Socioeconomic status and conceptual thinking.

The study attempted to evaluate the importance of the variables of form of symbolism and abstractness-concreteness for status differences on tests of conceptual ability. Five hypotheses were proposed. Subjects were 181 white sixth-grade New York City public school children whose average age was about eleven and who were divided into two groups, HS (N = 99) and LS (N = 82). "As groups, HS children selected more definitions of an abstract type than did the LS group." Other data concerning relationships between socioeconomic status to conceptual ability are presented and discussed. 21 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences between schizophrenic and brain-damaged groups in conceptual aspects of object sorting.

The hypothesis tested was that of the two conceptual variables, amount of social agreement and order of conceptual classification, the latter would show the greatest difference between schizophrenic and brain-damaged Ss. Ss consisted of 37 chronic paranoid schizophrenic patients and 34 brain-damaged patients. The sorting task used was the Rapaport modification of the Goldstein-Gelb-Weigl Object Sorting Test. The variable of social agreement was scored in terms of the relative publicness-privateness of each conceptual sorting, and the variable of order of classification was scored in terms of number of attributes used in the definition. 5 other measures derived from their interactions were also used. Analysis of covariance yielded results in the predicted direction. The greatest F ratio was for the closed-open variable, in keeping with the major hypothesis. 24 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in conceptual and procedural knowledge when learning fractions.

Previous research on children's conceptual and procedural understanding of fractions, and other arithmetic skills, has led to contradictory conclusions. Some research suggests that children learn conceptual knowledge before procedural knowledge, some suggests that they learn procedural knowledge before conceptual knowledge, and other research suggests that they learn conceptual knowledge and procedural knowledge in tandem. We propose that these contradictory findings may be explained by considering individual differences in the way that children combine conceptual and procedural knowledge. A total of 318 Grade 4 and 5 students in the United Kingdom (mean age = 9.0 years) completed a measure of fractions understanding, which included subscales of conceptual and procedural knowledge. A cluster analysis identified 5 distinct clusters that differed from each other in terms of their relative success with conceptual and procedural problems. The existence of these clusters suggests that there may be more than one way in which children draw on conceptual and procedural knowledge. Some children rely more on procedural knowledge and others more on conceptual knowledge, but these differences may not be related to developmental processes. The children in the 5 clusters differed in their total fractions performance and in their understanding of intensive quantities. These differences suggest that children who rely on conceptual knowledge may have an advantage compared to those who rely more exclusively on procedural knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development of context sensitivity in children's graphic copying strategies.

The authors report on a series of 5 experiments in which 462 5- to 10-year-old children and 109 adults were required to copy geometric figures either with no constraints or following prior exposure to primes consisting of different parsings of the figures. The analysis focused on the graphic strategies adopted by the participants to copy the models. Three developmental steps were revealed in the baseline copying condition. Priming experiments demonstrated that the age-developmental step correspondence varied as a function of the type of prime used. However, the impact of priming differed according to age. It was limited at 6 years, whereas its size was noticeable at the other ages. These results are discussed in the light of developmental models that hypothesize a major role either for endogeneous factors in cognitive development or for exogeneous and contextual factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers' teaching strategies and children's effortful control: A longitudinal study.

Findings on the relation of maternal verbal teaching strategies to children's effortful control (EC; i.e., self-regulation) are limited in quantity and somewhat inconsistent. In this study, children's EC was assessed at 18, 30, and 42 months (ns = 255, 229, and 209, respectively) with adults' reports and a behavioral measure. Mothers' verbal teaching strategies were assessed while the mother and child worked on a task together. Children's general vocabulary also was measured. In a structural panel model taking into account prior levels of constructs and correlations within time, as well as the relations of EC and teaching strategies to children's vocabulary, socioeconomic status, age, and sex of the child, 18-month EC positively predicted mothers' 30-month cognitive assistance and questioning strategies and negatively predicted 30-month maternal directive strategies. In addition, high 30-month EC predicted greater 42-month maternal cognitive assistance and fewer directive strategies. Thus, mothers' teaching strategies were predicted by individual differences in self-regulatory skills, supporting potential evocative child effects on mothers' teaching strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and flexible remembering: Contributions of conceptual span, fluid intelligence, and frontal functioning.

