Effect of cognitive bias modification-memory on depressive symptoms and autobiographical memory bias: two independent studies in high-ruminating and dysphoric samples

Memory bias is a risk factor for depression. In two independent studies, the efficacy of one CBM-Memory session on negative memory bias and depressive symptoms was tested in vulnerable samples. We compared positive to neutral (control) CBM-Memory trainings in highly-ruminating individuals (N?=?101) and individuals with elevated depressive symptoms (N?=?100). In both studies, participants studied positive, neutral, and negative Swahili words paired with their translations. In five study–test blocks, they were then prompted to retrieve either only the positive or neutral translations. Immediately following the training and one week later, we tested cued recall of all translations and autobiographical memory bias; and also measured mood, depressive symptoms, and rumination. Retrieval practice resulted in training-congruent recall both immediately after and one week after the training. Overall, there was no differential decrease in symptoms or difference in autobiographical memory bias between the training conditions. In the dysphoric but not in the high-ruminating sample, the positive training resulted in positive autobiographical bias only in dysphoric individuals with positive pre-existing bias.

We conclude that one session of positive retrieval-based CBM-Memory may not be enough to yield symptom change and affect autobiographical memory bias in vulnerable individuals.     

Action experience in infancy predicts visual-motor functional connectivity during action anticipation

Despite substantial evidence indicating a close link between action production and perception in early child development, less is known about how action experience shapes the processes of perceiving and anticipating others’ actions. Here, we developed a novel approach to capture functional connectivity specific to certain brain areas to investigate how action experience changes the networks involved in action perception and anticipation. Nine- and-12-month-old infants observed familiar (grasping) and novel (tool-use) actions while their brain activity was measured using EEG. Infants’ motor competence of both actions was assessed. A link between action experience and connectivity patterns was found, particularly during the anticipation period. During action anticipation, greater motor competence in grasping predicted greater functional connectivity between visual (occipital alpha) and motor (central alpha) regions relative to global levels of whole-brain EEG connectivity. Furthermore, visual and motor regions tended to be more coordinated in response to familiar versus novel actions and for older than younger participants. Critically, these effects were not found in the control networks (frontal-central; frontal-occipital; parietal-central; parietal-occipital), suggesting a unique role of visual-motor networks on the link between motor skills and action encoding.

Highlights

• Infants’ motor development predicted functional connectivity patterns during action anticipation.
• Faster graspers, and older infants, showed a stronger ratio of visual-motor neural coherence.
• Overall whole-brain connectivity was modulated by age and familiarity with the actions.
• Measuring inter-site relative to whole-brain connectivity can capture specific brain-behavior links.
• Measures of phase-based connectivity over time are sensitive to anticipatory action.

     

Children's social wariness toward a different-race stranger relates to individual differences in temperament

When children first meet a stranger, there is great variation in how much they will approach and engage with the stranger. While individual differences in this type of behavior—called social wariness—are well-documented in temperament research, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the social groups (such as race) of the stranger and how these characteristics might influence children's social wariness. In contrast, research on children's social bias and interracial friendships rarely examines individual differences in temperament and how temperament might influence cross-group interactions. The current study bridges the gap across these different fields of research by examining whether the racial group of an unfamiliar peer or adult moderates the association between temperament and the social wariness that children display. Utilizing a longitudinal dataset that collected multiple measurements of children's temperament and behaviors (including parent-reported shyness and social wariness toward unfamiliar adults and peers) across early childhood, we found that 2- to 7-year-old children with high parent-reported shyness showed greater social wariness toward a different-race stranger compared to a same-race stranger, whereas children with low parent-reported shyness did not. These results point to the importance of considering racial group membership in temperament research and the potential role that temperament might play in children's cross-race interactions.

Research Highlights

• Previous research on temperament has not considered how the race of strangers could influence children's social wariness.
• We find evidence that 2- to 7-year-old children with high parent-reported shyness show greater social wariness toward a different-race stranger compared to a same-race stranger.
• These results point to the importance of considering racial group membership in temperament research.
• Our findings also suggest temperament may play a role in children's cross-race interactions.

     

MySkillsFuture for Students,STEM Learning,and the Design of Neoliberal Citizenship in Singapore

Abstract

There is a great need for interrogating the politics of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning at a global level and for STEM literacies that include robust sociopolitical analysis. This article analyzes neoliberal underpinnings of STEM discourse on an online portal created for pedagogic use with primary and secondary students in Singapore. We find that the portal leverages student interests, self-discovery, and diverse identities to recruit them into (neoliberal) figured worlds of learning, work, and citizenship that narrowly imagine a disciplined society and workforce appealing to global capital. Excluded and rendered invisible are skills to address pressing global issues (e.g., inequality, poverty, or sustainability) or to understand the world, others, or power relations, except strategically as instrumental skills that support industries and economic growth. We conclude by offering a hopeful vision that builds on the diversity, hybridity, and cultural crossroads of Singapore, asserting that alternate speculative futures are possible, including for decolonized or desettled STEM perspectives.     

Del Sentimiento de No Estar del Todo: Reply to Csillag and Orfanos

This response presents associations elicited by commentaries from Csillag and Orfanos (this issue), on the author’s paper discussing issues of language, race, and social class in an immigrant clinical dyad. The author describes ways in which these issues were experienced during the process of writing and sharing the original essay, provides some reflections on the state-dependent nature of epistemological truth in clinical enactments, and offers, through biographical fragments, an example of how the principles organizing our psychic experience inform and are informed by our cultural context.     

Massed trial Overtraining Effects on Extinction and Reversal Performance in Turtles (Geoclemys reevesii)

Two experiments with turtles (Geoclemys reevesii) examined the overtraining extinction effect (OEE) and the overtraining reversal effect (ORE), under massed training conditions. In Experiment 1, three groups of turtles received 7, 14, or 21 sessions of training in a runway situation for food reinforcement, followed by 15 sessions of extinction. Extinction was faster, the greater the number of acquisition sessions. In Experiment 2, the two groups of turtles learned a spatial discrimination for food reinforcement either to a criterion (19 of 20 correct responses), or to that criterion plus 100 additional trials of overtraining. When the validity of the positions was reversed, learning was faster for the overtrained group than for the group trained to a criterion. This evidence of the OEE and the ORE is the first yet reported for a reptile. The results are discussed in the framework of comparative research on rewardschedule effects.     

A Country of Two: Race and Social Class in an Immigrant Therapeutic Dyad

This paper explores some of the ways in which social structures and fantasies organized around race and social class emerge in the intersubjective space created by a patient and a therapist who emigrated from the same country. Incorporating some of his own experiences of identity and otherness, the author discusses, through the lens of his countertransference, how communicating with the patient in their native language allowed for access to early internal object-relations, unconscious threats to his sense of belonging, racialized self-states, and feelings of shame associated to some of these dissociated self-states rooted in historical oppression and trauma. The author suggests that the “country of two” populated by patient and therapist is a dynamic co-created space, that emerges from the dialectic interplay of sameness and difference along the lines of race, social class, and culture.