The Development of Internal State Language during the Third Year of Life: A Longitudinal Parent Report Study

Children's talk about the mind has been scarcely studied in non‐English speakers. For this reason, this longitudinal study documents age‐related changes in German‐speaking children's internal state language. At 24, 30 and 36 months, children were administered general language tests and their internal state vocabulary levels were obtained via parental report. The developmental transition from a vocabulary rich in physiological, perceptual and desire terms to a vocabulary rich in a wider range of mental concepts confirmed previous research with French‐speaking and English‐speaking children and research in children's internal state comprehension. Further, children's category scores proved to be developmentally stable. Finally, with increasing age, children's category scores became more specifically related to each other, independent of general language skills. The results are discussed in regard to the universality of children's talk about the mind. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptation to (non)valent task disturbance

The cognitive system adapts to disturbances caused by task-irrelevant information. For example, interference due to irrelevant spatial stimulation (e.g., the spatial Simon effect) typically diminishes right after a spatially incongruent event. These adaptation effects reflect processes that help to overcome the impact of task-irrelevant information. Interference with (or interruption of) task processing can also result from valent (i.e., positive or negative) stimuli, such as in the ??affective Simon?? task. In the present study, we tested whether the resolution of valence-based task disturbances generalizes to the resolution of other cognitive (spatial) types of interference, and vice versa. Experiments 1 and 2 explored the interplay of adaptation effects triggered by spatial and affective interference. Incongruent spatial information modified the spatial Simon effect but not affective interference effects, whereas incongruent affective information modified affective interference effects to some extent, but not spatial Simon effects. In Experiment 3, we investigated the interplay of adaptation effects triggered by spatial interference and by the interruption of task processing from valent information that did not overlap with the main task (??emotional Stroop?? effect). Again we observed domain-specific adaptation for the spatial Simon effect but found no evidence for cross-domain modulations. We assume that the processes used to resolve task disturbance from irrelevant affective and spatial information operate in largely independent manners.     

The Ackermann approach for modal logic,correspondence theory and second-order reduction

The problem of eliminating second-order quantification over predicate symbols is in general undecidable. Since an application of second-order quantifier elimination is correspondence theory in modal logic, understanding when second-order quantifier elimination methods succeed is an important problem that sheds light on the kinds of axioms that are equivalent to first-order correspondence properties and can be used to obtain complete axiomatizations for modal logics. This paper introduces a substitution-rewrite approach based on Ackermann?s Lemma to second-order quantifier elimination in modal logic. Compared to related approaches, the approach includes a number of enhancements: The quantified symbols that need to be eliminated can be flexibly specified. The inference rules are restricted by orderings compatible with the elimination order, which provides more control and reduces non-determinism in derivations thereby increasing the efficiency and success rate. The approach is equipped with a powerful notion of redundancy, allowing for the flexible definition of practical simplification and optimization techniques. We present correctness, termination and canonicity results, and consider two applications: (i) computing first-order frame correspondence properties for modal axioms and rules, and (ii) rewriting second-order modal problems to equivalent simpler forms. The approach allows us to define and characterize two new classes of formulae, which are elementary and canonical, and subsume the class of Sahlqvist formulae and the class of monadic inductive formulae.     

Threat Appraisal and Authoritarianism in Context: Reactions to the European Union Enlargement in Border Regions

The present study uses European Union (EU) enlargement as the treatment in a “natural” quasi experiment to analyze the relationship of threat appraisal and authoritarianism. Theoretically it is based on the discussion about the role of contextual variables in the genesis of authoritarianism. Two contradictory perspectives are explicated: the trait model and the situationist model. To test the competing causal hypotheses panel data collected before and after the EU eastern enlargement on perceived threat, authoritarian attitudes, and xenophobia among inhabitants of the German external frontier of the EU (at Wave 1) were analyzed. The use of a cross‐lagged panel design demonstrated that the type of relationship between authoritarianism and perceived threat depended on the kind of threat (material or cultural) that was addressed.     

