Age changes in the missing-letter effect revisited

When participants search for a target letter while reading, they make more omissions if the target letter is embedded in frequent function words than in less frequent content words. Reflecting developmental changes in component language and literacy skills, the size of this effect increases with age. With adults, the missing-letter effect is due to both word function and word frequency. With children, it is unclear whether the growing size of the missing-letter effect across development is due to a larger effect of word function, word frequency, or both because previous studies with children seeking to isolate the influence of word frequency and word function suffer from important methodological limitations. With these methodological limitations eliminated (Experiments 1 and 2), performance in a letter detection task was assessed for children in Grades 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7 as well as for undergraduate students. The results revealed that the influence of word function increases with age, whereas the effect of frequency is fairly stable across ages. Furthermore, normative predictability data collected in Experiment 3 revealed that third graders and undergraduate students were equally good at predicting function slots in a sentence.     

The effects of a responsive parenting intervention on parent-child interactions during shared book reading

This study examined mother-child shared book reading behaviors before and after participation in a random-assignment responsive parenting intervention called Play and Learning Strategies (PALS) that occurred during infancy (PALS I), the toddler-preschool (PALS II) period, or both as compared with a developmental assessment (DAS) intervention (DAS I and/or II). The efficacy of PALS was previously demonstrated for improving mother and child behaviors within play contexts, everyday activities, and standardized measures of child language. We hypothesized that PALS effects would generalize to influence maternal and child behaviors during a shared reading task even though this situation was not a specific focus of the intervention and that this would be similar for children who varied in biological risk. Participation in at least PALS II was expected to have a positive effect due to children's increased capacity to engage in book reading at this age. Four groups of randomized mothers and their children (PALS I-II, PALS I-DAS II, DAS I-PALS II, DAS I-II) were observed in shared reading interactions during the toddler-preschool period and coded for (a) mother's affective and cognitive-linguistic supports and (b) child's responses to maternal requests and initiations. Support was found for significant changes in observed maternal and child behaviors, and evidence of mediation was found for the intervention to affect children's behaviors through change in maternal responsiveness behaviors. These results add to other studies supporting the importance of targeting a broad range of responsive behaviors across theoretical frameworks in interventions to facilitate children's development.     

Egocentric search for disappearing objects in domestic dogs: evidence for a geometric hypothesis of direction

In several species, the ability to locate a disappearing object is an adaptive component of predatory and social behaviour. In domestic dogs, spatial memory for hidden objects is primarily based on an egocentric frame of reference. We investigated the geometric components of egocentric spatial information used by domestic dogs to locate an object they saw move and disappear. In experiment 1, the distance and the direction between the position of the animal and the hiding location were put in conflict. Results showed that the dogs primarily used the directional information between their own spatial coordinates and the target position. In experiment 2, the accuracy of the dogs in finding a hidden object by using directional information was estimated by manipulating the angular deviation between adjacent hiding locations and the position of the animal. Four angular deviations were tested: 5, 7.5, 10 and 15°. Results showed that the performance of the dogs decreased as a function of the angular deviations but it clearly remained well above chance, revealing that the representation of the dogs for direction is precise. In the discussion, we examine how and why domestic dogs determine the direction in which they saw an object disappear.     

Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation versus Conventional Treatment: Neurodevelopmental and Social Outcomes at 24 Months

The purpose of this prospective, controlled study was to compare neurodevelopmental and social outcomes at 2 years of age for children treated with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO; n = 25) to those of children with severe respiratory illness treated with conventional methods (CT; n = 16) and to matched, healthy full-term (FT; n = 29) children. Mothers' parenting attitudes and children's mental, motor, language, exploratory play, and social competence skills were assessed. A retrospective chart review was also undertaken to further describe the groups with respect to the results of neuroimaging, audiologic, and neuromotor examinations. The FT group had significantly higher mental, motor, and language scores as compared to the ECMO and CT groups. Groups did not differ on measures of behavior, social competence, exploratory play skills, or parental attitudes. Specifically for the ECMO group, there was a trend toward language being more problematic than other areas of development. In general, the data demonstrate that severe respiratory complications, regardless of type of treatment, place children at increased risk for neurodevelopmental difficulties.     

A Compendium of Sales-Related Literature in Customer Relationship Management: Processes and Technologies with Managerial Implications

This paper presents the first comprehensive and systematic review of the sales-related customer relationship management (CRM) literature. Specifically, from a narrowed sample of 253 CRM-related articles, 38 were qualified as the juxtaposition of CRM strategies and technologies with sales relevance. Themes found within this literature include the evolving nature of channel functioning and interfirm relationships, the strategic organizational processes involving the sales function, the evolving nature of the sales role, and both salesperson and customer adoption of CRM technology. Contributions were derived from the extant literature for both theory and practice. The meager number of published works with direct relevance to sales management along with the practicality of the topic suggests that additional CRM research, both conceptual and empirical, would be beneficial.     

Habituation in high‐risk infants: reliability and patterns of responding

We examined both the reliability of infant‐controlled habituation and patterns of responding in a group of high‐risk infants (mean age 16 mos). Good test–retest reliability was found for mean, total, and baseline looking time for one of the stimuli. Classification of infants' pattern of performance yielded two groups: linear (57%) and non‐linear (29%) responders; 14% of cases could not be classified because of cross‐session inconsistencies in performance. Linear responders had shorter total looking times, fewer trials to criterion, and showed more habituation than non‐linear responders, thus validating the linear/non‐linear distinction. Our findings indicate that the infant‐controlled habituation task can be used reliably with infants who are at high risk for developmental disorders. Indeed, we provide evidence that this task is not only reliable, but may also provide meaningful distinctions between infants within the high‐risk population. Discussion focuses on the role of attention in distinguishing between short (linear) and long (non‐linear) lookers. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Situational and dispositional coping: an examination of their relation to personality,cognitive appraisals,and psychological distress

Reliable data on the relationships between situational and dispositional coping strategies are sparse. In order to address this gap in the literature, this study examined the determinants and adaptational outcomes of both types of coping. Two hundred and thirty‐three students completed, along with measures of situational and dispositional coping, measures of personality, cognitive appraisals, and psychological distress, the latter variable being evaluated concurrently and prospectively (10 weeks). Results showed that personality shared as much variance with situational as with dispositional coping, but the patterns of relationships were rather different. In addition, cognitive appraisals were found to add significant incremental validity in predicting situational coping beyond trait coping, but primary appraisals were redundant with personality traits, in particular neuroticism. Finally, in spite of the significant amount of variance shared between the two types of coping, they both accounted for individual differences in concomitant and prospective psychological distress, and the relation between dispositional coping and distress was partially mediated by situational coping. The implications of these findings for understanding the relationships between the two types of coping strategy are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-objectification and Well-being: The Impact of Self-objectification on Women’s Overall Sense of Self-worth and Life Satisfaction

Research on objectification theory (Fredrickson and Roberts in Psychology of Women Quarterly 21:173–206, 1997) has demonstrated relations among self-objectification, body shame, and negative health outcomes. Less research has focused on the relation of self-objectification to indicators of well-being. We examined associations among self-objectification, body shame, and two indicators of well-being (i.e., self-esteem and satisfaction with life) in a path analytic model. We also tested explicitly whether body shame mediated the relation between self-objectification and self-esteem and whether self-esteem mediated the relation between body shame and life satisfaction. Female undergraduates (N = 227) from the United States completed questionnaires assessing the constructs of interest. Results indicated that the proposed model fit the data and that body shame and self-esteem mediated as predicted. Implications of these findings are discussed.