Preference for Human (vs. Robotic) Labor is Stronger in Symbolic Consumption Contexts

Advances in robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence increasingly enable firms to replace human labor with technology, thereby fundamentally transforming how goods and services are produced. From both managerial and societal points of view, it is therefore important to understand demand‐side incentives for firms to employ human labor. We begin to address this question by examining for which products and services consumers are more likely to favor human (vs. robotic) labor. In six studies, we demonstrate that consumers prefer human (vs. robotic) labor more for products with higher (vs. lower) symbolic value (e.g., when expressing something about one's beliefs and personality is of greater importance). We theorize that this is because consumers have stronger uniqueness motives in more (vs. less) symbolic consumption contexts (and associate human labor more strongly with product uniqueness). In line with this account, we demonstrate that individual differences in need for uniqueness moderate the interaction between production mode and symbolic motives and that a measure of uniqueness motives mediates the effect of consumption context on preferences for human (vs. robotic) production.     

Infants' comprehension of toy replicas as symbols for real objects

Infants' understanding of toy model-real exemplar relations was assessed through preferential looking and habituation tasks. Results from the preferential looking task suggest that 18-month toddlers are just beginning to demonstrate comprehension of symbolic relations between iconic models and their real object counterparts. Performance of 10- and 14-month-old infants in the preferential looking task did not improve when across-domain pairs of videos were used in place of within-domain pairs. Habituation task results indicated that 10-month-olds do not comprehend symbolic relations between miniature toy replicas and their "real" counterparts, but that such understanding begins to emerge by age 14 months. Interactions between symbolic processing and early lexical development are considered, as are methodological implications for the study of infant categorization.     

The development and predictive relations of play and language across the second year.

The play and language development of 171 toddlers was examined at 14 and 18 months by observing their activities on the Symbolic Play Test and by assessing their language skills using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (MCDI) and the Reynell Developmental Language Scales. Additionally, data from the Bayley Scales of Infant Development and the MCDI were obtained at 24 months, in order to investigate how play and language measures taken at 14 and 18 months predict children's development at the age of 2 years. The results showed that the vocabulary production and symbolic play of the 14-month-old toddlers made a unique contribution to their language and cognitive skills at the age of 2 years, while at 18 months only language variables made a similar contribution. Other-directed pretense discriminated between the children's subsequent language and cognitive skills best, whereas nonsymbolic play had no independent predictive contribution. Significant gender differences were found in the use of nonsymbolic and symbolic play acts already at 14 months. Gender did not, however, contribute to the prediction of the children's subsequent skills, whereas maternal education significantly added to the prediction of the 2-year-olds' maximum sentence length and that of their cognitive development.     

Children's representation of symbolic and nonsymbolic magnitude examined with the priming paradigm

How people process and represent magnitude has often been studied using number comparison tasks. From the results of these tasks, a comparison distance effect (CDE) is generated, showing that it is easier to discriminate two numbers that are numerically further apart (e.g., 2 and 8) compared with numerically closer numbers (e.g., 6 and 8). However, it has been suggested that the CDE reflects decisional processes rather than magnitude representation. In this study, therefore, we investigated the development of symbolic and nonsymbolic number processes in kindergartners and first, second, and sixth graders using the priming paradigm. This task has been shown to measure magnitude and not decisional processes. Our findings revealed that a priming distance effect (PDE) is already present in kindergartners and that it remains stable across development. This suggests that formal schooling does not affect magnitude representation. No differences were found between the symbolic and nonsymbolic PDE, indicating that both notations are processed with comparable precision. Finally, a poorer performance on a standardized mathematics test seemed to be associated with a smaller PDE for both notations, possibly suggesting that children with lower mathematics scores have a less precise coding of magnitude. This supports the defective number module hypothesis, which assumes an impairment of number sense.     

The effect of Obama saliency on individual-level racial bias: Silver bullet or smokescreen?

