A categorical approach to infants’ individual differences during the Still-Face paradigm

Cluster analysis was used to create patterns of individual differences reflecting infant behaviors during the initial interaction episode of the Face-to-Face Still-Face (FFSF) paradigm. The clusters were used as the basic unit of analysis for studying infant and maternal behavior and dyadic coordination (i.e., matching and reparation) across FFSF. Seventy-five 4-month-old infants participated with their mothers. Cluster analysis identified three patterns: a Socially Engaged cluster (33%) exhibited high levels of social engagement with their mothers; a Disengaged cluster (60%) showed a tendency to be low in social interaction and a Negatively Engaged cluster (7%) showed high negative emotionality. During the Still-Face episode, the Socially Engaged cluster reacted by reducing focus on their mother and shifting their attention elsewhere, while infants in the Disengaged cluster reduced focus on the environment. Although both the Socially Engaged and Disengaged clusters increased in negative emotionality during the Still-Face, the Socially Engaged group largely recovered during the Reunion, whereas the Disengaged group displayed more negative emotion. The Negatively Engaged cluster demonstrated high levels of negative affect throughout the entire procedure. Mothers of Negatively Engaged infants showed less positive engagement and more social monitoring than mothers in other clusters during all episodes. Dyadic interaction differed between groups, with greater levels of matching and reparations in the engaged group, less in the Disengaged group, and very little coordination in the Negatively Engaged cluster. Findings highlight the role of distinctive patterns of infants’ individual differences in determining early dyadic functioning.     

Fine and gross motor skills: The effects on skill-focused dual-tasks

Dual-task methodology often directs participants’ attention towards a gross motor skill involved in the execution of a skill, but researchers have not investigated the comparative effects of attention on fine motor skill tasks. Furthermore, there is limited information about participants’ subjective perception of workload with respect to task performance. To examine this, the current study administered the NASA-Task Load Index following a simulated shooting dual-task. The task required participants to stand 15 feet from a projector screen which depicted virtual targets and fire a modified Glock 17 handgun equipped with an infrared laser. Participants performed the primary shooting task alone (control), or were also instructed to focus their attention on a gross motor skill relevant to task execution (gross skill-focused) and a fine motor skill relevant to task execution (fine skill-focused). Results revealed that workload was significantly greater during the fine skill-focused task for both skill levels, but performance was only affected for the lesser-skilled participants. Shooting performance for the lesser-skilled participants was greater during the gross skill-focused condition compared to the fine skill-focused condition. Correlational analyses also demonstrated a significant negative relationship between shooting performance and workload during the gross skill-focused task for the higher-skilled participants. A discussion of the relationship between skill type, workload, skill level, and performance in dual-task paradigms is presented.     

Procedural learning and automatization process in children with developmental coordination disorder and/or developmental dyslexia

ObjectiveThere is increasing evidence to suggest that developmental dyslexia (DD) and developmental coordination disorder (DCD) actually form part of a broader disorder. Their frequent association could be justified by a deficit of the procedural memory system, that subtends many of the cognitive, motor and linguistic abilities that are impaired in both DD and DCD. However, studies of procedural learning in these two disorders have yielded divergent results, and in any case no studies have so far addressed the issue of automatization (dual-task paradigm).MethodsWe administered a finger tapping task to participants aged 8–12 years (19 DCD, 18 DD, and 22 with both DD and DCD) to explore procedural learning and automatic movements in these three groups of children, comparing motor performances at the prelearning stage, after 2 weeks of training, and in a post-training dual-task condition.ResultsFirst, results indicated that all the children were able to learn a sequence of movements and even automatize their movements. Second, they revealed between-groups differences in procedural/automatization learning abilities, setting the DCD group apart from the other two. Third, contrary to our expectations concerning comorbidity, they suggested that the DD + DCD association does not have an additional impact on behavioral performances.     

医学伦理学发展新阶段的历史使命

每个时代都有每个时代伦理学的主轴。当今医学伦理学面临崭新的境遇,资本、技术、权力和全民健康等问题,已经构成医学伦理学应对和挑战的主要课题。新形势向医学伦理学提出了种种新任务,探索完成这些新任务的政策建议和伦理举措;适应新形势医学伦理学如何加强自身理念的充实、创新和提高;在新情境下如何促进医学伦理学在医学领域内的全面覆盖,让医学伦理学在医学中深深扎根,促进医学技术更好地服务于人民大众的健康,都是开启医学伦理学新征程面临的担当。

     

汉语阅读中词N+2的预视对高频词N+1加工影响的眼动研究

本研究采用边界范式,控制单字词N+1的预视加工负荷和词N+2首字的预视信息类型,探讨了汉语阅读中词N+2的预视对高频单字词N+1加工产生的影响。结果发现,当词N+1的预视为低加工负荷时,词N+2首字的预视对词N+1的加工产生了显著的影响;当词N+2首字的预视字与词N+1正字法相似,并且只呈现在副中央凹中时,显著的阻碍了词N+1随后的加工。结果表明,副中央凹中词N+2能够获得预视加工,可能获得正字法预视信息并对随后词N+1的加工产生了影响,并且这种影响受词N+1的预视加工负荷的调节。实验结果符合注意梯度指引模型的假设。     

