Changing patterns of neuropsychological functioning in children living at high altitude above and below 4000 m: a report from the Bolivian Children Living at Altitude (BoCLA) study

The brain is highly sensitive to environmental hypoxia. Little is known, however, about the neuropsychological effects of high altitude residence in the developing brain. We recently described only minor changes in processing speed in native Bolivian children and adolescents living at approximately 3700 m. However, evidence for loss of cerebral autoregulation above this altitude (4000 m) suggests a potential threshold of hypoxia severity over which neuropsychological functioning may be compromised. We conducted physiological and neuropsychological assessments in 62 Bolivian children and adolescents living at La Paz (～3700 m) and El Alto (～4100 m) in order to address this issue. Groups were equivalent in terms of age, gender, social class, schooling, parental education and genetic admixture. Apart from percentage of hemoglobin saturated with oxygen in arterial blood (%SpO(2)), participants did not differ in their basal cardiac and cerebrovascular performance as explored by heart rate, mean arterial pressure, end-tidal carbon dioxide, and cerebral blood flow velocity at the basilar, anterior, middle and posterior cerebral arteries. A comprehensive neuropsychological assessment was administered, including tests of executive functions, attention, memory and psychomotor performance. Participants living at extreme altitude showed lower levels of performance in all executive tests (Cohen effect size = -0.91), whereas all other domains remained unaffected by altitude of residence. These results are compatible with earlier physiological evidence of a transitional zone for cerebral autoregulation at an altitude of 4000 m. We now show that above this threshold, the developing brain is apparently increasingly vulnerable to neuropsychological deficit.     

A Behavior Analytically Modified Implicit Association Test for Measuring Sexual Categorization of Children

The Psychological Record - The current study assessed the sexual categorization of children among a random sample of adults from the general population. Twenty-seven males and 27 females (N = 54)...     

"Like an uncle but more, but less than a father"-Irish children's relationships with nonresident fathers

Although previous research has highlighted the importance of the quality of nonresident father-child relationships for children's well-being, little is known about children's perspectives on what underpins feelings of closeness to their nonresident fathers. This qualitative study explored the processes that facilitate or constrain children's feelings of closeness to their nonresident fathers. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 27 children (ages 8 to 17) who had grown up in a single-mother household, where fathers were nonresident from early in the child's life. Findings revealed the fragility of children's ties with their nonresident fathers and the risk that nonresidence from the outset placed upon these relationships. Children's experiences of closeness to fathers were related to perceptions of their fathers' commitment to their relationship and his obligation to his parenting role, and to a sense of connection to and familiarity with their fathers. It was a challenge for children to feel connected to their fathers when contact arrangements were detached from caregiving activities and precluded immersion in each other's daily lives. Lack of effort on the part of fathers to maintain contact or failure to keep arrangements constrained children's feelings of closeness and gave rise to feelings of disappointment and anger. Children demonstrated their capacity to act as agents within their families as they made sense of these relationships for themselves and accepted or rejected their father as a person who could play a meaningful role in their lives. The implications of the findings for promoting positive relationships with nonresident fathers are discussed.     

Collaborative learning: the effects of trust and open and closed dynamics on consensus and efficacy

The current study compared the effects of open versus closed group dynamics on perceived consensus, objective consensus, and perceived efficacy of collaborative learning in participants high and low in dispositional trust in the context of an Interactive Management (IM) session. Interactive management is a computer-mediated collaborative tool designed to enhance group problem-solving by facilitating cooperative inquiry and consensus. In the current study, two groups of 15 undergraduate psychology students (N = 30) came together to structure the interdependencies between positive and negative aspects of social media. After screening for trust scores, participants high and low on dispositional trust were randomly assigned to either an open or closed voting condition. The closed voting group were not permitted to discuss the problem relations, but consensus votes were recorded by the group design facilitator. The open group were allowed to discuss the relations before voting. Results indicated that those in the open-voting group, and those in the high dispositional trust group, scored significantly higher on perceived consensus and perceived efficacy of the tool itself. Results are discussed in light of theory and research on collaborative learning.     

