The purpose of this study was to create a paradigm suitable for people with aphasia and healthy subjects to evaluate the influence of colour on naming pictures of objects. We designed a completely new stimulus set based on images of 140 common real objects that were inspired by the Snodgrass and Vanderwart picture set (1980). We were especially interested whether there is a difference in performance between the aphasic patients and the group of healthy controls. Adding chromatic information to pictures of objects shows only a small effect in verification and categorisation tasks. However, when observers are required to name objects, colour speeds performance and enhances accuracy (Rossion & Pourtois, 2004). The present study contrasts two different claims as to why colour may benefit object naming. The first is that colour simply aids the segmentation of the object from its background (Wichmann et al., 2002). The second is that colour may help to elicit a wider range of associations with the object, thereby enhancing lexical access (Bisiach, 1966). To distinguish between these processes an equal number of pictures containing high and low colour diagnostic objects were presented against either fractal noise or uniform backgrounds in a naming task to aphasic subjects with anomia and to healthy controls. Performance for chromatic stimuli was compared with that for monochrome stimuli equated in luminance. Results show that colour facilitates naming significantly in both subject groups and there was no significant difference between objects with high or low colour diagnostic values. We also found that object segmentation and the lexical access seem to occur in parallel processes, rather than in an additive way.

Imaginary companions (ICs) have been discussed in psychological literature for centuries. Over the last decade, researchers have begun investigating how having an IC relates to children’s development, but they have focused on a narrow range of social-cognitive abilities. This thesis expands upon previous studies, investigating whether having an IC relates to children’s understanding of self and others. The first study focused on whether IC status related to children’s ability to cite themselves versus an adult as the best judge of their interior self-knowledge (e.g., whether they were hungry, ill, angry, etc.) in a sample of 82 4- to 7-year-olds. Findings indicated that children with ICs tended to designate less knowledge about their inner states to adults compared with children with no imaginary companion (NIC), with a non-significant trend for IC-group children also to designate more knowledge about their own inner states to themselves. The results of Study 1 showed that performance on the self-knowledge task was unrelated to children’s theory of mind (ToM) abilities, and that IC status did not relate to children’s ToM performance. Study 2 addressed the relation between IC status and the extent to which children invoked internal states when describing their best friend in a sample of 144 5-year-olds. Findings confirmed that children with ICs are more likely to spontaneously use more mental states when describing a friend than their NIC peers. This relation was independent of verbal ability, gender, ToM understanding, and overall verbosity. Study 2 found no relation between IC status and either previous or concurrent ToM performance. Study 3 investigated the IC-related differences in the use of self-directed or private speech during free play in the same sample of 5-year-olds who had participated in Study 2. Findings indicated that children with ICs produced more overall private speech than did NIC children. Specifically, IC-group children produced more covert, partially-internalised private speech (unintelligible muttering, whispering, verbal lip movements) compared with their NIC counterparts, although there was no difference between the IC and NIC groups with respect to the content of their private speech. Findings are discussed with reference to how engaging with an IC provides the child with an enriched social environment that helps to hone their skills of distinguishing between the mental orientations of themselves and others, and also with reference to the social origins of private speech.

