Daniel P. Keating

Perception of Numerical Invariance in Neonates.

40 healthy, normal newborn infants were evaluated with reference to their ability to discriminate among visual stimulus arrays consisting of 2 versus 3 or 4 versus 6 black dots. Infants made this discrimination within a habituation/dishabituation paradigm for the small number sets (2 to 3 and 3 to 2) but not for the larger sets (4 to 6 and 6 to 4). We argue that this suggests the ability to abstract numerical invariance from small-set visual arrays and may be evidence for complex information processing during the first week of life.

Individual and Developmental Differences in Cognitive-Processing Components of Mental Ability.

KEATING, DANIEL P., and BOBBITT, BRUCE L. Individual and Developmental Differences in Cognitive-processing Components of Mental Ability. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1978, 49, 155-167. Cognitive activity has been viewed from a variety of research perspectives, but there have been few attempts to integrate these different perspectives theoretically or empirically in order to gain a more general picture of human cognition. The 3 perspectives of developmental psychology, experimental psychology, and differential psychology are used in this research in an attempt to understand better the nature of mental ability. Specifically, we searched for differences in basic cognitive processing which could be systematically related to either developmental or individual differences between the subjects. In 3 experiments (simple vs. choice reaction time, Posner letter identification, and Sternberg memory scanning), we looked for interactions of experimental condition with age or ability (defined by Ravens matrices scores). Interactions with age were found in the reaction time and letter identification studies and with ability in letter identification and memory scanning. Additional analyses revealed that a substantial amount of test-score variance was accounted for by the processing variables and that the interrelations of the processing variables provided some evidence for a sequential model of cognitive activity.

Cultural specificity of support sources, correlates and contexts: Three studies of African‐American and Caucasian youth

Levels and correlates of parental support, peer support, partner support, and/or spiritual support among African American and Caucasian youth were examined in three contexts: adolescent pregnancy (Study 1), first year of college (Study 2), and adolescence and young adulthood (ages 15–29; Study 3). Partially consistent with a cultural specificity perspective, in different contexts different support sources were higher in level and/or more strongly related to adjustment for one ethnic group than the other. Among pregnant adolescents, levels of spiritual support were higher for African Americans than Caucasians; additionally, peer support was positively related to well-being only for African Americans whereas partner support was positively related to well-being only for Caucasians. Among college freshmen, family support was more strongly related to institutional and goal commitment for African Americans than Caucasians; conversely, peer support was more strongly related to institutional and goal commitment among Caucasians. Among 15 to 29-year-olds, levels of parental support and spiritual support were higher among African Americans than Caucasians; additionally, spiritual support was positively related to self-esteem for African Americans but not for Caucasians. Implications and limitations of the research are discussed.

Effects of a Girls-Only Curriculum During Adolescence: Performance, Persistence, and Engagement in Mathematics and Science:

This article investigates the benefits of girls-only classroom instruction in math and science during Grades 9 and 10, in the context of a public coeducational high school. It is based on a longitudinal investigation with 786 participants: 85 girls in all-girl classes, and 319 girls and 382 boys in a regular coeducational program. Preexisting achievement, background, and psychological characteristics were included as covariates to ensure comparability of the groups. Significant post-intervention program effects were found for math and science achievement and course enrollment. In contrast, there were no significant program effects for perceived math competence or math anxiety. Although those psychological characteristics predicted performance, they were independent of program effects (i.e., they did not mediate the program effects).

What is a representative brain? Neuroscience meets population science

The last decades of neuroscience research have produced immense progress in the methods available to understand brain structure and function. Social, cognitive, clinical, affective, economic, communication, and developmental neurosciences have begun to map the relationships between neuro-psychological processes and behavioral outcomes, yielding a new understanding of human behavior and promising interventions. However, a limitation of this fast moving research is that most findings are based on small samples of convenience. Furthermore, our understanding of individual differences may be distorted by unrepresentative samples, undermining findings regarding brain–behavior mechanisms. These limitations are issues that social demographers, epidemiologists, and other population scientists have tackled, with solutions that can be applied to neuroscience. By contrast, nearly all social science disciplines, including social demography, sociology, political science, economics, communication science, and psychology, make assumptions about processes that involve the brain, but have incorporated neural measures to differing, and often limited, degrees; many still treat the brain as a black box. In this article, we describe and promote a perspective—population neuroscience—that leverages interdisciplinary expertise to (i) emphasize the importance of sampling to more clearly define the relevant populations and sampling strategies needed when using neuroscience methods to address such questions; and (ii) deepen understanding of mechanisms within population science by providing insight regarding underlying neural mechanisms. Doing so will increase our confidence in the generalizability of the findings. We provide examples to illustrate the population neuroscience approach for specific types of research questions and discuss the potential for theoretical and applied advances from this approach across areas.

