Modeling talent development pathways in alpine ski racers

We explore developmental pathways to excellence in sub-elite adolescent alpine ski racing by exploring athletes' engagement in practice activities that characterize sport specialization and/or diversification. Moreover, we extend previous research by using more refined linear mixed-effects models to examine changes in practice and performance data over time rather than relying on the less sensitive repeated measures ANOVAs typically used in previous research. Altogether, 174 individuals (M = 15.9 yrs, women = 91) from professional development academies in the United States completed a sport-specific Practice History Questionnaire (PHQ). We recorded national rankings in technical events to assess performance. Mixed-effects models indicated that hours in ski-related activities generally increased over time (linear β = 1.38, p's < 0.001), except time spent in play, which decreased over time (β = 102.8, p = 0.002). Performance rankings also improved over time (β = 30.99, p < 0.001), with more time spent in ski-activity associated with greater rates of improvement, particularly in younger skiers (β = 9.77, p's < 0.001). The effects were largely driven by time spent in coach-led group practice (β = 2.16, p < 0.001). Overall, an earlier age of first engagement was associated with better rankings (β = −15.40, p = 0.024), and accumulating more hours in other sports was also associated with greater rates of performance improvement (β = −8.87, p = 0.014). Sub-elite alpine ski racers engage early in the sport, with higher-ranked athletes spending more time in ski-specific practice, particularly group practice, during development. However, these athletes generally continued to participate in other sports across development, providing greater support for the early engagement hypothesis rather than early specialization per se.     

多级评分认知诊断模型述评

认知诊断评估旨在探讨个体内部的知识掌握结构,并提供关于学生优缺点的详细诊断信息,以促进个体的全面发展。当前研究者已开发了大量0-1评分的认知诊断模型,但对于多级评分认知诊断模型的研究还比较少。本文对已有的多级评分认知诊断模型进行了归纳,介绍了模型的假设,计量特征以及适用范围,为实际应用者和研究者在多级评分认知诊断模型的比较和选用上提供借鉴和参考。最后,对未来关于多级评分诊断模型的研究方向进行了展望。     

Action representation deficits in adolescents with developmental dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia (DD), a severe and frequent disorder of reading acquisition, is characterized by a diversity of cognitive and motor deficits whose interactions still remain under debate. Although deficits in the automatization of sensorimotor control have been highlighted, internal action representation allowing prediction has never before been investigated. In this study, we considered action representation of 18 adolescents with pure DD and 18 age-matched typical readers. Participants actually and mentally performed a visually guided pointing task involving strong spatiotemporal constraints (speed/accuracy trade-off paradigm). While actual and mental movement times of typical readers were isochronous and both conformed to Fitts’ law, the movement times of dyslexics differed between conditions, and only the actual movement times conformed to Fitts’ law. Furthermore, the quality of motor imagery correlated with word reading abilities. This suggests that the process of action representation is impaired in pure DD and supports the sensorimotor perspective of DD. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study Investigating the Function of Hoarding

This study examined the function of hoarding behaviors and the relations between hoarding and a series of cognitive and affective processes in the moment using ecological momentary assessment. A matched-groups design was used to compare college students with higher hoarding symptoms (n = 31) and matched controls (n = 29). The two groups did not differ in what function they reported acquiring served, and positive automatic reinforcement was the most commonly reported function in both groups. Engaging in hoarding-relevant behaviors did not predict change in positive or negative affect when controlling for previous affect. Emotional reactivity and experiential avoidance in the moment were both elevated in the higher hoarding group compared to controls, while momentary mindfulness and negative affect differentiation were lower. Overall, these findings support the importance of emotion regulation processes in hoarding. They also suggest individuals may not be successfully regulating affect in the moment with hoarding behaviors, despite efforts to do so. It may be useful to evaluate processes such as striving for positive affect in hoarding disorder in the future.     

Crafting Mosaics: Person-Centered Religious Influence and Selection in Adolescent Friendships

This research addresses the intersection of two key domains of adolescents’ lives: religion and peer networks. Religion scholars argue that religion is multi-faceted and better understood by focusing on combinations of indicators (i.e., mosaics), versus a variable-centered approach. We adopt this framework and investigate the interplay between religion and peer networks, both in how religious mosaics are shaped by friends and how religious profiles affect friend selection dynamics. With data from two schools in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we estimate religious mosaics using latent class analysis (LCA) to identify profiles consisting of combinations of commonly available survey-based measures of religious attitudes, behaviors, and identities. Finding evidence of theoretically expected profiles, we then use stochastic actor–based models (SABMs) to investigate network dynamics for these LCA-based religious profiles. We demonstrate how the profile data can be integrated within the SABM framework to evaluate processes of friend selection and influence. Results show evidence of adolescents influencing one another's religious mosaics, but not selecting friends on that basis.     