Research into the antecedents of disordered eating attitudes and body dissatisfaction in preadolescent girls is lacking, despite the physical and psychological developmental risks these phenomena pose. In response, two separate studies of school-based samples of young girls were undertaken, investigating a range of biopsychosocial risk factors using longitudinal and cross-sectional methodologies. Study 1 examined prospective predictors of disordered eating attitudes and body dissatisfaction. 138 girls completed measures of adiposity, perfectionism, anxiety, body dissatisfaction and disordered eating attitudes at 7 to 9 years old and two years later at 9 to 11 years old. Across-time predictors of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating attitudes, adjusted for other across- and within-time relationships, were assessed using regression analyses. Initial adiposity predicted subsequent body dissatisfaction with only borderline significance when adjusted for subsequent adiposity. Initial disordered eating attitudes and perfectionism predicted subsequent disordered eating attitudes. These data suggest novel prospective factors in the pathogenesis of disordered eating and body image for young girls. Study 2 cross-sectionally examined the utility of an adult sociocultural model of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating attitudes in young girls for the first time. According to the model, internalising an unrealistically thin ideal body increases the risk of disordered eating via body dissatisfaction, dietary restraint, and depression. 127 girls aged 7-11 years old completed measures of adiposity, thin-ideal internalisation, body dissatisfaction, dieting, depression, and disordered eating attitudes. Thin-ideal internalisation predicted disordered eating attitudes indirectly via body dissatisfaction, dietary restraint, and depression; it also predicted disordered eating attitudes directly (a novel parameter). Exploratory path analyses showed that this revised sociocultural model fit well with the data. These data indicate a sociocultural framework of disordered eating and body dissatisfaction in adults is useful, with minor modifications, in understanding related attitudes in young girls. Together, these studies provide a detailed picture of factors involved in the development and maintenance of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating attitudes during middle childhood. They suggest the importance of early, targeted interventions for this age group as a means to reduce girls’ current and subsequent concerns about eating, shape and weight.

Previous investigations providing psychological tests for identifying the adult, habitual criminal have neglected the concrete-abstract facets of cognition. The present study explores the usefulness of the concrete-abstract dimension for such a purpose by means of the Kahn Test of Symbol Arrangement (the K.T.S.A.), and a Symbolization Test for Criminals (the S.T.C.), which was constructed by the author. Two selected groups were employed; an incarcerated 'criminal recidivists' group and a control group of 'non- criminals' from a vocational rehabilitation centre. The groups were matched for social-class and level of education. Controls as a group, however, were significantly older and scored higher on intelligence (p<.0l). Product moment correlations and analysis of co-variance indicated that the performance of both groups on these tests was independent of age and intelligence (measured by the AH4 part II). The results showed that controls scored significantly higher (more abstract responses) than criminals, on both tests. The criminals displayed a typical pattern of more concrete and repetitive types of symbolizations and fewer abstract responses. This has led to the formulation of typical K.T.S.A. and S.T.C. criminal ‘Symbol-Pattern’ which identified correctly 72% and 77% of all participants, respectively (chi-square, p < .001). A combined K.T.S.A + S.T.C. score elicited the best classification (80% correct identifications, chi-square, p < .001).).The results were interpreted in terms of the hypothesis that criminality is associated with an "arrested cognitive (and emotional) development on the decriminalization process", i.e. the process of socialisation. Future refinements of the S.T.C. were also discussed.

The thought process of profoundly and severely prelingually deaf children were studied in a field situation, to determine both general mechanisms and individual differences in information processing. The central concern was whether individuals who were largely deprived of normal means of verbal processing make particular use of visual, articulatory and kinaesthetic cues. The perception and immediate recall of visually presented letters were investigated (Experiments 1-4). All the deaf subjects appeared to be relying heavily on visual cues, whilst articulatory coding was employed only by those most able to articulate intelligibly. The use of visual cues was also found in a lexical-decision task when graphemically similar word pairs were processed significantly faster than either phonemically similar word-pairs were processed significantly faster than either phonemically similar or control word-pairs (Experiment 5). When similarity of sign equivalent wan manipulated (Experiment 6), the deaf subjects processed the word-pairs with sign equivalents significantly faster than those without sign equivalents. In a sentence-recall task, a written version of sign language (SL) was recalled significantly better than either “deaf English” or standard English (SE) (Experiment 7). The deaf subjects were also able to understand short stories written in SL significantly better than those written in SE (Experiemnt 8). In the final experiment (Experiment 9), kinaesthetic feedback provided by the active use of fingerspelling significantly improved the deaf children’s retention of new spelling patterns. The experimental evidence suggested that the cognitive system of the deaf children was structurally different from that of normally hearing children, developing as it does primarily through visual input. It was visually oriented, backed up by additional kinaesthetic, and, in some cases also by articulatory, information processing. In the light of the present findings, the implications for cognitive development of the use of standard English as the 'official' language of classroom instruction in deaf schools are discussed. Throughout this study there was considerable evidence of marked individual differences in the communicative abilities of the deaf children. Since these differences clearly constituted important experimental variables, it is suggested that, in future studies, there should be greater awareness of the importance of such differences within experimental populations.

