bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Teaming up Type As and Bs: The Effects of Group Composition on Performance and Satisfaction
Authors: Keinan Giora , Koren Miri
Published: March 2003

Malgré la possibilité d’augmenter la compréhension théorique et pratique, très peu d’attention a été portée sur le rôle du style comportemental de Type A dans la médiation de la performance et de la satisfaction des groupes. Cette étude avait pour but de parer à cette lacune en se penchant sur la performance des groupes et la satisfaction mutuelle de membres de Type A et de Type B dans des groupes homogènes et hétérogènes. Dans deux études, 180 participants ont été assignés à des groupes de trois membres regroupant des Type A et B en différentes proportions. Les groupes devaient réalisés des tâches compétitives et non compétitives. Les résultats ont démontré que les groupes avec une majorité de membres de Type A étaient pıus performants que les groupes avec une majorité de membres de Type B, cette différence étant supérieure lorsque la tâche était de nature compétitive. De plus, les résultats ont révélé que les membres, autant de Type A que de Type B, étaient généralement plus satisfaits lorsque regroupés avec des membres du même type qu’eux. Enfin, les implications théoriques et pratiques de ces résultats sont discutées.

Despite the potential to gain significant theoretical insights and practical inputs, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of Type A behavior pattern (TABP) in mediating the performance and satisfaction of groups. This study aimed to fill up this lacuna, by focusing on group performance and mutual satisfaction of Type As and Type Bs operating in homogeneous and heterogeneous teams. In two studies, 180 participants were allocated to three‐member teams consisting of Type As and Type Bs in different proportions. The teams performed competitive and noncompetitive tasks. Results showed that teams consisting primarily of Type A members were more productive than predominantly Type B teams, and that this difference was enhanced when the teams performed competitive tasks. In addition, results showed that both Type As and Type Bs were generally more satisfied when teamed up with same‐type members. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Participation and Power: A Critical Assessment
Authors: Heller Frank
Published: March 2003

A partir d’un examen rapide de la littérature concernée, cet article évalue l’étendue de la participation et du partage du pouvoir dans les organisations modernes. De ce domaine émane un optimisme que les résultats confirment mal. Les travaux empiriques montrent qu’il n’y a en réalité qu’un très faible partage de l’influence et du pouvoir dans la plupart des organisations modernes. On tente de donner un début d’explication en suivant quatre pistes théoriques et méthodologiques. Tout d’abord, il est recommandé d’établir une distinction claire entre la participation, c’est‐à‐dire prendre part à une activité, et le pouvoir qui implique une certaine influence sur l’activité. Deuxièmement, les recherches sur la participation s’appuient rarement sur un modèle théorique. Des trois modéles présentés dans l’article, trois sont adaptés à ce champ de recherches. Troisièmement, il est possible d’attribuer l’absence de partage de l’influence dans les organisations modernes à l’impossibilité de détecter les variables pertinentes, par exemple les compétences. Enfin, le plan de la plupart des recherches sur la participation est étroitement centré sur un ou deux microéchelons, est transversal et mécanique alors que le sujet requiert une approche systémique ou holistique à niveaux multiples. Les avantages d’une solution systémique sont illustrés avec des exemples. Bien que la confirmation empirique exige des études complémentaires, elle fait entrevoir les ouvertures, basées sur la théorie et les données, qu’offre une solution “idéal‐type”.

Through a brief review of the relevant literature, this paper is concerned with assessing the extent of participation and power‐sharing in modern organisations. The field is imbued with optimism that is not well supported by results. The empirical evidence suggests that there is, in reality, very little distribution of influence and power in most modern organisations. An explanation is attempted by tackling four theoretical‐methodological issues. In the first place it is advisable to make a clear distinction between participation, meaning taking part in an activity, and power, which implies a degree of influence over the activity. Second, participation research is rarely based on a theoretical model. The paper describes three models, two of which are appropriate for this area of research. Third, it is possible to attribute the lack of influence sharing in modern organisations to a failure to identify significant contingencies, for instance competence. Fourth, the design of most research on participation is narrowly focused on one or two micro levels, is cross‐sectional and mechanistic although the subject matter requires a multi‐level holistic or systems approach. The advantage of systemic design is illustrated by examples. Although the empirical evidence requires further support, it reveals possibilities, based on theory and data that allow an “ideal type” solution to be put forward.
The Emerging Market for On‐line Learning: insights from the Corporate Sector
Authors: Capper Joanne
Published: March 2003

Over the past few years, many universities worldwide have begun delivering some of their courses on‐line and new ones have emerged that offer only Internet‐based courses. Many policy makers and managers question whether on‐line learning is cost effective and wonder whether it is a direction they should pursue. This article is based on interviews with a number of for‐profit on‐line learning providers and market analysts and provides a summary of strategies that are being used by such companies to increase their likelihood of profitability.
The Effects of Fraud Risk and Management Representation on Auditors’ Hypothesis Generation
Authors: Ng Terence Bu‐Peow , Green Wendy , Simnett Roger
Published: March 2003

