Conditioned and unconditioned caloric compensation: Evidence for self-regulation of food intake in young children

The purpose of these two experiments was to determine (a) whether young children can be responsive to caloric density cues in regulating their food intake, (b) whether such cues can be associatively conditioned to organoleptic cues in foods, and (c) to obtain evidence regarding which of the many cues available are involved as conditioned stimuli. In Experiment 1 participants were eighteen 3- to 5-year-old children, who were seen for a series of pairs of conditioning trials, followed by extinction test trials. Each trial consisted of a two-part snack: approximately 100 ml of a pudding preload (chocolate or vanilla; high or low caloric density) followed after a delay by ad-lib consumption of snack foods (cookies and crackers). In extinction trials, flavors previously paired with high- or low-caloric density preloads during conditioning were presented in isocaloric intermediate density preloads. Results indicated that 14 of 18 children showed unconditioned caloric compensation on the first pair of conditioning trials; 16 of 18 children showed compensation following the second pair of trials, and 12 of these 16 subjects continued to show this consumption pattern during extinction. Consumption was significantly greater following the low calorie paired flavor than following the high calorie paired flavor during extinction. Experiment 2 (N = 10) replicated these findings, and uncorrelating preload and snack food flavors indicated that flavor cues in the preloads can serve as conditioned stimuli. Children showed both initial responsiveness to caloric density and evidence for associative conditioning of food cues to the physiological consequences of eating. These results provide initial evidence for a mechanism allowing the child to learn to anticipate the caloric consequences of familiar foods and regulate food intake accordingly.     

The effects of recency and story content on children's moral judgments

Sixteen stories were read to children at ages 4, 7, and 11 years and to college freshmen (n = 24 per age level) to investigate the effects of recency and specific story content on the development of moral reasoning. The stories consisted of either positive or negative intention and either positive or negative consequence in one of four situations: rule breaking, property damage, property damage with peer interaction, or injury to a person. At each age level, half of the subjects heard the stories with the intention first and the consequence second, and half heard them in the reverse order. Analyses confirmed that in general younger children judged on consequence, whereas older children utilized intention, and that on stories containing intentional injury to a person, the younger child took intention into account. Recency effects were evidenced for both the 4- and 7-year-olds. In the 4-year-old group, however, the recency effects failed to override the salience of negative consequence in contexts of positive intention and negative consequence. This suggests that preschool children may respond primarily to the negative aspect of the story, whether intention or consequence.     

Children's relative number judgments: One-to-one correspondence,recognition of noncorrespondence,and the influence of cue conflict

Although one-to-one correspondence can be seen as a component of successful counting, number conservation, and relative number judgments, there is evidence of considerable discrepancies between children's competencies in these different tasks. Concerning relative number judgments there are strikingly different claims concerning the ability of young children to make one-to-one correspondence-based judgments. In part these discrepancies reflect differences in criteria. Four experiments are reported in which 5-year-olds' relative number judgments of small and large number displays with and without perceptual aids were studied. Children were found to respond to local rather than global density differences and to benefit from the provision of perceptual aids on both small and large number displays with one exception, namely, large number displays where the longer row is less numerous.     

A comparison of monocular and binocular depth perception in 5- and 7-month-old infants

Monocular depth perception was compared with binocular depth perception in 5- and 7-month-old infants. Reaching was used as the dependent measure. Two objects, identical except in size, were presented simultaneously to each infant. The smaller object was within reach for the infants while the larger object was just beyond reach. The two objects subtended equal visual angles from the infants' observation point. With binocular presentation, 96% of the 7-month-olds' reaches and 89% of the 5-month-olds' reaches were for the nearer object. With monocular presentation, 58% of the 7-month-olds' reaches and 65% of the 5-month-olds' reaches were for the nearer object. The reaching preferences observed in the monocular condition indicated sensitivity to monocular depth information (motion parallax, accommodation, and relative size information were available). Binocular viewing, however, resulted in a far more consistent tendency to reach for the nearer object. This result suggests that the infants' perception of the objects' distances was more veridical in the binocular condition than in the monocular condition.     

