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This article examines the changes in social security measures introduced by the Australian government during the first wave of Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020. These measures were basic income-like in that they became both more unconditional and adequate for a reasonable standard of living. This was achieved through a significant supplementary payment, suspension of mutual obligation requirements, and the relaxation of eligibility criteria on a range of unemployment-related payments. Through drawing on the results of an online survey, we examine the impacts of these measures and find that they significantly helped to alleviate poverty and improve wellbeing. These gains were not insignificant for the individuals involved, and offer empirical insights into studies of basic income. While seeing the Australian government embrace more generous and basic income-like measures, we also note that during Covid-19 gendered and class inequalities increased. This reminds us that basic income is never a silver bullet and, alongside implementing basic income payments, there also needs to be a concerted effort to restructure economic relations more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental dyscalculia is a specific learning disorder that persists over lifetime and can have an enormous impact on personal, health-related, and professional aspects of life. Despite its central importance, the origin both at the cognitive and neural level is not yet well understood. Several classification schemas of dyscalculia have been proposed, sometimes together with an associated deficit at the neural level. However, these explanations are (a) not providing an exhaustive framework that is at levels with the observed complexity of developmental dyscalculia at the behavioral level and (b) are largely mono-causal approaches focusing on gray matter deficits. We suggest that number processing is instead the result of context-dependent interaction of two anatomically largely separate, distributed but overlapping networks that function/cooperate in a closely integrated fashion. The proposed two-network framework (TNF) is the result of a series of studies in adults on the neural correlates underlying magnitude processing and arithmetic fact retrieval, which comprised neurofunctional imaging of various numerical tasks, the application of probabilistic fiber tracking to obtain well-defined connections, and the validation and modification of these results using disconnectome mapping in acute stroke patients. Emerged from data in adults, it represents the endpoint of the acquisition and use of mathematical competencies in adults. Yet, we argue that its main characteristics should already emerge earlier during development. Based on this TNF, we develop a classification schema of phenomenological subtypes and their underlying neural origin that we evaluate against existing propositions and the available empirical data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

10.3390/brainsci12040422 14 Cohen L.D., Korem N., Rubinsten O. Math Anxiety Is Related to Math Difficulties and Composed of Emotion Regulation and Anxiety Predisposition: A Network Analysis Study. Living in our information- and technology-driven society at the beginning of the 21st century requires the ability to understand and handle numbers not only for a successful career but also for coping with everyday life tasks. In recent years, the neurocognitive foundations, predictors, and compensatory (reorganizational) mechanisms of number processing and math learning have gained increasing research interest at both personal and societal levels. Furthermore, math anxiety proved to be a mediating factor between numerosity estimation precision and math abilities. [Extracted from the article]

The writings of TH Marshall, Esping Anderson and other welfare state scholars have been concerned with class-based inequalities bought about through capitalism. Yet the focus on exploitation of labour overlooks racialised and gendered inequalities bought about through historic and contemporary processes of expropriation also inherent in capitalism. In this paper, I argue that addressing processes of expropriation are fundamental to the political economy of the welfare state and propose a reparative way of thinking to transform the welfare state. Drawing on insights from the transformative reparation literature, I outline three modes of transformation – unsettling accumulation by dispossession, disrupting dehumanising subjectivities and supporting pluriversal possibilities as processes to transform the structures that uphold expropriation and the welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research indicated that fraction understanding is an important predictor of later mathematical achievement. In the current study we investigated associations between basic numerical skills and students' fraction processing. We analyzed data of 939 German secondary school students (age range = 11.92 to 18.00 years) and evaluated the determinants of fraction processing considering basic numerical skills as predictors (i.e., number line estimation, basic arithmetic operations, non-symbolic magnitude comparison, etc.). Additionally, we controlled for general cognitive ability, grade level, and sex. We found that multiplication, subtraction, conceptual knowledge, number line estimation, and basic geometry were significantly associated with fraction processing beyond significant associations of general cognitive ability and sex. Moreover, relative weight analysis revealed that addition and approximate arithmetic should also be considered as relevant predictors for fraction processing. The current results provide food for thought that further research should focus on investigating whether recapitulating basic numerical content in secondary school mathematics education can be beneficial for acquiring more complex mathematical concepts such as fractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the intersections between coloniality and gender in the generation and