Kindergarten children's sensitivity to geometry in maps

Geometrical concepts are critical to a host of human cognitive achievements, from maps to measurement to mathematics, and both the development of these concepts, and their variation by gender, have long been studied. Most studies of geometrical reasoning, however, present children with materials containing both geometric and non-geometric information, and with tasks that are open to multiple solution strategies. Here we present kindergarten children with a task requiring a focus on geometry: navigation in a small-scale space by a purely geometric map. Children spontaneously extracted and used relationships of both distance and angle in the maps, without prior demonstration, instruction, or feedback, but they failed to use the sense information that distinguishes an array from its mirror image. Children of both genders showed a common profile of performance, with boys showing no advantage on this task. These findings provide evidence that some map-reading abilities arise prior to formal instruction, are common to both genders, and are used spontaneously to guide children's spatial behavior.     

Understanding Middle School Students Life Satisfaction: Does School Climate Matter?

This study of 461 middle school students explored associations between perceived school climate and life satisfaction. At the bivariate level, higher life satisfaction co-occurred with greater perceptions of each aspect of school climate. Taken together, students’ perceptions of school climate accounted for 19 % of the variance in their life satisfaction. When controlling for the commonality amongst school climate dimensions, four of six dimensions (i.e., student interpersonal relations, student-teacher relations, order and discipline, and parent involvement in schooling) emerged as unique predictors of life satisfaction. Follow-up analyses clarified that parent involvement in schooling co-occurred with greater life satisfaction for girls only. Preventative strategies to promote youth life satisfaction by targeting the most salient aspects of school climate are suggested.     

Telling stories: The structure of adults' narratives

Abstract

Adults' narratives were analysed to study life-span changes in their structure. The narratives were collected from a group of adults in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. Four separate analyses were performed on the narratives' (1) hierarchical structure, (2) syntactic structure, (3) propositional content, and (4) cohesion. Age-group differences were obtained for the measures of hierarchical structure, syntactic structure, and cohesion. Further analyses revealed that the structural complexity of the narratives influenced their syntactic structure and cohesion. Interactions between the effects of age group and structural complexity suggest that elderly adults minimise the syntactic complexity of their narratives, reducing their cohesion, when producing structurally complex narratives. Finally, ratings of the quality of the narratives were strongly correlated with their structural complexity, suggesting that telling a “good” story involves constructing complex plots.     

Impaired frontostriatal cognitive functioning following posteroventral pallidotomy in advanced Parkinson's disease

We investigated the long-term effects of posteroventral pallidotomy on tests sensitive to the functional integrity of frontostriatal neural systems in a sample of 11 patients with advanced Parkinson's disease (PD). Patients were assessed within 1 month prior to surgery and at 12 months following pallidotomy. Changes in outcome measures were compared to a control sample of equally performing PD patients receiving nonsurgical medical management assessed over a 12-month period. Measures of cognitive abilities sensitive to frontostriatal functional integrity tested psychomotor processing speed, executive components of working memory, and reasoning. Additional tests of general mental status and semantic memory ability were utilized to assess the specificity of the effect of pallidotomy on cognitive function. Significant declines in performance on all measures sensitive to frontostriatal integrity were found for the surgery group but not the PD control group. No significant changes in performance were found on the measures of general mental status or semantic memory for either the surgery or PD control samples. These results suggest that the posteroventral pallidotomy selectively impairs performance on tests of frontostriatal cognitive abilities.     

Neural synchrony in stochastic resonance, attention, and consciousness.

We describe briefly three of our lab's ongoing projects studying the role of neural synchrony in human perception and cognition. These projects arise from two main interests: the role of noise both in human perception and in neural synchrony, and neural synchrony as a basis for integration of functional modules in the brain. Our experimental work on these topics began with a study of the possibility that noise-influenced neural synchrony might be responsible for the fact that small amounts of noise added to weak signals can enhance their detectability (stochastic resonance). We are also studying the role of neural synchrony in attention and consciousness in several paradigms. On the basis of our own and related work by others, we conclude that (1) neural synchrony plays an important role in the integration of functional modules in the brain and (2) neural synchrony is profoundly affected and possibly regulated, in part, by the "noisiness" of the brain.     

Adolescent Girls’ and Boys’ Science Peer Relationships and Perceptions of the Possible Self as Scientist

Girls tend to have less peer support for their science interests than do boys, which may contribute to gender differences in science motivation. The effect of science peer relationships on adolescents visions of their possible personal future lives as scientists was studied in 161 female and 163 male gifted high school students who participated in summer science enrichment programs. Student reports of having positive science peer relationships were associated with more positive expectations of the possible personal self as scientist prior to the programs, and both program-related and nonprogram-related science peer relationships were associated with changes in the possible self at posttesting and at 6 month follow-up. These relations held for both male and female students. At follow-up, girls reported a stronger social niche with fellow program participants and stronger science peer relationships than did boys. Implications of the findings are discussed within the larger gendered societal context for science achievement.     

Question asking and eye tracking during cognitive disequilibrium: Comprehending illustrated texts on devices when the devices break down

The PREG model of question asking assumes that questions emerge when there is cognitive disequilibrium, as in the case of contradictions, obstacles, and anomalies. Participants read illustrated texts about everyday devices (e.g., a cylinder lock) and then were placed in cognitive disequilibrium through a breakdown scenario (e.g., the key turns but the bolt does not move). The participants asked questions when given the breakdown scenario, and an eyetracker recorded their fixations. As was predicted, deep comprehenders asked better questions and fixated on device components that explained the malfunction. The eye fixations were examined before, during, and after the participants' questions in order to trace the occurrence and timing of convergence on faults, causal reasoning, and other cognitive processes.     

Relationships among compulsive hoarding, trauma, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

The current study investigated aspects of post-traumatic stress disorder and attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among hoarders. Compared to a sample of 36 controls, hoarders (n=26) reported a significantly greater number of different types of trauma, more frequent traumatic experiences, more symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and greater comfort derived from possessions. These findings are consistent with previous reports of extensive comorbidity associated with hoarding behaviors, and may reflect the potential usefulness of assessing PTSD and ADHD symptoms at the outset of hoarding treatments, as well as considering alternative pharmacological interventions.     

The use of an escape contingency and a token economy to increase food acceptance

Escape (termination of a meal) and token-based differential reinforcement of alternative behavior were used as reinforcement to increase acceptance of food. Using a changing criterion design, the number of bites accepted and consumed was gradually increased to 15 bites per meal. These data suggest that, in some cases, escape may be a potent reinforcer for food acceptance.