Perceiving children's behavior and reaching limits in a risk environment

Children's perception of action boundaries and how it affects their climbing behavior

There are some concerns that children today may be less calibrated to their action capabilities because of the "risk-free" culture that has proliferated during recent decades. This study investigated the extent to which judgments of reaching affordances presented in different directions (i.e., overhead, diagonal, and horizontal) are related to children's climbing behavior on a climbing wall. A sample of 30 schoolchildren from 6 to 11years old (20 boys and 10 girls) estimated maximum reach and grasp distances and subsequently attempted to climb across an indoor climbing wall. Children who perceived the extents of their reach more accurately completed the climb more often and more quickly. Judgments in the primary directions of climbing locomotion (horizontal and diagonal) were better predictors of success than vertical judgments. Judgments about whether objects are reachable and graspable are complex and influenced by various dynamic factors (including perceptual-motor calibration), and as such different levels of accuracy are likely in different reaching directions. It appears that young children are relatively sensitive to their action boundaries for climbing and, therefore, may be able to make informed decisions themselves about whether a surface is climbable.

Mother's Perception of Children's Motor Development in Southern Brazil

Parents' perceptions of children's motor competence are important because they influence the way parents interact with their children to promote motor skills development. Thirty-six mothers of 16- to 66-month old children (61%, 22 boys and 39%, 14 girls, n = 36) estimated their child's performance while the child was being evaluated, by another trained researcher, with the same scale (Peabody Developmental Motor Scale 2nd Ed.) in a different room. Underestimations, accurate estimations, overestimations, and parental accuracy were investigated. Mothers overestimated significantly their child's stationary and locomotion skills and their GMQ and Total Motor Quotients (TMQ). Identical levels of motor performance were found in girls and boys, and estimation accuracy was similar for both genders. We discuss our results in the context of the parents' routines (little time interacting with children actively) and the relevance of their perceptions of the children's abilities as a further influence on the children's development and engagement in physical activities.

Action possibility judgments of people with varying motor abilities due to spinal cord injury

Predictions about one's own action capabilities as well as the action capabilities of others are thought to be based on a simulation process involving linked perceptual and motor networks. Given the central role of motor experience in the formation of these networks, one's present motor capabilities are thought to be the basis of their perceptual judgments about actions. However, it remains unknown whether the ability to form these action possibility judgments is affected by performance related changes in the motor system. To determine if judgments of action capabilities are affected by long-term changes in one's own motor capabilities, participants with different degrees of upper-limb function due to their level (cervical vs. below cervical) of spinal cord injury (SCI) were tested on a perceptual-motor judgment task. Participants observed apparent motion videos of reciprocal aiming movements with varying levels of difficulty. For each movement, participants determined the shortest movement time (MT) at which they themselves and a young adult could perform the task while maintaining accuracy. Participants also performed the task. Analyses of MTs revealed that perceptual judgments for participant's own movement capabilities were consistent with their actual performance- people with cervical SCI had longer judged and actual MTs than people with below cervical SCI. However, there were no between-group differences in judged MTs for the young adult. Although it is unclear how the judgments were adjusted (altered simulation vs. threshold modification), the data reveal that people with different motor capabilities due to SCI are not completely biased by their present capabilities and can effectively adjust their judgments to estimate the actions of others.

Factors that affect action possibility judgments: the assumed abilities of other people

Judging what actions are possible and impossible to complete is a skill that is critical for planning and executing movements in both individual and joint actions contexts. The present experiments explored the ability to adapt action possibility judgments to the assumed characteristics of another person. Participants watched alternating pictures of a person's hand moving at different speeds between targets of different indexes of difficulty (according to Fitts' Law) and judged whether or not it was possible for individuals with different characteristics to maintain movement accuracy at the presented speed. Across four studies, the person in the pictures and the background information about the person were manipulated to determine how and under what conditions participants adapted their judgments. Results revealed that participants adjusted their possibility judgments to the assumed motor capabilities of the individual they were judging. However, these adjustments only occurred when participants were instructed to take the other person into consideration suggesting that the adaption process is a voluntary process. Further, it was observed that the slopes of the regression equations relating movement time and index of difficulty did not differ across conditions. All differences between conditions were in the y-intercept of the regression lines. This pattern of findings suggests that participants formed the action possibility judgments by first simulating their own performance, and then adjusted the "possibility" threshold by adding or subtracting a correction factor to determine what is and is not possible for the other person to perform.

Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Portuguese version of the Parental Supervision Attributes Profile Questionnaire

OBJECTIVES

To cross-culturally adapt and validate the Portuguese version of the Parental Supervision Attributes Profile Questionnaire (PSAPQ). The PSAPQ is a measure of parental supervision, which has not been translated and adapted into any language other than English.

METHODS

The Portuguese version was the result of forward/backward translations, consensus panels and pretesting. Reliability and internal consistency were assessed using Cronbach's α, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in adults with different educational levels.

RESULTS

Cronbach's α (α=0.70-0.79) and ICC (>0.75) were acceptable in three of four factors. The results of CFA (χ(2)/df=2.243; CFI=0.951; GFI=0.96; RMSEA=0.056; P(RMSEA ≤ 0.05)=0.222) suggest a good adjustment between the factors.

CONCLUSIONS

The Portuguese version of PSAPQ showed acceptable psychometric properties. This study evidenced some vulnerabilities of the fate subscale, emphasising the need for further investigation of the effects of the educational level of the parents.

Perceiving children's affordances: recalibrating estimation following single-trial observation of three different tasks

The adults' ability to perceive affordances for children was investigated in three different tasks. Forty adults made two estimations of the maximum reachability of a 5-year-old boy from a standing position, during a reach-and-jump task and in making a maximum step. A laser light point was displayed on a wall for the estimations of the standing reach and reach-and-jump tasks, or on the floor for the estimations of the step length task. The participants in the experimental group observed the child performing the task between a first and a second estimation, but the participants in the control group did not. In general, the observers were less accurate in estimating the child's maximum step length than in the other tasks. The observation of a single trial was enough to adjust perceivers' estimations, reducing error magnitude to about 50% of the initial error, but only in tasks with a poor first estimation. An absolute error of 5 cm persisted after one-trial observation. The magnitude of the adjustment in the estimation of affordances for others is task-dependent, and is more pronounced in tasks that imply greater action scaling than in tasks that require direct body scaling.

Perceiving affordances in rugby union

To succeed in competitive environments, players need to continuously adjust their decisions and actions to the behaviour of relevant others. Players' interactions demand ongoing decisions that are constrained by what is previously defined (e.g., coaches' prescriptions that establish 'what' to do) and by information that is available in the context and specifies not only 'what' the player should do, but also 'how', 'when' and 'where'. We describe what affordances emerge to the ball carrier as a consequence of changes in kinematic variables, such as interpersonal distances or distances to the nearest sideline. Changes in these variables determine whether and when different actions are possible. The ball carrier tended to perform a pass when the tackler was farthest from the sideline and the velocity of approach to the tackler did not seem to effect the ball carrier's decision. In the few episodes where the ball carrier moved forward instead of passing the ball, he was mainly influenced by contextual information, such as the variability of the players' distance to the nearest sideline. In sum, actors must be aware of the affordances of others that are specified by particular variables that become available just before decision-making.