These new findings suggest that structural changes in this collection of brain regions may be critical to Alzheimer’s disease onset and this could eventually lead to patients being diagnosed earlier.

“The default network was a vulnerable area and it was more vulnerable in those who would go on to develop the disease,” says 91��ɫ psychology Professor Gary Turner of the Cognitive Aging Neuroscience and Neurointervention Lab in the Faculty of Health.

The network of brain regions highlighted in red and yellow show atrophy in both healthy aging and neurodegenerative disease. These regions are susceptible to normal aging and dementia

Turner and Cornell University Professor , the Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow and director of the Laboratory of Brain and Cognition at Cornell, found that the brain’s grey matter in the default network shrinks with normal aging across the lifespan, but it does so much more sharply in those who go on to develop dementia, as well as those with a genetic predisposition for the disease. These changes were also associated with declines in general cognitive ability.

“Our data suggest that these structural brain changes may be detectable many years before behavioral signs appear,” says Turner. This could allow for much earlier interventions for Alzheimer’s disease than is currently possible. Their paper, “”, was published this month online and in-print in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Turner and Spreng, co-principal investigators, measured brain volume using the brain images of 848 people, from age 18 to 94, to determine the role of the default network in neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s. They were able to analyze data collected as part of the Open Access Series of Imaging Studies, which provided a cross-sectional data set, and the longitudinal Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, which looked at the same people multiple times over several years. By combining these two large datasets, the authors were able to measure brain changes from young to older adulthood and from healthy aging to neurodegenerative disease.

Gary Turner

“What we were really interested in doing with this work was looking at how the brain is altered across the lifespan,” says Turner. “The default network is already known to be implicated in Alzheimer’s disease[…]but we believe this is one of the first reports demonstrating these structural network changes across the lifespan from young to older adulthood and into Alzheimer’s disease. And we were able to look at changes simultaneously across the whole default network.”

Core areas of the network include the posterior cingulate cortex, the medial prefrontal cortex, the medial temporal lobes and the lateral parietal cortex.

They also found that these declines in brain volume were greater in the cohort who carried the APOE4 gene, a genetic marker for potentially developing Alzheimer’s disease, and those with cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of Alzheimer’s. This shows that structural changes in the default network may be associated with genetic risk of the disease.

“These results help us to better understand the pattern of brain change that occurs across the lifespan and into neurodegenerative disease,” says Turner, who received a two-year Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant of $85,000 to complete the project. “While not a central focus of this study, we hope that with further exploration these findings may, over time, help to inform diagnostic and prognostic decision-making in the clinic.”

In the future, Turner said this research could lay the groundwork for a new series of studies leading to better biomarkers for the disease. “Certainly, these findings highlight the importance of this network as a constellation of brain regions that warrants further study in terms of early identification of the disease.”

The focus of Turner’s research, he says, is to translate these cognitive neuroscience research findings into rehabilitation interventions to enhance cognitive functioning in healthy aging and acquired brain injury and slow the trajectory of cognitive decline in brain disease.

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The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) has awarded 91��ɫ $274,689 in infrastructure funding to support the research of three 91��ɫ professors.

, professor in the School of Kinesiology & Health Science in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Health and a member of the Muscle Health Research Centre, will receive $79,260 to support his research on muscle microcirculation in health and diseases. Birot’s research examines how peripheral vascular disease (PVD) affects key molecular mechanisms that regulate the formation of blood vessels in muscles. PVD is characterized by insufficient blood supply in leg muscles, leading to suffering, reduced mob ility and eventually amputation.  PVD affects more than one million Canadians and is a frequent complication for patients with obesity, Type 2 diabetes or chronic heart failure.

Right: Olivier Birot

Nicholas Cepeda, professor in the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Health, will receive $100,777 to establish a developmental cognitive neuroscience laboratory for research on learning and memory, cognitive flexibility and musical training. His research has shown a 300 per cent improvement in students’ long-term recall of factual information, merely by changing the timing of when a particular curriculum item is taught and re-taught − with no increase in teaching time. The project’s musical training research will provide information about the brain functions of musicians and non-musicians, including processing speed, working memory, inhibition, attentional control and task-switching skills.

