bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Parental investment in schooling: Evidence from a subsistence farming community in South Africa
Authors: Liddell Christine , Barrett Louise , Henzi Peter
Published: August 2003

Interviews were carried out amongst a cohort of 488 parents who lived as subsistence farmers in a remote and very poorly resourced region of South Africa. The majority of respondents had invested heavily in the education of their children, contrary to what might have been predicted from large family sizes and the economic and ecological pressures that families faced. There was little evidence of child specialization, in which educational investment might have been targeted more to some children than others in a family. However, relatively wide birth spacing may have made the financial and opportunity costs of schooling more manageable. This speculation is given some support by two findings: first, that the number of grades of schooling children complete before leaving increases significantly as birth spacing increases; second, that children who are still in school progress more rapidly as birth interval increases. Greater opportunities for the schooling of sons (made possible by low rates of migrant labour in the community), coupled with high opportunity costs associated with the schooling of daughters, made it likely that sons would be educated to a higher level than daughters. However, there was consistent evidence for gender equity in schooling patterns. This is attributed to the lower risk of financial and opportunity losses that are associated with rearing daughters in this particular community. Birth order exerted only modest effects on the decisions parents made about schooling their offspring. The investment strategy as a whole could be interpreted as “bet‐hedging” under conditions where events outside parental control prevented them from targeting investment to children who could be readily identified as having favourable educational and employment prospects. It is concluded that parents invest in their sons and daughters in a manner that can only be understood when the complexities of their particular social, economic, and ecological contexts are taken into account.
The relation between spatial and mathematical abilities: Potential factors underlying suppression
Authors: Voyer Daniel , Sullivan April M.
Published: August 2003

Two experiments examined possible factors underlying the finding that grades in mathematics act as a suppressor variable in the relation between spatial abilities and gender. Specifically, the role of reading abilities was investigated in Experiment 1 by using English grades as a measure of these abilities. Experiment 2 was based on the notion that time pressures are involved at some level in both spatial performance and mathematics grades. The influence of this factor was examined by administering a spatial task with or without time limit and examining the suppression effect in both conditions. In both experiments, participants completed the Mental Rotations Test (MRT) as a measure of spatial ability. In Experiment 1, all participants were tested with limited time to complete the MRT and they were required to report their high school course grades in mathematics and English. Results revealed that both grades in high school mathematics and English produced significant suppression. However, the amount of suppression produced by each measure was similar. Therefore, the prediction that suppression would be greater with English than with mathematics grades was not supported. Experiment 2 involved testing in groups or individually with or without time limits on the MRT, whereas the Water Level Test was administered untimed, and only grades in mathematics were obtained from participants. Results supported the prediction that the suppression effect is greater when time limits are applied than when they are not. Implications of the results for an explanation of the observed suppression are discussed. Emphasis is placed on the difficulties inherent to the identification of factors underlying suppression.
Even statisticians are not immune to misinterpretations of Null Hypothesis Significance Tests
Authors: Lecoutre Marie‐Paule , Poitevineau Jacques , Lecoutre Bruno
Published: August 2003

We investigated the way experienced users interpret Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST) outcomes. An empirical study was designed to compare the reactions of two populations of NHST users, psychological researchers and professional applied statisticians, when faced with contradictory situations. The subjects were presented with the results of an experiment designed to test the efficacy of a drug by comparing two groups (treatment/placebo). Four situations were constructed by combining the outcome of the t test (significant vs. nonsignificant) and the observed difference between the two means D (large vs. small). Two of these situations appeared as conflicting (t significant/D small and t nonsignificant/D large). Three fundamental aspects of statistical inference were investigated by means of open questions: drawing inductive conclusions about the magnitude of the true difference from the data in hand, making predictions for future data, and making decisions about stopping the experiment. The subjects were 25 statisticians from pharmaceutical companies in France, subjects well versed in statistics, and 20 psychological researchers from various laboratories in France, all with experience in processing and analyzing experimental data. On the whole, statisticians and psychologists reacted in a similar way and were very impressed by significant results. It must be outlined that professional applied statisticians were not immune to misinterpretations, especially in the case of nonsignificance. However, the interpretations that accustomed users attach to the outcome of NHST can vary from one individual to another, and it is hard to conceive that there could be a consensus in the face of seemingly conflicting situations. In fact, beyond the superficial report of “erroneous” interpretations, it can be seen in the misuses of NHST intuitive judgmental “adjustments” that try to overcome its inherent shortcomings. These findings encourage the many recent attempts to improve the habitual ways of analyzing and reporting experimental data.
Coordination process in counting
Authors: Camos Valérie
Published: August 2003

