7-11-year-old children show an advantage for matching and recognizing the internal features of familiar faces: Evidence against a developmental shift

Adults are better at recognizing familiar faces from the internal facial features (eyes, nose, mouth) than from the external facial features (hair, face outline). However, previous research suggests that this “internal advantage” does not appear until relatively late in childhood, and some studies suggest that children rely on external features to recognize all faces, whether familiar or not. We use a matching task to examine face processing in 7-8- and 10-11-year-old children. We use a design in which all face stimuli can be used as familiar items (for participants who are classmates) and unfamiliar items (for participants from a different school). Using this design, we find an internal feature advantage for matching familiar faces, for both groups of children. The same children were then shown the external and internal features of their classmates and were asked to name or otherwise identify them. Again, both age groups identified more of their classmates correctly from the internal than the external features. This is the first time an internal advantage has been reported in this age group. Results suggest that children as young as 7 process faces in the same way as do adults, and that once procedural difficulties are overcome, the standard effects of familiarity are observed.     

PROMOTING LAW ENFORCEMENT FOR CHILD PROTECTION: A COMMUNITY ANALYSIS

The Colorado Occupant Protection Project (COPP) intervention provided police with brief instruction concerning the importance of citations for drivers' failure to use child safety seats and special coupons to accompany citations. Coupons were exchangeable by drivers for a safety seat and brief training in its use, plus a waiver of the $50 citation fine. Over 4.5 years of archival records were employed, using an ABA design and a comparison community to evaluate the program. Few tickets were issued for nonuse of safety seats during the 3-year baseline in either community. Citations for nonuse of safety seats increased to over 50 per month during the intervention period at the test site, whereas rates remained essentially zero at the comparison site. After the COPP intervention was removed at the intervention site, citation rates for nonuse of safety seats decreased to about 15 per month. Differences between intervention conditions and settings were statistically significant. During the intervention, officers were 44 times more likely to write citations than were controls. Results suggested that a behavioral program can increase police citation writing for child protection purposes.     

‘Healthy eating’ clinics in primary care: Programme intensity and patients' health beliefs

The primary care setting is seen by many to be at the forefront of the attempt to encourage people to follow healthier diets. Conducted in a single practice, the present study firstly considered the effectiveness of three ‘healthy eating’ clinics for patients found to have elevated cholesterol levels at screening. Through the use of a randomised trial, these patients received either basic dietay information or were invited back more frequently and requested to complete food diaries, half of which were then analysed through a computer program. At one year follow up the three programmes were found to have produced a 6.7% reduction in cholesterol levels. However, no differences were found between the three programmes. The study secondly examined a range of health belieji, based on the health belief model, as predictors of reductions in cholesterol levels. These were generally found to be poor predictors, with only the belief that one's diet is related to the chances of developing a number of major conditions and the perception of bam'ers dealing with confidence predicting these reductions. Finally, the case for incorporating self-efficacy beliefs into the healh belief model is outlined and the need for health counsellors to tailor their messages to the pre-existing beliefi and behaviours of patients is highlighted.     

Admissions interviews at university as counselling tools

Little research has been conducted on the university admissions interview, and with increasing selection ratios there has been a tendency for universities to dispense with interviews altogether. This paper argues for a re-assertion of the interview as a valuable component of the admissions procedure, not necessarily to improve institutional decision-making but for the guidance and personal decision-making of candidates. The rationale for treating admissions interviews as opportunities for counselling are reviewed, and the advantages for both candidates and institutions are outlined.     

Development and validation of a standardized measure of employee turnover risk

This article describes the development, reliability, and initial validation of the Tenure Scale. The scale was designed as an attitudinal predictor of turnover risk to be used for pre-employment selection. Two validation studies are reported. In study one, significant results were obtained between Tenure Scale scores and self report measures of: a) past and present job tenure; b) intentions to quit; c) job search behaviors; and d) intentions to remain committed to one's job. In study two, significant relationships were established between Tenure Scale scores and on-the-job measures of turnover risk, including work performance, absenteeism rates, and length of employment. No adverse impact was found against any protected group in study two. The relationship of these results with job turnover theory is discussed, and future validation research is suggested.Portions of this research study were presented at the 1988 Annual Conference of the Association of Human Resources Management and Organizational Behavior, Long Beach, California, October 26–29.     

Electrophysiological correlates of semantic features

Analyses of averaged auditory evoked responses to a list of 10 positive and 10 negative words led to the identification of a restricted region in the brain response which reliably discriminated between words differing in the semantic features positive and negative. These data support the view that word meanings are composed of more basic components or features and are not stored simply as dictionary items in the brain.