Positive emotional context eliminates the framing effect in decision-making

Dual-process theories have suggested that emotion plays a key role in the framing effect in decision-making. However, little is known about the potential impact of a specific positive or negative emotional context on this bias. We investigated this question with adult participants using an emotional priming paradigm. First, participants were presented with positive or negative affective pictures (i.e., pleasant vs. unpleasant photographs). Afterward, participants had to perform a financial decision-making task that was unrelated to the pictures previously presented. The results revealed that the presentation framed in terms of gain or loss no longer affected subjects' decision-making following specific exposure to emotionally pleasant pictures. Interestingly, a positive emotional context did not globally influence risk-taking behavior but specifically decreased the risk propensity in the loss frame. This finding confirmed that a positive emotional context can reduce loss aversion, and it strongly reinforced the dual-process view that the framing effect stems from an affective heuristic belonging to intuitive System 1. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Home-based family intervention for low-income children with asthma: a randomized controlled pilot study

Low-income African American children have disproportionately higher asthma morbidity and mortality. Education alone may not address barriers to asthma management due to psychosocial stress. This study evaluated the efficacy of a home-based family intervention integrating asthma education and strategies to address stress using a community-based participatory research model. Children age 8 to 13 with poorly controlled asthma and their caregivers were recruited from an urban hospital and an asthma camp. Caregivers with elevated scores on a stress measure were enrolled. Forty-three families were randomized to the 4- to 6-session Home Based Family Intervention (HBFI) or the single session of Enhanced Treatment as Usual (ETAU). All families received an asthma action plan and dust mite covers; children performed spirometry and demonstrated MDI/spacer technique at each home visit. The HBFI addressed family-selected goals targeting asthma management and stressors. Asthma management, morbidity, family functioning, and caregiver stress were assessed at baseline, postintervention, and 6 months after the intervention. ED visits and hospitalizations were ascertained by medical record review for a year after intervention completion. Only one child (5%) in HBFI had an asthma-related hospitalization compared to 7 patients (35%) in ETAU in the year following intervention. Participants in both groups demonstrated improved asthma management and family functioning, and reduced ED visits, symptom days, missed school days, and caregiver stress, but there were no differential treatment effects. The results suggest that a home-based intervention addressing medical and psychosocial needs may prevent hospitalizations for children with poorly controlled asthma and caregivers under stress.     

Responsiveness to terrestrial optic flow in infancy: does locomotor experience play a role?

Human infants show a peak in postural compensation to optic flow at approximately nine months of age. The current experiment tested whether the magnitude of visual-postural coupling in 9-month-olds increases when terrestrial optic flow is added to a moving room. A secondary objective was to explore whether locomotor experience plays any role in enhancing responsiveness to the additional terrestrial information. Ninety-one infants (experienced creepers, nascent creepers, and prelocomotors) were exposed to two conditions of optic flow: global optic flow (G) and global optic flow minus terrestrial optic flow (G-T). The additional terrestrial optic flow led to significantly higher visual-postural coupling. Consistent with previous findings, locomotor experience had no effect on responsiveness to the G-T condition, though there was weak evidence that the nascent creepers were more strongly influenced by the difference between flow conditions than the other infants. Unexpectedly, the prelocomotor females showed significantly lower visual-postural coupling than the prelocomotor males. These findings support the notion that the ground provides an important source of information for the control of posture and locomotion. The findings also suggest that locomotor experience most likely helps to functionalize smaller (partial), rather than larger (global), optic flow fields for postural control.     

How do different aspects of self-regulation predict successful adaptation to school?

Self-regulation plays an important role in successful adaptation to preschool and school contexts as well as in later academic achievement. The current study relates different aspects of self-regulation such as temperamental effortful control and executive functions (updating, inhibition, and shifting) to different aspects of adaptation to school such as learning-related behavior, school grades, and performance in standardized achievement tests. The relationship between executive functions/effortful control and academic achievement has been established in previous studies; however, little is known about their unique contributions to different aspects of adaptation to school and the interplay of these factors in young school children. Results of a 1-year longitudinal study (N=459) revealed that unique contributions of effortful control (parental report) to school grades were fully mediated by children's learning-related behavior. On the other hand, the unique contributions of executive functions (performance on tasks) to school grades were only partially mediated by children's learning-related behavior. Moreover, executive functions predicted performance in standardized achievement tests exclusively, with comparable predictive power for mathematical and reading/writing skills. Controlling for fluid intelligence did not change the pattern of prediction substantially, and fluid intelligence did not explain any variance above that of the two included aspects of self-regulation. Although effortful control and executive functions were not significantly related to each other, both aspects of self-regulation were shown to be important for fostering early learning and good classroom adjustment in children around transition to school.     

