Optimal or Typical Performance? The Impact of Instructional Set on the Behavioral Assessment of Parent-Child Interactions

The behavioral assessment of parent-child interactions is an important component of treatment planning and evaluation in many evidence-based parent training programs. However, numerous factors unrelated to the parent-child interaction may add error to the assessment. This study investigated the impact of task instructions on parents’ behaviors during the analogue parent-child interaction observation, the Dyadic Parent-Child Interaction Coding System (DPICS). Forty-eight mother-child dyads were randomly assigned to one of two conditions that differed on level of specificity of instructions. Significant differences were observed between groups, with parents who received specific instructions using more praises during the DPICS tasks. Specific instructions may shift parents’ behaviors toward optimal, rather than typical, interaction patterns and should be considered in the context of the assessment goals.     

Values of fathers for themselves and their newborns

The paternal role has been neglected in parenting research. The present study focused on the values of fathers of newborns. Values of fathers of newborns drawn from the inner-city lower-class were compared with values of fathers of newborns drawn from the middle class. Highest goals of fathers from both groups for themselves were economic ('family security'); values for their children were morally focused ('honest'). Inner-city fathers placed a higher value on a clean and obedient child, whereas middle-class fathers placed a higher value on a loving and imaginative child. When values of these fathers were compared with values of a similar sample of mothers of newborns, socioeconomic status remained an important predictor of values. Sex of parent was significant in the inner-city sample as these fathers placed a higher valuation on goals associated with autonomy than did inner-city mothers.     

The role of target salience in crowding

We studied 'crowding' in the parafovea using orientation identification of a Gabor target as the task, and flanking Gabors on an isoeccentric circle as distractors. Orientation-discrimination thresholds were raised by nearby flanking distractors. This crowding effect was increased by the number of distractors and decreased by the spatial separation between target and distractors. Crowding was greatest when the target was in the centre of the distractor array and smallest when the target was on the edge of the array. A cue indicating the position of the target improved performance when the position was otherwise unknown and the spatial separation between target and distractors was large, but the cue had no significant effect when separation was small. Increasing the contrast of the target relative to the distractors reduced crowding, but targets of smaller contrast than that of the distractors are even harder to identify than those of the same contrast. Putting the target and distractors in different depth planes decreased crowding for some observers, but there were qualitative individual differences. A large (say, 45 degrees) difference in orientation between target and distractors caused the target to 'pop out' in a presence/absence task, despite the evidence from other studies that crowding is still found in these conditions. We conclude that salience has, at best, modest effects on crowding.