Counting is an important activity because it gives rise to a whole range of arithmetic activities. Counting objects requires subjects to point at each object and to say the corresponding number‐word. Furthermore, to determine the correct cardinal of a set, the two activities of pointing and saying must be synchronized. This perfect correspondence between the two activities is achieved by a coordination process. Using Camos et al.'s (2001) paradigm, the present study tested the hypothesis that this coordination process will induce its own cognitive cost and that this cost would decrease with age. Eight‐year‐old children and adults were asked to say the numberline from 1 to 23, from 61 to 83, and from 111 to 133. They also pointed at objects in arrays that did or did not include distracters. Finally, they counted objects in arrays with or without distracters using the numberline starting at 1, then at 61, and then at 111. In children, as in adults, the simultaneous increase in the attentional demand of the pointing (due to the distracters) and the saying (for the numberline starting at 61 or 111) affected counting performance. However, it never made coordination more difficult. The coordination process in counting thus has a negligible cost. Moreover, an unexpected facilitation effect was observed. Indeed, when the attentional demand of saying was high, the simultaneous production of pointing increased the performance in saying the numberline. In other words, a verbal activity was facilitated by a concurrent motor activity. The negligible cost of coordination and the facilitation effect were both explained by an early compilation of counting as defined in ACT‐R (Anderson, 1983, 1993).
A comparison of Estonian, Swedish, and Finnish mothers' controlling attitudes and behaviour
Authors: Tulviste Tiia , Mizera Luule , De Geer Boel , Tryggvason Marja‐Terttu
Published: August 2003

The current study examined maternal control of children across families with early adolescents from different sociocultural backgrounds. The intention was to find out whether belonging to the same ethnic group/language community (i.e., Estonian or Finnish) is more important for determination of child‐rearing attitudes and practices than sharing the immediate sociocultural context (i.e., Swedish society). In addition, attention was paid to the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. The results were obtained from three monocultural samples of Estonian, Swedish, and Finnish families living in their country of origin; two bicultural samples consisted of Estonian and Finnish families residing in Sweden. Two types of data—mothers' reported attitudes towards the importance of control over children's behaviour (the Control Scale) and video‐recorded real‐life verbal behaviour—were used to determine how the mothers' attitudes towards control relate to the behavioural control exhibited in their real‐life interactions. The study showed that the Finno‐Ugric mothers living in their countries of origin controlled their children's behaviour significantly more frequently than those Finno‐Ugric mothers who live in Sweden, but both Estonian samples outperformed Finns in their reported control attitudes. The Swedish mothers were the least directive among monocultural mothers both in maternal beliefs and in real‐life behaviour, but they differed from Estonian and Finnish mothers residing in Sweden only in their lower scores on the Control Scale. The study revealed that mothers' real‐life control behaviour corresponded rather modestly to their reported attitudes toward the importance of controlling children. Analyses of actual mother—child interaction showed that only the Estonian mothers living in Estonia actually put their relatively high scores on the Control Scale into practice in real‐life interactions with their children. Finally, some characteristics of Estonian, Finnish, and Swedish languages and cultures are discussed that might determine the cultural differences in child rearing that emerged.
Multiple short‐term storage: A task to evaluate the coordination function of the central executive
Authors: Loisy Catherine , Roulin Jean‐Luc
Published: August 2003

The present paper explores one of the multiple aspects of working memory, specifically the coordinating function of the central executive with a complex double‐stimuli task. Performance on this task requires coordinating the short‐term maintenance of verbal as well as visuospatial information in preparation for recall. The task involves the single recall of words, the single recall of locations, or the recall of localized words. The study of the double‐stimuli task involves three classical interference tasks (articulatory suppression, Moar box tracking, and standing balance position) and comparing with simple span tasks (word recall and location recall). Word and location recall in this double‐stimuli task involves observing the classical interference effects: articulatory suppression impairs word recall performance without affecting location recall, whereas in visuospatial interference tasks the reverse is true. A second analysis showed that when performance on the double‐stimuli task (implying the simultaneous maintenance of verbal and visuospatial material at the same time) is compared with performances on short‐term memory tasks (classical word span or location span using the same material), a significant decrease in performance is observed. In a third analysis a score specific to the complex task was computed (corrected score). This score takes into account the recall capacity for both words and locations. This score, directly related to the capacities of coordination implied in the task, is sensitive to most attentional requirements of interference tasks. Contrary to what can be observed on location recall, the standing balance position did not significantly decrease performance. These results are consistent with an interpretation of the working memory according to which coordination of the subsystems is a function of the central executive.
The Southeast Asian Regional Conference on Scientific and Applied Psychology: Mumbai
Authors: Barnes Blanche , Knowles Michael C.
Published: August 2003

