The relation between 3‐ and 15‐month olds' cry vocalizations and their mothers' affective involvement during inoculation

This study examined if infant immunization distress is related to their mothers' affective involvement prior to the injection. The duration of infant cry vocalizations and the amount of maternal behaviour before and after the syringe injection were observed in 18 mother–infant dyads, of whom nine comprised 3‐month‐old and nine 15‐month‐old infants. The maternal behaviour was scored in terms of various soothing strategies used to calm infants in distress. Infant cry duration, in both the 3‐ and the 15‐month olds, was associated with amount of maternal eye‐gaze before the injection. For the 15‐month olds, also face‐to‐face contact and rocking the infant was associated with more crying. Even though the small scale of the study warrants some caution in the interpretation, the overall findings suggest that young infants have a referential understanding of caregiver affective involvement prior to a stressor. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

It is time for a general comment on children’s spiritual development

Reviewing the general comments by the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the state reports to the CRC reveal a mixed picture. How could a general comment by CRC on the right to spiritual development assist states in their policies and programmes? First, current understandings of spiritual well-being – one’s relationship to oneself, others, nature and the transcendent – encompass all relevant dimensions of meaning-making, enhanced awareness and connectedness. Second, the CRC has elaborated on spiritual development in 16 of its 21 general comments, providing sources from which a comprehensive elaboration can be done. Third, the understanding of the term spiritual is diverse among states. Fourth, a general comment will clarify the term spiritual development and inspire and guide relevant policies and programmes.     

Is Cohabitation As Good As Marriage for People’s Subjective Well-Being? Longitudinal Evidence on Happiness and Life Satisfaction in the British Household Panel Survey

This study investigates changes in happiness and life satisfaction associated with transitions into cohabitation and marriage in 12 waves from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) collected between 1997 and 2009. Theory suggests that happiness is an emotional state that is linked to one’s physiological reactions to life events, whereas satisfaction is a cognitive evaluation that also depends on social comparisons with other important reference groups as well as the individual’s desires, expectations and hopes. A longitudinal (fixed effects) analysis that controls for time-invariant variation in subjective well-being indicates that entering cohabitation is as beneficial for people’s happiness as entering marriage. Entering marriage is slightly more satisfying than cohabitation but only among previously never-married individuals. This is true for men and women and across age and cohorts. These findings indicate that cohabitation provides similar benefits to marriage with regard to happiness but not how previously never married individuals view their overall satisfaction with their lives.     

Agency,resilience and coping: Exploring the psychosocial effects of goat ownership on orphaned and vulnerable children in Western Kenya

Despite an increase in goat donation programmes geared at orphaned and vulnerable children in sub‐Saharan Africa, the social psychological effects of goat ownership on the lives of these children have yet to be investigated. To shed light on the ways in which goat ownership affects children's psychosocial well‐being, this paper presents a case study of a goat donation programme in Western Kenya, paying particular attention to children's interaction with the goats. Informed by social psychological understandings of resilience and coping, we involved fifteen children (aged 12–17) in this qualitative study, using photographs and written reflections to describe the impact of goat ownership on their lives. The children also created daily routine diagrams and community maps and participated in two group discussions to explore their experiences further. The guardians of two of the participating children were also interviewed. A thematic content analysis of all our data revealed that goat ownership, within this social environment, enabled children to (i) generate income as a result of their participation in goat management, (ii) negotiate social support and (iii) create positive images of self and life – deriving emotional benefits. We conclude that goat ownership provides orphaned and vulnerable children with opportunities for positive social participation and community engagement that can facilitate children's resilience. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Book reviews

Abstract

Oakhill, J. &; Garnham, A. (1988). Becoming a skilled reader, Oxford: Blackwell. Pp. 206. ISBN 0-631-15244X £27.50 (hardback), ISBN 0-631-15776X £8.95 (paperback).

Brewin, C. R. (1988). Cognitive foundations of clinical psychology. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd. Pp. 224. ISBN 0-86377-098-3 £24.50 (hardback), ISBN 0-86377-099-1 £8.95 (paperback).     

Modality-constrained statistical learning of tactile, visual, and auditory sequences

The authors investigated the extent to which touch, vision, and audition mediate the processing of statistical regularities within sequential input. Few researchers have conducted rigorous comparisons across sensory modalities; in particular, the sense of touch has been virtually ignored. The current data reveal not only commonalities but also modality constraints affecting statistical learning across the senses. To be specific, the authors found that the auditory modality displayed a quantitative learning advantage compared with vision and touch. In addition, they discovered qualitative learning biases among the senses: Primarily, audition afforded better learning for the final part of input sequences. These findings are discussed in terms of whether statistical learning is likely to consist of a single, unitary mechanism or multiple, modality-constrained ones.     

Statistically Induced Chunking Recall: A Memory-Based Approach to Statistical Learning

The computations involved in statistical learning have long been debated. Here, we build on work suggesting that a basic memory process, chunking, may account for the processing of statistical regularities into larger units. Drawing on methods from the memory literature, we developed a novel paradigm to test statistical learning by leveraging a robust phenomenon observed in serial recall tasks: that short-term memory is fundamentally shaped by long-term distributional learning. In the statistically induced chunking recall (SICR) task, participants are exposed to an artificial language, using a standard statistical learning exposure phase. Afterward, they recall strings of syllables that either follow the statistics of the artificial language or comprise the same syllables presented in a random order. We hypothesized that if individuals had chunked the artificial language into word-like units, then the statistically structured items would be more accurately recalled relative to the random controls. Our results demonstrate that SICR effectively captures learning in both the auditory and visual modalities, with participants displaying significantly improved recall of the statistically structured items, and even recall specific trigram chunks from the input. SICR also exhibits greater test–retest reliability in the auditory modality and sensitivity to individual differences in both modalities than the standard two-alternative forced-choice task. These results thereby provide key empirical support to the chunking account of statistical learning and contribute a valuable new tool to the literature.