Victimization Mediates the Longitudinal Association Between Depressive Symptoms and Violent Behaviors in Adolescence

Despite evidence of a positive link between depressive symptoms and violent behaviors, the pathways underlying this longitudinal association remain unknown. Depressive symptoms might drive and reinforce victimization which in turn could increase risk of individuals becoming violent towards others. Thus, we tested whether victimization mediated the link between depressive symptoms and violent behaviors using a 6-year longitudinal study of a community sample of adolescents. The sample included 682 Dutch adolescents (54% boys) from an ongoing longitudinal study RADAR (Research on Adolescent Development and Relationships). From ages 13 to 18 years, depressive symptoms, victimization experiences, and violent behaviors were annually assessed. We conducted longitudinal mediation analyses to test pathways to violence in adolescents with depressive symptoms. Longitudinal analyses revealed that victimization mediated the association between depressive symptoms and violent behaviors from early to late adolescence. As part of this, we found that adolescents’ depressive symptoms predicted victimization, and this victimization increased risk of subsequent violent behaviors. In conclusion, links between depressive symptoms and violent behaviors are potentially important to understand adolescent development. Decreasing the occurence of victimization is likely to be an important target for the prevention of violent behaviors in adolescents with depressive symptoms.     

Retrieving relevant factors with exploratory SEM and principal-covariate regression: A comparison

Behavioral researchers often linearly regress a criterion on multiple predictors, aiming to gain insight into the relations between the criterion and predictors. Obtaining this insight from the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression solution may be troublesome, because OLS regression weights show only the effect of a predictor on top of the effects of other predictors. Moreover, when the number of predictors grows larger, it becomes likely that the predictors will be highly collinear, which makes the regression weights’ estimates unstable (i.e., the “bouncing beta” problem). Among other procedures, dimension-reduction-based methods have been proposed for dealing with these problems. These methods yield insight into the data by reducing the predictors to a smaller number of summarizing variables and regressing the criterion on these summarizing variables. Two promising methods are principal-covariate regression (PCovR) and exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM). Both simultaneously optimize reduction and prediction, but they are based on different frameworks. The resulting solutions have not yet been compared; it is thus unclear what the strengths and weaknesses are of both methods. In this article, we focus on the extents to which PCovR and ESEM are able to extract the factors that truly underlie the predictor scores and can predict a single criterion. The results of two simulation studies showed that for a typical behavioral dataset, ESEM (using the BIC for model selection) in this regard is successful more often than PCovR. Yet, in 93% of the datasets PCovR performed equally well, and in the case of 48 predictors, 100 observations, and large differences in the strengths of the factors, PCovR even outperformed ESEM.     

Post-conflict slowing: cognitive adaptation after conflict processing

The aftereffects of error and conflict (i.e., stimulus or response incongruency) have been extensively studied in the cognitive control literature. Each has been characterized by its own behavioral signature on the following trial. Conflict leads to a reduced congruency effect (Gratton effect), whereas an error leads to increased response time (post-error slowing). The reason for this dissociation has remained unclear. Here, we show that post-conflict slowing is not typically observed because it is masked by the processing of the irrelevant stimulus dimension. We demonstrate that post-conflict slowing does occur when tested in pure trials where helpful or detrimental impacts from irrelevant stimulus dimensions are removed (i.e., univalent stimuli).     

A Systematic Investigation of Gesture Kinematics in Evolving Manual Languages in the Lab

Silent gestures consist of complex multi-articulatory movements but are now primarily studied through categorical coding of the referential gesture content. The relation of categorical linguistic content with continuous kinematics is therefore poorly understood. Here, we reanalyzed the video data from a gestural evolution experiment (Motamedi, Schouwstra, Smith, Culbertson, & Kirby, 2019), which showed increases in the systematicity of gesture content over time. We applied computer vision techniques to quantify the kinematics of the original data. Our kinematic analyses demonstrated that gestures become more efficient and less complex in their kinematics over generations of learners. We further detect the systematicity of gesture form on the level of thegesture kinematic interrelations, which directly scales with the systematicity obtained on semantic coding of the gestures. Thus, from continuous kinematics alone, we can tap into linguistic aspects that were previously only approachable through categorical coding of meaning. Finally, going beyond issues of systematicity, we show how unique gesture kinematic dialects emerged over generations as isolated chains of participants gradually diverged over iterations from other chains. We, thereby, conclude that gestures can come to embody the linguistic system at the level of interrelationships between communicative tokens, which should calibrate our theories about form and linguistic content.     

The development of the SNARC effect: evidence for early verbal coding

In a recent study, Gevers and colleagues (2010, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol. 139, pp. 180-190) showed that the SNARC (spatial numerical association of response codes) effect in adults results not only from spatial coding of magnitude (e.g., mental number line hypothesis) but also from verbal coding. Because children are surrounded by rulers, number lines, and the like in the classroom, it is intuitively appealing to assume that they first use their mental number line to represent numbers and that only later in development a verbal recoding of magnitude information takes place. However, this hypothesis has never been tested. The goal of the current study was to define the developmental pattern of both accounts (spatial and verbal) in explaining the SNARC effect. To this end, 9- and 11-year-olds were tested in a magnitude comparison task. Surprisingly, clear and robust evidence for verbal coding of magnitude information was observed in both age groups. Our results imply that the ability to use verbal coding of magnitude information is robustly present early in formal schooling.     

Stimulus- and response-conflict-induced cognitive control in the flanker task

Recently, several studies have been conducted to investigate the top-down adjustments made after incongruent trials during conflict tasks. In the present study, we investigated conflict monitoring with different types of conflict. In a modified version of the flanker task, a distinction was made between stimulus—stimulus conflict and stimulus—response conflict. Six colors were mapped to three responses in order to exclude all sequences in which a relevant or an irrelevant stimulus- or response-related feature was repeated from trialn−1 to trialn. An analysis of the effect of the congruency of the previous trial demonstrated that conflict adaptation was present. The stimulus congruency effect was reduced after both a stimulus-incongruent trial and a response-incongruent trial. The response congruency effect did not vary as a function of previous congruency. These findings are discussed in relation to the distinction between conflict detection and conflict regulation.     

Conflict: run! Reduced Stroop interference with avoidance responses

Conflict has been hypothesized to be aversive, triggering avoidance behaviour (Botvinick, 2007). To test this hypothesis, a standard Stroop task was modified such that avoiding was part of the response set. More precisely, participants were asked to move a manikin towards or away from Stroop stimuli, depending on the colour of the words. Results showed that the type of response (approach versus avoidance) modulated the Stroop congruency effect. Specifically, the reaction time analysis revealed that the stimulus congruency effect disappeared with avoidance responses, contrary to approach responses where a stimulus congruency effect was present. Moreover, the error data showed a reduction of the general congruency effect when avoiding. These results suggest that in the face of conflict, avoidance is the predominant response.