The melody of surprise: maternal surprise vocalizations during play with her infant

Two groups of mothers and their infants (24 infants, mean age=3.5 months and 24 infants, mean age=5.5 months) were video‐ and audio‐taped in their homes while playing with a Jack‐in‐the‐box. The mean fundamental frequency of spontaneous surprise exclamations of mothers when opening the toy were analysed, and infant and maternal facial expressions of surprise were coded in three regions of the face. A t‐test established that significantly more of the older children in comparison with younger children showed surprise (t=?2.96, df=46, p<0.005, 2‐tailed). Twenty‐nine per cent of the younger infants, in comparison with 67% of the older children showed facial expressions of surprise. A t‐test of maternal pitch height (Hz) indicated that mothers exclaimed in surprise with a higher pitch when the child did not show a surprise facial expression (mean=415.61 Hz) in comparison with the child showing surprise (mean=358.97 Hz; t=2.9, df=46, p=0.006, 2‐tailed). A multiple regression established that infant's expression was a stronger predictor of maternal vocal pitch than was the age of the infant. These results are discussed in terms of maternal use of emotional expressions as ‘social signals’. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the difficult case of loving life: Plato's Symposium and Nietzsche's eternal recurrence

A simple but significant historical fact has been overlooked in interpretations of Nietzsche's eternal recurrence. In making eternal recurrence the standard for the affirmation and love of life, Nietzsche accepts an understanding of love developed in Plato's Symposium: love means ‘wanting to possess the good forever’. I argue that Plato develops two distinct types of love, which remain in tension with one another. I then show that a corresponding tension arises in Nietzsche's work when we consider eternal recurrence as the love of life. By making love central in the phrase ‘love of life’, and by allowing Plato's thoughts on love to inform the love of life that Nietzsche expresses in the thought of eternal recurrence, I show that Nietzsche's dramatic presentations of the eternal recurrence do not present us with a test, but in revealing an incompatibility between loving something in life and loving life in its entirety, they present the tragic conflict in the task of life affirmation.     

Coping and care-related stress in parents of a child with autism spectrum disorder

Background and Objectives: Parenting a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is challenging and can result in elevated levels of parenting stress. This study investigated the relationship between parent-ratings of their child’s ASD symptoms and two conceptually different measures of parenting stress: One specific to the ASD context and the other a general stress measure applicable to the broader caregiving context. Additionally, the influence of coping style on the relationship between child’s ASD symptoms and parenting stress was investigated.

Design and Methods: Using an internet survey, parents (N?=?178) caring for a child with ASD reported on coping strategies, completed two measures of parenting stress, and assessed their child’s ASD symptoms.

Results: Parenting stress increased with severity of the child’s ASD symptoms, but the strength of this relationship depended on whether a general or disorder-specific measure of parenting stress was used. Regression analyses indicated that some coping strategies moderated the impact of ASD symptom severity on the parent’s care-related stress, but moderation depended on how stress was conceptualized.

Conclusion: This study reinforces the importance of identifying the coping strategies of parents of children with developmental disorders, and highlights the consequences of using different conceptual approaches to measure parenting stress.     

Intelligent action guidance and the use of mixed representational formats

My topic is the intelligent guidance of action. In this paper I offer an empirically grounded case for four ideas: that [a] cognitive processes of practical reasoning play a key role in the intelligent guidance of action, [b] these processes could not do so without significant enabling work done by both perception and the motor system, [c] the work done by perceptual and motor systems can be characterized as the generation of information (often conceptually structured information) specialized for action guidance, which in turn suggests that [d] the cognitive processes of practical reasoning that play a key role in the guidance of intelligent action are not the abstract, syllogistic ones philosophers often treat as the paradigm of practical reasoning. Rather, these cognitive processes are constrained by, and work well with, the specialized concepts outputted by perception and the feedback outputted by sensorimotor processes.

     

Conscious Action/Zombie Action

I argue that the neural realizers of experiences of trying (that is, experiences of directing effort towards the satisfaction of an intention) are not distinct from the neural realizers of actual trying (that is, actual effort directed towards the satisfaction of an intention). I then ask how experiences of trying might relate to the perceptual experiences one has while acting. First, I assess recent zombie action arguments regarding conscious visual experience, and I argue that contrary to what some have claimed, conscious visual experience plays a causal role for action control in some circumstances. Second, I propose a multimodal account of the experience of acting. According to this account, the experience of acting is (at the very least) a temporally extended, co‐conscious collection of agentive and perceptual experiences, functionally integrated and structured both by multimodal perceptual processing as well as by what an agent is, at the time, trying to do.     

The intersensory origins of word‐comprehension: an ecological–dynamic systems view

How do infants begin to understand spoken words? Recent research suggests that word comprehension develops from the early detection of intersensory relations between conventionally paired auditory speech patterns (words) and visible objects or actions. More importantly, in keeping with dynamic systems principles, the findings suggest that word comprehension develops from a dynamic and complementary relationship between the organism (the infant) and the environment (language addressed to the infant). In addition, parallel findings from speech and non‐speech studies of intersensory perception provide evidence for domain general processes in the development of word comprehension. These research findings contrast with the view that a lexical acquisition device with specific lexical principles and innate constraints is required for early word comprehension. Furthermore, they suggest that learning of word–object relations is not merely an associative process. The data support an alternative view of the developmental process that emphasizes the dynamic and reciprocal interactions between general intersensory perception, selective attention and learning in infants, and the specific characteristics of maternal communication.     

Size, Conflict, and Opportunities for Interaction: Congregational Effects on Members' Anticipated Support and Negative Interaction

A growing literature examines the role of religious communities as sources of social support for members, and a smaller body of work also explores negative aspects of social relations within congregations. However, very little is known about the characteristics of religious groups that promote or impede the development of supportive networks. We use data from a unique source—the National Congregations Study, linked with individual records from the 1998 General Social Survey (GSS)—to explore this issue. Key findings reveal that: (1) individuals who attend very large churches tend to report lower levels of anticipated support and informal negative interaction; (2) the presence of major congregational conflict tends to dampen anticipated support and increase informal negative interaction; and (3) the absence of a well-defined period for informal socializing before or after the worship service is associated with lower levels of anticipated support, but is unrelated to the frequency of negative interaction among church members. Several implications and promising directions for future research are discussed.     

The impact of emotion-based mass media campaigns on stigma toward cervical screening non participation

Numerous studies have demonstrated the positive impact of mass media coverage of cancer on screening rates. In this online experiment, we assessed the influence of different types of mass media news articles (factual vs. emotive narratives) on cervical cancer screening intentions. We also tested the process through which mass media news articles influence screening intention. Participants (N = 141) were randomly allocated to receive either a news article containing factual information about screening, a news article containing an emotive narrative about a nonfamous woman who died after not being screened, or no information about screening. Participants, then, completed measures of stigma, fear, shame, and screening intention. Stigma toward people who had not been screened (i.e., public stigma) was greater when participants received an emotive narrative rather than factual information or no information. Moreover, we found a significant indirect effect of the manipulation on screening intention via public stigma. These results indicated that the emotive news article increased public stigma, which in turn predicted screening intention. Based on this, we argue that it is important to carefully consider the type of narrative that is included in mass media articles to ensure that it does not stigmatize people who have not been screened.