maintenance of Australian wealth. Settler colonialism is ongoing in Australia and is intricately linked to wealth accumulation – where First Nations people's labour, land and lives have been, and continue to be, expropriated. Whilst feminist scholars have long shown how the capitalist economy free rides on unpaid care work, understandings of care have centred around colonial and settler notions of care which can overlook First Nations meanings and practices of care such as those intricately linked to looking after country, and are at the forefront of struggles and endurance against settler colonialism, including the unpaid work of healing settler induced trauma and violence. Through examining these areas of unpaid care, and drawing on Indigenous, racial capitalism and settler colonial literature, this article outlines contemporary processes of expropriation of First Nations women's unpaid care, in the making and maintenance of Australian wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 2020 COVID‐19 wave, the Australian Government made an additional $550 Coronavirus Supplement available for people receiving social security payments, and temporarily suspended mutual obligation requirements. By doing so, the government effectively gave people who had been long stigmatised and subject to punitive conditionality to compel them into the labour market, financial security and their time back. Drawing on survey responses from people who received the $550 Supplement and had their mutual obligation activities suspended or reduced, this research examines how people used their time during this period and whether it differed from pre‐pandemic government policy. We find that the increase in payments through the Supplement and the suspension of mutual obligations impacted positively on people's lives including the (1) the ability of respondents to meet basic needs and improve their long‐term financial security, (2) improvements to physical and emotional well‐being, (3) increased labour market engagement and (4) engagement in other forms of unpaid productive work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on one aspect of the rapidly growing body of research on just transitions that we think has not been robustly enough explored: the difference that more explicitly reparative approaches to historical injustice rooted in racial capitalism might make to how these transitions are conceptualized and enacted. To advance this argument, we turn to recent scholarship on reparations, and particularly reparations for slavery, colonization and Indigenous genocide, to draw out critical insights that might helpfully expand and redirect just transitions work to more fully address the ongoing legacies of what Olufemi Taiwo has recently called, 'global racial empire.' Specifically, we examine the reparative demands embedded in the Cochabamba People's Declaration in Bolivia (2010) and the Black Hive's Black Climate Mandate in the US (2022). Through close analysis of these two documents, we draw out and expand four principles that we see as critical to the development of more reparative policy options for just transitions at both national and international scales. Specifically, we draw attention to the need for just transitions work to 1) draw on broader temporalities that foreground the long afterlives of colonial genocide and slavery; 2) more thoroughly recognize geographical interconnectedness across nation-state boundaries, including the powerful persistence of neo-colonial relationships of exploitation and expropriation; 3) redirect processes of highly racialized global (mal)distribution; and 4) attend to more 'pluriversal' possibilities for rectifying these inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the processes of assemblage as an important aspect in studies of contemporary Australian settler colonialism. I explore how, what I am calling the Indigenous development assemblage, is made up of various government policies, actors, discourse, knowledge, legal frameworks and institutions, intersect and cohere with each other. I also explore how this assemblage affects not only material outcomes but also generates an atmosphere that affects aspirations, hope and possibility for change. Through examining various processes of the assemblage underway in the town of Kununurra, I argue that settler colonialism is different to the totalitarian form it often is described as. Through understanding the processes of assemblage, incoherence, disruption and emergence was also observed which opens up possibilities of the destabilisation of the assemblage itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Welfare conditionality where social security payments are conditional on recipients undertaking tasks such as training, submitting job applications and taking part in "work‐like" activities, is an enduring punitive feature of contemporary welfare provision in global North economics. In Australia, welfare conditionality or mutual obligation as it is commonly referred to, is continually targeted at specific groups such as single women and First Nations women. Drawing on fifteen in‐depth interviews with women put on a mutual obligation program in Australia called ParentsNext, I examine the relationship between mutual obligation and the expropriation of women's unpaid care work. I argue that welfare conditionality targeted at First Nations women and non‐First Nations women, reinforces and intensifies the expropriation of women's unpaid care work, as well as settler colonial expropriation. The expropriation of women's unpaid care work intensifies under ParentsNext in four notable ways–through punitive mutual obligation requirements, stigma, the privatization of community services and assisting ongoing settler colonial expropriation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioural approaches are increasingly used in both the global North and South as means to effect government policy. These interventions aim to encourage preferred behaviours by subtly shaping choices, applying incentives or employing punitive measures. Recent digital technology developments extend