Consolidation of vocabulary is associated with sleep in children

Although the acquisition of a novel word is apparently rapid, adult research suggests that integration of novel and existing knowledge (measured by engagement in lexical competition) requires sleep‐associated consolidation. We present the first investigation of whether a similar time‐course dissociation characterizes word learning across development. Consistent with previous research but counter to adults, 7–12‐year‐olds showed sleep‐associated consolidation effects in declarative but not procedural memory. Nevertheless, the relationship between sleep and word learning in children was remarkably similar to the pattern for adults. Following exposure to nonword competitors (e.g. biscal) in the a.m. or p.m., children’s ability to recognize and recall the nonwords improved only after sleep (after approximately 12‐hrs for the p.m. group and 24‐hrs for the a.m. group), with performance stable 1 week later. Novel nonwords only induced lexical competition effects after sleep. These findings suggest that children utilize a dual memory system when acquiring and integrating new vocabulary and highlight sleep as integral to this process. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mm8SDUXw_0&feature=plcp .     

Preschool children’s interpretation of object‐initial sentences: Neural correlates of their behavioral performance

The acquisition of the function of case‐marking is a key step in the development of sentence processing for German‐speaking children since case‐marking reveals the relations between sentential arguments. In this study, we investigated the development of the processing of case‐marking and argument structures in children at 3, 4;6 and 6 years of age, as well as its processing in adults. Using EEG, we measured event‐related potentials (ERPs) in response to object‐initial compared to subject‐initial German sentences including transitive verbs and case‐marked noun phrases referring to animate arguments. We also tested children’s behavioral competence in a sentence‐picture matching task. Word order and case‐marking were manipulated in German main clauses. Adults’ behavioral performance was close to perfect and their ERPs revealed a negativity for the processing of the topicalized accusative marked noun phrase (NP1) and no effect for the second NP (NP2) in the object‐initial structure. Children’s behavioral data showed a significant above‐chance outcome in the subject‐initial condition for all age groups, but not for the object‐initial condition. In contrast to adults, the ERPs of 3‐year‐olds showed a positivity at NP1, indicating difficulties in processing the non‐canonical object‐initial structures. Children at the age of 4;6 did not differ in the processing patterns of object‐initial vs. subject‐initial sentences at NP1 but showed a slight positivity at NP2. This positivity at NP2, which implies syntactic integration difficulties, is more pronounced in 6‐year‐olds but is absent in adults. At NP1, however, 6‐year‐olds show the same negativity as adults. In sum, the behavioral and electrophysiological findings demonstrate that children in each age group use different strategies, which are indicative of their developmental stage. While 3‐year‐olds merely detect differences in the two sentence structures without being able to use this information for sentence comprehension, 4;6‐year‐olds proceed to use mainly a word‐order strategy, processing NP1 in both conditions in the same manner, which leads to processing difficulties upon detecting case‐marking cues at NP2. At the age of 6, children are able to use case‐marking cues for comprehension but still show enhanced effort for correct thematic‐role assignment.     

Capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) use positive, but not negative, auditory cues to infer food location

Nonhuman primates appear to capitalize more effectively on visual cues than corresponding auditory versions. For example, studies of inferential reasoning have shown that monkeys and apes readily respond to seeing that food is present (“positive” cuing) or absent (“negative” cuing). Performance is markedly less effective with auditory cues, with many subjects failing to use this input. Extending recent work, we tested eight captive tufted capuchins (Cebus apella) in locating food using positive and negative cues in visual and auditory domains. The monkeys chose between two opaque cups to receive food contained in one of them. Cup contents were either shown or shaken, providing location cues from both cups, positive cues only from the baited cup, or negative cues from the empty cup. As in previous work, subjects readily used both positive and negative visual cues to secure reward. However, auditory outcomes were both similar to and different from those of earlier studies. Specifically, all subjects came to exploit positive auditory cues, but none responded to negative versions. The animals were also clearly different in visual versus auditory performance. Results indicate that a significant proportion of capuchins may be able to use positive auditory cues, with experience and learning likely playing a critical role. These findings raise the possibility that experience may be significant in visually based performance in this task as well, and highlight that coming to grips with evident differences between visual versus auditory processing may be important for understanding primate cognition more generally.     

Affective state influences perception by affecting decision parameters underlying bias and sensitivity

Studies of the effect of affect on perception often show consistent directional effects of a person's affective state on perception. Unpleasant emotions have been associated with a "locally focused" style of stimulus evaluation, and positive emotions with a "globally focused" style. Typically, however, studies of affect and perception have not been conducted under the conditions of perceptual uncertainty and behavioral risk inherent to perceptual judgments outside the laboratory. We investigated the influence of perceivers' experienced affect (valence and arousal) on the utility of social threat perception by combining signal detection theory and behavioral economics. We compared 3 perceptual decision environments that systematically differed with respect to factors that underlie uncertainty and risk: the base rate of threat, the costs of incorrect identification threat, and the perceptual similarity of threats and nonthreats. We found that no single affective state yielded the best performance on the threat perception task across the 3 environments. Unpleasant valence promoted calibration of response bias to base rate and costs, high arousal promoted calibration of perceptual sensitivity to perceptual similarity, and low arousal was associated with an optimal adjustment of bias to sensitivity. However, the strength of these associations was conditional upon the difficulty of attaining optimal bias and high sensitivity, such that the effect of the perceiver's affective state on perception differed with the cause and/or level of uncertainty and risk.     

