The socialization of prosocial behavioral tendencies among Mexican American adolescents: The role of familism values

This study investigates the role of familism values in fostering socialization experiences that promote prosocial behavioral tendencies among Mexican American adolescents. Two hundred and four Mexican American mothers and their adolescent children (104 girls, age M = 10.91 years) completed measures of familism values, prosocial parenting practices, and prosocial behavioral tendencies. Structural equation modeling tests indicated that mothers' familism values are related to parenting behaviors that promote prosocial behavioral tendencies, which in turn are related to adolescents' perception of prosocial parenting practices. Furthermore, adolescents' perception of prosocial parenting practices is related to familism values and prosocial behavior tendencies. Last, the relation between adolescents' perception of prosocial parenting practices and prosocial behavioral tendencies is partially mediated by familism values. These findings are consistent with the theoretical suggestion that the transmission of traditional familism values may serve as a social medium through which prosocial behavioral tendencies are fostered among Mexican American adolescents.     

Varying the valuating function and the presentable bank in computerized adaptive testing

In computerized adaptive testing, the most commonly used valuating function is the Fisher information function. When the goal is to keep item bank security at a maximum, the valuating function that seems most convenient is the matching criterion, valuating the distance between the estimated trait level and the point where the maximum of the information function is located. Recently, it has been proposed not to keep the same valuating function constant for all the items in the test. In this study we expand the idea of combining the matching criterion with the Fisher information function. We also manipulate the number of strata into which the bank is divided. We find that the manipulation of the number of items administered with each function makes it possible to move from the pole of high accuracy and low security to the opposite pole. It is possible to greatly improve item bank security with much fewer losses in accuracy by selecting several items with the matching criterion. In general, it seems more appropriate not to stratify the bank.     

Cost of mental set reconfiguration between digits and their photisms in synaesthesia

In this study we present an experiment investigating the reconfiguration process elicited by the task switching paradigm in synaesthesia. We study the time course of the operations involved in the activation of photisms. In the experimental Group, four digit-color synaesthetes alternated between an odd-even task and a color task (to indicate the photism elicited by each digit). In both tasks, the target stimuli were numbers between 1 and 9 written in white. One of the control groups ran the same tasks but this time with colored numbers (Naive Control Group). The results of these studies showed the expected pattern for the control group in the case of regular shift: a significant task switch cost with an abrupt offset and a cost reduction in long RSI. However for the experimental group, we found switch cost asymmetry in the short RSI and non-significant cost in the long RSI. A second control group performed exactly the same tasks as the experimental group (with white numbers as targets and a second imaginary color task) -Trained Control Group-. We found no cost for this second control group. This means that the cost of mental set reconfiguration between numbers (inducers) and their photisms (concurrent sensations) occurs, that there is a specific cost asymmetry (from photisms to inducers) and that this cost cannot be explained by associative learning. The results are discussed in terms of exogenous and endogenous components of mental set reconfiguration.     

Functions of the pointing gesture in mothers and their 12 to 36-month-old children during everyday activities

This study longitudinally examined the production of pointing in four Spanish 1-year-old and four Spanish 2-year-old children in interactive situations with their mothers at home over the course of one year. Three aspects were analyzed: a) the functions of the pointing gesture, their accurate comprehension by the interlocutor (mother or child), and their order of emergence in the child; b) whether or not there were differences in the production of pointing according to who initiated the interaction; and c) whether maternal and child speech were related to maternal and child pointing production. The results showed that the pointing function of showing is the most frequent for both children and mothers from groups 1 and 2, and the first to emerge followed by the informing, requesting object, requesting action, and requesting cooperation functions. The accuracy with which these intentions were comprehended was found to be very high for both mother and child. Pointing production was greater when the speaker initiated the interaction than when the other person did, indicating that gestures follow the turn-taking system. Finally, the production of pointing to showing in children and mothers was found to be related to maternal and child speech, while pointing to request cooperation triggered the process of joint activity between mother and child.     

Validity of the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form in a sample of Spanish fathers

The purpose of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form in a sample of 115 fathers of infants aged between ten and thirty-nine months old. The exploratory factor analysis revealed three reasonably distinct factors, as in the original version of the instrument. The three extracted factors: Parental Distress, Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interaction and Difficult Child accounted for 47.48 % of the variance. The internal consistency coefficients were high in each factor or subscale. These results provided empirical evidence in favour of the reliability and validity of the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form in Spanish fathers, and can be useful to elucidate the mechanisms through which stress impacts parenting and permitting to develop more targeted interventions for infants and their families.     

Electrophysiological evidence for the magnocellular-dorsal pathway deficit in dyslexia

In adults, the onset of coherent motion compared to random motion in a random dot kinematogram leads to a right hemispheric amplitude advantage of the N2 response. The source of this asymmetry is believed to lie in the motion selective MT+ cortex. Here, we tested whether the right tempo-parietal N2 component shows a similar regularity in children. In particular, we were interested in whether coherent vs. incoherent motion modulates the amplitude of N2 similarly in dyslexic and control children. We found higher N2 amplitude for coherent compared to random motion in the right hemisphere for controls but not for dyslexics. This effect was related to topographical differences of N2 amplitude for random motion between the studied groups and was accompanied by longer reaction times to random motion in dyslexic compared to control children. Furthermore, a negative correlation between the amplitude of N2 for random motion and spelling errors was observed in both groups, which is consistent with previous findings linking the magnocellular-dorsal (MD) pathway with orthographic skills. These data support the hypothesis of subtle deficiencies in the MD pathway in dyslexia.     

