The role of context on strategic actions in Mastermind

When inexperienced solvers play consecutive Mastermind games, they begin to use a strategy in which specific hypothetical types are offered in response to specific feedback types, a strategy known as the modal hypothesis strategy. When participants who had learned that strategy were shifted onto Mastermind games whose code format was different from, and easier than, that they had experienced, their use of the strategy was degraded despite their familiarity and experience in dealing with the specific feedback types occurring in the new code. The results suggest that the use of a domain-specific strategy is at least somewhat influenced by the match between the context in which the strategy has been acquired and the context in which it is being put to use.     

Selective attention to the parts of an object

Recent empirical results suggest that there is a decrement in dividing attention between two objects in a scene compared with focusing attention on a single object. However, objects can be made of individual parts. Is there a decrement for dividing attention across different parts of a single object? We addressed this question in two experiments. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated that attention can exhibit part-based selection—that is, the subjects were more accurate in reporting two attributes from the same part of an object than they were in reporting attributes from different parts of an object. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that part-based attentional decrements occurred simultaneously with object-based attentional decrements. The results from Experiment 2 demonstrated that part-based attention is evident at the same time as objects are processed as coherent wholes. Our results imply that there is an attentional mechanism that can select either objects or their parts.     

Expertise in tactile pattern recognition

This article explores expertise in tactile object recognition. In one study, participants were trained to differing degrees of accuracy on tactile identification of two-dimensional patterns. Recognition of these patterns, of inverted versions of these patterns, and of subparts of these patterns was then tested. The inversion effect (better recognition of upright than inverted patterns) and the part-whole effect (better recognition of the whole than a part pattern), traditionally considered signatures of visual expertise, were observed for tactile experts but not for novices. In a second study, participants were trained as visual or tactile experts and then tested in the trained and nontrained modalities. Whereas expertise effects were observed in the modality of training, cross-modal transfer was asymmetric; visual experts showed generalization to haptic recognition, but tactile experts did not show generalization to visual recognition. Tactile expertise is not obviously attributable to visual mediation and emerges from domain-general principles that operate independently of modality.     

A slow wave investigation of working memory biases in mood disorders

Mood-congruent working memory biases were examined in a delayed matching to sample paradigm using the slow wave (SW) event-related brain potential (ERP) component. Mood-congruent working memory biases, indexed by SW amplitudes, were demonstrated among individuals experiencing a major depressive episode (MDE) and nondepressed controls but not individuals with dysthymia. However, analyses of symptom severity demonstrated that those with dysthymia exhibited significantly less negative SW amplitudes with increasing depressive mood severity, whereas individuals with major depression demonstrated more negative SW amplitudes with increasing depressive mood severity. These results are discussed in the context of diagnostic specificity for cognitive biases associated with working memory of mood-disordered individuals.     

Object width modulates object-based attentional selection

Visual input typically includes a myriad of objects, some of which are selected for further processing. While these objects vary in shape and size, most evidence supporting object-based guidance of attention is drawn from paradigms employing two identical objects. Importantly, object size is a readily perceived stimulus dimension, and whether it modulates the distribution of attention remains an open question. Across four experiments, the size of the objects in the display was manipulated in a modified version of the two-rectangle paradigm. In Experiment 1, two identical parallel rectangles of two sizes (thin or thick) were presented. Experiments 2–4 employed identical trapezoids (each having a thin and thick end), inverted in orientation. In the experiments, one end of an object was cued and participants performed either a T/L discrimination or a simple target-detection task. Combined results show that, in addition to the standard object-based attentional advantage, there was a further attentional benefit for processing information contained in the thick versus thin end of objects. Additionally, eye-tracking measures demonstrated increased saccade precision towards thick object ends, suggesting that Fitts’s Law may play a role in object-based attentional shifts. Taken together, these results suggest that object-based attentional selection is modulated by object width.     

EARLY REGULATION IN CHILDREN WHO ARE LATER DIAGNOSED WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER. A LONGITUDINAL STUDY WITHIN THE DANISH NATIONAL BIRTH COHORT

Studies have shown that children later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in their first years of life might show symptoms in main developmental areas and that these signs might be sensed by the parents. The present study investigated in a large birth cohort if children later diagnosed with ASD had deviations at 6 and 18 months in areas such as the ability to self‐regulate emotions, feeding, and sleeping. The study was based on prospective information collected from 76,322 mothers who participated in the Danish National Birth Cohort. When the children reached an average age of 11 years, 973 children with ASD and a control group of 300 children with intellectual disability (IDnoASD) were identified via Danish health registries. Associations were found between short periods of breast‐feeding and the children later diagnosed with ASD and IDnoASD as well as associations at 18 months to deviations in regulation of emotions and activity. The similarities in these associations emphasize how difficult it is to distinguish between diagnoses early in life.     

Can children break the cycle of disadvantage? Structure and agency in the transmission of education across generations

Research has shown that parents tend to pass educational advantage or disadvantage on to their children. However, little is known about the extent to which the intergenerational transmission of education involves children’s agency. In this study we drew from two traditions in sociological and social psychological theorizing—the theory of cultural and social reproduction and the theory of human agency—to examine whether agency influences children’s educational performance, and if so, whether this influence can be observed among children across social classes. We used data from the Spanish sample of the Program for International Student Assessment (N = 25,003 15-year-olds). Results indicate that the level of child agency was weakly positively related to social class, that child agency impacted on a child’s educational performance, and that the positive effect of agency on educational performance did not vary by social class. This suggests that strategies to enhance disadvantaged children’s agency may prove useful in reducing social gradients in educational performance. More generally, our findings may ignite a debate about the role that social structure and human agency play in shaping social inequality and mobility.     

Comparison of group cohesion,class participation,and exam performance in live and online classes

Though class participation and group cohesion have shown some potential to promote student performance in conventional classrooms, their efficacy has not yet been demonstrated in an online-class setting. Group cohesion, defined as member attraction to and self-identification with a group, is thought to promote positive interdependence and the success of the group’s members. The current study sought to determine if group cohesion is significantly affected by the change of course setting from a live classroom to an asynchronous online-hybrid class in which students met in person only for course exams and otherwise interacted with each other through an online discussion board. Because peer interaction appears vital for the development of cohesion, we examined the relationship between participation in class discussion and students’ self-reported group cohesion and exam performance. With one exception, course requirements and materials were identical between the two class sections: students in the online-hybrid course completed homework assignments, whereas students in the live section were simply encouraged to do the same. Despite the advantage conferred by mandatory homework assignments, the findings heavily favored the conventional live classroom with respect to exam performance and self-reported group cohesion. Participation in class discussion was high in both class sections. The results indicated that both student performance and group cohesion were significantly lower in the hybrid classes.     

A latent variable modeling approach to identifying subtypes of serious and violent female juvenile offenders

Females have recently become an important population in research related to serious and violent juvenile offending. Although a small body of research exists on girls in the deep end of the system, very few studies have examined the degree of heterogeneity within high-risk female samples. This study applied latent class analysis (LCA) to identify subgroups of female juvenile offenders based on their self-report of offending profiles (N=133). Results supported a three-class solution with subgroups characterized by patterns of 'violent and delinquent', 'delinquency only', and 'low' offending patterns. The LCA solution was replicated in an independent sample of high-risk females. The 'violent and delinquent' class was characterized by significantly higher rates of DSM-IV diagnoses for internalizing disorders, affect dysregulation, exposure to violence (within the home, school and neighborhood), and familial histories of criminality. Implications for future research, policy and clinical practice are discussed.