Parents Will Be Parents: Conceptualizing and Measuring Nonoffending Parent and Other Caregiver Support Following Disclosure of Sexual Abuse

A gap exists in the literature with regard to the theoretical conceptualization of nonoffending parental and other caregiver (NOC) support of sexually abused children. Measures need to be developed that appropriately capture this construct. The purpose of this article is to present a qualitative study that asked 17 NOCs in different ways how they supported their sexually abused children after the disclosure of the sexual abuse. The multiple different types of support were coded and, using grounded theory, the structure of NOC support emerged from the data. The final structure of NOC support had 8 dimensions, including basic needs, safety and protection, decision making, active parenting, instrumental support, availability, sensitivity to child, and affirmation.     

Understanding the multiframe caricature advantage for recognizing facial composites

Eyewitnesses often construct a “composite” face of a person they saw commit a crime, a picture that police use to identify suspects. We described a technique (Frowd, Bruce, Ross, McIntyre, & Hancock, 2007) based on facial caricature to facilitate recognition of these images: Correct naming substantially improves when composites are seen with progressive positive caricature, where distinctive information is enhanced, and then with progressive negative caricature, the opposite. Over the course of four experiments, the underpinnings of this mechanism were explored. Positive-caricature levels were found to be largely responsible for improving naming of composites, with some benefit from negative-caricature levels. Also, different frame-presentation orders (forward, reverse, random, repeated) facilitated equivalent naming benefit relative to static composites. Overall, the data indicate that composites are usually constructed as negative caricatures.     

I just love the attention: implicit preference for direct eye contact

Seven studies used the Implicit Association Test to measure preference for gaze direction. For faces with neutral expressions, people clearly preferred eyes looking towards them compared to eyes gazing to the right or left (Experiment 1). This preference remained for faces shown turned to the side (Experiment 2) and upside-down (Experiment 3). Even angry faces were preferred with direct compared to averted gaze (Experiments 4 and 5). Furthermore, preference for eye contact did not correlate to performance on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) or the Autism Quotient (AQ); note performance on the RMET and the AQ was only weakly correlated although both are claimed to measure social cognition. When the faces were replaced by coloured shapes (Experiment 6) or arrows (Experiment 7) people showed a weaker preference for the category label “looking at you” versus “looking to the side”. Overall, people revealed a robust preference for direct rather than averted gaze which generalized across face pose and expression. Together with a weaker preference for arrows pointing towards them, this is consistent with people having an implicit preference for self-directed attention.     

Measuring Sensitivity to Conflicts of Interest: A Preliminary Test of Method

This study presents and develops test methods for assessing sensitivity to conflict of interest (COIsen). We are aware of no study assessing COIsen, but note that some popular methods for assessing ethical sensitivity and related constructs (which include COIsen) are flawed in that their presentation of stimulus material to subjects actually guides subjects to attend to ethical (or related) issues. The method tested here was designed to avoid this flaw. Using adaptations of two existing cases, a quota sample of 12 students was interviewed. Our method used funnel-sequenced, open-ended interviews that were audiotaped and transcribed, then subjected to a form of cognitive mapping. These maps revealed the presence of “indicators” of COIsen. We found that COIsen can be measured and that the global COIsen score generated by our method is able to reveal much variation across subjects, making it a worthwhile candidate for further consideration.     

The development of stranger fear in infancy and toddlerhood: normative development,individual differences,antecedents, and outcomes

Despite implications that stranger fear is an important aspect of developing behavioral inhibition, a known risk factor for anxiety, normative and atypical developmental trajectories of stranger fear across infancy and toddlerhood remain understudied. We used a large, longitudinal data set (N = 1285) including multi‐trait, multi‐method assessments of temperament to examine the normative course of development for stranger fear and to explore the possibility that individual differences exist in trajectories of stranger fear development between 6 and 36 months of age. A latent class growth analysis suggested four different trajectories of stranger fear during this period. Stable, high levels of stranger fear over time were associated with poorer RSA suppression at 6 months of age. Rates of concordance in trajectory‐based class membership for identical (monozygotic) and fraternal (dizygotic) twins, along with associations between atypical stranger fear development and greater anxiety‐related maternal characteristics, suggested that individual differences in developmental trajectories of stranger fear may be heritable. Importantly, trajectories of stranger fear during infancy and toddlerhood were linked to individual differences in behavioral inhibition, with chronically high levels of stranger fear and sharp increases in stranger fear over time related to greater levels of inhibition than other developmental trajectories.     

