Becoming self-directed: Abstract representations support endogenous flexibility in children

A fundamental part of growing up is going beyond routines. Children become increasingly skilled over the first years of life at actively maintaining goals in the service of flexible behavior, allowing them to break out of habits and switch from one task to another. Their early successes often occur with exogenous (externally-provided) goals, and only later with endogenous (internally-driven) goals – a developmental progression that may reflect the greater demands on selection processes inherent in deciding what to do. Three studies investigated the mechanisms supporting endogenous flexibility, using a verbal fluency task in which children generated members of a category and could decide on their own when to switch from one subcategory to another. Children’s verbal fluency related to their performance in a more constrained and well-established switching task (Experiment 1), suggesting that the more complex verbal fluency measure taps the flexibility processes of interest. Children’s verbal fluency was also linked to their abstract, categorical representations in both individual difference analyses (Experiment 2) and experimental manipulation (Experiment 3). We interpret these results in terms of the role of abstract representations in reducing selection demands to aid the development of endogenous control.     

A normative set of 98 pairs of nonsensical pictures (droodles)

Our purpose in the present study is to provide a normative set of nonsensical pictures known as droodles and to demonstrate the role of semantic comprehension in facilitating recall of pictorial stimuli. The set consists of 98 pairs of droodles. Experiment 1 standardized these pictorial stimuli with respect to several variables, such as appropriateness of verbal labels, relationship between two droodles, and correct recall. Appropriateness of verbal labels was rated higher for pictures presented in pairs than for pictures presented singly. Experiment 2 used the standardized set of droodles in a recall experiment similar to those of Bower, Karlin, and Dueck (1975) and others. As we expected, semantic interpretation can strongly facilitate recall. Multiple regression analysis showed that several measures had significant power of explanation for recall performance. The full set of norms and pictures from this article may be downloaded from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Sexual Experiences among College Women: The Differential Effects of General versus Contextual Body Images on Sexuality

Women’s bodies are often objectified and evaluated, which may result in body dissatisfaction associated with sexual difficulties. This study of 384 college women confirmed that contextual body image during sex was more associated with a lower self-confidence to refuse sex, poorer sexual functioning, and reduced sexual assertiveness than general body dissatisfaction, and the level of contextual body image mediated the effect of body dissatisfaction. Moreover, greater contextual body image was associated with lower sexual self-efficacy, more ambivalence in sexual decision-making, and more emotional disengagement during sex with a partner, implying that contextual body image is a better predictor of women’s sexuality than general body image. Findings are discussed in relation to needed research and their implications for clinical interventions.     

How do Rumination and Social Problem Solving Intensify Depression? A Longitudinal Study

In order to examine how rumination and social problem solving intensify depression, the present study investigated longitudinal associations among each dimension of rumination and social problem solving and evaluated aspects of these constructs that predicted subsequent depression. A three-wave longitudinal study, with an interval of 4 weeks between waves, was conducted. Japanese university students completed the Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition, Ruminative Responses Scale, Social Problem-Solving Inventory-Revised Short Version, and Interpersonal Stress Event Scale on three occasions 4 weeks apart (n = 284 at Time 1, 198 at Time 2, 165 at Time 3). Linear mixed models were analyzed to test whether each variable predicted subsequent depression, rumination, and each dimension of social problem solving. Rumination and negative problem orientation demonstrated a mutually enhancing relationship. Because these two variables were not associated with interpersonal conflict during the subsequent 4 weeks, rumination and negative problem orientation appear to strengthen each other without environmental change. Rumination and impulsivity/carelessness style were associated with subsequent depressive symptoms, after controlling for the effect of initial depression. Because rumination and impulsivity/carelessness style were not concurrently and longitudinally associated with each other, rumination and impulsive/careless problem solving style appear to be independent processes that serve to intensify depression.     

Discriminative and reinforcing properties of paintings in Java sparrows (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Padda oryzivora</Emphasis>)

Previous studies suggest that non-human animals can discriminate two different artworks (such as music or paintings) that were created by humans. However, such studies rarely examined whether those animals were reinforced by one artwork more than another. It has been shown that music composed by humans has both discriminative and reinforcing properties when played for Java sparrows. Here, we investigated the effects of another artistic medium in Java sparrows, namely paintings. The first experiment tested the reinforcing properties. Staying time at three painting categories—Japanese, cubist, and impressionist—was measured as an index of their reinforcing properties. The second experiment used operant conditioning to reveal the discriminative properties of the different artistic styles of such paintings. Results suggest that the paintings have both discriminative and reinforcing properties for Java sparrows. However, the reinforcing properties vary from individual to individual. This is the first report demonstrating reinforcing properties of visual artworks in non-human animals.     