Hypothesis generation is considered to be critical to the effectiveness and efficiency of diagnostic processes in auditing. Using a between‐subjects experimental design, this work examines the impact of fraud risk and the availability of a non‐misstatement management explanation on auditors’ hypothesis generation performance. The context is when managers undertake analytical procedures at the planning stage of the audit. The results indicate that auditors are sensitive to increased fraud risk by generating more fraud hypotheses, while the number of misstatement hypotheses generated is not affected by fraud risk. The availability of a non‐misstatement management explanation was found not to interfere with auditors’ hypothesis generation performance, but facilitated the generation of proportionately more misstatement and fraud hypotheses from the same transaction cycle as that indicated by the management explanation. Together, these findings provide some insights on the sensitivity of auditors’ hypothesis generation to fraud risk and whether this sensitivity could be undermined by the availability of management representations.
The Loser’s Curse: Accounting for the Transaction Costs of Takeover and the Distortion of Takeover Motives
Authors: Meeks G. , Buckland J. G.
Published: March 2003

Studies for major stock markets of share price movements in the period around a takeover show that target company shareholders typically experience large gains in wealth but that acquiring company shareholders do not. The reasons for this asymmetry–and, in particular, for the absence of gains for the shareholders of the companies which initiate the deal–are imperfectly understood. This note suggests one factor contributing to those results. It argues that accounting practice prescribed by the main standard setters is non‐neutral towards ‘successful’ and ‘unsuccessful’ bidders with respect to reporting the transaction costs of bidding. It shows how the prescribed accounting treatment of these costs affects performance measures used in salary contracts as well as in the markets for executives and for corporate control. The result is that the managers of bidding companies will have an ‘arti ?cial’ incentive to in ?ate their bid price or to go ahead with a bid which offers no bene ?t to their shareholders. Ironically, the main standard setters seem minded soon to prohibit the only accounting technique which does not distort these incentives.
The Poverty–Purdah Trap in Rural Bangladesh: Implications for Women's Roles in the Family
Authors: Amin Sajeda
Published: March 2003

Trends in poverty, working through changing roles of women in income generation, have been advanced as one explanation of changing fertility in Bangladesh. This paper examines women's work patterns in two rural villages in northern Bangladesh and finds little evidence of increasing workforce participation, despite high contraceptive use rates. Observation of women's work patterns suggests that purdah, the practice of female seclusion, influences and conditions women's decisions regarding roles they assume, and remains a dominant influence in women's lives, showing little evidence of responsiveness to poverty.
Theorizing Access: Forest Profits along Senegal's Charcoal Commodity Chain
Authors: Ribot Jesse C.
Published: March 2003

The questions at the centre of this article are: who profits from commercial forestry, and how? Through access mapping with commodity chain analysis, this study examines the distribution of benefits from Senegal's charcoal trade and the multiple market mechanisms underpinning that distribution. Benefits from charcoal are derived from direct control over forest access, as well as through access to markets, labour opportunities, capital, and state agents and officials. Access to these arenas is based on a number of inter‐related mechanisms including legal property, social identity, social relations, coercion and information control. A commodity chain is the series of relations through which an item passes, from extraction through conversion, exchange, transport, distribution and final use. Access mapping involves evaluating the distribution of benefits along the chain, and tracing out the mechanisms by which access to benefits is maintained. It sheds light on the limited role of property, the embedded nature of markets, and the role of extra‐legal structures and mechanisms in shaping equity and efficiency in resource use. It does so in a socially situated, multi‐local manner, spanning the geographic spread of production and exchange. It also illuminates the practical issues surrounding establishment of community participation in benefits from and control over natural resources.
The French Colonial Policy of Assimilation and the Civility of the Originaires of the Four Communes (Senegal): A Nineteenth Century Globalization Project
Authors: Diouf Mamadou
Published: March 2003

This article analyses French assimilation policy towards the four communes of the colony of Senegal, placing it in a new conceptual framework of ‘globalization’ and ‘post‐colonial studies’. Between the end of the eighteenth and the middle of the nineteenth century, the four cities of Saint‐Louis, Gorée, Rufisque and Dakar were granted municipal status, while their inhabitants acquired French citizenship. However, the acquisition of these political privileges went together with a refusal on the part of these ‘citizens’ to submit themselves to the French code civil. Their resistance manifested itself in particular in the forging of an urban culture that differed from both the metropolitan model and the Senegambian models of the independent kingdoms on the colony's fringes or the societies integrated as protectorates. This article argues that, at the very heart of this colonial project and despite its marked assimilationist and jacobin overtones, a strong project of cultural and political hybridization developed. The inhabitants of the quatre communes forged their own civilité which enabled them to participate in a global colonial culture on the basis of local idioms.
Dead Certainty: Ethnic Violence in the Era of Globalization
Authors: Appadurai Arjun
Published: March 2003