the reach of these behavioural approaches. While these approaches have been criticised from political science perspectives, in this paper we apply an innovative mode of analysis of behavioural policy approaches founded in a 'new materialist' ontology of affects, assemblages and capacities. This perspective enables us to explore their 'micropolitical' impact—on those who are their subjects, but also upon the wider sociocultural contexts within which they have been implemented. We examine two different behavioural interventions: the use of vouchers to incentivise new mothers to breastfeed their infants (a practice associated with improved health outcomes in both childhood and later life), and uses of debit card technologies in Australia to limit welfare recipients' spending on alcohol, drugs and gambling. In each case, we employ a materialist methodology to analyse precisely what these interventions do, and what (in)capacities they produce in their targeted groups. From these we draw out a more generalised critique of behavioural approaches to policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Settler colonialism continues in Australia today. One way this occurs is through processes of assimilation such as targeting First Nations subjectivities with behavioural conditions on their social security payments. In this paper, I draw on a 13‐month study examining one such programme; the Cashless Debit Card trial in the East Kimberley region in North West Australia. Through restricting cash and purchases to curb alcohol consumption, illegal drug use, and gambling, card aims to instil "responsible behaviour" such as getting a job in the capitalist economy, accumulating private property, and succeeding in English education. Through drawing on critical discourse analysis, I ask, what does the Cashless Debit Card tell us about the settler state's attempts of continued assimilation? The paper explores specific ways the state legitimising assimilation through provoking narratives of First Nations dysfunction, depoliticising poverty and colonisation, constructing evidence around success of policy, and constructing ideas of "community" in order to regulate who speaks and who is overlooked. Although assimilation attempts are made, there is resistance and pushback in the trial site. Attempts of assimilation, not actual assimilation, can only be observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic led to widespread social and economic policy experimentation as governments sought to protect household finances while locking down economies. Cash transfers emerged as one of the most popular policy measures, leading many to reflect on new possibilities for enacting universal basic income through temporary or emergency interventions. We take Australia's pandemic response, and particularly its Coronavirus Supplement, as an example of this broader experimentation. We analyse the Supplement through the lens of an emergency basic income, arguing the measure reflected existing institutional structures and norms, forms of national and international policy learning, and vulnerabilities in Australia's liberalized housing and labour markets. While temporary, we consider how its apparent success might suggest ongoing policy relevance, either as a form of capitalist "crisis management" or as an alternative pathway for implementing forms of basic income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to measure psychological agency have drawn on social psychology scholarship. Nonetheless, it is well documented that the Euro/American psychology paradigm is challenged by its tendency to universalise its theories. This raises a challenge for development scholars trying to measure the psychological domain; especially regarding understanding what the psychological domain may mean to people outside the Western liberal tradition. We examine the use of theoretical measures of psychological agency against local concepts of psychological agency from a neighbourhood on the urban fringe of Bamako. We conclude that there is no clear association between local and theoretical measures of psychological agency and therefore there is a need to include local and theoretical measures in the study of agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Cashless Debit Card (CDC) trial in the East Kimberley, Western Australia. It mentions that the card is the iteration of income management and aims to restrict cash and purchases to curb alcohol consumption, illegal drug use and gambling. It also mentions that the trial empowered settler capitalism. It also mentions that the focus on individual behaviour depoliticises structural poverty and unemployment.

Premature birth is a significant risk factor for learning disabilities in general and mathematics learning difficulties in particular. However, the exact reasons for this relation are still unknown. While typical numerical development is associated with a frontal-to-parietal shift of brain activation with increasing age, influences of gestational age have hardly been considered so far. Therefore, we investigated the influence of gestational age on the neural correlates of number processing in 6- and 7-year-old children born prematurely (n = 16). Only the numerical distance effect – as a measure of intentional number magnitude processing – elicited the fronto-parietal activation pattern typically observed for numerical cognition. On the other hand, the size congruity effect – as a measure of automatic number magnitude processing – was associated with activation of brain areas typically attributed to cognitive control. Most importantly, however, we observed that gestational age reliably predicted the frontal-to-parietal shift of activation observed for the numerical distance effect. Our findings seem to indicate that human numerical development may start even before birth and prematurity might hamper neural facilitation of the brain circuitry subserving numerical cognition. In turn, this might contribute to the high risk of premature children to develop mathematical learning difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the importance