Development of Spatial Language and Cognition in Hindi- and Sanskrit-Medium Schools

This paper describes a study carried out at Varanasi on the development of geocentric spatial cognition with 4–14 year old children of Hindi and Sanskrit medium schools. A number of tasks and procedures were used to assess the spatial frames of reference children used in describing and interpreting spatial displays. Analysis revealed that Sanskrit medium school children used more geocentric language and encoding than Hindi medium school children. The effect of age was significant only for encoding, not for language. Geocentric spatial cognition was significantly linked to fundamental spatial cognitive ability, as measured by Story-Pictorial Embedded Figures Test and Block Designs Test. The stronger expression of geocentric language and geocentric encoding in Sanskrit than Hindi medium school children suggests that the use of the ability can be sharpened by its practice and actualization in day-to-day life. The relationship between language and encoding was found to be of a moderate level suggesting that geocentric cognition is not determined by language alone, but also by other factors present in children’s eco-cultural contexts.     

Infants' perception of information along object boundaries: concavities versus convexities

Object parts are signaled by concave discontinuities in shape contours. In seven experiments, we examined whether 5- and 6 1/2-month-olds are sensitive to concavities as special aspects of contours. Infants of both ages detected discrepant concave elements amid convex distractors but failed to discriminate convex elements among concave distractors. This discrimination asymmetry is analogous to the finding that concave targets among convex distractors pop out for adults, whereas convex targets among concave distractors do not. Thus, during infancy, as during adulthood, concavities appear to be salient regions of shape contours. The current study also found that infants' detection of concavity is impaired if the contours that define concavity and convexity are not part of closed shapes. Thus, for infants, as for adults, concavities and convexities are defined more readily in the contours of closed shapes. Taken together, the results suggest that some basic aspects of part perception from shape contours are available by at least 5 months of age.     

Contrast and the justification of effort

When humans are asked to evaluate rewards or outcomes that follow unpleasant (e.g., high-effort) events, they often assign higher value to that reward. This phenomenon has been referred to ascognitive dissonance or justification of effort. There is now evidence that a similar phenomenon can be found in nonhuman animals. When demonstrated in animals, however, it has been attributed to contrast between the unpleasant high effort and the conditioned stimulus for food. In the present experiment, we asked whether an analogous effect could be found in humans under conditions similar to those found in animals. Adult humans were trained to discriminate between shapes that followed a high-effort versus a low-effort response. In test, participants were found to prefer shapes that followed the high-effort response in training. These results suggest the possibility that contrast effects of the sort extensively studied in animals may play a role in cognitive dissonance and other related phenomena in humans.     

Good continuation affects discrimination of visual pattern information in young infants

A familiarization-novelty preference procedure was used to determine whether 3- to 4-month-old and 6- to 7-month-old infants utilize the Gestalt principle of good continuation to organize visual patterns. The study involved presentation of a target item (i.e., a square or diamond) either in-line or off-line with a set of distractor items (i.e., circles). Infants in both age groups responded to a change in the target element in the off-line, but not in the in-line, condition. The results suggest that infants organize visual pattern information in accord with the principle of good continuation. Implications of this finding for models of the ontogenesis and microgenesis of object perception in infants and adults are discussed.     

The whole picture: Holistic body posture recognition in infancy

Holistic processing is tied to expertise and is characteristic of face and body perception by adults. Infants process faces holistically, but it is unknown whether they process body information holistically. In the present study, infants were tested for discrimination between body postures that differed in limb orientations in three conditions: in the context of the whole body, with just the isolated limbs that changed orientation, or with the limbs in the context of scrambled body parts. Five- and 9-month-olds discriminated between whole-body postures, but failed in the isolated-part and scrambled-body conditions, demonstrating holistic processing of information from bodies. These results indicate that at least some level of expertise in body processing develops quite early in life.     

