The sources of skill in seriating cups in children,monkeys and apes

Is a concept of either reversibility or of hierarchical forms of combination necessary for skilled seriation? We examined this question by presenting seriating cups to adult capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees and to 11‐, 16‐ and 21‐month‐old children. Capuchins and chimpanzees consistently created seriated sets with five cups, and placed a sixth cup into a previously seriated set. Children of all three ages created seriated five‐cup sets less consistently than the capuchins and chimpanzees, and were rarely able to place a sixth cup into a seriated set. Twenty‐one‐month‐olds produced more structures containing three or more cups than did the younger age groups, and these children also achieved seriated sets more frequently. Within all participant groups, success at seriating five cups was associated with the frequency of combining three or more cups, regardless of form. The ability to integrate multiple elements in persistent combinatorial activity is sufficient for the emergence of seriation in young children, monkeys and apes. Reliance on particular methods of combination and a concept of reversibility are later refinements that can enhance skilled seriation.     

Vagueness and Margin for Error Principles*

Timothy Williamson's potentially most important contribution to epistemicism about vagueness lies in his arguments for the basic epistemicist claim that the alleged cut‐off points of vague predicates are not knowable. His arguments for this are based on so‐called ‘margin for error principles’. This paper argues that these principles fail to provide a good argument for the basic claim. Williamson has offered at least two kinds of margin for error principles applicable to vague predicates. A certain fallacy of equivocation (on the meaning of ‘knowable’) seems to underlie his justification for both kinds of principles. Besides, the margin for error principles of the first kind can be used in the derivation of unacceptable consequences, while the margin for error principles of the second kind can be shown to be compatible with the falsity of epistemicism, under a number of assumptions acceptable to the epistemicist.     

Mapping the development of white matter tracts with diffusion tensor imaging

In this study, the development of white matter was studied using an optimized diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) protocol in 20 normal subjects (10–40 years old). The normal development of white matter tracts was addressed by comparing the diffusion anisotropy results between two sub‐groups: eight adults (26–38 years old) and eight adolescents (13–15 years old). The difference in myelination extent between these two groups as indexed by the fractional anisotropy was identified by conducting a student t‐test of the measured diffusion anisotropy maps. Significant differences (p < 0.01) were detected in the gyrus frontalis medialis (GFM), gyrus temporalis medialis (GTM) and gyrus cinguli (GC), in addition to the developmental changes in corpus callosum. A brief overview of previous published DTI studies in developmental science and current progress in DTI techniques is also given at the end of this paper. It may be useful for readers interested in using DTI to study developmental problems but who are not familiar with the various technical aspects.     

Inhibiting children's memory of an interactive event: the effectiveness of a cover‐up

Children are generally more susceptible than adults to suggestive interview techniques. Children's memories of an event can be altered and added to by presenting post‐event information (PEI). What is not known is whether embedding silence about a particular scene within the PEI makes that scene less likely to be reported. Children aged 5–6 years made cakes with an agent ‘Mrs Flour’. The following day they received PEI in which a target scene from the original event was omitted, resulting in children reporting the target scene significantly less often than did controls (control= 57% and omit= 23% correct responses). There was direct evidence from the children's language that the omission led to a detriment in memory for the original scene itself. Allowing children to draw during the interview did not reduce the effect. Implications are discussed in terms of child victims and witnesses particularly regarding child sexual abuse. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Transracial Adoption Debate: Counseling and Legal Implications

Over the last 30 years, the practice of White American parents adopting African American children has been the focus of much deliberation and commentary. In this article, the authors illuminate relevant literature and research regarding transracial adoption. Counseling and legal implications are also discussed.     

Depressed mothers' newborns show longer habituation and fail to show face/voice preference

Twenty neonates of depressed and nondepressed mothers failed to show an initial visual preference for their mother's versus a female stranger's face/voice. Subsequently, infants were habituated to their mother's face and voice. Infants of depressed mothers required 1/3 more trials and almost twice as long to habituate. A posthabituation test with their mother and a different female stranger revealed a preference for the stranger's face for 9 out of the 10 newborns of the nondepressed mothers. Again, the infants of depressed mothers displayed no visual preference. These findings reveal differences in depressed mothers newborns' speed of habituation and face/voice preferences. ©2002 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

The European Early Promotion Project: A new primary health care service to promote children's mental health

The number of children in Europe with significant psychologic and social problems is large and increasing. This article describes an innovative crosscultural method of working with families to promote the psychosocial well being of children and prevent the development of psychologic and social problems. A study designed to evaluate the effects of the service is also presented. Primary health care workers in five European countries have been trained to conduct promotional interviews with all prospective mothers in their area one month before and one month after birth. They have also been taught to work with mothers identified as in need of support as a parent by using a specific counselling model to try to prevent the onset of child mental health difficulties. Effects of the intervention on children's psychologic development and family adaptation are being evaluated at two years in comparison with matched groups not receiving the intervention. ©2002 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Lapses of intention and performance variability reveal age-related increases in fluctuations of executive control

We examine the hypothesis that the efficiency of executive control processes is less stable over time in older than younger adults. An age-related decrease in the efficiency of executive control should result in an increase in performance variability in task conditions requiring the recruitment of executive control processes and not in task conditions requiring minimal involvement of executive control. Performance variability was similar for younger and older adults in task conditions requiring minimal executive control and greater for older than younger adults in task conditions requiring executive control. These and other data are consistent with the proposal that aging is associated with a decrease in the stability of executive control over time.     

Smiling and relative status in news photographs

To test the hypothesis that lower social status is associated with more smiling, the authors used newspaper photographs and their associated news stories as the basis for scoring the smiling and relative social status of the 2 individuals in each photograph. Independent raters judged smiling and 5 dimensions of relative status for 496 individuals in 248 newspaper photographs. There was no relation between status and smiling, although status and smiling were both related to other variables such as gender, age, and story valence. These findings add to a growing body of evidence that there is no generalized relation between smiling and status.     

Relationship between the rorschach and the MMPI-2 in a Swedish population: a replication study of the effects of first-factor related test-interaction styles

A sizeable amount of research literature has failed to demonstrate a stable relationship between self-report and the Rorschach (Exner, 1993). However, principal component first-factor related test-interaction style has been shown to moderate convergence. In this study 78 psychiatric patients completed the Rorschach and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2; Hathaway & McKinley, 1989). Practically no correlation was evident between the MMPI-2 and the Rorschach, measuring similar constructs, in all patients. Patients with similar test-interaction styles demonstrated positive intermethod correlations between both conceptually related and conceptually not directly related test indexes. The same scales were negatively correlated in patients with discordant test-interaction styles, and this difference between test-interaction style groups was significant. It is suggested that first-factor related test-interaction style moderates convergence. It is further suggested that test-interaction style moderates convergence between both conceptually related and conceptually not directly related measures of distress or psychopathology.