Using stimulus preference assessments to identify preferred break environments

A pictorial preference assessment was conducted for 2 individuals with autism who had programmed breaks in their behavior plans. Assessed break environments were individualized, based on indirect assessments and direct observations. The most highly (HP) and least preferred (LP) environments and a control with no associated break were included in a subsequent reinforcer assessment using a concurrent‐chains arrangement within a reversal design. Participants selected a multitask sequence (initial link) associated with one of the break environments. Phase A evaluated the reinforcing properties of all three breaks; the HP was removed in Phase B. Both participants allocated more responding to HP than LP, and to LP than control, suggesting that breaks functioned as reinforcers. The results indicated that preference assessment technology can be used to identify highly preferred breaks that function as reinforcers. Social validity measures indicated that the individuals' clinicians found the results useful for future clinical programming.     

Evidence for a sensitive period in the effects of early life stress on hippocampal volume

Exposure to stress has been causally linked to changes in hippocampal volume (HV). Given that the hippocampus undergoes rapid changes in the first years of life, stressful experiences during this period may be particularly important in understanding individual differences in the development of the hippocampus. One hundred seventy‐eight early adolescents (ages 9–13 years; 43% male) were interviewed regarding exposure to and age of onset of experiences of stress; the severity of each stressful event was rated by an objective panel. All participants underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging, from which HVs were automatically segmented. Without considering the age of onset for stressful experiences, there was a small but statistically significant negative association of stress severity with bilateral HV. When considering the age of onset, there was a moderate and significant negative association between stress severity during early childhood (through 5 years of age) and HV; there was no association between stress severity during later childhood (age 6 years and older) and HV. We provide evidence of a sensitive period through 5 years of age for the effects of life stress on HV in adolescence. It will be important in future research to elucidate how reduced HV stemming from early life stress may contribute to stress‐related health outcomes.     

Bilingual infants excel at foreign‐language talker recognition

Bilingual and monolingual infants differ in how they process linguistic aspects of the speech signal. But do they also differ in how they process non‐linguistic aspects of speech, such as who is talking? Here, we addressed this question by testing Canadian monolingual and bilingual 9‐month‐olds on their ability to learn to identify native Spanish‐speaking females in a face‐voice matching task. Importantly, neither group was familiar with Spanish prior to participating in the study. In line with our predictions, bilinguals succeeded in learning the face‐voice pairings, whereas monolinguals did not. We consider multiple explanations for this finding, including the possibility that simultaneous bilingualism enhances perceptual attentiveness to talker‐specific speech cues in infancy (even in unfamiliar languages), and that early bilingualism delays perceptual narrowing to language‐specific talker recognition cues. This work represents the first evidence that multilingualism in infancy affects the processing of non‐linguistic aspects of the speech signal, such as talker identity.     

Conversation: The challenges of teaching in a “nano department”

A panel at the 2016 American Academy of Religion conference staged, taped, transcribed, and edited this conversation about the challenges and opportunities of teaching in a “nano department” – an undergraduate religion or religious studies department (or combined religion and philosophy department) with only one, two, or three faculty members. Two things quickly become evident: one is the impossibility of coverage of the full religious studies curriculum, and the other is the necessity for collaboration with other departments. Neither of these is unique to nano departments, but there exists an intimacy between students and faculty in small departments, a necessary freedom to rethink the place of the study of religion in the liberal arts curriculum, and a disruptive value in what can be critiqued and contributed from a marginalized position. Arguably, nano departments are the canaries in the academic coal mine, charting the future of the humanities that cannot be discerned from the vantage point of Research‐1 contexts.     

