Parent-tutoring procedures: Experimental analysis and validation of generalization in oral reading across passages,settings, and time

A study that involved parents as reading tutors was carried out at home during the summer with four elementary children, three with learning disabilities. One purpose was to determine the effects of tutoring in the basal reader on reading rates at home. Another purpose was to determine potential generalization effects as a result of parent tutoring on different academic tasks at home and, later at school, on different and similar tasks. A combination multiple-baseline and reversal design tested for replication and generalization effects. Increases in correct rates were noted for the targeted variables across conditions. The results indicated that parents tutoring with school basal texts during the summer produced marked increases in reading rates that generalized at home to different academic tasks and at school to different and similar tasks. This suggests that parents, when using specific tutoring procedures, can increase their children's academic skills.     

Epistemological beliefs and thinking about everyday controversial issues

The authors investigated the relationship between individuals' beliefs about the nature of knowledge and the nature of learning (epistemological beliefs) and their thinking about everyday controversial issues. Adults (N = 174) ranging in age from 17 to 71 years old with a mean age of 38 completed the Schommer Epistemological Questionnaire (M. Schommer, 1990), which assessed their beliefs in the certainty and organization of knowledge and the speed and control of learning. After they had completed the questionnaire, they responded to a series of questions about two controversial issues that had been discussed in the local newspaper. Regression analyses indicated that the more the participants believed in complex and tentative knowledge, the more likely they were to take on multiple perspectives, be willing to modify their thinking, withhold ultimate decisions until all information was available, and acknowledge the complex, tentative nature of everyday issues. Epistemological beliefs that are heavily influenced by a higher level of education appear to relate to thinking beyond the classroom, and introducing controversial issues into the curriculum may reciprocally foster the development of epistemological beliefs.     

Investigating the effectiveness of brief cognitive reappraisal training to reduce fear in adolescents

As adolescent anxiety is common and costly, identifying effective strategies to reduce symptoms is a priority. This study tested whether adolescents could learn to use cognitive reappraisal strategies to attenuate fear during extinction learning. Fifty-seven participants (12–15 years) viewed images of two neutral faces, one which was paired with a fearful expression and shrieking scream (conditioned threat stimulus) and the other that was never paired with the aversive outcome (conditioned safety stimulus) during fear acquisition. Before extinction, participants either received cognitive appraisal training, which explored alternative, benign meanings associated with the scream or a control activity. Self-reported fear ratings in the cognitive reappraisal group were significantly lower to both the conditioned threat and safety stimuli after extinction than the control group. These findings did not characterise fear-potentiated startle data. Potential reasons for the lack of consistency between measures are considered.     

Audio-visual simultaneity judgments

The relative spatiotemporal correspondence between sensory events affects multisensory integration across a variety of species; integration is maximal when stimuli in different sensory modalities are presented from approximately the same position at about the same time. In the present study, we investigated the influence of spatial and temporal factors on audio-visual simultaneity perception in humans. Participants made unspeeded simultaneous versus successive discrimination responses to pairs of auditory and visual stimuli presented at varying stimulus onset asynchronies from either the same or different spatial positions using either the method of constant stimuli (Experiments 1 and 2) or psychophysical staircases (Experiment 3). The participants in all three experiments were more likely to report the stimuli as being simultaneous when they originated from the same spatial position than when they came from different positions, demonstrating that the apparent perception of multisensory simultaneity is dependent on the relative spatial position from which stimuli are presented.     

Alcohol: Effects on Neurobehavioral Functions and the Brain

Alcoholism results from an interplay between genetic and environmental factors, and is linked to brain defects and associated cognitive, emotional, and behavioral impairments. A confluence of findings from neuroimaging, physiological, neuropathological, and neuropsychological studies of alcoholics indicate that the frontal lobes, limbic system, and cerebellum are particularly vulnerable to damage and dysfunction. An integrative approach employing a variety of neuroscientific technologies is essential for recognizing the interconnectivity of the different functional systems affected by alcoholism. In that way, relevant experimental techniques can be applied to assist in determining the degree to which abstinence and treatment contribute to the reversal of atrophy and dysfunction.     

Can you McGurk yourself? Self-face and self-voice in audiovisual speech

We are constantly exposed to our own face and voice, and we identify our own faces and voices as familiar. However, the influence of self-identity upon self-speech perception is still uncertain. Speech perception is a synthesis of both auditory and visual inputs; although we hear our own voice when we speak, we rarely see the dynamic movements of our own face. If visual speech and identity are processed independently, no processing advantage would obtain in viewing one’s own highly familiar face. In the present experiment, the relative contributions of facial and vocal inputs to speech perception were evaluated with an audiovisual illusion. Our results indicate that auditory self-speech conveys a processing advantage, whereas visual self-speech does not. The data thereby support a model of visual speech as dynamic movement processed separately from speaker recognition.     

How infant-directed actions enhance infants’ attention,learning, and exploration: Evidence from EEG and computational modeling

When teaching infants new actions, parents tend to modify their movements. Infants prefer these infant-directed actions (IDAs) over adult-directed actions and learn well from them. Yet, it remains unclear how parents’ action modulations capture infants’ attention. Typically, making movements larger than usual is thought to draw attention. Recent findings, however, suggest that parents might exploit movement variability to highlight actions. We hypothesized that variability in movement amplitude rather than higher amplitude is capturing infants’ attention during IDAs. Using EEG, we measured 15-month-olds’ brain activity while they were observing action demonstrations with normal, high, or variable amplitude movements. Infants’ theta power (4–5 Hz) in fronto-central channels was compared between conditions. Frontal theta was significantly higher, indicating stronger attentional engagement, in the variable compared to the other conditions. Computational modelling showed that infants’ frontal theta power was predicted best by how surprising each movement was. Thus, surprise induced by variability in movements rather than large movements alone engages infants’ attention during IDAs. Infants with higher theta power for variable movements were more likely to perform actions successfully and to explore objects novel in the context of the given goal. This highlights the brain mechanisms by which IDAs enhance infants’ attention, learning, and exploration.