Infants hierarchically organize memory representations

Throughout development, working memory is subject to capacity limits that severely constrain short‐term storage. However, adults can massively expand the total amount of remembered information by grouping items into chunks. Although infants also have been shown to chunk objects in memory, little is known regarding the limits of this ability. In particular, it remains unknown whether infants can create more complex memory hierarchies, binding representations of chunks into still larger chunks in recursive fashion. Here we tested the limits of early chunking, first measuring the number of items infants can bind into a single chunk and the number of chunks infants can maintain concurrently, and then, critically, whether infants can embed chunked representations into larger units. We tested 14‐month‐old infants' memory for hidden objects using a manual search task in which we manipulated memory load (the number of objects infants saw hidden) and the chunking cues provided. We found that infants are limited in the number of items they can chunk and in the number of chunks they can remember. However, we also found that infants can bind representations of chunks into ‘superchunks’. These results suggest that hierarchically organizing information strongly affects working memory, starting in infancy.     

Dyadic Models for the Study of Health

Dyadic designs have been used in health research to investigate intra‐ and inter‐personal mechanisms of health and well‐being in various types of dyads, including parent–child dyads, siblings, friends, and romantic partners. Although a growing number of researchers are designing studies that capture the interdependent complexities of relationships, many still need more information on how to analyze the data in a way that maximizes its value. Therefore, the purpose of this review paper is twofold: (1) to address some of the ways in which dyadic data analysis is being used in current health research, with an emphasis on research that has employed the Actor‐Partner Interdependence Model, and (2) to propose and explain various methodological and substantive considerations that researchers should consider when using dyadic data analysis in their own research.     

Structural analysis of the intension and extension of semantic concepts

The present studies examined the nature of visuo-spatial working memory development using conventional visual span and spatial span measures. Children aged between 6 and 13 years and adults aged 18-38 years were employed as participants. In Study 1, visual span, spatial span, articulation rate, and verbal fluency competencies were measured. In Study 2, visual span and spatial span maintenance was subject to five interference formats: nil, speech articulation, verbal fluency, visual masking, and spatial tapping. Distinct developmental rates were found for the two span tasks, which in the older children were correlated with the verbal fluency measure. Study 2 provided experimental evidence of the contribution of executive and spatial processes to spatial and to visual span maintenance. The results are interpreted as indicating that these memory span procedures make complex demands upon the visuo-spatial working memory architecture and consequently a precise identification of the process that actually develop is compromised. It is suggested that a componential approach where tasks are constructed to tap specific working memory components would afford a more accurate understanding of the development of these processes.     

Who? What? When? Using a timeline technique to facilitate recall of a complex event

Accurately recalling a complex multi-actor incident presents witnesses with a cognitively demanding retrieval task. Given the important role played by temporal context in the retrieval process, the current research tests an innovative timeline technique to elicit information about multiple perpetrators and their actions. Adopting a standard mock witness paradigm, participants were required to provide an account of a witnessed event. In Experiment 1, the timeline technique facilitated the reporting of more correct details than a free recall, immediately and at a two-week retention interval, at no cost to accuracy. Accounts provided using the timeline technique included more correct information about perpetrator specific actions and fewer sequencing errors. Experiment 2 examined which mnemonic components of the timeline technique might account for these effects. The benefits of exploiting memory organization and reducing cognitive constraints on information flow are likely to underpin the apparent timeline advantage.