

Abstract

This study explores the relatively new idea that individuals engage with media in an effort to meet their social identity needs. Specifically, the study broadens the social identity gratifications (SIG) approach to the domain of ethnicity by examining how African Americans’ ethnic identity gratifications selection and avoidance are related to their perceptions of ingroup vitality. Two mediation models involving level of ethnic identification are proposed. Although the model of television selection is not supported, the model of television avoidance is supported. Implications and future research are discussed.     

Carving nature at its joints: Paul Meehl's development of taxometrics

This article presents a brief summary of Paul Meehl's development of taxometrics. Of special concern is the question, Why did Paul Meehl develop taxometrics? It is shown that taxometrics played an integral role in Meehl's broader research program on the genetics of schizotaxia.     

Egocentric and nonegocentric coding in memory for spatial layout: Evidence from scene recognition

Much contemporary research has suggested that memories for spatial layout are stored with a preferred orientation. The present research examined whether spatial memories are also stored with a preferred viewpoint position. Participants viewed images of an arrangement of objects taken from a single viewpoint and subsequently were tested on their ability to recognize the arrangement from novel viewpoints that had been translated in either the lateral or the depth dimension. Lateral and forward displacements of the viewpoint resulted in increasing response latencies and errors. Backward displacement showed no such effect, nor did lateral translation that resulted in a centered "canonical" view of the arrangement. These results further constrain the specificity of spatial memory, while also providing some evidence that nonegocentric spatial information is coded in memory.     

Lack of set size effects in spatial updating: Evidence for offline updating

Four experiments required participants to keep track of the locations of (i.e., update) 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, or 15 target objects after rotating. Across all conditions, updating was unaffected by set size. Although some traditional set size effects (i.e., a linear increase of latency with memory load) were observed under some conditions, these effects were independent of the updating process. Patterns of data and participant strategies were inconsistent with the common view of spatial updating as an online process. Instead, the authors concluded that participants formed enduring, long-term memory representations of the layouts at learning that were used to reconstruct spatial information about the layouts as needed (i.e., offline updating). These results support M. Amorim, S. Glasauer, K. Corpinot, and A. Berthoz's (1997) 2-system model of spatial updating that includes both online and offline updating.