Denise Davidson

Monolingual and Bilingual Children's Use of the Mutual Exclusivity Constraint.

The use of the mutual exclusivity constraint was examined in three-year-old and six-year-old children who were either monolingual in English (N = 32) or bilingual in English/Urdu (N = 32) or in English/Greek (N = 32). Three tests of the constraint were used: disambiguation rejection, and restriction. On the disambiguation test, the mutual exclusivity bias was significantly more evident in five- and six-year-old monolingual children than in their same-age bilingual peers. Monolingual children were also more likely than bilingual children to reject a new name for a familiar object. However, using a restriction test, neither monolingual nor bilingual children readily accepted and restricted typical names for hybrid objects. Developmental differences were also found, as older (five- to six-year-old) monolingual childrens responses on the tests were generally more consistent with the constraint than younger (three- to four-year-old) childrens responses. Nevertheless, bilingual children did use the constraint, but not to the extent of monolingual children.

Body satisfaction and pressure to be thin in younger and older Muslim and non-Muslim women: The role of Western and non-Western dress preferences

Younger and older Muslim and non-Muslim women living in the United States completed questionnaires about body satisfaction and their internalization of Western standards of beauty (thin-ideal). Younger Muslim women wearing non-Western clothing and a head veil were significantly less likely to express drive for thinness or pressure to attain a thin-ideal standard of beauty than women wearing Western dress or younger women wearing non-Western dress without a head veil. Older women, while expressing greater discrepancy between their ideal body shape and their current body shape, and less satisfaction with their bodies than younger women, reported less drive for thinness and less pressure to attain the Western thin-ideal standard of beauty than younger women. These results are discussed in terms of how factors such as age and religion may serve as protective factors against a strong or unhealthy drive for thinness or thin-ideal standard.

Examining the Potential of Community-Based After-School Programs for Latino Youth

Results are presented from two pilot studies examining the potential influence of community-based after-school programs (ASPs) on regionally diverse Latino youth of varying ages. Study 1 examined relations between dimensions of ASP attendance and content, and ethnic identity development, and self-worth in urban Latino adolescents. In this study, higher ratings of the ASP’s emphasis on ethnic socialization were associated with a more developed ethnic identity, while greater intensity of ASP participation and perceptions of ASP quality were associated with higher levels of self-worth. Study 2 examined relations between ASP participation and development of concentration and emotion regulation skills in rural Latino grade-school youth. In this study, youth who regularly attended the ASP demonstrated significantly better concentration and regulation skills than those who did not regularly attend, if they exhibited preexisting concentration and regulation problems. Findings illustrate how ASPs with varying strategies, activities, and assessment tools can be evaluated in the interest of designing future large-scale investigations into ASPs and Latino positive youth development.

Children's recall of emotional behaviours, emotional labels, and nonemotional behaviours: Does emotion enhance memory?

First, third, and fifth grade childrens recall of emotional behaviours, emotional labels, and nonemotional behaviours in text was examined in two experiments. Across experiments, all children recalled more emotional behaviours (e.g., “That night Maria dropped a carton of eggs in the kitchen and her parents got mad at her”) than nonemotional behaviours (e.g., “After dinner, Maria and her brothers did their homework together”). In fact, with short stories and few items to-be-remembered (Experiment 1), no significant differences were found in first, third, and fifth grade childrens recall of emotional behaviours. In contrast, older children recalled more nonemotional behaviours than younger children. With longer and more complex stories (Experiment 2), older children recalled more emotional behaviours than younger children. Nevertheless, all children recalled more emotional behaviours than nonemotional behaviours across experiments. The effects of varying the valence of the emotion, the labelling of emotion, and the length of retention interval on memory were also examined. The results are discussed in terms of a recent model of emotion and in terms of the implications for understanding the development of memory.

The Effects of Priming on Children's Attitudes Toward Older Individuals

The purpose of the present research was to examine younger (7-years-old) and older (10-years-old) childrens attitudes toward older individuals following one type of five primes: positive prime, negative prime, elderly prime, grandparent prime, or neutral prime. Overall, childrens attitudes on three tests—Apperception, Semantic Differential, and Attribute Salience—were affected by the type of prime children were given, with positive and grandparent primes resulting in more positive views toward older individuals than negative, elderly, or neutral (control group) primes. The present research provides evidence that priming the most accessible cognitions about an individual can affect even young childrens perception of the individual. These results are discussed in terms of category-based and data-driven processing and may explain the disparate findings obtained in previous studies that have shown the childrens attitudes toward older individuals are sometimes negative, whereas other studies have shown that childrens attitudes are more positive or neutral.

