Teaching children with autism to tell socially appropriate lies

This study used a nonconcurrent multiple baseline across participants design to evaluate the use of rules, role‐play, and feedback for teaching 3 children with autism spectrum disorder to tell socially appropriate lies when (a) presented with an undesired gift and (b) someone's appearance changed in an undesired way. The intervention was effective in teaching use of socially appropriate lies, and generalization to untrained people and gifts or appearances was observed.     

Coping Strategies in Late Adolescence: Relationships to Parental Attachment and Time Perspective

The authors investigated adolescents' use of coping strategies in relation to attachment to parents and time perspective. Adolescents in Grade 3 upper secondary school (M age = 18.3 years, SD = 0.6 years; n = 160) completed the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment, the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, and the Brief COPE. Correlational analyses showed that attachment to parents was associated with a more favorable view of the past (higher past positive and lower past negative), a less fatalistic view of the present, and a more favorable view of the future (higher future positive and lower future negative). Parental attachment accounted for significant variance in composite coping scores (adaptive and maladaptive) when entered before, but not after, time perspective subscales in hierarchical regression analyses. However, time perspective (mainly present hedonistic and positive or negative future) predicted adaptive or maladaptive coping over and beyond attachment. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that most of the relationship between adolescents' attachment to parents and coping is mediated by individual differences in time perspective. By contrast, factors other than attachment to parents (e.g., temperament) must be considered to fully account for the relationship between time perspective and coping.     

追踪手势对视空间学习的增强作用

本研究采用地图学习任务范式考察了追踪手势对视空间学习的影响和增强, 并试图从追踪手势的角度寻找能够有效促进操作者视空间学习的方法。实验1探究了产生追踪手势对视空间学习的增强作用; 实验2采用遮挡范式考察了产生追踪手势增强视空间学习的作用机制, 发现产生追踪手势所提供的视觉信息和感觉运动信息共同作用于视空间学习过程; 实验3从具身认知的视角探索了基于追踪手势的视空间学习增强方式, 发现以自我为参照产生追踪手势可以更好地增强个体的视空间学习。本研究结果很好地支持并补充了手势的具身认知理论。     

大学生的观点采择与助人行为:群体关系与共情反应的不同作用

以56名大学生为被试,采用被试内设计先后在群体内外两种条件下完成观点采择、共情反应与助人行为实验,探讨大学生观点采择在影响其助人行为的过程中,群体关系与共情反应的不同作用。结果表明:(1)在内外群体关系中,大学生观点采择对助人行为的影响均需要借助于共情反应的中介而发挥作用;(2)群体关系在观点采择对助人行为的作用中发挥了一定的调节作用。在内群体关系中,大学生观点采择对助人行为的影响不仅需要借助于共情反应的部分中介效应而发挥作用,同时也存在一定的直接效应;在外群体关系中,大学生观点采择则完全借助于共情反应的中介效应而发挥作用,不存在显著的直接效应。     

Mindreading abilities in sexual offenders: an analysis of theory of mind processes

The paper aims to assess the theory of mind (ToM) of sexual offenders. We administered to 21 sexual offenders and to 21 nonoffenders two classical first- and second-order ToM tasks, a selection of six Strange Stories, and a semi-structured interview, the Theory of Mind Assessment Scale (Th.o.m.a.s), which provides a multi-dimensional evaluation of ToM, investigating first- vs. third-person and egocentric vs. allocentric perspectives. Results show that sexual offenders performed worse than controls on second-order ToM tasks, on Strange Stories and on each of the Th.o.m.a.s dimensions, whereas they did as well as the control group on first-order ToM tasks. A detailed analysis of participants’ performance on Th.o.m.a.s. showed that sex offenders performed worse on the third-person than on the first-person ToM scale, and worse on the allocentric than on the egocentric perspective; these findings did not apply to the controls. Implications for future research and treatment are discussed.     

Eye movement suppression interferes with construction of object-centered spatial reference frames in working memory

The brain’s frontal eye fields (FEF), responsible for eye movement control, are known to be involved in spatial working memory (WM).In a previous fMRI experiment (Wallentin, Roepstorff & Burgess, Neuropsychologia, 2008) it was found that FEF activation was primarily related to the formation of an object-centered, rather than egocentric, spatial reference frame. In this behavioral experiment we wanted to demonstrate a causal relationship between eye movement control and manipulation of spatial reference frames. Sixty-two participants recalled either spatial (“Was X in front of Y?”) or non-spatial (“Was X darker than Y?”) relations in a previously shown image containing two to four objects, each with an intrinsic orientation and unique luminance. During half of all recall trials a moving visual stimulus was presented, which participants had to ignore, thus suppressing eye movement. Response times were significantly slower for spatial relations with distraction while there was no effect on non-spatial relations. There was no effect on accuracy, i.e. WM maintenance. This is consistent with the hypothesis that in spatial representations the FEFs are involved in WM content manipulation, such as establishing an object-centered spatial frame of reference.     

Internationalizing counselling: A Southeast Asian perspective

To learn about our Southeast Asian colleagues’ views on internationalizing counselling psychology to Asian cultures, we interviewed eight counselling psychologists who had received their doctoral training in the United States. Four of the participants were currently practicing and teaching in their native countries and four in the United States. Using the basic principles of Grounded Theory [Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago, IL: Aldine.], we derived two themes from the data: (1) major assumptions in US counselling psychology that may limit its transferability to Southeast Asian cultures and (2) practices in learning, training, and cultural adjusting for future development and internationalization of counselling psychology. The participants emphasized the need for indigenization and knowledge sharing in the efforts to internationalize counselling psychology.     

The effects of time perspective and level of construal on social distance

Psychological causes of social distance were examined from the perspective of Construal Level Theory (CLT; Liberman, Trope, & Stephan, 2007), which predicts that temporal distance from and abstract construal of a social target would create perception of social distance. Our studies demonstrate that expectations for temporally remote (versus proximal) social interaction produce greater social distance from a target person, measured as reduced familiarity (Study 1) and as reduced similarity to the self (Study 2). We also show that a more abstract, higher level construal of a social target results in less familiarity (Study 3) and in less allocation of resources (Study 4). The research sheds light on how social closeness can be promoted or hindered by previously unaddressed psychological factors.