Interpretation and Expectation in Childhood Anxiety Disorders: Age Effects and Social Specificity

Theory and treatment for childhood anxiety disorders typically implicates children’s negative cognitions, yet little is known about the characteristics of thinking styles of clinically anxious children. In particular, it is unclear whether differences in thinking styles between children with anxiety disorders and non-anxious children vary as a function of child age, whether particular cognitive distortions are associated with childhood anxiety disorders at different child ages, and whether cognitive content is disorder-specific. The current study addressed these questions among 120 7–12 year old children (53% female) who met diagnostic criteria for social anxiety disorder, other anxiety disorder, or who were not currently anxious. Contrary to expectations, threat interpretation was not inflated amongst anxious compared to non-anxious children at any age, although older (10–12 year old) anxious children did differ from non-anxious children on measures of perceived coping. The notion of cognitive-content specificity was not supported across the age-range. The findings challenge current treatment models of childhood anxiety, and suggest that a focus on changing anxious children’s cognitions is not warranted in mid-childhood, and in late childhood cognitive approaches may be better focussed on promoting children’s perceptions of control rather than challenging threat interpretations.     

The Effect of Parents’ Literacy Skills and Children’s Preliteracy Skills on the Risk of Dyslexia

The combination of investigating child and family characteristics sheds light on the constellation of risk factors that can ultimately lead to dyslexia. This family-risk study examines plausible preschool risk factors and their specificity. Participants (N?=?196, 42 % girls) included familial risk (FR) children with and without dyslexia in Grade 3 and controls. First, we found impairments in phonological awareness, rapid naming, and letter knowledge in FR kindergartners with later dyslexia, and mild phonological-awareness deficits in FR kindergartners without subsequent dyslexia. These skills were better predictors of reading than arithmetic, except for rapid naming. Second, the literacy environment at home was comparable among groups. Third, having a dyslexic parent and literacy abilities of the non-dyslexic parent related to offspring risk of dyslexia. Parental literacy abilities might be viewed as indicators of offspring’s liability for literacy difficulties, since parents provide offspring with genetic and environmental endowment. We propose an intergenerational multiple deficit model in which both parents confer cognitive risks.     

Neuroscience,quantum indeterminism and the Cartesian soul

Quantum indeterminism is frequently invoked as a solution to the problem of how a disembodied soul might interact with the brain (as Descartes proposed), and is sometimes invoked in theories of libertarian free will even when they do not involve dualistic assumptions. Taking as example the Eccles–Beck model of interaction between self (or soul) and brain at the level of synaptic exocytosis, I here evaluate the plausibility of these approaches. I conclude that Heisenbergian uncertainty is too small to affect synaptic function, and that amplification by chaos or by other means does not provide a solution to this problem. Furthermore, even if Heisenbergian effects did modify brain functioning, the changes would be swamped by those due to thermal noise. Cells and neural circuits have powerful noise-resistance mechanisms, that are adequate protection against thermal noise and must therefore be more than sufficient to buffer against Heisenbergian effects. Other forms of quantum indeterminism must be considered, because these can be much greater than Heisenbergian uncertainty, but these have not so far been shown to play a role in the brain.     

Prospective memory training in older adults and its relevance for successful aging

In research on cognitive plasticity, two training approaches have been established: (1) training of strategies to improve performance in a given task (e.g., encoding strategies to improve episodic memory performance) and (2) training of basic cognitive processes (e.g., working memory, inhibition) that underlie a range of more complex cognitive tasks (e.g., planning) to improve both the training target and the complex transfer tasks. Strategy training aims to compensate or circumvent limitations in underlying processes, while process training attempts to augment or to restore these processes. Although research on both approaches has produced some promising findings, results are still heterogeneous and the impact of most training regimes for everyday life is unknown. We, therefore, discuss recent proposals of training regimes aiming to improve prospective memory (i.e., forming and realizing delayed intentions) as this type of complex cognition is highly relevant for independent living. Furthermore, prospective memory is associated with working memory and executive functions and age-related decline is widely reported. We review initial evidence suggesting that both training regimes (i.e., strategy and/or process training) can successfully be applied to improve prospective memory. Conceptual and methodological implications of the findings for research on age-related prospective memory and for training research in general are discussed.     

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Gender Stereotype!: Longitudinal Associations Between Superhero Viewing and Gender Stereotyped Play

Although content analyses have found that superhero programs in the media portray strong gender stereotypes of masculinity, little research has examined the effects of viewing such programs. In the current study, 134 mothers of preschool children (from the Western and Northwestern United States) reported their child’s superhero exposure in the media, male-stereotyped play, weapon play, and parental active mediation of the media at two time points (1 year apart). Results revealed that boys viewed superhero programs more frequently than girls, with nearly a quarter of boys viewing superhero programs at least weekly. Analyses revealed that superhero exposure was related to higher levels of male-stereotyped play for boys and higher levels of weapon play for both boys and girls from Time 1 to Time 2, even after controlling for initial levels. Parental active mediation did not negate these effects, and even served to strengthen one finding for girls. Specifically, among girls with high superhero exposure, weapon play was highest for girls who received frequent active mediation. Implications of the results are discussed with a focus on whether such programs are developmentally appropriate for preschool children.     

Singular Clues to Causality and Their Use in Human Causal Judgment

It is argued that causal understanding originates in experiences of acting on objects. Such experiences have consistent features that can be used as clues to causal identification and judgment. These are singular clues, meaning that they can be detected in single instances. A catalog of 14 singular clues is proposed. The clues function as heuristics for generating causal judgments under uncertainty and are a pervasive source of bias in causal judgment. More sophisticated clues such as mechanism clues and repeated interventions are derived from the 14. Research on the use of empirical information and conditional probabilities to identify causes has used scenarios in which several of the clues are present, and the use of empirical association information for causal judgment depends on the presence of singular clues. It is the singular clues and their origin that are basic to causal understanding, not multiple instance clues such as empirical association, contingency, and conditional probabilities.