Mirror self-recognition beyond the face

Three studies (N=144) investigated how toddlers aged 18 and 24 months pass the surprise-mark test of self-recognition. In Study 1, toddlers were surreptitiously marked in successive conditions on their legs and faces with stickers visible only in a mirror. Rates of sticker touching did not differ significantly between conditions. In Study 2, toddlers failed to touch a sticker on their legs that had been disguised before being marked. In Study 3, having been given 30-s exposure to their disguised legs before testing, toddlers touched the stickers on their legs and faces at equivalent levels. These results suggest that toddlers pass the mark test based on expectations about what they look like, expectations that are not restricted to the face.     

Interest,inferences, and learning from texts

Topic interest and learning from texts have been found to be positively associated with each other. However, the reason for this positive association is not well understood. The purpose of this study is to examine a cognitive process, inference generation, that could explain the positive association between interest and learning from texts. In Study 1, sixty undergraduate students participated by reading two science texts, which differed in coherence levels, silently. The results replicated previous findings that topic interest is positively associated with recall and accurate answers to comprehension questions for both texts. In Study 2, sixty-nine undergraduate students participated by reading the same two science texts while thinking aloud. The results indicated that topic interest was positively associated with inference generation while reading for the more coherently-written text. Subsequent analyses indicated inference generation partly explained the positive association between topic interest and accurate answers to comprehension questions for the more coherently-written text. The findings from Study 2 were independent of the effects of reading comprehension skill. Theoretical implications of the findings, in regard to standards of coherence and depth of processing while reading, are discussed.     

(3) The Canadian Library Scene

Africa has not been a huge success story in the 20th-century library and information world. What, if anything, can the rest of the developing world learn from the African experience? In many countries library and information services are more highly developed than in any countries of Africa. But others share many of the handicaps of library and information services development which characterize African countries. For librarians and information workers from such countries, the African experience may be quite close to home and it may offer some useful lessons.

This paper attempts to outline the state of library development in Africa at the turn of the century in the context of the challenges and opportunities presented on the one hand by the world-wide developments in information technology, and on the other by the hoped for African Renaissance. Six promising responses to these challenges and opportunities are presented.

Africa is a large and diverse continent. In this paper it is not possible to give a historical perspective on library development in Africa. Given limitations of the author's experience, the emphasis is on Anglophone Africa and on the countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and on public, university and national libraries.     

Reviews

Comics: Ideology, Power and the Critics. By Martin Barker. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 1989. 320 pp. £40 hb, £10.95 pb

David Astor and the Observer. By Richard Cockett. London: Andre Deutsch. 1991. 315 pp. £17.99.

Medical Journals and Medical Knowledge. Historical Essays. By W. F. Bynum, S. Lock and R. Porter. London: Routledge. 1992. 272 pp.

The Magazine in America, 1741–1990. By John Tebbel and Mary Ellen Zuckerman. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 1991. 433 pp. $49.00 (Cdn)

Killing the Messenger: 100 Years of Media Criticism. Edited by Tom Goldstein. New York and Oxford: Columbia University Press. 1991. 272 pp. $17.50 (paperback)

Preserving the Press: How Daily Newspapers Mobilized to Keep Their Readers. By Leo Bogart. New York and Oxford: Columbia University Press. 1991. 327 pp. $46.00 (cloth)

Dictionnaire des journaux 1600–1789, Edited by Jean Sgard. Paris: Universitas, and Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. 2 vols., 1209 pp. 1991.

Politics and Reviewers: The Edinburgh and the Quarterly in the Early Victorian Age. By Joanne Shattock. Leicester: Leicester University Press. 1989. 220 pp.

Crowds and History: Mass Phenomena in English Towns 1790–1835. By M. Harrison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1988. 373 pp. £25.

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. By J. R. Zaller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1992. 367 pp.

Le nuove di Francia, L'Immagine delta rivoluzione francese nella stampa periodica italiana (1789–1795). By Marco Cuaz. Turin: Albert Meynier. 1990. Lira 20,000.     

Single or Dual Representations for Reading and Spelling?

Neuropsychological models postulate that the memory representation acquired for use in reading words is separate from the one acquired for use in spelling, while developmental models assume that the same representation is developed for access in both reading and spelling. The dual-representation model contends that there is often more precise information in reading representations than in spelling representations. This claim was tested in the current study using adult native speakers of English. People were supplied with minimal visual feedback while they spelled words that they knew and could read, and were then shown their whole spelling and asked whether they could improve upon it. People detected spelling mistakes on fewer than one in six trials after the reading check. They also returned many spellings to the original form, and were unable to improve upon them any more often than to change them to something equally bad or worse. The findings favour the view that normal individuals acquire a single orthographic representation from repeated exposures to a word during both reading and spelling. The representation may be adequate to permit successful reading but be insufficient for reproduction of the word-specific knowledge required for accurate spelling.     

Seven-Year Outcome of the Vermont Intervention Program for Low-Birthweight Infants

We compared 24 low-birthweight subjects of an experimental intervention (LBWE), 32 no-treatment controls (LBWC), and 37 normal birthweight (NBW) subjects. The intervention involved 7 hospital sessions and 4 home sessions in which a nurse helped mothers adapt to their LBW babies. At age 7, LBWE scored significantly higher than LBWC on the Kaufman Mental Processing Composite (p less than .001), Sequential (p = .02), and Simultaneous (p = .001) Scales, after statistical adjustments for socioeconomic status. LBWE did not differ from NBW (F less than 1). These results bear out a divergence between the LBWE and LBWC that first became statistically significant at age 3. The findings suggest that the intervention prevented cognitive lags among LBW children, and that long-term follow-ups are needed to evaluate the developmental effects of efforts to overcome major biological and environmental risks.     

The economic legacy of gothic cathedral building: France and England compared

Conclusion The accomplishments of the Gothic cathedral builders are immense. They are usually examined in terms of technical and artistic achievement, however, This seems shortsighted in view of their economic ramifications. The legacy of these works can be seen in technology, specialization and mobility of labor, and procedures in accounting. They thus served as a vehicle for the transformation of feudal society to the early capitalism which generated our modern world.