Left: Nicholas Cepeda

, professor and a Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator in the Department of Biology in 91��ɫ's , will receive $94,652 to support multi-faceted research in integrative neuroendocrinology and physiology. His research on the neuroendocrine regulation of growth, reproduction and body weight in fish could help aquaculture industry to improve the feeding, growth and reproduction of cultured fish. The funding also provides critical equipment for cutting-edge research on the neuroendocrine defects underlying diabetes and obesity, and may help to develop innovative pharmacological and cell-based therapies to help Canadians and others in their fight against these metabolic diseases.

Left: Suraj Unniappan

“These projects demonstrate 91��ɫ’s excellence in health and science research,” said Stan Shapson, vice-president research & innovation. “The questions Professor Birot's and Cepeda's projects explore concerning muscle health and learning and cognition reflect the relevance and disciplinary strengths of our psychology and kinesiology researchers, while Professor Unniappan's project illustrates the industrial applications that may flow from support for basic research. We fully support the importance of the CFI’s investments in state-of-the-art infrastructure and the world-class research they enable at 91��ɫ.”

91��ɫ’s projects were part of a in 's Leaders Opportunity Fund, which provides Canadian researchers with the necessary tools to carry out a range of frontier research. The funding supports 339 leading researchers and 245 projects at 48 Canadian research institutions.

Gary Goodyear, minister of state (science & technology), made the announcement in Ottawa, Ontario on Jan. 21. “Supporting science is key to Canada’s future economic growth,” said Goodyear. “Our government's commitment to helping universities attract and retain world-leading research talent will lead to discoveries that improve Canadians' quality of life and create new jobs."

“Access to modern, cutting-edge equipment and facilities is imperative in the 21st century," said Gilles Patry, president & CEO of the CFI. “For more than a decade, the CFI has provided thousands of world-class researchers with the tools they need to do their work. Without the right infrastructure, they simply wouldn't be in Canada.”

A complete list of CFI recipients is available on the website.

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of Janice Walls and Melissa Hughes

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She accepted the Institute of Aging at the annual conference of the Canadian Association on Gerontology in Montreal. The prize, which augments major scholarship funding she has already received, included the money, an invitation to the conference and, best of all, a chance to adjudicate research posters.

“It’s perfect timing for me,” says the first-year doctoral student in the Faculty of Health's School of Kinesiology & Health Science. “I’ll be able to see what’s going on in my field. Winning this award has been very motivating."

Hawkins started work this fall developing and evaluating a clinical assessment tool to measure visuomotor integration (hand-eye coordination) that could lead to early detection of Alzheimer’s disease. For this, CIHR is funding her research to the tune of $35,000 a year – $30,000 in salary plus $5,000 research allowance – for each of the next three years. It’s the biggest scholarship Hawkins has ever received.

Left: Kara Hawkins

Sit down with Hawkins at her corner desk in the office she shares with other graduate students and you’ll notice only one image taped to the wall next to her computer. “That’s my brain,” says the 27-year-old of the vertical MRI scan taken this fall in 91��ɫ’s new Neuroimaging Laboratory, located in the Sherman Health Science Research Centre.

The brain. Hawkins became fascinated with it early in her undergraduate years. "You can't understand behaviour without understanding the brain. That's what interested me most." She started studying psychology then branched into kinesiology. It was a natural detour. “I’m an athlete,” says the former varsity goalie who now plays forward for the Aurora Panthers and for the Ice-O-Topes, an intramural team at 91��ɫ. “I wanted to learn how the brain controls movement.”

After graduating in 2006, she jumped at an offer to work as a neuropsychology assistant at Baycrest, a centre specializing in geriatric research and care. “I’ve always been interested in clinical applications,” says Hawkins. Baycrest sparked an interest in aging and two years later she returned to 91��ɫ to pursue a master’s degree and neuroscience graduate diploma, delving deeper into the neurophysiology of complex motor control. She won three scholarships to do it and graduated last spring.