Mumbai was the venue for the Southeast Asian Regional Conference on Scientific and Applied Psychology, which was held from 17–20 December 2001. This major event was organized by the Bombay Psychological Association (BPA), the Department of Psychology of SNDT Women's University in Mumbai, and the University of Mumbai's Department of Applied Psychology. It was sponsored by the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS), and the International Association for Cross Cultural Psychology (IACCP). With a view not only of strengthening the interface of the science and practice of psychology but also of stimulating the development of professional psychology, the Conference was an outstanding success as evidenced by the depth and quality of its scientific program and its wide attendance.
Advanced Research and Training Seminars (ARTS) Report on ARTS 2002
Authors: Adair John G.
Published: August 2003

This article reports on the Advanced Research and Training Seminars (ARTS) program that was held in Singapore during July, 2002. The seminars were sponsored jointly by the three international psychology associations—the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS), the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), and the International Association for Cross‐Cultural Psychology (IACCP). ARTS is an educational program for psychologists from low‐income (developing and in‐transition) countries. The seminars are held in proximity of the international congresses each even‐numbered year to enable participants to attend one or more congresses in addition to receiving specialized instruction. Also, it is expected that the educational benefits to participants will extend to their students and colleagues with whom they interact on return to their home countries.
Adolescent-Parent conflict in Hong Kong and Shenzhen: A comparison of youth in two cultural contexts
Authors: Yau Jenny , Smetana Judith
Published: August 2003

This study examined adolescent–parent conflict among 188 5th-, 7th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade Chinese adolescents, 93 from Hong Kong and 95 from Shenzhen, PRC. Individually interviewed Chinese adolescents reported disagreements with parents over everyday issues, primarily choice of activities, schoolwork, interpersonal relationships, and chores. Conflicts were relatively few in number, moderate in frequency, and mild in intensity, and across contexts, conflicts were more intense in early adolescence (5th and 7th grades) than in late adolescence (12th grade). There were more conflicts over chores and interpersonal relationships in Hong Kong than in Shenzhen and more conflicts over schoolwork in Shenzhen than in Hong Kong, particularly among 7th and 12th graders. As expected, adolescents primarily justified conflicts, particularly conflicts over choice of activities and homework, by appealing to personal jurisdiction, and across contexts, personal reasoning increased with age. Conflicts were resolved primarily by giving in to parents, although adolescents desired more autonomy in decision making than they reported having. Although adolescent–parent conflict among Chinese youth appears to reflect the development of adolescent autonomy, culturally specific processes influence its expression.
Early aesthetic choices: Infant preferences for attractive premature infant faces
Authors: Van Duuren Mike , Kendell-Scott Linda , Stark Natalie
Published: August 2003

Previous studies have shown that when newborn and young infants are shown attractive and unattractive adult faces they will look longer at the attractive faces. Three studies with infants ranging from 5 months to 15 months were conducted to examine whether this attractiveness effect holds for infants looking at infant faces. A standard preferential looking technique was used in which infants were shown pairs of colour slides of upright (Experiments 1 and 2, n = 16) or inverted (Experiment 3, n = 16) infant faces previously rated by adults for attractiveness. Although Experiment 1 did not reveal an attractiveness effect, this effect did become manifest in Experiment 2 after increasing stimulus exposure time and replacing three of the original stimulus faces. The attractiveness effect was lost when faces were presented upside down. Findings are discussed in relation to the feature-based vs. configural processing debate in the face processing literature and in relation to the notion that attractiveness is based on presexual maturity rather than “cuteness”.
Perception of moral atmosphere in school and norm transgressive behaviour in adolescents: An intervention study
Authors: Brugman Daniel , Heymans Peter G. , Boom Jan , Podolskij Andrei I. , Karabanova Olga , Idobaeva Olga
Published: August 2003