President Obama's election has been construed as a potentially positive force for intergroup relations, but this issue has not been previously addressed experimentally. In experiment 1, conducted 4-5 months after the election, White participants were primed with either President Obama or nature before completing a variety of race-related measures. Results indicated that priming Obama did not influence implicit racial bias or internal motivation to control prejudice. However, consistent with exemplar and symbolic racism theories, participants primed with President Obama expressed greater agreement with the tenets of symbolic racism and were more reluctant to accept the possibility that they personally harbored subtle racial bias. Experiment 2, conducted 21 months after the election, replicated the Obama effects from experiment 1 and showed that priming another Black exemplar (Oprah) also increased symbolic racism. Results suggest that highly successful Black exemplars currently serve as a smokescreen for symbolic and subtle racial biases.     

First symbols in a girl with Down syndrome: A longitudinal study from 12 to 18 months

Symbolic uses of objects originate in communicative and triadic contexts (adult–child-object). In this longitudinal study we explore the emergence and development of the first symbolic uses in triadic interaction contexts in a girl with Down syndrome between 12 and 18-months of age. We conducted five sessions of video recording, at 12, 13½, 15, 16½, and 18 months chronological age. At each session we videotaped the girl and her mother interacting with different objects. Data were coded in semiotic categories used in previous studies (Rodríguez & Moro, 1999) and a microgenetic analysis was conducted for each session. The first symbolic uses by the girl appeared at 13½ months. Symbols were of different types and levels of complexity, and the adult had an important role in facilitating the production of these symbols.     

The role of perceptual similarity of the task environments in children’s perseverative responding

Perseverative responding is often seen in children’s performance in a variety of contexts. One such context is symbolic comprehension in which 2- and 2½-year-olds demonstrate difficulty in appreciating the association of symbols (pictures and scale models) and their referents and show a high proportion of perseverative responding. Representational-level explanations of perseveration were explored in the current studies via examination of the impact of perceptual similarity of visual environments across trials. Across two experiments, children saw either a picture (Experiment 1) or a scale model (Experiment 2) of a hiding location of a room and were then encouraged to recover the toy from an identical room. Manipulating the perceptual similarity of the environments across successive trials affected performance and perseverative responding. These results highlight the critical role played by perceptual information not only in symbolic tasks but also in many other tasks and have important implications for theories of perseveration.     

Recovery from trauma: identification with the 'octor-monter' (doctor monster) – a description of psychotherapy with a 3½-year-old boy who had come close to death at 10 days old

This paper describes intensive psychotherapy with a 3½-year-old boy who had come close to death at 10 days old, with urinary reflux and meningitis. The paper describes the way in which Jamie protected himself from unbearable terrors by being in identification with a builder. It tracks the way in which containment in the therapy allowed him to begin a process of experimenting with different identities through engaging in pretend play. The latter part of the paper looks at Jamie's subsequent development and examines the links between trauma and inconsistencies in his capacity for symbolic thought.     

Going the distance: Extra-symbolic contributions to the symbolic control of spatial attention

Over the past 30 years, researchers have used symbolic cues such as spatial words and arrows to direct observers' attention to the location of target objects that appear at a single, fixed distance in simple visual environments; however, they have done so by using symbolic cues that provide only partial—directional—information about the spatial location of target objects. Thus, it remains unclear whether observers can only shift their attention broadly in the cued direction in response to these cues or whether they can shift their attention to the specific location of the target by combining an expectation about direction (derived from apprehension of the directional cue) with an expectation about distance (derived from some extra-symbolic cue). The results of two experiments showed that observers do shift their attention to relatively coarse spatial locations by combining expectancies about direction and distance, and that the extent to which observers do so is modulated by the presence of visible markers and the expected distance of the target. These findings are important because they provide the first evidence that extra-symbolic information about distance contributes to the symbolic control of spatial attention.     

Fostering young children's representation, planning, and reflection: A focus in three current early childhood models

Many educators and developmental psychologists have pointed to the development of symbolic thought and representational abilities as a set of fundamental capacities that underlie the development of self-regulation, problem solving, planning, and higher level thought processes. While many early childhood programs value children's development of symbolic capacities, three approaches, High/Scope, Tools of the Mind, and Reggio Emilia, were analyzed in terms of one context from the array of strategies and experiences that characterizes the approach in order to examine the distinctive way that three different preschool programs apply the theoretical construct of representational development to pedagogical strategies.