Frequency of the first feature in action sequences influences feature binding

We investigated whether binding among perception and action feature codes is a preliminary step toward creating a more durable memory trace of an action event. If so, increasing the frequency of a particular event (e.g., a stimulus requiring a movement with the left or right hand in an up or down direction) should increase the strength and speed of feature binding for this event. The results from two experiments, using a partial-repetition paradigm, confirmed that feature binding increased in strength and/or occurred earlier for a high-frequency (e.g., left hand moving up) than for a low-frequency (e.g., right hand moving down) event. Moreover, increasing the frequency of the first-specified feature in the action sequence alone (e.g., ??left?? hand) increased the strength and/or speed of action feature binding (e.g., between the ??left?? hand and movement in an ??up?? or ??down?? direction). The latter finding suggests an update to the theory of event coding, as not all features in the action sequence equally determine binding strength. We conclude that action planning involves serial binding of features in the order of action feature execution (i.e., associations among features are not bidirectional but are directional), which can lead to a more durable memory trace. This is consistent with physiological evidence suggesting that serial order is preserved in an action plan executed from memory and that the first feature in the action sequence may be critical in preserving this serial order.     

Reclaiming Culture: Reculturation of Transracial and International Adoptees

The cultural experiences of transracial and international adoptees (TRIAs) are uniquely affected by their adoption across cultures and racial/ethnic groups. Upon adoption, TRIAs typically identify quickly with their adoptive parents’ White culture but may eventually seek to reclaim their birth culture. Current terminology used to describe cultural identifications and changes (e.g., acculturation, enculturation) does not adequately depict the reclamation of birth culture by TRIAs. The authors describe a new term for this process called reculturation.     

Individual differences in women's perceptions of other women's dominance

Recent research on men's dominance perception suggests that the extent to which men perceive masculine men to be more dominant than relatively feminine men is negatively correlated with measures of their own dominance. In the current studies, we investigated the relationship between indices of women's own dominance and their perceptions of other women's facial dominance. Women's own height and scores on a dominance questionnaire were negatively correlated with the extent to which they perceived masculine women to be more dominant than relatively feminine women. In follow‐up studies, we observed similar individual differences when (i) women separately judged other women's social and physical dominance, suggesting that individual differences in women's dominance perceptions generalize across two different types of dominance judgment and (ii) we assessed the perceivers' dominance indirectly by using a questionnaire that measures the extent to which women view interactions with other women in competitive terms. These findings present new evidence that the extent to which people perceive masculine individuals to be more dominant than relatively feminine individuals is negatively correlated with measures of their own dominance and suggest that competition and conflict among women may have shaped individual differences in women's dominance perception. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Medical Family Therapy: A Theoretical and Empirical Review

Medical Family Therapy (MedFT) is a relatively young sub-specialty founded initially at the intersection of Family Therapy and Family Medicine. The purpose of this article is to synthesize and review scholarly literature covering almost 30?years of history, growth, and available research on MedFT. Eighty-two articles that met specific inclusion criteria were reviewed and the literature was categorized into four distinct themes: (a) Emergence of MedFT in the literature; (b) Contemporary MedFT skills and applications; (c) Punctuating the ??family therapy?? in MedFT; and (d) MedFT effectiveness and efficacy research. What was learned was that MedFT is growing so rapidly there is now a need for a current definition, identification of core curriculum standards and competencies for training, as well as a commitment to produce rigorous research on its effectiveness and efficacy. Recommendations to advance efforts across the foci are provided.     

The Role of Neuropsychological Assessment in the Functional Outcomes of Children with ADHD

The value of evidence-based services is now recognized both within clinical communities and by the public at large. Increasingly, neuropsychologists must justify the necessity of often costly and time-consuming neuropsychological assessments in the diagnosis and treatment of common childhood disorders, such as Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Published medical guidelines and prominent researchers, however, have argued against the need for formal neuropsychological assessment of ADHD. The present review examines the literature on developmental outcomes in childhood ADHD, with emphasis on the utility of formal neuropsychological assessment among children diagnosed and treated in primary care settings. The review yields three central findings: 1) adherence to published diagnostic guidelines for ADHD is poor among pediatric and primary care physicians; 2) ADHD most often co-exists with other disorders, thus diagnoses made without formal psychometric assessment can be incomplete or incorrect, ultimately increasing treatment costs; and, 3) untreated children with ADHD, and those who have untreated comorbidities, are at greater risk for poor outcomes in social, academic, vocational, and practical settings. The available literature suggests that neuropsychological assessment provides information that can potentially reduce risks for poor outcomes and improve quality of life among children with ADHD. Controlled studies directly examining the impact of neuropsychological assessments in improving outcomes among children with ADHD are needed.     

Translational Rodent Models of Korsakoff Syndrome Reveal the Critical Neuroanatomical Substrates of Memory Dysfunction and Recovery

Investigation of the amnesic disorder Korsakoff Syndrome (KS) has been vital in elucidating the critical brain regions involved in learning and memory. Although the thalamus and mammillary bodies are the primary sites of neuropathology in KS, functional deactivation of the hippocampus and certain cortical regions also contributes to the chronic cognitive dysfunction reported in KS. The rodent pyrithiamine-induced thiamine deficiency (PTD) model has been used to study the extent of hippocampal and cortical neuroadaptations in KS. In the PTD model, the hippocampus, frontal and retrosplenial cortical regions display loss of cholinergic innervation, decreases in behaviorally stimulated acetylcholine release and reductions in neurotrophins. While PTD treatment results in significant impairment in measures of spatial learning and memory, other cognitive processes are left intact and may be recruited to improve cognitive outcome. In addition, behavioral recovery can be stimulated in the PTD model by increasing acetylcholine levels in the medial septum, hippocampus and frontal cortex, but not in the retrosplenial cortex. These data indicate that although the hippocampus and frontal cortex are involved in the pathogenesis of KS, these regions retain neuroplasticity and may be critical targets for improving cognitive outcome in KS.