A scalar implicature is the use of a weak term from a scale to implicate that a stronger term in the scale is not the intended meaning. For example, some is often interpreted as meaning some but not all, whereas logically its meaning is at least one. It is only in recent years that scalar implicature has progressed from its role as an explanation for poor reasoning performance in adults to its current status as the subject of experimental investigation. As a result, relatively little is known about scalar implicature and the literature contains seemingly contradictory findings and untested assumptions. The primary aim of this thesis was to investigate the quantifier some in order to clarify and extend our existing knowledge of the scalar implicature associated with the term. In Chapter 1 the literature is reviewed and three research questions are identified in relation to the implicature: What is the developmental trajectory of sensitivity to the implicature? What contexts facilitate sensitivity to the implicature? And which contemporary theory best captures the processing of the scalar term? The experiments in Chapter 2 primarily examined how sensitivity to scalar implicature develops. The results revealed that contrary to assumptions in the literature, sensitivity does not develop linearly but in a U-shaped fashion. Consequently children can be more pragmatic than adults. In addition, sensitivity was seen in 3-year-old children, which is earlier than has previously been shown in the literature. Chapter 3 explored the role of context in facilitating sensitivity to scalar implicatures in children. It focused on Feeney, Scrafton, Duckworth and Handley’s (2004) claim that deception contexts help children to detect implicatures. The findings revealed that deception contexts can aid sensitivity but an important factor is the motivation behind the deception attempt. Thus, the highest rates of sensitivity to the implicature were observed in conditions where there was an obvious benefit to the speaker if her attempted deception was successful. Chapter 4 compared how some is processed by children and adults, and the experiments revealed that adults may be subject to processing difficulties that the children appear not to be. Sensitivity in adults was affected by a secondary task, their logical response times on infelicitous some trials were longer than on control trials and they appeared to experience difficulties in resolving response conflicts. Contrary to assumptions in the literature, a logical response in adults is not necessarily indicative of failure to detect an implicature but could represent either cancellation of the implicature or the detection of conflict between two possible interpretations. In all the experimental chapters, the findings are discussed in relation to theoretical accounts of scalar implicature, with the conclusion that no current theory in its present form fully captures the nature of the phenomenon. Overall, it is concluded that there are assumptions in the literature which appear to be incorrect and therefore future research must be mindful of using untested assumptions to interpret new results. In addition it is argued that theoretical explanations of scalar implicature need to be revised and should be used as a way of generating hypotheses rather than the tool by which results are interpreted. Some is interesting not only for what it can tell us about the interface between semantics and pragmatics but also for what it reveals about the relationship between inference and reasoning.

