Processing of perceptual information is more robust than processing of conceptual information in preschool-age children: evidence from costs of switching

Is processing of conceptual information as robust as processing of perceptual information early in development? Existing empirical evidence is insufficient to answer this question. To examine this issue, 3- to 5-year-old children were presented with a flexible categorization task, in which target items (e.g., an open red umbrella) shared category membership with one test item (e.g., a folded umbrella) and perceptual characteristics with another test item (e.g., a red mushroom). Participants were instructed to either categorize stimuli by the same dimension (i.e., perceptual similarity or category membership) in both phases of the task, or switch from categorizing by one dimension to categorizing by the other dimension. Results pointed to a strong asymmetry in switch costs: conceptual switch costs were higher than perceptual switch costs. These results suggest that processing of perceptual information remains more robust than processing of conceptual information at least until 5 years of age.     

Early precursors and enabling skills of reading acquisition

Research on early linguistic precursors and enabling skills of reading acquisition among young children is reviewed. Language development starts early in infancy when the child learns to categorize the speech sounds according to the pattern typical of the mother tongue. Equipped with these sound categories the child is ready to learn to segment words from the sound stream and to understand and to use words. The precise phonological representation of words will facilitate the important development of phonological awareness, a basic prerequisite for reading acquisition. This paper reviews some of my longitudinal research and training studies indicating the causal direction of the relation between phonological awareness and reading and includes some ongoing studies, where gender differences, socio‐economic factors, dose‐response‐effects and motivational factors are explored. Preventive and remedial implications of the findings are pointed out. Finally, the complexity of the causal relationships between different aspects of early language development, including genetic influences and later reading is pointed out.     

More is more: The relationship between vocabulary size and word extension

This study experimentally tested the relationship between children’s lexicon size and their ability to learn new words within the domain of color. We manipulated the size of 25 20-month-olds’ color lexicons by training them with two, four, or six different color words over the course of eight training sessions. We subsequently tested children’s ability to extend new color words to new instances. We found that training with a broader number of color words led to increased extension of new words. The results suggest that children’s learning history predicts their ability to learn new words within domains.     

微创神经外科发展的思考

神经外科的发展历史就是一个不断追求微创的过程。微创神经外科狭义的理解,更多侧重于微创技术手段的应用;而广义的理解,则是指微创理念。微创神经外科取得了很大的成就,但还有许多问题需要解决。在微创神经外科的实践和发展中,不仅应重视微创技术的应用,更要注意应用微创理念。     

PHILOSOPHERS OF INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY: A TAXONOMY

Abstract: This essay explores various roles that philosophers occupy in relation to intellectual disability. In examining how philosophers define their object of inquiry as experts and gatekeepers, it raises critical questions concerning the nature of philosophical discourse about intellectual disability. It then goes on to consider three alternate positions, the advocate or friend, the animal, and the "intellectually disabled," each of which points to new ways of philosophizing in the face of intellectual disability.     

The many faces of the Still-Face Paradigm: A review and meta-analysis

The Still-Face Paradigm (SFP) designed by Tronick, Als, Adamson, Wise, and Brazelton (Tronick, E., Als, H., Adamson, L., Wise, S., & Brazelton, T. B. (1978). Infants response to entrapment between contradictory messages in face-to-face interaction. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 17, 1–13) has been used for many different purposes in over 80 empirical studies. In the current paper, the nature and correlates of infant behavior in the SFP were examined in a systematic narrative review and a series of meta-analyses. The results of the meta-analyses confirmed the classic still-face effect of reduced positive affect and gaze, and increased negative affect, as well as a partial carry-over effect into the reunion episode consisting of lower positive and higher negative affect compared to baseline. The still-face effect is very robust as it was found regardless of most sample variations such as infant gender and risk status, and regardless of most procedural variations, such as the length of the SFP episodes and the use of intervals between episodes. The few moderator effects that were found in the meta-analyses tended to put findings from the narrative review in a new perspective. Additional meta-analyses confirmed the narrative review in finding that higher maternal sensitivity predicted more infant positive affect during the still-face. Infants’ higher positive affect and lower negative affect during the still-face were predictive of secure attachment at age 1 year. The meta-analytic results for maternal depression were equivocal. Implications for future research include a need for studies testing the role of the adults’ identity (parent versus stranger, mother versus father) to elucidate the relationship-specificity of the still-face effect. Also, the role of maternal sensitivity and temperament as potential moderators of the still-face effect need to be examined further. On a procedural level, the effects of the timing of the still-face and of the duration of the reunion on infant responses deserve future research attention.     