of basic income in supporting development and economic security in remote Australian Indigenous communities. Specifically we draw on the case of the Community Development Employment Programme (CDEP) and examine its significant basic income features: it provided economic security, flexible definitions of work, community control and a means to establish community development initiatives. We find that CDEP suited the economic and cultural circumstances of remote-living Aboriginal people whose livelihoods depend on a hybrid form of economy inclusive of customary (non-market) practices rather than market capitalism. We then trace shifts in Indigenous policy in recent times which saw the dismantling of CDEP in the name of ‘real’ employment, and we examine the consequences of this for Aboriginal people. We end by proposing the reinstatement of a more complete basic income scheme, initially for people in remote Indigenous communities in Australia who are in deepest poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expertise stemming from the psy disciplines is increasingly and explicitly shaping international development policy and practice. Whilst some policy makers see the use of psy expertise as a new way to reduce poverty, increase economic efficiency, and promote wellbeing, others raise concerns that psychocentric development promotes individual over structural change, pathologises poverty, and depoliticises development. This paper specifically analyses four aspects of psy knowledge used in contemporary development policy: child development/developmental psychology, behavioural economics, positive psychology, and global mental health. This analysis illuminates the co-constitutive intellectual and colonial histories of development and psy-expertise: a connection that complicates claims that development has been psychologized; the uses and coloniality of both within a neoliberal project; and the potential for psychopolitics to inform development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT This article critically analyses the use of psychological and behavioural knowledge in development policy and practice with reference to the World Development Report 2015. It examines the main proposition of the WDR 2015, highlighting the behavioural change framework and policy techniques promoted in the report. The shifts that have taken place in development policy are reviewed from a governmentality perspective which offers a critical view on the psychological and behavioural focus in contemporary development policy. The article focuses specifically on the behavioural techniques the WDR 2015 promotes to show how a certain kind of subjectivity is advanced which not only homogenizes and problematizes non-Western knowledge systems, subjectivities and agency, but also justifies the economization of social life through development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper specifically addresses the behavioural focus of the income management regime, arguing that through its use of market logic and the reduction of social and political complexity, the regime is a technology of neoliberal governmentality. This paper finds that income management, whether compulsory or voluntary, blanket or Community based, regards the individual as the site of dysfunction, depoliticising and dehumanising broader socio economic historical factors in the process. Further, the focus on behavioural change creates the illusion that the market logic of income management will produce responsible citizens, which in turn obscures the possibility of redressing poverty and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capability approach has been recently used in Australian Indigenous policy formation. What is curious about this use is how the approach has been used in some instances to justify current paternalistic and instructive policies for Indigenous Australians including behavioural conditions to welfare payments and income management—policy apparatuses aimed to create individual responsibility and to “re-engineer social norms of Indigenous people.” This interpretation of the capability approach is at odds with the writings of capability scholars. To examine this tension, this paper firstly reviews and clarifies the important concepts of freedom, agency and pluralism according to capability approach scholars, in particular Amartya Sen. The contestation between the writings of Sen and commentators of Indigenous policy is then addressed paying particular attention to three areas; deficit discourse, individual responsibility and the ends and means of policy. An examination of how the capability approach can be used to analyse welfare to work and activation strategies within wider Australian Indigenous policy is then undertaken, followed by some broader reflections on the discursive environments in which misinterpretations of the capability approach could continue to take place. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The current study provides a generalizable account of the anatomo-functional associations as well as the connectivity of representational codes underlying numerical processing as suggested by the triple code model (TCM) of numerical cognition. By evaluating the neural networks subserving numerical cognition in two specific and substantially different numerical tasks with regard to both grey matter localizations as well as white matter tracts we (1) considered the possibility of additional memory-related cortex areas crucial for arithmetic fact retrieval (e.g., the hippocampus); (2) specified the functional involvement of prefrontal areas in number magnitude processing, and, finally; (3) identified the connections between these anatomo-functional instantiations of the representations involved in number magnitude processing and arithmetic fact retrieval employing probabilistic fiber tracking. The resulting amendments to the TCM are summarized in a schematic update, and ideas concerning the possible functional interplay between number magnitude processing and arithmetic fact retrieval are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution examines the psychological domain of women's agency in a neighborhood on the urban fringe of Bamako, Mali. Based on fieldwork in 2009 and 2011, the study uses inductive qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the factors contributing to women's individual and collective initiatives to improve well-being. The local concepts ofdusu(internal motivation) andka da I yèrè la(self-belief) emerged through this research. The contribution examines the instrumental and intrinsic importance ofdusuandka da I yèrè lato women's individual and collective agency and analyzes the construction ofdusuandka da I yèrè lathrough relational processes within women's social milieu. Finally, the study explores the complex relationship betweendusuandka da I yèrè laand women's decision-making ability and access to resources, concluding that the psychological domain plays an important role in women's agency and social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parity is important semantic information encoded by numbers. Interestingly, there are hand-based effects in parity judgment tasks: right-hand responses are faster for even and left-hand responses for odd numbers. As this effect was initially explained by the markedness of the words even vs. odd and right vs. left, it was denoted as the linguistic markedness of response codes (MARC) effect. In the present study, we investigated whether the MARC effect differs for right and left handers. We conducted a parity judgment task, in which right- and left-handed participants had to decide whether a presented single or two-digit number was odd or even by pressing a corresponding response key. We found that handedness modulated the MARC effect for unit digits. While we replicated a regular MARC effect for right handers, there was no evidence for a MARC effect for left handers. However, closer inspection revealed that the MARC effect in left handers depended on the degree of left-handedness with a reversed MARC effect for most left-handed participants. Furthermore, although parity of tens digits interfered with the processing of unit digits, the MARC effect for tens digits was not modulated by handedness. Our findings are discussed in the light of three different accounts for the MARC effect: the linguistic markedness account, the polarity correspondence principle, and the body-specificity hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary A deficit in the theorisation of psychological elements of agency and empowerment in development literature exists. To address, I present the results of an empirical study using exploratory mixed methods examining central factors contributing to initiatives people undertake to improve personal and collective well-being in a neighborhood on the urban fringe of Bamako. Informants articulated that the psychological concepts of dusu (internal motivation) and ka da I yèrè la (self-belief) were most important to their purposeful agency. The psychological constructs had an intrinsic and instrumental value to respondents from differing socio-economic characteristics which contributed to social change in the neighborhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the neural correlates of intentional and automatic number processing (indexed by number comparison and physical Stroop task, respectively) in 6- and 7-year-old children born prematurely. Behavioral results revealed significant numerical distance and size congruity effects. Imaging results disclosed (1) largely overlapping fronto-parietal activation for intentional and automatic number processing, (2) a frontal to parietal shift of activation upon considering the risk factors gestational age and birth weight, and (3) a task-specific link between math proficiency and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signal within distinct regions of the parietal lobes—indicating commonalities but also specificities of intentional and automatic number processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is an innovative method to explore the causal structure-function relationship of brain areas. We investigated the specificity of bilateral bi-cephalic tDCS with two active electrodes of the same polarity (e.g., cathodal on both hemispheres) applied to intraparietal cortices bilaterally using a combined between- and within-task approach. Regarding between-task specificity, we observed that bilateral bi-cephalic tDCS affected a numerical (mental addition) but not a control task (colour word Stroop), indicating a specific influence of tDCS on numerical but not on domain general cognitive processes associated with the bilateral IPS. In particular, the numerical effect of distractor distance was more pronounced under cathodal than under anodal stimulation. Moreover, with respect to within-task specificity we only found the numerical distractor distance effect in mental addition to be modulated by direct current stimulation, whereas the effect of target identity was not affected. This implies a differential influence of bilateral bi-cephalic tDCS on the recruitment of different processing components within the same task (number magnitude processing vs. recognition of familiarity). In sum, this first successful application of bilateral bi-cephalic tDCS with two active electrodes of the same polarity in numerical cognition research corroborates the specific proposition of the Triple Code Model that number magnitude information is represented bilaterally in the intraparietal cortices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Using a stress violation paradigm, we investigated whether metrical feet constrain the way prosodic patterns are processed and evaluated. Processing of correctly versus incorrectly stressed words was associated with activation in left posterior angular and retrosplenial cortex, indicating the recognition of an expected and familiar pattern, whereas the inverse contrast yielded enhanced bilateral activation in the superior temporal gyrus, reflecting higher costs in auditory (re-)analysis. More fine-grained analyses of severe versus mild stress violations revealed activations of the left superior temporal and left anterior angular gyrus whereas the opposite contrast led to frontal activations including Broca’s area and its right-hemisphere homologue, suggesting that detection of mild violations lead to increased effort in working memory and deeper phonological processing. Our results provide first evidence that different incorrect stress patterns are processed in a qualitatively different way and that the underlying foot structure seems to determine potential stress positions in German words. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recently, an associative learning account of cognitive control has been suggested (Verguts & Notebaert, 2009). In this so-called adaptation by binding theory, Hebbian learning of stimulus-stimulus and stimulus-response associations is assumed to drive the adaptation of human behavior. In this study, we evaluated the validity of the adaptation-by-binding account for the case of implicit learning of regularities within a stimulus set (i.e., the frequency of specific unit digit combinations in a two-digit number magnitude comparison task) and their association with a particular response. Our data indicated that participants indeed learned these regularities and adapted their behavior accordingly. In particular, influences of cognitive control were even able to override the numerical distance effect-one of the most robust effects in numerical cognition research. Thus, the general cognitive processes involved in two-digit number magnitude comparison seem much more complex than previously assumed. Multi-digit number magnitude comparison may not be automatic and inflexible but influenced by processes of cognitive control being highly adaptive to stimulus set properties and task demands on multiple levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent evidence suggests that neglect patients seem to have particular problems representing relatively smaller numbers corresponding to the left part of the mental number line. However, while this indicates space-based neglect for representational number space little is known about whether and - if so - how object-based neglect influences number processing. To evaluate influences of object-based neglect in numerical cognition, a group of neglect patients and two control groups had to compare two-digit numbers to an internally represented standard. Conceptualizing two-digit numbers as objects of which the left part (i.e., the tens digit should be specifically neglected) we were able to evaluate object-based neglect for number magnitude processing. Object-based neglect was indicated by a larger unit-decade compatibility effect actually reflecting impaired processing of the leftward tens digits. Additionally, faster processing of within- as compared to between-decade items provided further evidence suggesting particular difficulties in integrating tens and units into the place-value structure of the Arabic number system. In summary, the present study indicates that, in addition to the spatial representation of number magnitude, also the processing of place-value information of multi-digit numbers seems specifically impaired in neglect patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerical cognition is a case of multi-modular and distributed cerebral processing. So far neither the anatomo-functional connections between the cortex areas involved nor their integration into established frameworks such as the differentiation between dorsal and ventral processing streams have been specified. The current study addressed this issue combining a reanalysis of previously published fMRI data with probabilistic fiber tracking data from an independent sample. We aimed at differentiating neural correlates and connectivity for relatively easy and more difficult addition problems in healthy adults and their association with either rather verbally mediated fact retrieval or magnitude manipulations, respectively. The present data suggest that magnitude- and fact retrieval-related processing seem to be subserved by two largely separate networks, both of them comprising dorsal and ventral connections. Importantly, these networks not only differ in localization of activation but also in the connections between the cortical areas involved. However, it has to be noted that even though seemingly distinct anatomically, these networks operate as a functionally integrated circuit for mental calculation as revealed by a parametric analysis of brain activation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research indicated that processes of unit-decade integration pose particular difficulty on multi-digit addition. In fact, longer response latencies as well as higher error rates have been observed for addition problems involving a carry operation (e.g., 18 +27) compared to problems not requiring a carry (e.g., 13 +32). However, the cognitive instantiation of this carry effect remained unknown. In the current study, this question was pursued by recording participants' eye fixation behaviour during addition problem verification. Analyses of the eye fixation data suggested a prominent role of the unit digits of the summands. The need for a carry seems to be recognized very early during the encoding of the problem after initial unit sum calculation has established the basis for the no carry/ carry detection. Additionally, processes related to the actual carry execution seemed to be associated with the processing of the decade digit of the solution probe but were less unambiguous. Taken together, our findings indicate that unit-based calculations and the associated recognition that a carry is needed as well as its completion determine the difficulty of carry addition problems. On a more general level, this study shows how the nature of numerical-cognitive processes can be further differentiated by the evaluation of eye movement measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyses of eye-fixation data in adults suggested that the carry effect in addition is determined by the unit digits of the summands. Correspondingly, we recorded children's eye fixation behavior in a