This article explores the links between globalization and ethnic violence in comparative perspective. By looking at ethnographic material from Central Africa, Europe, India and China, the paper suggests that bodily violence between social intimates may be viewed as a form of vivisection, and as an effort to resolve unacceptable levels of uncertainty through bodily deconstruction. This approach may cast light on the surplus of rage displayed in many recent episodes of inter‐group violence. At the same time, the study suggests that the conditions for such extreme and intimate violence may partly lie in the deformation of national and local spaces of everyday life by the physical and moral pressures of globalization.
Unpacking the ‘Joint’ in Joint Forest Management
Authors: Sundar Nandini
Published: March 2003

This article examines the concept of ‘jointness’ in India’s Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme, understood as an engagement between the state (in this case the Forest Department) and people organized into ‘communities’, with NGOs, where available, acting as the interface. By examining the commonalities between older examples of joint or co‐management of resources and current practices of joint forest management, the article challenges the notion that ‘jointness’ is a new feature of forest policy, or that it represents a resurgence of civil society against the state. Further, insofar as the basic agenda of the programme is pre‐determined, it cannot be considered very participatory in nature. None the less, within the limited degree of choice that JFM allows, there is a new and joint construction of needs.
Remote Sensibilities: Discourses of Technology and the Making of Indonesia’s Natural Disaster
Authors: Harwell Emily
Published: March 2003

During the extended El Nin˜o drought of 1997–8, fires devastated Indonesia’s forests, creating a vast shroud of smoke that reached as far as mainland Southeast Asia. This article examines the interpretation of these fires — their causes, damages and solutions — by the Indonesian government, international donors, environmental activists and local farmers. It explores the contexts and consequences of these discourses of disaster, and specifically investigates the central role of remote technology — a ‘hegemonic’ representational tool, in some circumstances creatively appropriated to serve new democratic agendas. A narrow focus on remotely sensed data is not strictly a methodological but also a political choice, one which obscures alternative experiences of disaster and produces solutions that do not address long term social and political processes leading to the fires. What is missing from most current analyses of the fires, and from remote assessments in general, is a textured understanding of social landscapes and the role they play in creating fire hazards.
Mare Nullius: Indigenous Rights in Saltwater Environments
Authors: Mulrennan Monica , Scott Colin
Published: March 2003

This article uses two case studies to illustrate the subjection of indigenous peoples’ marine territories to a ‘double jeopardy’ of exclusion — jurisdictional and proprietary — through the legal and administrative practices of European ‘settler’ states in Australia and Canada. While the fiction of terra nullius as a legal rationale for refuting indigenous rights of property and governance has steadily eroded in recent decades, its counterpart mare nullius has proven, so far, more resistant. The authors examine how state conceptions of jurisdiction, property and boundary‐making in coastal areas accomplish the distortion and fragmentation of the coastal and marine spaces of Torres Strait Islanders in northern Queensland, Australia, and of the Cree and Inuit peoples of James and Hudson Bays in northern Que´bec, Canada. Assumptions of land–sea continuity underlie these peoples’ cultural constructions of coastal and marine environments. In examining the progress that each has made in reasserting ownership and control of coast and sea, it seems that recognition and reinforcement of their institutions for managing marine spaces and resources offer the best prospect for reconnecting fractured jurisdictional domains, and for bringing about social equity, environmental protection, and self‐determined regional development.
Urban Unemployment and Migrants in Africa: Evidence from Harare 1985–1994
Authors: Potts Deborah
Published: March 2003

Unemployment is a major problem in urban centres in sub‐Saharan Africa. The impact of policies associated with structural adjustment programmes has frequently meant major formal job losses in both the public and private sectors. Although it is widely recognized that there has been a major (further) shift into the informal sector, it is also often claimed that ‘unemployment’ rates have greatly increased. When it is also assumed that net rural–urban migration has continued at a rapid pace, this is believed to be a significant contributor to the rise in unemployment. However, because ‘unemployment’ and ‘underemployment’ are hard to measure and to keep discrete when studying urban Africa, it is apparent that there is much confusion over current levels and trends in unemployment. This article discusses the problems of analysing African urban unemployment, drawing in particular on a recent ILO report, and presents evidence from long‐term research on migrants in Harare which casts doubt on the extent to which net in‐migration is a major factor contributing to unemployment in contemporary, economically adjusting sub‐Saharan Africa.
‘Benchmarking’ and Participatory Development: The Case of Fiji’s Sugar Industry Reforms
Authors: Snell Darryn , Prasad Satendra
Published: March 2003

