Attentional cueing induces false memory

The fluency of stimulus processing significantly contributes to recognition memory judgments. We investigated the effect of processing fluency induced by attentional cueing on recognition judgments. Participants performed a Remember/Know recognition test, while their spatial attention was manipulated in the test session. Stimulus location was either predicted (congruent condition) or unpredicted (incongruent condition) using an arrow cue. The results revealed that familiarity-based false recognition increased in the incongruent condition wherein the participants may have attributed part of the perceived disfluency to the attentional cue, and they may have overestimated the fluency for the stimulus, leading to increased false recognition. However, in the congruent condition, the participants may have attributed some parts of the perceived fluency to the attentional cue and underestimated the fluency for the stimulus, leading to decreased false recognition. In sum, stimulus-irrelevant attentional cueing induces unintentional processing about the source of fluency and biases recognition memory.     

Discriminability between alternatives in a switching-key concurrent schedule

Six pigeons were trained to discriminate between two intensities of white light in a symbolic matching-to-sample procedure. These stimuli were then used to signal which schedule was available on the main key in a switching-key concurrent schedule. The concurrent schedules led to a symbolic matching-to-sample phase in which the subject identified the concurrent schedule to which it last responded before a reinforcer could be obtained. The concurrent schedules were varied across conditions. Discriminability, measured during the symbolic matching-to-sample performance, was high throughout and did not differ across the two procedures. Performance in the concurrent schedules was like that typically obtained using these schedules. Delays were then arranged between completion of the concurrent schedules and presentations of the symbolic matching-to-sample phase. A series of conditions with an intervening delay of 10 s showed that both concurrent-schedule performance and symbolic matching-to-sample performance were affected by the delay in a similar way; that is, choice responding was closer to indifference.     

Effects of modelling on children''s pretend play

The effects of modelling on pretend play were studied in children between 2.6 and 3.6 years of age by examining changes both in the action and language-based expressions of pretending. Three modelled scenes were demonstrated with the same realistic toys used by the child in the pre-modelling phase. The results gave support to the idea of the effectiveness of modelling. The effects of the modelled scenes were clearest among children whose pre-modelling play consisted of object-centred actions including few of pretending. The post-modelling play of this subgroup showed better quality of action and language categories and integration measures. Among the decentred players no significant action benefit could be achieved. This might have been an outcome of the contextual limits of the toy material and of the drop of play motivation caused by the model interruption. However, these children expressed verbal pretending revealing significant pre-post effects for inventive utterances.     

USING REINFORCEMENT AND CUEING TO INCREASE HEALTHY SNACK FOOD CHOICES IN PRESCHOOLERS

We examined the effects of behavioral procedures to modify the food choices of preschoolers during a snack period at school (training setting) and at home (generalization setting). In the first experiment, we evaluated the usefulness of nutrition training and a generalization programming strategy of cueing to improve healthy snacking; in the second experiment we investigated the effect of nutrition training alone. In addition, three cases are presented that illustrate individualized procedures to facilitate generalization of healthy snacking to home. Results indicated that children's healthy snack choices increased in the preschool training setting, that generalization to home was achieved only when procedures to program it were implemented, and that the best results were found when the generalization procedures were tailored to the individual child.     

Working with patients with disruptions in symbolic capacity1

This article focuses on understanding and working with patients who have poorly developed symbolic capacity, or for whom symbolic capacity has been disrupted due to trauma, particularly as it pertains to the use of reverie and interpretation in the analytic process. Many patients who present for Jungian analysis will initially present with deficits in symbolic functioning. This situation results in necessary limitations or modifications in utilizing traditional Jungian techniques such as dream analysis, active imagination, sand tray and other expressive art techniques. The initial phase of analytic work with these patients requires a focus on developing their symbolic capacity before traditional Jungian techniques can be utilized effectively. During the paper Jung's concept of ‘the symbolic attitude’ will be examined as well as the conceptual models of Wilfred Bion and other post-Bionians who outline theories and method for cultivating symbolic capacity and reflective functioning in patients for whom these capacities are impaired or poorly developed.     

The relationship between numerical mapping abilities,maths achievement and socioeconomic status in 4- and 5-year-old children

Background

Early numeracy skills are associated with academic and life-long outcomes. Children from low-income backgrounds typically have poorer maths outcomes, and their learning can already be disadvantaged before they begin formal schooling. Understanding the relationship between the skills that support the acquisition of early maths skills could scaffold maths learning and improve life chances.

Aims

The present study aimed to examine how the ability of children from different SES backgrounds to map between symbolic (Arabic numerals) and non-symbolic (dot arrays) at two difficulty ratios related to their math performance.

Sample

Participants were 398 children in their first year of formal schooling (Mean age = 60 months), and 75% were from low SES backgrounds.

Method

The children completed symbolic to non-symbolic and non-symbolic to symbolic mapping tasks at two difficulty ratios (1:2; 2:3) plus standardized maths tasks.

Results

The results showed that all the children performed better for symbolic to non-symbolic mapping and when the ratio was 1:2. Mapping task performance was significantly related to maths task achievement, but low-SES children showed significantly lower performance on all tasks.

Conclusion

The results suggest that mapping tasks could be a useful way to identify children at risk of low maths attainment.     

WHY A BRAIN CAPABLE OF LANGUAGE EVOLVED ONLY ONCE: PREFRONTAL CORTEX AND SYMBOL LEARNING

Abstract. Language and information processes are critical issues in scientific controversies regarding the qualities that epitomize humanness. Whereas some theorists claim human mental uniqueness with regard to language, others point to successes in teaching language skills to other animals. However, although these animals may learn names for things, they show little ability to utilize a complex framework of symbolic reference. In such a framework, words or other symbols refer not only to objects and concepts but also to sequential and hierarchical relationships with other symbols. This process is essential to human mental operations, including language, mathematics, and music. In humans, these operations may have coevolved with the prefrontal area of the cerebral cortex, which is proportionately much larger in humans than in other animals and more intricately linked with other areas of the brain. Analysis of the structure and function of the prefrontal area suggests that it is centrally involved in the operation of higher-order associative relationships involving the subordination of one set of associations to another. This alternate learning strategy apparently appeared at the cost of certain sensory, motor, or limbic abilities. The payoff was symbolic thinking. Humans thus are unique among species, not just for their highly developed language ability but for their odd style of thinking and learning.     

TRAINING PRESCHOOL CHILDREN TO RECRUIT NATURAL COMMUNITIES OF REINFORCEMENT1

Four normal and four deviant children aged four-to-six years were taught to judge the quality of their academic work in a preschool classroom, and to prompt or cue their teachers to comment about the quality of that work. When these skills did not generalize spontaneously to other teachers in concurrent natural situations, generalized responding was taught by the experimenter, in multiple-baseline design across subjects. This generalization programming enabled the children to contact a sometimes dormant, but readily available natural community of teacher praise and reinforcement, i.e., to recruit an increase in cued praise and schedules of praise for their good work. These behaviors may be important to young children who find themselves bereft of attention in classrooms.