Now a doctoral student, she’s back in a clinical setting. At 91��ɫ Central Hospital, she is collaborating with the geriatric physician to diagnose aging patients who show signs of mental deterioration. Currently, doctors use language, cognition, memory and attention tests to score patients’ mental status out of 30. It’s an imprecise science, and Hawkins has developed and is testing a new measurement tool that could be more precise.

The tool looks like a laptop. There are two touch-sensitive screens, one vertical and the other horizontal (where the keyboard would normally be). The patient is instructed to reach for a target that appears on the vertical screen, at first directly with her hand and then more indirectly using the horizontal touch screen to manipulate a cursor. The test is not educationally or language biased, and Hawkins can determine which part of the brain the patient is using and the level of dysfunction based by the accuracy and speed of the response.

The brain is a complex network of communicating parts. When someone has dementia, the lines of communication deteriorate and misfire. Hawkins’ test aims to detect the breakdown in the visual-motor and cognitive-motor communication lines. “These touch-screen tracking tests tap into that.”

Hawkins is currently trying to recruit 60 to 90 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and the same number who are aging normally. Over the next three years, she’ll test her diagnostic tool. She is particularly interested in finding out if it can detect early and more subtle stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Interested participants may contact her at karah@yorku.ca.

The earlier we can catch signs of mental deterioration, the more time there will be for intervention that could delay the onset, says Hawkins. Earlier and more precise diagnosis could lead to better education and better care for patients, she says.

Hawkins, now a member of the , is doing her research under the supervision of  Prof. Lauren Sergio, an expert in hand-eye coordination and director of 91��ɫ’s Sensorimotor Neuroscience Laboratory. When she’s finished her PhD, she hopes to continue exploring diseases associated with aging.

By Martha Tancock, YFile contributing writer

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The study, published today in the journal , follows up on a 2007 study led by 91��ɫ, which found that lifelong use of two or more languages keeps symptoms of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia at bay (see YFile, Jan. 15, 2007).

Led by the , the current study examined the clinical records of more than 200 patients diagnosed with probable Alzheimer’s disease in the Sam & Ida Ross Memory Clinic at Toronto’s Baycrest Research Centre for Aging and the Brain.

"All the patients in the study had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, so clearly bilingualism does not prevent the onset of dementia," says study co-author Ellen Bialystok (right), Distinguished Research Professor of psychology in 91��ɫ’s and associate scientist at the Rotman Research Institute, which is part of Baycrest.

"Instead, our results show that people who have been lifelong bilinguals have built up a cognitive reserve that allows them to cope with the disease for a longer period of time before showing symptoms," she says.

While the brains of bilingual patients did show deterioration, researchers believe that the use of more than one language equips them with compensatory skills that keep symptoms like memory loss and confusion in check.

The research team included Fergus Craik, senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute, and Dr. Morris Freedman, professor in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine (Neurology), and scientist at the Rotman Research Institute. They found that bilingual patients were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s 4.3 years later and had reported the onset of symptoms five years later than those who spoke only one language. The groups were equivalent on measures of cognitive and occupational level; there was no apparent effect of immigration status, and there were no differences between genders.

The Neurology paper replicates findings from the team’s 2007 study led by Bialystok and published in Neuropsychologia. That study examined the clinical records of 184 patients diagnosed with probable Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. It found that bilingual patients delayed the onset of their symptoms by four years compared to monolingual patients.

"Overall, bilingualism should be seen as an important tool for healthy aging, along with exercise, diet, and other lifestyle choices," Bialystok says. "It’s also another reason to encourage people in multicultural societies like ours to keep speaking their native tongue and pass it along to their children," she says.

The study was funded in part by grants from the (CIHR) and the to 91��ɫ and the Rotman Research Institute.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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What she’s found is that intelligence as measured by IQ tests is not the same as rationality or a rationality quotient (RQ). “There’s a folk idea that being smart in the IQ sense translates to being smart in the rational decision-making sense, but they’re not that related,” says Toplak. “It’s time for IQ to move over and make room for RQ.”

Left: Maggie Toplak

What that means is that although someone’s IQ may be high, their RQ may be rather low and if that’s the case, they are more likely to be irrational in their behaviour and decision-making capacity. That explains why some people who appear to be quite bright can make astonishingly silly decisions.

