Predictive tracking over occlusions by 4-month-old infants

Two experiments investigated how 16-20-week-old infants visually tracked an object that oscillated on a horizontal trajectory with a centrally placed occluder. To determine the principles underlying infants' tendency to shift gaze to the exiting side before the object arrives, occluder width, oscillation frequency, and motion amplitude were manipulated resulting in occlusion durations between 0.20 and 1.66 s. Through these manipulations, we were able to distinguish between several possible modes of behavior underlying 'predictive' actions at occluders. Four such modes were tested. First, if passage-of-time determines when saccades are made, the tendency to shift gaze over the occluder is expected to be a function of time since disappearance. Second, if visual salience of the exiting occluder edge determines when saccades are made, occluder width would determine the pre-reappearance gaze shifts but not oscillation frequency, amplitude, or velocity. Third, if memory of the duration of the previous occlusion determines when the subjects shift gaze over the occluder, it is expected that the gaze will shift after the same latency at the next occlusion irrespective of whether occlusion duration is changed or not. Finally, if infants base their pre-reappearance gaze shifts on their ability to represent object motion (cognitive mode), it is expected that the latency of the gaze shifts over the occluder is scaled to occlusion duration. Eye and head movements as well as object motion were measured at 240 Hz. In 49% of the passages, the infants shifted gaze to the opposite side of the occluder before the object arrived there. The tendency to make such gaze shifts could not be explained by the passage of time since disappearance. Neither could it be fully explained in terms of visual information present during occlusion, i.e. occluder width. On the contrary, it was found that the latency of the pre-reappearance gaze shifts was determined by the time of object reappearance and that it was a function of all three factors manipulated. The results suggest that object velocity is represented during occlusion and that infants track the object behind the occluder in their 'mind's eye'.     

Action in development

It is argued that cognitive development has to be understood in the functional perspective provided by actions. Actions reflect all aspects of cognitive development including the motives of the child, the problems to be solved, and the constraints and possibilities of the child's body and sensorimotor system. Actions are directed into the future and their control is based on knowledge of what is going to happen next. Such knowledge is available because events are governed by rules and regularities. The planning of actions also requires knowledge of the affordances of objects and events. An important aspect of cognitive development is about how the child acquires such knowledge.     

Measuring Feeling of Knowing: Comment on Schraw (1995)

Schraw compares two coefficients for the 2×2 contingency tables resulting from many feeling of knowing (FOK) studies: Hamann's coefficient and Goodman and Kruskal's γ. He favours Hamann's coefficient and gives examples where Hamann's coefficient produces what might be considered the more intuitive result. Further scrutiny reveals that these examples are not as convincing as Schraw makes them out to be. Because Hamann's coefficient depends on the row and column marginals, it does not map onto FOK ability as well as Goodman and Kruskal's γ, which is a direct measure of the diagnostic worth of FOK ratings.     

A genetic two-factor model of the covariation among a subset of Multidimensional Aptitude Battery and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised subtests

The phenotypic and genetic factor structure of performance on five Multidimensional Aptitude Battery (MAB) subtests and one Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised (WAIS-R) subtest was explored in 390 adolescent twin pairs (184 monozygotic [MZ]; 206 dizygotic (DZ)). The temporal stability of these measures was derived from a subsample of 49 twin pairs, with test–retest correlations ranging from .67 to .85. A phenotypic factor model, in which performance and verbal factors were correlated, provided a good fit to the data. Genetic modeling was based on the phenotypic factor structure, but also took into account the additive genetic (A), common environmental (C), and unique environmental (E) parameters derived from a fully saturated ACE model. The best fitting model was characterized by a genetic correlated two-factor structure with specific effects, a general common environmental factor, and overlapping unique environmental effects. Results are compared to multivariate genetic models reported in children and adults, with the most notable difference being the growing importance of common genes influencing diverse abilities in adolescence.     

Terminal decline and cognitive performance in very old age: does cause of death matter?

