Early child rearing in Japan: Cross-cultural and intra-cultural perspectives

Within the field of cross-cultural developmental psychology, examinations of parenting serve to focus attention on development in the proximal context of the family and the distal context of the culture. Even though Japan is economically in the mainstream of the industrialized Western world, there are many cultural differences between Japan and Western countries; these include differences in cultural values, beliefs about children, parental behaviours and differences in the children themselves. The focus of this special issue is observational studies of early child rearing in Japan; included are cross-cultural comparisons with the United States, Germany and France, as well as studies within Japan. The contexts of the observations reported in this special issue include homes, laboratory playrooms, and day care centres. With intra-cultural and cross-cultural perspectives, an updated view of Japanese child rearing in the early years is presented.     

Minding the gap: spatial perseveration error in dogs

We investigated a combination of perseveration and detour behaviour in 50 domestic dogs (Canis familiaris). They were required to make a detour through a gap at one end of a straight barrier in order to reach a target. After one, two, three or four repeats, the gap was moved to the opposite end of the barrier, and the detour behaviour of the dogs was recorded. Although the dogs could solve simple detour tasks (80% correct in the first trial), they committed a perseveration error of following the previously learned route despite the clearly visible change in the location of the gap. This ‘misbehaviour’ occurred in 29 of 30 dogs after only two learning trials. They never reached a 100% correct performance level again even after four runs through the second gap location. The results suggest that dogs are reluctant to unlearn acquired spatial motor responses and reinforced navigation, which has important implications for experimental design, everyday dog training and our understanding of their mental capacities.     

Congruity Effects in Time and Space: Behavioral and ERP Measures

Two experiments investigated whether motion metaphors for time affected the perception of spatial motion. Participants read sentences either about literal motion through space or metaphorical motion through time written from either the ego-moving or object-moving perspective. Each sentence was followed by a cartoon clip. Smiley-moving clips showed an iconic happy face moving toward a polygon, and shape-moving clips showed a polygon moving toward a happy face. In Experiment 1, using an explicit judgment task, participants judged smiley-moving cartoons as related to ego-moving sentences about space and about time, and shape-moving cartoons as related to object-moving sentences. In Experiment 2, participants viewed the same stimuli, but the cartoons were task-irrelevant. Event-related brain potentials revealed an early attentional effect of congruity on cartoons following sentences about space, and a later semantic effect on cartoons following sentences about time. Results are most consistent with accounts that posit differences in the processing of novel and conventional metaphors.     

Early indications of delayed cognitive development in preschool children born very preterm: evidence from domain‐general and domain‐specific tasks

Cognitive impairment often follows preterm birth but its early underlying nature is not well understood. We used a novel approach by investigating the development of colour cognition in 54 very preterm children born ?30 weeks gestational age without severe neurosensory impairment and 37 age‐matched term‐born controls, aged 2–5 years. Quantitative and qualitative differences in the development of colour cognition are well charted throughout the preschool years, enabling delayed from deviant development to be determined. Standardized domain‐general and experimental colour‐specific tests of language, attention, and memory were employed. Very preterm children showed significantly depressed language than term controls, with very preterm group girls significantly outperforming boys. Very preterm children also showed poorer attention and memory than term controls, but not significantly so. Importantly, colour‐specific tests showed qualitatively similar performance, but for naming and executive planning quantitatively poorer performance, across groups, indicating typical but delayed development. Hence, even before school entry, compared with term‐born peers, very preterm children show delayed development of cognitive processes that underpin later scholastic abilities, but the nature by which these processes operate appears to be typical of term children. If left untreated these early developmental delays may underpin later deviations from the typical developmental trajectory. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stereopsis loses dominance over relative size as target separation increases

Binocular disparity produces less stereoscopic depth if the targets are separated by several degrees. It is thus possible that separation decreases the influence of stereopsis as a relative depth cue. Here, four experiments tested the strength of disparity in determining the direction of relative depth in the face of strongly conflicting relative size for a range of target separations. Under conditions of natural fixation-permitting sequential stereopsis-disparity dominated completely at small separations (0.42 degrees) but gradually gave way to relative size domination at large separations. However, when brief presentations prevented changes in fixation, disparity completely dominated at a separation of 0.5 degrees while relative size mostly dominated by 0.75 degrees - 1 degrees of separation. By varying target separation at different retinal eccentricities, we showed that separation per se was the critical factor in the dominance switch. Stereoacuity as a function of target separation for the same observers did not predict the switch from disparity to relative size. Stereoscopic dominance was found for the same small separations that are immune to stereoscopic reversals (Gillam, 1993 Perception 22 1025-1036). Our results suggest that relative disparity has a compulsory influence on perceived depth at small separations, suggesting a different mechanism from the one operating at larger separations.     

Healing after Columbine: reflections of psychoanalytic responders to community trauma

Following the shootings at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, the Denver Psychoanalytic Society provided both immediate and long-term interventions to those closely impacted by the tragedy. In this effort, analytically trained volunteers faced many personal challenges and role adjustments. To address these issues a reflective study group was formed twenty months after the traumatic event. Group discussions revealed a surprising number of residual symptoms from secondary trauma, as well as opportunities for shared coping among analysts. Little has been written about the very human and subjective responses of analysts in such circumstances. These experiences may be helpful to others in today's world of terrorism and unexpected violent events.