The Effect of Repetition on Infants' Imitation From Picture Books Varying in Iconicity

Although picture‐book reading is commonplace during infancy, little is known about the impact of this activity on learning. A previous study showed that 18‐ and 24‐month‐olds imitated a novel action sequence presented in a book that was illustrated with realistic color photos, whereas they failed to imitate from books illustrated with less realistic drawings. In the research reported here, we hypothesized that increasing infants' exposure to a picture book would increase learning from books illustrated with both color photos and drawings. Independent groups of 18‐and 24‐month‐olds were exposed to a picture book either twice in succession or 4 times in succession. The results showed that, regardless of the iconicity of the illustrations, increasing the number of reading sessions significantly improved the infants' imitation scores, compared to age‐matched, no‐demonstration controls. The results are discussed in relation to representational insight and cognitive flexibility.     

The encoding and decoding of liking from behavioral cues in both auditory and visual channels

Fifty high school students met in same-sex dyads for the first time over a cup of coffee in an experimental room designed as a comfortable living room. They then responded to a questionnaire designed to measure liking and perceived similarity. The interactions were video-taped. Two different panels of 6 judges later either viewed (video only) or heard (audio-only) the videotape and raed the subjects behavior on a number of scales. The judges also judged the degree of liking felt by the subjects by estimating subjects responses to the questionnaire. In addition gaze behaviour during the interaction was measured. Factor analysis demonstrated that 60% of the variance in The Liking Scale was attributed to 14 items relating to liking and perceived similarity. A separate factor to assess perceived similarity could not be found. Twenty-nine percent of the variance in the liking reported by subjects was predicted by an interrelated pattern of expressing behaviour including approproate looking, mutual gaze, self-disclosure, synchrony in movement and gesture, expressiveness of the face and liveliness of the voice. Video judges liking correlated 0.33 with subjects liking and 48% of the variance in their judgements was explained by the valid cues of looking and expressiveness of the face. Audio judges liking, although it correlated at 0.34 with video judges liking, did not correlate at all with subjects' liking because of an over-reliance on the important content cues. It is suggested that major problems leading to decoding inaccuracy may be over-reliance on content cues and over-confidence in the possibility of decoding accuracy. The evidence suggests that differences between subjects in encoding may be considerable.     

The Development of Object Construction From Infancy Through Toddlerhood

Early in development, children explore and combine objects in increasingly complex ways. One manual skill, object construction, represents a major shift in how objects are explored relative to other objects. Despite recent connections with cognitive functioning such as spatial skills, the development of object construction ability has rarely been studied and its trajectory has not been adequately described. The purpose of this study was to describe the development of three types of object construction (stacking, nesting, and affixing) across 5 monthly infant visits and 7 monthly toddler visits using a longitudinal design and a large sample size. Infants (10–14 months, n = 131) and toddlers drawn from the infant sample (18–24 months, n = 65) were given sets of age‐appropriate toys each of which elicited at least one type of constructive play. We described success at different construction tasks and identified trends for construction skill for infant and toddler development using multilevel modeling. We found that each of the three construction actions developed in unique ways across the 10‐ to 24‐month period. Infant construction skill predicted the development of toddler skill, but toddler construction skill diverged from infant trajectories. We discuss the role of combination strategies in the development of object construction skill and how object construction could be related to other domains of development.     

On the influence of a ranking system

Ranking systems are becoming increasingly important in many areas, in the Web environment and academic life for instance. In a world with a tremendous amount of choices, rankings play the crucial role of influencing which objects are tasted or selected. This selection generates a feedback when the ranking is based on citations, as is the case for the widely used invariant method. The selection affects new stated opinions (citations), which will, in turn, affect the next ranking. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this feedback in the context of journals by studying some simple but reasonable dynamics. Our main interest is in the long run behavior of the process and how it depends on the preferences, in particular on their diversity. We show that multiple long run behaviors may arise due to strong self-reinforcing mechanisms at work with the invariant method. These effects are not present in a simple search model in which individuals are influenced by the cites of the papers they first read.     

