Mothers and fathers and mothers and babies: Interrelationship among relationships

The relationship between perceived marital satisfaction and early mother-infant interaction was investigated. Seventeen mothers and their three-day-old infants served as subjects. Dyads were observed via a modified time-sampling technique during a hospital feeding session. Then mothers completed a questionnaire concerning their perceptions of the marital relationship. Correlational analyses revealed a significant covariance of positive perceptions of the expressive aspects of the marital relationship and heightened social interaction for mother and infant. An interrelationship was observed between mother-neonate social-visual communication and maternal reports of planned pregnancies, time spent talking with spouse, general ratings of “getting along with spouse,” and positive overall evaluations of the material relationship. Also observed was the interrelationship of mother holding infant away from close bodily contact with reports of decreased love felt toward spouse, less optimal perceptions of ease of emotional expression and spousal interest in maternal daily activities, and less optimal overall ratings of the relationship. Implications of the results and the need for further research are discussed.     

Mental Arithmetic: A Componential Analysis of Speed-of-Processing Across Monolingual,Weak Bilingual,and Strong Bilingual Adults

Two experiments compared rates of solving simple and complex addition and multiplication problems in groups of speakers of French or English in Experiment 1 (n = 35) and Spanish or English in Experiment 2 (n = 84). Subjects were divided into groups of English unilinguals, weak bilinguals, and strong bilinguals according to their performance on a naming task. In both experiments, simple problems consisted of two single-digit numbers. At least three single-digit numbers were used for complex problems in Experiment 1 and double-digit numbers in Experiment 2. Mean solution times, particularly for complex problems, were lowest for the monolingual group, followed in turn by the weak bilingual and strong bilingual groups, but these differences were not statistically reliable in either experiment. In Experiment 2, however, componential analyses of solution times indicated that strong bilingual subjects were slower at executing the carry operation when solving complex problems, relative to the two remaining groups. Results were interpreted in terms of the relationship between bilingualism and the representation and processing of numerical information.     

Sensitivity to Inflectional Morphemes in the Absence of Meaning: Evidence from a Novel Task

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - A number of studies in different languages have shown that speakers may be sensitive to the presence of inflectional morphology in the absence of verb meaning...     

The Organization of Extrinsic Neurons and Their Implications in the Functional Roles of the Mushroom Bodies in Drosophila melanogaster Meigen

Although the importance of the Drosophila mushroom body in olfactory learning and memory has been stressed, virtually nothing is known about the brain regions to which it is connected. Using Golgi and GAL4–UAS techniques, we performed the first systematic attempt to reveal the anatomy of its extrinsic neurons. A novel presynaptic reporter construct, UAS-neuronal synaptobrevin–green fluorescent protein (n-syb–GFP), was used to reveal the direction of information in the GAL4-labeled neurons. Our results showed that the main target of the output neurons from the mushroom body lobes is the anterior part of the inferior medial, superior medial, and superior lateral protocerebrum. The lobes also receive afferents from these neuropils. The lack of major output projections directly to the deutocerebrum’s premotor pathways discourages the view that the role of the mushroom body may be that of an immediate modifier of behavior. Our data, as well as a critical evaluation of the literature, suggest that the mushroom body may not by itself be a “center” for learning and memory, but that it can equally be considered as a preprocessor of olfactory signals en route to “higher” protocerebral regions.     

Impacting Awareness of Child Abuse through a Performing Arts Project

A folk opera, AVE, explored issues of child abuse, sexual assault and violence through the character of Mary Magdelene. Using indigenous religious folklore images, Magdelene is befriended by Jesus's mother and healed of her childhood wound through a religious conversion. Six hundred secondary students attended three daytime performances and 486 returned a Likert‐scaled questionnaire. Results indicated most students perceived abuse as a personally relevant, real social problem, with felt relevance increasing with age. Significant trends supported initial expectations with an increase in community and personal awareness of child abuse/sexual assault and an increase in personal and community interest in helping others. Community risk factors contributing to denial of abuse were explored. More Hispanics responded positively to the sense of benefit. Findings suggest that performing arts can help increase awareness of child abuse as well as help stimulate personal and community interest in helping. This benefit increases with teacher discussion and age.     

Why are there eccentricity effects in visual search? Visual and attentional hypotheses

In standard visual search experiments, observers search for a target item among distracting items. The locations of target items are generally random within the display and ignored as a factor in data analysis. Previous work has shown that targets presented near fixation are, in fact, found more efficiently than are targets presented at more peripheral locations. This paper proposes that the primary cause of this “eccentricity effect” (Carrasco, Evert, Chang, & Katz, 1995) is an attentional bias that allocates attention preferentially to central items. The first four experiments dealt with the possibility that visual, and not attentional, factors underlie the eccentricity effect. They showed that the eccentricity effect cannot be accounted for by the peripheral reduction in visual sensitivity, peripheral crowding, or cortical magnification. Experiment 5 tested the attention allocation model and also showed that RT X set size effects can be independent of eccentricity effects. Experiment 6 showed that the effective set size in a search task depends, in part, on the eccentricity of the target because observers search from fixation outward.     

Musical ability and non‐native speech‐sound processing are linked through sensitivity to pitch and spectral information

Is the observed link between musical ability and non‐native speech‐sound processing due to enhanced sensitivity to acoustic features underlying both musical and linguistic processing? To address this question, native English speakers (N = 118) discriminated Norwegian tonal contrasts and Norwegian vowels. Short tones differing in temporal, pitch, and spectral characteristics were used to measure sensitivity to the various acoustic features implicated in musical and speech processing. Musical ability was measured using Gordon's Advanced Measures of Musical Audiation. Results showed that sensitivity to specific acoustic features played a role in non‐native speech‐sound processing: Controlling for non‐verbal intelligence, prior foreign language‐learning experience, and sex, sensitivity to pitch and spectral information partially mediated the link between musical ability and discrimination of non‐native vowels and lexical tones. The findings suggest that while sensitivity to certain acoustic features partially mediates the relationship between musical ability and non‐native speech‐sound processing, complex tests of musical ability also tap into other shared mechanisms.