The association between maternal depressive symptoms and toddlers self-regulation, as indexed by non-compliance, negative affect and disengagement, and externalizing problems was examined in 1189 mother-child dyads when the children were 24 months old. Maternal sensitivity, observed when children were 6, 15, and 24 months, was investigated as a possible mediator or a moderator of links between maternal depressive symptoms and childrens regulatory behavior. Depressive symptoms were examined both as a continuous measure and categorically (never, sometimes, chronic) to assess the effects of depression chronicity. All associations were examined after controlling for maternal education, partner presence, and family income. Child outcomes at 24 months were assessed with a combination of observational and maternal report measures. Both maternal depressive symptoms and maternal sensitivity were associated with most measures of self-regulation, and were negatively correlated with each other. Minimal support was observed for maternal sensitivity as a mediator of the link between maternal depressive symptoms and child outcomes, although both independently predicted some child outcomes even with demographics controlled. No evidence was found to support moderation. When chronicity of depression was examined as a categorical variable, the findings were consistent with those obtained when depressive symptoms were analyzed as a continuous measure. Implications of the findings for understanding the association between maternal depression and child functioning are discussed.

Adults of varying comprehension skill were trained on a set of previously unknown rare English words (e.g. gloaming) in three different learning conditions which manipulated the type of word knowledge that participants learned about the words. Trained words were presented in one of three conditions: (1) Orthography- to- Meaning (no phonology); (2) Orthography- to- Phonology (no meaning); and (3) Phonology- to- Meaning (no orthography). Following training, participants made meaning judgments about the trained words in addition to familiar known words and untrained rare words while their ERPs were recorded. Behavioral results showed no significant differences of comprehension on meaning relatedness task performance. ERP recordings segmented after the presentation of the first word indicated skill differences in amplitude and latency for N400 and P600 components. Less skilled comprehenders showed larger N400 effects for phonology to meaning trained words than high skilled comprehenders indicating that they were not successful at making an orthographic representation from phonological information that was given in training. P600 results indicated that low skilled comprehenders showed no specific episodic effects for trained words versus untrained words, while high skilled comprehenders showed a modified P600 'old/new' effect for rare words versus known words. These results demonstrated that ERPs provide distinctive information about how newly- learned words are represented, and how these new representations differ with individual differences in comprehension skill.

A recent focus of study has been the impact of quantification on sentence processing. Developing from work comparing sentences with quantified NPs and referential NPs (Warren & Gibson, 2002) and work looking at quantifier restrictor weight (Warren, 2003), the current self-paced reading studies address issues of quantifier restrictor weight and quantifier type in regards to contrast set building requirements. Experiment 1 replicates previous findings showing semantically light QNPs to be easier to process than contentful ones (Warren, 2003), and suggests that the quantifier every does not require contrast set building. Experiment 2 replicates the finding for every, contrasting it with a quantifier known to require contrasts (only), and provides information about negative quantifier use as well.

Research on adults face recognition abilities provides evidence for a distinctiveness effect such that distinctive faces are remembered better and more easily than typical faces. Research on this effect in the developmental literature is limited. In the current study, two experiments tested recognition memory for evidence of the distinctiveness effect. Study 1 tested infants (9- and 10-month olds) using a novelty preference paradigm. Infants were tested for immediate and delayed memory. Results indicated memory for only the most distinctive faces. Study 2 tested preschool children (3- and 4-year-olds) using an interactive story. Children were tested with an implicit (i.e. surprise) memory test. Results indicated a memory advantage for distinctive faces by three-year-old girls and four-year-old boys and girls. Contrary to traditional theories of changes in childrens processing strategies, experience is also a critical factor in the development of face recognition abilities.

Developmental theories suggest that children initially conceptualize God in concrete, anthropomorphic terms. In contrast, recent research has found that from early on, children recognize God as a being radically different from humans. Previous research has been limited to studies of Christian children. The present study questioned children and adults raised in a religious tradition (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) emphasizing Gods anthropomorphic qualities and a comparison group of traditional Christian children and adults, concerning abilities of God and dad. The results indicate that children distinguish between God and dad in terms of supernatural ability and that regardless of religious background, children acquire God concepts in a piece-meal fashion, not automatically inferring one supernatural attribute given another. In addition, theological differences in God concepts between the two religious traditions emerge late in development.

This study seeks to determine the extent to which phonology and orthography are generated when a word is learned in a single modality (visual or auditory) and how this affects the ability to later recognize that word in the opposite modality. Participants overall required fewer trials to learn words presented visually than auditorily, and performance in a recognition and recall task indicated that the word form representations were better specified with visual training. However, slower vocabulary learners showed a deficit in their ability to accurately recognize words learned visually and later heard. Results indicate that decoding takes place more readily than encoding (used to mean the opposite of decoding) and that slow learners have difficulty forming well-specified phonological representations when given words orthographically.