Since the mid‐1970s, opposition has grown within developing countries to the use of ‘top‐down’ development approaches by foreign consultants. Disenchantment with these development strategies, it is often claimed, has led to the current incorporation of participation in consultants’ development practices. This study is concerned with the practice and methods of participatory development planning. It evaluates the Strategic Plan adopted by the Fiji sugar industry in 1997 in response to challenges that are attributed to the pressures of globalization and international competitiveness. The authors assess the external consultant’s self‐proclaimed ‘participatory methods’ in the articulation of these challenges, in the design of restructuring programmes, and in shaping the discourses of reform more generally. The consultant’s use of the fashionable ‘benchmarking’ methodology is seen to be one of the most problematic features of the ‘participatory’ process.
On the Targeting and Cost‐Effectiveness of Anti‐Poverty Programmes in Rural India
Authors: Gaiha Raghav , Imai Katsushi , Kaushik P. D.
Published: March 2003

This article is motivated by a concern for the cost‐effectiveness of anti‐poverty outlays; much of its focus is on the targeting of Rural Public Works (RPW) and the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) over the period 1987–93. It is argued that benefits to the rural poor of larger outlays on these two major anti‐poverty programmes are likely to be limited, given their mistargeting. Large sections of the rural poor were not covered in 1987. Worse, the non‐poor were in a majority among the participants. Although the evidence is mixed, there was a worsening of the targeting of both RPW and IRDP, with RPW maintaining a slight superiority, over the period 1987–93. Yet IRDP was more cost‐effective in both years, using a somewhat limited measure of cost‐effectiveness. Large unspent balances due largely to slow disbursal of allocations and bunching of expenditure in a few months are linked to changes in cost‐effectiveness. Wastage and diversion of funds are unavoidable, in a context of corrupt bureaucracy and capture of locally elected bodies such as Panchayats by a few influential persons. Short of drastic changes in the design and implementation of RPW and IRDP, substantially larger outlays may thus accomplish little in terms of poverty alleviation.
Social Capital and Community Strategies: Neighbourhood Development in Guatemala City
Authors: Grant Emma
Published: March 2003

This article uses a social capital framework to analyse the strategies employed by two low–income communities in Guatemala City to improve their physical and social environment. The case studies provide examples of poor communities, without access to any form of insurance or welfare benefits, struggling to achieve neighbourhood development. They also demonstrate the way in which strategies can be defined by the issue of land tenure. Key strategies for development were found to be mobilization through community organization, informal links (including clientelistic relations) with powerful groups, and protest. The author concludes that social capital (within communities and between stakeholders) and some degree of security (land tenure) are critical ingredients for communities to develop effective strategies for neighbourhood development with other stakeholders.
The Discourse of Maendeleo and the Politics of Women’s Participation on Mount Kilimanjaro
Authors: Mercer Claire
Published: March 2003

Studies of participatory development and empowerment often fail to place people’s actions and motivations within their wider cultural, social, political and economic context. Drawing on fieldwork which looked at village‐based women’s groups on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, this article deconstructs the dominant discourse of development on the mountain (maendeleo) to show how women’s participation in their local organizations is used as a strategy to boost their social status and financial gains. Local, national and global discourses on development, modernity and gender are reappropriated by Chagga men and women to produce a normative Chagga developmental subjectivity which women can demonstrate by participating in women’s groups. The over‐representation of better‐off and higher‐status women in these groups suggests that, in excluding the poorest women, participation in women’s groups is serving to legitimate, and perpetuate, existing inequalities within Chagga society.
Globalisation and the Rural Poor
Authors: Killick Tony
Published: March 2003

This article surveys how globalisation is affecting rural poverty. The forces of change may affect the welfare of the rural poor through their influence on productivity, growth, income distribution, technologies, the security of livelihoods, and policies. There are both credit and debit entries: large potential benefits, for example from accelerated growth, but also real dangers that the rural poor will be left behind, for example that they will not have access to the knowledge and other assets necessary for success in a commercialised world. The article also discusses some of the influences on the ways the forces of change work themselves out, stressing the importance of market access, positive government policy stances and the assets of the rural poor.
Market Liberalisation, Vertical Integration and Price Behaviour in Tanzania's Coffee Auction
Authors: Temu Anna A. , Winter‐Nelson Alex , Garcia Philip
Published: March 2003

