Acquisition and automatization of a complex task: an examination of three-ball cascade juggling

The learning patterns of 3-ball cascade juggling from acquisition until automaticity were examined in 10 participants. On the basis of outcome measures derived from 26 practice sessions and 4 periodic probe sessions, the authors differentiated participants into 3 distinct learning types: a proficient group, an emerging group, and a single late learner. The proficient group was distinguished by how rapidly they learned and automatized performance. Most interesting, an inverse response cost (i.e., performance boost) on the secondary task was found in the majority of proficient group members during the dual-task condition. The present results are discussed in relation to the P. L. Ackerman model (1987, 1988) of complex skill acquisition as is the significance of the inverse response cost finding.     

Motor and functional skills of children with developmental coordination disorder: a pilot investigation of measurement issues

This paper reports on the motor and functional outcomes of 20 children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) aged 4-8 years consecutively referred to a pediatric physiotherapy service. Children with a Movement ABC (M-ABC) score less than the 15th percentile, and with no concurrent medical, sensory, physical, intellectual or neurological impairments, were recruited. The Motor Assessment Outcomes Model (MAOM) [Coster and Haley, Infants and Young Children 4 (1992) 11] provided the theoretical base for measurement selection, and preliminary findings at the activities and participation levels of the model are reported in this article. Children with DCD performed at the lower end of the normal range on the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales (fine motor total score) (M=85.65, SD=12.23). Performance on the Visual Motor Integration Test (VMI) standard scores was within the average range (M=96.15, SD=10.69). Videotaped observations of the children's writing and cutting indicated that 29% were left-handed and that a large proportion of all children (31%) utilized unusual pencil grasp patterns and immature prehension of scissors. Measurement at the participation level involved use of the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance (PCSA) and Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI). Overall, these young children rated themselves towards the more competent and accepted end of the PCSA over the dimensions of physical and cognitive competence and peer and maternal acceptance. The PEDI revealed generally average performance on social (M=49.98, SD=16.62) and mobility function (M=54.71, SD=3.99), however, self-care function was below the average range for age (M=38.01, SD=12.19). The utility of the MAOM as a framework for comprehensive measurement of functional and motor outcomes of DCD in young children is discussed.     

Self-reported parental abuse relates to autobiographical memory style in patients with eating disorders

Previous research has shown a relationship between levels of self-reported childhood abuse and overgeneral memory style. This relationship was further clarified in patients with an eating disorder (ED). Patients and healthy controls completed a task in which they had to generate specific autobiographical memories to emotional cue words. The results showed that first, the ED group, relative to the controls, produced more first memories that were "overgeneral" and fewer first memories that were specific. Second, in the ED group, the level of self-reported parental abuse was positively correlated with the tendency to produce overgeneral memories to negative cues. This effect remained significant even after levels of depressed mood were controlled for.     

When cues collide: use of stress and statistical cues to word boundaries by 7- to 9-month-old infants

Prior research suggests that stress cues are particularly important for English-hearing infants' detection of word boundaries. It is unclear, though, how infants learn to attend to stress as a cue to word segmentation. This series of experiments was designed to explore infants' attention to conflicting cues at different ages. Experiment 1 replicated previous findings: When stress and statistical cues indicated different word boundaries, 9-month-old infants used syllable stress as a cue to segmentation while ignoring statistical cues. However, in Experiment 2, 7-month-old infants attended more to statistical cues than to stress cues. These results raise the possibility that infants use their statistical learning abilities to locate words in speech and use those words to discover the regular pattern of stress cues in English. Infants at different ages may deploy different segmentation strategies as a function of their current linguistic experience.     

Feeling safe at work: Development and validation of the Psychological Safety Inventory

Psychological safety, defined as perceptions that an individual within a team is supported and feels safe to take interpersonal risks, voice opinions, and share ideas, is vital for organizational effectiveness. However, there is no consensus on how workplace psychological safety should be measured. We developed the Psychological Safety Inventory (PSI) in response to organizational needs to accurately assess psychological safety. A 70-item version of the PSI was administered to 497 employees from Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Based on factor analytic findings, we reduced the preliminary PSI to a 30-item, five-factor scale. The PSI showed high reliability and correlated as anticipated with convergent measures. Overall, the PSI is a valid and reliable measure of workplace psychological safety.     

