Enhanced gaze‐following behavior in Deaf infants of Deaf parents

Gaze following plays a role in parent–infant communication and is a key mechanism by which infants acquire information about the world from social input. Gaze following in Deaf infants has been understudied. Twelve Deaf infants of Deaf parents (DoD) who had native exposure to American Sign Language (ASL) were gender‐matched and age‐matched (±7 days) to 60 spoken‐language hearing control infants. Results showed that the DoD infants had significantly higher gaze‐following scores than the hearing infants. We hypothesize that in the absence of auditory input, and with support from ASL‐fluent Deaf parents, infants become attuned to visual‐communicative signals from other people, which engenders increased gaze following. These findings underscore the need to revise the ‘deficit model’ of deafness. Deaf infants immersed in natural sign language from birth are better at understanding the signals and identifying the referential meaning of adults’ gaze behavior compared to hearing infants not exposed to sign language. Broader implications for theories of social‐cognitive development are discussed. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/QXCDK_CUmAI     

Face detection in 2‐ to 6‐month‐old infants is influenced by gaze direction and species

Humans detect faces efficiently from a young age. Face detection is critical for infants to identify and learn from relevant social stimuli in their environments. Faces with eye contact are an especially salient stimulus, and attention to the eyes in infancy is linked to the emergence of later sociality. Despite the importance of both of these early social skills—attending to faces and attending to the eyes—surprisingly little is known about how they interact. We used eye tracking to explore whether eye contact influences infants' face detection. Longitudinally, we examined 2‐, 4‐, and 6‐month‐olds' (N = 65) visual scanning of complex image arrays with human and animal faces varying in eye contact and head orientation. Across all ages, infants displayed superior detection of faces with eye contact; however, this effect varied as a function of species and head orientation. Infants were more attentive to human than animal faces and were more sensitive to eye and head orientation for human faces compared to animal faces. Unexpectedly, human faces with both averted heads and eyes received the most attention. This pattern may reflect the early emergence of gaze following—the ability to look where another individual looks—which begins to develop around this age. Infants may be especially interested in averted gaze faces, providing early scaffolding for joint attention. This study represents the first investigation to document infants' attention patterns to faces systematically varying in their attentional states. Together, these findings suggest that infants develop early, specialized functional conspecific face detection.     

Drivers’ visual attention: A field study at intersections

Crossing a road intersection, a driver must collect visual information from various locations. The allocation of visual attention, which allows this collection, mainly relies on top-down processes. This study focuses on three top-down factors which influence the collection of visual information: the value of visual information for the ongoing task, their bandwidth, and the familiarity with the environment. These factors are studied according to the priority rules at intersections (Give way, Stop or Priority), the expected traffic density (Lower or Higher) and the number of passages (First or Second passage). Fourteen participants were installed in an instrumented vehicle equipped with an eye-tracker. They drove during 1h45 along a 80-km long route, mainly on rural roads, which included 19 intersections. Visual attention was studied by means of the head and gaze horizontal eccentricity. Effects were found for each of the three factors, in agreement with Wickens’ theoretical framework and with previous studies, despite the important variability in the data due to the experimental situation.     

视觉工作记忆中的内部注意选择：效果、特性及机制

视觉工作记忆中(VWM)已稳定存储的表征,依然会受内部注意选择的影响,说明内部注意选择对VWM发挥重要作用。本文首先阐述该领域主要的研究方法,然后对VWM中内部注意选择的效果和四个特性：时程、对象、容量和可持续性,以及其背后可能的理论机制和神经机制进行分析和总结。并据此从VWM的存储结构、内部注意的产生机制和处理方式等方面,为未来研究提出方向和建议。     

中英双语者情绪注意偏向中的双语优势效应

采用改进的点–探测范式,考察熟练双语者在情绪注意偏向中对情绪信息加工的优势效应及该效应产生的原因。采用2（熟练双语者和非熟练双语者）×3（靶刺激与消极词汇出现的位置一致、不一致和中性条件）×2（线索呈现时间为100 ms和400 ms）的混合实验设计,记录被试对靶子的按键反应时和错误率。结果发现：线索呈现100 ms和400 ms时,两组被试在注意定向分数上无显著差异;线索呈现100 ms时,两组被试的注意解除分数无显著差异;线索呈现400 ms时,熟练双语者的注意解除分数显著小于非熟练双语者。结果表明,在情绪注意偏向任务中,熟练双语者比非熟练双语者表现出了对情绪词汇信息更好的注意抑制控制能力,体现出对情绪信息加工的双语优势效应,产生这一优势效应的原因是熟练双语者在注意的晚期阶段比非熟练双语者具有更好的情绪信息注意解除能力。     