Whether market liberalisation can promote agricultural development in Africa depends on how well existing institutions can facilitate trade by private agents. This article assesses the performance of the Tanzania coffee marketing system after liberalisation and the emergence of private, vertically integrated exporters (VIEs). Increasing producer prices, declining marketing margins, and the continued provision of a useful auction for coffee that is delivered by traders who are not VIEs all suggest a degree of success for liberalisation. The presence of VIEs seems to have provided investment to reduce marketing costs, whilst a sufficient number of competing firms has limited non‐competitive behaviour in the market for coffee that is traded at the auction by non‐VIEs.
Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction by Region: Chile 1990‐96
Authors: Contreras Dante
Published: March 2003

This article examines the evolution of poverty in Chile during 1990‐96, a period of rapid economic growth. It shows that Chile has embarked on a significant poverty‐reduction trajectory. The robustness of this result is examined by using nonparametric estimates of the income distribution and a stochastic dominance test. Growth is an important factor in explaining the poverty reduction that has occurred. Using the Datt‐Ravallion decomposition, it accounts for over 85% of poverty reduction at the national level. However, the pattern varies significantly across regions. Both growth, and its contribution to poverty reduction, vary significantly among regions. This seems to reflect the sectoral composition of growth across regions, with export‐oriented activities producing a larger poverty‐reduction impact.
Regional Market Strategies of Supermarkets and Food Processors in Extended MERCOSUR
Authors: Belik Walter , Rocha dos Santos Roseli
Published: March 2003

This article examines regional actions among supermarket chains and food manufacturers (second–stage processors) in the extended MERCOSUR. It highlights the emergence of ‘regional multinationals’ operating in this market, which compete and sometimes co–operate with ‘global multinationals’. The harmonisation of customs regimes, the reduction of trade barriers such as tariffs and quotas, and the deregulation of foreign direct investment, have allowed multinationals — regional or global — to step up their regional activities. They increasingly undertake regional marketing strategies, are increasing their investment in the region’s markets, and are causing new regional procurement systems to emerge.
Global influences on the development of spatial and object perceptual categorization abilities: Evidence from preterm infants
Authors: Mash Clay , Quinn Paul C. , Dobson Velma , Narter Dana B.
Published: March 2003

Influences on the development of perceptual categorization were examined by comparing the performance of three groups of infants on spatial and object categorization tasks. The groups consisted of 1) fullterm infants tested at 3 to 4 months of age, 2) healthy preterm infants tested 3 to 4 months from birth (postnatals), and 3) healthy preterm infants tested 3 to 4 months from their due date (postterms). Four experiments showed that fullterms and postterms outperformed postnatals on a spatial categorization task (i.e., ‘above’ vs. ‘below’, and that fullterms outperformed both postnatals and postterms on object categorization tasks (i.e., dogs vs. cats, and cats vs. birds). These results suggest that maturation may be the predominant influence on the early development of the ability to form categorical representations of spatial information, while preterm birth may exert a limiting influence on the development of object categorization abilities.
Object individuation in young infants: Further evidence with an event‐monitoring paradigm
Authors: Wilcox Teresa , Baillargeon Renee
Published: March 2003

Recent results indicate that, when tested with an event‐monitoring task, 7.5‐ and 9.5‐month‐olds give evidence that they can individuate objects in different‐objects occlusion events – events in which two distinct objects appear successively on either side of an occluder (Wilcox and Baillargeon, in press). The present research sought to confirm and extend these findings. The experiments examined 7.5‐ and 4.5‐month‐olds’ ability to correctly interpret a different‐objects (ball‐box condition) and a same‐object (ball‐ball condition) occlusion event. The infants in the ball‐box condition saw a test event in which a ball disappeared behind the left edge of a screen; after a pause, a box emerged from behind the screen's right edge. For half of the infants (wide‐screen event), the screen was wide and could occlude the ball and box simultaneously; for the other infants (narrow‐screen event), the screen was narrow and should not have been able to occlude the ball and box at the same time. The infants in the ball‐ball condition saw identical wide‐ and narrow‐screen events except that the ball appeared on both sides of the screen. The infants in the ball‐box condition looked reliably longer at the narrow‐ than at the wide‐screen event, whereas those in the ball‐ball condition tended to look equally at the events. These results suggest that the ball‐box infants (a) were led by the featural differences between the ball and box to view them as distinct objects; (b) judged that the ball and box could both be occluded by the wide but not the narrow screen; and (c) were surprised in the narrow‐screen event when this judgment was violated. In contrast, the ball‐ball infants (a) assumed, based on the featural similarities of the balls that appeared on either side of the screen, that they were one and the same ball, and (b) realized that the ball could be occluded by either the wide or the narrow screen. These results indicate that, by 4.5 months of age, infants are able to use featural information to correctly interpret different‐objects and same‐object occlusion events. These findings are discussed in the context of the newly‐drawn distinction between event‐monitoring and event‐mapping paradigms (Wilcox and Baillargeon, in press).
Whose gaze will infants follow? The elicitation of gaze‐following in 12‐month‐olds
Authors: Johnson Susan , Slaughter Virginia , Carey Susan
Published: March 2003

