Reviews of current books

Pastoral Psychology -     

Twelve-month-old infants interpret action in context

Two experiments assessed infants' understanding that actions that occur in sequence may be related to an overarching goal. Experiment 1 tested whether embedding an ambiguous action (touching the lid of a box) in a sequence that culminated with an action infants readily construe as goal-directed (grasping a toy inside the box) would alter infants' construal of the ambiguous action. Having seen the ambiguous action in this context, infants later construed this action in isolation as being directed at the toy within the box. Experiment 2 tested whether infants related the two actions on the basis of the temporal or the causal relation between them. When the causal relation was disrupted but the temporal relation was preserved, infants no longer related the two actions. These findings indicate that 12-month-old infants relate single actions to overarching goals and that they do so by construing goal-directed action in a causal framework.     

Using overt rehearsals to explain word frequency effects in free recall

Three experiments examined the word frequency effect in free recall using the overt rehearsal methodology. Experiment 1 showed that lists of exclusively high-frequency (HF) words were better recalled, were rehearsed more, and were rehearsed to more recent serial positions than low-frequency (LF) words. A small HF advantage remained even when these 2 variables were equated. Experiment 2 showed that all these effects were much reduced with mixed lists containing both HF and LF words. Experiment 3 compared pure and mixed lists in a within-subject design and confirmed the findings of Experiments 1 and 2. It is argued that number of rehearsals, recency of rehearsals, and strength of interitem associations cause the word frequency effect in free recall.     

Modulation of word-reading processes in task switching

The authors examined modulation of the simple act of word naming induced by the conflict arising when that task competes with color naming in a task-switching paradigm. Subjects alternated between naming a word printed in black and naming the color of a stimulus in 2 conditions. In the incongruent condition, the colored stimulus was an irrelevant word generating conflict, and in the neutral condition, color was carried by a row of asterisks. Subjects took substantially longer to name a word printed in black in the incongruent condition, implying a form of suppression. This modulation of the word-naming response was adaptive in that it led to more efficient color naming. The modulation effect was replicated using phoneme detection instead of word naming but not with lexical decision or visual comparison, implicating a phonological encoding process.     

Relation of perinatal risk and early parenting to executive control at the transition to school

Executive control (EC) develops rapidly during the preschool years and is central to academic achievement and functional outcome. Although children with perinatal adversity are at known risk for EC impairments, little is known about the underlying nature of these impairments or the mechanisms that contribute to their development over time. Drawing on a cohort of 110 high‐risk children born very preterm (VPT; < 33 weeks / < 1500 g) and 113 healthy full‐term children, this study examined the implications of perinatal adversity and early parenting for children's EC as they transitioned to formal schooling. Parent supportive presence, intrusiveness, and parent–child synchrony were observed during a series of problem‐solving tasks at ages 2 and 4 years. At age 6, children completed a comprehensive battery of EC tasks. Academic outcomes were assessed at age 9. The VPT group showed global EC impairments at age 6, although the unitary factor that best characterized the structure of EC was the same in both groups. High‐risk dyads were characterized by more intrusive and less synchronous parent–child interactions in early childhood, which in turn predicted poorer child EC at age 6. EC partially mediated the relation of risk status to poorer academic achievement at age 9. Findings demonstrate the cumulative effects of perinatal adversity on children's EC in the crucial transition to schooling. They also highlight the importance of the parent–child relationship as a target for intervention efforts to help mitigate these effects.     

Enhancing the Conceptualization and Measurement of Implicit and Explicit Affective Evaluations: A Case Study in Disordered Eating

Affective evaluations (i.e., evaluations of affectively evocative stimuli) play important roles in many behaviors, including clinically relevant behaviors like disordered eating. Understanding automatic and controlled affective evaluations can enhance prediction and treatment of more deliberate versus more impulsive clinical behaviors, respectively. However, methodological and theoretical shortcomings cloud the implicit affective evaluation literature, particularly as applied in clinical psychology. This article aims to improve the clinical science of implicit and explicit affective evaluation by capitalizing on theoretical and methodological advancements drawn from implicit social cognition. We recommend three key enhancements to the affective evaluation literature: improve the structural comparability between indirect and direct measures, assess evaluations on both valence and arousal dimensions of affect, and carefully characterize and select stimuli. Additional improvements to analytic approaches (e.g., mixed effects modeling and process dissociation) are also recommended. Such efforts will advance our theoretical understanding of the relative contributions of automatic and controlled processes to clinically relevant affective evaluation, thereby informing assessment and improving intervention. Applying advanced methodologies of implicit cognition to clinical phenomena will also reiterate and reinforce the use of these advances in social psychology.