Psychosocial Treatment Strategies in the MTA Study: Rationale, Methods, and Critical Issues in Design and Implementation

The Collaborative Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), the MTA, is the first multisite, cooperative agreement treatment study of children, and the largest psychiatric/psychological treatment trial ever conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health. It examines the effectiveness of Medication vs. Psychosocial treatment vs. their combination for treatment of ADHD and compares these experimental arms to each other and to routine community care. In a parallel group design, 579 (male and female) ADHD children, aged 7–9 years, 11 months, were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental arms, and then received 14 months of prescribed treatment (or community care) with periodic reassessments. After delineating the theoretical and empirical rationales for Psychosocial treatment of ADHD, we describe the MTA's Psychosocial Treatment strategy applied to all children in two of the four experimental arms (Psychosocial treatment alone; Combined treatment). Psychosocial treatment consisted of three major components: a Parent Training component, a two-part School Intervention component, and a child treatment component anchored in an intensive Summer Treatment Program. Components were selected based on evidence of treatment efficacy and because they address comprehensive symptom targets, settings, comorbidities, and functional domains. We delineate key conceptual and logistical issues faced by clinical researchers in design and implementation of Psychosocial research with examples of how these issues were addressed in the MTA study.Deceased     

Do Executive Function Deficits Differentiate Between Adolescents with ADHD and Oppositional Defiant/Conduct Disorder? A Neuropsychological Study Using the Six Elements Test and Hayling Sentence Completion Test

Two neuropsychological measures of executive functions—Six Elements Tests (SET) and Hayling Sentence Completion Test (HSCT)—were administered to 110 adolescents, aged 12–15 years. Participants comprised four groups: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) only (n = 35), ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder/Conduct Disorder (ODD/CD) (n = 38), ODD/CD only (n = 11), and a normal community control group (n = 26). Results indicated that adolescents with ADHD performed significantly worse on both the SET and HSCT than those without ADHD, whether or not they also had ODD/CD. The adolescents with ADHD and with comorbid ADHD and ODD/CD were significantly more impaired in their ability to generate strategies and to monitor their ongoing behavior compared with age-matched controls and adolescents with ODD/CD only. It is argued that among adolescents with clinically significant levels of externalizing behavior problems, executive function deficits are specific to those with ADHD. The findings support the sensitivity of these two relatively new tests of executive functions and their ecological validity in tapping into everyday situations, which are potentially problematic for individuals with ADHD.     

Testing the ability of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to accurately report the effects of medication on their behavior

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are often treated with central nervous system stimulants, making the evaluation of medication effects an important topic for applied behavior analysts. Because assessment protocols emphasize informant reports and direct observations of child behavior, little is known about the extent to which children themselves can accurately report medication effects. Double-blind placebo-controlled procedures were used to examine whether 6 children with ADHD could recognize the effects of their medication. The children were given math worksheets to complete for 15 min during each of 14 sessions while on medication and placebo. Children completed a self-evaluation form at the end of each session, and ratings were compared to observed behavior and academic performance. Results indicated that 3 children were able to accurately report their medication status at levels greater than chance, whereas the accuracy of reports by all children was related to dosage level, differences in behavior, and the presence of adverse effects. The implications of these results for placebo-controlled research, self-monitoring of dosage levels, and accuracy training are discussed.     

Effects of methylphenidate on sensitivity to reinforcement in children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: an application of the matching law

The behavior of children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been hypothesized to be the result of decreased sensitivity to consequences compared to typical children. The present study examined sensitivity to reinforcement in 2 boys diagnosed with ADHD using the matching law to provide more precise and quantitative measurement of this construct. This experiment also evaluated the effects of methylphenidate (MPH) on sensitivity to reinforcement of children with ADHD. Subjects completed math problems to earn tokens under four different variable-interval (VI) schedules of reinforcement presented in random order under both medicated and nonmedicated conditions. Results showed that, in the medicated condition, the matching functions for both subjects resulted in higher asymptotic values, indicating an overall elevation of behavior rate under these conditions. The variance accounted for by the matching law was also higher under the medicated conditions, suggesting that their behavior more closely tracked the changing rates of reinforcement while taking MPH compared to placebo. Under medicated conditions, the reinforcing efficacy of response-contingent tokens decreased. Results are discussed with respect to quantifying behavioral changes and the extent to which the drug interacts with prevailing contingencies (i.e., schedule values) to influence behavioral variability.