Use of experimenter-given cues in visual co-orienting and in an object-choice task by a new world monkey species, cotton top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus)

Two methods assessed the use of experimenter-given directional cues by a New World monkey species, cotton top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus). Experiment 1 used cues to elicit visual co-orienting toward distal objects. Experiment 2 used cues to generate responses in an object-choice task. Although there were strong positive correlations between monkey pairs to co-orient, visual co-orienting with a human experimenter occurred at a low frequency to distal objects. Human hand pointing cues generated more visual co-orienting than did eye gaze to distal objects. Significant accurate choices of baited cups occurred with human point and tap cues and human look cues. Results highlight the importance of head and body orientation to induce shared attention in cotton top tamarins, both in a task that involved food getting and a task that did not.     

Cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of biogenic amines and corticotropin-releasing factor in adolescent non-human primates as a function of the timing of adverse early rearing

Adolescent bonnet macaques nursed as infants by mothers facing unpredictable requirements for food procurement (variable foraging demand, VFD) display persistent neurobiological disturbances. This study examined the long-term neurochemical and behavioral effects of adverse rearing initiated later in infancy than in previous cohorts of subjects to test the hypothesis that the timing of an early adverse experience would influence patterns of biobehavioral outcome. Cisternal cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) monoamine and corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) concentrations were obtained from 20 bonnet macaques (11 VFD-reared and 9 normally reared controls) approximately 2 years after the end of differential rearing. VFD-reared primates displayed on multiple samplings significantly lower CSF CRF concentrations and higher CSF 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) concentration compared to controls. In the VFD-reared, significant inverse correlations between CRF and all three monoamines were found (5-HIAA, 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenethyleneglycol and homovanillic acid), most prominently for 5-HIAA. In controls, but not VFD-reared subjects, CSF CRF was positively correlated with changes in "gregariousness" upon presentation of a fear stimulus. VFD-reared subjects displayed greater baseline hierarchical engagement than controls. In contrast to prior findings, in which rearing under VFD conditions at an earlier age led to increased CSF CRF compared with controls, CSF CRF was lower after later exposure to VFD rearing than in controls. Thus, the timing of exposure to VFD conditions early in life evidently determines whether CSF CRF was found to be elevated or decreased, within the context of increased serotonin metabolism, during the course of primate maturation.     

Personality predicts working-memory-related activation in the caudal anterior cingulate cortex

Behavioral studies suggest that two affective dimensions of personality are associated with working memory (WM) function. WM load is known to modulate neural activity in the caudal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a brain region critical for the cognitive control of behavior. On this basis, we hypothesized that neural activity in the caudal ACC during a WM task should be associated with personality: correlated negatively with behavioral approach sensitivity (BAS) and positively with behavioral inhibition sensitivity (BIS). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we measured brain activity in 14 participants performing a three-back WM task. Higher self-reported BAS predicted better WM performance (r = .27) and lower WM-related activation in the caudal ACC (r = -.84), suggesting personality differences in cognitive control. The data bolster approach-withdrawal (action control) theories of personality and suggest refinements to the dominant views of ACC and personality.     

Inadequate Housing Among Families Under Investigation for Child Abuse and Neglect: Prevalence from a National Probability Sample

This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of inadequate housing that threaten out-of-home placement among families under investigation by child welfare. Data came from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, a nationally representative longitudinal survey of child welfare-involved families. Child protective services caseworkers as well as caregivers provided information on families whose child remained in the home after initial investigation (N = 3,867). Multilevel latent class analyses tested the presence of inadequately housed subgroups using 4 housing problem indicators at baseline. Logistic regressions assessed convergent and predictive validity. A two class latent solution best fit the data. Findings indicated that inadequate housing contributed to risk for out-of-home placement in approximately 16 % of intact families under investigation by child protective services. These families were 4 times more likely to need housing services 12 months later. Federal legislation emphasizes integration of social services as necessary to end homelessness. This study demonstrates overlap across public agencies. Enhanced coordination of child welfare and housing services facilitates interventions to prevent and mitigate homelessness.     