Eighty‐three 12‐month‐old infants faced a noisy, active, object for one minute, after which the object turned 45 degrees to the left or the right. Five conditions explored what object features elicited gaze‐following behavior in the infants. In one condition, the object was an adult stranger. The other four conditions used a soft, brown, dog‐sized, amorphously‐shaped, asymmetrical novel object that varied along two dimensions theorized as central to the identification of intentional beings: facial features and contingently interactive behavior. Infants shifted their own attentional direction to match the orientation of the actor or object in every condition except the one in which the object lacked both a face and contingently interactive behavior. Infants’‘gaze’‐following behavior in general, therefore, appears to have been driven selectively by a particular configuration of behavioral and morphological characteristics, specifically those theorized as underlying attributions of intentionality rather than attributions of person per se.
What’s in a name? Lexical knowledge drives infants’ visual preferences in the absence of referential input
Authors: Schafer Graham , Plunkett Kim , Harris Paul L.
Published: March 2003

Seventeen‐month‐old infants were presented with pairs of images, in silence or with the non‐directive auditory stimulus ‘look!’. The images had been chosen so that one image depicted an item whose name was known to the infant, and the other image depicted an image whose name was not known to the infant. Infants looked longer at images for which they had names than at images for which they did not have names, despite the absence of any referential input. The experiment controlled for the familiarity of the objects depicted: in each trial, image pairs presented to infants had previously been judged by caregivers to be of roughly equal familiarity.

From a theoretical perspective, the results indicate that objects with names are of intrinsic interest to the infant. The possible causal direction for this linkage is discussed and it is concluded that the results are consistent with Whorfian linguistic determinism, although other construals are possible. From a methodological perspective, the results have implications for the use of preferential looking as an index of early word comprehension.
How infants grasp two adjacent objects: effects of perceived display composition on infants’ actions
Authors: Needham Amy
Published: March 2003

In this research, 12.5‐ and 9.5‐month‐old infants’ use of information about the composition of a display to guide their actions on the display was examined. The display was composed of two pieces that were either glued together (the one‐object display) or not (the two‐object display). At the beginning of the session, the composition of the display was revealed to the infant and then the display was placed on the table within the infant’s reach. When resting on the table, these two versions of the display were indistinguishable. The results showed that the 12.5‐month‐old infants reached with one hand after they had experience with the display as a single object, and with two hands if they had experience with the display as two separate objects. The 12.5‐month‐old infants also placed their grasps differently depending upon the experienced composition: infants who experienced a single object tended to distribute their reaches evenly along the display, whereas infants who experienced two separate objects placed their reaches toward the outer ends of the display, avoiding the boundary between the two pieces. In contrast, the 9.5‐month‐old infants reached with one hand for both the one‐object and the two‐object displays, and their reaches did not show a difference in the distribution pattern that could be traced back to the infants’ prior experience with the composition of the display they were grasping.
Chimpanzee Use of Human and Conspecific Social Cues to Locate Hidden Food
Authors: Itakura Shoji , Agnetta Bryan , Hare Brian , Tomasello Michael
Published: March 2003

Two studies are reported in which chimpanzees attempted to use social cues to locate hidden food in one of two possible hiding places. In the first study four chimpanzees were exposed to a local enhancement cue (the informant approached and looked to the location where food was hidden and then remained beside it) and a gaze/point cue (the informant gazed and manually pointed towards the location where the food was hidden). Each cue was given by both a human informant and a chimpanzee informant. In the second study 12 chimpanzees were exposed to a gaze direction cue in combination with a vocal cue (the human informant gazed to the hiding location and produced one of two different vocalizations: a ‘food‐bark’ or a human word‐form). The results were: (i) all subjects were quite skillful with the local enhancement cue, no matter who produced it; (ii) few subjects were skillful with the gaze/point cue, no matter who produced it (most of these being individuals who had been raised in infancy by humans); and (iii) most subjects were skillful when the human gazed and vocalized at the hiding place, with little difference between the two types of vocal cue. Findings are discussed in terms of chimpanzees’ apparent need for additional cues, over and above gaze direction cues, to indicate the presence of food.
Deviations in the emergence of representations: a neuroconstructivist framework for analysing developmental disorders
Authors: Oliver Andrew , Johnson Mark H. , Karmiloff‐Smith Annette , Pennington Bruce
Published: March 2003

