Is Disgust Prepared? A Preliminary Examination in Young Children

Children may be prepared to associate adult disgust reactions with adult disgust elicitors. To test this, three-year olds (and adults) were presented with two images and an emotive vocalization. The images and vocalizations included stimuli adults found disgusting, fear-provoking, and sad. On one set of trials, the main dependent variable (DV) was time spent looking at each image and on a second set of repeat trials the DV was knowledge of image-sound matches. Fear and disgust vocalizations were both more effective at orienting a child's attention to adult fear and disgust images, than sad vocalizations. Parental disgust sensitivity was associated with this effect, moderated by explicit matching knowledge. Matching knowledge was poor in children and good in adults. These data suggest that in children, fear and disgust vocalizations may both promote attention to stimuli that adults find disgusting and/or fear-provoking, suggesting that “preparedness” may not be wholly emotion-specific.     

Generalizability theory: A practical guide to study design,implementation, and interpretation

Generalizability Theory (GT) offers increased utility for assessment research given the ability to concurrently examine multiple sources of variance, inform both relative and absolute decision making, and determine both the consistency and generalizability of results. Despite these strengths, assessment researchers within the fields of education and psychology have been slow to adopt and utilize a GT approach. This underutilization may be due to an incomplete understanding of the conceptual underpinnings of GT, the actual steps involved in designing and implementing generalizability studies, or some combination of both issues. The goal of the current article is therefore two-fold: (a) to provide readers with the conceptual background and terminology related to the use of GT and (b) to facilitate understanding of the range of issues that need to be considered in the design, implementation, and interpretation of generalizability and dependability studies. Given the relevance of this analytic approach to applied assessment contexts, there exists a need to ensure that GT is both accessible to, and understood by, researchers in education and psychology. Important methodological and analytical considerations are presented and implications for applied use are described.     

Predictors of Adherence to a Brief Behavioral Insomnia Intervention: Daily Process Analysis

Behavioral interventions for insomnia are effective in improving sleep, yet adherence is variable, and predictors of adherence have not been consistently replicated. The relationships between daily variations in state factors at the initiation of treatment and adherence have not been investigated. Using 2-week, self-report online logs, this study determined, among 53 college students with probable insomnia, the associations of pretreatment factors and daily factors during treatment on daily variations in adherence to one session of behavioral treatments for insomnia. These treatments included stimulus control therapy (SCT), sleep restriction therapy (SRT), and sleep hygiene (SH). Low self-efficacy was associated with poorer SCT and SH adherence. Participants with a “bed partner or pet” at least some of the time had better SCT adherence. Greater total sleep time and poorer sleep quality were associated with poor SCT and SRT adherence the following night. Greater sleep efficiency was related to greater next night SCT and SRT adherence. Alcohol consumption was related to poorer SRT and SH adherence the following night. Future studies should test the replicability of these findings. Adherence trials may want to test whether discouraging alcohol intake, enhancing treatment-related self-efficacy, and monitoring and providing feedback on sleep, early in treatment, affects adherence.     

What Does Children's Spatial Language Reveal About Spatial Concepts? Evidence From the Use of Containment Expressions

Children's overextensions of spatial language are often taken to reveal spatial biases. However, it is unclear whether extension patterns should be attributed to children's overly general spatial concepts or to a narrower notion of conceptual similarity allowing metaphor‐like extensions. We describe a previously unnoticed extension of spatial expressions and use a novel method to determine its origins. English‐ and Greek‐speaking 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds used containment expressions (e.g., English into, Greek mesa) for events where an object moved into another object but extended such expressions to events where the object moved behind or under another object. The pattern emerged in adult speakers of both languages and also in speakers of 10 additional languages. We conclude that learners do not have an overly general concept of Containment. Nevertheless, children (and adults) perceive similarities across Containment and other types of spatial scenes, even when these similarities are obscured by the conventional forms of the language.     

Mindfulness Based Interventions for Youth

Application of mindfulness based interventions for youth is growing exponentially within clinical and educational settings. Proponents emphasize benefits in reduction of a wide range of psychopathology including internalizing and externalizing disorders, as well as enhancement of functioning and skills in attentional focus and concentration, emotion regulation, social and academic performance, adaptive coping, frustration tolerance, self-control, and self-esteem. Findings to date are encouraging, though research design reflects the nascent nature of the field and continues to be insufficient to confirm treatment efficacy or mechanisms of change. This article is aimed at providing the clinical practitioner with a review of the current state of the field with regard to application of mindfulness for youth, placing it in context of the broader history of the CBT movement. Specifically mindfulness based stress reduction, mindfulness based cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and dialectical behavior therapy treatments for youth are critically reviewed, and mindfulness as a technique and as a unifying mechanism of action in “third-wave” youth psychotherapies discussed. Developmental considerations are highlighted, and the application of mindfulness as a universal preventative health measure versus tertiary treatment intervention examined, with consideration for future directions.     

The real thing: preschoolers prefer actual activities to pretend ones

Pretend play is a quintessential activity of early childhood, and adults supply children with many toys to encourage it. Do young children actually prefer to pretend, or do they do it because they are unable to engage in some activities for real? Here we examined, for nine different activities, American middle‐class preschoolers' preferences for pretend and real activities. The 100 children we tested (M = 58.5 months, range 36 to 82 months) overwhelmingly preferred real activities to pretend ones, and this preference increased from age 3 to age 4, then remained steady through age 6. Children provided cogent justifications for their preferences. The results are discussed with reference to other domains in which children show reality preferences and with respect to the content of preschool curricula.     

Functional communication training and noncontingent reinforcement in treatment of stereotypy

A 6‐year‐old boy with autism spectrum disorder engaged in automatically maintained stereotypy in the form of opening and closing doors. A functional analysis confirmed that he also emitted problem behavior that was maintained by access to stereotypy. We evaluated the separate and combined effects of functional communication training and arbitrary noncontingent reinforcement on both response classes. Results showed that the combination of functional communication training and noncontingent reinforcement was more effective at reducing stereotypy than either intervention on its own, although effects on problem behavior were unclear. These results suggest that combinations of interventions may be useful in the treatment of automatically maintained problem behavior.     

Rhesus monkeys (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Macaca mulatta</Emphasis>) remember agency information from past events and integrate this knowledge with spatial and temporal features in working memory

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether rhesus monkeys remember information about their own agency—along with spatial, temporal and contextual properties—from a previously experienced event. In Experiment 1, rhesus monkeys (n = 4) used symbols to reliably indicate whether they had performed or observed an event on a computer screen. In Experiment 2, naïve and experienced monkeys (n = 8) reported agency information when stringent controls for perceptual and proprioceptive cues were included. In Experiment 3, five of the monkeys completed a task in which they reported agency information along with spatial and temporal features of events. Two monkeys performed this agency discrimination when they could not anticipate which memory test they would receive. There was also evidence that these features were integrated in memory. Implications of this research are discussed in relation to working memory, episodic memory and self-awareness in nonhuman animals.