Differences in problem-solving between canid populations: Do domestication and lifetime experience affect persistence?

Past research has suggested that a variety of factors, phylogenetic and ontogenetic, play a role in how canines behave during problem-solving tasks and the degree to which the presence of a human influences their problem-solving behaviour. While comparisons between socialized wolves and domestic dogs have commonly been used to tease apart these predictive factors, in many cases a single dog population, often pets, have been used for these comparisons. Less is understood about how different populations of dogs may behave when compared with wolves, or with each other, during an independent problem-solving task. This experiment compared the independent persistence of four populations of canines (two groups of pet domestic dogs, a group of free-ranging domestic dogs, and human-socialized wolves) on an independent problem-solving task in the presence of an on looking human. Results showed that wolves persisted the most at the task while free-ranging dogs persisted the least. Free-ranging dogs gazed at the human experimenter for the longest durations during the task. While further research is needed to understand why these differences exist, this study demonstrates that dogs, even those living outside human homes as scavengers, show comparatively low levels of persistence when confronted with a solvable task in the presence of a human as well as significantly greater duration of human-directed gaze when compared with wolves.     

The neural bases of the effects of item-nonspecific proactive interference in working memory

We reanalyzed the behavioral and fMRI data from seven previously published studies of working memory in order to assess the behavioral and neural effects of item-nonspecific proactive interference (PI; attributable to the accrual of antecedent information independent of the repetition of particular items). We hypothesized that item-nonspecific PI, implicated in age-related declines in working memory performance, is mediated by the same mechanism(s) that mediate item-specific PI (occurring when an invalid memory probe matches a memorandum from the previous trial). Reaction time increased across trials as a function of position within the block, a trend that reversed across the duration of each multiblock experiment. The fMRI analyses revealed sensitivity to item-nonspecific PI during the probe epoch in the left anterior inferior frontal gyrus and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC). They also revealed a negative trend, across trials, in the transient probe-evoked component of the global signal. A common PFC-based mechanism may mediate many forms of PI.     

Visual recognition of biological motion is impaired in children with autism

Autistic children and typically developing control children were tested on two visual tasks, one involving grouping of small line elements into a global figure and the other involving perception of human activity portrayed in point-light animations. Performance of the two groups was equivalent on the figure task, but autistic children were significantly impaired on the biological motion task. This latter deficit may be related to the impaired social skills characteristic of autism, and we speculate that this deficit may implicate abnormalities in brain areas mediating perception of human movement.     

Stereotype susceptibility narrows the gender gap in imagined self-rotation performance

Three studies examined the impact of stereotype messages on men’s and women’s performance of a mental rotation task involving imagined self-rotations. Experiment 1 established baseline differences between men and women; women made 12% more errors than did men. Experiment 2 found that exposure to a positive stereotype message enhanced women’s performance in comparison with that of another group of women who received neutral information. In Experiment 3, men who were exposed to the same stereotype message emphasizing a female advantage made more errors than did male controls, and the magnitude of error was similar to that for women from Experiment 1. The results suggest that the gender gap in mental rotation performance is partially caused by experiential factors, particularly those induced by sociocultural stereotypes.     

Role of Parenting and Maltreatment Histories in Unipolar and Bipolar Mood Disorders: Mediation by Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression

In this article, we review empirical research on the role of individuals' parenting and maltreatment histories as developmental antecedents for symptoms and diagnosable episodes of unipolar and bipolar spectrum disorders. Our review is focused on the following three overarching questions: (1) Do negative parenting and a history of maltreatment contribute risk to symptoms or diagnosable episodes of unipolar and bipolar disorders? (2) Are the associations of negative parenting and maltreatment histories with bipolar disorders similar to those for unipolar depression? and (3) Are the associations between negative parenting and maltreatment histories and unipolar and bipolar symptoms or disorders mediated by cognitive vulnerability to depression? We begin by discussing the methodological requirements for demonstrating a psychosocial risk factor and the methodological issues that plague the parenting and maltreatment literatures. Next, we review the extant studies on the role of parenting histories in unipolar and bipolar disorders. We consider the specificity and possible moderators of the parenting-mood disorder relationship, as well as cognitive vulnerability to depression as a mediator of this relationship. Then, we review studies on the association of maltreatment histories with unipolar and bipolar disorders and the role of cognitive vulnerability to depression as a mediator of this association. We conclude with an assessment of the state of the parenting and maltreatment literatures in unipolar and bipolar disorder with regard to our guiding questions.     

