Children's use of the bearing angle in interceptive actions

The authors investigated the effect of ball velocity and walking direction on children's adherence to the constant bearing angle (CBA) strategy. Children (N = 20) approached a moving ball to manually intercept it at a predefined target area. Results revealed that 10- to 12-year-olds adhered more than 5- to 7-year-olds to the CBA strategy. Younger children deviated more than older children from smaller angles of approach and lower ball velocities. The present findings suggest that younger children have difficulty adjusting to task requirements because they fail to couple walking velocity with ball velocity. The improvement seen with increasing age suggests that compliance with the CBA strategy may be attributed to older children's enhanced coincidence anticipation.     

First suckling: a crucial event for mother-young attachment? an experimental study in horses (Equus caballus)

This study investigates the consequences of interference during first suckling for subsequent mare-young attachment in horses (Equus caballus). Foals brought to their dams' teats appeared, at later ages (1-3 months), to remain closer to their dams and to play less than control foals that had been allowed to suckle spontaneously. Higher levels of play and distance initiatives from the mother are considered criteria for secure attachment in horses, humans, and other species. As this unique handling was the only event that distinguished experimental from control groups, the authors concluded that first suckling is a crucial event in the development of secure dam-young attachment. These results could have important implications for all mammal species, including humans.     

Effects of experience on the coordination of internally and externally timed soccer kicks

The authors investigated differences in the soccer kick between 8 experienced and 10 less experienced participants in 2 different task conditions (kicking a stationary ball or a moving ball at a target). The experienced participants were more accurate than their less experienced counterparts, whereas there were no differences in maximum foot velocity between groups or between conditions. When compared with their performance in the stationary condition, participants kicked the moving ball with a smaller range of movement at the knee of the kicking leg, maintaining a proximodistal coordination pattern. Because of their significantly shorter knee-flexion phase, the participants in the experienced group displayed a significantly shorter time between initiation of the forward swing of the kick and ball contact than that of those in the less experienced group. The rapid knee flexion may have been a strategy of exploiting passive dynamics to increase accuracy rather than velocity. Members of both groups showed a proximodistal initiation sequence in the kicking leg, which suggests that players can acquire that coordination pattern with relatively little structured practice and that further practice leads to improvement possibly through the increased exploitation of passive dynamics.     

Robust dimensions of anxiety sensitivity: development and initial validation of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3

Accumulating evidence suggests that anxiety sensitivity (fear of arousal-related sensations) plays an important role in many clinical conditions, particularly anxiety disorders. Research has increasingly focused on how the basic dimensions of anxiety sensitivity are related to various forms of psychopathology. Such work has been hampered because the original measure--the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI)--was not designed to be multidimensional. Subsequently developed multidimensional measures have unstable factor structures or measure only a subset of the most widely replicated factors. Therefore, the authors developed, via factor analysis of responses from U.S. and Canadian nonclinical participants (n=2,361), an 18-item measure, the ASI-3, which assesses the 3 factors best replicated in previous research: Physical, Cognitive, and Social Concerns. Factorial validity of the ASI-3 was supported by confirmatory factor analyses of 6 replication samples, including nonclinical samples from the United States and Canada, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Spain (n=4,494) and a clinical sample from the United States and Canada (n=390). The ASI-3 displayed generally good performance on other indices of reliability and validity, along with evidence of improved psychometric properties over the original ASI.     

La socialisation des émotions chez le nourrisson: le rôle des expressions faciales contingentes des mères

Although maternal contingent responses to their infant's facial expressions of emotions is thought to play an important role in the socialization of emotions, available data are still scarce and often inconsistent To further investigate how mothers' contingent facial expressions might influence infant emotional development, we undertook to study mother‐infant dyads in four episodes of face‐to‐face interaction during the first year. Mothers' facial expressions were strongly related to their infant's facial expressions of emotions, most of their contingent responses being produced within one second following infants' facial expressions Specific patterns of responses were also found. The impact of maternal contingent responding on infants' expressive development was also examined.     

