Evolutionary Constraints on Human Object Perception

Language and culture endow humans with access to conceptual information that far exceeds any which could be accessed by a non‐human animal. Yet, it is possible that, even without language or specific experiences, non‐human animals represent and infer some aspects of similarity relations between objects in the same way as humans. Here, we show that monkeys’ discrimination sensitivity when identifying images of animals is predicted by established measures of semantic similarity derived from human conceptual judgments. We used metrics from computer vision and computational neuroscience to show that monkeys’ and humans’ performance cannot be explained by low‐level visual similarity alone. The results demonstrate that at least some of the underlying structure of object representations in humans is shared with non‐human primates, at an abstract level that extends beyond low‐level visual similarity. Because the monkeys had no experience with the objects we tested, the results suggest that monkeys and humans share a primitive representation of object similarity that is independent of formal knowledge and cultural experience, and likely derived from common evolutionary constraints on object representation.     

The Effects of Expertise on the Hindsight Bias

We present data from three experiments examining the effects of objective and subjective expertise on the hindsight bias. In Experiment 1, participants read an essay about baseball or dogs and then answered questions about the baseball essay to the best of their ability, as if they had not read the essay, or to the best of their ability, although they read about dogs. Participants also completed a quiz about baseball rules and terminology, which was an objective measure of expertise. Results demonstrated that as participants' baseball expertise increased, their inability to act as if they never read the essay also increased; expertise exacerbated the hindsight bias. To test the effects of subjective expertise on hindsight bias and investigate factors underlying the relationship, participants in Experiment 2 ranked five topics in order of expertise and gave feeling‐of‐knowing (FOK) ratings for questions from these topics. Foresight participants then saw each question again and answered the questions; hindsight participants saw the questions and answers and gave the probability they would have known the answers had they not been provided. Hindsight bias increased with subjective expertise as did average FOK ratings. In Experiment 3, we experimentally manipulated perceived expertise but found that neither average FOK ratings nor hindsight bias was affected by experimentally induced expertise. Taken together, the results demonstrate that expertise exacerbates both objective and subjective hindsight bias but that an FOK, which likely exists only when expertise is naturally acquired, is necessary to engender the detrimental effect of expertise on the hindsight bias. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parental Support for Autonomy and Child Depressive Symptoms in Middle Childhood: The Mediating Role of Parent–Child Attachment

To facilitate understanding of the factors associated with child depressive symptoms in middle childhood, we examined the roles of parental support for autonomy and parent–child attachment in child depressive symptoms among 150 Chinese parent–child dyads. The participating children’s ages ranged from 6 to 12 years old. Parental support for autonomy was coded from a conflict resolution and a cooperation task. Children reported their depressive symptoms and their attachment relationships with the participating parents. After controlling for parent depressive symptoms, parental support for autonomy was associated with fewer child depressive symptoms. The association between parental support for autonomy and child depressive symptoms was mediated by parent–child attachment quality, suggesting that parental support for autonomy was negatively associated with child depressive symptoms through its positive association with parent–child attachment quality. Moreover, the positive association between parental support for autonomy and parent–child attachment quality was stronger for older children. The current study expanded the knowledge on parental support for autonomy in middle-childhood and its association with parent–child relationships and child mental health. Future research is encouraged to pay more attention to the role of parental support for autonomy in various aspects of child development for children in middle-childhood and pre-adolescence.     

Rumination in Response to Stress as a Common Vulnerability Factor to Depression and Substance Misuse in Adolescence

The current study examined rumination in response to stress as a common vulnerability factor to both depression and substance use problems in adolescence. Specifically, we used a multi-wave longitudinal design to examine whether adolescents who tend to ruminate in response to stress exhibit increases in depressive symptoms and substance misuse following the occurrence of negative events. At time 1, adolescents (n = 161) completed measures assessing depressive symptoms, substance misuse, and the tendency to ruminate in response to stress. Every 6 weeks for the next 18 weeks participants completed measures assessing the occurrence of negative events, depressive symptoms, and substance misuse. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses indicated that adolescents who tend to ruminate in response to stress report greater elevations in depressive symptoms and substance misuse following elevations in negative events than other adolescents. The relationship between rumination, negative events, and substance misuse was moderated by age. Support was not obtained for fluctuations in depressive symptoms as a mediator of the relationship between negative events and substance misuse. Fluctuations in negative affect, however, were found to mediate this relationship.

Better late than never: how onsets and offsets influence prior entry and exit

The three experiments presented in the paper examine visual prior entry (determining which of two stimuli appeared first) and prior exit (determining which of two stimuli disappeared first) effects with a temporal order judgment (TOJ) task. In addition to using onset and offset targets, the preceding cues also consisted of either onset or offset stimuli. Typical, and equivalent, prior entry effects were found when either onset or offset cues preceded the onset targets. Unexpectedly large prior exit effects where found with the offset targets, with offset cues producing greater capture effects than onset cues. These findings are consistent with the notion that more attention is allocated to searching the visual field when targets are more difficult to find. In addition, the results indicate that attentional control settings may be more likely to occur with more difficult searches. In addition, these findings demonstrate that TOJ tasks provide extremely precise measures of the allocation of attention and are very sensitive to a range of task manipulations.     

A Model of Mindful Parenting: Implications for Parent–Child Relationships and Prevention Research

This paper introduces a model of “mindful parenting” as a framework whereby parents intentionally bring moment-to-moment awareness to the parent–child relationship. This is done by developing the qualities of listening with full attention when interacting with their children, cultivating emotional awareness and self-regulation in parenting, and bringing compassion and nonjudgmental acceptance to their parenting interactions. First, we briefly outline the theoretical and empirical literature on mindfulness and mindfulness-based interventions. Next, we present an operational definition of mindful parenting as an extension of mindfulness to the social context of parent–child relationships. We discuss the implications of mindful parenting for the quality of parent–child relationships, particularly across the transition to adolescence, and we review the literature on the application of mindfulness in parenting interventions. We close with a synopsis of our own efforts to integrate mindfulness-based intervention techniques and mindful parenting into a well-established, evidence-based family prevention program and our recommendations for future research on mindful parenting interventions.     

Grounding as a facilitator in Anglo-Canadian and Mainland Chinese conversations

This study examined whether a short training in grounding strategies could improve intercultural communication. Forty intercultural dyads (Anglo-Canadians and Mainland Chinese) were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Prior to their conversations the experimental groups received 10–15 min training on grounding while the control groups received no training. The trained dyads performed significantly better than the untrained dyads in grounding, speaker presentation and listener recall, thus documenting that the 10–15 min training on grounding was fruitful in improving intercultural communication. Grounding training may open a new avenue for reducing intercultural miscommunication, thus improving information transmission.     

Conflict Between Religion and Science Among Academic Scientists?

Using new survey data ( N = 1,646), we examine the attitudes academic scientists at 21 elite U.S. research universities have about the perceived conflict between religion and science. In contrast to public opinion and scholarly discourse, most scientists do not perceive a conflict between science and religion. Different from what other studies would indicate, this belief does not vary between social and natural scientists. We argue that maintaining plausibility frameworks for religion is an important correlate of whether scientists will reject the conflict paradigm, with such frameworks taking surprising forms. When scientists do not attend religious services they are more likely to accept the conflict paradigm. When scientists think their peers have a positive view of religion, they are less likely to agree there is a conflict between science and religion. Religious upbringing is associated with scientists adopting the conflict paradigm. Spirituality is much more important in this population than other research would lead us to believe. Results reformulate widely cited earlier research, offer new insights about how scientists view the connection between religion and science, and expand public discussion about religious challenges to science.