Executive functioning: Developmental consequences on adolescents with histories of maltreatment

Research suggests that children exposed to maltreatment have deficits in executive functioning (EF) but few studies have focused on the adolescent age group. We investigated whether maltreated adolescents had lower EF abilities compared to a group of non-maltreated adolescents. Forty adolescents with histories of child maltreatment, together with a comparison group of 40 non-maltreated adolescents matched for age, completed a comprehensive battery of EF tasks. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses, controlling for IQ, were carried out using each of the EF measures as dependent variables to examine group differences. Maltreated adolescents had significantly lower performance than non-maltreated adolescents on tasks assessing executive loaded working memory, fluency, and inhibition, although switching was not impaired. Emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) were included in additional regression analyses to examine whether these variables would explain the group differences. The inclusion of EBD variables had some effect on group differences, as expected, but did not eliminate them. These findings support the theory that impairments in EF may be one underlying reason why adolescents with histories of maltreatment struggle to cope both inside and outside the classroom

Do measures of memory, language, and attention predict eyewitness memory in children with and without autism?

Background & aims. There are few investigations of the relationship between cognitive abilities (memory, language and attention) and children’s eyewitness performance in typically developing children (TD), and even fewer in children on the autism spectrum. Such investigations are important to identify key cognitive processes underlying eyewitness recall, and assess how predictive such measures are compared to non-verbal IQ, diagnostic group status (autism or TD) and age. Methods. A total of 272 children (162 boys; 110 girls) of age 76 months to 142 months (M = 105 months) took part in this investigation: 71 children with autism and 201 TD children. The children saw a staged event involving a minor mock crime and were asked about what they had witnessed in an immediate Brief Interview. This focused on free recall, included a small number of open-ended questions, and was designed to resemble an initial evidence gathering statement taken by police officers arriving at a crime scene. Children were also given standardised tests of intelligence, memory, language and attention. Results & conclusions. Despite the autism group recalling significantly fewer items of correct information than the TD group at Brief Interview, both groups were equally accurate in their recall: 89% of details recalled by the TD group and 87% of the details recalled by the autism group were correct. To explore the relationship between Brief Interview performance and the cognitive variables, alongside age, diagnostic group status and non-verbal IQ, multiple hierarchical regression analyses were conducted, with Brief Interview performance as the dependant variable. Age and diagnostic group status were significant predictors of correct recall, whereas non-verbal IQ was less important. After age, non-verbal IQ and diagnostic group status had been accounted for, the only cognitive variables that were significant predictors of Brief Interview performance were measures of memory (specifically, memory for faces and memory for stories). There was little evidence of there being differences between the autism and TD groups in the way the cognitive variables predicted the Brief Interview. Implications. The findings provide reassurance that age – the most straightforward information to which all relevant criminal justice professionals have access – provides a helpful indication of eyewitness performance. The accuracy of prediction can be improved by knowing the child’s diagnostic status (i.e., whether the child is on the autism spectrum), and further still by using more specific assessments (namely memory for faces and memory for stories), possibly via the input of a trained professional. Importantly, the findings also confirm that whilst children with autism may recall less information than TD children, the information they do recall is just as accurate

Using agent-based models to understand the role of individuals in the song evolution of humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae )

Male humpback whales produce hierarchically structured songs, primarily during the breeding season. These songs gradually change over the course of the breeding season, and are generally population specific. However, instances have been recorded of more rapid song changes where the song of a population can be replaced by the song of an adjacent population. The mechanisms that drive these changes are not currently understood, and difficulties in tracking individual whales over long migratory routes mean field studies to understand these mechanisms are not feasible. In order to help understand the mechanisms that drive these song changes, we present here a spatially explicit agent-based model inspired by methods used in computer music research. We model the migratory patterns of humpback whales, a simple song learning and production method coupled with sound transmission loss, and how often singing occurs during these migratory cycles. This model is then extended to include learning biases that may be responsible for driving changes in the song, such as a bias towards novel song, production errors, and the coupling of novel song bias and production errors. While none of the methods showed population song replacement, our model shows that shared feeding grounds where conspecifics are able to mix provides key opportunities for cultural transmission, and production errors facilitated gradually changing songs. Our results point towards other learning biases being necessary in order for population song replacement to occur.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Pulsed Melodic Affective Processing: Musical structures for increasing transparency in emotional computation

Pulsed Melodic Affective Processing (PMAP) is a method for the processing of artificial emotions in affective computing. PMAP is a data stream designed to be listened to, as well as computed with. The affective state is represented by numbers that are analogues of musical features, rather than by a binary stream. Previous affective computation has been done with emotion category indices, or real numbers representing various emotional dimensions. PMAP data can be generated directly by sound (e.g. heart rates or key-press speeds) and turned directly into music with minimal transformation. This is because PMAP data is music and computations done with PMAP data are computations done with music. This is important because PMAP is constructed so that the emotion that its data represents at the computational level will be similar to the emotion that a person “listening” to the PMAP melody hears. Thus, PMAP can be used to calculate “feelings” and the result data will “sound like” the feelings calculated. PMAP can be compared to neural spike streams, but ones in which pulse heights and rates encode affective information. This paper illustrates PMAP in a range of simulations. In a multi-agent simulation, initial results support that an affective multi-robot security system could use PMAP to provide a basic control mechanism for “search-and-destroy”. Results of fitting a musical neural network with gradient descent to help solve a text emotional detection problem are also presented. The paper concludes by discussing how PMAP may be applicable in the stock markets, using a simplified order book simulation. © 2014, The Society for Modeling and Simulation International. All rights reserved

Social structures in the regular combat arms units of the British Army : a model

An original model is presented for describing, analysing, and predicting soldiers’ behaviour in current regular combat arms units in the British Army. It was derived, using social anthropological techniques, during participant observation by a serving British Army officer, and provides more coherent insights than other models of unit life. Its central principle, created for this study, is a plurality of >social structures’. These >social structures’ are separate bodies of ideas, rules and conventions of behaviour which inform groups of people or individuals how to organise and conduct themselves vis-à-vis each other. One >social structure’ operates at any single moment, according to context. Such an approach has not previously been applied to British Soldiers. The model’s top level (low resolution), comprises: the formal command structure, consisting in the unit organisation, the apparatus of rank and discipline, and the framework of official accountability; the informal structure, comprising the conventions of behaviour in the absence of formal constraints; the functional structure, concerning >soldierly’ activity, attitudes, and expectations; and the loyalty/identity structure, encompassing the conventions involved in embracing and expressing membership of the formal hierarchy of groups within and above the unit. Lower levels provide higher resolution, including a typology of informal relationships which encompasses different degrees of closeness and differences or equality in rank. The model’s rigour is established by testing its sensitivity at high resolution to the different conditions of life in historical British armies. The top level, however, and the typology of informal relationships, are found potentially to provide a unifying framework for historical analysis of unit life in the British Army throughout its history. The model’s ability to illuminate current issues in the Army is demonstrated by its application to leadership training for officer cadets and the integration of women into regular combat arms units.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Artificial reefs: from ecological processes to fishing enhancement tools

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio