Month: August 2020

Source: “Discrimination of Facial Expression by 5-Month-Old Infants of Nondepressed and Clinically Depressed Mothers.”

Textbooks make claims like this:

 

“Babies whose mothers deliberately attract attention to themselves and then smile when their babies look towards them are more likely to show a general preference for smiling faces. On the other hand, the infants of mothers who are depressed (and who therefore are less likely to smile) are poorer in discriminating smiling from non-smiling faces than are infants of non-depressed mothers.”

 

Should you believe this? I examine

 

Bornstein, M. H., Arterberry, M., Mash, C., & Manian, N. (2011). Discrimination of Facial Expression by 5-Month-Old Infants of Nondepressed and Clinically Depressed Mothers. Infant Behavior & Development, 34(1), 100–106.

 

And a correction to it, to find out.

 

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Source: “Accuracy and variability in the localisation of spatial targets at three age levels.”

When talking about the perception of body movement (kinaesthesia) textbooks make claims like:

 

Studies using active tasks [i.e. where the subject moves by themselves, rather than letting an experimenter move it] confirm that development [of kinaesthesia] is slow in comparison with other senses, with competence by about six years (slightly earlier than indicated using passive tasks).

 

Should you believe this? I look at:

 

Smothergill (1973). Accuracy and variability in the localisation of spatial targets at three age levels. Developmental Psychology, 8(1), 62–66.

 

To find out

 

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Source: “Sources of human psychological differences: The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart.”

Textbooks make claims like:

 

“The ultimate check of the strength of inhered factors would seem to be to compare identical twins who have been separated and brought up in different family environments. Bouchard et al located over 100 such twin pair adults who had been separated infancy and measured them on standard IQ tests. They found that the correlation between twin pairs was 0.76. While this is somewhat lower than that found for monozygotic twins reared together (r=.85), it was nevertheless higher than found for dizygotic twins reared together (r=.55). This provided strong evidence that heredity contributes substantially to IQ and that the more similar environments normally experienced by monozygotic twins cannot account for the higher correlation between identical twins than between fraternal twins.”

 

Should you believe this? I examine

Bouchard, Lykken, McGue, Segal, & Tellegen (1990). Sources of human psychological differences: The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. Science, 250(4978), 223–228

To find out

 

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