Physically Transcendent Awareness: A Comparison of the Phenomenology of Consciousness Before Birth and After Death

Veridical evidence of a physically transcendent source of consciousness comes from both extremes of the life span when central nervous system functioning is compromised, suggesting that some form of personhood can exist independently of known cellular processes associated with the body. In pre- and perinatal accounts, veridical memories have surfaced of events in the first two trimesters, long before the central nervous system is fully functional, continuing through the third trimester, when measurable brain activity begins, until just after birth. In the empirically verifiable out-of-body phase of near-death experience (NDE) accounts, a source of consciousness has been shown to record events when measurable metabolic processes, including brain activity, have ceased altogether. These two states have similar phenomenologies, suggesting that a physically transcendent source representing individual consciousness predates physical life at the moment of conception and survives it after death, and that its maturity and functioning do not directly reflect the level of central nervous system functioning in the body.     

Can Young Children Distinguish Abstract Expressionist Art From Superficially Similar Works by Preschoolers and Animals?

While it is sometimes claimed that abstract art requires little skill and is indistinguishable from the scribbles of young children, recent research has shown that even adults with no training in art can distinguish works by abstract expressionists from superficially similar works by children and even elephants, monkeys, and apes (Hawley-Dolan & Winner, 2011). We presented 4-7- and 8-10-year-olds with 18 paired images, one in each pair by an abstract expressionist and the other by a child or animal, and asked which they preferred and which was better. Each participant viewed the first third of the pairs unlabeled and the rest either with correct or reversed labels (artist, and child, monkey, or elephant). Three unexpected findings emerged. First, even 4-7-year-olds can distinguish works by artists from superficially similar works by children and animals when there are no labels to guide them. Second, children’s aesthetic responses are not aligned with those of adults: children often chose works labeled child or animal whether or not this label was correct, and sometimes justified their choices by crediting the effort the child or animal had made (e.g., “it’s really good for an elephant”). Finally, children, like adults, were more likely to select artist images when making quality judgments than when indicating preferences, showing that they make a distinction between intuitive preference responses and more cognitive quality judgment responses. That even preschoolers can discriminate between works by abstract expressionists and works by children and animals underscores what is wrong with the oft-heard statement, “My kid could have done that.”     

Self‐esteem Is Mostly Stable Across Young Adulthood: Evidence from Latent STARTS Models

How stable is self‐esteem? This long‐standing debate has led to different conclusions across different areas of psychology. Longitudinal data and up‐to‐date statistical models have recently indicated that self‐esteem has stable and autoregressive trait‐like components and state‐like components. We applied latent STARTS models with the goal of replicating previous findings in a longitudinal sample of young adults (N = 4,532; M_age = 19.60, SD = 0.85; 55% female). In addition, we applied multigroup models to extend previous findings on different patterns of stability for men versus women and for people with high versus low levels of depressive symptoms. We found evidence for the general pattern of a major proportion of stable and autoregressive trait variance and a smaller yet substantial amount of state variance in self‐esteem across 10 years. Furthermore, multigroup models suggested substantial differences in the variance components: Females showed more state variability than males. Individuals with higher levels of depressive symptoms showed more state and less autoregressive trait variance in self‐esteem. Results are discussed with respect to the ongoing trait–state debate and possible implications of the group differences that we found in the stability of self‐esteem.     

Flexible Manualized Treatment for Pediatric Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder: A Case Study

The following case study describes the treatment of an 8 year-old girl with early-onset obsessive compulsive disorder using a manualized cognitive-behavioral therapy with exposure and response prevention (CBT/EPR) protocol, implemented using a “flexibility within fidelity” approach. The case study focuses on how the treatment manual was successfully implemented in a flexible manner to address unique aspects of the case. These unique factors included the child’s extreme shyness at the beginning of treatment (with implications for rapport building), the primarily obsessional presentation of this child’s symptoms, the child’s avoidance of discussing the content of her obsessive thoughts, and secondary depressive symptoms (excessive guilt, frequent crying, and sadness) that contributed to the child’s impairment and distress. Assessment of progress indicated improvement in symptoms after four sessions of cognitive skill building and again in the last five sessions after implementing increased exposure to obsessive thoughts using narrative techniques. The implications for clinicians and student therapists, including the importance of rapport building, developmentally tailoring treatment, and flexibly implementing treatment to address the unique characteristics of the individual patient are discussed.     

Wie können wir in das psychodynamische Erstinterview einführen?

We reflect on which traditional texts are suitable for the introduction into psychodynamic thinking for bachelor students in the faculty of psychology. We come to the conclusion that the use of works known and individually valued by the students from the world and/or trivial literature are suitable to allow students to carry out fictive preliminary conversations with their heroes from novels or films.