How students perceive the moral atmosphere in their school may affect their behaviour in and around school. The perception of the moral atmosphere in school demands an assessment of the majority perspective among students, and is influenced by several individual and group-related characteristics. Can students learn to perceive the moral atmosphere in their school more accurately, and would an increase in perception accuracy reduce students’ norm transgressive behaviour in and around the school? To answer these questions an intervention programme, based on Galperin’s educational theory, was implemented class-wide and evaluated in a field study with a pre-test–post-test control group design with an added delayed post-test. Participants were 752 students from 40 Grade 8 and Grade 10 classes from 9 secondary schools. In hierarchical multiple regression analyses students’ perception of a school’s moral atmosphere, moral self-complexity, and moral judgment contributed to the prediction of norm transgressive behaviour and/or prosocial behaviour. As expected, the intervention produced a more unanimous perception of moral atmosphere (i.e., less variation within a class), particularly among boys. A more unanimous perception of moral atmosphere was negatively related to frequency of self-reported norm transgressive behaviour and positively to pro-social behaviour. The intervention effects on behaviour depended on the school. The significance of these results for the programme is discussed.
Wishing to work: New perspectives on how adolescents’ part-time work intensity is linked to educational disengagement, substance use, and other problem behaviours
Authors: Bachman Jerald G. , Safron Deborah J. , Sy Susan Rogala , Schulenberg John E.
Published: August 2003

This study examines interrelations among students’ educational engagement, desired and actual school-year employment, substance use, and other problem behaviours. Cross-sectional findings from representative samples of 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students in the United States, totalling over 300,000 respondents surveyed during the years 1992–1998, include the following: Large majorities of adolescents wish to work part-time during the school year, although most in earlier grades are not actually employed. Those who desire to work long hours tend to have low grades and low college aspirations; they are also more likely than average to use cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. Students’ preferences for part-time work emerge at younger ages (i.e., earlier grades) than actual work, and the preferences show equal or stronger correlations with educational disengagement and problem behaviours.
Spontaneous motor tempo and rhythmical synchronisation in 2½- and 4-year-old children
Authors: Provasi Joëlle , Bobin-Bègue Anne
Published: August 2003

Spontaneous motor tempo and rhythmical synchronisation were studied in 2½- to 4-year-old children. Children were tested in three sessions, each of which included three consecutive tasks: first, spontaneous manual tapping tempo, second, synchronisation to external tempo, followed by spontaneous manual tapping tempo again. Results showed that regular spontaneous manual tapping tempo could be observed in children as young as 2½ years. Moreover, children could slow down their tap rhythm when the auditory stimulation became slower. Anticipating sound and adjusting their motor response to time interval was easier for children at the age of 4 years than for younger children. Consequently, it seems easier for the former to estimate the time interval than for the latter. Data referring to different clock models and new perspectives to conduct research on temporal studies in child development will be discussed.
Age differences in supportive reactions toward a person in need: A quasi-experimental study
Authors: Aymanns Peter , Filipp Sigrun-Heide , Winkeler Markus
Published: August 2003

Age differences in social support have been studied almost exclusively with regard to the older adults’ role as support recipients, whereas the influence of support providers’ age has not received much attention. A few experimental studies indicate that the willingness to help others (e.g., by giving donations) increases with age. However, studies are lacking which extend these findings to less clear-cut situational contexts, for example, to supporting victims of a critical life event and which, in addition, systematically investigate social cognitive and affective reactions as mediators of age differences. Using a quasi-experimental design, N 1/4 452 older vs. middle-aged participants (61 to 78 vs. 34 to 52 years old, respectively) read fictitious scenarios describing a protagonist who asked for support in dealing with the diagnosis of a severe illness. Protagonist’s age was varied between participants (70 vs. 40 years). Independent of protagonist’s age, older participants (compared to middle-aged) were more willing to provide emotion-focused support, but were less willing to discuss the illness in detail (problem-focused support), and they showed a higher tendency to withdraw and to distance themselves from the protagonist. Age differences in emotion-focused support were mediated by the older adults’ higher self-ascribed competence in providing support.
Identifying aggressive victims in Chinese children’s peer groups
Authors: Xu Yiyuan , Farver Jo Ann M. , Schwartz David , Chang Lei
Published: August 2003

This study investigated the behavioural profiles and psychosocial adjustment of aggressive victims in Chinese children’s peer groups. Participants were 294 elementary school students in Tianjin, PR China (mean age 11.5 years). Peers’ nominations and teachers’ ratings were combined to form composite scores of aggression and victimisation. A comparison of four subgroups showed that aggressive victims were disliked by peers, rated as hyperactive, had fewer dyadic friends, poorer academic functioning, and lower assertive/prosocial ratings than did nonvictimised aggressors or the normative children. These findings suggest that there may be a common behavioural pattern that is associated with maladjustment among aggressive victims across cultural settings.
Who gets caught at maturity gap? A study of pseudomature, immature, and mature adolescents
Authors: Galambos Nancy L. , Barker Erin T. , Tilton-Weaver Lauree C.
Published: August 2003

