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From early on in life, children are able to use information from their environment to form predictions about events. For instance, they can use statistical information about a population to predict the sample drawn from that population and infer an agent’s preferences from systematic violations of random sampling. We investigated whether and how young children infer an agent’s sampling biases. Moreover, we examined whether pupil data of toddlers follow the predictions of a computational model based on the causal Bayesian network formalization of predictive processing. We formalized three hypotheses about how different explanatory variables (i.e., prior probabilities, current observations, and agent characteristics) are used to predict others’ actions. We measured pupillary responses as a behavioral marker of ‘prediction errors’ (i.e., the perceived mismatch between what one’s model of an agent predicts and what the agent actually does). Pupillary responses of 24-month-olds, but not 18-month-olds, showed that young children integrated information about current observations, priors and agents to make predictions about agents and their actions. These findings shed light on the mechanisms behind toddlers’ inferences about agent-caused events. To our knowledge, this is the first study in which young children's pupillary responses are used as markers of prediction errors, which were qualitatively compared to the predictions by a computational model based on the causal Bayesian network formalization of predictive processing.
Working memory (WM), which underlies the temporary storage and manipulation of information, is critical for multiple aspects of cognition and everyday life. Nevertheless, research examining WM specifically in older adults remains limited, despite the global rapid increase in human life expectancy. We examined WM in a large sample (N=754) of healthy older adults (aged 58-89) in a non-Western population (Chinese speakers) in Taiwan, on a digit n-back task. We tested not only the influence of age itself and of load (1-back vs. 2-back) but also the effects of both sex and education, which have been shown to modulate WM abilities. Mixed-effects regression revealed that, within older adulthood, age negatively impacted WM abilities (with linear, not nonlinear, effects), as did load (worse performance at 2-back). In contrast, education level was positively associated with WM. Moreover, both age and education interacted with sex. With increasing age, males showed a steeper WM decline than females; with increasing education, females showed greater WM gains than males. Together with other findings, the evidence suggests that age, sex, and education all impact WM in older adults, but interact in particular ways. The results have both basic research and translational implications and are consistent with particular benefits from increased education for women.
Successful communication often involves comprehension of both spoken language and observed actions with and without objects. Even very young infants can learn associations between actions and objects as well as between words and objects. However, in daily life, children are usually confronted with both kinds of input simultaneously. Choosing the critical information to attend to in such situations might help children structure the input, and thereby, allow for successful learning. In the current study, we therefore, investigated the developmental time course of children’s and adults’ word and action learning when given the opportunity to learn both word-object and action-object associations for the same object. All participants went through a learning phase and a test phase. In the learning phase, they were presented with two novel objects which were associated with a distinct novel name (e.g., “Look, a Tanu”) and a distinct novel action (e.g., moving up and down while tilting sideways). In the test phase, participants were presented with both objects on screen in a baseline phase, then either heard one of the two labels or saw one of the two actions in a prime phase, and then saw the two objects again on screen in a recognition phase. Throughout the trial, participants’ target looking was recorded to investigate whether participants looked at the target object upon hearing its label or seeing its action, and thus, would show learning of the word-object and action-object associations. Growth curve analyses revealed that 12-month-olds showed modest learning of action-object associations, 36-month-olds learned word-object associations, and adults learned word-object and action-object associations. These results highlight how children attend to the different information types from the two modalities through which communication is addressed to them. Over time, with increased exposure to systematic word-object mappings, children attend less to action-object mappings, with the latter potentially being mediated by word-object learning even in adulthood. Thus, choosing between different kinds of input that may be more relevant in their rich environment encompassing different modalities might help learning at different points in development.
Using behavioral observation for the longitudinal study of anger regulation in middle childhood
(2019)
Assessing anger regulation via self-reports is fraught with problems, especially among children. Behavioral observation provides an ecologically valid alternative for measuring anger regulation. The present study uses data from two waves of a longitudinal study to present a behavioral observation approach for measuring anger regulation in middle childhood. At T1, 599 children from Germany (6-10 years old) were observed during an anger eliciting task, and the use of anger regulation strategies was coded. At T2, 3 years later, the observation was repeated with an age-appropriate version of the same task. Partial metric measurement invariance over time demonstrated the structural equivalence of the two versions. Maladaptive anger regulation between the two time points showed moderate stability. Validity was established by showing correlations with aggressive behavior, peer problems, and conduct problems (concurrent and predictive criterion validity). The study presents an ecologically valid and economic approach to assessing anger regulation strategies in situ.