Adolescent Drivers: A Developmental Perspective on Risk, Proficiency, and Safety

Despite considerable improvement in the rates of crashes, injuries, and fatalities among adolescent drivers, attributable in part to effective interventions such as graduated driver licensing, these rates and their associated health risks remain unacceptably high. To understand the sources of risky driving among teens, as well as to identify potential avenues for further advances in prevention, this article presents a review of the relevant features of contemporary research on adolescent development. Current research offers significant advances in the understanding of the sources of safe driving, proficient driving, and risky driving among adolescents. This multifaceted perspective--as opposed to simple categorization of good versus bad driving--provides new opportunities for using insights on adolescent development to enhance prevention. Drawing on recent work on adolescent physical, neural, and cognitive development, we argue for approaches to prevention that recognize both the strengths and the limitations of adolescent drivers, with particular attention to the acquisition of expertise, regulatory competence, and self-regulation in the context of perceived risk. This understanding of adolescent development spotlights the provision of appropriate and effective scaffolding, utilizing the contexts of importance to adolescents--parents, peers, and the broader culture of driving--to support safe driving and to manage the inherent risks in learning to do so.

Developmental differences in the allocation of processing capacity

Abstract Recently psychologists have formulated a comprehensive view of attention involving allocation of processing capacity. Although developmental changes in processing capacity have been proposed as one source of age differences in certain cognitive skills, there has been little systematic investigation of this hypothesis. In the present study, second and sixth graders and adults (8, 12, and 20 years of age, respectively) performed a letter-matching task (primary task) concurrently with an auditory detection task (secondary task). Changes in reaction time in the secondary task as a function of manipulations of the primary task were used to estimate capacity allocation to the primary task. Primary task variables included stage of processing (alerting, encoding, rehearsing, responding) and matching condition (physical-identity vs name-identity matching). Age differences in secondary task performance were found to be related to stage of processing but not to matching condition. Earlier stages of the letter match task (alerting, encoding) required somewhat more capacity allocation in younger subjects. Later stages (rehearsing, responding) made substantially higher demands on capacity in children. Capacity allocation may be an important cognitive variable mediating developmental differences in basic information processing skills, and may underlie age trends found in performance of certain complex cognitive tasks.

Trajectories of career aspirations through adolescence and young adulthood: Early math achievement as a critical filter

Growth curve modelling was used to trace the trajectory of the prestige dimension of career aspirations from Grade 9 through to 3 years after high school, as a function of gender and early high school math achievement. The sample consisted of 218 university-bound adolescents (129 female, 89 male). Initial aspiration levels, the slope, and the curvature of the trajectories all differed significantly as a function of Grade 9 math performance. No significant gender or gender by achievement effects were found. These results support the notion that math achievement functions as a “critical filter” to subsequent career aspirations, with youth who performed poorly in Grade 9 math aspiring to careers that were of lower prestige. Implications of this research are discussed in terms of the development of young womens career aspirations, vocational outcomes, and involvement in higher level mathematics education.

Charting Pathways to the Development of Expertise

This article begins with a brief review of the history of the conceptions of intelligence and of intelligence testing. It then discusses the effects of these conceptions on education and on childrens development. The problem of intelligence and intelligence testing is reformulated in terms of charting pathways to the development of expertise. In particular, the article stresses the importance of habits of mind, or patterns of thinking used in everyday life that can affect the way one approaches various tasks. Acquiring expertise requires acquiring those habits of mind that most facilitate task performance. The importance of context is stressed, as is the importance of dynamic testing of human abilities, which recognizes that peoples observed levels of performance do not necessarily reflect their full capabilities.

Domain Specificity and Habits of Mind: An Investigation of Patterns of High-Level Development.

A study of diversity in high-level competence was conducted with 122 students identified as academically gifted, in Grades 6, 7, and 8. Data collection involved psychological self-report measures, as well as nine high-ceiling assessments in three domains of functioning. The results of data analyses were inconsistent with a linear single-scale model of intelligence (e.g., intelligence quotient), but supported the efficacy of a three factor solution: Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical and Social. Further, the data indicated that specialization and generalization develop in tension with each other, yielding coherent patterns of competence and personality, consistent with a model that views competence as arising from developmental histories that may be captured as habits of mind. Recommendations were made pertaining to education, most particularly taking diversity in patterns of high-level development into account, and considering the Social domain an important domain of intellectual growth at early adolescence.