The search for an input-coding scheme: Transposed-letter priming in Arabic

Two key issues for models of visual word recognition are the specification of an input-coding scheme and whether these input-coding schemes vary across orthographies. Here, we report two masked-priming lexical decision experiments that examined whether the ordering of the root letters plays a key role in producing transposed-letter effects in Arabic—a language characterized by non-concatenative morphology. In Experiment 1, letter transpositions involved two letters from the root, whereas in Experiment 2, letter transpositions involved one letter from the root and one letter from the word pattern. Results showed a reliable transposedletter priming effect when the ordering of the letters of the root was kept intact (Experiment 2), but not when two root letters were transposed (Experiment 1). These findings support the view that the order of the root letters is allowed only a minimum degree of perceptual noise to avoid the negative impact of activating the “wrong” root family.     

Children's Ability to Recognize Emotions From Partial and Complete Facial Expressions

The authors investigated children's ability to recognize emotions from the information available in the lower, middle, or upper face. School-age children were shown partial or complete facial expressions and asked to say whether they corresponded to a given emotion (anger, fear, surprise, or disgust). The results indicate that 5-year-olds were able to recognize fear, anger, and surprise from partial facial expressions. Fear was better recognized from the information located in the upper face than those located in the lower face. A similar pattern of results was found for anger, but only in girls. Recognition improved between 5 and 10 years old for surprise and anger, but not for fear and disgust.     

Children Show Selective Trust in Technological Informants

Although children are often exposed to technological devices early in life, little is known about how they evaluate these novel sources of information. In two experiments, children aged 3, 4, and 5 years old (n = 92) were presented with accurate and inaccurate computer informants, and they subsequently relied on information provided by the previously accurate computer to identify novel objects and answer questions about unfamiliar facts. In a third experiment, 4- and 5-year-olds also expressed a preference for using the accurate computer to find answers on their own and for explaining the inaccurate computer's errors as a function of problems with the device, rather than errors on the part of the human user. These results suggest that young children use prior history of accuracy as a domain-general means of evaluating informants and that children can apply this understanding outside of interactions with other people.     

Children's ability to distinguish between enjoyment and non‐enjoyment smiles

Children's ability to distinguish between enjoyment and non‐enjoyment smiles was investigated by presenting participants with short video excerpts of smiles. Enjoyment smiles differed from non‐enjoyment smiles by greater symmetry and by appearance changes produced in the eye region by the Cheek Raiser action. The results indicate that 6‐ and 7‐year‐old children have the abilities to detect these differences and are able to interpret them with above chance‐level accuracy. Sensitivity was higher for the symmetry of the smiles than for the appearance changes produced in the eye region and improved in later childhood. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Neuropsychological Functioning in Preschool-age Children with Sickle Cell Disease: The Role of Illness-related and Psychosocial Factors

Cognitive and academic deficits have been identified in school-aged children with sickle cell disease (SCD). However, there have been very few identified studies that examine neuropsychological functioning in preschool-age children with SCD. It is important to understand effects of SCD from a developmental perspective and to consider the contribution of environmental factors in this at-risk population. Neuropsychological functioning of preschool-age children with SCD and no history of overt stroke (n = 26) was examined across several domains (language, immediate memory/brief attention, visuospatial/visuoconstructional, motor/visuomotor). The mean Full Scale IQ for the sample was 89.0. Performance on the Immediate Memory/ Brief Attention domain was significantly higher than the other domains, although the pattern of performance was relatively consistent, with mean standard scores ranging from 88.0 to 95.0. Disease severity was not significantly related to cognitive functioning in this group of young children with SCD. Socioeconomic status (SES) was significantly correlated with most domain scores and, based on regression analyses, accounted for 18% to 47% of the variance in functioning. Psychosocial factors, such as number of children living in the home and parental stress levels, were negatively associated with Motor/Visuomotor skills, and weekly hours in school/day care was positively associated with language-related skills. Results suggest that, at this young age, psychosocial risk factors appear to be appropriate targets for intervention, with the goal of improving long-term outcome in children with SCD. Further investigations should include comparison to a matched control group.     

Of Lust and Love: A Cross-Cultural Study of Sex and Relationship Advice Articles in Women’s Magazines

This study offers a cross-cultural comparison of sex and relationship advice columns in contemporary women’s magazines. This study aims to investigate the prevailing messages and values women’s magazines promote to their readers and the way they present such values in relation to the norms and values of each society. Sixty advice articles on sex and relationships (ten from each magazine) were obtained online from six home-grown English language women’s magazines from three different contexts, which are, Malaysia, the US, and two Middle Eastern countries (Egypt and the UAE). In addition to analyzing the data for themes which are foregrounded, messages that are either backgrounded or omitted were also analyzed as scholars such as Huckin state that information that is backgrounded or even omitted say as much about a text and its values as messages which are explicitly foregrounded. The findings from the study reveal that there is a clear connection between the production of texts and the society the texts are set in. The writers of these texts are aware of the social norms and values of their society as they try to reflect that in the texts. Finally, the study finds that in all three contexts, women appear as empowered but this empowerment is situated within a traditional framework of male–female roles and heterosexist relationships.     

Physical similarity (and not quantity representation) drives perceptual comparison of numbers: evidence from two Indian notations

Numerical quantity seems to affect the response in any task that involves numbers, even in tasks that do not demand access to quantity (e.g., perceptual tasks). That is, readers seem to activate quantity representations upon the mere presentation of integers. One important piece of evidence in favor of this view comes from the finding of a distance effect in perceptual tasks: When one compares two numbers, response times (RTs) are a function of the numerical distance between them. However, recent studies have suggested that the physical similarity between Arabic numbers is strongly correlated with their numerical distance, and that the former could be a better predictor of RT data in perceptual tasks in which magnitude processing is not required (Cohen, 2009a). The present study explored the Persian and Arabic versions of Indian numbers (Exps. 1 and 2, respectively). Na?ve participants (speakers of Spanish) and users of these notations (Pakistanis and Jordanians) participated in a physical same–different matching task. The RTs of users of the Indian notations were regressed on perceptual similarity (estimated from the Spanish participants’ RTs) and numerical distance. The results showed that, regardless of the degree of correlation between the perceptual similarity function and the numerical distance function, the critical predictor for RTs was perceptual similarity. Thus, participants do not automatically activate Indian integers’ quantity representations, at least not when these numbers are presented in simple perceptual tasks.     

Maternal Experience with Online Information on Parenting and Infant Care: Qualitative Findings from Quebec,Canada

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Use of online health information is positively associated with citizen knowledge, empowerment, self-care, health outcomes, and quality of life. However, little...