The environment influences whether high-fat foods are associated with palatable or with unhealthy

This study investigated whether relatively automatic evaluations of food differ between situations and between obese people and lean controls. These evaluations were assessed in the affective priming paradigm (APP) -- a response latency based measure for associations. In Experiment 1, we either focused participants (33 obese and 26 lean controls) on the palatability (restaurant condition) or on the healthiness (health condition) of food, prior to the APP. Independent of weight-status, relatively automatic evaluations of food were based on palatability in the restaurant condition, and on health in the health condition. So, the current focus of attention can shape the way foods are evaluated relatively automatically. In Experiment 2, craving was induced in participants (27 obese and 29 lean controls). Unexpectedly, the craving induction did not achieve its goal of focusing on the palatability of food in general, but just for low-fat foods, possibly because of the health-emphasizing environment -- a hospital. Interestingly, obese people showed a stronger palatability priming effect with increasing levels of initial craving. For normal weight controls the effect was in the same direction, but missed significance. In our environment, palatability of food may be too salient, and health may not be salient enough, influencing automatic food-evaluations.     

The Role of the Dominant Social Paradigm in the Quality of Life/Environmental Interface

In this examination of the relationship between quality of life and the environment, it is argued that a broad framework within which the relationship can be established is required. The framework used is that of the dominant social paradigm (Pirages & Ehrlich, 1974) that contains political, economic, and technological institutions. It is these institutions that determine both the quality of life and environmental constructs within any society. The paper integrates these three areas in a single model that hypothesizes a particular relationship between the dominant social paradigm, the environment, and quality of life.     

Effects of survival processing and retention interval on true and false recognition in the DRM and category repetition paradigms

ABSTRACT

Two experiments examined the effects of survival processing and delay on true and related false recognition. Experiment 1 used the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm and found survival processing to increase true and related false recognition. Extending the delay from 5-mins to 1-day reduced true, but not false memory. Measures of the characteristics of true and false memories showed survival processing increased “remember” and “know” responses for related false memory, “know” responses for true memory and gist processing. Experiment 2 made use of the category repetition procedure and found a broadly similar pattern of results for true memory. However, related false memory was decreased by survival processing. Except for one result, no interactions were found between encoding task and delay. Overall, survival processing produced similar or different effects on true/false memory depending on the nature of the list. The mechanisms that might underpin these are evaluated and considered in relation to future work.     

Collaborative recall of details of an emotional film

Collaborative inhibition refers to the phenomenon that when several people work together to produce a single memory report, they typically produce fewer items than when the unique items in the individual reports of the same number of participants are combined (i.e., nominal recall). Yet, apart from this negative effect, collaboration may be beneficial in that group members remove errors from a collaborative report. Collaborative inhibition studies on memory for emotional stimuli are scarce. Therefore, the present study examined both collaborative inhibition and collaborative error reduction in the recall of the details of emotional material in a laboratory setting. Female undergraduates (n = 111) viewed a film clip of a fatal accident and subsequently engaged in either collaborative (n = 57) or individual recall (n = 54) in groups of three. The results show that, across several detail categories, collaborating groups recalled fewer details than nominal groups. However, overall, nominal recall produced more errors than collaborative recall. The present results extend earlier findings on both collaborative inhibition and error reduction to the recall of affectively laden material. These findings may have implications for the applied fields of forensic and clinical psychology.     

On misunderstanding science

Abstract

The paper examines the differences between Kuhn's account, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, of the sciences as necessarily communal activities with internally set standards of procedure and achievement, and that view of the sciences which calls itself ‘Scientific Realism’ and regards them as striving toward, and perhaps asymptotically approaching, some external and objective reality that bestows truth or falsity on scientific theories.

The main argument turns on Poincaré's demonstration that Newton's Second Law (f = ma) is not a testable, provable proposition with a truth value, but something that is simply adopted. It is adopted in the light of experience, certainly, but there is no logical necessity in the adoption. My suggestion is that it is a ‘way of looking’ and ‘a method of analysis’ and that the necessity of its adoption by any individual lies in its being a necessary condition of entry into the scientific community. That community itself adopts ways of looking or methods of analysis for their fruitfulness in dealing with old problems and defining new ones.

Incoherences in the ‘approach’ account of scientific progress are looked at, and the individualistic assumptions that motivate it. These require the sciences to be presented as the source and basis of agreement and community amongst separated individuals. This picture and its requirement inverts reality as well as Kuhn's account, which makes community and agreement the starting point. The notion of reality as a transcendental convergence point becomes redundant.

The old problem of the incommensurability of paradigms is discussed by relating them to the notions of ways of looking and methods of analysis. These may be incompatible in that one cannot look at things in two different ways at once, but at the same time they cannot be measured on any common scale.