A common way of studying developmental disorders is to adopt a static neuropsychological deficit approach, in which the brain is characterized in terms of a normal brain with some parts or ‘modules’ impaired. In this paper we outline a neuroconstructivist approach in which developmental disorders are viewed as alternative developmental trajectories in the emergence of representations within neural networks. As a concrete instantiation of the assumptions underlying this general approach, we present a number of simulations in an artificial neural network model. The representations that emerge under different architectural, input and developmental timing conditions are then analysed within a multi‐dimensional state space. We explore alternative developmental trajectories in these simulations, demonstrating how initial differences in the same parameter can lead to very different outcomes, and conversely how different starting states can sometimes result in similar end states (phenotypes). We conclude that the assumptions of the neuroconstructivist approach are likely to be more appropriate for analysing developmental deviations in complex dynamic neural networks, such as the human brain.
Unimanual and bimanual tasks and the assessment of handedness in toddlers
Authors: Fagard Jacqueline , Marks Anne
Published: March 2003

The goal of this study was to examine the relations between three different measures of handedness: unimanual reaching, bimanual manipulation and unimanual manipulation. The appropriateness of the task chosen to evaluate handedness was also explored by contrasting different bimanual manipulation tasks for the more or less differentiated (passive\active) roles assigned to each hand. Forty children, between 18 and 36 months of age, were tested in the three conditions. The results show that the degree of bimanual handedness is greater on the bimanual tasks with a strong role differentiation than on the tasks with less differentiation. Bimanual tasks with a strong role differentiation elicited more right‐handedness than unimanual reaching. Among the children who showed handedness in reaching, the correlation between unimanual and bimanual handedness was high, especially for right‐handers. For some tasks, bimanual handedness appeared at the earliest age studied here (18 months), and there was little relationship between bimanual handedness and bimanual skill. In contrast with unimanual reaching, there was no age‐related change in the degree of handedness for either bimanual or unimanual manipulation. There was a bias toward the use of the right hand for unimanual manipulation. It was concluded that grasping is not the best task to employ to look for robust evidence of handedness, and that bimanual tasks offer a better way to estimate handedness in children, as long as the tasks are carefully chosen.
Development of infants’ intuitions about support relations: sensitivity to stability
Authors: Dan Naoko , Omori Takahide , Tomiyasu Yoshikazu
Published: March 2003

Can infants perceive stability when a supported box is put on a supporting box in a balanced position? In Experiment 1, 41 infants saw three events. In a stable event, the supported box was put on a wide supporting box in a balanced position. In an unstable event, the supported box was put on a narrow supporting box in a balanced position. In an impossible event, the supported box was put on the extreme end of a wide supporting box. Infants 4 to 6.5 months old looked equally at all three events. Infants 6.5 to 10 months old looked slightly longer at the impossible event than at the other events. Infants 10 to 13 months old looked reliably longer at the unstable and impossible events than at the stable event. The results of Experiment 2 indicate that these differences in looking times did not come from differences in stimulus configurations between the events. These results suggest that infants above 10 months old are sensitive to stability of support relations.
Seeing the big picture: map use and the development of spatial cognition
Authors: Uttal David H.
Published: March 2003

This paper considers the relation between the development of spatial cognition and children’s use of maps and models. A new theoretical perspective is presented that takes into account the influences of maps on the development of spatial cognition. Maps provide a perspective on spatial information that differs in important ways from the perspective gained from direct experience navigating in the world. Using and thinking about maps may help children to acquire abstract concepts of space and the ability to think systematically about spatial relations that they have not experienced directly. In addition, exposure to maps may help children to think about multiple spatial relations among multiple locations. The results of previous studies that have demonstrated developmental differences in children’s cognition of large‐scale environments are examined from this theoretical perspective. This review suggests that the development of spatial cognition consists partly of the acquisition of models of large‐scale space, and that maps influence the development of the modern Western model.
Sensitivity to spatial conflict and the development of self‐regulation in children 24–36 months of age
Authors: Gerardi‐Caulton Gina
Published: March 2003

This paper describes a task involving conflict between location and identity, two early developing visual system functions. From 2 years of age, children, like adults, responded more slowly and less accurately when location and identity were in conflict. The ability to resolve conflict appears to be linked to individual differences in effortful control and negative emotionality. Results suggest that this measure of executive attention may reflect the development of a more general capacity for self‐regulation.
The intersensory origins of word‐comprehension: an ecological–dynamic systems view
Authors: Gogate Lakshmi J. , Walker‐Andrews Arlene S , Bahrick Loraine E.
Published: March 2003

