Phasic pupillary responses reveal differential engagement of attentional control in bilingual spoken language processing

Language processing is cognitively demanding, requiring attentional resources to efficiently select and extract linguistic information as utterances unfold. Previous research has associated changes in pupil size with increased attentional effort. However, it is unknown whether the behavioral ecology of speakers may differentially affect engagement of attentional resources involved in conversation. For bilinguals, such an act potentially involves competing signals in more than one language and how this competition arises may differ across communicative contexts. We examined changes in pupil size during the comprehension of unilingual and codeswitched speech in a richly-characterized bilingual sample. In a visual-world task, participants saw pairs of objects as they heard instructions to select a target image. Instructions were either unilingual or codeswitched from one language to the other. We found that only bilinguals who use each of their languages in separate communicative contexts and who have high attention ability, show differential attention to unilingual and codeswitched speech. Bilinguals for whom codeswitching is common practice process unilingual and codeswitched speech similarly, regardless of attentional skill. Taken together, these results suggest that bilinguals recruit different language control strategies for distinct communicative purposes. The interactional context of language use critically determines attentional control engagement during language processing.

Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives of Siblings of Children With Cochlear Implants

Purpose The sibling relationship teaches children to navigate social interactions with their peers. However, the presence of an exceptionality, such as hearing loss, in one child can affect the dynamic of this relationship. This article examines quantitative and qualitative effects of having a brother or sister with a cochlear implant (CI) on siblings with typical hearing (TH) to determine how children with TH perceive their sibling with a CI and how having a CI user in the family affects the sibling's activities, emotions, and parental attention. Method Participants include 36 siblings with TH ( M age = 11.6 years) of CI users ( M age = 11.9 years) who completed quantitative measures of their perspectives of their brother/sister with CIs and the effect of hearing loss on themselves. Siblings with TH also could express their opinions via open-ended prompts. Results Overall, siblings with TH express positive perspectives of their brother/sister with CIs and report having a CI user in the family does not affect them much, particularly if the CI user has adequate communication skills. Responses to both quantitative and qualitative items converge on the close relationship between siblings but diverge relative to differential attention from parents (i.e., open-ended responses suggest parents spend more time with the CI user than the sibling with TH). Additionally, siblings acknowledge the presence of social communication deficits of the CI user in real-world situations. Conclusion This nuanced look at relationships among the parent, CI user, and sibling with TH highlights the importance of understanding the family system when working with children with hearing loss.

Treatment for Younger Siblings of Participants in a Home-Based Intensive Paediatric Feeding Programme in Australia

Early childhood feeding problems can be challenging. Children who limit their food consumption may significantly impact multiple critical areas of development. Effective treatment should be accessed as early as possible but has been limited to a handful of US hospital programmes. Feeding problems affect both children with and without disability, and families may struggle with multiple children having feeding difficulties. We provided short-term (less than 2 weeks), in-home, intensive, behaviour-analytic feeding intervention to two children with typical development who were younger siblings of children already in the programme. We used a withdrawal/reversal design to assess the effects of nonremoval of the spoon, re-presentation, contingent and noncontingent access to tangibles, differential attention, and response cost. This multi-component intervention was effective in increasing the consumption of a wide variety of foods at regular texture and self-feeding for both participants. Variety was increased to over 60 foods from all food groups. Admission goals were met (100%). We trained caregivers to high procedural integrity and generalised the protocol. We provided actual plate picture examples of family meals consumed where the brothers and parents ate the same meal. Caregiver satisfaction and social acceptability were high. Gains were maintained at 3-year follow-up where parents reported problems were fully resolved.

Module 5: Planned Ignoring and Relaxation Skills

During Module 5, parents learn differential attention skills for handling minor misbehaviors. They learn the benefits of active ignoring to reduce negative attention and to improve interactions with their child by focusing attention relatively more on positive versus negative child behavior. This will help parents to develop a proactive (rather than reactive) plan for those behaviors they will actively ignore and a clear understanding of why ignoring is the most effective strategy for those behaviors. However, some parents may be particularly reactive and have difficulty managing their own emotions when their child is behaving in a way the parent finds annoying or otherwise upsetting. Thus, in Module 5, parents also learn relaxation and mindfulness skills to help them be less reactive to child misbehavior and more successful with active ignoring.

Dynamic Advances in Emotion Processing: Differential Attention towards the Critical Features of Dynamic Emotional Expressions in 7-Month-Old Infants

Infants’ visual processing of emotion undergoes significant development across the first year of life, yet our knowledge regarding the mechanisms underlying these advances is limited. Additionally, infant emotion processing is commonly examined using static faces, which do not accurately depict real-world emotional displays. The goal of this study was to characterize 7-month-olds’ visual scanning strategies when passively viewing dynamic emotional expressions to examine whether infants modify their scanning patterns depending on the emotion. Eye-tracking measures revealed differential attention towards the critical features (eyes, mouth) of expressions. The eyes captured the greatest attention for angry and neutral faces, and the mouth captured the greatest attention for happy faces. A time-course analysis further elucidated at what point during the trial differential scanning patterns emerged. The current results suggest that 7-month-olds are sensitive to the critical features of emotional expressions and scan them differently depending on the emotion. The scanning patterns presented in this study may serve as a link to understanding how infants begin to differentiate between expressions in the context of emotion recognition.

Are You In or Are You Out? The Importance of Group Saliency in Own-Group Biases in Face Recognition

Previous research has demonstrated several own-group biases (OGBs) in face recognition, but why they occur is unclear. Social–cognitive accounts suggest they stem from differential attention and facial processing, following the categorisation of a face as belonging to an “in” or “out” group. Three studies explored whether OGBs can be produced by mere categorisation at encoding and investigated the role of in-group membership saliency on face recognition. Participants saw 40 facial images fictionally grouped according to in-/out-group status. Studies 1 and 2 used university membership as the grouping variable and found no evidence of an OGB, and no relationship between OGB magnitude and salience of group membership. Study 3 used the same design as Study 2, but with a highly salient group characteristic: participants’ stance on the U.K. Referendum (i.e., whether they were “Leave” or “Remain” supporters). In this case, an asymmetrical OGB was found, with only Remain voters demonstrating an OGB. Furthermore, a relationship between OGB magnitude and attitude toward the Referendum result was found. Overall, our results suggest that social categorisation and membership saliency alone may not be enough to moderate in- and out-group face recognition. However, when sufficiently polarised groups are used as in-/out-group categories, OGBs may occur.