The problem with IQ tests, says Toplak, is that they don’t measure all of someone’s intelligence or mental ability. They don’t assess rational thought and that's because rational thought can’t be measured through timed performance tests the way IQ can. “Intelligence and executive functions are one component, but there are many others,” she says. “We’ve found that IQ tests are unrelated or only modestly related to measures of rational thinking.” Rationality shouldn’t be left out of the equation as it is key to whether people make choices that lead to happiness and fulfillment or possible misery.

When it comes to RQ, there are two main types – getting what you want most and finding truth in the world. Someone with a high RQ could be doing just fine, whereas someone with a high IQ may wonder why their decisions aren’t leading to happiness and life satisfaction.

Below: Steve Paikin, host of TVO's "The Agenda", interviews 91��ɫ Professor Maggie Toplak about her research on rational quotient, or RQ

People with low RQs are often cognitive misers, meaning that they take the easy way out when trying to solve problems, often leading to solutions that are illogical and wrong. Mindware gaps are another type of cognitive failure. It's when people lack the specific knowledge, rules and strategies needed to make rational choices. Another category of cognitive failure is called contaminated mindware – for example, belief in luck and superstition can lead people astray, such as pathological gamblers, she says.

What Toplak finds so exciting about this research is that if decision-making measures are unrelated to IQ and executive functions, then there are novel possibilities for training people to be better decision makers. “One of the big motivations for me is the taxonomy of types of cognitive errors and failures that people can make. We may find some areas that are more amenable to training than others. Some of the exciting directions of this work are to apply it to special populations, such as pathological gamblers, people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or youth offenders.” Many individuals with these difficulties have trouble creating goals for themselves. Assessment and training in the domain of rational thinking has been given little or no consideration in these special populations, and offers promising directions for training and intervention.

The research is showing that their level of IQ or executive functions has little to do with their ability to make rational decisions. Often in pathological gamblers and in individuals with ADHD, it’s their decisions and goal-making capacity that are causing problems. “In our most recent work, we are examining this in a sample of young offender adolescents with my graduate student, Geoff Sorge. I think the domain of rational thinking will help us quantify the difficulties that some of these individuals experience, and this will be very important from a training and treatment perspective.” This is an area that people really haven’t paid much attention to in the past.

In another study, Toplak and colleagues reviewed 43 studies that had explicitly examined the relationship between performance and cognitive abilities on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), which is used to study decision-making differences. What they found was that “the majority of studies reported a non-significant relationship…between decision-making on the IGT and cognitive abilities, which is consistent with recent conceptualizations that differentiate rationality from intelligence,” as Toplak and colleagues wrote in the April 2010 issue of Clinical Psychology Review.

In conjunction with other researchers, including Stanovich who wrote the book , Toplak and her colleagues are in the process of creating a taxonomy to understand why some people are better decision makers using a series of tasks to test RQ. And she and her colleagues have found that people with high IQs only do better than people with average IQs on RQ tests when they are told they have to use their rational thinking skills to solve them.

“Rational thinking is a really big construct with several components. We're carving out an area that people really haven't paid enough attention to," says Toplak. “We know that rational thinking predicts real-world outcomes.”

Toplak’s research on reasoning and decision making has been funded by the and she is collaborating on this work with psychology Professor , who has held a Canada Research Chair at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and psychology Professor of James Madison University.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology Ellen Bialystok, of 91��ɫ's , is one of five scholars to be awarded this year’s Killam Prize in recognition of her work, which has focused on language acquisition and how bilingualism affects brain development.

Bialystok talked to The Globe and Mail about the dynamics of research, how some ideas have to find their time, and her future projects.

Q: How significant is it as a researcher to receive a $100,000 prize? That seems like a lot of money.

A: As a research prize it is enormous. It really is unprecedented in academia to give such a large prize for a body of work. It doesn’t have any restrictions on it. I can use it as I decide to. I haven’t given that much thought. I have a very active lab. We are in the middle of between 15 and 20 different projects.

Q: How do you decide as a researcher what area you will examine next? How much of it is intuition?