choice reaction paradigm. As for adults the carry effect was most pronounced on the unit digits of the summands. However, children's fixation pattern differed reliably from that of adults in other important aspects. While these data suggested common processes in children and adults for performing a carry in mental addition, children's eye fixation data indicated a less flexible processing style primarily based on calculating the correct result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The current view in numerical cognition research is that multiplication facts are stored and retrieved in a phonological code. Consistent with this view, it was found that multiplication could be impaired by a phonological but not by a visuo-spatial loading task. However, because the authors used an active production task, it remained unclear whether concurrent articulation impaired either access to multiplication facts or their retrieval. Methods: In the current study, we investigated the influence of concurrent articulation on multiplication fact knowledge without active production of multiplication results. Results: In a number bisection task, number triplets, which are part of a multiplication table, were classified faster as being correctly bisected than other triplets. Interestingly, concurrent articulation led to a relative slowing of the multiplicative triplets which reduced the multiplicativity effect. Conclusions: This result indicates that concurrent articulation modulates access to phonologically stored multiplication facts and corroborates the notion of multiplication facts being represented in an at least partially verbal code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To date, the neural correlates of phonological word stress processing are largely unknown. Methods: In the present study, we investigated the processing of word stress and vowel quality using an identity matching task with pseudowords. Results: In line with previous studies, a bilateral fronto-temporal network comprising the superior temporal gyri extending into the sulci as well as the inferior frontal gyri was observed for word stress processing. Moreover, we found differences in the superior temporal gyrus and the superior temporal sulcus, bilaterally, for the processing of different stress patterns. For vowel quality processing, our data reveal a substantial contribution of the left intraparietal cortex. All activations were modulated by task demands, yielding different patterns for same and different pairs of stimuli. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the left superior temporal gyrus represents a basic system underlying stress processing to which additional structures including the homologous cortex site are recruited with increasing difficulty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recent research has suggested addition performance to be determined by both the need for a carry operation and problem size. Nevertheless, it has remained debatable, how these two factors are interrelated. In the current study, this question was pursued by orthogonally manipulating carry and problem size in two-digit addition verification. As the two factors interacted reliably, our results indicate that the carry effect is moderated by number magnitude processing rather than representing a purely procedural, asemantic sequence of processing steps. Moreover, it was found that the carry effect may not be a purely categorical effect but may be driven by continuous characteristics of the sum of the unit digits as well. Since the correct result of a carry problem can only be derived by integrating and updating the magnitudes of tens and units within the place-value structure of the Arabic number system, the present study provides evidence for the idea that decomposed processing of tens and units also transfers to mental arithmetic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: Recently it was suggested that the carry effect observed in addition involves both categorical and continuous processing characteristics. Methods: In the present study, we aimed at identifying the specific neural correlates associated with processing either categorical or continuous aspects of the carry effect in an fMRI study on multi-digit addition. Results: In line with our expectations, we observed two distinct parts of the fronto-parietal network subserving numerical cognition to be associated with either one of these two characteristics. On the one hand, the categorical aspect of the carry effect was associated with left-hemispheric language areas and the basal ganglia probably reflecting increased demands on procedural and problem solving processes. Complementarily, the continuous aspect of the carry effect was associated with increased intraparietal activation indicating increasing demands on magnitude processing as well as place-value integration with increasing unit sum. Conclusions: In summary, the findings suggest representations and processes underlying the carry effect in multidigit addition to be more complex and interactive than assumed previously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It is widely agreed that numbers automatically activate a magnitude representation. Nevertheless, so far no systematic evaluation of the neuro-cognitive correlates has been provided for the case of auditorily presented numbers. Methods: To address this question, we presented spoken number words in three different tasks (passive listening, magnitude comparison, parity judgement) as well as spoken pseudowords in an fMRI study. Results: We found IPS activation typically associated with magnitude processing in all tasks with numerical stimuli only. Interestingly, directly contrasting the two semantic tasks magnitude comparison (magnitude-relevant) and parity judgement (magnitude-irrelevant) revealed a left lateralized predominance within the IPS for the processing of parity information as compared to a right lateralization for number magnitude for auditorily presented number words. Conclusions: In summary, our results suggest a highly automatic activation of number magnitude for