CAREGIVER SENSITIVITY AND CONSISTENCY AND CHILDREN'S PRIOR FAMILY EXPERIENCE AS CONTEXTS FOR EARLY DEVELOPMENT WITHIN INSTITUTIONS

The current study addressed whether two institution‐wide interventions in St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, that increased caregiver sensitivity (Training Only: TO) or both caregiver sensitivity and consistency (Training plus Structural Changes: T+SC) promoted better socioemotional and cognitive development than did a No Intervention (NoI) institution during the first year of life for children who were placed soon after birth. It also assessed whether having spent less than 9 versus 9 to 36 months with a family prior to institutionalization was related to children's subsequent socioemotional and cognitive development within these three institutions. The Battelle Developmental Inventory (J. Newborg, J.R. Stock, L. Wnek, J. Guidubaldi, & J. Svinicki, 1988) was used to assess the socioemotional and cognitive functioning of children in NoI (n = 95), TO (n = 104), and T+SC (n = 86) at two to three time points during their first 6 to 12 months of residency. Results suggest that improving caregiver sensitivity can improve the cognitive development of infants in the first year of institutionalization whereas improving caregiver consistency in addition to sensitivity is more beneficial for socioemotional development than is sensitivity alone. Similarly, for children in T+SC, longer time with a family prior to institutionalization (consistent caregiver, unknown sensitivity) was associated with better socioemotional, but not cognitive, baseline scores and more rapid cognitive than socioemotional development during institutionalization. These results suggest caregiver sensitivity is more highly related to cognitive development whereas caregiver consistency is more related to socioemotional development in the first years of life.     

DEPLOYMENT STATUS: A DIRECT OR INDIRECT EFFECT ON MOTHER–CHILD ATTACHMENT WITHIN A CANADIAN MILITARY CONTEXT?

Research has suggested that military spouses experience increased depressive symptoms and parenting stress during a military member's deployment. A relationship between maternal depressive symptoms, parenting stress, and child attachment security has been found in the general population, as has an indication that social support may provide a buffering effect. While there appears to be an association between the emotional well‐being of military spouses and child emotional well‐being during deployment, data are limited regarding the association between maternal emotional well‐being and child attachment security. The current study explores the association between deployment status and child attachment to the nonmilitary parent (i.e., the mother in this study) in a sample of 68 Canadian military families. Results revealed a significant impact of deployment status on maternal depressive symptoms and on quality of child attachment. The impact of deployment status on attachment was not mediated through the maternal variables, and despite a main effect of social support on the maternal variables, there was no moderating effect. Thus, our results suggest that deployment may affect child attachment independently of maternal well‐being.     

Remarks on the psycho-logic of action

The present paper is a discussion of Jan Smedslund's main action axiom (4.3.1) in Psycho-logic. I have interpreted the axiom in two different ways: a) as a presupposition about the determinants of action, and b) as a definition of highest expected utility. My conclusion is that taken as a supposition about the determinants of action, 4.3.1 is basically right, though not in the form it has in Psychologic. 4.3.1 taken as a definition, on the other hand, is basically wrong.     

The effect of action video game playing on sensorimotor learning: Evidence from a movement tracking task

Research on the impact of action video game playing has revealed performance advantages on a wide range of perceptual and cognitive tasks. It is not known, however, if playing such games confers similar advantages in sensorimotor learning. To address this issue, the present study used a manual motion-tracking task that allowed for a sensitive measure of both accuracy and improvement over time. When the target motion pattern was consistent over trials, gamers improved with a faster rate and eventually outperformed non-gamers. Performance between the two groups, however, did not differ initially. When the target motion was inconsistent, changing on every trial, results revealed no difference between gamers and non-gamers. Together, our findings suggest that video game playing confers no reliable benefit in sensorimotor control, but it does enhance sensorimotor learning, enabling superior performance in tasks with consistent and predictable structure.     

Alterations in error-related brain activity and post-error behavior over time

This study examines the relation between the error-related negativity (ERN) and post-error behavior over time in healthy young adults (N=61). Event-related brain potentials were collected during two sessions of an identical flanker task. Results indicated changes in ERN and post-error accuracy were related across task sessions, with more negative ERN associated with greater improvements in post-error accuracy. This relationship was independent of any cross-sectional relationships between overall task performance, individual difference factors, including personality and self-efficacy, and indices of self-regulatory action monitoring. These results indicate that the relation between ERN and post-error accuracy remains intact and consistent regardless of variation in this set of individual difference factors previously associated with both of these indices of self-regulatory action monitoring, providing support for the strength, robustness, and persistence of this relationship in the process of adaptively controlling behavior to enhance task performance.     

Experimental evidence supporting simpler Action Point paradigms for car-following

The Action Point theory is one of the paradigms that can be applied to understand and reproduce car-following behaviour. Several different approaches to this theory have been proposed, some more simple and others more complex. In particular, the reference point in this field is still the paradigm from Wiedemann, which requires the identification of four action-point thresholds. In this paper we review Action Point theories in order to highlight similarities and differences and to ascertain whether all the thresholds proposed by Wiedemann actually bind the driving behaviour. Based on a large-scale experiment in which car-following data were collected, we identified all candidate action points assuming that the more complex (four-threshold) theory holds. Then we tested these points with respect to the large data set of available observations, in order to check whether actual actions are performed at the points. The results show that very often simpler approaches better match the observed data and that in order to explain car-following behaviour it is sufficient in most cases to refer to two thresholds. The results obtained by real-world observation were also tested in virtual environments (two different kinds of driving simulators) and were confirmed.     

A meta-analysis of gender differences in character strengths and age,nation, and measure as moderators

Abstract

The present meta-analysis investigates gender differences in the 24 VIA character strengths. Based on a literature search on quantitative studies that assessed character strengths, 65 samples consisting of both published and unpublished data were included (total N = 1,189,924). A random-effects model yielded significant gender differences for 17 of the 24 character strengths, although only four of these differences showed at least small effects: Females scored higher than males in appreciation of beauty and excellence, kindness, love, and gratitude. Thus, males and females were mostly similar in their character strengths. The size of the gender differences did not vary with nationality (i.e. the US, Switzerland, Germany, and Israel), while age and type of measure were significant moderators for 13-14 character strengths. The most pronounced differences emerged between children/adolescents and the VIA-Youth in comparison to adults and the VIA-IS as well as the short measures.     

A non‐representational approach to imagined action

This study addresses the dynamical nature of a “representation‐hungry” cognitive task involving an imagined action. In our experiment, participants were handed rods that systematically increased or decreased in length on subsequent trials. Participants were asked to judge whether or not they thought they could reach for a distant object with the hand‐held rod. The results are in agreement with a dynamical model, extended from Tuller, Case, Ding, and Kelso (1994). The dynamical effects observed in this study suggest that predictive judgments regarding the possibility or impossibility of a certain action can be understood in terms of dynamically evolving basins of attraction instead of as depending on representational structures.