Recognition of Emotion from Facial Expressions with Direct or Averted Eye Gaze and Varying Expression Intensities in Children with Autism Disorder and Typically Developing Children

Eye gaze direction and expression intensity effects on emotion recognition in children with autism disorder and typically developing children were investigated. Children with autism disorder and typically developing children identified happy and angry expressions equally well. Children with autism disorder, however, were less accurate in identifying fear expressions across intensities and eye gaze directions. Children with autism disorder rated expressions with direct eyes, and 50% expressions, as more intense than typically developing children. A trend was also found for sad expressions, as children with autism disorder were less accurate in recognizing sadness at 100% intensity with direct eyes than typically developing children. Although the present research showed that children with autism disorder are sensitive to eye gaze direction, impairments in the recognition of fear, and possibly sadness, exist. Furthermore, children with autism disorder and typically developing children perceive the intensity of emotional expressions differently.

Interruption and bizarreness effects in the recall of script-based text

Recall of script, script-irrelevant, and script-interruptive actions in script-based stories was examined in four experiments. By varying the plausibility of the script-irrelevant and the script-interruptive actions, the bizarreness effect (i.e., enhanced recall for bizarre, implausible actions) was assessed within the context of script-based text. In addition, presentation of script-interruptive actions allowed for an assessment of the interruption effect (i.e., enhanced recall for interruptive actions). A bizarreness effect was found, to the extent that implausible script-irrelevant actions were better recalled than their more plausible counterparts and script actions. However, implausible actions were not better recalled than script-interruptive actions, nor did bizarreness significantly enhance recall of script-interruptive actions. These results are discussed in terms of recent assumptions underlying interruptions underlying interruption and bizarreness effects, and in terms of recent assumptions about how scripted and nonscripted actions are retained in memory.

Proneness to Self-Conscious Emotions in Adults With and Without Autism Traits

Self-conscious emotions, such as shame, guilt and pride, facilitate our social interactions by motivating us to adhere to social norms and external standards. In this study, we examined proneness to shame, guilt, hubristic pride and authentic pride in adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder traits (ASD-T) and in neurotypical (NT) adults. Relations between proneness to self-conscious emotions and theory of mind (ToM), fear of negative evaluation, and social functioning were also assessed. Adults with ASD-T showed greater proneness to shame, and less proneness to guilt and pride than NT adults. Both ToM and fear of negative evaluation predicted proneness to self-conscious emotions in ASD-T. These findings are discussed in terms of understanding complex emotion processing in adults with ASD-T.

Emotion recognition from congruent and incongruent emotional expressions and situational cues in children with autism spectrum disorder

In this research, the emotion recognition abilities of children with autism spectrum disorder and typically developing children were compared. When facial expressions and situational cues of emotion were congruent, accuracy in recognizing emotions was good for both children with autism spectrum disorder and typically developing children. When presented with facial expressions incongruent with situational cues, children with autism spectrum disorder relied more on facial cues than situational cues, whereas typically developing children relied more on situational cues. The exception was fear. When presented with incongruent information (i.e. a smiling boy surrounded by a swarm of bees), most children based their response on the situation and indicated that the boy felt scared. While the majority of typically developing children commented on the disparity between facial expressions and situational cues, children with autism spectrum disorder did not mention the conflicting cues. Although typically developing children were more accurate in recognizing emotion with situational cues, children with autism spectrum disorder were still adequate at identifying emotion from situational cues alone. These findings suggest that children with autism spectrum disorder show an understanding of simple emotions in prototypical situations, but may prefer facial expressions when facial expressions and situational cues are incongruent. Reasons for these findings are discussed.

Stereotyped Views of Older Adults in Children from the People's Republic of China and from the United States

ABSTRACT Children from the Peoples Republic of China and from the United States were asked to judge younger and older adults. Childrens impression and memory for these adults was examined, along with their ability to use information presented about the adults to judge them. How stable children thought traits were about an adult as that adult ages, and how well children recalled information that was consistent or inconsistent with age stereotypes, was also examined. Additionally, the relationship between childrens experiences with older adults, and their views of older adults, was assessed. Although 10-year-old American children were more negative about older adults than other children, 6-and 10-year-old children in both the Peoples Republic of China and the United States expressed negative views of older adults. However, these negative views, or age stereotypes, were more readily found when the task required a comparison between younger and older adults, even when that comparison was for the same person as a younger and older person. Although children were more positive in their views of the adults following the presentation of positive information, children did not necessarily see these characteristics as being stable, especially if they ran counter to stereotype. This was particularly true for the 6-year-old children. These results are discussed in terms of the formation and counter-formation of age stereotypes in children.