Development as Happiness: The Subjective Perception of Happiness and UNDP’s Analysis of Poverty, Wealth and Development

This paper examines to what extent the concept of happiness is complementary to the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) human development approach in the evaluation of poverty, wealth and development. The deconstruction of UNDP's discourse on and its measurement of these concepts show that its perspective is highly arbitrary. Poverty is exclusively defined as lack and state of ill-being, inferior to wealth regarded as a state of abundance and well-being. Development then becomes a teleological process trying to promote well-being through abundance. Yet, this external perspective of UNDP on well-being is questioned by the subjective perception of the individuals themselves. Happiness studies—which define happiness as the degree to which an individual judges the overall quality of his life-as-a-whole favorably—prove that higher levels of UNDP's development indicators are not necessarily better for subjective well-being. Despite methodological and conceptual problems, happiness studies discover that the individuals' perception of poverty, wealth and development can differ considerably from UNDP's perspective. Increased income, better objective health and higher levels of education do not automatically lead to greater happiness. Furthermore, additional dimensions essential for human happiness are detected by the research, yet not taken into account by UNDP. A country ranking comparison between the two approaches confirms the different visions of well-being. The integration of a happiness indicator in its analysis of poverty, wealth and development is thus indispensable for UNDP in order to correct its analytical and also practical approach to development.     

Children's ascriptions of property rights with changes of ownership

Ownership is not a “natural” property of objects, but is determined by human intentions. Facts about who owns what may be altered by appropriate decisions. However, young children often deny the efficacy of transfer decisions, asserting that original owners retain rights to their property. In Experiment 1, 4–5-year-old and 7–8-year-old children and adults were asked to resolve disputes between initial owners and various types of receivers (finders, borrowers, buyers). Experiment 2 involved disputes both before and after transfers of ownership. At all ages participants privileged owners over non-owners and accepted the effectiveness of property transfers. Overall, children's intuitions about property rights were similar to those of adults. Observed differences may reflect older participants’ willingness to segregate property rights from other considerations in assessing the acceptability of actions.     

Executive functions after age 5: Changes and correlates

Research and theorizing on executive function (EF) in childhood has been disproportionately focused on preschool age children. This review paper outlines the importance of examining EF throughout childhood, and even across the lifespan. First, examining EF in older children can address the question of whether EF is a unitary construct. The relations among the EF components, particularly as they are recruited for complex tasks, appear to change over the course of development. Second, much of the development of EF, especially working memory, shifting, and planning, occurs after age 5. Third, important applications of EF research concern the role of school-age children’s EF in various aspects of school performance, as well as social functioning and emotional control. Future research needs to examine a more complete developmental span, from early childhood through late adulthood, in order to address developmental issues adequately.     

Three ideal observer models for rule learning in simple languages

Children learning the inflections of their native language show the ability to generalize beyond the perceptual particulars of the examples they are exposed to. The phenomenon of “rule learning”—quick learning of abstract regularities from exposure to a limited set of stimuli—has become an important model system for understanding generalization in infancy. Experiments with adults and children have revealed differences in performance across domains and types of rules. To understand the representational and inferential assumptions necessary to capture this broad set of results, we introduce three ideal observer models for rule learning. Each model builds on the next, allowing us to test the consequences of individual assumptions. Model 1 learns a single rule, Model 2 learns a single rule from noisy input, and Model 3 learns multiple rules from noisy input. These models capture a wide range of experimental results—including several that have been used to argue for domain-specificity or limits on the kinds of generalizations learners can make—suggesting that these ideal observers may be a useful baseline for future work on rule learning.