Updating and reasoning
(2019)
Two issues should be addressed to refine and extend the distinction between temporal updating and reasoning advocated by Hoerl & McCormack. First, do the mental representations constructed during updating differ from those used for reasoning? Second, are updating and reasoning the only two processes relevant to temporal thinking? If not, is a dual-systems framework sensible? We address both issues below.
Recent research on proactive work behaviours (PWBs) pointed out that these behaviours can have negative consequences for the proactive individual. We add to this perspective by showing that PWBs may be a source of strain at work and result in elevated time pressure. Challenging the view of time pressure as a challenge stressor, we hypothesize that over the course of work weeks, time pressure will result in less (rather than more) PWB. We investigate these reciprocal effects as within-person, week-level fluctuations of time pressure and PWB based on experience sampling data (N = 52 participants, k = 274 observations). Over the course of three consecutive work weeks, results show a positive lagged effect of PWB in the first week on experiencing time pressure in the second week; in turn, time pressure in the second week had a negative lagged effect on PWB in the third week. Results further suggest that PWB is lowest in work weeks of low time pressure when following a week of high time pressure, indicating a conservation of resources interpretation of the results.
Southeast Asia is one of the most dynamic regions in the world. It is experiencing rapid socioeconomic change that may influence the level of sexual aggression, but data on the scale of sexual aggression in the region remain sparse. The aim of the present article was to systematically review the findings of studies available in English on the prevalence of self-reported sexual aggression and victimization among women and men above the age of 12 years in the 11 countries of Southeast Asia (Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam). Based on four scientific databases, the search engine Google, Opengrey database, and reference checking, 49 studies were found on sexual victimization. Of those, 32 included only women. Self-reported perpetration was assessed by only three studies and included all-male samples. Prevalence rates varied widely across studies but showed that sexual victimization was widespread among different social groups, irrespective of sex and sexual orientation. Methodological heterogeneity, lack of representativeness of samples, imbalance of information available by country, missing information within studies, and cultural differences hampered the comparability between and within countries. There is a need for operationalizations that specifically address sexual aggression occurring after the age of consent, based on detailed behavioral descriptions of unwanted sexual experiences and allied to a qualitative approach with cultural sensitivity. Data on sexual aggression in conflict settings and in human trafficking are also limited. Recommendations for future research are presented in the discussion.
Objective
There is a very limited amount of research on the relationship between therapist and patient in‐session behavior and treatment outcome in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for panic disorder with agoraphobia (PD/AG). Additionally, the findings tend to be inconclusive. This study investigates the association between therapist competence, adherence, patient interpersonal behavior, and therapeutic alliance and outcome in a low‐control CBT setting by using comprehensive measures.
Methods
Twenty‐six patients with PD/AG received 12 sessions of exposure‐based CBT. With regard to the outcome, treatments were classified either as problematic or nonproblematic by means of distinct criteria. Two raters evaluated the in‐session behavior.
Results
Patient interpersonal behavior was significantly associated with outcome at follow‐up (r = 0.49). At posttreatment, the correlation did not reach significance ( r = 0.34). Competence, adherence, and alliance were not outcome associated.
Conclusion
The findings emphasize the need for therapists to pay particular attention to patients’ interpersonal behavior during treatment.
A recent extension of the stressor-detachment model holds that the path running from job stressors via psychological detachment to impairment of well-being is moderated by both personal and job resources (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015). The aim of the present study was to test this proposition by investigating the moderating role of one personal resource and one job resource (i.e., coworker social support and general self-efficacy, respectively) on the linkage between different job stressors (i.e., workload and role ambiguity), detachment, and well-being. Hypotheses were tested with structural equation modeling using data from a representative survey of the German workforce (N = 3,937 employees, M-age = 46.5 years, 47.5% women). In agreement with previous findings, the results showed that psychological detachment mediated the negative effects of job stressors on well-being. Social support from coworkers buffered the mediation such that the conditional indirect effects of workload and role ambiguity on well-being via detachment were weaker at higher levels of support. General self-efficacy did not moderate the stressor-well-being linkage. These results imply that social support can be considered as a protective factor that helps employees maintain their well-being by alleviating the negative effects of job stressors on their ability to switch off mentally from work.