Harbour seals (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Phoca vitulina</Emphasis>) are able to time precisely

Time along with space is one of the two fundamental dimensions of life. Whereas spatial aspects have been considered in experiments with marine mammals, research has so far not focused on timing per se although it is most likely involved in many behaviours such as foraging or navigation. This study investigated whether harbour seals possess a sense of time and how precisely they are able to discriminate time intervals. Experiments took place in a chamber that allowed keeping ambient illumination constant at 40 lx. The animal was presented with a white circle on a black background on a monitor displayed for a preset time interval. In a two-alternative forced-choice experiment, the animal had to indicate the presence of the standard or a longer comparison time interval by moving its head to one out of two response targets. Time difference thresholds were assessed for various standard intervals between 3 to 30 s adopting a staircase procedure. The experimental animal found access to the task easily and discriminated time intervals with difference thresholds partly in the millisecond range. Thus our study revealed a well-developed sense of time in a pinniped species. Time, besides information provided by the classical senses, is thus most likely an important parameter seals can rely on for various tasks including navigation and foraging.     

Children's Moral Emotion Attribution in the Happy Victimizer Task: The Role of Response Format

Previous research in the happy victimizer tradition indicated that preschool and early elementary school children attribute positive emotions to the violator of a moral norm, whereas older children attribute negative (moral) emotions. Cognitive and motivational processes have been suggested to underlie this developmental shift. The current research investigated whether making the happy victimizer task less cognitively demanding by providing children with alternative response formats would increase their attribution of moral emotions and moral motivation. In Study 1, 93 British children aged 4–7 years old responded to the happy victimizer questions either in a normal condition (where they spontaneously pointed with a finger), a wait condition (where they had to wait before giving their answers), or an arrow condition (where they had to point with a paper arrow). In Study 2, 40 Spanish children aged 4 years old responded to the happy victimizer task either in a normal or a wait condition. In both studies, participants' attribution of moral emotions and moral motivation was significantly higher in the conditions with alternative response formats (wait, arrow) than in the normal condition. The role of cognitive abilities for emotion attribution in the happy victimizer task is discussed.     

Gender Differences in the Organization of Guilt and Shame

Lewis [(1971) Shame in Guilt in Neurosis, New York: International Universities Press] argues that guilt and shame represent distinct modes of perceiving and experiencing information about the self that are congruent with gender-linked differences in socialization. We tested predictions from Lewis' model that shame-proneness in adult White females (n = 102), but guilt-proneness in adult White males (n = 99), would account for a substantial proportion of the variance in measures assessing their characteristic use of defense mechanisms and endorsement of gender roles. Certain results confirmed Lewis' broader claim that guilt for men, but shame for women, were predominant modes of organizing information about the self. Other results did not support certain specific predictions made by Lewis or they provided only equivocal support (e.g., in men, the joint positive relationship of guilt-proneness to communal orientations but its negative relationship to externalization). Similar discrepant findings emerged for females' construal of guilt, which also related positively to internalization. Although shame-proneness did emerge as the principal emotion variable for females, it was linked to both internalization and externalization. Lewis' model is reconsidered in light of recent empirical findings and the need to conduct more on-line investigations of transgression-emotion induction-emotion reduction cycles.     

A COMPARISON OF SIMULTANEOUS AND DELAYED REINFORCEMENT AS TREATMENTS FOR FOOD SELECTIVITY

This study compared the relative efficacy of providing simultaneous or delayed reinforcement on food acceptance during meals. The participant was a 7-year-old boy with pervasive developmental disorder and a history of food selectivity. Results indicated that both procedures were effective in increasing acceptance; however, the simultaneous reinforcement procedure produced more rapid behavior change and a higher overall percentage of food acceptance.     

