Micro-analysis of infant looking in a naturalistic social setting: insights from biologically based models of attention

A current theory of attention posits that several micro-indices of attentional vigilance are dependent on activation of the locus coeruleus, a brainstem nucleus that regulates cortical norepinephrine activity (Aston-Jones et al., 1999). This theory may account for many findings in the infant literature, while highlighting important new areas for research and theory on infant attention. We examined the visual behaviors of n = 16 infants (6-7 months) while they attended to multiple spatially distributed targets in a naturalistic environment. We coded four measures of attentional vigilance, adapted from studies of norepinergic modulation of animal attention: rate of fixations, duration of fixations, latency to reorientation, and target 'hits'. These measures showed a high degree of coherence in individual infants, in parallel with findings from animal studies. Results also suggest that less vigilant infants showed greater habituation to the trial structure and more attentiveness to less salient stimuli during periods of high attentional competition. This pattern of results is predicted by the Aston-Jones model of attention, but could not be explained by the standard information processing model.     

Age-related differences in brain electrical activity during extended continuous face recognition in younger children, older children and adults

To examine the development of recognition memory in primary-school children, 36 healthy younger children (8-9 years old) and 36 healthy older children (11-12 years old) participated in an ERP study with an extended continuous face recognition task (Study 1). Each face of a series of 30 faces was shown randomly six times interspersed with distracter faces. The children were required to make old vs. new decisions. Older children responded faster than younger children, but younger children exhibited a steeper decrease in latencies across the five repetitions. Older children exhibited better accuracy for new faces, but there were no age differences in recognition accuracy for repeated faces. For the N2, N400 and late positive complex (LPC), we analyzed the old/new effects (repetition 1 vs. new presentation) and the extended repetition effects (repetitions 1 through 5). Compared to older children, younger children exhibited larger frontocentral N2 and N400 old/new effects. For extended face repetitions, negativity of the N2 and N400 decreased in a linear fashion in both age groups. For the LPC, an ERP component thought to reflect recollection, no significant old/new or extended repetition effects were found. Employing the same face recognition paradigm in 20 adults (Study 2), we found a significant N400 old/new effect at lateral frontal sites and a significant LPC repetition effect at parietal sites, with LPC amplitudes increasing linearly with the number of repetitions. This study clearly demonstrates differential developmental courses for the N400 and LPC pertaining to recognition memory for faces. It is concluded that face recognition in children is mediated by early and probably more automatic than conscious recognition processes. In adults, the LPC extended repetition effect indicates that adult face recognition memory is related to a conscious and graded recollection process rather than to an automatic recognition process.     

Saved by the blush: being trusted despite defecting

This study examined whether blushing after a sociomoral transgression remediates trustworthiness in an interdependent context. Participants (N = 196) played a computerized prisoner's dilemma game with a virtual opponent who defected in the second round of the game. After the defection, a photograph of the opponent was shown, displaying a blushing or a nonblushing face. In a subsequent Trust Task, the blushing opponent was entrusted with more money than the nonblushing opponent. In further support of the alleged remedial properties of the blush, participants also indicated that they trusted the blushing opponent more, expected a lower probability that she would defect again, and judged the blushing opponent more positively.     

The acquisition of scientific knowledge: the influence of methods of questioning and analysis on the interpretation of children's conceptions of the earth

Studies of children's knowledge of the Earth have led to very different conclusions: some appear to show that children construct their own, non‐scientific ‘theories’ (mental models) of the flat, hollow or dual Earth. Others indicate that many young children have some understanding of the spherical (scientific) Earth, and that their knowledge lacks the coherence of mental models. The reasons for these contrasting views were tested by interviewing French children (N = 178) aged 5–11 years and varying the different methods used in previous research, namely the types of questions (open and forced‐choice), the form of representation (two‐dimensional pictures and three‐dimensional models), and the method of analysis (the mental model theorists' coding scheme and a statistical test for associations using MANOVA). Forced‐choice questions resulted in higher proportions of scientific answers than open questions, and children appeared to have naïve mental models of the Earth only when the mental model theorists' coding scheme was used. These findings support the view that children tend to have ‘fragments’ of scientific knowledge, and that naïve mental models of the Earth are methodological artifacts. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Moral counselling: a method in development

This article describes a method of moral counselling developed in the Radboud University Medical Centre Nijmegen (The Netherlands). The authors apply insights of Paul Ricoeur to the non-directive counselling method of Carl Rogers in their work of coaching patients with moral problems in health care. The developed method was shared with other health care professionals in a training course. Experiences in the course and further practice led to further improvement of the method.     

The semantic organization of the animal category: evidence from semantic verbal fluency and network theory

Semantic memory is the subsystem of human memory that stores knowledge of concepts or meanings, as opposed to life-specific experiences. How humans organize semantic information remains poorly understood. In an effort to better understand this issue, we conducted a verbal fluency experiment on 200 participants with the aim of inferring and representing the conceptual storage structure of the natural category of animals as a network. This was done by formulating a statistical framework for co-occurring concepts that aims to infer significant concept-concept associations and represent them as a graph. The resulting network was analyzed and enriched by means of a missing links recovery criterion based on modularity. Both network models were compared to a thresholded co-occurrence approach. They were evaluated using a random subset of verbal fluency tests and comparing the network outcomes (linked pairs are clustering transitions and disconnected pairs are switching transitions) to the outcomes of two expert human raters. Results show that the network models proposed in this study overcome a thresholded co-occurrence approach, and their outcomes are in high agreement with human evaluations. Finally, the interplay between conceptual structure and retrieval mechanisms is discussed.     

Prevalence and associated factors with body image dissatisfaction among adults in southern Brazil: A population-based study

We investigated the prevalence of body image dissatisfaction (BID) and associated factors in Florianopolis, Brazil. BID was analyzed in a sample (N = 1720) of adults through the Figure Rating Scale. The independent variables were sociodemographic factors, health behaviors, and morbidities. A multinomial logistic regression analysis was used. More men (14.2%) than women (6.1%) presented BID by being lighter than ideal (LI). Conversely, more women (66.6%) than men (46.3%) showed BID by being heavier than ideal (HI). BID by being HI was higher among older women, those with high BMI and those with a partner. In men, lower BMI and the presence of common mental disorders were associated with BID due to being LI. Advanced ages, alcohol abuse, physical inactivity, and obesity were associated with BID due to being HI. We must consider different public health interventions for men and women to reduce BID in Brazilian adults.