Students’ Perceptions of Unsafe Schools: An Ecological Systems Analysis

In the aftermath of several school shooting incidents in recent years, students’ perceptions of unsafe schools has been a major concern for parents, teachers, school officials, school practitioners, and policy-makers. Using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems framework, we examined the micro-, meso-, and exosystem level factors associated with perceptions of unsafe school environments in a nationally representative sample of 10- to 15-year-old youth in the United States. We found that for the socio-demographic characteristics, students who were older, male, and poor had increased risks of perceiving higher levels of unsafe school environments. Within the microsystem of the family, our results indicate that parent-youth discussions of school activities/events decreased the risk of students perceiving unsafe schools. All of the school environment variables—ease of making friends, teachers’ involvement, observed weapon carrying, and school rule enforcement—were related in the expected direction to students’ perceiving their schools as unsafe. At the mesosystem level, findings from our study demonstrate that variables measuring parental school involvement were unrelated to perceptions of school safety. Finally, at the exosystem level, we found that students’ perceptions of residing in a safer neighborhood and residence in a non-central city metropolitan area, compared with a central city, decreased the odds of perceiving school environments as unsafe. School policy and practice implications are discussed.     

Learning new vocabulary in German: the effects of inferring word meanings,type of feedback,and time of test

In the present study, introductory-level German students read a simplified story and learned the meanings of new German words by reading English translations in marginal glosses versus trying to infer (i.e., guess) their translations. Students who inferred translations were given feedback in English or in German, or no feedback at all. Although immediate retention of new vocabulary was better for students who used marginal glosses, students who inferred word meanings and then received English feedback forgot fewer translations over time. Plausible but inaccurate inferences (i.e., those that made sense in the context) were more likely to be corrected by students who received English feedback as compared with German feedback, providing support for the beneficial effects of mediating information. Implausible inaccurate inferences, however, were more likely to be corrected on the delayed vocabulary test by students who received German feedback as compared with English feedback, possibly because of the additional contextual support provided by German feedback.     

The effects of prior knowledge on the encoding of episodic contextual details

A positive relationship between prior knowledge and item memory is a consistent finding in the literature. In the present study, we sought to determine whether this relationship extends to episodic details that are present at the time of encoding, namely source memory. Using a novel experimental design, we were able to show both between- and within-subjects effects of prior knowledge on source memory. Specifically, the results revealed that the degree of prior knowledge positively predicted memory for source specifying contextual details. In addition, by including two conditions in which attention was divided either at encoding or retrieval, we were able to show that prior knowledge influences memory by affecting encoding processes. Overall, the data suggest that a priori knowledge within a specific domain allows attentional resources to be allocated toward the encoding of contextual details.     

Smaller holistic processing of faces associated with face drawing experience

The type of experience involved with an object category has been regarded as one important factor in shaping of the human object recognition system. Laboratory training studies have shown that different kinds of learning experience with the same set of novel objects resulted in different perceptual and neural changes. Whether this applies to natural real-world objects remains to be seen. We compared two groups of observers who had different learning experiences with faces, using holistic processing as a dependent measure. We found that, while ordinary observers had extensive individuation experience with faces and displayed typical holistic face processing, art students who had acquired additional experience in drawing faces, and thus in attending to parts of a face, showed less holistic processing than did ordinary observers. These results converge with laboratory training studies on the role of type of experience in the development of different perceptual markers for different object categories. It is thus insufficient to categorize expertise simply in terms of object domains (e.g., expertise with faces). Instead, perceptual expertise should be classified in terms of the underlying process or task demand.     

Participation and Attrition in a Coping Skills Intervention for Adolescent Girls with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

The current study examined factors associated with adolescent and parent participation in a coping skills intervention for adolescent girls with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and examined factors associated with attrition related to intermittent missing data. Thirty-one adolescent girls with IBD and their parents enrolled in the intervention. Psychosocial and disease factors related to participation in the 6-week web component of the coping skills intervention were examined as were baseline group differences between those who provided post-treatment data and those who did not. Adolescents experiencing more difficulties related to their disease and psychosocial functioning participated less in the web component of the treatment intervention. Families who attrited had higher baseline levels of parental catastrophic thoughts, parenting stress, and adolescent depression. Families experiencing greater levels of psychological and disease-related difficulties may be at risk for low participation and eventual dropout from pediatric IBD psychological treatment interventions.     

Gender Differences in the Social Functioning of Adolescents with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been associated with social difficulties. Boys with IBD may have increased risk for social problems due to delayed growth and puberty, but gender differences in social functioning have not been investigated. This study examined gender differences in multiple areas of social functioning for adolescents with IBD compared to healthy adolescents. Participants were 92 adolescents 11-17?years (50 with IBD, 42 healthy) and parents who completed questionnaires assessing social functioning. IBD was associated with poorer social functioning in the areas of social competence and social problems. Boys with IBD had worse social competence, with no gender differences for social problems. Gender predicted the use of social contact as a coping strategy, but no significant group differences were found for other areas of social functioning. Adolescents with IBD experience significant social difficulties in some areas, and boys are at risk for poor social competence. However, previously reported social difficulties may not extend to all areas of social functioning.     

Associations Between Positive Development in Late Adolescence and Social, Health, and Behavioral Outcomes in Young Adulthood

Little is known about positive development across the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. The purpose of this paper was to use longitudinal data from a large community sample, the Australian Temperament Project, to investigate prospective associations between positive development at age 19?C20?years and changes in social, health, and behavioral outcomes at 23?C24?years. Data from 890 young adults (61.7% women) were analyzed using path analysis. Emotional health, physical well-being, friendship quality, reduced antisocial behavior, and positive development in young adulthood were predicted by higher levels of positive development in late adolescence, after controlling for baseline levels of respective outcomes, gender, and family socioeconomic status. Parent relationship quality and alcohol use were not significantly predicted. Based on these findings, interventions promoting positive development during adolescence should be investigated as a potential means of yielding positive social, health, and behavioral consequences well into young adulthood.     

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.     

Comment on “Visual layout modulates Fitts’s law: The importance of first and last positions”

Pratt, Adam, and Fischer (2007) investigated the effect of surrounding targets on the time it took to move to an individual target and found that the movement time to a central target was above the Fitts’s law line related to the first and last targets. They explained their results in terms of a “visuomotor hypothesis.” Here, an alternative explanation is given in terms of a previously validated model of the “available target width” that is determined by the size of the target and the width of the finger pad that is being used to hit the target.     

Memory in motion: Movement dynamics reveal memory strength

Recognition memory is typically examined as a discrete end-state, describable by static variables, such as accuracy, response time, and confidence. In the present study, we combined real-time mouse-tracking with subsequent, overt confidence estimates to examine the dynamic nature of memory decisions. By examining participants' streaming x-, y- mouse coordinates during recognition decisions, we observed that movement trajectories revealed underlying response confidence. More confident decisions were associated with shorter decision times and more linear response trajectories. Less confident decisions were made slowly, with increased trajectory curvature. Statistical indices of curvature and decision times, including area-under-the-curve and time to maximum deviation, suggested that memory strength relates to response dynamics. Whether participants were correct or incorrect, old responses showed a stronger correspondence between mouse trajectories and confidence, relative to new responses. We suggest that people subjectively experience a correspondence between feelings of memory and feelings of confidence; that subjective experience reveals itself in real-time decision processes, as suggested by sequential sampling models of recognition decisions.