What the eyes already ‘know’: using eye movement measurement to tap into children's implicit numerical magnitude representations

To date, a number of studies have demonstrated the existence of mismatches between children's implicit and explicit knowledge at certain points in development that become manifest by their gestures and gaze orientation in different problem solving contexts. Stimulated by this research, we used eye movement measurement to investigate the development of basic knowledge about numerical magnitude in primary school children. Sixty‐six children from grades one to three (i.e. 6–9 years) were presented with two parallel versions of a number line estimation task of which one was restricted to behavioural measures, whereas the other included the recording of eye movement data. The results of the eye movement experiment indicate a quantitative increase as well as a qualitative change in children's implicit knowledge about numerical magnitudes in this age group that precedes the overt, that is, behavioural, demonstration of explicit numerical knowledge. The finding that children's eye movements reveal substantially more about the presence of implicit precursors of later explicit knowledge in the numerical domain than classical approaches suggests further exploration of eye movement measurement as a potential early assessment tool of individual achievement levels in numerical processing. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Beyond Reduction and Pluralism: Toward an Epistemology of Explanatory Integration in Biology

The paper works towards an account of explanatory integration in biology, using as a case study explanations of the evolutionary origin of novelties—a problem requiring the integration of several biological fields and approaches. In contrast to the idea that fields studying lower level phenomena are always more fundamental in explanations, I argue that the particular combination of disciplines and theoretical approaches needed to address a complex biological problem and which among them is explanatorily more fundamental varies with the problem pursued. Solving a complex problem need not require theoretical unification or the stable synthesis of different biological fields, as items of knowledge from traditional disciplines can be related solely for the purposes of a specific problem. Apart from the development of genuine interfield theories, successful integration can be effected by smaller epistemic units (concepts, methods, explanations) being linked. Unification or integration is not an aim in itself, but needed for the aim of solving a particular scientific problem, where the problem’s nature determines the kind of intellectual integration required.     

Validation of the psychopathic personality inventory on a female inmate sample

This investigation evaluated the construct validity of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI; Lilienfeld & Andrews, 1996), a self-report measure designed to assess psychopathy. One hundred and two incarcerated females were administered the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT), an oral alcohol and drug screening measure, a demographic interview, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2), the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), and the PPI. There were significant correlations among the PPI, MMPI-2 scales, and the PCL-R. In addition, the correlations between the PPI and the separate PCL-R factors were not significantly different from each other, indicating that the PPI is assessing both facets of the psychopathy construct to some extent. A high correlation between the PPI and the DSM-IV criteria, which assesses adult antisocial behaviors, revealed adequate concurrent validity. Nonsignificant or negligible correlations between the PPI and the MMPI-2 scales provided some support for discriminant validity. The results are discussed with respect to the clinical and forensic utility of the PPI, the limitations of the study, and the need for further research.     

Relativism,rationality and repression

This paper was presented at the Pacific Division Meeting of the APA on 28 March 1987.     

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy improves emotional reactivity to social stress: results from a randomized controlled trial

The high likelihood of recurrence in depression is linked to a progressive increase in emotional reactivity to stress (stress sensitization). Mindfulness-based therapies teach mindfulness skills designed to decrease emotional reactivity in the face of negative affect-producing stressors. The primary aim of the current study was to assess whether Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is efficacious in reducing emotional reactivity to social evaluative threat in a clinical sample with recurrent depression. A secondary aim was to assess whether improvement in emotional reactivity mediates improvements in depressive symptoms. Fifty-two individuals with partially remitted depression were randomized into an 8-week MBCT course or a waitlist control condition. All participants underwent the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) before and after the 8-week trial period. Emotional reactivity to stress was assessed with the Spielberger State Anxiety Inventory at several time points before, during, and after the stressor. MBCT was associated with decreased emotional reactivity to social stress, specifically during the recovery (post-stressor) phase of the TSST. Waitlist controls showed an increase in anticipatory (pre-stressor) anxiety that was absent in the MBCT group. Improvements in emotional reactivity partially mediated improvements in depressive symptoms. Limitations include small sample size, lack of objective or treatment adherence measures, and non-generalizability to more severely depressed populations. Given that emotional reactivity to stress is an important psychopathological process underlying the chronic and recurrent nature of depression, these findings suggest that mindfulness skills are important in adaptive emotion regulation when coping with stress.     

Communicating BRCA1/2 genetic test results within the family: a qualitative analysis

Genetic testing for BRCA1/2 mutations associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer reveals significant risk information about one's chances of developing cancer. It is important to study communication processes in families where members are undergoing genetic testing because the information received is crucial not just to the individual concerned but also to other members of the biological family. This study investigates family communication of BRCA1/2 test results from both the informants' and recipients' perspectives. A total of 10 female patients and 22 of their relatives were interviewed. Patients' and their relatives described feelings of responsibility for sharing genetic information within the family to enable others to reduce their risks of developing cancer. However, there were limits to an individuals' responsibility once key family members had been informed, who then had to take responsibility for continuing dissemination of information. Whilst there was an implicit responsibility to inform the family of a mutation, information was edited or withheld in the best interest of relatives, dependent upon their perceived emotional readiness, resilience and current life stage and circumstances. The pre-existing family culture and the impact previous cancer diagnoses had upon the family also influenced the process of communication. Findings are discussed in relation to extant literature and implications for clinical practice are considered.     