This research examined links among adolescents’ maturity status, their biological, social, and psychological characteristics, and parents’ perceptions of their adolescents’ maturity. The participants were 430 Canadian adolescents in the sixth and ninth grades, and a subsample of their parents. Pattern-centred analyses confirmed the existence of three clusters of adolescents differing in maturity status: pseudomature (25%), immature (30%), and mature (44%). Further analyses found differences among the clusters in adolescents’ pubertal status, the social context (presence of older siblings and friends), and their desired age, involvement in pop culture, school and peer involvement, and close friendships. Analysis of mother and father reports revealed some differences in how parents of pseudomature, immature, and mature adolescents perceived their adolescents’ maturity, and in how they felt about their adolescents’ maturity. There were few grade differences in the findings. The results suggest that pseudomature adolescents, and to a smaller extent, immature adolescents, are caught in a maturity gap, which could have longer-term implications for their transition to adulthood.
Cultural variation in young children’s access to work or involvement in specialised child-focused activities
Authors: Morelli Gilda A. , Rogoff Barbara , Angelillo Cathy
Published: August 2003

Ethnographic literature indicates that in many cultural communities around the world, children have extensive opportunities to learn through observing and participating in their community’s work and other mature activities. We argue that in communities in which children are often segregated from adult work (as in middle-class European American communities), young children instead are often involved in specialised child-focused activities such as lessons, adult–child play (and scholastic play), and conversation with adults on child-related topics.

We examine this argument with systematic time-sampled observations of the extent of 2- to 3-year-old children’s access to adult work compared to their involvement in specialised child-focused activities. Observations focused on 12 children in each of four communities: two middle-class European American communities (West Newton, Massachusetts and Sugarhouse, Utah), Efe foragers of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and indigenous Maya of San Pedro, Guatemala. West Newton and Sugarhouse children had less frequent access to work and were involved more often in specialised child-focused activities than Efe and San Pedro children.

The results support the idea that the middle-class European American children’s frequent involvement in specialised child-focused activities may relate to their more limited opportunities to learn through observing work activities of their communities. It may be less necessary for the Efe and San Pedro children to be involved in specialised child-focused activities to prepare them for involvement in mature community practices, because they are already a regular part of them.
The gap between a mother seeking psychological help for her child and for a friend’s child
Authors: Raviv Amiram , Raviv Alona , Edelstein-Dolev Yaniv , Silberstein Ora
Published: August 2003

More children need psychological help than those who get it (‘‘service gap’’). Since parents are those who refer children for help, they are responsible for this gap. This study examined the difference between the reported willingness of schoolchildren’s mothers to seek help from a psychologist and from natural support systems for their own child and to refer another mother for such help. Participants were 321 mothers of 3rd- to 5th-grade children. Participants’ reported intentions to seek help for their own child or to refer another’s child were evaluated regarding a hypothetical externalisation or internalisation problem behaviour. Mothers were more willing to refer another’s child than their own for psychological help. Mothers of boys were more willing to refer their own or another’s child for psychological help than mothers of girls. Mothers tended to prefer natural support systems over professional help. Some relations were found between emotional responses and socialisation strategies, and help-seeking intentions.
Appearance–reality distinction and development of gender constancy understanding in children
Authors: Trautner Hanns Martin , Gervai Judit , Németh Rita
Published: August 2003

In two independent studies, the relationship between children’s ability to distinguish appearance from reality (AR) and their understanding of gender constancy1 (GC) was examined. In Study 1, German children ( N = 130) aged 3;8 to 9;5 years were tested (1) in four standard AR tasks, and (2) by 21 items related to the three stages of gender constancy understanding. In Study 2, Hungarian children ( N = 75) aged 3;0 to 6;0 years responded to (1) appearance and reality questions while they or an experimenter were wearing a facial mask, and (2) a gender constancy interview using Bem’s(1989) photographs and scripts. In Study 2, the role of genital knowledge was also examined. For gender consistency questions, children were asked about appearance (“ looks like”) and reality (“ really is”) in both studies. Applying pass–fail criteria to AR and GC responses, children in both studies were grouped as “ realists” vs. “ nonrealists” and as “ gender-constant” vs. “ non-gender-constant”. The two studies converged in finding a strong association between the ability to distinguish appearance from reality and gender constancy understanding. The observed association between AR and GC was independent of age and children’s genital knowledge. However, while the results of Study 1 suggested that the AR distinction precedes sex-category constancy, in Study 2 the two abilities appeared to develop concurrently. Further, children in Study 1 achieved both AR and GC at a later age than children in Study 2.
Does early caregiving matter? The effects on young caregivers’ adult mental health
Authors: Shifren Kim , Kachorek Lauren V.
Published: August 2003