Refusing intergroup help from the morally superior: How one group's moral superiority leads to another group's reluctance to seek their help

We examine how group members paradoxically refuse intergroup help where they might need it most: in the moral status domain. Based on the Sacred Value Protection Model (Tetlock, 2002), we predicted and found that group members felt stronger group-based anger and a stronger motivation to reaffirm their group's moral status when an outgroup was morally superior to them. Despite this moral motivation, however, we also predicted and found that group members more strongly refused intergroup help to improve their moral status vis-à-vis the morally superior outgroup (compared to an uninvolved outgroup). Consistent with the Social Identity model of Deindividuation Effects (Reicher, Spears, & Postmes, 1995), group members thus strategically refused intergroup help to defend their group identity. Supporting this interpretation, particularly highly identified group members were most likely to refuse intergroup help when they needed it most. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our findings.     

Intensity of smiling and attractiveness as facial signals of trustworthiness in women

Facial attractiveness is associated with a variety of positive social characteristics including trustworthiness. Variations in smiling, such as the appearance of the Duchenne marker and increased intensity of expression, have likewise been linked with positive judgments of trustworthiness. The study investigated the interaction of the effects of models' attractiveness and their smiling intensity on impressions of perceived trustworthiness. Participants rated the attractiveness and expressivity of neutral, low intensity, and high intensity smiling images of 45 women models. These images were also presented to a second group of participants who rated trustworthiness. Repeated measures analysis of covariance of the effects of attractiveness and manipulated smile intensity on trustworthiness indicated a main effect for smile intensity: increased smile intensity was associated with greater trustworthiness. Attractiveness also contributed to rated trustworthiness independently of smiling intensity. Results suggested there is an additional contribution of facial expression in creating social impressions of trustworthiness.     

Rapid activation of motor responses by illusory contours

Whereas physiological studies indicate that illusory contours (ICs) are signaled in early visual areas at short latencies, behavioral studies are divided as to whether IC processing can proceed in a fast, automatic, bottom-up manner or whether it requires extensive top-down intracortical feedback or even awareness and cognition. Here, we employ a response priming paradigm to assess two measures of IC processing using identical stimuli: response priming by ICs, which can occur independently of visual awareness, and a measure of visual awareness of the ICs. In three experiments, participants responded to the orientation of illusory and real-contour targets preceded by illusory and real-contour primes at stimulus-onset asynchronies from 35 to 106 ms. Both illusory and real-contour targets were strongly primed by ICs, and this effect was independent of prime visibility. The effect was fully present in the fastest responses and cannot be explained by responses to stimulus features other than the ICs. Results indicate that ICs, regardless of whether they are consciously perceived, activate fast motor responses, indicating that they are processed without time-consuming intracortical feedback. We conclude that conflicting studies were based on qualitatively different measures of IC processing, some depending on visual awareness and others independent of it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Visual working memory supports the inhibition of previously processed information: evidence from preview search

In four experiments we assessed whether visual working memory (VWM) maintains a record of previously processed visual information, allowing old information to be inhibited, and new information to be prioritized. Specifically, we evaluated whether VWM contributes to the inhibition (i.e., visual marking) of previewed distractors in a preview search. We evaluated this proposal by testing three predictions. First, Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate that preview inhibition is more effective when the number of previewed distractors is below VWM capacity than above; an effect that can only be observed at small preview set sizes (Experiment 2A) and when observers are allowed to move their eyes freely (Experiment 2B). Second, Experiment 3 shows that, when quantified as the number of inhibited distractors, the magnitude of the preview effect is stable across different search difficulties. Third, Experiment 4 demonstrates that individual differences in preview inhibition are correlated with individual differences in VWM capacity. These findings provide converging evidence that VWM supports the inhibition of previewed distractors. More generally, these findings demonstrate how VWM contributes to the efficiency of human visual information processing--VWM prioritizes new information by inhibiting old information from being reselected for attention.     

The effect of cognitive behavior therapy on decision making in adolescents who self-harm: a pilot study

Research shows poor decision making in adolescents who self-harm and a positive correlation between decision-making abilities and duration since last self-harm episode. This exploratory study investigated whether decision making in self-harming adolescents could be improved through treatment with a novel cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). It also investigated whether improvement in decision making following treatment was linked to self-harm cessation. Adolescent self-harmers receiving CBT (n = 24) or no treatment (n = 9) and healthy controls (n = 22) were longitudinally compared on the Iowa gambling task (IGT). Significant IGT improvements were only observed for adolescents who self-harm following CBT. CBT may benefit adolescent self-harmers and generate decision-making improvements.