An autobiographical memory framework for the study of regret is contrasted with traditional decision-making approaches to regret. Based on the autobiographical memory framework a memory-based distinction is introduced between regrets for specific and general events. Across 6 studies the distinction is applied to issues related to the temporal pattern of regret and to survey data showing that long term inaction regrets tend to concern experiences from early adulthood. Studies 1 and 2 examined the temporal distribution of experienced regrets within the context of the “reminiscence bump” phenomenon from autobiographical memory research. Participants regretted proportionally more experiences from early adulthood than from elsewhere in the lifespan, but this pattern obtained for general regrets only: specific regrets were more randomly distributed and tended to concern more recent events. General regrets were more likely to concern inactions than actions, whereas specific regrets were as likely to concern actions as inactions. Consistent with regret surveys, the most frequently reported regrets concerned family, intimate relationships (including marriage and parenting), education, work, character and self-actualisation. These findings were interpreted with reference to life scripts. Studies 3 and 4 assessed the contribution of the life script to the temporal distribution of imagined future regrets. Young adults imagined and dated experiences they anticipated either themselves (Studies 3 and 4a), a peer (Study 4b) or an average person (Study 4c) might regret in life. A preminiscence bump peaking in decade three was found for general regrets. Across Studies 3 and 4 imagined regrets focussed on similar experiences, were described in predominantly general terms and were overwhelmingly associated with inaction. The experienced regrets of young adults (Study 3) were similar in content to the regrets described by older adults about the same period (Studies 1 and 2). The results are interpreted as evidence that a culturally timetabled script deems some events more important and regret-worthy than others. Study 5 examined regret’s relationship with other emotions. Specific regrets more often evoked hot and moral emotions, while general regrets more often evoked wistful emotions, and neither type was more strongly associated with despair emotions. Study 5 also considered a distinction between self- and other-focussed regrets. Self-actualisation and other-focussed regrets were statistically indistinguishable and both were more likely than self-achievement regrets to evoke moral emotions such as guilt, remorse, and shame. Finally, Study 6 showed that general regrets had a broader impact than did specific regrets insofar as they affected more domains and produced more consequences. Across all of the studies in the thesis the domains of family, intimate relationships, character, education, work and self-development are the main source of real and imagined regrets. It is argued that the representation of event knowledge in autobiographical memory combined with culturally determined scripts together shape what people regret in life.

Children often talk themselves through their activities: They produce private speech to regulate their thought and behaviour, which is internalised to form inner speech, or silent verbal thought. Private speech and inner speech can together be referred to as self-directed speech (SDS). SDS is thought to be an important aspect of human cognition. The first chapter of the present thesis explores the theoretical background of research on SDS, and brings the reader up-to-date with current debates in this research area. Chapter 2 consists of empirical work that used the observation of private speech in combination with the dual task paradigm to assess the extent to which the executive function of planning is reliant on SDS in typically developing 7- to 11-year-olds. Chapters 3 and 4 describe studies investigating the SDS of two groups of atypically developing children who show risk factors for SDS impairment—those with autism and those with specific language impairment. The research reported in Chapter 5 tests an important tenet of neoVygotskian theory—that the development of SDS development is domain-general—by looking at cross-task correlations between measures of private speech production in typically developing children. Other psychometric properties of private speech production (longitudinal stability and cross-context consistency) were also investigated. Chapter 6, the General Discussion, first summarises the main body of the thesis, and then goes on to discuss next steps for this research area, in terms of the methods used to study SDS, the issue of domain-general development, and the investigation of SDS in developmental disorders.

The aim of the studies undertaken for this thesis was to explore relations between adult attachment and autobiographical memory. Study One investigated how a self-report measure of adult attachment style related to young adults' (N = 211) recall of their earliest memories. Dismissing individuals reported fewer negatively valenced memories than their counterparts in the secure and preoccupied groups. No attachment-related differences were found in the total number of memories (positive, neutral, negative) recalled, or individuals' ratings of the phenomenological properties of the memories. All three groups tended to rate negative memories more highly than neutral/positive memories on the phenomenological characteristics, although preoccupied individuals tended to show least differentiation on the basis of emotional valence. Study Two investigated how attachment state of mind as assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985) related to autobiographical memory in a separate sample (N = 65) of young adults. Autobiographical memory was assessed in terms of recall (a) of one's earliest memory, and (b) of childhood memories in response to attachment-related and non- attachment cues, and this study also controlled for concurrent depressive symptoms and previous experience of trauma. As in Study One, the earliest memory and the cued memories were rated for their phenomenological properties, but data were also collected on latency of recall. No relation was found between A.A.I, classification and any characteristic of the earliest memory. For the cued recall of attachment-related memories, A.A.I, classification independently predicted vividness, emotional intensity at encoding and emotional intensity at recall, with dismissing individuals scoring lowest and preoccupied highest. A.A.I, classification also predicted certain aspects of recall for non-attachment material. In particular, dismissing individuals rated non- attachment memories as less specific and less vivid than did individuals in the secure and preoccupied groups. A.A.I, classification has little impact on individuals’ responses to the attachment-related and non-attachment memories. The only effect of A.A.I, classification was seen on ratings of specificity; somewhat surprisingly, dismissing individuals rated attachment memories as more specific than non- attachment memories, whereas secure and preoccupied individuals did not differ in their ratings of the two types of memory. Study Three investigated how A.A.I, classification related to imagined future events in response to attachment-related and non-attachment cues in the same sample of participants who had taken part in Study Two. Controlling for gender, depressive symptoms and previous trauma (as in Study Two), the results of Study Three showed that A.A.I, classification predicted the reported vividness and self-relevance of attachment-related imagined future events. Compared with secure and preoccupied individuals, those in the dismissing group reported that future attachment-related events were less vivid. There was also a marginally significant trend for dismissing individuals to rate attachment-related future events as less self-relevant. Comparing recall of previous past events with future imagined events, individuals across all A.A.I, categories were slowing at recounting future events than at recalling past events, and rated past events as more vivid and emotionally intense. However, it was future events that were rated as more self-relevant than past events. Study Three also found that there was greater concordance between ratings of past and future events with respect to specific phenomenological properties for insecure individuals than for secure individuals.

