Object perception in 5-month-old infants of clinically depressed and nondepressed mothers

Five-month-old infants of clinically depressed and nondepressed mothers were familiarized to a wholly novel object and afterward tested for their discrimination of the same object presented in the familiar and in a novel perspective. Infants in both groups were adequately familiarized, but infants of clinically depressed mothers failed to discriminate between novel and familiar views of the object, whereas infants of nondepressed mothers successfully discriminated. The difference in discrimination between infants of depressed and nondepressed mothers is discussed in light of infants' differential object processing and maternal sociodemographics, mind-mindedness, depression, stress, and interaction styles that may moderate opportunities for infants to learn about their world or influence the development of their perceptuocognitive capacities.     

Exploring the Impact of Attachment Anxiety and Avoidance on the Perception of Couple Conflict

Attachment anxiety and avoidance have been shown to affect how an individual processes social information such as facial expressions. Previous work has not explored perception of couple relationships. The current study had 39 individuals observe images and videos of couples in conflict. Results suggest that individuals with higher attachment anxiety perceived more intensity in negative interactions/affect and less positive interactions/affect in the couples they observed. Implications for therapy, clinical supervision, and family life education are discussed.     

Evidence for the Syndrome of Nonverbal Learning Disabilities in Children with Brain Tumors

This study examined the predicted utility of the Nonverbal Learning Disabilities syndrome (NLD) (Rourke, 1995) for characterizing neurocognitive and psychosocial outcomes in 123 children with brain tumors. Children with brain tumors were found to be at high risk of having a specific academic deficit, particularly in arithmetic. Children with arithmetic deficit evidenced a higher rate of impairment on nonverbal tasks than on verbal tasks, whereas children with reading deficit evidenced a higher rate of impairment on verbal tasks than on nonverbal tasks. However, significant differences between children with arithmetic and reading deficits were not found for all of the component features of the NLD syndrome, and arithmetic deficit was not related to treatment with irradiation.     

Association between maternal sensitivity and externalizing behavior from preschool to preadolescence

Using data from the longitudinal NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1364), this study examined the association between mothers' sensitivity and children's externalizing behavior from preschool to preadolescence. Externalizing behavior declined on average across this period with a slowing of this decline around middle childhood. Maternal sensitivity remained relatively stable on average, and there was significant variation across mothers. A decrease in maternal sensitivity from ages 3 to 11 was related to an increase in externalizing behavior from ages 4 to 12. A model-based test of the direction of the effect suggested that the association between changes in maternal sensitivity and externalizing behavior from ages 4 to 11 was driven by child effects on mothers and not vice-versa. Between late preschool age and preadolescence, the behavior problems of children appear to strongly influence the sensitive support of mothers. Practical implications were discussed in light of these findings.     

Interaction Between Visually and Kinesthetically Triggered Voluntary Responses

A voluntary motor response that is prepared in advance of a stimulus may be triggered by any sensory input. This study investigated the combination of visual and kinesthetic inputs in triggering voluntary torque responses. When a visual stimulus was presented alone, subjects produced a fast and accurate increase in elbow flexion torque. When a kinesthetic stimulus was presented instead of the visual stimulus, subjects produced a similar response with a reduced response latency. When a visual stimulus was presented in combination with a kinesthetic stimulus, subjects initiated their responses after either a visual or a kinesthetic response latency, depending on the relative timing of the two stimuli. An analysis of response amplitude suggested that when visual and kinesthetic stimuli were combined, both stimuli triggered a response. The results are more consistent with a simple behavioral model of addition of visual and kinesthetic responses (which predicts that the response to combined stimuli should be the sum of individual responses) than with a model of exclusion of one response (which predicts that the response to combined stimuli should be identical to either the visual or the kinesthetic response). Because addition of visually and kinesthetically triggered responses produced a response with an erroneously large amplitude, it is suggested that visual and kinesthetic inputs are not always efficiently integrated.     

Vocabulary Ability in Later Life

A group of young adults (17 to 20 years) was compared to a group of older adults (62 to 83 years) with respect to their vocabulary test responses scored qualitatively, after having been matched on the basis of their vocabulary test responses scored in the traditional “quantitative” way. The qualitative score analysis was based upon categories of response which differentiated among levels of good performances, levels of poor performances, and types of errors.

The results of this study cast doubt as to the validity of the generalization that vocabulary function is maintained throughout adult life. The best possible response—i.e., superior synonym—was seen to decline with age.

This decline, however, was compensated for by very satisfactory, although less good, performance. This made the overall level of correct response appear similar for the two age groups, which may account for the usual report of stability of function in the course of adult aging. The compensation also made for very high correlations between qualitative and quantitative scores. It may be reasonable to speculate that, if performances on other verbal tasks were analyzed for qualitative differences in response precision, the often reported aging pattern (verbal skills maintained but not perceptual integrative ones) would not be observed.