Effects of diagnostic classification systems on clinical hypothesis-generation

In this study it was determined whether (a) classification as opposed to absence of classification has an effect on the quality of clinical hypotheses (b) the DSM-III-R and the CBCL have a different effect on the quality of clinical hypotheses, and (c) the potential difference between the DSM-III-R and the CBCL is moderated by the different number of syndromes identified by these systems. To investigate these questions, an experiment was conducted in which 86 clinicians generated hypotheses for six cases. The clinicians were divided into a DSM-III-R, a CBCL, and a control group. Of the six cases, two were classified by both classification systems as one syndrome, two were classified as one syndrome by the DSM-III-R but as two syndromes by the CBCL, and two were classified as two syndromes by the DSM-III-R but as one syndrome by the CBCL. The quality of the hypotheses was determined by means of four dependent variables selected from an overview of qualitative criteria: explanatory value, redundancy, possibility of operationalization, and specificity. No differences between the CBCL and the control groups were found. The DSM group performed better than the control group regarding explanatory value and redundancy. The DSM-III-R group also scored better than the CBCL group regarding explanatory value, particularly when the number of identified syndromes was two for the CBCL and one for the DSM-III-R.     

Attention demands of movements as a function of their duration and velocity

The attention demands of initiating and controlling discrete movements were examined as a function of their movement time (MT) and average movement velocity. Experiment 1 showed that the attention required to execute a movement decreased as MT decreased, although Experiment 2 through independently manipulating MT and movement velocity, revealed that movement velocity is the key determiner of attention demands rather than MT. The attention demands of preparing a high velocity movement are greater than during its execution with the reverse being the case for relatively slow velocity movements. The results are compatible with the view that it is the initiation of error corrections that are attention demanding (Keele 1973).     

Sensitivity of 5- and 7-month-old infants to pictorial depth information

An Ames (1951, Psychological Monographs, 65(1, Whole No. 324)) static trapezoidal window, under monocular view, was used to test young infants' responsiveness to pictorial depth. When adults view this display monocularly with the smaller side of the window rotated toward them, they report that the orientation of the display becomes ambiguous: When the head is moved, the window may appear to be in the fronto-parallel plane or either side may appear closer. The 7-month-olds we tested appeared to experience a similar ambiguity; they reached to the near side of the rotated trapezoidal window with significantly less consistency or directedness than infants in a control group tested with a rotated object that lacked pictorial depth information. When 5-month-olds were tested, however, they reached with equal consistency to the closer side of the trapezoidal window and of the control display, apparently uninfluenced by the pictorial depth information available in the trapezoidal window. Thus, sensitivity to the pictorial information for depth that is present in the trapezoidal window appears to develop after the age of 22 weeks.     

An observational case study of failure in social problem-solving

An observationally based assessment of social problem-solving skill was contrasted with more traditional testing methods. A preschool child with low social success was chosen for a demonstration profile analysis. The relative frequencies of the social goals, strategies, and targets shown by this child during free play were plotted in relation to that of his same-sex peer group. Parallel profiles of his relative success with specific goals, strategies, and targets were also constructed and compared to relevant group means and standard deviations. Specific social problem-solving strengths and weaknesses were identified from these profiles, using both intra- and interindividual analyses. The benefits and limitations of this approach for measurement and treatment of social problem-solving deficits were discussed.     

Interpersonal problem solving: An intervention program for preschool children

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention program designed to train preschool children in interpersonal problem solving skills. Forty preschool age children were randomly assigned to an experimental or control group. Experimental subjects were trained in interpersonal problem solving skills for ten weeks, four days per week, for a total of 10–13 hours. Problem-solving skills were assessed at pretest, posttest, and three months after training was completed. Seventy-eight percent of the children who participated in pretest and posttest were tested at follow-up. Results indicated that the experimental group, compared to the control group, showed a significant increase in both cognitive—verbal and behavioral interpersonal problem-solving skills from pretest to posttest and that these changes were maintained at follow-up testing. Discussion focuses on suggestions for future research and implications for applied settings.