About why there is a shift from cardinal to ordinal processing in the association with arithmetic between first and second grade

Digit comparison is strongly related to individual differences in children's arithmetic ability. Why this is the case, however, remains unclear to date. Therefore, we investigated the relative contribution of three possible cognitive mechanisms in first and second graders’ digit comparison performance: digit identification, digit–number word matching and digit ordering ability. Furthermore, we examined whether these components could account for the well‐established relation between digit comparison performance and arithmetic. As expected, all candidate predictors were related to digit comparison in both age groups. Moreover, in first graders, digit ordering and in second graders both digit identification and digit ordering explained unique variance in digit comparison performance. However, when entering these unique predictors of digit comparison into a mediation model with digit comparison as predictor and arithmetic as outcome, we observed that whereas in second graders digit ordering was a full mediator, in first graders this was not the case. For them, the reverse was true and digit comparison fully mediated the relation between digit ordering and arithmetic. These results suggest that between first and second grade, there is a shift in the predictive value for arithmetic from cardinal processing and procedural knowledge to ordinal processing and retrieving declarative knowledge from memory; a process which is possibly due to a change in arithmetic strategies at that age. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/dDB0IGi2Hf8     

Does inversion affect boundary extension for briefly-presented views?

Inverting scenes interferes with visual perception and memory on many tasks. Might scene inversion eliminate boundary extension (BE) for briefly-presented photographs? In Experiment 1, an upright or inverted photograph (133, 258, or 383?ms) was followed by a 258 ms masked interval and a test photograph showing the identical view. Test photographs were rated as “same”, “closer”, or “farther away” (5-point scale). BE was just as great for inverted as upright views at the 133 and 383 ms durations, but surprisingly was greater for inverted views at the 258 ms duration. In Experiment 2, 258-ms views yielded greater BE when the study photographs were always tested in the opposite orientation, indicating that the difference in BE was related to encoding. Results suggest that scene construction beyond the view boundaries occurs rapidly and is not impeded by scene inversion, but that changes in the relative quality of visual details available for upright and inverted views may sometimes yield increased BE for inverted scenes.     

Inattention as a key predictor of tobacco use in adolescence

The authors examined the prediction from inattention to tobacco use among 2 cohorts (ages 7 and 13) of a community sample followed to young adulthood. Changes in self-reported tobacco use were tested with marginal transitional regression models, using parent and teacher ratings of inattention, hyperactivity-impulsivity, and other psychopathology, along with other factors, as predictors. Inattention, but not hyperactivity-impulsivity, significantly predicted adolescent tobacco use and young adult daily tobacco use. Peer substance use, parental substance use, and conduct disorder also predicted increases in tobacco use. African American ethnicity was strongly protective against later tobacco use.     

Neurogenesis and the spacing effect: learning over time enhances memory and the survival of new neurons

Information that is spaced over time is better remembered than the same amount of information massed together. This phenomenon, known as the spacing effect, was explored with respect to its effect on learning and neurogenesis in the adult dentate gyrus of the hippocampal formation. Because the cells are generated over time and because learning enhances their survival, we hypothesized that training with spaced trials would rescue more new neurons from death than the same number of massed trials. In the first experiment, animals trained with spaced trials in the Morris water maze outperformed animals trained with massed trials, but there was not a direct effect of trial spacing on cell survival. Rather, animals that learned well retained more cells than animals that did not learn or learned poorly. Moreover, performance during acquisition correlated with the number of cells remaining in the dentate gyrus after training. In the second experiment, the time between blocks of trials was increased. Consequently, animals trained with spaced trials performed as well as those trained with massed, but remembered the location better two weeks later. The strength of that memory correlated with the number of new cells remaining in the hippocampus. Together, these data indicate that learning, and not mere exposure to training, enhances the survival of cells that are generated 1 wk before training. They also indicate that learning over an extended period of time induces a more persistent memory, which then relates to the number of cells that reside in the hippocampus.     

Association Learning with Own‐ and Other‐race Faces in three‐ and six‐month old infants – A longitudinal study

This longitudinal study assessed 133 Caucasian German infants at 3 and 6 months of age to investigate the influence of own‐race and other‐race faces as visual stimuli on association learning in the visual expectation paradigm (VExP). The study is related to the findings on the other‐race‐effect (ORE) which is said to emerge at 6 months of age. Caucasian faces were used as stimuli of a familiar ethnic category, whereas African faces were used as stimuli of an unfamiliar ethnic category. There was no significant difference between the two stimulus classes in infants' reaction time (RT) to stimulus shifts at 3 months. At 6 months of age, infants' RT decreased significantly in the Caucasian faces condition but not in the African faces condition. These results indicate that the processing of other‐race versus own‐race faces by the age of 6 months, which is also the relevant age for the onset of the ORE, has an important influence on the performance on the VExP. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Anticipatory spatial representation of natural scenes: Momentum without movement?

Does mental representation of the immediate past contain anticipatory projections of the future? In cases of representational momentum (RM), the last remembered location of a moving object is displaced farther along its path of motion. In boundary extension (BE), the remembered view of a scene expands to include a region just outside the boundaries of the original view. Both are "errors", yet they make remarkably good predictions about the real world. The factors affecting these phenomena, the boundary conditions for their occurrence, and their generality to non-visual senses (audition or haptics) are reviewed to determine if RM and BE are fundamentally related. In contrast to Hubbard's (1995b) suggestion that they may share a common underlying mechanism, it is proposed instead that RM and BE are related in a more general sense and may be different instantiations of the dynamic nature of mental representation.     

Constraints on spatial extrapolation in the mental representation of scenes: View-boundaries vs. object-boundaries

Viewers remember seeing information from outside the boundaries of a scene (boundary extension; BE). To determine if view-boundaries have a special status in scene perception, we sought to determine if object-boundaries would yield the same effect. In Experiment 1 eight “bird's-eye view” photographs containing single object clusters (a smaller object on top of a larger one) were presented. After the presentation, participants reconstructed four scenes by selecting among five different-sized cutouts of each object. BE occurred between the view-boundaries and the object cluster, but not between the smaller object and the larger object's boundaries. There was no consistent effect of the larger object's boundaries. Experiment 2 replicated these results using a drawing task. BE does not occur whenever a border surrounds an object, it occurs when the border signifies the edge of the view. We propose the BE reflects anticipatory representation of scene structure that supports scene comprehension and view integration.     

Superiority and Social Interest by Alfred Adler

This paper examines the advantages of a particular way of supervising psychotherapy, namely, in a group setting with a special focus on the supervisee's countertransference experience. Group supervision is conceptualized as much more than presenting a case and getting feedback. Rather, the group is used in all its interactive complexity as it resonates in a myriad of ways to aspects of the case being presented. Furthermore, because of the complexity of conscious and unconscious interactions and reverberations during this process, it is often helpful to have a focus in the supervision. One helpful possibility is to center on the supervisee's countertransference experience and use the group to reflect, amplify, and process that experience. This can be a highly valuable way of helping the therapists increase their understanding of the case and enhance the quality of therapeutic interventions.     

Measuring Spiritual Needs in a Secular Society: Validation and Clinimetric Properties of the Danish 20-Item Spiritual Needs Questionnaire

Journal of Religion and Health - In secular cultures, such as Denmark, tools to measure spiritual needs are warranted to guide existential and spiritual care. We examined the clinimetric properties...