Televised social interaction and object learning in 14- and 18-month-old infants

We examined object learning in infants who viewed a televised adult speaking about a novel toy in videos that varied in the social cues provided. Novelty preference in following test trials differed as a function of televised social cues in 18-month-old, but not 14-month-old infants.     

Evocation of functional and volumetric gestural knowledge by objects and words

We distinguish between grasping gestures associated with using an object for its intended purpose (functional) and those used to pick up an object (volumetric) and we develop a novel experimental framework to show that both kinds of knowledge are automatically evoked by objects and by words denoting those objects. Cued gestures were carried out in the context of depicted objects or visual words. On incongruent trials, the cued gesture was not compatible with gestures typically associated with the contextual item. On congruent trials, the gesture was compatible with the item's functional or volumetric gesture. For both gesture types, response latency was longer for incongruent trials indicating that objects and words elicited both functional and volumetric manipulation knowledge. Additional evidence, however, clearly supports a distinction between these two kinds of gestural knowledge. Under certain task conditions, functional gestures can be evoked without the associated activation of volumetric gestures. We discuss the implication of these results for theories of action evoked by objects and words, and for interpretation of functional imaging results.     

Effects of attachment style and relationship context on selection among relational strategies

Numerous studies have examined attachment-style differences in social perception, emotion-regulation, and couple communication, but relatively little is known about how dispositional attachment style combines or interacts with relationship situations or contexts to influence the decisions people make about how to act in their relationships. In the present study, participants were presented twice with relationship scenarios and asked to indicate how they would respond to each one. They completed the task initially without a particular context in mind and then again with either a positive or a negative relationship context in mind. Results indicated that a deteriorating relationship context caused participants to choose less secure and more insecure behaviors, especially avoidant ones, but dispositional attachment style was still important as well. Both sets of factors produced main effects rather than interactions.     

Coping strategies in the workplace: Relationships with attributional style and job satisfaction

This paper examined the relationships between workplace coping strategies, occupational attributional style, and job satisfaction among a sample of 190 nurses employed with a Veterans Affairs Medical Center. As an occupational group, nurses experience high levels of chronic workplace stressors. Participants completed a questionnaire packet containing the Brief COPE, the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ)-Short Form, and the Occupational Attributional Styles Questionnaire (OASQ). Results indicated that a positive occupational attributional style was associated with greater use of problem solving/cognitive restructuring coping styles and less use of avoidance coping styles to deal with workplace stress. This pattern of coping strategies was also associated with greater job satisfaction. Further analyses indicated that the relationship between occupational attributional style and job satisfaction was mediated by the use of problem solving/cognitive restructuring, and avoidance coping strategies to deal with workplace stress. Implications for workplace interventions and work adjustment counseling are discussed.     

Introducing the Concepts of “Positions,” “Space,” and “Worlds”: Seeing Human Being and Becoming—and Religion—in New Ways

Theories of psychological development, however diverse, often express common underlying ontological-epistemological commitments shaped by the legacies of Descartes, Newton, and Kant. Three related psychoanalytic concepts—“positions,” “space,” and “worlds”—individually and collectively sketch the contours of a different way of construing human being and becoming—a way that departs from these legacies. Implications for the study of religion of this “different way” are examined.     

Will any doll do? 12-month-olds' reasoning about goal objects

Infants as young as 5 months of age view familiar actions such as reaching as goal-directed (Woodward, 1998), but how do they construe the goal of an actor's reach? Six experiments investigated whether 12-month-old infants represent reaching actions as directed to a particular individual object, to a narrowly defined object category (e.g., an orange dump truck), or to a more broadly defined object category (e.g., any truck, vehicle, artifact, or inanimate object). The experiments provide evidence that infants are predisposed to represent reaching actions as directed to categories of objects at least as broad as the basic level, both when the objects represent artifacts (trucks) and when they represent people (dolls). Infants do not use either narrower category information or spatiotemporal information to specify goal objects. Because spatiotemporal information is central to infants' representations of inanimate object motions and interactions, the findings are discussed in relation to the development of object knowledge and action representations.     

Infant manual exploration of composite substrates

Everyday environments, even small regions within reach, vary dramatically in terms of material composition. Adapting one's manual behavior to such transitions can be considered to be an important element of skilled action. To investigate the origins of this ability, we presented 8-month-olds (n=24) and 10-month-olds (n=24) hard or soft objects on a composite tabletop substrate that was half rigid and half flexible. Results indicated infants explored the objects selectively and geared their manual behaviors, with or without an object in hand, to the particular substrate they contacted. More broadly, the study suggests that infant manual exploration is flexible even in the face of abrupt transitions in material structure. Such flexibility may support early attempts at problem solving and tool use.     

Domain specific attentional impairments in children with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

One of the defining cognitive characteristics of the chromosome 22q deletion syndrome (DS22q11.2) is visuospatial processing impairments. The purpose of this study was to investigate and extend the specific attentional profile of children with this disorder using both an object-based attention task and an inhibition of return task. A group of children with the disorder was compared in these tasks with a group of age-matched typically developing children. The children with DS22q11.2 demonstrated impaired spatially based orienting which is consistent with previous findings in this group. Strikingly, the children with DS22q11.2 also demonstrated an improved ability to use object-based cues, relative to the typically developing group. Finally, the children with DS22q11.2 demonstrated an intact inhibition of return system, however, it appears to be delayed developmentally.     

Toward a Hermeneutic Turn in Chinese Philosophy: Western Theory,Confucian Tradition,and C<Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">HENG</Emphasis> Chung-ying’s Onto-hermeneutics

The present essay thinks along the comparative, philosophical lines that Cheng Chung-ying’s project of “onto-hermeneutics” draws in order to shed light on the relations between ontology and epistemology in the hermeneutic act. In the process, not only will we be thinking with Cheng and some Western hermeneutic theorists, but we will also be thinking through history by examining the Confucian act of reading. To the extent that any hermeneutic exercise, in accordance with Cheng’s construal, cannot merely be a disembodied act of theoretical knowing but is also moral effort that entails personal cultivation—or, in Heidegger’s and Gadamer’s terms, Bildung—its espousal and its practice necessarily embody a larger conception of culture. In fact, precisely in terms of the intimate engagement with culture, Confucian insights, filtered through Cheng’s onto-hermeneutic lenses, may have much to offer contemporary hermeneutics.