Does surprise enhance infant memory? Assessing the impact of the encoding context on subsequent object recognition

A discrepancy between what was predicted and what is observed has been linked to increased looking times, changes in brain electrical activity, and increased pupil dilation in infants. These processes associated with heightened attention and readiness to learn might enhance the encoding and memory consolidation of the surprising object, as suggested by both the infant and the adult literature. We therefore investigated whether the presence of surprise during the encoding context enhances subsequent encoding and recognition memory processes for the items that violated infants' expectations. Seventeen-month-olds viewed 20 familiar objects, half of which were labeled correctly, while the other half were mislabeled. Subsequently, infants were presented with a silent recognition memory test where the previously labeled objects appeared along with new images. Pupil dilation was measured, with more dilated pupils indicating (1) surprise during those labeling events where the item was mislabeled and (2) successful retrieval processes during the memory test. Infants responded with more pupil dilation to mislabeling compared to correct labeling. Importantly, despite the presence of a surprise response during mislabeling, infants only differentiated between the previously seen and unseen items at the memory test, offering no evidence that surprise had facilitated the encoding of the mislabeled items.     

Einführung von Internem Coaching in die Organisation eines Handelsbetriebes

This paper deals with the requirements analysis of an internal coaching concept in the organisation of a merchandising company and its following implementation. The aim is to offer the advantages of coaching to the middle and lower management as the top management already receives benefit from individual coaching. The requirements analysis was based on interviews with nine department managers using a pre-structured questionnaire. Based on these interviews a customised coaching concept for this company was defined: coaching is an optional, temporary, individual, method conducted, trust-based, internal consulting service for new leaders.     

Resilience of Cyber Systems with Over‐ and Underregulation

Recent cyber attacks provide evidence of increased threats to our critical systems and infrastructure. A common reaction to a new threat is to harden the system by adding new rules and regulations. As federal and state governments request new procedures to follow, each of their organizations implements their own cyber defense strategies. This unintentionally increases time and effort that employees spend on training and policy implementation and decreases the time and latitude to perform critical job functions, thus raising overall levels of stress. People's performance under stress, coupled with an overabundance of information, results in even more vulnerabilities for adversaries to exploit. In this article, we embed a simple regulatory model that accounts for cybersecurity human factors and an organization's regulatory environment in a model of a corporate cyber network under attack. The resulting model demonstrates the effect of under‐ and overregulation on an organization's resilience with respect to insider threats. Currently, there is a tendency to use ad‐hoc approaches to account for human factors rather than to incorporate them into cyber resilience modeling. It is clear that using a systematic approach utilizing behavioral science, which already exists in cyber resilience assessment, would provide a more holistic view for decisionmakers.     

The Taste of the Eye and the Sight of the Tongue: the Relations between Sight and Taste in Early Modern Europe

This article examines the articulation between the senses of taste and sight through the representations of their organs, the tongue and the eye, in early modern Europe. The relationship between taste and sight first brings to mind gastronomical aesthetics, and the part played by the eye in the relish of beautifully presented dishes. The first part of this article is therefore devoted to exploring the taste of the eye (or the foretaste of sight) and highlights the harmony of taste and sight in early modern cuisine. However, the forms of reciprocity between taste and sight cannot be reduced to the sole figure of culinary aesthetics, which tends to blur the other multiple modalities that this sensorial association could reveal. The second part, the sight of the tongue (or the invisibility of taste), thus examines more complex layers of the relationship between the sense of sight and the taste organ, through a study of the representations of the tongue and of the gaping mouth in early modern visual culture. Drawing on early modern textual and iconographic resources and exploring: cookbooks; physiognomic works; conduct books; and also engravings and paintings related to the culinary arts, the seven deadly sins, and representations of madness and the fool in early modern visual culture, this essay argues that examining the representations of the sense organs is a suggestive way to explore the relationship between the senses.     

Social needs of aboriginal foster parents

A total of 82 Aboriginal foster parents drawn from a provincial registry of foster parents participated in a telephone interview. The interview included the question “What do you need socially to be a good foster parent?” The responses were grouped together by participants in accordance with Trochim's (1989) concept mapping method. Forty-two unique responses were grouped into 6 clusters. These clusters referred to social participation, social networks, activities, as well as family relationships, healthy community and cultural connections.     

Reflections on discrimination and oppression in contemporary social work practice in Bulgaria

This article draws on a study of awareness and sensitivity towards discrimination and oppression in contemporary practice in the Bulgarian social system through the perspectives of helping professionals and social clients. To that end, empirical data were gathered through a study of: the knowledge and awareness about anti-discrimination policy and legislation in the social sphere; awareness and perceptions of discrimination and oppression in society and the social work domain; and reflections on discrimination and oppression in the context of working relationships. Two questionnaires were designed and used to collect data in the period of April–May 2014 in the Southwestern region of Bulgaria. There were two groups consisting of 132 helping professionals (n?=?132) and 121 clients/service users (n?=?121). Both groups had low awareness of anti-discrimination legislation and regulations in the field of social policy and services. Discrimination and oppression were perceived as widespread phenomena that affected life of disadvantaged groups and also manifested in the social system. Ethnic minority service users needed information about their rights and community resources and claimed for larger involvement in the process of social work.     

On the Nature of Toddlers' Helping: Helping or Interest in Others' Activity?

Toddlers' helping has been interpreted as early evidence of cooperation and altruism. We consider whether this important social activity might, instead, be due to toddlers' interest in participating in the activity of others, and we illustrate this possibility with diary observations of infants' social and communicative development. This alternative view of toddlers' helping as one manifestation of a more‐general tendency for social engagement requires a different approach to the explanation of this aspect of social development. We argue for a relational developmental systems account of the emergence and further development of infants' social and emotional engagement leading to toddlers' helping.     

Physical needs of Aboriginal foster parents

Aboriginal foster parents were surveyed about their physical needs. Each was asked ‘What do you need physically to be a good foster parent?’ A total of 39 unique responses were made. They were grouped together by participants and the grouping data were analysed using multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. Five concepts resulted from the analysis. The concepts included physical, financial and emotional resources, supplies and equipment, community, fitness and wellness. Results were compared and contrasted with the fostering literature.     

Emotional needs of Aboriginal foster parents

Aboriginal children are overrepresented in care. Aboriginal foster parents are underrepresented. There is a need to recruit and retain Aboriginal foster parents. In the study, Aboriginal foster parents were asked: “What do you need emotionally to be a good foster parent?” The results were analyzed using multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis, leading to eight concepts, including: awareness, contentment, self‐assurance, appreciation, resolve, space, caring, and commitment to one's values. These results were compared with the existing foster parent literature. Similarities and differences were described.     

The influence function of penalized regression estimators

To perform regression analysis in high dimensions, lasso or ridge estimation are a common choice. However, it has been shown that these methods are not robust to outliers. Therefore, alternatives as penalized M-estimation or the sparse least trimmed squares (LTS) estimator have been proposed. The robustness of these regression methods can be measured with the influence function. It quantifies the effect of infinitesimal perturbations in the data. Furthermore, it can be used to compute the asymptotic variance and the mean-squared error (MSE). In this paper we compute the influence function, the asymptotic variance and the MSE for penalized M-estimators and the sparse LTS estimator. The asymptotic biasedness of the estimators make the calculations non-standard. We show that only M-estimators with a loss function with a bounded derivative are robust against regression outliers. In particular, the lasso has an unbounded influence function.