Counting on fine motor skills: links between preschool finger dexterity and numerical skills

Finger counting is widely considered an important step in children's early mathematical development. Presumably, children's ability to move their fingers during early counting experiences to aid number representation depends in part on their early fine motor skills (FMS). Specifically, FMS should link to children's procedural counting skills through consistent repetition of finger‐counting procedures. Accordingly, we hypothesized that (a) FMS are linked to early counting skills, and (b) greater FMS relate to conceptual counting knowledge (e.g., cardinality, abstraction, order irrelevance) via procedural counting skills (i.e., one–one correspondence and correctness of verbal counting). Preschool children (N = 177) were administered measures of procedural counting skills, conceptual counting knowledge, FMS, and general cognitive skills along with parent questionnaires on home mathematics and fine motor environment. FMS correlated with procedural counting skills and conceptual counting knowledge after controlling for cognitive skills, chronological age, home mathematics and FMS environments. Moreover, the relationship between FMS and conceptual counting knowledge was mediated by procedural counting skills. Findings suggest that FMS play a role in early counting and therewith conceptual counting knowledge.     

Distinguishing Disadvantage from Ill-Being in the Capability Approach

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - Central capabilitarian theories of well-being focus exclusively on actual opportunities to attain states of being and doing that people have reason to value....     

Verbesserung psychischer Allgemeinfunktionen durch Psychotherapie

Zusammenfassung  Im Rahmen einer bundesweiten Fragebogenuntersuchung, die eine systematische Replikation der 1994 in den USA durchgeführten Consumer-Reports-Study für Deutschland darstellte, wurden mit Hilfe des ins Deutsche übersetzten Originalfragebogens Psychotherapiepatienten, u. a. nach einer Verbesserung der Zielsymptomatik sowie nach Veränderungen unspezifischer psychischer Allgemeinfunktionen, wie Beziehungsfähigkeit, Arbeitsfähigkeit, Fähigkeit zur Stressbewältigung, körperliches Wohlbefinden, Lebensfreude, persönliche Entwicklung, Verständnis für andere, Selbstwertgefühl und Stimmungslage, durch die Behandlung befragt. Bei der Auswertung der Antworten zeigte sich, dass eine psychotherapeutische Behandlung nicht nur zu einer deutlichen Symptombesserung, sondern auch zu einer Besserung dieser unspezifischen psychischen Allgemeinfunktionen führt. Und je länger die Behandlung erfolgt war, desto größer fielen die Besserungsraten aus. Der Vergleich der unterschiedlichen psychotherapeutischen Verfahren offenbarte marginale Unterschiede zwischen Psychoanalyse, tiefenpsychologisch-fundierter Psychotherapie und Verhaltenstherapie.

Activation of midbrain structures by associative novelty and the formation of explicit memory in humans

Recent evidence suggests a close functional relationship between memory formation in the hippocampus and dopaminergic neuromodulation originating in the ventral tegmental area and medial substantia nigra of the midbrain. Here we report midbrain activation in two functional MRI studies of visual memory in healthy young adults. In the first study, participants distinguished between familiar and novel configurations of pairs of items which had been studied together by either learning the location or the identity of the items. In the second study, participants studied words by either rating the words' pleasantness or counting syllables. The ventral tegmental area and medial substantia nigra showed increased activation by associative novelty (first study) and subsequent free recall performance (second study). In both studies, this activation accompanied hippocampal activation, but was unaffected by the study task. Thus midbrain regions seem to participate selectively in hippocampus-dependent processes of associative novelty and explicit memory formation, but appear to be unaffected by other task-relevant aspects.     

Human preferences are biased towards associative information

There is ample evidence that the brain generates predictions that help interpret sensory input. To build such predictions the brain capitalizes upon learned statistical regularities and associations (e.g., “A” is followed by “B”; “C” appears together with “D”). The centrality of predictions to mental activities gave rise to the hypothesis that associative information with predictive value is perceived as intrinsically valuable. Such value would ensure that this information is proactively searched for, thereby promoting certainty and stability in our environment. We therefore tested here whether, all else being equal, participants would prefer stimuli that contained more rather than less associative information. In Experiments 1 and 2 we used novel, meaningless visual shapes and showed that participants preferred associative shapes over shapes that had not been associated with other shapes during training. In Experiment 3 we used pictures of real-world objects and again demonstrated a preference for stimuli that elicit stronger associations. These results support our proposal that predictive information is affectively tagged, and enhance our understanding of the formation of everyday preferences.     

Looking at others through implicitly or explicitly prejudiced eyes

It is well known that we utilize internalized representations (or schemas) to direct our eyes when exploring visual stimuli. Interestingly, our schemas for human faces are known to reflect systematic differences that are consistent with one's level of racial prejudice. However, whether one's level or type of racial prejudice can differentially regulate how we visually explore faces that are the target of prejudice is currently unknown. Here, White participants varying in their level of implicit or explicit prejudice viewed Black faces and White faces (with the latter serving as a control) while having their gaze behaviour recorded with an eye-tracker. The results show that, regardless of prejudice type (i.e., implicit or explicit), participants high in racial prejudice examine faces differently than those low in racial prejudice. Specifically, individuals high in explicit racial prejudice were more likely to fixate on the mouth region of Black faces when compared to individuals low in explicit prejudice, and exhibited less consistency in their scanning of faces irrespective of race. On the other hand, individuals high in implicit racial prejudice tended to focus on the region between the eyes, regardless of face race. It therefore seems that racial prejudice guides target-race specific patterns of looking behaviour, and may also contribute to general patterns of looking behaviour when visually exploring human faces.     

Typewriting Dynamics: What Distinguishes Simple From Complex Writing Tasks?

One of the main challenges of writing research has been its generative nature. As a production task, writing cannot be controlled as easily as other psychological laboratory tasks, such as reading. In this article, we present an analysis of 3 writing tasks, ranging from a simplified typing task to an ecological writing task. We show that multiple nonlinear metrics can be used to systematically characterize open, complex writing tasks. Moreover, we demonstrate that, when writing performance is quantified in such a way, a continuum of complexity can be identified on which increasingly complex writing performances can be placed.     

The Professional Context as a Predictor for Response Distortion in the Adaption-Innovation Inventory—An Investigation Using Mixture Distribution Item Response Theory Models

The Adaption-Innovation Inventory (AII), originally developed by Kirton (1976), is a widely used self-report instrument for measuring problem-solving styles at work. The present study investigates how scores on the AII are affected by different response styles. Data are collected from a combined sample (N = 738) of students, employees, and entrepreneurs. Using mixture distribution item response theory, we identify individuals with normal and distorted response styles. Additionally, we investigate antecedents and consequences of distorted responses. For antecedents, results indicate influences of cognitive schemata resulting from an individual's professional work context. For consequences, distorted responses show different relationships with occupational outcomes in comparison to normal responses.