Imagined contact as a prejudice‐reduction intervention in schools: the underlying role of similarity and attitudes

The present research tested a prejudice‐reduction intervention based on imagined contact. White children imagined interacting with a child from an ethnic out‐group (Asian) once a week for 3 weeks, or did not take part in this activity (control group). Compared with the control group, children who engaged in imagined contact subsequently showed more positive attitudes, greater perceived similarity, and willingness for intergroup contact. The effect of the intervention on willingness for contact was mediated by positive attitude change. Implications for imagined‐contact theory and the development of prejudice‐reduction techniques for schools are discussed.     

The role of feedback and dot presentation format in younger and older adults’ number estimation

Numerosity estimation, the rapid assessment of the number of items in a visual scene, is historically inaccurate. We assessed whether providing feedback regarding the correct numerosity on either 0%, 50%, or 100% of the trials would affect younger and older adults’ estimation accuracy for randomized, clustered (i.e., groups of 3 or 7 dots), and stacked (i.e., column) dot formats. Participants provided estimates and confidence ratings in six blocks, each containing 48 trials (16 numerosities shown in each format). Feedback frequency was manipulated between participants during blocks 1–4; no feedback was provided during blocks 5 and 6, which contained old and new numerosities and previously estimated presentations rotated 90°. Estimation accuracy was age equivalent across blocks despite younger adults initially being more accurate than older adults. Feedback improved both age groups’ accuracy. Stacked presentations were most accurately estimated but were more likely to be over-estimated than clustered and randomized presentations. Older adults gave lower confidence ratings than younger adults despite both age groups showing increased confidence across blocks, for more structured presentation formats, and as feedback frequency increased. These results expand our understanding of the role of presentation format and feedback in producing age equivalence or age-related differences in numerosity estimation.     

EFFECTS OF VERBAL REPRIMANDS ON TARGETED AND UNTARGETED STEREOTYPY

Results of brief functional analyses indicated that motor and vocal stereotypy persisted in the absence of social consequences for five participants diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Subsequently, effects of a stimulus control procedure involving contingent reprimands for each participant's higher probability (targeted) stereotypy were evaluated. Results indicated that contingent verbal reprimands (i) decreased the targeted stereotypy for all five participants, (ii) decreased the untargeted stereotypy for two of five participants, and (iii) increased the untargeted stereotypy for one of five participants. Although response suppression was not achieved for any participant, three participants maintained low levels of the target stereotypy with one or two reprimands during 5‐min sessions. Furthermore, two of those participants maintained near‐zero levels of motor and vocal stereotypy during 10‐min sessions. These findings suggest that signaled verbal reprimands may be a practical intervention for reducing stereotypy in some children with ASD. Some limitations of the findings and areas of future research are briefly discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Retrieval practice over the long term: Should spacing be expanding or equal-interval?

If multiple opportunities are available to review to-be-learned material, should a review occur soon after initial study and recur at progressively expanding intervals, or should the reviews occur at equal intervals? Landauer and Bjork (1978) argued for the superiority of expanding intervals, whereas more recent research has often failed to find any advantage. However, these prior studies have generally compared expanding versus equal-interval training within a single session, and have assessed effects only upon a single final test. We argue that a more generally important goal would be to maintain high average performance over a considerable period of training. For the learning of foreign vocabulary spread over four weeks, we found that expanding retrieval practice (i.e., sessions separated by increasing numbers of days) produced recall equivalent to that from equal-interval practice on a final test given eight weeks after training. However, the expanding schedule yielded much higher average recallability over the whole training period.     

Recognizing familiar objects by hand and foot: Haptic shape perception generalizes to inputs from unusual locations and untrained body parts

The limits of generalization of our 3-D shape recognition system to identifying objects by touch was investigated by testing exploration at unusual locations and using untrained effectors. In Experiments 1 and 2, people found identification by hand of real objects, plastic 3-D models of objects, and raised line drawings placed in front of themselves no easier than when exploration was behind their back. Experiment 3 compared one-handed, two-handed, one-footed, and two-footed haptic object recognition of familiar objects. Recognition by foot was slower (7 vs. 13 s) and much less accurate (9 % vs. 47 % errors) than recognition by either one or both hands. Nevertheless, item difficulty was similar across hand and foot exploration, and there was a strong correlation between an individual’s hand and foot performance. Furthermore, foot recognition was better with the largest 20 of the 80 items (32 % errors), suggesting that physical limitations hampered exploration by foot. Thus, object recognition by hand generalized efficiently across the spatial location of stimuli, while object recognition by foot seemed surprisingly good given that no prior training was provided. Active touch (haptics) thus efficiently extracts 3-D shape information and accesses stored representations of familiar objects from novel modes of input.     

When do women respond against discrimination? Exploring factors of subtlety,form, and focus

We examined the personal‐group discrimination discrepancy (PGDD), the tendency for women to recognize that others encounter sexism while simultaneously minimizing their own personal experiences with sexism, and the degree to which it (a) applies to all manifestations of discrimination, and (b) extends beyond perceptions of discrimination to taking action against it. Our findings replicated the PGDD when it comes to perceptions of discrimination, but this effect was reversed for behavioral action such that women were more likely to take action against discrimination when it was directed at them personally. We also disentangled the factors of subtlety (subtle vs. overt) and form (formal vs. interpersonal) by showing that women can reliably distinguish between these factors when determining their reactions to discrimination.