Four studies assessed adults' latencies to signal they would respond to infant crying as a function of perceived infant distress and contextual information relevant to caregiving. Results suggested that adults' responses are influenced by both acoustic gradations in the cry and the caregiving context. Ratings of degree of distress may be highly,…

Discusses the trend toward ubiquitous computing and the challenge to enhance the behavior of any application by informing it of the context of its use. Defines context related to the interaction between humans, applications, and the surrounding environment; and presents a conceptual framework and a toolkit for supporting the rapid prototyping of…

Two studies examined whether preschool children would attend to object function over shape when labeling several familiar artifacts. Found that preschoolers attended to shape in all conditions, even when the artifact function was demonstrated. Their attention to shape was weaker when asked to "find another one" or to find another object…

Investigates whether the spoken nature of electronic mail messages has already started to affect business written communication. Examines register and context of the language as well as the style used in commercial electronic mail. (Author/VWL)

Reviews research into the role of gender in computer-mediated communication (CMC) interactions. Criticizes the frequent claim that CMC is free of gender-based inequalities because of the lack of face-to-face cues and emphasizes the important role of social context in providing and limiting opportunities for instructional interactions. (SLD)

The National College for School Leadership in Nottingham, England, was founded to provide a national focus for school leadership development and research, become a driving force for world-class leadership, and serve as a provider and promoter of excellence and innovation in education. The College is committed to an evidence-informed approach to…

Little is known about the influence of relationship characteristics on a womans desire for a baby with her partner. This study addresses that gap, using data from a study of 1,114 low-income women in the southeast who were in a relationship. Controlling for sociodemographic factors, women who were in more established relationships, who had not had…

Many concepts in developmental psychology are inferred or confirmed from very particular experimental or naturalistic observations but investigators often generalize their validity to a broad domain of situations. This permissiveness is affecting progress. This paper provides examples of this error and criticizes the tendency to award essences to…

The theme of a narrative text is its main point or moral that is often implied between lines. A rapid serial visual presentation procedure (RSVP) was used to examine the online status of generation of thematic inference during narrative text comprehension. In Experiment 1, the target words were presented in different contexts with different time…

This study assessed the relative contribution of situational and memory-based influences to the reader's monitoring of complex narrative goal structures. In 2 experiments, people read stories according to which 2 collaborative subgoals had to succeed for a main goal to be achieved. At a story target region describing an attempt on the main goal,…

In this article, I argue that when design and intervention are central to the research process, context as a construct is problematized. How we define context can facilitate or impede our ability to construct rich and veridical accounts of learning. A design stance may predispose us to less profitable notions of context. I present the advantages…

This article introduces the concept of a prediction interval in a gambling context.

Selection theory requires multiple, distinct, simultaneously-actualized states. In cognition, each thought or cognitive state changes the "selection pressure" against which the next is evaluated; they are not simultaneously selected amongst. Creative thought is more a matter of honing in on a vague idea through redescribing successive iterations…

Recent research in lexical semantics has suggested that verbs such as begin and enjoy semantically select for a complement that denotes an activity or an event. When no such activity or event is specified in the form of a progressive or infinitival complement, as in John began (to read/reading) the book, the verb is said to ''coerce'' the NP…

Infants first generalize across contexts and cues at 3 months of age in operant tasks but not until 12 months of age in imitation tasks. Three experiments using an imitation task examined whether infants younger than 12 months of age might generalize imitation if conditions were more like those in operant studies. Infants sat on a distinctive mat…