The education of attention as explanation of variability of practice effects: learning the final approach phase in a flight simulator

The present study reports two experiments in which a total of 20 participants without prior flight experience practiced the final approach phase in a fixed-base simulator. All participants received self-controlled concurrent feedback during 180 practice trials. Experiment 1 shows that participants learn more quickly under variable practice conditions than under constant practice conditions. This finding is attributed to the education of attention to the more useful informational variables: Variability of practice reduces the usefulness of initially used informational variables, which leads to a quicker change in variable use, and hence to a larger improvement in performance. In the practice phase of Experiment 2 variability was selectively applied to some experimental factors but not to others. Participants tended to converge toward the variables that were useful in the specific conditions that they encountered during practice. This indicates that an explanation for variability of practice effects in terms of the education of attention is a useful alternative to traditional explanations based on the notion of the generalized motor program and to explanations based on the notions of noise and local minima.     

Human performance on negative slope schedules of points exchangeable for money: a failure of molar maximization

Panel pressing was generated and maintained in 5 adult humans by schedules of points exchangeable for money. Following exposure to a variable-interval 30-s schedule and to a linear variable-interval 30-s schedule (which permitted points to accumulate in an unseen "store" in the absence of responding), subjects were exposed to a series of conditions with a point-subtraction contingency arranged conjointly with the linear variable-interval schedule. Specifically, points were added to the store according to the linear-variable interval 30-s schedule and were subtracted from the store according to a ratio schedule. Ratio value varied across conditions and was determined individually for each subject such that the subtraction contingency would result in an approximately 50% reduction in the rate of point delivery. Conditions that included the subtraction contingency were termed negative slope schedules because the feedback functions were negatively sloped across all response rates greater than the inverse of the variable-interval schedule, in this case, two per minute. Overall response rates varied inversely with the subtraction ratio, indicating sensitivity to the negative slope conditions, but were in excess of that required by accounts based on strict maximization of overall reinforcement rate. Performance was also not well described by a matching-based account. Detailed analyses of response patterning revealed a consistent two-state pattern in which bursts of high-rate responding alternated with periods of prolonged pausing, perhaps reflecting the joint influence of local and overall reinforcement rates.     

The sectored foraging field: a novel design to quantify spatial strategies, learning, memory, and emotion

Although Norway rats are naturally gregarious, males typically live alone at some point during adulthood. Different social ecologies often require different learning strategies and also modulate response to stressors and gonadal development. To measure effects of the social environment on the interaction between cognition and emotion during aging, we focused on a natural learning context and devised the sectored foraging field, a progressively difficult spatial navigation task. Here, we describe how this apparatus and protocol permits multiple learning strategies in a minimally stressful environment, enabling finely graded analyses of cognition and emotionality. Male Sprague-Dawley rats living alone throughout adulthood adopted a sex-typic discernible spatial strategy. In contrast, males housed in group contexts utilized an algorithmic kinesthetic strategy, repeating the same motor action until they found food. Removal of food and distal, but not local cues, elicited anxious alertness, particularly in group-housed males. Cognitive performance of group-housed rats subsequent to food and cue removal was significantly impaired, yet enhanced in isolates.     

Apraxia differs in corticobasal degeneration and left-parietal stroke: A case study.

Corticobasal degeneration (CBD) is a progressive disorder characterized by both cortical and basal ganglia dysfunction such as asymmetrical apraxia, and akinetic rigidity, involuntary movements, and cortical sensory loss. Although apraxia is a key finding for the differential diagnosis of CBD, it has not been determined whether the features of apraxia seen in subjects with CBD are similar to those features exhibited by subjects with left-hemisphere damage from stroke. Therefore, for both clinical purposes and in order to better understand the brain mechanisms that lead to apraxia in CBD, we studied praxis in a patient with CBD and compared him to patients who are apraxic from left-parietal strokes. We used three-dimensional movement analyses to compare the features of apraxic movement. This subject with CBD was a dentist whose initial complaint had been that he "forgot" how to use his tools in the mouths of his patients. Analyses were performed on the trajectories made when using a knife to actually slice bread, and when repetitively gesturing slicing made to verbal command. Movements of the left hand, wrist, elbow, and shoulder were digitized in 3-D space. Although the CBD subject was clearly apraxic, the features of his apraxia differed markedly from those of the subjects with lesions in the left parietal lobe. For movements to command, the CBD subject showed joint coordination deficits, but his wrist trajectories were produced in the appropriate spatial plane, were correctly restricted to a single plane, and, like control subjects, were linear in path shape. However, when he was actually manipulating the tool and object, all of these aspects of his trajectories became impaired. In contrast, the deficits of the apraxic subjects with left-parietal damage were most pronounced to verbal command with their movements improving slightly although remaining impaired during actual tool and object manipulation. Unlike patients with parietal strokes, patients with CBD have degeneration in several systems and perhaps deficits in these other areas may account for the differences in praxic behavior.