Limited information is available on the long-term effects of providing care for adults when caregiving begins in childhood in the United States. The current study provided an examination of the effects of youthful caregiving on the mental health of these persons when adults, and provided a description of their early family relations. Twenty-four individuals, 21 to 58 years old, were given brief phone interviews with semistructured questions about their early caregiving experiences, and then they completed questionnaires on their early caregiving experiences, mental health, and early parent–child relations. To be included, respondents must have provided primary caregiving assistance (i.e., bathing, feeding, etc.) for a parent or adult relative when the caregiver was under 21 years old. Results showed that the sample reported more positive mental health than negative mental health, though 42% had high depressive scores on the total CES-D. Individuals who reported fathers as too protective reported less current positive mental health. Early caregiving is not associated with poor mental health in adulthood for many young caregivers. However, some individuals do appear at risk of depression in adulthood.
Bridging the attachment transmission gap: The role of maternal mind-mindedness
Authors: Bernier Annie , Dozier Mary
Published: August 2003

The intergenerational transmission of attachment patterns is one of the most reliable yet least understood findings of attachment research. The aim of this report was to examine the capacity of maternal mind-mindedness to account for the relation between adult attachment state of mind and infant attachment security. Sixty-four foster children (aged 6–30 months) participated with their foster mothers. The mother’s tendency to use mental features in describing her child (mindmindedness) was negatively related to the security of both maternal state of mind and infant attachment. Further, mind-mindedness accounted for the totality of the predictive power of state of mind on infant attachment. The results suggest that age-appropriate representations of the child may help explain intergenerational transmission, through their interplay with parental interactive behaviours.
Children’s cognitive skill development in Britain and the United States
Authors: Michael Robert T.
Published: August 2003

This paper compares the cognitive test scores of children in Great Britain and the United States in vocabulary, reading, mathematics, and memory of words and numbers. Children aged 5–9 years in Britain systematically outperform their US counterparts on reading and mathematics tests, while children aged 10–14 years show far fewer differences. In most comparisons for white children aged 10–14 years, there are no statistical differences in the distributions of test scores between the British and United States children. The explanation for the observed differences between the younger children in the two nations in reading and mathematics may be the earlier age of entry into formal schooling in Britain. The similarity of the observed skills of the older children in the two nations, given the differences in social and economic conditions experienced by those children, challenges the notion that these differences are critically important in the children’s cognitive development. The six tests used in this study are the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, subsets of the Peabody Individual Achievement Test in reading and math, the Wechsler Memory for Digit Span, and a subscale of the McCarthy Scale for Verbal Memory.
The educational impact of Rechov Sumsum/Shara’a Simsim: A Sesame Street television series to promote respect and understanding among children living in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza
Authors: Cole Charlotte F. , Arafat Cairo , Tidhar Chava , Tafesh Wafa Zidan , Fox Nathan A. , Killen Melanie , Ardila-Rey Alicia , Leavitt Lewis A. , Lesser Gerry , Richman Beth A. , Yung Fiona
Published: August 2003

A pre-and post-test study assessed the effects of Israeli and Palestinian children’s viewing of Rechov Sumsum/Shara’a Simsim, a television series presenting messages of mutual respect and understanding. Israeli-Jewish, Palestinian-Israeli, and Palestinian preschoolers ( N = 275) were interviewed about their social judgments. Results showed that although some of the children had negative conceptions about adult Arabs and Jews, children, on the whole, did not invoke these stereotypes when evaluating peer conflict situations between Israeli and Palestinian children. Exposure to the programme was linked to an increase in children’s use of both prosocial justifications to resolve conflicts and positive attributes to describe members of the other group. Palestinian children’s abilities to identify symbols of their own culture increased over time. The results indicate the effectiveness of media-based interventions such as Rechov Sumsum/Shara’a Simsim on countering negative stereotypes by building a peer-oriented context that introduces children to the everyday lives of people from different cultures.
The impact of junior kindergarten on behaviour in elementary school children
Authors: Pagani Linda , Larocque Denis , Tremblay Richard E. , Lapointe Pierre
Published: August 2003

Using data from the first cycle of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, this study examines the impact of junior kindergarten on children’s behavioural development, above and beyond regional differences and individual/household factors. It was hypothesised that earlier schooling would help children learn behavioural control skills for participating in group settings like the elementary school classroom. Research has established that children from disadvantaged environments face an increased risk of behavioural problems, usually by virtue of accompanying risk factors. As such, we hypothesised that junior kindergarten attendance would reduce the risk gap for behavioural problems between children from economically disadvantaged and advantaged families. The results revealed that on the whole, junior kindergarten did not seem to decrease problem behaviour. These results are above and beyond a number of controls (sex, age, region, SES, family functioning, family configuration, education, and family size). Although children from disadvantaged environments exhibited more behaviour problems, attending junior kindergarten did not reduce the risk gap for behavioural difficulties between children from lower SES and higher SES backgrounds.
Children’s understanding of inherited resemblance: The case of two parents
Authors: Terwogt Mark Meerum , Stegge Hedy , Rieffe Carolien
Published: August 2003

