Auditory hindsight bias

People who know the outcome of an event tend to overestimate their own prior knowledge or others' na?ve knowledge of it. This hindsight bias pervades cognition, lending the world an unwarranted air of inevitability. In four experiments, we showed how knowing the identities of words causes people to overestimate others' na?ve ability to identify moderately to highly degraded spoken versions of those words. We also showed that this auditory hindsight bias occurs despite people's efforts to avoid it. We discuss our findings in the context of communication, in which speakers overestimate the clarity of their message and listeners overestimate their understanding of the message.     

A continuous false belief task reveals egocentric biases in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders

This study reports on a new false belief measure in a sample of 124 children and adolescents with or without high functioning autism (HFASD). In the classic paradigm, a participant predicts in which of two discrete locations a deceived protagonist will look for an object. In the current Sandbox task, the object is buried and reburied in a sandbox, thus creating a continuum between locations. Compared to typically developing individuals (n=62), those with HFASD (n=62) showed a larger egocentric bias on the Sandbox task. They failed to take the protagonist's false belief into account, despite their adequate ability to infer advanced mental states. This indicates that sensitive measures can reveal subtle first order Theory of Mind impairments in HFASD individuals.     

Book Review

Performance-based measures and ratings of executive functions were examined in a sample of adolescents with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and comparison controls. Performance-based measures of executive function included inhibition, working memory, set shifting, and planning, and ratings of these same executive functions were completed by parents and teachers. Adolescents with ADHD demonstrated lower executive function performance than controls and displayed elevated ratings on the executive function ratings by parents and teachers. Significant associations were obtained between the performance-based measures and the parent and teacher ratings, but each measure was not uniquely associated with its respective scale on the rating scales. When performance-based measures and ratings were examined as predictors of ADHD status, the parent and teacher ratings entered as significant predictors of ADHD status. Further commonality analyses indicated that performance-based measures accounted for little unique variance in predicting ADHD status and also displayed little overlap with the behavioral ratings. These findings highlight the diagnostic utility of behavioral ratings of executive function in predicting ADHD status; however, behavioral ratings should not be assumed to be a proxy for performance on measures of executive function in clinical practice.     

Processing Speed in Children With Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder,Inattentive Type

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is among the most common and most often reconceptualized neurobehavioral disorders of childhood. In the most recent DSM-IV, a primarily inattentive subtype of ADHD (AD) has again been identified. This study explores the neuropsychological profile of this group of children. Eighty-two children referred for school-related problems participated. Twenty-five met criteria for AD; 52 met criteria for reading disability (RD); 9 were comorbid for RD and AD. AD children performed poorly on measures of information processing speed. Children with comorbid AD/RD were distinguishable from those with RD on speed of processing measures only. Vulnerability to information processing load may be at the root of many of the behavioral manifestations of AD.     

A Practice-Based Approach to Group Identification in Nonverbal Learning Disorders

Evidence-based practice, the rigorous conduct of clinical analysis and intervention, includes practice-based evidence. Here, practice data were the source of three “clinical portraits” used for exploratory analysis of an array of cognitive and social problems in 30 children whose neurobehavioral profiles fulfilled psychometric criteria for a nonverbal learning disability (NLD). Qualitative analysis of the children's academic and adjustment difficulties revealed patterns of dissociable deficits. These findings argue for at least three groups within the NLD construct. Identifying such subgroups is of practical importance: More precise characterization of neuropsychological competencies leads to improved interventions and better outcomes.     

Longitudinal Test of Forgiveness and Perceived Forgiveness as Mediators between Religiosity and Marital Satisfaction in Long-Term Marital Relationships

Abstract

Substantial research has found relations between religiosity and martial satisfaction. More longitudinal studies are needed to understand the inner-workings of this relationship. Over a four-year period, dyadic data from 331 married couples was used to test the longitudinal mediating effects of spousal forgiveness and partners’ perceptions of spousal forgiveness between religiosity and marital satisfaction. Husbands’ religiosity was associated with increases in wives’ marital satisfaction but the measures of forgiveness were not significant mediators in this relationship. Wives’ religiosity was predictive of lower levels of wives’ perceptions of spousal forgiveness, which led to decreases in both wives’ and husbands’ marital satisfaction.     

Action-control beliefs and behaviors as predictors of change in adjustment across the transition to middle school

Abstract

We examined longitudinal changes in young adolescents’ (N=368) action-control beliefs, coping behaviors, and adjustment (i.e., positive and negative affect, depression, aggression) across the transition from elementary school to middle school. Results indicated greater inter-individual instability in adjustment during this transition than during the previous school year. Using ordinary least-squares (OLS) growth models to extract intra-individual change scores for each variable (i.e., slopes and intercepts), we conducted a series of stepwise regressions to determine which features of control beliefs and coping behaviors best predicted changes in adjustment across the transition to middle school. We found that negative coping behaviors (i.e., antisocial coping) consistently predicted negative changes in the adjustment variables (e.g., greater depression, more aggression), whereas positive beliefs and behaviors did not consistently predict changes in the adjustment variables.     

The influence of semantic property and grammatical class on semantic selection

Research to-date has not successfully demonstrated consistent neural distinctions for different types of ambiguity or explored the effect of grammatical class on semantic selection. We conducted a relatedness judgment task using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to further explore these topics. Participants judged relatedness within word pairs. Consistent and inconsistent conditions were included along with filler items. Imaging results revealed a main effect of ambiguity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and parietal cortices. A main effect of grammatical class was observed in the parahippocampal and lingual gyri, and a main effect of consistency was found in the DLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and occipital cortices. Interactions among these factors were observed in the cingulate gyrus and motor cortices in addition to the DLPFC. These results suggest that both ambiguity type and grammatical class modulate semantic selection through different neural regions.     

The Gettier Intuition from South America to Asia

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail...