A Lay Perspective on the Accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony1

To understand more about what laypeople think they “know” about eyewitness testimony, 276 jury-eligible university students were asked to indicate what factors they believe affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. In contrast to the large proportion of eyewitness-memory research that concerns system variables, the lay respondents overwhelmingly generated factors related to estimator variables, while system-variable factors such as police questioning and identification procedures were rarely mentioned. Respondents also reported that their own common sense and everyday life experiences were their most important sources of information about the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Not only do these results clarify the need for further research on the lay perspective of eyewitness testimony, but they also provide some insight into the way in which many jurors might approach cases involving eyewitness evidence.     

Effectiveness of Specific Techniques in Behavioral Teacher Training for Childhood ADHD Behaviors: Secondary Analyses of a Randomized Controlled Microtrial

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Behavioral teacher training is an effective intervention for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Intervention...     

The structure of effortful control in preschoolers and its relation to externalizing problems

The first aim of the present study was to examine the structure of effortful control. The second aim was to determine whether components of effortful control relate to conduct problems and hyperactivity. Effortful control was measured in 3‐year‐old children (N= 89) with an observational measure, the effortful control battery (ECB), and a parent report, the Children's Behaviour Questionnaire (CBQ). Principal component analysis showed that the ECB measures five components, assessing two higher‐order constructs, which can be labelled as Self‐Control and Attention/Motor Control. The five scales of the CBQ appeared to measure one construct – a more general measure of effortful control. The components and constructs of the ECB as well as the scales of the CBQ were differently related to conduct problems and hyperactivity. Conduct problems were most strongly predicted by observed Delay of Gratification and parent‐reported Inhibitory Control, whereas Hyperactivity was most strongly predicted by observed Delay of Gratification, and the higher‐order construct Attention/Motor Control, as well as parent‐reported Attentional Focusing and Inhibitory Control. It is important to keep in mind that effortful control is composed of heterogeneous components, all having their own unique values.     

The time course of attentional bias to cues of threat and safety

It is well known that relative to neutral stimuli, attention is biased towards processing stimuli that convey threat. In a previous study in which a particular stimulus (e.g. a blue diamond) was associated with the delivery of an electrical shock, the presence of the fear-conditioned stimulus interfered with the execution of voluntary eye movements to other locations. Here, we show that this effect not only occurs early in time, but remains present long after the fear-conditioned stimulus was removed from the screen. In a subsequent experiment, we associated the presence of a particular stimulus with safety, that is, when this stimulus was present it was certain that no electrical shock would be delivered. The presence of the safety signalling stimulus also interfered with the execution of voluntary saccades, but only when the time between stimulus and cue presentation was relatively long. The results indicate that both signals of threat and signals of safety interfere with execution of a saccade long after the source of threat or safety has been removed. However, only threatening stimuli affect saccade execution early in time, suggesting that threatening stimuli drive selection exogenously.     

THE FORMATION OF VISUAL STIMULUS EQUIVALENCES IN CHILDREN

Four normal children were presented a series of matching-to-sample tasks, using five sets of visual stimuli designated A, B, C, D, and E. Stimulus equivalences were established by matching stimuli from one set to those from another set. Each set consisted of three stimuli, so matching set A to set D meant that each stimulus in set A served as a sample with all three stimuli in set D as comparisons. Subjects were first taught AD and DC matching and were then able to perform AC/CA matching without additional training. After ED was taught directly, CE/EC and AE/EA performances emerged. Following CB training, three new equivalences were demonstrated: AB/BA, EB/BE, and DB/BD. Oral naming of each stimulus showed that subjects had not assigned a common label to stimuli in the same class, indicating that naming is not necessary for the formation of stimulus equivalences. The absence of response mediation suggests that matching to sample can form direct stimulus-stimulus associations. The data also provide support for the notion that generative performances are outcomes of existing stimulus-control relationships.     

Easier Said Than Done? Task Difficulty's Influence on Temporal Alignment,Semantic Similarity,and Complexity Matching Between Gestures and Speech

Gestures and speech are clearly synchronized in many ways. However, previous studies have shown that the semantic similarity between gestures and speech breaks down as people approach transitions in understanding. Explanations for these gesture–speech mismatches, which focus on gestures and speech expressing different cognitive strategies, have been criticized for disregarding gestures’ and speech's integration and synchronization. In the current study, we applied three different perspectives to investigate gesture–speech synchronization in an easy and a difficult task: temporal alignment, semantic similarity, and complexity matching. Participants engaged in a simple cognitive task and were assigned to either an easy or a difficult condition. We automatically measured pointing gestures, and we coded participant's speech, to determine the temporal alignment and semantic similarity between gestures and speech. Multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis was used to determine the extent of complexity matching between gestures and speech. We found that task difficulty indeed influenced gesture–speech synchronization in all three domains. We thereby extended the phenomenon of gesture–speech mismatches to difficult tasks in general. Furthermore, we investigated how temporal alignment, semantic similarity, and complexity matching were related in each condition, and how they predicted participants’ task performance. Our study illustrates how combining multiple perspectives, originating from different research areas (i.e., coordination dynamics, complexity science, cognitive psychology), provides novel understanding about cognitive concepts in general and about gesture–speech synchronization and task difficulty in particular.