Ecological Behavior's Dependency on Different Forms of Knowledge

Cet article présente trois raisons pour lesquelles l'influence de la connaissance sur le comportement écologique est systématiquement sous-estimé. Tout d'abord, ce n'est pas la simple masse de connaissances disponibles que détermine le comportement: différentes formes de connaissances doivent converger pour favoriser le comportement écologique. Ensuite, l'impact de la connaissance n'est pas détecté parce que certaines procédures statistiques ne contrôlent pas les erreurs de mesure ni ne révèlent avec précision les influences interférentes. Enfin, les facteurs psychologiques tels que la connaissance ont apparemment une influence limitée sur le comportement écologique en présence de fortes pressions relevant de la situation. Mais quand une évaluation du comportement écologique fait systématiquement appel aux contraintes des situations (application d'un test), on peut s'apercevoir que la connaissance a un impact significatif sur le comportement écologique.
The present paper argues for three reasons why knowledge's influence on ecological behavior is underestimated systematically. First, it is not the mere amount of knowledge available that determines behavior. Different forms of knowledge must work together in a convergent manner if they are to foster ecological behavior. Second, knowledge's effect remains undetected also, because some statistical procedures neither correct for measurement error attenuation nor uncover mediated influences accurately. Third, psychological factors such as knowledge apparently have a limited influence on ecological behavior when strong situational constraints are effective. When an ecological behavior measure makes—as a performance test—systematic use of situational influences though, knowledge can be revealed as affecting ecological behavior significantly.     

Parental Cognitive Errors Mediate Parental Psychopathology and Ratings of Child Inattention

We investigate the Depression‐Distortion Hypothesis in a sample of 199 school‐aged children with ADHD‐Predominantly Inattentive presentation (ADHD‐I) by examining relations and cross‐sectional mediational pathways between parental characteristics (i.e., levels of parental depressive and ADHD symptoms) and parental ratings of child problem behavior (inattention, sluggish cognitive tempo, and functional impairment) via parental cognitive errors. Results demonstrated a positive association between parental factors and parental ratings of inattention, as well as a mediational pathway between parental depressive and ADHD symptoms and parental ratings of inattention via parental cognitive errors. Specifically, higher levels of parental depressive and ADHD symptoms predicted higher levels of cognitive errors, which in turn predicted higher parental ratings of inattention. Findings provide evidence for core tenets of the Depression‐Distortion Hypothesis, which state that parents with high rates of psychopathology hold negative schemas for their child's behavior and subsequently, report their child's behavior as more severe.     

Ten- and twelve-month-olds' visual anticipation of orientation and size during grasping

The anticipation of two object dimensions during grasping was investigated in 10- and 12-month-olds. We presented objects varying in both orientation and size and analyzed infants’ anticipatory hand configurations. We found in Experiment 1 that nearly all of the 12-month-olds (94%), but less than half of the 10-month-olds (40%), anticipated both dimensions before touching the object. Experiment 2 ruled out the possibility that this behavior resulted from the infants’ inability to anticipate the size of the stimuli. Thus, integrating two object dimensions during reaching seems to be difficult for 10-month-olds. In addition, we found a sequential adjustment when two dimensions were considered: Infants first adjusted the orientation and then the size. The implications of our findings concerning the planning and execution of grasping movements are discussed.     

Children's face recognition in different contexts: the role of encoding strategies

In this study, the relationship between face recognition and different facial encoding strategies was investigated. Children (6-8 years, N= 134) participated in both a face recognition task and an encoding task. During the recognition task, they saw 7 target faces in an eyewitness context (video) or in a neutral context (static black and white slides) which they later had to recognize from a set of 21 faces. On the encoding task, the same children had to categorize new faces (schematic and photorealistic) into two categories. The construction of the categories allowed participants to encode the faces either analytically (by focusing on a single attribute) or holistically (in terms of overall similarity). The results showed that face recognition was better in the social than in the neutral context. In the neutral context, only holistic encoding was connected to better face recognition. In the social context, children seemed to use not only information about the faces but also information about the persons.     

The impact of spatiotemporal sampling on time-to-contact judgments

When motion in the frontoparallel plane is temporally sampled, it is often perceived to be slower than its continuous counterpart. This finding stands in contrast to humans' ability to extrapolate and anticipate constant-velocity motion. We investigated whether this sampling bias generalizes to motion in the sagittal plane (i.e., objects approaching the observer). We employed a paradigm in which observers judged the arrival time of an oncoming object. We found detrimental effects of time sampling on both perceived time to contact and time to passage. Observers systematically overestimated the time it would take a frontally approaching object to intersect their eye plane. To rule out artifacts inherent in computer simulation, we replicated the experiment, using real objects. The bias persisted and proved to be robust across a large range of temporal and spatial variations. Energy and pooling mechanisms are discussed in an attempt to understand the effect.     

Studying the dynamics of emotional expression using synthesized facial muscle movements

Synthetic images of facial expression were used to assess whether judges can correctly recognize emotions exclusively on the basis of configurations of facial muscle movements. A first study showed that static, synthetic images modeled after a series of photographs that are widely used in facial expression research yielded recognition rates and confusion patterns comparable to posed photos. In a second study, animated synthetic images were used to examine whether schematic facial expressions consisting entirely of theoretically postulated facial muscle configurations can be correctly recognized. Recognition rates for the synthetic expressions were far above chance, and the confusion patterns were comparable to those obtained with posed photos. In addition, the effect of static versus dynamic presentation of the expressions was studied. Dynamic presentation increased overall recognition accuracy and reduced confusions between unrelated emotions.     

Perceiving arousal and valence in facial expressions: Differences between children and adults

Arousal and valence have long been studied as the two primary dimensions for the perception of emotional stimuli such as facial expressions. Prior correlational studies that tested emotion perception along these dimensions found broad similarities between adults and children. However, few studies looked for direct differences between children and adults in these dimensions beyond correlation. We tested 9-year-old children and adults on rating positive and negative facial stimuli based on emotional arousal and valence. Despite high significant correlations between children’s and adults’ ratings, our findings also showed significant differences between children and adults in terms of rating values: Children rated all expressions as significantly more positive than adults in valence. Children also rated positive emotions as more arousing than adults. Our results show that although perception of facial emotions along arousal and valence follows similar patterns in children and adults, some differences in ratings persist, and vary by emotion type.