Four-, 6-, and 10-year-old children were tested in a forced-choice procedure about their beliefs on the inheritance of physical characteristics. They were presented with pictures of two biological parents, and then asked to select the most likely descendant out of three alternatives: a father look-alike, a mother look-alike, and an alternative representing the combined influence of both parents. In several question pairs, additional information was given about the parent–child relationship that was clearly irrelevant to the principles of heredity to examine the extent to which domain confusions were likely to occur. The majority of the 10-year-olds consistently preferred the alternative in which the combined influence of both parents was shown and domain confusions hardly ever occurred. Four- and 6-year-olds, in contrast, were still influenced by information from alien domains, although even their reasoning about inheritance seemed to be theory-like. Overall, the results suggest that with age, children develop a more restricted and better-defined conception of the principles of heredity, in which the combined influence of both parents is acknowledged.
The Macrostructure of Informal Arguments: A Proposed Model and Analysis
Authors: Ricco Robert B.
Published: August 2003

Theories of informal reasoning and critical thinking often maintain that everyday, informal arguments can be classified into types based on the specific organization that the premises or reasons enter into in their support for the conclusion (Snoeck Henkemans, 2000; Vorobej, 1995b). Three general types are identified: convergent, coordinately linked, and subordinately linked arguments. There has been no empirical research, however, to determine whether these structural distinctions have any psychological reality. In the first two of four experiments, college students were presented with premise pairs from larger, informal arguments and were asked to judge the nature of the relationship between the premises in a pair. The judgments involved applying “tests” of linkage, subordination, and so on, that have been proposed in the theoretical literature on argument analysis (e.g., Walton, 1996a; Yanal, 1991). Results suggest that adults can effectively distinguish between linked (interdependent) and convergent relationships and can further distinguish between interdependencies that are full and those that are merely partial. Adults also distinguished between subordinate and nonsubordinate relations. Experiments 3 and 4 provide evidence that adults make use of information about argument structure in evaluating argument strength and in categorizing arguments. Experiment 4 further suggests that facility with macrostructure is only modestly related to deductive reasoning competence. Findings are framed in terms of a speculative account of how argument structure is identified and mentally represented.
Normative and Descriptive Accounts of the Influence of Power and Contingency on Causal Judgement
Authors: Perales José C. , Shanks David R.
Published: August 2003

The power PC theory (Cheng, 1997) is a normative account of causal inference, which predicts that causal judgements are based on the power p of a potential cause, where p is the cause-effect contingency normalized by the base rate of the effect. In three experiments we demonstrate that both cause-effect contingency and effect base-rate independently affect estimates in causal learning tasks. In Experiment 1, causal strength judgements were directly related to power p in a task in which the effect base-rate was manipulated across two positive and two negative contingency conditions. In Experiments 2 and 3 contingency manipulations affected causal estimates in several situations in which power p was held constant, contrary to the power PC theory's predic- tions. This latter effect cannot be explained by participants’ conflation of reliability and causal strength, as Experiment 3 demonstrated independence of causal judgements and confidence. From a descriptive point of view, the data are compatible with Pearce's (1987) model, as well as with several other judgement rules, but not with the Rescorla-Wagner (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) or power PC models.
The Effect of Inversion on the Encoding of Normal and “Thatcherized” Faces
Authors: Boutsen Luc , Humphreys Glyn W.
Published: August 2003

In the “Thatcher illusion” a face, in which the eyes and mouth are inverted relative to the rest of the face, looks grotesque when shown upright but not when inverted. In four experiments we investigated the contribution of local and global processing to this illusion in normal observers. We examined inversion effects (i.e., better performance for upright than for inverted faces) in a task requiring discrimination of whether faces were or were not “thatcherized”. Observers made same/different judgements to isolated face parts (Experiments 1–2) and to whole faces (Experiments 3–4). Face pairs had the same or different identity, allowing for different processing strategies using feature-based or configural information, respectively. In Experiment 1, feature-based matching of same-person face parts yielded only a small inversion effect for normal face parts. However, when feature-based matching was prevented by using the face parts of different people on all trials (Experiment 2) an inversion effect occurred for normal but not for thatcherized parts. In Experiments 3 and 4, inversion effects occurred with normal but not with thatcherized whole faces, on both same- and different-person matching tasks. This suggests that a common configural strategy was used with whole (normal) faces. Face context facilitated attention to misoriented parts in same-person but not in different-person matching. The results indicate that (1) face inversion disrupts local configural processing, but not the processing of image features, and (2) thatcherization disrupts local configural processing in upright faces.
The Number 747 is Named Faster after Seeing Boeing than after Seeing Levi's: Associative Priming in the Processing of Multidigit Arabic Numerals
Authors: Alameda Jose Ramon , Cuetos Fernando , Brysbaert Marc
Published: August 2003