A Process Model of Causal Reasoning

How do we make causal judgments? Many studies have demonstrated that people are capable causal reasoners, achieving success on tasks from reasoning to categorization to interventions. However, less is known about the mental processes used to achieve such sophisticated judgments. We propose a new process model—the mutation sampler—that models causal judgments as based on a sample of possible states of the causal system generated using the Metropolis–Hastings sampling algorithm. Across a diverse array of tasks and conditions encompassing over 1,700 participants, we found that our model provided a consistently closer fit to participant judgments than standard causal graphical models. In particular, we found that the biases introduced by mutation sampling accounted for people's consistent, predictable errors that the normative model by definition could not. Moreover, using a novel experimental methodology, we found that those biases appeared in the samples that participants explicitly judged to be representative of a causal system. We conclude by advocating sampling methods as plausible process-level accounts of the computations specified by the causal graphical model framework and highlight opportunities for future research to identify not just what reasoners compute when drawing causal inferences, but also how they compute it.     

Do infants have a sense of numerosity? A p‐curve analysis of infant numerosity discrimination studies

Research demonstrating that infants discriminate between small (e.g., 1 vs. 3 dots) and large numerosities (e.g., 8 vs. 16 dots) is central to theories concerning the origins of human numerical abilities. To date, there has been no quantitative meta‐analysis of the infant numerical competency data. Here, we quantitatively synthesize the evidential value of the available literature on infant numerosity discrimination using a meta‐analytic tool called p‐curve. In p‐curve the distribution of available p‐values is analyzed to determine whether the published literature examining particular hypotheses contains evidential value. p‐curves demonstrated evidential value for the hypotheses that infants can discriminate between both small and large unimodal and cross‐modal numerosities. However, the analyses also revealed that the published data on infants’ ability to discriminate between large numerosities is less robust and statistically powered than the data on their ability to discriminate small numerosities. We argue there is a need for adequately powered replication studies to enable stronger inferences in order to use infant data to ground theories concerning the ontogenesis of numerical cognition.     

The sociocultural movement in psychology,the role of theories in sociocultural inquiries,and the theory of sociocultural models

This special issue presents the theory of sociocultural models (TSCM) and its applications in diverse areas of psychology, including education, health care, clinical practice, gender relations, and general research. As many theories already exist in the social sciences, some readers may ask: “Why do cross‐cultural, cultural, and indigenous psychologists need another theory?” This question is comprised of two aspects: culture/cultural and theory/theoretical. Therefore, to answer it, it is important to clarify both issues. The first relates to cultural and its relation to psychological. The second, theory, considers its relation to cultural and psychological. These issues have long‐range implications for all culture and psychology disciplines as they pose many questions: What role does culture play in the mental functioning of people? How is culture constituted? Is cultural related to social? Does people’s mental functioning exert reciprocal influences on their cultural and social functioning? While working toward answering these questions, researchers quickly determine that more questions arise: What role should theories play in answering these questions? What constitutes theory in culture and psychology disciplines? How should such a theory (or such theories) address the triad of cultural, social, and mental? Consequently, in an effort to provide an overview of the TSCM and to begin to answer these questions, this introduction consists of two parts. The first part addresses the sociocultural turn in modern psychology; this part discusses its implications for research in culture and psychology disciplines. The second segment examines the topic of the theoretical backgrounds of cultural and cross‐cultural research and connects the philosophical paradigms of interpretivism and realism with the theory of sociocultural models. This introduction concludes with a brief overview of the articles included in this issue.     

The cultural in the social: A reflection on sociocultural models approaches

Culture is a critical concept for social psychology in Asia. The sociocultural models approach, as exemplified in this special issue, is a significant synthesis of the past work and a generative platform for future research. From the perspective of cultural dynamics, this commentary provides what I hope to be constructively critical reflections on this approach and attempts to point to potential directions for future investigation.