Concepts are considered to be the building blocks of human higher-order cognition. Yet theories differ according to how these semantic representations are instantiated within the brain. The amodal characteristics of word meaning imply that this knowledge is stored independent of perceptual experiences. However, mounting evidence suggests that concepts depend upon cortical regions typically ascribed to sensory input. This embodiment of semantic representations through perceptual mechanisms can crucially explain the relationship between the meaning conveyed by words and experience with the associated objects. Across two experiments, this research used functional MRI to examine the role of sensory and prefrontal brain regions while participants verified semantic properties (e.g., sounds loud?; lays eggs?) of word items. The results show that perceptual properties activate the predicted cortical regions associated with vision, audition, taste and smell, and touch. Increased response times for these perceptual decisions were not associated with increased activity in the identified sensory areas but were associated with increased activity in prefrontal brain regions. In contrast, more abstract semantic decisions led to increased activity in the prefrontal cortex but no such increases were seen for the more difficult decisions. These findings indicate that multiple and widely distributed brain regions used to encode perceptual experiences also support semantic knowledge of those sensory experiences. The prefrontal cortex may represent abstract knowledge and control retrieval with increasing semantic demands for decisions further removed from perceptual experiences.

The goal of this study was to investigate relations between structural characteristics and quality (Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale; ECERS) of early childhood classroom environments in 100 child care centers licensed by the PA Department of Public Welfare to determine: a) a minimum set of structural characteristics that can be used to predict quality, b) to identify threshold values of structural characteristics that could be used to discriminate between categories of quality, and c) to determine whether the minimal set of structural characteristics also could be used to predict quality in preschools. Teacher and director pre-service education, teacher and director continuing education, teacher and director wages, provision of benefits to staff, and training budget per staff member consistently predicted quality, accounting for between 27.4% and 28.9% of the variance in ECERS Total Score. Further, this set of structural characteristics accurately predicted 52% of Good, Mediocre, and Poor quality sites. Yet, even within this smaller set of eight structural predictors, two structural characteristics (percent of teachers in the center that have an Associate Degree or higher and the number of benefits) and their interaction most strongly accounted for variance in quality across sites and demonstrated a significant interaction effect. When applied to 38 preschools licensed by the PA Department of Education, teacher education and benefits predicted quality but to a lesser extent. The findings have implications for policy and practice as states develop tiered strategies and standards to recognize and reward differing levels of quality in early care and education programs, and it is recommended that these strategies and standards include attention to the educational levels of classroom teachers and the provision of adequate staff benefit packages.

Several factors suggest that spontaneous dyskinesia may be a useful non-diagnosis phenotype for further elucidating the specific nature of the genetic contribution to schizophrenia. For example, involuntary movement abnormalities have been observed in both medicated and unmedicated schizophrenia patients, in individuals with schizotypal personality disorder, and sometimes in siblings of schizophrenia patients. However, there are many inconsistencies present in the literature to date. The current study thus sought to investigate the existence of spontaneous dyskinesia in schizophrenia patient probands, their non-psychotic siblings, and healthy controls in order to clarify its potential value as an endophenotypes in genetic studies of schizophrenia. Videotaped interviews were coded for the presence of spontaneous, involuntary movement abnormalities by a trained and reliable rater who was blind to group and family status. The results of this study indicated that siblings of schizophrenia patients did not display significantly more involuntary movements compared to controls, although tremor was observed in a few siblings. In contrast, schizophrenia patients did display significantly more involuntary movements compared to controls as well as their non-psychotic siblings. The lack of significant differences between siblings and controls argues against a strong association between spontaneous dyskinesia and an underlying genetic liability to schizophrenia. Thus, it appears that involuntary movement abnormalities may be limited in their utility as endophenotypes in genetic studies of schizophrenia, despite being associated with schizophrenia itself.

This experiment examined how people react after their group has failed at a task. One-hundred thirteen female participants were randomly placed in three-person groups and asked to complete an aesthetic judgment task similar to that used by Klein (1997). All participants then received (false) feedback showing that their group had failed on the task, with many participants also receiving individual feedback about their performance. Some participants were told they performed better than the other members of their group, some were told they did worse, and the rest received no individual feedback. Half of the participants were also told they would lead their group, if it performed the task again, whereas others were told that another member would lead the group. Participants were then asked to choose between trying the same task again, or a taking chance option to win a cash prize. Social identity theory suggests that individuals who performed better than other group members, and were also selected as leader, might try to enhance their personal and social identities by choosing to do the same task again. In contrast, individuals who performed worse, and were selected as leader, would be less likely to choose to do the task again. Results showed simply that those who performed better were more likely than those who performed worse to try the task again. The leadership variable showed no significant effects.