Dysexecutive syndrome in Parkinson’s disease: the GREFEX study

The objectives of this study were to characterize the frequencies and profiles of behavioral and cognitive dysexecutive syndromes in PD (based on validated battery and diagnostic criteria) and to develop a shortened diagnostic battery. Eighty-eight non-demented patients with a diagnosis of PD were examined with an executive validated battery. Using a validated framework, the patients’ test results were interpreted with respect to normative data from 780 controls. A dysexecutive syndrome was observed in 80.6% of the patients [95% confidence interval: 71.1–90.1]. The dysexecutive profile was characterized by prominent impairments in deduction, flexibility, inhibition and initiation in the cognitive domain, and by global hypoactivity with apathy and hyperactivity in the behavioral domain. This finding implies that patients with PD should be assessed with cognitive tests and a validated inventory for behavioral dysexecutive syndromes. A shortened battery (based on three cognitive tests and three behavioral domains) provided high diagnostic accuracy.     

Inter-limb coupling in bimanual rhythmic coordination in Parkinson's disease

Recently, it has been shown that rhythmic inter-limb coordination is disturbed in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). The present study aims to investigate whether this coordination deficit is primarily the result of an impaired coupling, related to hypoactivation of the supplementary motor area (SMA), or primarily the indirect result of an asymmetrical distribution of PD symptoms over the left and right limbs (a peripheral process). Thirty PD patients and 30 matched control participants tapped with the index fingers anti-phase and left and right leading gallop patterns in four visual feedback conditions. Symmetrically affected participants performed significantly worse than asymmetrically affected and control participants in the gallop patterns. This result suggested that the central deficit has a stronger effect on inter-limb coupling in PD than the neuromuscular and biomechanical asymmetry between the limbs. Detailed analysis of inter-tap intervals (variability and correlation) suggested that this deficit leads to a compensatory asymmetrical inter-limb coupling in the primarily right-affected patient group, and under specific circumstances also in the primarily left-affected patient group. The difference in coordination strategy between left- and right-affected patients suggested that pre-morbid hand preference is an important structural constraint on the coupling strategies available to the participants.     

Relations between vocabulary development and verbal short-term memory: The relative importance of short-term memory for serial order and item information

Although many studies have shown an association between verbal short-term memory (STM) and vocabulary development, the precise nature of this association is not yet clear. The current study reexamined this relation in 4- to 6-year-olds by designing verbal STM tasks that maximized memory for either item or serial order information. Although empirical data suggest that distinct STM processes determine item and serial order recall, these were generally confounded in previous developmental studies. We observed that item and order memory tasks were independently related to vocabulary development. Furthermore, vocabulary development was more strongly associated with STM for order information in 4- and 6-year-olds and with STM for item information in 5-year-olds. These data highlight the specificity of verbal STM for serial order and item information and suggest a causal association between order STM processes and vocabulary development, at least in 4- and 6-year-olds.     

The consistency of false suggestions moderates children's reports of a single instance of a repeated event: predicting increases and decreases in suggestibility

Participants (6- and 7-year-olds, N=130) participated in classroom activities four times. Children were interviewed about the final occurrence (target event) either 1 week or 4 weeks later, during which half of the event items were described inaccurately. Half of these suggestions were consistent with the theme of the detail across the occurrences (e.g., always sat on a kind of floor mat) or were inconsistent (e.g., sat on a chair). When memory for the target event was tested 1 day later, children falsely recognized fewer inconsistent suggestions than consistent suggestions, especially compared with a control group of children who experienced the event just one time. Furthermore, the longer delay reduced accuracy only for consistent suggestions. Source-monitoring ability was strongly and positively related to resistance to suggestions, and encouraging children to identify the source of false suggestions allowed them to retract a significant proportion of their reports of inconsistent suggestions but not of consistent suggestions. The results suggest that the gist consistency of suggestions determines whether event repetition increases or decreases suggestibility.     

Theoretical structure of adolescent alienation: a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis

This study examined the construct validity of adolescent alienation using second-order confirmatory factor analysis of the five dimensions conceptualized by Seeman (1959). Analysis was based on data from 275 high school students aged 14 to 18. The hypothesized multidimensionality of the construct was confirmed for both boys and girls using a second-order factor labeled alienation. Central dimensions of alienation as a latent construct were self-estrangement and powerlessness. Social isolation, meaninglessness, and especially normlessness were poorly explained by the second-order factor, suggesting that these dimensions entail enough specificity to be considered separately. A different theoretical model relating these dimensions is suggested and discussed.