Face processing in humans and new world monkeys: the influence of experiential and ecological factors

This study tests whether the face-processing system of humans and a nonhuman primate species share characteristics that would allow for early and quick processing of socially salient stimuli: a sensitivity toward conspecific faces, a sensitivity toward highly practiced face stimuli, and an ability to generalize changes in the face that do not suggest a new identity, such as a face differently oriented. The look rates by adult tamarins and humans toward conspecific and other primate faces were examined to determine if these characteristics are shared. A visual paired comparison (VPC) task presented subjects with either a human face, chimpanzee face, tamarin face, or an object as a sample, and then a pair containing the previous stimulus and a novel stimulus was presented. The stimuli were either presented all in an upright orientation, or all in an inverted orientation. The novel stimulus in the pair was either an orientation change of the same face/object or a new example of the same type of face/object, and the stimuli were shown either in an upright orientation or in an inverted orientation. Preference to novelty scores revealed that humans attended most to novel individual human faces, and this effect decreased significantly if the stimuli were inverted. Tamarins showed preferential looking toward novel orientations of previously seen tamarin faces in the upright orientation, but not in an inverted orientation. Similarly, their preference to look longer at novel tamarin and human faces within the pair was reduced significantly with inverted stimuli. The results confirmed prior findings in humans that novel human faces generate more attention in the upright than in the inverted orientation. The monkeys also attended more to faces of conspecifics, but showed an inversion effect to orientation change in tamarin faces and to identity changes in tamarin and human faces. The results indicate configural processing restricted to particular kinds of primate faces by a New World monkey species, with configural processing influenced by life experience (human faces and tamarin faces) and specialized to process orientation changes specific to conspecific faces.     

A Meta-Analysis of the Distinction between Reactive and Proactive Aggression in Children and Adolescents

The present meta-analytic review aimed to clarify divergent findings concerning the relation between reactive and proactive aggression in children and adolescents. Fifty-one studies with 17,965 participants were included in the analysis. A significant correlation between reactive and proactive aggression was found. The strength of this relation varied considerably between studies, from -.10 to .89. Observational assessment and tilt/noise tasks were associated with smaller correlations than questionnaires. Within the large group of questionnaire studies, studies disentangling the form and function of aggression found lower correlations than studies that did not disentangle form and function. Among questionnaire studies, higher reliability was associated with larger correlations. Effect size did not depend on other study characteristics such as sample type, age, and informant type. It is concluded that reactive and proactive aggression are most clearly distinguished with behavioral observations and questionnaires that unravel form and functions of aggression.     

Do the Predictors of Child Conduct Problems Vary by High- and Low-Levels of Socioeconomic and Neighborhood Risk?

This review seeks to examine whether the existing literature on child conduct problems (CP) supports the notion that certain CP risk factors vary in their importance across disadvantaged and better-off environments. Disadvantaged environments are represented by socioeconomic and/or neighborhood risk (SN risk) in this review. Three types of studies were reviewed: behavioral genetic studies that compare the importance of genetic and environmental influences on CP for youth from poor homes and/or disadvantaged communities versus youth from better-off contexts, studies that examine how SN risk and other CP risk factors interact, and studies that compare the antecedents for CP across levels of SN risk. Findings were inconsistent about the manner in which individual child risk factors interact with SN risk. However, familial risk factors were generally found to be of greater importance for youth from poor families and disadvantaged communities, particularly parental supervision. Most of the studies that indicated otherwise focused on physical discipline, or were limited to children from disadvantaged and extremely deprived environments. The findings suggest that in extremely deprived environments, familial influences are overwhelmed by the pervasiveness of other CP risk factors such as deviant peers. Implications for intervention and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Successful Use of Peer Educators for Sharing Genetic Information

This study examined the impact of a genetics education module provided by Reach to Recovery peer volunteers. Participants included 113 women with confirmed breast cancer diagnoses. Eighty-eight of these women (78%) completed a baseline survey, participated in a peer-led intervention, and completed a follow-up survey. Approximately half of the women received an education module that included a genetic component, while the other half did not. Results indicated that women who received the genetics module had greater increases in genetics knowledge than the group that did not receive the module. However, follow-up interest in genetic testing was not significantly different between the two groups. Results indicate that a peer-led genetics module can increase knowledge about genetics. However, it does not appear to have a differential effect on genetic testing interest.     

Processing of Syllables in Production and Recognition Tasks

Empirical evidence for a functional role of syllables in visual word processing is abundant, however it remains rather heterogeneous. The present study aims to further specify the role of syllables and the cognitive accessibility of syllabic information in word processing. The first experiment compared performance across naming and lexical decision tasks by manipulating the number of syllables in words and non-words. Results showed a syllable number effect in both the naming task and the lexical decision task. The second experiment introduced a stimulus set consisting of isolated syllabic and non-syllabic trigrams. Syllable frequency was manipulated in a naming and in a decision task requiring participants to decide on the syllabic status of letter strings. Results showed faster responses for syllables than for non-syllables in both tasks. Syllable frequency effects were observed in the decision task. In summary, the results from these manipulations of different types of syllable information confirm an important role of syllabic units in both recognition and production.     

Affect dynamics,bereavement and resilience to loss

This investigation applied Zautra and colleagues’ Dynamic Model of Affect (DMA; Zautra: 2003, Emotions, Stress and Health (Oxford University Press, New York); Reich et al.: 2003, Review of General Psychology 7(1), pp. 66–83) to help understand resilience among a sample of middle-aged participants coping with the recent death of a spouse or child. We replicated and extended this model by examining interaffect correlations (individual correlations between negative and positive affect over time) in resilient versus symptomatic bereaved people. As predicted by the DMA, resilient bereaved had weaker (or less negative) interaffect correlations than symptomatic bereaved even when controlling for self-reported distress. These findings suggest that resilient individuals possess a capacity for a more complex affective experience and that this capacity serves a salutary function in the aftermath of aversive life events. The research described in this article was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Health, R29-MH57274 (George A. Bonanno).     

Nature,Red in Tooth and Claw<Superscript>1</Superscript>

“Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw” explores Adorno’s ideas about our mediated relationship with nature. The first section of the paper examines the epistemological significance of his thesis about the preponderance of the object while describing the Kantian features in his notion of mediation. Adorno’s conception of nature will also be examined in the context of a review of J. M. Bernstein’s and Fredric Jameson’s attempts to characterize it. The second section of the paper deals with Adorno’s Freudian account of internal nature. While arguing against Joel Whitebook’s view that Adorno needs a concept of sublimation, I contend that Adorno’s genetic account of the relationship between nature and mind enables him to respond to the Freudian injunction to displace the id with the ego with a view to fostering autonomy. In the final section of the paper, problems with Adorno’s ideas about external and internal nature are briefly discussed. In Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000) p. 195, John Bellamy Foster remarks on this line from Alfred Lord Tennyson ’s In Memoriam, claiming that it was widely known for “anticipating ”Darwinian’ ideas,’’ including much-maligned and heretical (at the time) materialist doctrines.