Towards networking in counselling: a follow-up study of Finnish school counselling

A follow-up study (1990-1997) and in-depth interviews on school counselling practices and problems in Finland showed that in the last 10 years the work of the school counsellor has extended and become more diversified. This article analyses this change in school counselling in terms of the problems and core tasks of counselling and the new challenges faced by Finnish counsellors, such as dismantling the traditional gender divisions in working life and counselling for immigrants. In addition, the article examines how school counsellors have attempted to solve the problems related to their work, for example, by establishing counselling networks inside and outside the school.     

Exemplars, prototypes, and the flexibility of classification models

J. P. Minda and J. D. Smith (2001) showed that a prototype model outperforms an exemplar model, especially in larger categories or categories that contained more complex stimuli. R. M. Nosofsky and S. R. Zaki (2002) showed that an exemplar model with a response-scaling mechanism outperforms a prototype model. The authors of the current study investigated whether excessive model flexibility could explain these results. Using cross-validation, the authors demonstrated that both the prototype model and the exemplar model with a response-scaling mechanism suffered from overfilling in the linearly separable category structure. The results illustrate the need to make sure that the best-fitting model is not chasing error variance instead of variance attributed to the cognitive process it is supposed to model.     

Can attentional theory explain the inverse base rate effect? Comment on Kruschke (2001)

In J. K. Kruschke's (2001; see record 2001-18940-005) study, it is argued that attentional theory is the sole satisfactory explanation of the inverse base rate effect and that eliminative inference (P. Juslin, P. Wennerholm, & A. Winman, 2001; see record 2001-07828-016) plays no role in the phenomenon. In this comment, the authors demonstrate that, in contrast to the central tenets of attentional theory, (a) rapid attention shifts as implemented in ADIT decelerate learning in the inverse base-rate task and (b) the claim that the inverse base-rate effect is directly caused by an attentional asymmetry is refuted by data. It is proposed that a complete account of the inverse base-rate effect needs to integrate attention effects with inference rules that are flexibly used for both induction and elimination.     

Predicting aggressive and disruptive behavior in referred 6- to 12-year-old boys: prospective validation of the EARL-20B risk/needs checklist

The authors investigated the predictive and incremental validity of the Early Assessment Risk List for boys (EARL-20B; Augimeri, Koegl, Webster, & Levene, 2001), a structured clinical checklist designed for the professional judgment of risk for aggressive and disruptive behaviors and risk/needs factor-based management of this risk. Seventy-six boys consecutively referred to child psychiatric outpatient clinics in mid-Sweden were evaluated according to the EARL-20B and with independent (not EARL-20B-based) clinical evaluations. The participants were prospectively followed after 6 and 30 months. EARL- 20B-based assessments were positively and moderately associated with aggressive (reactive and proactive aggression) and disruptive behavior (conduct problems and DSM-IV Conduct Disorder) at both subsequent evaluations. Clinical evaluations made without the instrument were not as consistently associated with outcome. Incremental predictive validity over unstructured clinical evaluations and Conduct Disorder at baseline suggested promising clinical utility. The checklist might be used to support clinical decision making for referred boys at risk for continued antisocial behavior.     

Drawing and handedness of preschoolers: a repeated-measurement approach to hand preference

This study investigated handedness and drawing by preschoolers. An observational method for repeated measurement of hand preference is presented. A sample of 381 children (191 girls, 190 boys) ranging in age from 48 to 71 mo. was tested for drawing and hand preference on 14 tasks. Consistent hand preference was defined as always using a particular hand (left or right) for the same task. Girls with consistent hand preference showed better drawing scores compared to girls with inconsistent hand preference. The results showed the importance of a reliable method for measuring hand preference within a single task as early as preschool age.     

Spatial distance effects on incremental semantic interpretation of abstract sentences: Evidence from eye tracking

A large body of evidence has shown that visual context information can rapidly modulate language comprehension for concrete sentences and when it is mediated by a referential or a lexical-semantic link. What has not yet been examined is whether visual context can also modulate comprehension of abstract sentences incrementally when it is neither referenced by, nor lexically associated with, the sentence. Three eye-tracking reading experiments examined the effects of spatial distance between words (Experiment 1) and objects (Experiment 2 and 3) on participants’ reading times for sentences that convey similarity or difference between two abstract nouns (e.g., ‘Peace and war are certainly different...’). Before reading the sentence, participants inspected a visual context with two playing cards that moved either far apart or close together. In Experiment 1, the cards turned and showed the first two nouns of the sentence (e.g., ‘peace’, ‘war’). In Experiments 2 and 3, they turned but remained blank. Participants’ reading times at the adjective (Experiment 1: first-pass reading time; Experiment 2: total times) and at the second noun phrase (Experiment 3: first-pass times) were faster for sentences that expressed similarity when the preceding words/objects were close together (vs. far apart) and for sentences that expressed dissimilarity when the preceding words/objects were far apart (vs. close together). Thus, spatial distance between words or entirely unrelated objects can rapidly and incrementally modulate the semantic interpretation of abstract sentences.     

Learning to attend: a connectionist model of situated language comprehension

Evidence from numerous studies using the visual world paradigm has revealed both that spoken language can rapidly guide attention in a related visual scene and that scene information can immediately influence comprehension processes. These findings motivated the coordinated interplay account ( Knoeferle & Crocker, 2006 ) of situated comprehension, which claims that utterance-mediated attention crucially underlies this closely coordinated interaction of language and scene processing. We present a recurrent sigma-pi neural network that models the rapid use of scene information, exploiting an utterance-mediated attentional mechanism that directly instantiates the CIA. The model is shown to achieve high levels of performance (both with and without scene contexts), while also exhibiting hallmark behaviors of situated comprehension, such as incremental processing, anticipation of appropriate role fillers, as well as the immediate use, and priority, of depicted event information through the coordinated use of utterance-mediated attention to the scene.     

Evidence for rule-based processes in the inverse base-rate effect.

Three studies provide convergent evidence that the inverse base-rate effect (Medin & Edelson, 1988) is mediated by rule-based cognitive processes. Experiment 1 shows that, in contrast to adults, prior to the formal operational stage most children do not exhibit the inverse base-rate effect. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrate that an adult sample is a mix of participants relying on associative processes who categorize according to the base-rate and participants relying on rule-based processes who exhibit a strong inverse base-rate effect. The distribution of the effect is bimodal, and removing participants independently classified as prone to rule-based processing effectively eliminates the inverse base-rate effect. The implications for current explanations of the inverse base-rate effect are discussed.     

‘Left to your own devices’ – the missed potential of adult career guidance in Denmark

In 2008, the European Council agreed on a Resolution on better integrating lifelong guidance into lifelong learning strategies. The Resolution promoted lifelong guidance as a policy to support people during the multiple transitions provoked by a more volatile labour market. However, when looking into the guidance policy of Denmark, the Resolution does not seem to have taken effect. Whereas, the career guidance system is relatively developed in terms of transitions from basic schooling into youth education and from youth education to higher education, when it comes to transitions during a working life, adult career guidance structures are patchy and scattered across different policy areas and institutions. The objective of this article is to investigate the potential of adult career guidance as a support structure for Lifelong Learning, career transition and labour market mobility. To this end, we draw on Holzkamp's concept of ‘disruption of the cyclicity in everyday life’ to analyse working life narratives. We focus on the potential contact points between the individual and public structures supporting working life transitions. This article hereby contributes to ongoing discussions concerning access to career guidance as part of a social contract underlying flexible labour markets.