Asymmetrical loading affects intersegmental dynamics during the swing phase of walking

Much of the work related to lower extremity inertia manipulations has focused on temporal, kinematic and traditional inverse dynamics assessments during locomotion. Intersegmental dynamics is an analytical technique that provides further insights into mechanisms underlying linked-segment motion. The purpose of this study was to determine how intersegmental dynamics during the swing phase of walking are altered during asymmetrical lower extremity loading. Participants walked overground at a speed of 1.57 m s^?1 with 0, 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 kg attached to one foot. Net, interaction, gravitational, and muscle moments were computed. Moment magnitudes at joints of the loaded leg increased systematically with increasing load, whereas unloaded leg moments were unaffected by loading. With increasing load, relative contributions of interaction moments about the knee and hip and gravitational moment about the ankle increased (i.e., 21%, 8%, and 44% increases, respectively), whereas the relative contributions of muscle moments about all three joints declined (i.e., ?4%, ?13%, and ?8% decreases for the ankle, knee, and hip, respectively for unloaded vs. 2.0 kg). These results suggest that altered inertia properties of the limb not only affected the amount of muscular effort required to swing the leg, but also changed the nature of the interaction between segments.     

The Origins of Social Citizenship in Pre-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

South Africa's 1996 Constitution promises a measure of ‘social citizenship’ alongside formal political and legal equality. South Africa's public welfare and social policies may be less effective in ensuring social citizenship, through reducing insecurity and inequality, than those of the more established democracies, but they are far more effective than those of other ‘developing’ countries. The origins of social citizenship in South Africa lie in the early and mid-1940s, when the state first assumed responsibility for the welfare, broadly understood, of all South Africans. The most significant achievement was the introduction of a universal old-age pension system. The importance of these initiatives has been largely overlooked. This has been in part because later scholars largely ignored the heterogeneity of liberal thought in South Africa in the mid-twentieth century, as followers of the ‘New Liberalism’ broke with the classical liberalism of John Stuart Mill and argued for a range of state interventions in social and economic life. In South Africa, as elsewhere, the Second World War provided a context in which revised liberal thought gave rise to major policy reforms, some of which were to survive even the election of a National Party government in 1948.     

Updating the Baldwin effect : The biological levels behind Piaget's new theory

In 1964, Conrad Waddington (1905–1975) presented a paper in Geneva that led to an internal reassessment of the biological underpinnings of Jean Piaget's (1896–1980) theory. This in turn resulted in an overhaul of the theoretical framework upon which his stage theory of child development had been based, including his appeals to James Mark Baldwin's (1861–1934) “circular reaction.” In addition to leading to the emergence of what has elsewhere been called “Piaget's new theory,” this renovation also resulted in the update of the famous “Baldwin Effect.” Because aspects of the subsequent framework are of contemporary significance, this essay will review some of the work leading up to those updates. In reaching behind the translations to trace the sources of the arguments to which Piaget appealed, the resulting examination fills some of the gaps found in the secondary literature without quibbling over the “correct” English interpretation of translated French terms. We also go beyond how Piaget's writings have been understood in English and extract some useful additional ideas from his sources, including how to conceive of the social context in which development takes place. We see as a result how Waddington and his colleagues, including Paul Weiss (1898–1989), provided a constructive “existence proof” for the formal hierarchy of levels that Piaget had come to by other means.     

Prefiguring and Refiguring Triangular Interpersonal Relationships: Commentary on Paper by Elisabeth Fivaz-Depeursinge,Chloé Lavanchy-Scaiola,and Nicolas Favez

The current paper involves a discussion of “The Young Infant's Triangular Communication in the Family: Access to Threesome Intersubjectivity?” Conceptual considerations and case illustrations. The work of the Lausanne Group is reviewed with special reference to its relevance to psychoanalytic theory and practice. The ingenuity of the design of the play paradigm is cited, with its illumination of the role of the body and interactive events in the construction of inner experience. Challenges to psychoanalytic thinking are discussed with special reference to the Oedipus complex and its precursors. A major difference involves the Lausanne group's position that triangles are not inherently problematic. The author also addresses the question of intersubjectivity as a motivational system, taking issue with the group's position that it is.