The relationship between family history,gender role attitudes,and susceptibility to gender inequitable perceptions of family and family member functioning

This research examined how family roles, gender of family leadership, beliefs about the consequences of maternal employment, and family history of parental division of responsibility related to young adults' perceptions of family and individual family member functioning. One hundred seven (107), predominantly Anglo American undergraduate students completing courses in educational psychology at a large midwestern university rated two videotaped family interviews. One interview demonstrated a matriarchal style of family interaction and the second demonstrated a patriarchal style. It was found in perceptions of family functioning that a personal family history characterized by elevated paternal involvement in family tasks and child care in combination with traditional gender-related attitudes was associated with views favoring male family leadership. In ratings of individual family member functioning, it was found that individuals whose family history was characterized by elevated paternal involvement and whose gender attitudes were more traditional held more favorable views of the matriarchal mother than the mother in the patriarchal interview in comparison to adults whose fathers were less involved and whose attitudes were less traditional regarding gender roles. It was also found that individuals whose family history was characterized by elevated paternal involvement and whose gender attitudes were more traditional held more favorable views of the father in the patriarchal interview than the matriarchal father in comparison to adults whose fathers were less involved and whose attitudes were less traditional regarding gender roles. These findings suggest that adults may be vulnerable to biased views of families and individuals within family settings related to gender roles, personal history, and attitudes.     

Influence of children's emotional states on the recognition of emotion in peers and social motives to change another's emotional state

This experiment addressed the question of whether children's own emotional states influence their accuracy in recognizing emotional states in peers and any motives they may have to intervene in order to change their peers' emotional states. Happiness, sadness, anger, or a neutral state were induced in preschool children, who then viewed slides of other 4-year-old children who were actually experiencing each of those states. Children's own emotional states influenced only their perception of sadness in peers. Sad emotional states promoted systematic inaccuracies in the perception of sadness, causing children to mislabel sadness in peers as anger. Children had high base rates for using the label “happy,” and this significantly enhanced their accuracy in recognizing that state. Low base rates for labeling others as in a neutral state reduced accuracy in recognizing neutrality. Children were generally motivated to change sad, angry, and neutral states in peers, and they were most motivated to change a peer's state if they were to be the agent of such change. The results are discussed in terms of the limited role of children's own emotional states in their recognition of emotion in others or motives to intervene and in terms of factors influencing the perception of emotion, such as base rate preferences for labeling others as experiencing, or not experiencing, particular emotional states.     

BEHAVIORAL COMMUNITY INTERVENTION TO REDUCE THE RISK OF SKIN CANCER

Peer leader modeling, posted feedback, posted goals, and a commitment raffle were used at two swimming pools to increase behaviors associated with skin cancer prevention. During the intervention condition, pool lifeguards modeled the protective behaviors by wearing sunglasses, t-shirts, and hats, using zinc oxide and sunscreen, and staying in the shade. Children and adolescents (1 to 16 years old) increased their use of two or more protective behaviors from a baseline mean of 6.5% to 26.9% during the intervention. Adults (older than 16 years) increased their protective behaviors from a baseline mean of 22% to 37.95% during the intervention. The lifeguards increased their use of all the protective behaviors from a baseline mean of 16.7% to 63.5% during intervention. Ways to improve and expand this intervention are discussed.     

The essential process in a family of measurement models

Five members of the Rasch family of latent trait models which have appeared more or less independently in the literature are brought together and identified as one model. In addition to sharing the distinguishing characteristic of the dichotomous Rasch model—separable person and item parameters and hence sufficient statistics—all five models share a common algebraic form and have as their basic element the fundamental process defined by Rasch's simple logistic expression. In these models, the sufficient statistics for person and item parameters are counts of events constructed to be indicative of the variable being measured, and the measures they enable are ‘fundamental’.     

FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS AND INTERVENTION FOR BREATH HOLDING

We conducted a functional analysis of breath-holding episodes in a 7-year-old girl with severe mental retardation and Cornelia-de-Lange syndrome. The results showed that breath holding served an operant function, primarily to gain access to attention. The intervention, consisting of extinction, scheduled attention, and use of a picture card communication system, resulted in decreased breath holding.