A: Research moves forward in teeny-weeny steps and then sometimes at the end of a very long journey that could last 10, 20, 30 years, these steps produce something that seems to be incredible. You look at that last step and say, “Wow, that’s amazing.” You forget about all the steps that led up to it. This is the real art of research, knowing how to stay on the path and follow the evolution of an idea through all of its twists and turns. When we look at a research finding as a breakthrough, for the person who found it, it is anything but a breakthrough. It is years of tedious small steps.

Q: Is there a finding that you have made that you would put in that category?

A: In some sense all of them.

Q: What about the link you found between bilingualism and warding off the effects of Alzheimer’s?

The research on dementia was a real flyer. We had done work on bilingual children and adults. We thought the chances of it working were small, but we got very powerful results.

I’d been doing research for a long time and it wasn’t particularly noticed. At some point we began to change our ideas about the mind – that the mind really does reflect new learning into adulthood. So it became more interesting to think that an experience like bilingualism could have an effect. I had been saying these things for a long time, and quite honestly nobody believed it. Now we understand that the mind is much more flexible than we thought.

Q: What are the next questions you are thinking about?

We have to start seriously tackling “how come?” We know very little about the why. The other thing we are looking at is the process.

We have always looked at bilingual people versus monolingual people. Now we are looking at people in the process of becoming bilingual. How bilingual do you need to be to see benefits?

The is available on the Globe's Web site. Their coverage also featured a and an :

Unlike some other major scholarly awards, the Killam Prize recognizes the career contributions of scholars, rather than a single discovery or piece of research. Ellen Bialystok, one of this year’s five winners, is a psychologist best known for her work in language, bilingualism and cognitive development. Here are three areas of her work that gained widespread attention:

Video gaming and the brain: In one study that gained wide media attention, Bialystok examined how a group of undergraduates performed on tricky mental tasks. The gamers in the group were faster and better – and those who were also bilingual were unbeatable.

Bilingualism and dementia: Bialystok was the principal investigator in a study that discovered fluency in two or more languages may stave off cognitive decline because of the mental agility needed to juggle them. The link was far stronger than suspected, and the finding has since been replicated by other researchers.

Bilingualism as a brain boost: Her most widely cited work is a breakthrough study conducted in 2004 that showed bilingual adults had a cognitive advantage over subjects who were fluent in only one language. The study found that edge lasted well into adulthood.

, and also covered the story.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Bialystok, a Distinguished Research Professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, is known internationally for her research on language, bilingualism and cognitive development. She received the award April 13 from the , which administers the .

The clip is and runs for approximately seven minutes.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of 91��ɫ's Media Relations Department.

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Bialystok, a Distinguished Research Professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, is known internationally for her research on language, bilingualism and cognitive development. She received the award this morning from the , which administers the .

One of the most important research prizes in the world, the $100,000 Killam Prize is annually awarded to five eminent Canadian scholars for their distinction in health sciences, engineering, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. Bialystok was recognized for her work in the social sciences category.

Right: Ellen Biaylstok

The first in her field to research claims of cognitive deficits in bilingual children, Bialystok discovered that bilingual children and adults have distinct advantages over unilingual people when completing both linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks. Her research is now revealing that this advantage continues for bilingual people as they age.

She has also been recognized by the international linguistics community for her body of work on theories of language processing and on practical issues related to foreign and second language education.

“The Killam Prize recognizes Professor Bialystok’s groundbreaking contributions to psychology and confirms the international excellence of her achievements,” said 91��ɫ President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. “Her success contributes to the growing national and international leadership of 91��ɫ’s faculty in health related-research as they respond to medical, social, and environmental challenges facing Canadians and people around the world.”

Bialystok was awarded a in 2001. She is a . In November, she received the 91��ɫ in recognition of her research contributions.

"Ellen is a remarkable researcher who is so deserving of the Killam Prize," said Stan Shapson, vice-president, research & innovation. "Her work is cited all over the world. She has also received funding from all three of Canada's national funding bodies − the , the and the − at various points in her career, along with funding from the ."