Examining the relation between adolescent social anxiety,adolescent delinquency (abstention), and emerging adulthood relationship quality

Background and Objectives: Social anxiety symptoms and delinquency are two prevalent manifestations of problem behavior during adolescence and both are related to negative interpersonal relationships in adolescence and emerging adulthood. This study examined the relation between social anxiety and delinquency in adolescence and the interplay between adolescent social anxiety and delinquency on perceived relationship quality in emerging adulthood. Design and Methods: In a 10-year long prospective study (T1, n = 923; T2, n = 727; Mage T1 = 12; 49% female), we examined competing hypotheses using regression analyses: the protective perspective, which suggests social anxiety protects against delinquency; and the co-occurring perspective, which suggests social anxiety and delinquency co-occur leading to increased negative interpersonal outcomes. Results: In adolescence, the relation between social anxiety and delinquency was consistent with the protective perspective. In emerging adulthood, consistent with the co-occurring perspective, ever-delinquents (but not delinquency abstainers) with higher social anxiety reported less perceived best friend, mother, and father support compared to delinquents with lower social anxiety. There was no interaction between anxiety and delinquency in predicting perceived conflict. Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of examining the relation between social anxiety and delinquency with regards to different interpersonal outcomes.     

Weight,Perceptions, and Bullying: What Kind of Pounds Matter?

A great deal of research has investigated weight as a predictor for bullying victimization. However, weight is rarely examined in light of its potential role in explaining bullying perpetration, despite the fact that the definition of bullying typically requires a power imbalance, which can refer to either social power or physical size. Using negative binomial regressions, we investigated weight as a predictor of overt and relational bullying behaviors for a sample of 3208 6th–8th graders from 11 schools in a northeastern state. We examined whether this relationship differs by gender, and we explored whether objective size or perception of size is more predictive of perpetration. We also examined whether certain protective factors, like a positive school environment, moderated the effect of weight on bullying perpetration. We found that students who reported a higher BMI engaged in more overt, but not relational, bullying perpetration. Interestingly, students with misperceptions about their weight reported higher levels of both types of bullying perpetration, while students reporting a more positive school climate engaged in less overt and relational bullying. We also found gender differences in that girls are statistically more likely to commit overt bullying if they have a higher BMI. Our results suggest that prevention programs should address weight as a predictor of bullying behaviors, especially for girls, but also that body image and misperception of weight are important topics for prevention programs.     

The Making of the Reformation. The Early Urban Reformation Between Continuity and Change

While recent scholarship has highlighted various theological, social, and cultural continuities from the Middle Ages to the Reformation, the emergence of early urban Reformations still seems surprising and sudden. Focusing on the case of the electoral city of Wittenberg, this paper discusses elements of continuity and change in the early urban Reformation. It argues that the emergence of the Reformation can only be understood within the long-term social and political contexts of the city’s history. The historical record indicates that the negotiation of religious authority was a continuous theme expressed in repeated social and political conflicts; attitudes and mindsets changed only gradually, creating a sense of cultural continuity that contradicts the traditional idea of violent, rapid change. The narrative of change emerged only later as a result of archiving and collecting strategies, which shaped the collective memory and historical knowledge of subsequent generations.     

The strategic control of prospective memory monitoring in response to complex and probabilistic contextual cues

Participants use simple contextual cues to reduce deployment of costly monitoring processes in contexts in which prospective memory (PM) targets are not expected. This study investigated whether this strategic monitoring pattern is observed in response to complex and probabilistic contextual cues. Participants performed a lexical decision task in which words or nonwords were presented in upper or lower locations on screen. The specific condition was informed that PM targets (“tor” syllable) would occur only in words in the upper location, whereas the nonspecific condition was informed that targets could occur in any location or word type. Context was blocked such that word type and location changed every 8 trials. In Experiment 1, the specific condition used the complex contextual cue to reduce monitoring in unexpected contexts relative to the nonspecific condition. This pattern largely was not evidenced when the complex contextual cue was probabilistic (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 confirmed that strategic monitoring is observed for a complex cue that is deterministic, but not one that is probabilistic. Additionally, Experiments 1 and 3 demonstrated a disadvantage associated with strategic monitoring—namely, that the specific condition was less likely to respond to a PM target in an unexpected context. Experiment 3 provided evidence that this disadvantage is attributable to impaired noticing of the target. The novel findings suggest use of a complex contextual cue per se is not a boundary condition for the strategic, context-specific allocation of monitoring processes to support prospective remembering; however, strategic monitoring is constrained by the predictive utility of the complex contextual cue.