Videogame Assisted Emotional Regulation Training: An ACT with RAGE-Control Case Illustration

This paper describes the treatment of an adolescent girl (age 16) who received the ACT with RAGE-Control intervention during her treatment in an urban inpatient psychiatry unit. ACT with RAGE-Control utilizes five traditional Cognitive Behavioral techniques combined with an active biofeedback videogame designed to strengthen a patient’s self-regulatory capacities while facing simulated stress in a virtual environment. The treatment is delivered as daily individual psychotherapy sessions over five consecutive days of an inpatient psychiatric admission. The following case illustrates the theory and techniques of the ACT with RAGE-Control intervention.     

Bringing their worlds back: using photographs to spur conversations on everyday place

This article poses a methodological argument for the use of expressive photographs in fostering more mindful discussions of the experience of everyday places. The article builds on the author’s ‘guided tours’ methodology of walk/make/talk, which involves asking inhabitants to take the researcher on tours of their everyday places, the researcher making creative visual representations of those places and then, bringing those images back to residents to talk about how the photographs are similar, or in contrast, to lived experience. The article uses examples from research in Brooklyn, NY, and Oakland, CA, to specifically explore the ‘making’ and ‘talking’ part of the process, and to argue for the critical distance gained when a participant has the opportunity to see their most commonplace and often unremarked worlds brought back to them through another pair of eyes. The paper considers distinctions with other photo-elicitation methods and discusses how this model of bringing people’s worlds back to them often allowed the jolt of a new perspective to suspend the taken-for-grantedness of the world, creating a time and opportunity to consider the everyday in more depth. It further discusses how the method enabled people to clarify three aspects of everydayness that are hard to pin down: the feel of place, emotional responses, and seeing past time. The paper challenges conceptions of photographs as ‘data’, champions expressive work in research, and proposes that photographs made by a range of authors can enable new ways of seeing, challenging and discussing the everyday urban environment.     

Participant roles in preschool bullying: The impact of emotion regulation,social preference,and quality of the teacher–child relationship

The present work investigated whether emotion regulation and social preference were associated with participant roles in bullying as a function of the quality of the relationship with teachers. Participants were 332 children (172 boys), in the age of 42–76 months (M = 58.74; SD = 7.84). Peer nominations were employed to assess social preference and participant roles (bullying, victimization, defending the victim, and outsider behavior). Teachers completed the Emotion Regulation Checklist, which yields the dimensions of emotion regulation and lability/negativity, and the Student – Teacher Relationships Scale, to evaluate conflict and closeness with the teacher. Multilevel models highlighted that emotional lability was positively associated with bullying and outsider behavior, emotion regulation was positively related to bullying and defending behavior, and social preference was negatively associated with bullying and victimization and positively with defending behavior. Interactions indicated that lability and low social preference were associated with bullying, and emotion regulation with outsider behavior, in children with a conflictual relationship with the teacher whereas social preference was related to defending behavior in children with a close relationship with the teacher. Results are discussed highlighting the importance of the quality of teacher–child relationship and the relevance of intervention programs aimed at promoting social wellbeing in preschool.     

‘Here and There’: Children and Youth’s Perspectives of Borders in Mexico–United States Migration

This article explores children’s perspectives regarding migration and family separation on both sides of the Mexico‐U.S. border. ‘Transnational care constellations’¹ that connect separated siblings allow children to imagine the other side of the border and to explore their thoughts and perspectives through the lenses of inequality, as well as through a sense of belonging and family. This article presents ethnographic data of families that capture the dynamism of families that are both ‘here and there’ as children assemble their ideas and narratives of how transnational lives exist.     

iDecide: supporting inclusive decision-making in European schools

iDecide is a KA3 - Support for policy reform project with partners from public and private sectors- from Cyprus, Romania, Greece, Ireland and Portugal. iDecide was conceptualised with the aim of supporting school leaders and teachers in their efforts marginalised groups, and to support their learning in their everyday decision-making. The iDecide toolkit supports the decision-making processes that the majority of schools face every day in all aspects of school life (visits and excursions, school projects, parental involvement, school canteen, homework, students’ council etc). The iDecide toolkit has the capacity to provide teachers and school leaders with practical guidelines for these common decisions in straightforward, simple language. It also gives school leaders the opportunity to retrieve pupils’ and parents' opinions through online polls and forum discussions. This short paper describes the iDecide toolkit functions.