Bialystok has developed new methodologies for studying the role of cognitive processes on second language learning as well as the impact that knowing a second language has on cognitive aging.

“By studying people of all ages, and using both behavioural and neuroimaging approaches, Professor Bialystok is changing our understanding of language acquisition and literacy, as well as cognition and aging," said Faculty of Health Dean Harvey Skinnner. "Her research, and the collaborative research of many other faculty researching developmental and cognitive processes, reflects the Faculty's goals of innovative research that helps keep more people healthier, longer."

Bialystok has recently published research on how bilingualism boosts children’s focus. She has also researched how bilingualism can delay the onset of dementia.

By Janice Walls, media relations coordinator.

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, a psychology PhD candidate in the Faculty of Health at 91��ɫ's Centre for Infancy Studies, describe her research, which was conducted under the direction of Professor Maria Legerstee and published in the Journal Infancy. The clip runs approximately 10 minutes.

Edited by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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A study by 91��ɫ researchers reveals that infants as young as six months old know when we’re “playing” them – and they don’t like it.

Researchers in 91��ɫ’s examined six- and nine-month-old babies’ reactions to a game in which an experimenter was either unable or unwilling to share a toy. Babies detected and calmly accepted when an experimenter was unable to share for reasons beyond her control, but averted their gazes and became agitated when it was clear she simply wouldn’t share.

“Babies can tell if you’re teasing or being manipulative, and they let you know it,” says study lead author Heidi Marsh, a PhD student who worked under the direction of psychology Professor , head of the Centre for Infancy Studies in 91��ɫ’s .

“These results are exciting as it’s the first demonstration that used infants’ social behaviour to successfully show that at six months they comprehend the goals of our actions. Previously, there was only evidence based on visual habituation (observing the pattern of infants’ gazes towards stimuli) which is prone to interpretative issues, and even those results were very mixed,” Marsh says.

Other studies have concluded that this ability doesn’t develop until nine months of age. However, that research used measures which Marsh proposes are unsuited to younger infants.

“A six-month-old as compared to a nine-month-old has different ways of expressing what they know,” says Marsh. “The innovative aspect of this research is that we used measures that are consistent with a six-month-old’s everyday behaviour in order to understand what they comprehend. We recorded their social responses, such as sadness, gaze aversions, smiles and vocalizations, in addition to more physical responses such as reaching and banging,” she says.

The study looked at 40 infants, evenly divided between genders. Infants sat in their mothers’ laps at a table, with the experimenter seated across from them. In half the test trials, the toy was not passed to the infant because the experimenter was unwilling to share it, and in the others, it was not passed because the experimenter was trying, but unable, to pass it.

Infants were administered three tasks: block, mock and play. Each task differed with respect to the toy that was shared and the nature of the sharing game, but in all tasks there was a corresponding unwilling and unable condition. For instance, in the mock task, a rattle was held out toward the infant and then pulled back teasingly (unwilling condition), and a ball was "accidentally" dropped and rolled back to the experimenter (unable condition).

The visible movements of both the experimenter and the toy were matched across conditions, as was the outcome that the toy was not shared. This meant that the main difference between conditions was the experimenter’s intent.

“We also used the experimenter’s facial expressions to convey unwillingness or inability, as they’re important cues for babies to understand others’ goals,” says Marsh.

Infants at both ages averted their gazes during unwilling trials. They also reached more in the unable conditions, suggesting they understood there was a problem and were trying to elicit the adult’s assistance. The nine-month-olds banged their arms in the unwilling conditions, whereas the six-month-olds showed more negative affect, such as frowns, in those trials, and positive affective behaviours in unable conditions.

“Our finding that affective measures are stronger for younger infants may be related to their level of independence,” Marsh says. “As infants become more independent, they decrease affective behaviour such as crying, and increase physical actions such as actively resisting. These distinctions point to the importance of studying infants’ social and cognitive abilities not only over time, but also in paradigms that capture the spectrum of their social behaviours.”

The study, “”, is co-authored by Legerstee, Jennifer Stavropoulos and Tom Nienhuis. It was published online in in January 2010.

This research was supported by grants from the .

By Melissa Hughes, Media Relations Officer.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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