Age,working memory,and the Tower of London task

The current study explores the role of three components of working memory in age differences in an executive task, the Tower of London (TOL). The TOL task is sensitive to frontal lobe damage, and is widely used to measure planning ability. Dual tasks were used to test the involvement of the phonological loop (articulatory suppression), visuospatial buffer (pattern tapping), and central executive (random generation) in age effects on the TOL. Older adults showed greater reliance than young on domain-specific verbal and spatial memory components in performing the TOL. In terms of executive function, qualitatively different interference patterns were seen in young and old participants. However, the validity of using random generation tasks to assess executive function in older populations can be questioned. For older participants, performing the TOL loads all components of working memory, whereas for the younger participants the TOL more specifically loads executive functioning.     

Childhood amnesia in children and adolescents: Their earliest memories

Investigations of childhood amnesia have almost exclusively focused on the earliest memories of adults. Here we investigate the earliest memories of children of 6–19 years old. Parents confirmed the memory events and dated the memories. There were surprisingly few developmental differences between the earliest memories of children. Although 6–9-year-olds recalled earlier events than did older children, there were no differences between older age groups. Memories from all age groups were similar in structure, social orientation, and the nature of the recalled event. However, memories of older children were more likely to involve negative affect. There were also few gender differences, although girls were more likely to recall traumatic or transitional events while boys were more likely to recall play events. Overall, results deepen the paradox of early memory: 6–9-year-olds have verbally accessible memories from very early childhood that then seem to disappear as they get older.     

Photographic Individuality, Breadth of Perspective, and Creativity

Individuality is valued in most conceptions of personality, but is seldom operationalized. The present research used photo essays about the self as the medium for operationalizing self-construals that are unlike others (i.e., are uniquely creative, abstract, self-reflective, and multidimensional). Ratings of these photo essays from two samples ( N = 183 university students) served as the measure of individuality. This measure was predicted and found to correlate in both samples with Breadth of Interest from the Jackson Personality Inventory (JPI; Jackson, 1994). In Study 1, individuality also correlated with the JPI Complexity scale and with two measures of divergent thinking (unique word associations, and fluency on Wallach & Kogan's [1965] creativity tasks). In Study 2, individuality correlated with having more permeable boundaries, a nonprejudicial universal orientation, and imagining greater cultural diversity in one's future. Results suggest that individualistic persons take a broader, more complex and more creative perspective to their lives.     

Chronic threat and contingent belonging: protective benefits of values affirmation on identity development

Two longitudinal field experiments in a middle school examined how a brief "values affirmation" affects students' psychological experience and the relationship between psychological experience and environmental threat over 2 years. Together these studies suggest that values affirmations insulate individuals' sense of belonging from environmental threat during a key developmental transition. Study 1 provided an analysis of new data from a previously reported study. African American students in the control condition felt a decreasing sense of belonging during middle school, with low-performing students dropping more in 7th grade and high-performing students dropping more in 8th grade. The affirmation reduced this decline for both groups. Consistent with the notion that affirmation insulates belonging from environmental threat, affirmed African American students' sense of belonging in Study 1 fluctuated less over 2 years and became less contingent on academic performance. Based on the idea that developmentally sensitive interventions can have long-lasting benefits, Study 2 showed that the affirmation intervention was more effective if delivered before any drop in performance and subsequent psychological toll could unfold. The role of identity threat and affirmation in affecting the encoding of social experience, and the corresponding importance of timing treatments to developmentally sensitive periods, are explored.     

Concordance in attachment states of mind and styles with respect to fathers and mothers

It is believed that by adulthood, independent attachments to the mother and the father coalesce into a single state of mind with respect to attachment. If true, states of mind with respect to mothers and fathers should be concordant. Fifty-six young adults were administered two versions of the Adult Attachment Interview, each of which asked about their relationship with one parent. State of mind with respect to the father was significantly related to state of mind with respect to the mother, as were attachment styles regarding the two parents. Perceptions of attachment styles were not very related to corresponding states of mind but were related to inferred loving from a parent.     

Phonemes, rimes, vocabulary, and grammatical skills as foundations of early reading development: evidence from a longitudinal study

The authors present the results of a 2-year longitudinal study of 90 British children beginning at school entry when they were 4 years 9 months old (range = 4 years 2 months to 5 years 2 months). The relationships among early phonological skills, letter knowledge, grammatical skills, and vocabulary knowledge were investigated as predictors of word recognition and reading comprehension. Word recognition skills were consistently predicted by earlier measures of letter knowledge and phoneme sensitivity (but not by vocabulary knowledge, rhyme skills, or grammatical skills). In contrast, reading comprehension was predicted by prior word recognition skills, vocabulary knowledge, and grammatical skills. The results are related to current theories about the role of phonological, grammatical, and vocabulary skills in the development of early reading skills.     

Difference and Repetition in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Both Sitting Duet</Emphasis>

In this paper I identify and explore resonances between a contemporary dance piece – Jonathan Burrowss and Matteo Fargions Both Sitting Duet (2003) – and some theories from Gilles Deleuzes Difference and Repetition (1994). The duet consists of rhythmic, repetitive patterns of mainly hand movements performed by two men, for the most part, sitting on chairs. My argument, with Deleuze, is that the repetitions in the dance are productive rather than reductive. They are never repetitions of the same. The ways in which the hand patterns are played with constitute the multiple differences and repetitions we witness. I discuss these in relation to Deleuzes theories of repetition, specifically the ways in which repetition differs from resemblance avoiding the limitations of notions of origin and representation. I argue that, because of these differences which are bound up in the affective qualities of the duet that characterise the distinctive relationship between the two performers, the work, like Deleuzes theories, is transgressive with potential for change. I demonstrate this through its resonances with Deleuzes notions of simulacra and importantly his discussion of the Other. In the process, I aim to show how dance and philosophy can open up something of each other and, in this instance, suggest ways of thinking encounters otherwise. My aim is to foreground the transgressive potential of the extended repetition of the dance for making differences that matter between self and other.     

On the outside looking in: loneliness and social monitoring

The skill-deficit view of loneliness posits that unskilled social interactions block lonely individuals from social inclusion. The current studies examine loneliness in relation to social attention and perception processes thought to be important for socially skilled behavior. Two studies investigate the association between social monitoring (attention to social information and cues) and self-reported loneliness and number of close social ties. In Study 1, higher levels of loneliness are related to increased rather than decreased incidental social memory. In Study 2, individuals with fewer reported friends show heightened decoding of social cues in faces and voices. Results of these studies suggest that the attentional and perceptual building blocks of socially skilled behavior remain intact, and perhaps enhanced, in lonely individuals. Implications for recent models of belonging regulation and theories of loneliness are discussed.