Body image attitudes and concerns among indigenous Fijian and European Australian adolescent girls

Research on body image has primarily been conducted among Western women who highly value the thin ideal body size. There has been limited research that has examined body image attitudes among Fijian adolescent girls who are exposed to both traditional sociocultural pressures that promote a larger body size and Western pressures that promote slimness. Using in-depth semi-structured interviews, we examined the factors associated with body image attitudes and concerns among a sample of 16 indigenous Fijian and 16 European Australian adolescent girls aged between 13–18 years. An inductive analysis of girls’ responses indicated that both groups of girls experienced body image concerns including body dissatisfaction, a preference for thinness and concerns associated with weight gain. These findings have implications for our understanding of the role of culture in shaping body image among girls and may prove useful in the development of future survey research that can be implemented among both Fijian and Western adolescents.     

Nonverbal estimation during numerosity judgements by adult humans

On an automated task, humans selected the larger of two sets of items, each created through the one-by-one addition of items. Participants repeated the alphabet out loud during trials so that they could not count the items. This manipulation disrupted counting without producing major effects on other cognitive capacities such as memory or attention, and performance of this experimental group was poorer than that of participants who counted the items. In Experiment 2, the size of individual items was varied, and performance remained stable when the larger numerical set contained a smaller total amount than the smaller numerical set (i.e., participants used numerical rather than nonnumerical quantity cues in making judgements). In Experiment 3, reports of the number of items in a single set showed scalar variability as accuracy decreased, and variability in responses increased with increases in true set size. These data indicate a mechanism for the approximate representation of numerosity in adult humans that might be shared with nonhuman animals.     

The role of chaos in poverty and children's socioemotional adjustment

There are growing levels of chaos in the lives of American children, youth, and families. Increasingly, children grow up in households lacking in structure and routine, inundated by background stimulation from noise and crowding, and forced to contend with the frenetic pace of modern life. Although widespread, chaos does not occur randomly in the population. We document that low-income adolescents face higher levels of chaos than their more affluent counterparts and provide longitudinal evidence that some of the adverse effects of poverty on socioemotional adjustment are mediated by exposure to chaotic living conditions.     

Contributors to suicidal ideation among bipolar patients with and without a history of suicide attempts

This study was designed to develop models for vulnerability to suicidal ideation in bipolar patients. Logistic regression models examined correlates of suicidal ideation in patients who had versus had not attempted suicide previously. Of 477 patients assessed, complete data on demographic, illness history, and personality variables were available on 243. The regression models achieved positive predictive values of 55% and 59% for the attempter (N = 92) and nonattempter groups (N = 151), respectively. Depression was cross-sectionally associated with suicidal ideation in both the attempter and nonattempter groups but made a smaller contribution among attempters. Poor psychosocial adaptation and the personality factor "openness" were stronger contributors to suicidal ideation among prior attempters while anxiety and extraversion appeared protective against ideation. Among nonattempters, depression, anxiety, and neuroticism were the predominant influences on suicidal ideation. Bipolar patients with suicidal ideation may benefit from different treatment strategies depending on their prior attempt status.     

Distraction and action slips in an everyday task: Evidence for a dynamic representation of task context

We report here a novel and counterintuitive effect of distraction on routine sequential action. The effect, predicted by a recent computational model of sequential behavior, relates to the tendency for a momentary distraction, such as a brief interruption, to lead to subsequent slips of action. The specific prediction is that errors should be more likely following a distraction occurring toward the middle of a subtask sequence than following a distraction occurring at the end of a subtask. This was tested and confirmed in an experiment involving repeated performance of an everyday task (coffee making) under conditions involving frequent interruption. The observed effect provides differential support for existing models of sequential behavior and offers a highly constraining benchmark for future theories.