The relationship between three types of aggression and peer relations in elementary school children

Previous studies have repeatedly found that aggression causes various internalizing and externalizing problems. Despite the robust relationship, exactly how aggression causes these problems remains unclear, although it is plausible to postulate that this occurs both directly and indirectly (via other behavioural factors). One possible indirect factor might be the aggravation of peer relations. The poor peer relations of aggressive children could make them isolated psychologically or physically from peers, which in turn might result in depressive or disruptive problems. This study examined the relationships between three types of aggression and peer relations in Japanese elementary school children. The three aggression types comprised reactive-expressive (i.e., verbal and physical aggression), reactive-inexpressive (e.g., hostility), and proactive-relational aggression (i.e., aggression that can break human relationships, for instance, by circulating malicious rumours). Participants were 1581 children in grades 4 to 6 (752 boys and 829 girls), all of whom completed the Proactive-Reactive Aggression Questionnaire for Children to measure three types of aggression and the Peer Relation Questionnaire to measure peer relations (mutual understanding, self-disclosure, and similarity of taste) and number of friends. Hierarchical regression analyses of the data showed that higher scores of relational aggression were significantly associated with higher scores of all of the peer relations and the number of friends, and that higher scores of inexpressive aggression were significantly associated with lower scores of all except for self-disclosure in the peer relations. These findings suggest that among the three types of aggression, relational aggression leads to the best friendship in both dyadic relations and the number of friends, whereas inexpressive aggression to the poorest friendship. The implications of these findings with respect to internalizing and externalizing problem behaviours for aggressive children are discussed.     

Canadian,Greek, and Japanese freely produced emotion labels for facial expressions

Observers in Canada (n=50), Greece (n=38), and Japan (n=50) were shown seven of Matsumoto and Ekman's (1988) photographs reported to show universally recognizable facial expressions of basic emotions. Observers were asked to name the emotion expressed with any single emotion label they wanted. Across cultures, recognition (percentage of observers agreeing with prediction) was high (>80%) for thehappy expression (indicating that observers understood the task), low for thecontempt expression (0 to 2%), and intermediate for the others (14 to 80% forsurprise, sadness, anger, disgust, andfear). Recognition for some facial expressions varied with the culture of the observer: For example, recognition of thefear expression was moderate to high in the two Western samples (62 to 87%) but low in the Japanese (14%); indeed, the Japanese modal response wassurprise rather thanfear.This study was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.We thank Konstandina Nelos for her help in gathering the data in Greece.     

Cross-modal transfer of conditioned suppression in rats: Effects of US intensity and extinction of the initial conditioning task

In conditioned suppression of water licking behavior by rats, we obtained data indicating general transfer of fear conditioning. A series of experiments resulted in two major findings. First, pairing of a neutral stimulus with a shock in the initial conditioning task facilitated acquisition of subsequent fear conditioning to another neutral stimulus, if the conditioned fear of the initial task was extinguished prior to the second task and if equally strong shocks were employed in both conditioning tasks. Second, omission of the extinction treatment or employment of weaker shocks in the initial task resulted in retardation, rather than facilitation, of the second conditioning task. An application to human clinical settings is discussed.     

Assimilation Effects of Eye Shadow on Facial Colors

Makeup can change facial complexion, making it of interest both practically and for empirical research on perception. We examined the assimilation effect of eye shadow on complexion using two series of eye shadows: typical colors that are not evenly saturated and colors with saturation as even as possible. Twenty participants assessed the degree of redness in reddish faces, yellowness in yellowish faces, and lightness in both faces via paired comparisons. The results indicated that: (a) the reddish face was perceived as redder when it had eye shadow of pinkish and purplish colors or reddish saturated colors instead of containing yellowish components; (b) the yellowish face became less yellow with colors without a greenish or yellowish component; and (c) except for the lighter yellowish shade, eye shadow made the face perceptually darker. We confirmed the assimilation effect of eye shadow on complexion and showed differences in perceptual hue change according to the original face colors.     

Speaking two languages at once: Unconscious native word form access in second language production

Bilingualism research has established language non-selective lexical access in comprehension. However, the evidence for such an effect in production remains sparse and its neural time-course has not yet been investigated. We demonstrate that German-English bilinguals performing a simple picture-naming task exclusively in English spontaneously access the phonological form of –unproduced– German words. Participants were asked to produce English adjective-noun sequences describing the colour and identity of familiar objects presented as line drawings. We associated adjective and picture names such that their onsets phonologically overlapped in English (e.g., green goat), in German through translation (e.g., blue flower – ‘blaue Blume’), or in neither language. As expected, phonological priming in English modulated event-related brain potentials over the frontocentral scalp region from around 440 ms after picture onset. Phonological priming in German was detectable even earlier, from 300 ms, even though German was never produced and in the absence of an interaction between language and phonological repetition priming at any point in time. Overall, these results establish the existence of non-selective access to phonological representations of the two languages in the domain of speech production.     

How cattle discriminate between green and dead forages accessible by head and neck movements by means of senses: reliance on vision varies with the distance to the forages

Animal Cognition - The ability of ungulates to discriminate among vegetation patches depends largely on the senses of vision, olfaction, tactility, and gustation. However, little is known about how...