Men are, as a sex, more aggressive than women. Evolutionary accounts of the sex difference in direct aggression focus on the differing costs and benefits of aggression for men and women, and posit that male aggression and female non-aggression are both part of a suite of adaptations to sex-specific selection pressures. However, greater male aggression is not evident in studies of intimate partner aggression conducted in Western cultures. The present thesis sought to integrate evolutionary accounts of the sex difference in direct aggression with research on intimate partner aggression showing gender symmetry in aggressive acts. The proposed proximate mechanisms for the sex difference in direct aggression are myriad, but one of the most extensively investigated is impulsivity. The present thesis therefore sought to establish the presence or absence of sex differences in impulsivity, and identify the forms of impulsivity most likely to mediate the sex difference in aggression. Chapter Two presents a meta-analysis of sex differences in psychometric and behavioural measures of impulsivity. Sex differences are consistently present on those forms of impulsivity which are affective or motivational as opposed to cognitive in nature, and which incorporate some element of risk. Risky impulsivity, a personality trait reflecting a tendency to take risks without prior thought, was identified as a strong candidate for mediating the sex difference in aggression. In Chapter Three, the role of risky impulsivity in same-sex aggression and sociosexuality, both of which are related to the pursuit of reproductive success in the face of risk, was examined. Results from this chapter indicate that risky impulsivity might represent a common proximate mechanism for individual differences in aggression and sociosexuality, but that explaining sex differences in direct aggression requires consideration of processes at the dyadic, as well as the intrapsychic, level. Finally, the reasons for the absence of a sex difference in intimate partner aggression were examined more closely in Chapter Four. Participants were asked about hypothetical responses to provocation by same-sex friends, opposite-sex friends, and partners. Self-report data were also gathered on participants' actual aggressive behaviour towards partners, same-sex friends and strangers, and opposite-sex friends and strangers. There was good concordance between vignette responses and self-reports. Results indicated that men's aggression is inhibited towards all female targets relative to male ones, but that women's aggression is disinhibited specifically towards partners. In other words, men's lowered aggression towards intimate partners is an effect of target sex, while women's raised aggression towards intimate partners is an effect of intimacy with the target. It is argued that gender parity in intimate aggression is the result of sex-specific influences on rates of perpetration. It is further argued that any complete account of sex differences in aggression must be able to account for gender symmetry in aggression towards intimate partners. To this end, due consideration should be given to sex differences in low-level emotional and motivational processes, particularly fear, as well as the effects of sex differences in styles of anger expression. Specifically, men's reduction in intimate partner aggression might be best explained by the effects of Western social norms which proscribe aggression towards all women, while women's raised intimate partner aggression might be best explained by an oxytocin-mediated reduction in fear which is specific to intimate partners.