Aging attenuates the capacity to adaptively and flexibly use episodic memory at different levels of specificity. Older and younger adults were tested on a picture recognition task that required them to make episodic memory decisions at an item-specific (verbatim) versus category-based (gist-based) level on randomly intermixed trials. Specificity modulation was assessed using a measure of the likelihood that participants retrieved verbatim information in order to reject test items that were categorically related to studied items under item-specific recognition instructions (recollection rejection). We found that this measure positively correlated with conceptual span (an index of short-term semantic memory) and with level of fluid intelligence in older and younger adults. However, when we simultaneously considered each of four possible contributors (age, conceptual span, fluid intelligence, and frontal function), the only significant predictor of recollection rejection was the composite fluid intelligence measure (assessed by the Culture Fair Intelligence Test [Cattell & Cattell, 1960] and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised Block Design subtest [Wechsler, 1981]). These findings suggest that interventions that facilitate adaptive specificity modulation in episodic memory may enhance the flexibility of thinking, and vice versa, in both older and younger adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual boundedness and perceptual support in conceptual development.

A theoretical framework for describing the role of perceptual information in early conceptual development is presented. In the main section of the article, a general operationalization of perceptual boundedness is introduced, 3 causes of this limitation are identified, the conditions under which infants and children seem to be perceptually bound are formulated, and the mechanisms by which this limitation declines are described. Traditional claims that young children are perceptually bound, as well as contemporary objections to these claims, are often based on the assumption that perceptual information is generally unveridical or insufficient. Recent doubts about this assumption are evaluated in the final section of the article. It is concluded that although realist arguments are untenable, there are limited forms of perceptual support for conceptual development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Observed maternal strategies and children's health locus of control in low-income Mexican Americans.

This study examined the relationship among mothers' health locus of control (HLOC) beliefs, their socialization strategies, and their children's HLOC beliefs in 80 low-income Mexican American families. Maternal socialization strategies were assessed from videotaped interactions of mothers and children engaged in a structured task. Factor analysis of the coded strategies yielded 4 factors: Tell Answer, Teaching, Clarify, and Reinforce. Findings indicated that maternal-health-internally scores negatively predicted mothers' use of the Tell Answer strategies and positively predicted their use of Teaching strategies. Mothers who believed that Powerful Others (e.g., health professionals) controlled their health were more likely to use the Tell Answer strategy. In contrast, mothers who believed that health was due to chance were less likely to use Teaching. Maternal use of Teaching strategies predicted children's internal HLOC, whereas maternal Tell Answer strategies predicted children's external HLOC. Findings suggest that mothers' HLOC beliefs influence the socialization strategies they use and that these strategies are associated with children's HLOC beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Delusional thinking and cognitive organization in schizophrenia.

A delusion can be conceptualized as a form of cognitive reorganization; according to this interpretation a delusion serves to integrate into a meaningful and acceptable whole data which otherwise would be anxiety provoking. On the assumption that the utilization of delusions is representative of a generalized cognitive technique for dealing with ambiguous inputs it was hypothesized that delusional schizophrenics should manifest a stronger tendency to integrate ambiguous stimuli in a laboratory situation than nondelusional schizophrenics. To test the hypothesis 24 delusional and 25 nondelusional schizophrenics were compared on the McGill Closure Test. The results supported the hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abstract thinking and social behavior in schizophrenia.