Beliefs in being unlucky and deficits in executive functioning

The current paper proposes the Dysexecutive Luck hypothesis; that beliefs in being unlucky are associated with deficits in executive functioning. Four studies suggest initial support for the Dysexecutive Luck hypothesis via four aspects of executive functioning. Study 1 established that self-reports of dysexecutive symptoms predicted unique variance in beliefs in being unlucky after controlling for a number of other variables previously reported to be related to beliefs around luck. Studies 2 to 4 demonstrated support for the Dysexecutive Luck hypothesis via assessment of executive functioning via: (1) two fundamental executive functions (shifting and inhibition), (2) emotional processes related to executive functioning as described by the Somatic Marker hypothesis, and (3) higher executive functions as accessed via divergent thinking. The findings suggest that individuals’ beliefs in being unlucky are accompanied by a range of deficits in executive functioning.     

Effects of retrieval practice and presentation modality on verbal learning: testing the limits of the testing effect

ABSTRACT

The testing effect refers to improved memory after retrieval practice and has been researched primarily with visual stimuli. In two experiments, we investigated whether the testing effect can be replicated when the to-be-learned information is presented auditorily, or visually?+?auditorily. Participants learned Swahili-English word pairs in one of three presentation modalities – visual, auditory, or visual?+?auditory. This was manipulated between-participants in Experiment 1 and within-participants in Experiment2. All participants studied the word pairs during three study trials. Half of participants practiced recalling the English translations in response to the Swahili cue word twice before the final test whereas the other half simply studied the word pairs twice more. Results indicated an improvement in final test performance in the repeated test condition, but only in the visual presentation modality (Experiments 1 and 2) and in the visual?+?auditory presentation modality (Experiment 2). This suggests that the benefits of practiced retrieval may be limited to information presented in a visual modality.     

Communicative action,the lifeworlds of learning and the dialogue that we aren't 1

Abstract

The first section of the paper reviews the kind of action which unfolds in Plato's Republic, and argues that, from Book II onwards, its character shifts from a genuine dialogue (communicative action) to a more manipulative kind of intercourse (strategic action). While the former kind of action was characteristic of the educational activities of the historical Socrates, the case is made that this kind of action became largely eclipsed in Western education and superseded by the strategic concerns to which Platonist conceptions of learning gave prominence. The Platonist legacy, it is pointed out, had a decisive impact on Western conceptions of learning, even beyond the Enlightenment. These conceptions were largely custodial rather than emancipatory in character. An argument is presented in thirteen steps in the second section of the paper, to establish the case that the kind of action which properly describes the experience of teaching and learning is that of a cultural courtship. A distinction is drawn between honourable and dishonourable forms of courtship, the honourable being a candidate for defence in universalist terms. The practical import of the distinction is considered. Under the title ‘The Dialogue that we Aren't’, the third section reviews postmodern objections ‐ particularly those of Lyotard ‐ to the kind of argument made in the thirteen steps, and the concluding section considers Habermas’ later theories in relation to my own ‘universalist’ argument.     

Negative cognitive styles, dysfunctional attitudes, and the remitted depression paradigm: a search for the elusive cognitive vulnerability to depression factor among remitted depressives

Results from studies using a behavioral high-risk design and approximations to it generally have corroborated the cognitive vulnerability hypothesis of depression, whereas results from remitted depression studies typically have not. Suspecting that design features of previously conducted remitted designs likely precluded them from detecting maladaptive cognitive patterns, the authors conducted a study featuring the remitted design that has been successful in studies of a biological vulnerability for depression. Participants' current depressive symptoms, negative cognitive styles (hopelessness theory), dysfunctional attitudes (Beck's theory), and lifetime prevalence of clinically significant depression were assessed. Participants who had remitted from an episode of clinically significant depression had more negative cognitive styles, but not greater levels of dysfunctional attitudes, than did never depressed individuals.