Maternal representations of the infant: associations with infant response to the still face

Mothers' representations of their infants may influence early development of emotional self-regulation. This study examined the associations between characteristics of mothers' (N = 100) narratives about their 7-month-old infants, maternal depression, and their infants' affect regulation during the Still Face procedure. Findings showed that (1) mothers' representations were linked with individual differences in their infants' behavior across the Still Face procedure, (2) the association between mothers' representations and their infants' behavior was mediated by parenting behavior, and (3) mothers' representations explained unique variance in their infants' affect regulation beyond the contribution of maternal depression. Although infants' displays of positive affect diminished while mothers held a still face, only infants of mothers in the balanced representation category returned to high levels of positive affect upon resuming interaction. These findings highlight the role of maternal representations in the process by which dyads repair temporary disruptions in interaction, as well as individual differences in infants' and mothers' responses to the Still Face.     

Order and duration of stimuli are important determinants of reactivation

Prior cuing treatments intended to alleviate the forgetting of a conditioned avexsion-to an odor were tested with 18-day-old rats. Previous experiments had shown that when such pups were conditioned with the use of a CS?/CS+ procedure, pretest presentation of the CS? or US, but not the CS+, alleviated the forgetting otherwise seen after a 3-h retention interval. In Experiment 1, it was determined that the forgetting was not alleviated if the GS? was either preceded or followed by presentation of the CS+, despite the fact that the CS?/CS+ ordering mimicked that of original conditioning. Experiment 2 was an examination of the balance of extinction and reactivation effects caused by presenting the CS+ for varying durations following the 3-h retention interval. The forgetting over this interval was alleviated if the CS+ was presented for 5 or 15 sec, but not 30 sec. With an increase in duration of exposure from 15 to 30 sec, the consequences of the CS+ as a prior cuing treatment apparently shifted from reactivation to extinction. Experiment 3 was a test of the interaction between the consequences of different lengths of CS+ exposure and the effectiveness of adding CS? to the CS+ as a reactivation treatment. The varied effectiveness of reactivation treatments is discussed interms of a change in stimulus conditions from training to reactivation.     

Career patterns of scientists in peripheral communities

In an advanced country, the scientific community is large enough to permit differentiation, with sufficient members in each special field to permit complex interaction with each other, and sufficiently different from each other to be able to stimulate each other. …It has its own system of communicating and assessing the results of research and analysis. …It has its own circles of face-to-face interaction and inter-individual communication. …It is linked with other scientific communities across political boundaries by personal contact (emphasis added) by mutual appreciation and by public communication and formal association.…In the underdeveloped countries scientists are relatively few in number.… They suffer isolation from each other.… They are in danger…of losing contacts with their colleagues in the international scientific community.… They are in brief not fully-fledged members of the scientific community and their work suffers accordingly. [7]     

Neophobias and conditioned taste aversions in rats following exposure to novel flavors

Rats were successively exposed to three solutions with distinctively different flavors and then tested for both neophobia and propensity to form conditioned taste aversions to a fourth distinctively flavored solution. All permutations between the four solutions (salty, bitter, sweet, and sour) were examined. The prior exposures resulted in attenuation of neophobia to novel salty and sour solutions, but not to equally novel bitter or sweet solutions. These effects were found to depend upon thediversity of the prior ingestive events rather than upon either a single specific flavor experience or a summation of the reductions in generalized neophobia accrued by each substance separately; both of the latter findings are inconsistent with stimulus generalization being responsible for the observed attenuation of neophobia to salty and sour solutions following exposure to diverse different solutions. A further test of generalization between the salty and bitter solutions, consisting of associating one flavor with poison and extinguishing the avoidance response in half the animals prior to testing for generalization of conditioned taste aversion to the other flavor, also proved negative. Although these effects of exposure to flavors distinctly different from the test solution may be dependent upon solution concentrations, further research found that the same pretest exposures and same test concentrations failed to inhibit formation of conditioned taste aversions. A demonstration of “latent inhibition” attested to the sensitivity of our procedure to potential interference with acquisition of conditioned taste aversions. The results are considered in light of the relationship between neophobia and conditioned tasted aversions, the differential biological relevancy of specific tastes, and abstraction as a cognitive capability of rats. The possibility is raised that the defense against toxins is not the primary function of neophobia.     

The Connector Study: A Strategy for Collecting Post-Graduation Data About Low-Income High School Students

Tracking low-income students after high school graduation presents significant problems for data collection. The Connector Study is an attempt to increase and enrich outcomes data in a longitudinal study of low-income graduates of a national network of innovative high schools by gathering alumni updates through telephone interviews with high school staff members who remain in touch with their former students. Approximately 2 years after they worked with groups of students in high school, these individuals were able to provide information about education, job, and personal outcomes for 96% of 563 graduates. The Connector Study strategy offers a feasible method for collecting quantifiable outcome measures for longitudinal studies. This method also provides information about student change and individual circumstances that is difficult to obtain from students themselves, and that goes beyond the basic outcome indicators available through federal and state student tracking systems.     

The effectiveness of Nurture Groups: preliminary research findings

Interest in Nurture Groups continues to grow. As Rebecca Doyle's article in the previous issue of this journal demonstrated, practitioners are enthusiastically exploring nurture-based practice as one approach to the inclusion of pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. In this article, Paul Cooper, Professor of Education at the University of Leicester, Ray Arnold and Eve Boyd, both researchers with the Nurture Groups project, provide a report on their research to date. This interim report raises some important questions for policy makers and practitioners as well as indicating ways forward into further enquiry.     

The Relationship Between Authentic Leadership,Trust, and Engagement in Library Personnel

Using validated and reliable psychometric instruments, 87 non-manager library employees were surveyed to determine the nature of the relationships between non-manager perceptions of authenticity and trust in two levels of leadership with self-rated engagement. The results provide insights about how non-managers perceive authenticity and trust in both direct managers and senior supervisors, and how those perceptions are related to self-ascribed employee engagement. While perceptions of trust and authenticity accounted for some of the variance found, undetermined variables may explain more of the variance in employee engagement. Recommendations for developing authentic leaders and engaging employees in a library setting are offered.     

制度的基石、保障与功能——中美大学生实习比较及对就业的启示

在中国大学生就业竞争和就业压力日益增大的背景下,实习似乎正在成为大学生增强就业资本的一个必然选择。美国大学本科生参加与专业学习相关的实践工作已经有百余年的历史,美国大学关于实习的理念、制度与实践在不断地完善和创新。本文旨在通过深入介绍美国大学实习制度的价值观念、制度设计、组织实践、成效测量等趋势以及目前存在的问题和挑战,为我国大学实习问题的研究、政策制定提供借鉴资料。