20 normal and 24 schizophrenic Ss were presented a series of cards, each bearing a stimulus word and 2 response words variously related in meaning to the stimulus. The Ss were asked to select the response word which they felt to be "closer in meaning" to the stimulus word. The results confirmed, at the .01 level, the hypotheses that (a) normals will exceed schizophrenics in the ability to select, as most similar in meaning to a given word, that word which is related to it in an essential abstract way; and (b) within a schizophrenic group, the above ability will be positively correlated with adequacy of everyday social interaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal relations and feature similarity in children's inductive reasoning.

Four experiments examined the development of property induction on the basis of causal relations. In the first 2 studies, 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults were presented with triads in which a target instance was equally similar to 2 inductive bases but shared a causal antecedent feature with 1 of them. All 3 age groups used causal relations as a basis for property induction, although the proportion of causal inferences increased with age. Subsequent experiments pitted causal relations against featural similarity in induction. It was found that adults and 8-year-olds, but not 5-year-olds, preferred shared causal relations over strong featural similarity as a basis for induction. The implications for models of inductive reasoning and development are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The importance of prior knowledge when comparing examples: Influences on conceptual and procedural knowledge of equation solving.

Comparing multiple examples typically supports learning and transfer in laboratory studies and is considered a key feature of high-quality mathematics instruction. This experimental study investigated the importance of prior knowledge in learning from comparison. Seventh- and 8th-grade students (N = 236) learned to solve equations by comparing different solution methods to the same problem, comparing different problem types solved with the same solution method, or studying the examples sequentially. Unlike in past studies, many students did not begin the study with equation-solving skills, and prior knowledge of algebraic methods was an important predictor of learning. Students who did not attempt algebraic methods at pretest benefited most from studying examples sequentially or comparing problem types, rather than from comparing solution methods. Students who attempted algebraic methods at pretest learned more from comparing solution methods. Students may need sufficient prior knowledge in a domain before they benefit from comparing alternative solution methods. These findings are in line with findings on the expertise-reversal effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-group differences in medial cortex activity associated with thinking about self-relevant agendas.

In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we compared young and older adults’ brain activity as they thought about motivationally self-relevant agendas (hopes and aspirations, duties and obligations) and concrete control items (e.g., shape of USA). Young adults’ activity replicated a double dissociation (M. K. Johnson et al., 2006): An area of medial frontal gyrus/anterior cingulate cortex was most active during hopes and aspirations trials, and an area of medial posterior cortex—primarily posterior cingulate—was most active during duties and obligations trials. Compared with young adults, older adults showed attenuated responses in medial cortex, especially in medial prefrontal cortex, with both less activity during self-relevant trials and less deactivation during control trials. The fMRI data, together with post-scan reports and the behavioral literature on age-group differences in motivational orientation, suggest that the differences in medial cortex seen in this study reflect young and older adults’ focus on different information during motivationally self-relevant thought. Differences also may be related to an age-associated deficit in controlled cognitive processes that are engaged by complex self-reflection and mediated by prefrontal cortex. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Delusional thinking and the induction process in schizophrenia.

A perceptual information-processing task was presented to minimally delusional schizophrenics, maximally delusional schizophrenics, and normal Ss. The point of emergence of their 1st response was utilized as an index of the degree to which they tended to structure ambiguous stimuli on the basis of inadequate premises. The hypothesis that the 2 schizophrenic groups would differ on the experimental task was not verified. The majority of schizophrenic Ss, however, responded either too early or too late, if the mean score of the normal group is regarded as the optimal response level. Additional data were gathered in an attempt to uncover historical or behavioral correlates of these test differences. The only difference found was in educational level. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overinclusive thinking in process and reactive schizophrenics: Erratum.