Early Development of Empathy in Toddlers: Effects of Daily Parent–Child Interaction and Home‐Rearing Environment

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the effects of (a) parent–child interaction and (b) home environment on the early development of empathy in toddlers. A total of 176 Japanese families (both young children and their parents) were enrolled in this study. Laboratory assessment of children's empathy development and caregiver's rearing competence was made during a controlled observation of parent–child interaction. The results of this study suggest that of all the factors examined, the degree of parent–child interaction, the stability of long‐term parenting practices, parental attitude, and mother's mental health status were correlated with development of empathy in children. These findings provide new indicators for the development of individualized intervention methods for use in clinical practice.     

Factors Associated with 3-Year Stability and Change in Parenting Behavior of Abusive Parents

We sought to examine the stability of parenting behaviors among physically abusive parents in the 3-year period between their children’s preschool and first grade years. The second purpose of the study was to identify factors that predicted the levels and rates of change in parenting behaviors. 54 parent/child dyads were recruited following substantiated physical abuse of the child and were assessed in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. Parenting behaviors were measured by observations during Parent–Child Interactions, self-reports from parents, and child reports using a puppet interview. Potential predictors of stability and change examined were demographic factors (SES, child gender, and ethnicity) and parent characteristics (depressive symptomatology, perceptions of child behavior problems, and life stress). Multilevel modeling indicated significant fluctuations in parenting among abusive parents, and these fluctuations were generally attributable to within-person rather than between-person differences. Linear change over time was evidenced in observed positive regard, flat affect, sensitivity, and child-reported structure; changes generally were in the direction of deterioration of parenting over time. Parents’ perceptions of the severity of their children’s behavior problems predicted changes over time in parenting behaviors related to intrusiveness and structure in the home. Demographic factors and parental depression predicted change in select parenting behaviors. Overall, findings indicate instability in parenting during the developmental transition to kindergarten and wide individual differences in patterns of change in parenting. Further, parenting behavior tends to deteriorate rather than improve following substantiation of physical abuse by the child protection system.     

The Relationship Between Sluggish Cognitive Tempo and Impairment in Children With and Without ADHD

This study examined impairment in multiple domains of functioning in children with and without ADHD who present with high or low levels of sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) while taking into account the total symptom ratings of ADHD. Participants were 584 children in kindergarten through eighth grade (55.7 % male, 91.7 % Caucasian), drawn from five archival datasets. Two, 2 (SCT groups: high and low) x 3 (ADHD Status: ADHD-I, ADHD-C, and non-ADHD) MANCOVAs were conducted with the total ADHD symptom ratings and child age as covariates. One MANCOVA was conducted on scores on the teacher Impairment Rating Scale (IRS; Fabiano et al. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology 35:369–385, 2006) and the other on the 6 scores on the parent IRS. The results indicated that the presence of SCT symptoms was associated with greater functional impairment at home according to parent report while it was associated with less functional impairment at school according to teacher report. Thus, the relationship between SCT symptoms and impairment differs depending on the informant and the context in which impairment is evaluated.     

Age differences in dimension weighting on visual feature search

Two experiments examined age‐difference effects in visual feature search for two types of prior information (knowledge about target‐defining features and intertrial transition of target‐defining features). In Experiment 1, younger participants had shorter reaction times searching for a target in blocks where the target was defined by a single feature dimension compared to where the target was defined across dimensions (within‐dimension facilitation; WDF). However, WDF was not found in older participants. Intertrial facilitation (ITF), a dimension‐based carryover effect in consecutive trials, was observed both for young and older participants. Experiment 2 provided participants with probabilistic knowledge about target‐defining features. Again, young participants showed a facilitatory effect related to this knowledge, but this effect was reduced in older participants. However, intertrial facilitation was observed for young and older adults to the same degree. These results are not consistent with general age‐related decrement in the maintenance of dimension weighting, but support a dual mechanism of dimension weighting (Kumada, 2001). The results suggest that knowledge‐based control of dimension weighting declined with ageing, but involuntary shift of dimension weighting by intertrial transition of target‐defining features is maintained in ageing.     

Out of mind, but not out of sight: Intentional control of visual memory

Does visual information enjoy automatic, obligatory entry into memory, or, after such information has been seen, can it still be actively excluded? To characterize the process by which visual information could be excluded from memory, we used Sternberg’s (1966, 1975) recognition paradigm, measuring visual episodic memory for compound grating stimuli. Because recognition declines as additional study items enter memory, episodic recognition performance provides a sensitive index of memory’s contents. Three experiments showed that an item occupying a fixed serial position in a series of study items could be intentionally excluded from memory. In addition, exclusion does not depend on lowlevel information, such as the stimulus’s spatial location, orientation, or spatial frequency, and does not depend on the precise timing of irrelevant information, which suggests that the exclusion process is triggered by some event during a trial. The results, interpreted within the framework of a summed similarity model for visual recognition, suggest that exclusion operates after considerable visual processing of the to-be-excluded item.