Rich interpretation vs. deflationary accounts in cognitive development: the case of means-end skills in 7-month-old infants

Seven-month-old infants appear to learn means-end skills, such as pushing a button to retrieve a distant toy (Psychological Review 104 (1997) 686). The present studies tested whether such apparent means-end behaviors are genuine, or simply the repetition of trained behaviors under conditions of greatest arousal, as suggested by a dynamic systems reinterpretation. When infants were trained to repeat behaviors that did not serve as means to retrieving toys (pushing a button to light a set of distant lights), their button-pushing differed significantly from infants for whom button-pushing served as a means for retrieving toys. Further, infants demonstrated means-end skills with behaviors that they had not been trained to repeat. Implications for early means-end abilities and for debates surrounding the interpretation of infant behavior are discussed.     

Do boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder have positive illusory self-concepts?

One hundred ninety-five boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were compared with 73 comparison boys (M = 9.83 years, SD = 1.30) on self-perceptions relative to a teacher-rated criterion. Emphasis was placed on ADHD subgroup comparisons according to level of aggression, academic achievement, and depression compared with control boys. Consistent with the authors' prediction, ADHD boys overestimated relative to teacher report, more than did controls, in the scholastic competence, social acceptance, and behavioral conduct domains. Examination of discrepancy scores (child rating - teacher rating) by comorbidity subgroups suggested that aggressive and low-achieving ADHD boys tended to overestimate their competence the most in the domains in which they were the most impaired. Results are discussed in terms of prior literature on "positive illusions" in ADHD children.     

A comparison of multiple reinforcer assessments to identify the function of maladaptive behavior

Functional analysis results indicated that maladaptive behaviors displayed by a 25-year-old man with profound mental retardation were maintained by attention from caregivers and possibly, to a lesser degree, by access to tangible items. A concurrent-schedules procedure was then used to study the relative reinforcing value for maladaptive behavior of attention versus tangible items. Results of the concurrent-schedules assessment and subsequent functional communication training indicated that preference for attention versus access to a tangible object varied.     

Why do non-color words interfere with color naming?

In the non-color-word Stroop task, university students' response latencies were longer for low-frequency than for higher frequency target words. Visual identity primes facilitated color naming in groups reading the prime silently or processing it semantically (Experiment 1) but did not when participants generated a rhyme of the prime (Experiment 3). With auditory identity primes, generating an associate or a rhyme of the prime produced interference (Experiments 2 and 3). Color-naming latencies were longer for nonwords than for words (Experiment 4). There was a small long-term repetition benefit in color naming for low-frequency words that had been presented in the lexical decision task (Experiment 5). Facilitation of word recognition speeds color naming except when phonological activation of the base word increases response competition.     

The accuracy of abstracts in psychology journals

This article provides an empirically supported reminder of the importance of accuracy in scientific communication. The authors identify common types of inaccuracies in research abstracts and offer suggestions to improve abstract-article agreement. Abstracts accompanying 13% of a random sample of 400 research articles published in 8 American Psychological Association journals during 1997 and 1998 contained data or claims inconsistent with or missing from the body of the article. Error rates ranged from 8% to 18%, although between-journal differences were not significant. Many errors (63%) were unlikely to cause substantive misinterpretations. Unfortunately, 37% of errors found could be seriously misleading with respect to the data or claims presented in the associated article. Although deficient abstracts may be less common in psychology journals than in major medical journals (R. M. Pitkin, M. A. Branagan, & L. F. Burmeister, 1999), there is still cause for concern and need for improvement.     

The effects of praise on children's intrinsic motivation: a review and synthesis

The authors argue against a purely behavioral definition of praise as verbal reinforcement in favor of the view that praise may serve to undermine, enhance, or have no effect on children's intrinsic motivation, depending on a set of conceptual variables. Provided that praise is perceived as sincere, it is particularly beneficial to motivation when it encourages performance attributions to controllable causes, promotes autonomy, enhances competence without an overreliance on social comparisons, and conveys attainable standards and expectations. The motivational consequences of praise also can be moderated by characteristics of the recipient, such as age, gender, and culture. Methodological considerations, such as including appropriate control groups and measuring postfailure outcomes, are stressed, and directions for future research are highlighted.     

Legal and ethical issues in neuroimaging research: human subjects protection,medical privacy,and the public communication of research results

Humans subjects research entails significant legal and ethical obligations. Neuroimaging researchers must be familiar with the requirements of human subjects protection, including evolving standards for the protection of privacy and the disclosure of risk in "non-therapeutic" research. Techniques for creating veridical surface renderings from volumetric anatomical imaging data raise new privacy concerns, particularly under the federal medical privacy regulation. Additionally, neuroimaging researchers must consider their obligation to communicate research results responsibly. The emerging field of neuroethics should strive to raise awareness of these issues and to involve neuroimaging researchers in the legal, ethical, and policy debates that currently surround human subjects research.     

A Sustainable Medicine: Lessons from the Old Order Amish

Daniel Callahan's concept of a sustainable medicine is examined by looking at experiences Old Order Amish communities have had with organ and bone marrow transplantation. The Amish possess many characteristics that might make them embrace limits on the use of expensive, life-prolonging medical treatments: they believe that the good of the individual should be subordinated to the good of the community, they are suspicious of progress as a goal, and they are more comfortable with dying than many other modern Americans. However, the Amish actively pursue these treatments without the benefit of private or government insurance. Although the Amish affective response to sick individuals is worthy of emulating, their commitment to help individuals obtain and pay for transplants has had negative financial and cultural effects on some Amish communities. The Amish experience can thus teach us lessons about how to care for one another when we are sick and dying, but it can also teach us how difficult but important it is to limit some forms of expensive care for the good of our communities.     

Windowed cross-correlation and peak picking for the analysis of variability in the association between behavioral time series

Cross-correlation and most other longitudinal analyses assume that the association between 2 variables is stationary. Thus, a sample of occasions of measurement is expected to be representative of the association between variables regardless of the time of onset or number of occasions in the sample. The authors propose a method to analyze the association between 2 variables when the assumption of stationarity may not be warranted. The method results in estimates of both the strength of peak association and the time lag when the peak association occurred for a range of starting values of elapsed time from the beginning of an experiment.     

The generalization of deferred imitation in enculturated chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Deferred imitation of object-related actions and generalization of imitation to similar but not identical tasks was assessed in three human-reared (enculturated) chimpanzees, ranging in age from 5 to 9 years. Each ape displayed high levels of deferred imitation and only slightly lower levels of generalization of imitation. The youngest two chimpanzees were more apt to generalize the model's actions when they had displayed portions of the target behaviors at baseline, consistent with the idea that learning is more likely to occur when working within the "zone of proximal development." We argue that generalization of imitation is the best evidence to date of imitative learning in chimpanzees. Electronic Publication