Maturation of cognitive processes from late childhood to adulthood

To characterize cognitive maturation through adolescence, processing speed, voluntary response suppression, and spatial working memory were measured in 8- to 30-year-old (N = 245) healthy participants using oculomotor tasks. Development progressed with a steep initial improvement in performance followed by stabilization in adolescence. Adult-level mature performance began at approximately 15, 14, and 19 years of age for processing speed, response inhibition, and working memory, respectively. Although processes developed independently, processing speed influenced the development of working memory whereas the development of response suppression and working memory were interdependent. These results indicate that processing speed, voluntary response suppression, and working memory mature through late childhood and into adolescence. How brain maturation specific to adolescence may support cognitive maturation is discussed.     

Advisory services and farm-level sustainability profiles: an exploration in nine European countries

Purpose: This study explores the use of advisory services by farm managers and its linkages with the economic, environmental and social performance of farms.

Design/methodology/approach: Using cluster analysis we determined groups of farms according to their sustainability performance and explored the correlations between contacts with advisory services and a set of farm-level sustainability indicators.

Findings: There exist significant differences in the number of farmers’ contacts with advisory services across countries, type of farms, farmers’ degree of agricultural education, utilized agricultural area, legal type of farm ownership and economic size of the farms. We identified three groups of farms that have different sustainability performance, are different in farm characteristics and relate differently to advisory services. The number of contacts with advisory services is positively related to the adoption of innovations, the number of information sources utilized and the adoption of farm risk management measures. We find no clear linear relationship between advisory services and environmental sustainability.

Theoretical implications: This study derives hypotheses to analyze causalities between indicators of farm-level sustainability and advisory services.

Practical implications: Results suggest the importance of taking into account the heterogeneity of farming systems for the design, targeting and evaluation of advisory services. In addition, results confirm the importance of selection of indicators that can be used in multiple sites.

Originality/value: We used a harmonized indicator of advisory services and a harmonized set of farm-level sustainability indicators in nine different EU countries that could be used to evaluate the role of advisory services in the achievement of multiple objectives in different groups of farms in multiple sites.     

The modern mathematics reform movement in Brazil and its consequences for Brazilian mathematics education

This paper reports on the conclusions drawn from an investigation of the modern mathematics reform movement in Brazil. The focus of the study was an analysis of the mechanisms of transfer of knowledge from developed to developing countries, through a case study of Brazil and its adoption of the modern mathematics curriculum.The report presented here focuses on the dynamics of the reform movement and on the consequences of the movement for Brazilian mathematics education. The movement is studied as to how ideas about modern mathematics reform were disseminated to the Brazilian mathematics education community and the consequences due to misinterpretations of the intended curriculum in the implementation process. The intent of the study is that future initiatives in curriculum change proceed more efficiently in light of previous experiences, without repeating the mistakes committed in the past.     

Developmental effects of incentives on response inhibition

Inhibitory control and incentive processes underlie decision making, yet few studies have explicitly examined their interaction across development. Here, the effects of potential rewards and losses on inhibitory control in 64 adolescents (13- to 17-year-olds) and 42 young adults (18- to 29-year-olds) were examined using an incentivized antisaccade task. Notably, measures were implemented to minimize age-related differences in reward valuation and potentially confounding motivation effects. Incentives affected antisaccade metrics differently across the age groups. Younger adolescents generated more errors than adults on reward trials, but all groups performed well on loss trials. Adolescent saccade latencies also differed from adults across the range of reward trials. Overall, results suggest persistent immaturities in the integration of reward and inhibitory control processes across adolescence.     

The intellectual labour market in developed and developing countries: Women's representation in scientific research

Women's representation in scientific research in countries with differing levels of development is analysed. The under‐representation of women in this area is worse in developed countries than in the group of semi‐industrialized and newly industrialized countries. In countries which were late to industrialize, the development of science took place at a stage when women's economic and social participation was more acceptable. Moreover, in developing countries the links between research and the productive system are weak. Both facts are connected with greater discrimination against women in scientific research in developed countries. Within the framework of long‐term economic cycles and technological change, some assumptions can be made about the future. This approach can be used to set up a theoretical framework for women's strategies.     

The Spanish Version of the Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue): Evidence for Longitudinal Measurement Invariance and Relationship With Emotional Regulation

Research Findings: Empathy, or the ability to understand what others are thinking or feeling, can be observed in early developmental stages. The purpose of this study was to validate the Spanish version of the Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue) and examine its longitudinal measurement invariance (LMI) at 2 time points. Parents of 103 children completed the EmQue when their children were 3 (M = 41.76) and 4 (M = 51.65) years old. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that Grazzani, Ornaghi, Pepe, Brazzelli and Rieffe’s (2016) 3-factor model of emotional contagion (EC), attention to others’ feelings, and prosocial actions (PA) presented the best fit indices at both time points (Time 1: CFI = .931, TLI = .914, and RMSEA = .070; Time 2: CFI = .941, TLI = .935, and RMSEA = .064). Moreover, preliminary evidence was obtained for the LMI of this model. PA scores increased over time. Score reliability ranged from .60 (EC) to .83 (PA). Positive correlations were found between PA and emotional regulation at each time point and across time.Practice or Policy: The great relevance of empathy and prosocial behavior in academic achievement and psychological adjustment justifies the development of reliable instruments to evaluate these constructs from early ages.     

Emergence of Global Shape Processing Continues Through Adolescence

The developmental trajectory of perceptual organization in humans is unclear. This study investigated perceptual grouping abilities across a wide age range (8–30 years) using a classic compound letter global/local (GL) task and a more fine-grained microgenetic prime paradigm (MPP) with both few- and many-element hierarchical displays. In the GL task, contrary to adults, both children and adolescents exhibited a classic local bias. In the MPP, all 3 age groups evinced a bias to individuate the few-element displays; however, the ability to encode the global shape of the many-element displays at the short prime durations increased with age. These results indicate that the full process of garnering shape information from perceptual grouping, which is essential for the ability to do fast and efficient object recognition and identification, develops late into adolescence.