Visual agnosia and prosopagnosia in childhood: a prospective case study.

Selective impairments in visual processing are well documented in adults but rarely reported in children. The few childhood cases reported are mostly retrospective accounts with little attention paid to developmental, assessment or management issues. We report a prospective case study of a boy with prosopagnosia and visual processing deficits of presumed developmental origin. At the age of 4 years, AL presented with a range of cognitive and visual recognition deficits. Subsequent assessments revealed an evolving pattern in visual recognition and dissociations between developing skills. At the age of 7 AL has impairments in early perceptual analysis, visual organisation and in complex visual processing. Although he can identify facial features and match faces he is unable to recognise familiar faces. His reading and spelling are developing normally. The nature of his deficits and his progress are discussed within a cognitive neuropsychological framework.     

Mediation in a sibling context: the relations of older siblings' mediating behaviour and younger siblings' task performance

We investigated the sibling relationship as a context for cognitive development. Forty preschoolers (ages 5–6) and their younger siblings (ages 2–3) were visited at home. Four games were presented to the older siblings and they were asked (a) to estimate how well their younger sibling will perform on each game and (b) to teach the younger sibling how to use the games. The older siblings' mediating behaviours during the teaching session and the younger siblings' performance on the four tasks were coded. The frequency of mediating behaviours—including attention focusing, amplifying affect and providing meaning, fostering a sense of competence, regulating of the learning process, de‐contextualization, and negative feedback in the form of mocking and laughing at errors, predicted the younger siblings' task performance. The older sibling's accurate perception of the younger child's competence was uniquely predictive of task performance. The highest amount of mediation was observed in older‐brother–younger‐brother pairs, in particular the behaviours of negative feedback and amplifying affect. Results contribute to the discussion on the role of siblings as moderators of cognitive development and are discussed in terms of Vygotsky's cultural–historical perspective on apprenticeship. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychosocial variables, external barriers, and stage of mammography adoption.

Guided by H. Triandis's (1980) theory of behavior and the transtheoretical model, the study purpose was to examine differences in psychosocial variables and external conditions by stage of mammography adoption. Sampled from a statewide population, participants (N=509) were women aged 51-80. They had been contacted by telephone, screened for eligibility (e.g., no history of cancer or recent mammogram), and interviewed 3-6 months later. Higher utility beliefs, social influences, and practitioner interactions about mammography were associated with improved stage of adoption, as were lower negative affect and external barriers regarding mammography. Higher decisional balance scores, with and without negative affect toward mammography were associated with improved stage. Controlling for variables reflecting pros and cons, negative affect toward mammography further distinguished among stages. A richer set of pros and cons measures could explain screening more fully.     

Infant–mother and infant–father synchrony: The coregulation of positive arousal

To examine the coregulation of positive affect during mother–infant and father–infant interactions, 100 couples and their first‐born child were videotaped in face‐to‐face interactions. Parents' and infant's affective states were coded in one‐second frames, and synchrony was measured with time‐series analysis. The orientation, intensity, and temporal pattern of infant positive arousal were assessed. Synchrony between same‐gender parent–infant dyads was more optimal in terms of stronger lagged associations between parent and infant affect, more frequent mutual synchrony, and shorter lags to responsiveness. Infants' arousal during mother–infant interaction cycled between medium and low levels, and high positive affect appeared gradually and was embedded within a social episode. During father–child play, positive arousal was high, sudden, and organized in multiple peaks that appeared more frequently as play progressed. Mother–infant synchrony was linked to the partners' social orientation and was inversely related to maternal depression and infant negative emotionality. Father–child synchrony was related to the intensity of positive arousal and to father attachment security. Results contribute to research on the regulation of positive emotions and describe the unique modes of affective sharing that infants coconstruct with mother and father. ©2003 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Protection and vulnerability processes relevant for early onset of substance use: a test among African American children.

This research tested predictions from a self-regulation model of factors relevant for early onset of tobacco and alcohol use with a community sample of 889 African American children (mean age = 10.5 years). Criterion variables were peer substance use, willingness to use substances, and resistance efficacy (intention to refuse substance offers). Structural modeling indicated effects of temperament dimensions were mediated through self-control and risk-taking constructs, which were related to school involvement, life events, and perceived vulnerability to harmful effects of substances. Peer use was predicted by life events, poor self-control, and parent-child conflict; willingness was predicted by life events, risk taking, and (inversely) parental support; and resistance efficacy was predicted by perceived vulnerability and (inversely) poor self-control. Findings are discussed with reference to theoretical models of early protection and vulnerability processes.     

New Perspectives on Agency in Early Modern Philosophy

ABSTRACT

This introductory article outlines the themes and aims of this special issue, which offers new perspectives on early modern debates about agency in two ways: First, it recovers writings on agency and liberty that have been widely neglected or that have received insufficient attention, including writings by Anne Conway, Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, William King, Gabrielle Suchon, Elizabeth Berkeley Burnet, Mary Astell, and Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Second, it reveals the richness of early modern debates about agency and liberty.     

Generalization in Human Category Learning: A Connectionist Account of Differences in Gradient after Discriminative and Non discriminative Training

Two experiments are reported that investigate the difference in gradient of generalization observed between one-category (non-discriminative) and two-category (discriminative) training. Extrapolating from the results of a number of animal learning studies, it was predicted that the gradient should be steeper under discriminative training. The first experiment confirms this basic prediction for the stimuli used, which were novel, prototype-structured, and constructed from 12 symbols positioned on a grid. An explanation for the effect, based on the Rescorla-Wagner theory of Pavlovian conditioning (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972), is that under non-discriminative training 'incidental stimuli' have significant control over responding,whereas under discriminative training they do not. Incidental stimuli are those aspects of the stimulus, or the surrounding context, that are not differentially reinforced under discriminative training. This explanation leads to the prediction that a comparable effect of blocked versus intermixed discriminative training should also be found. This prediction is disconfirmed by the second experiment. An alternative model, still based on the RescorlaWagner theory but with the addition of a decision mechanism comprising a threshold unit and a competitive network system, is proposed, and its ability to predict both the choice probabilities and the pattern of response times found is evaluated via simulation.