Cross-sectional differences and longitudinal changes in cognitive functioning in relation to mortality across a 7-year follow-up period, with 3 times of measurement, were examined in a population-based sample of very old adults. The authors also sought to determine whether cause of death (cerebro/cardiovascular disease [CVD]; non-CVD) modified the magnitude of mortality-related cognitive deficits. Cognitive performance was indexed by tests of general cognitive ability, episodic memory, primary memory, verbal fluency, and visuospatial ability. Results indicated cross-sectional differences on all domains of functioning, with persons who would die within 3 years after baseline testing performing more poorly. Longitudinally, greater decrements were observed on all domains for persons who would die after the first follow-up period, as compared with survivors. Cause of death failed to modify the magnitude of the cross-sectional and longitudinal deficits. The pattern of results point to the general nature of this phenomenon.     

Religion in a private igloo? A critical dialogue with Richard Rorty

It is still a popular philosophical position to call for a strict “separationism” concerning the private and the public sphere when it comes to religious convictions. Richard Rorty is one prominent supporter of this claim. The traditional critique against this division is mostly built on a particular characterization of religion that is at odds with Rortian assumptions. In this article, however, Rorty is criticized on his own terms turning pragmatically the objection to a fully internal one. What Rorty values most, namely a tolerant and ironic liberalism as the capacity to describe oneself in new and interesting ways is precisely the role, I argue, that religious faith could play under “neo-liberal” conditions.     

A ray of light about frozen embryos.

The Tennessee Supreme Court's decision in Davis v. Davis, a case that raises the question of how to allocate frozen embryos in the event of divorce, addresses many of the legal issues posed by in vitro fertilization. The decision considers the interests of the progenitors as well as of the children who may result. For example, the court held that gamete providers' discretion regarding the disposition of embryos can be limited only when their decisions would harm the children who might be born. The court also made clear that efforts to seek genetic parenthood are protected only when accompanied by a desire to raise the resulting children, a conclusion that also affects other reproductive technologies. In addition to elaborating an analytic framework, the court set guidelines for resolving disputes when the couples had made no prior agreements, including holding that while the embryos are ex-utero the desire to avoid genetic parenthood almost always trumps the wish to become a parent. The well-reasoned analysis in Davis v. Davis should help shape legal and ethical discussion regarding the use of in vitro fertilization for many years to come.     

The Pathoplastic Relationship Between Interpersonal Problems and Fear of Failure

ABSTRACT This study advances the understanding of fear of failure (FF), a dispositional avoidance-oriented achievement motive, by employing interpersonal classification techniques to groups of individuals who fear failure in order to examine the pathoplastic relations between FF and interpersonal problems. Shame-based FF is thought to be related to the self-regulation strategies of appeasement and aggression, and these strategies are hypothesized to be associated with the interpersonal problems of Nonassertiveness and Vindictiveness, respectively. Using 2 independent samples ( n s=60 and 38) reporting high FF, interpersonal profiles were examined for the groups in their entirety and for cluster solutions within the larger samples. Results demonstrated that individuals high in FF exhibited 1 of 2 prototypical interpersonal profiles associated with Domineering/Vindictive or Nonassertive/Exploitable problems that correspond with the hypothesized aggression and appeasement regulation strategies. Consistent with the concept of pathoplasticity, these differences were not better accounted for by demographic, affective, motivational, personality, or attachment style characteristics of the samples.     

Top-down influences on attentional capture by color changes

Previous studies have shown that a change in an existing object is not as effective in capturing attention as the appearance of a new object. This view was recently challenged by Lu and Zhou (Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 12:567–572, 2005), who found strong capture effects for an object changing its color. We suspected that this finding critically depends on a procedural particularity in Lu and Zhou’s study, namely that the color of the unique item and the color of the no-unique items randomly switched between trials. In the current study we replicate Lu and Zhou’s capture effect (Experiment 1) and show that no capture occurs when the color-to-stimuli assignment is fixed (Experiment 2). Two further experiments suggest that the capture effect in Experiment 1 is not because the unique item switched color (Experiment 3), but because all the no-unique items switched color (Experiment 4). The results are discussed considering top-down modulation and inter-trial priming effects.

---