How do infants begin to understand spoken words? Recent research suggests that word comprehension develops from the early detection of intersensory relations between conventionally paired auditory speech patterns (words) and visible objects or actions. More importantly, in keeping with dynamic systems principles, the findings suggest that word comprehension develops from a dynamic and complementary relationship between the organism (the infant) and the environment (language addressed to the infant). In addition, parallel findings from speech and non‐speech studies of intersensory perception provide evidence for domain general processes in the development of word comprehension. These research findings contrast with the view that a lexical acquisition device with specific lexical principles and innate constraints is required for early word comprehension. Furthermore, they suggest that learning of word–object relations is not merely an associative process. The data support an alternative view of the developmental process that emphasizes the dynamic and reciprocal interactions between general intersensory perception, selective attention and learning in infants, and the specific characteristics of maternal communication.
Co‐occurences of preverbal vocal behavior and motor action in early infancy
Authors: Ejiri Keiko , Masataka Nobuo
Published: March 2003

This study reports on co‐occurrence of vocal behaviors and motor actions in infants in the prelinguistic stage. Four Japanese infants were studied longitudinally from the age of 6 months to 11 months. For all the infants, a 40 min sample was coded for each monthly period. The vocalizations produced by the infants co‐occurred with their rhythmic actions with high frequency, particularly in the period preceding the onset of canonical babbling. Acoustical analysis was conducted on the vocalizations recorded before and after the period when co‐occurrence took place most frequently. Among the vocalizations recorded in the period when co‐occurrence appeared most frequently, those that co‐occurred with rhythmic action had significantly shorter syllable duration and shorter formant‐frequency transition duration compared with those that did not co‐occur with rhythmic action. The rapid transitions and short syllables were similar to patterns of duration found in mature speech. The acoustic features remained even after co‐occurrence disappeared. These findings suggest that co‐occurrence of rhythmic action and vocal behavior may contribute to the infant’s acquisition of the ability to perform the rapid glottal and articulatory movements that are indispensable for spoken language acquisition.
Intuitive identification of infant vocal sounds by parents
Authors: Oller D. Kimbrough , Eilers Rebecca E. , Basinger Devorah
Published: March 2003

Parents are remarkably accurate observers of their infants’‘canonical babbling’, the production of well‐formed syllables. With very little training, many parents across a wide range of socioeconomic status make flawless judgments of canonical stage onset. The results of concordance studies between parental and trained‐observer judgments support the idea that recognition of canonical babbling may be intuitive. Without instruction, parents identify the onset of canonical babbling when it occurs, and thereafter they begin to interpret sounds produced by children in ways that may encourage word learning.

The fact that parents can provide accurate information about stage of vocal development, along with the fact that late onset of canonical babbling has been shown to be an extremely important indicator of risk for hearing loss and language‐related disabilities, suggests the possibility of using a brief interview to identify infants at risk.
Nonshared environmental processes in social‐emotional development: an observational study of identical twin differences in the preschool period
Authors: Deater‐Deckard Kirby , Pike Alison , Petrill Stephen A. , Cutting Alexandra L. , Hughes Claire , O’Connor Thomas G.
Published: March 2003

Differences in mothers’ parenting behaviors toward their identical twin preschoolers were examined to identify nonshared environmental processes in social‐emotional development. The study included 62 pairs of 3½‐year‐old same‐sex identical twins. Indicators of each child’s social‐emotional development (temperament, prosocial behavior, behavior problems and noncompliance) and parenting environment (warmth and negativity, positive and negative control, responsiveness) were assessed using observers’, interviewers’, and parents’ ratings. Mothers treated their identical twins differently, and this differential treatment covaried in expected ways with identical twin differences in social‐emotional adjustment. The twin who received more supportive and less punitive forms of parenting was also higher in positive mood and prosocial behaviors and lower in negative mood and behavior problems when compared to her or his twin.
Object individuation and event mapping: developmental changes in infants’ use of featural information
Authors: Wilcox Teresa , Schweinle Amy
Published: March 2003

The present research examined the development of 4.5‐ to 7.5‐month‐old infants’ ability to map different‐features occlusion events using a simplified event‐mapping task. In this task, infants saw a different‐features (i.e. egg‐column) event followed by a display containing either one object or two objects. Experiments 1 and 2 assessed infants’ ability to judge whether the egg‐column event was consistent with a subsequent one‐column display. Experiments 3 and 4 examined infants’ ability to judge whether the objects seen in the egg‐column event and those seen in a subsequent display were consistent in their featural composition. At 7.5 and 5.5 months, but not at 4.5 months, the infants successfully mapped the egg‐column event onto the one‐column display. However, the 7.5‐ and 5.5‐month‐olds differed in whether they mapped the featural properties of those objects. Whereas the 7.5‐month‐olds responded as if they expected to see two specific objects, an egg and a column, in the final display the 5.5‐month‐olds responded as if they simply expected to see ‘two objects’. Additional results revealed, however, that when spatiotemporal information specified the presence of two objects, 5.5‐month‐olds succeeded at tagging the objects as being featurally distinct, although they still failed to attach more specific information about what those differences were. Reasons for why the younger infants had difficulty integrating featural information into their object representations were discussed.