Reports an error in the original article by Thomas S. Eliseo (Journal of Consulting Psychology, 27[5] 1963, 447-449). The quotation from column one, paragraph two on page 448, "the median, 25... higher" should read as follows, "the median, 25, was selected as the separation point for Re (scores of 24 or less) and Pr (scores of 26 or higher)." (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1964-04599-001.) Previous research has indicated that schizophrenics show more overinclusive thinking (i.e., failure to exclude behavior unrelated to a task) than do "normals." 17 reactive schizophrenics, 29 process schizophrenics, and 21 chronic general medical-surgical patients, equivalent in vocabulary knowledge and education, were compared on the Epstein Inclusion Test. Contrary to the prediction that the process schizophrenics would commit more errors, no significant differences were found between the groups. It is possible that overinclusion is a characteristic of depression or chronic illness in general, rather than specific to the schizophrenic disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Critical thinking in social and psychological inquiry.

Yanchar, Slife, and their colleagues have described how mainstream psychology's notion of critical thinking has largely been conceived of as “scientific analytic reasoning” or “method-centered critical thinking.” We extend here their analysis and critique, arguing that some version of the one-sided instrumentalism and confusion about tacit values that characterize scientistic approaches to inquiry also color phenomenological, critical theoretical, and social constructionist viewpoints. We suggest that hermeneutic/dialogical conceptions of inquiry, including the idea of social theory as itself a form of ethically motivated human practice, give a fuller account of critical thinking in the social disciplines. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and thinking style in different creative domains.

The crucial aspect of creativity in both personality and thinking style may be the ability or tendency to change within personality traits, such as, for example, moving between extraversion and introversion, and within thinking styles, such as moving between heuristic and algorithmic thinking. Such mobility is characteristic of the “complex” personality. On personality and thinking style tests, complexity would be expected to manifest itself in greater variability of responses to items measuring the same overall trait. This issue was investigated with 158 visual art, 136 music, and 309 psychology students. Art students (visual art and music students) showed greater complexity in conscientiousness than psychology and music students, respectively. Visual art students further showed a greater overall complexity (mean complexities across personality and thinking style) than psychology students did. A more traditional analysis revealed that visual art students were more neurotic, more open to experience and more inclined to heuristic thinking than psychology students do, whereas music students were more extraverted and more agreeable than visual art students were, and more inclined to heuristic thinking than psychology students were. Thus, it was possible to distinguish visual art students from music and psychology students by their personality and thinking style. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Object constancy in schizophrenia: the enhancement of symbolic objects and conceptual stability.

The hypothesis that symbolic value has a greater influence on size judgments made by schizophrenic patients than on those made by controls was confirmed. The hypothesis that paranoid schizophrenics show greater constriction in their judgments of the range of sizes was confirmed; however, the hypothesis that non-paranoid schizophrenics show greater fluidity in their range of judgments than do the controls was not confirmed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Radical philosophical critique and critical thinking in psychology.

Introducing the concept of tradition and its importance for critical-intellectual development, traditions of radical philosophy and psychology are presented. Emphasizing the role of Marxist and post-Marxist thought in various critical approaches, critical programs are presented as theoretical endeavors that share the critique of ideology. These approaches examine knowledge production and knowledge biases in the sciences and psychology from the perspective of social categories or in terms of power. It is suggested that critical thinking in psychology could benefit from incorporating categories from this tradition. Consequences for critical thinking in psychology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Midazolam amnesia and conceptual processing in implicit memory.

Prominent theories of implicit memory (D. Schacter, B. Church, & J. Treadwell, 1994) emphasize the dominant role of perceptual processing in mediating priming on perceptual implicit memory tests. Examinations of the effects of conceptual processing on perceptual implicit memory tests have produced ambiguous results. Although a number of investigations (e.g., J. Toth & R. Hunt, 1990) have demonstrated that variations in conceptual processing affect priming on perceptual implicit memory tests, these effects may arise because of the contaminating effects of explicit memory. The current experiment examined this controversy using midazolam, a benzodiazepine that produces a dense, albeit temporary, anterograde amnesia when injected prior to study. The experiment examined whether the effects of generation found on the implicit memory test of perceptual identification were affected by a midazolam injection prior to study. Results demonstrated that midazolam substantially diminished generation effects in free and cued recall, as well as overall performance on these tests, but had no detectable effect on the generation effect in perceptual identification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)