Why do dogs (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis familiaris</Emphasis>) select the empty container in an observational learning task?

Many argue that dogs show unique susceptibility to human communicative signals that make them suitable for being engaged in complex co-operation with humans. It has also been revealed that socially provided information is particularly effective in influencing the behaviour of dogs even when the human’s action demonstration conveys inefficient or mistaken solution of task. It is unclear, however, how the communicative nature of the demonstration context and the presence of the human demonstrator affect the dogs’ object-choice behaviour in observational learning situations. In order to unfold the effects of these factors, 76 adult pet dogs could observe a communicative or a non-communicative demonstration in which the human retrieved a tennis ball from under an opaque container while manipulating another distant and obviously empty (transparent) one. Subjects were then allowed to choose either in the presence of the demonstrator or after she left the room. Results showed a significant main effect of the demonstration context (presence or absence of the human’s communicative signals), and we also found some evidence for the response-modifying effect of the presence of the human demonstrator during the dogs’ choice. That is, dogs predominantly chose the baited container, but if the demonstration context was communicative and the human was present during the dogs’ choice, subjects’ tendency to select the baited container has been reduced. In agreement with the studies showing sensitivity to human’s communicative signals in dogs, these findings point to a special form of social influence in observational learning situations when it comes to learning about causally opaque and less efficient (compared to what comes natural to the dog) action demonstrations.     

Spontaneous discrimination of small quantities: shoaling preferences in angelfish (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Pterophyllum scalare</Emphasis>)

The ability to quantify, i.e. to estimate quantity, may provide evolutionary advantages in some contexts and has been demonstrated in a variety of animal species. In a prior study, we showed that angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare) were able to discriminate between groups (shoals) in which a large number of conspecifics swam preferring to join the larger of the two. Our results implied that angelfish can compare relative shoal sizes likely on the basis of some quantitative attributes of the shoal. Here, also using a binary preference test, we examined whether angelfish are able to discriminate between shoals of small numbers of conspecifics, and if so whether their performance reveals a comparable underlying mechanism to that proposed for discrimination of small quantities in human and non-human animals, namely the possible precursor of the ability to count. Our results demonstrate that fish reliably chose 4 versus 1, 3 versus 1, 2 versus 1 and 3 versus 2 individuals, but were at chance performance level when having to choose between 4 versus 3, 5 versus 4 and 6 versus 5. Findings also reveal that the density of the fish in the stimulus shoals did not significantly affect the performance of experimental angelfish. These results are compatible with the hypothesis of the existence of an object-file mechanism to discriminate small quantities in vertebrates and provide evidence for spontaneous discrimination of up to three elements in angelfish, a similar limit to that found in human and non-human animals. The findings add to the growing body of data, suggesting that the mechanisms underlying discrimination between different quantities of items may be shared across different taxa and have an evolutionary ancient origin.     

Recording vocalizations with Bluetooth technology

We propose a method for capturing vocalizations that is designed to avoid some of the limiting factors found in traditional bioacoustical methods, such as the impossibility of obtaining continuous long-term registers or analyzing amplitude due to the continuous change of distance between the subject and the position of the recording system. Using Bluetooth technology, vocalizations are captured and transmitted wirelessly into a receiving system without affecting the quality of the signal. The recordings of the proposed system were compared to those obtained as a reference, which were based on the coding of the signal with the so-called pulse-code modulation technique in WAV audio format without any compressing process. The evaluation showed p < .05 for the measured quantitative and qualitative parameters. We also describe how the transmitting system is encapsulated and fixed on the animal and a way to video record a spider monkey’s behavior simultaneously with the audio recordings.     

When believing is seeing: the role of predictions in shaping visual perception

The study investigated the influence of predictions on perception-in particular, how strong but erroneous prediction coupled with poor sensory data can trigger misperceptions. Using signal detection, we tested whether predictions induced by a semantic cue change the recognition threshold (criterion) or the subjectively perceived differences between stimuli (sensitivity). In a series of 3 experiments, participants observed pictures of (a) real objects distorted to various extents (targets), (b) noise with elements corresponding to meaningful objects (foils), or (c) nonsense images (noise). Stimuli were preceded either by a semantic cue or by a blank screen with equal probability. Presence of the cue resulted in a more liberal criterion, but only for targets and foils. The cue decreased sensitivity between the distorted targets, but increased sensitivity between the targets and noise-that is, the cue increased between-class differences, but decreased within-class differences. When there was no correspondence between prediction and the sensory input, prediction actually increased the chances of correctly rejecting noise. The influence of the cue was strongest for the moderately distorted targets and foils-when uncertainty related to the bottom-up input was the highest.