Testing the Biobehavioral Family Model in pediatric asthma: pathways of effect

This study uses a laboratory-based multiinformant, multimethod approach to test the hypothesis that a negative family emotional climate (NFEC) contributes to asthma disease severity by way of child depressive symptoms, and that parent-child relational insecurity mediates the effect. Children with asthma (n = 199; aged 7-17; 55% male) reported parental conflict, parent-child relational security, and depressive symptoms. Parent(s) reported demographics, asthma history, and symptoms. Asthma diagnosis was confirmed by clinical evaluation and pulmonary function tests, with disease severity rated by an asthma clinician according to NHLBI guidelines. Family interactions were evoked using the Family Process Assessment Protocol, and rated using the Iowa Family Interaction Rating Scales. Path analysis indicated a good fit of data to the hypothesized model (chi2[1] = .11, p =.74, NFI = .99, RMSEA = .00). Observed NFEC predicted child depression (beta = .19, p < .01), which predicted asthma disease severity beta = .23, p < .01). Relational security inversely predicted depressive symptoms (p = -.40, p < .001), and was not a mediator as predicted, but rather an independent contributor. The findings are consistent with the Biobehavioral Family Model, which suggests a psychobiologic influence of specific family relational processes on asthma disease severity by way of child depressive symptoms.     

Perceptual organization based on illusory regions in infancy

Prior research indicates that, like adults, infants use enclosed regions to group elements. It is not clear whether infants or adults can use regions that have to be inferred from illusory contours to group elements. We examined whether 3- to 4-month-olds use illusory regions to group elements and generalize this organization to novel regions. Infants habituated to pairs of shapes in illusory vertical or horizontal regions subsequently discriminated, in novel regions, pairs of elements that had previously shared a region from pairs of elements that had been in different regions. A control group of infants, who had experienced the same stimuli except for the presence of illusory regions, failed to discriminate between within-region and between-region pairs of stimuli. These results reveal that (1) illusory regions can be used to group elements, (2) perceptual organization is sufficiently developed early in life for 3- to 4-month-olds to group on the basis of ecologically relevant illusory contours, and (3) such grouping in infancy generalizes to novel regions.     

Part perception in infancy: Sensitivity to the short-cut rule

Research indicates that object perception involves the decomposition of images into parts. A critical principle that governs part decomposition by adults is the short-cut rule, which states that, all else being equal, the visual system parses objects using the shortest possible cuts. We examined whether 6.5-month-olds’ parsing of images also follows the short-cut rule. Infants in the experimental conditions were habituated to cross shapes and then tested for their preference between segregated patterns produced using long cuts versus short cuts. Infants in the control conditions were directly tested with the segregated patterns. Infants in the experimental conditions exhibited a greater novelty preference for the long-cut over the short-cut patterns than did those in the control conditions, thereby indicating that they are more likely to segregate cross shapes using short cuts rather than long cuts. This sensitivity to the short-cut rule was evident when two alternative parameters, part area and protrusion, were controlled in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. Thus, a critical principle that governs part segregation in adulthood is operational by 6.5 months of age.     

Effect of Intentional Sentences on Visual Attention to Human and Animal Pictures: Evidence from Eye Movements

This study explored the effect of specific vs. general sentences, describing intentional aspects of humans and animals on visual attention on face and body regions. A picture-sentence verification paradigm was used and eye movements were recorded as subjects looked at displays in the absence of any overt task. Results indicated higher visual attention to the body regions for sentences expressing specific intentional states for human pictures and not for animal pictures. A strong preference to look at the body regions in general was observed compared to the face regions. Results suggest that understanding intentional states of other agents requires focusing visual attention on the body region compared to the face region. The findings are discussed in terms of interaction of intentional states and visual attention.     

Introduction and application of the multiscale coefficient of variation analysis

Quantifying how patterns of behavior relate across multiple levels of measurement typically requires long time series for reliable parameter estimation. We describe a novel analysis that estimates patterns of variability across multiple scales of analysis suitable for time series of short duration. The multiscale coefficient of variation (MSCV) measures the distance between local coefficient of variation estimates within particular time windows and the overall coefficient of variation across all time samples. We first describe the MSCV analysis and provide an example analytical protocol with corresponding MATLAB implementation and code. Next, we present a simulation study testing the new analysis using time series generated by ARFIMA models that span white noise, short-term and long-term correlations. The MSCV analysis was observed to be sensitive to specific parameters of ARFIMA models varying in the type of temporal structure and time series length. We then apply the MSCV analysis to short time series of speech phrases and musical themes to show commonalities in multiscale structure. The simulation and application studies provide evidence that the MSCV analysis can discriminate between time series varying in multiscale structure and length.