Change in perceptual form attenuates the use of the fluency heuristic in recognition

Four experiments (total N=295) were conducted to determine whether within-modality changes in perceptual form between the study and the test phases of an experiment would moderate the role of the fluency heuristic in recognition memory. Experiment 1 showed that a change from pictures to words reduced the role of fluency in recognition memory. In Experiment 2, the same result was found using counterfeit study lists that supposedly consisted of pictures or words. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that changes in the font used to present the study and test words also attenuated the contribution of fluency to the recognition decision when font change was manipulated between subjects, but not within subjects. Results suggest that the fluency heuristic is subject to metacognitive control, since participants' attributions of perceptual fluency depend on the perceived usefulness of fluency as a cue to recognition.     

When visual search functions look like item recognition functions

Visual search data were collected from six Ss on three target set sizes on each of 30 days. Error level was low, and items assigned to memory sets were nonnested and changed from session tosession. For each S. the same item sometimes required a positive and sometimes a negative response (response inconsistency). Combining data over Ss and over successive 6-day blocks, visual search rates as a function of target set size were found to be linear for each of the five 6-day blocks. The slopes of the above functions (memory search time) did not differ significantly over the final four 6-day blocks, and averaged approximately.500 sec per six-character item. These results are qualitatively very similar to results obtained from item recognition studies when error level, memory set structure, degree of response’_ consistency, and practice are handled in the same way in that task. The significantly lower slope obtained on the first 6-day block is shown to be consistent with a speed-accuracy trade off interpretation when error rate is expressed per unit of processing time (percent errors/set size). Over the final three 6-day blocks, where all important parameters ofthe data were highly stable, the intercepts of the memory search functions were found to closely approximate zero, averaging .0068 sec. From this finding, along with the finding that the memory search functions are linear, it is inferred that visual search time is determined entirely by memory search time, or by memory search time and other processes which increase linearly with set size, under the conditions of this experiment. The estimate of memory search time (approximately 83 msec/character) obtained using this visual search procedure is much slower than that obtained using the item recognition procedure (approximately 35\2-40 msec/character). An explanation for this difference is proposed.     

THE INFLUENCE OF AUDITORY STIMULUS INTENSITY ON APPARENT DURATION

B erglund , B., B erglund , U., E kman , G. & F rankenhaeuser , M. The influence of auditory stimulus intensity on apparent duration. Scand J. Psychol ., 1969, 10 21–26.— apparent duration of an auditory signal of 1000 C/S was measured by the method of magnitude estimation. Ten different stimulus intensities ranging from 57 to 104 dB were used in combination with three different durations: 50, 250, and 500 msec. The results showed that the apparent duration of the signal grew as a logarithmic function of stimulus intensity. These results are consistent with the hypothesis relating apparent duration to activation level as well as with results of similar experiments involving electrical and vibrotactile stimulation.     

Multiple Determinants of Externalizing Behavior in 5-Year-Olds: A Longitudinal Model

In a community sample of 116 children, assessments of parent-child interaction, parent-child attachment, and various parental, child, and contextual characteristics at 15 and 28 months and at age 5 were used to predict externalizing behavior at age 5, as rated by parents and teachers. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis and path analysis yielded a significant longitudinal model for the prediction of age 5 externalizing behavior, with independent contributions from the following predictors: child sex, partner support reported by the caregiver, disorganized infant-parent attachment at 15 months, child anger proneness at 28 months, and one of the two parent-child interaction factors observed at 28 months, namely negative parent-child interactions. The other, i.e., a lack of effective guidance, predicted externalizing problems only in highly anger-prone children. Furthermore, mediated pathways of influence were found for the parent-child interaction at 15 months (via disorganized attachment) and parental ego-resiliency (via negative parent-child interaction at 28 months).

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Risk Factors for Learning-Related Behavior Problems at 24 Months of Age: Population-Based Estimates

We used a large sample of singleton children to estimate the effects of socioeconomic status (SES), race/ethnicity, gender, additional socio-demographics, gestational and birth factors, and parenting on children’s risk for learning-related behavior problems at 24 months of age. We investigated to what extent these factors increased a child’s risk of displaying inattention, a lack of task persistence, disinterest, non-cooperation, or frustration as he or she completed a series of cognitive and physical tasks with a non-caregiver. Results indicated that boys are about twice as likely as girls to display learning-related behavior problems. Children from lower SES households are about twice as likely as those from high SES households to display such behavior problems, which is largely attributable to the effects of having a mother with a low educational level. Statistically controlling for these factors, we found consistently significant patterns of elevated learning-related behavior problems for some Asian and Native American children. Results for African-American children were mixed. Hispanic children did not have consistently elevated risks of problem behaviors. Only small portions of these effects are explained by variation in the children’s gestational or birth characteristics. A significant portion, but still less than half of the socio-demographic effects are attributable to measured features of the children’s parenting. This study helps provide population-based estimates of children’s risk for learning-related behavior problems while at an age when early interventions are most effective.