Qualitative analyses of critical aspects of adaptation to the visually left-right reversed world

In this article, mechanisms of perceptual adaptation to the transposed world are analyzed based on introspective and behavioral performance data gathered during an extended period of wearing left-right reversing goggles. Three aspects central to this study were the mental map of the living space surrounding the subject, body image (both seen and felt), and the sensorimotor coordination system, which reflects the relationship between the subject and surroundings. These were investigated through map-drawing tests, self-representation tests when postures other than face forward were adopted, and after effects observed immediately after removal of the reversing goggles. It was concluded that the main course of the perceptual adaptation to the visually left-right reversed world consists of double reversals of the mental map and body image as well as the establishment of a new sensorimotor coordination system. In sharp contrast to the proprioceptive-change hypothesis, the importance of the visual nature of the body image was emphasized.     

Gay-Straight Alliances Vary on Dimensions of Youth Socializing and Advocacy: Factors Accounting for Individual and Setting-Level Differences

Gay‐Straight Alliances (GSAs) are school‐based youth settings that could promote health. Yet, GSAs have been treated as homogenous without attention to variability in how they operate or to how youth are involved in different capacities. Using a systems perspective, we considered two primary dimensions along which GSAs function to promote health: providing socializing and advocacy opportunities. Among 448 students in 48 GSAs who attended six regional conferences in Massachusetts (59.8 % LGBQ; 69.9 % White; 70.1 % cisgender female), we found substantial variation among GSAs and youth in levels of socializing and advocacy. GSAs were more distinct from one another on advocacy than socializing. Using multilevel modeling, we identified group and individual factors accounting for this variability. In the socializing model, youth and GSAs that did more socializing activities did more advocacy. In the advocacy model, youth who were more actively engaged in the GSA as well as GSAs whose youth collectively perceived greater school hostility and reported greater social justice efficacy did more advocacy. Findings suggest potential reasons why GSAs vary in how they function in ways ranging from internal provisions of support, to visibility raising, to collective social change. The findings are further relevant for settings supporting youth from other marginalized backgrounds and that include advocacy in their mission.     

Attentional prioritization to contextually new objects

Using a hybrid paradigm of a contextual cuing task and a probe detection task, we tested whether or not contextually new objects can be prioritized in visual search. After several hundred visual search practice trials with repeated and nonrepeated layouts, an additional distractor that was contextually new was presented in the repeated layouts. The results showed that detection of probe dots appearing at the location of a search target was faster in the repeated than in the nonrepeated layouts. More importantly, detection of probe dots at the new object locations was as fast as that of probe dots at the target locations in repeated layouts, suggesting that the attentional system implicitly prioritizes the processing of a location where a change in contextual information has occurred.     

No need to fake it: reproduction of the Asch experiment without confederates

In the present experiment, we replicated Asch's seminal study on social conformity without using confederates. We adapted a presentation trick in order to present two different stimuli secretly to groups of participants to create minorities and majorities without utilizing confederates. One hundred and four Japanese undergraduates (40 men and 64 women) carried out Asch-equivalent tasks in same-sex groups of four. In each group, we adapted the fMORI Technique to present the tasks such that one person (minority participant) observed different stimuli than the other three people (majority participants). The same nine stimulus sets that Asch had used were carefully reproduced as PowerPoint slides and projected onto a half-transparent screen. As for the critical tasks, the top part of the standard lines appeared in either green or magenta so that two groups of participants would see them differently when they wore two types of polarizing sunglasses that filtered either green or magenta to make the lines appear longer or shorter. A post-experimental questionnaire confirmed that no participant among either the minority or majority viewers noticed the presentation trick. The results showed that, in line with Asch's basic findings, the minority women participants conformed to the majority. However, our study produced two different results: While minority women conformed, minority men did not. Contrary to Asch's findings, the frequency of conformity of minority participants was almost the same regardless of whether the majority answered unanimously or not.     

Probing attentional modulation of contextual cueing

The repetition of spatial layout implicitly facilitates visual search (contextual cueing effect; Chun & Jiang, 1998). Although a substantial number of studies have explored the mechanism underlying the contextual cueing effect, the manner in which contextual information guides spatial attention to a target location during a visual search remains unclear. We investigated the nature of attentional modulation by contextual cueing, using a hybrid paradigm of a visual search task and a probe dot detection task. In the case of a repeated spatial layout, detection of a probe dot was facilitated at a search target location and was inhibited at distractor locations relative to nonrepeated spatial layouts. Furthermore, these facilitatory and inhibitory effects possessed different learning properties across epochs (Experiment 1) and different time courses within a trial (Experiment 2). These results suggest that contextual cueing modulates attentional processing via both facilitation to the location of “to-be-attended” stimuli and inhibition to the locations of “to-be-ignored” stimuli.     

The association between infants' self-regulatory behavior and MAOA gene polymorphism

Self-regulatory behavior in early childhood is an important characteristic that has considerable implications for the development of adaptive and maladaptive functioning. The present study investigated the relations between a functional polymorphism in the upstream region of monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) and self-regulatory behavior in a sample of Chinese infants at 6 months of age. Self-regulation was assessed by observing infants' behavior of orienting visual attention away from a threatening event in the laboratory situation. The results indicated that regulatory behavior was associated with the functional MAOA gene polymorphism in girls, but not boys. Girls with 4/4 genotypes displayed significantly higher regulation than girls with 3/3 and 3/4 genotypes. The present study provided evidence for gender differences on the role of MAOA gene polymorphism in socioemotional functioning in the early years.     

Role of biological-motion information in recognition of facial expressions by young children

Data on the development of the perception of facial biological motion during preschool years are disproportionately scarce. We investigated the ability of preschoolers to recognise happy, angry, and surprised expressions, and eye-closing facial movements on the basis of facial biological motion. Children aged 4 years (n = 18) and 5-6 years (n = 19), and adults (n = 17) participated in a matching task, in which they were required to match the point-light displays of facial expressions to prototypic schematic images of facial expressions and facial movement. The results revealed that the ability to recognise facial expressions from biological motion emerges as early as the age of 4 years. This ability was evident for happy expressions at the age of 4 years; 5-6-year-olds reliably recognised surprised as well as happy expressions. The theoretical significances of these findings are discussed.     

From peers to policy: how broader social contexts influence the adaptation of children and youth in immigrant families

This chapter provides an overview of non family contexts that shape the development and adjustment of children and youth from immigrant families. It also describes the four chapters in this special issue that focus on peer, network, legal, and institutional contexts that influence the lives of immigrant parents and their children. Directions for future research on the social contexts of development in immigrant families are discussed.     

Father Involvement in Immigrant and Ethnically Diverse Families from the Prenatal Period to the Second Year: Prediction and Mediating Mechanisms

This longitudinal study focused on fathers’ involvement from the prenatal period through infants’ first year in Dominican immigrants (n?=?73), Mexican immigrants (n?=?65) and African Americans (n?=?66) residing in New York City. Fathers’ prenatal involvement, the quality of the mother–father relationship, fathers’ postnatal involvement with their 1- and 6 month olds and fathers’ involvement with their 14 month-olds (i.e., time spent with infant; eating meals with infant; activities with infant) were examined. Father involvement was uniformly high and stable. Fathers’ prenatal involvement predicted involvement at 14 months, and the quality of the mother–father relationship mediated these associations. Father ethnicity and residency moderated associations between the father–mother relationship, father postnatal involvement and father involvement with 14 month olds.