Two experiments are reported in which naming multidigit Arabic numerals was shown to depend on the context in which the numbers were presented. Number naming and number decisions were faster after an associative prime (e.g., 747 preceded by the word Boeing) than after an unre- lated prime, both in unmasked and masked priming conditions. On the basis of these findings, we conclude that number naming is not always based on a quantity-based semantically mediated pathway.
Deciding between Accounts of the Selection Task: A Reply to Oaksford (2002)
Authors: Feeney Aidan , Handley Simon , Kentridge Robert W.
Published: August 2003

In this paper we report on our attempts to fit the optimal data selection (ODS) model (Oaksford & Chater, 1994; Oaksford, Chater, & Larkin, 2000) to the selection task data reported in Feeney and Handley (2000) and Handley, Feeney, and Harper (2002). Although Oaksford (2002b) reports good fits to the data described in Feeney and Handley (2000), the model does not adequately capture the data described in Handley et al. (2002). Furthermore, across all six of the experiments modelled here, the ODS model does not predict participants’ behaviour at the level of selection rates for individual cards. Finally, when people's probability estimates are used in the modelling exercise, the model adequately captures only 1 out of 18 conditions described in Handley et al. We discuss the implications of these results for models of the selection task and claim that they support deductive, rather than probabilistic, accounts of the task.
The Role of Injection Cues in the Associative Control of the US Pre-Exposure Effect in Flavour Aversion Learning
Authors: de Brugada Isabel , González Felisa , Cándido Antonio
Published: August 2003

Two experiments, using rats as subjects, examined the role of contextual cues in producing the unconditioned stimulus (US) pre-exposure effect in conditioned taste aversion. Experiment 1 showed a significant US pre-exposure effect, when the pre-exposure was conducted in a familiar context, and that a change of context between the pre-exposure and conditioning phases did not attenuate this effect. Experiment 2 demonstrated that extinction of injection-related cues after the pre-exposure stage attenuated the US pre-exposure effect, when the pre-exposure was conducted in either a familiar or a novel context. Taken together, these results support the associative explanation of the US pre-exposure effect in terms of blocking, incorporating a role for injection-related cues in the context blocking analysis of the US pre-exposure effect.
Response Persistence under Variable-Time Schedules following Immediate and Unsignalled Delayed Reinforcement
Authors: Doughty Adam H. , Lattal Kennon A.
Published: August 2003

Key pecking of three pigeons was maintained in separate components of a multiple schedule by either immediate reinforcement (i.e., tandem variable-time fixed-interval schedule) or unsignalled delayed reinforcement (i.e., tandem variable-interval fixed-time schedule). The relative rate of food delivery was equal across components, and this absolute rate differed across conditions. Immediate reinforcement always generated higher response rates than did unsignalled delayed reinforcement. Then, variable-time schedules of food delivery replaced the contingencies just described such that food was delivered at the same rate but independently of responding. In most cases, response rates decreased to near-zero levels. In addition, response persistence was not systematically different between multiple-schedule components across pigeons. The implications of the results for the concepts of response strength and the response-reinforcer relation are noted.
Discrimination between Outcomes in Instrumental Learning: Effects of Preexposure to the Reinforcers
Authors: Blair C.A.J. , Blundell Pam , Galtress Tiffany , Hall Geoffrey , Killcross Simon
Published: August 2003

In two experiments rats received instrumental training with two response levers, one response being reinforced by sucrose solution and the other by sucrose pellets. Prior to a test session, on which both levers were made available in the absence of reinforcement, the rats were given free access to one of the reinforcers, a procedure known to reduce its value. It was found that the rats responded at a lower rate on the lever that had produced the now-devalued reinforcer, but that this effect was substantial only in rats that had received preexposure to the two reinforcers before instrumental training was begun (Experiment 1). Experiment 2 demonstrated that this effect was obtained only when presentations of the two reinforcers were presented according to an inter-mixed schedule during preexposure. It is suggested that this result constitutes an instance of the perceptual learning effect in which intermixed preexposure to similar events enhances their discriminability.