spoken number words similar to previous observations for visually presented numbers, but also indicate that the issue of hemispheric asymmetries deserves specific consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Two types of calculation processes have been distinguished in the literature: approximate processes are supposed to rely heavily on the non-verbal quantity system, whereas exact processes are assumed to crucially involve the verbal system. These two calculation processes were commonly distinguished by manipulation of two factors in addition problems: the identity of the target and the distance of the distractor. However, in all previous studies, these two factors were not manipulated independently. In this fMRI study, we could disentangle the two factors by using a different (two-digit) number stimulus set. Both behavioral and neurofunctional data suggest that the cognitive processes involved could be best explained by the (independent) factors target and distractor distance. Based on these data we suggest that the exact/approximate distinction does not seem to be as generally valid as previously assumed. We conclude that this study may be a starting point for a closer examination of the experimental, procedural and strategic conditions of when the exact/approximate distinction is valid and when it is not. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Developmental dyscalculia (DD) is a developmental disorder characterized by arithmetic difficulties. Recently, it has been suggested that the neural networks supporting procedure-based calculation (e.g., in subtraction) and left-hemispheric verbal arithmetic fact retrieval (e.g., in multiplication) are partially distinct. Here we compared the neurofunctional correlates of subtraction and multiplication in a 19-year-old student (RM) with DD to 18 age-matched controls. Behaviorally, RM performed significantly worse than controls in multiplication, while subtraction was unaffected. Neurofunctional differences were most pronounced regarding multiplication: RM showed significantly stronger activation than controls not only in left angular gyrus but also in a fronto-parietal network (including left intraparietal sulcus and inferior frontal gyrus) typically activated during procedure-based calculation. Region-of-interest analyses indicated group differences in multiplication only, which, however, did not survive correction for multiple comparisons. Our results are consistent with dissociable and processing-specific, but not operation-specific neurofunctional networks. Procedure-based calculation is not only associated with subtraction but also with (untrained) multiplication facts. Only after rote learning, facts can be retrieved quasi automatically from memory. We suggest that this learning process and the associated shift in activation patterns has not fully occurred in RM, as reflected in her need to resort to procedure-based strategies to solve multiplication facts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prominent view in numerical cognition is that highly overlearned arithmetic facts are verbally mediated and unilaterally processed in a left-hemispheric network, including language areas. However, this view has recently been challenged. Here, we evaluated the hemispheric specialization of verbal arithmetic fact retrieval and number magnitude processing using two verification tasks (i.e., multiplication and number magnitude comparison) in a divided hemifield paradigm in healthy participants (n = 35). In the number comparison task, we replicated bilateral processing advantages for the unit-decade compatibility effect. Magnitude processing was facilitated after bilateral compared with a unilateral presentation. In the multiplication task, lateralized presentation to the left hemisphere yielded processing advantages in arithmetic fact retrieval when the required interhemispheric transitions from the input, processing, and output stages were considered. Crucially, we observed a systematic processing advantage in left visual hemifield stimuli presentation (i.e., initial right-hemisphere processing). Our findings corroborate the assumption that arithmetic fact retrieval is subserved by left-lateralized verbal/linguistic processing. Thereby, they suggest a distinction between unilateral left-hemispheric linguistic processing of arithmetic fact retrieval and bilateral number magnitude processing. Interestingly, however, our data present right-hemispheric processing advantages in identifying early processed visual symbolic numerical stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology has an increasing influence on writing processes. In this context, the question arises whether changes in writing mode (i.e., handwriting vs. computer‐keyboard typing) also require changes in writing assessments. However, data directly comparing writing mode influences in children with and without developmental writing deficits are scarce. This study investigated the influence of writing mode in German‐speaking, typically developing children and children with developmental dyslexia (DD) from two different levels. Results showed on a general level that writing mode influenced overall spelling accuracy, writing time, and self‐corrections comparably in children with and without DD. On a rule‐specific level, outcomes for writing time and self‐corrections substantiated these findings. However, as regards spelling accuracy, a mode effect was only apparent for capitalization, whereas other spelling rules were resistant to writing mode influences. Present findings suggest that a mode effect is present only for typing specific aspects (e.g., capitalization) rather than reflecting a general influence on orthographic principles (e.g., grapheme–phoneme assignment, morphologic principles). These mode‐specific aspects seem to comparably affect the writing performance of typically developing children and children with DD. We recommend writing assessments to consider that different writing modes may influence individual spelling rules differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Difficult cognitive tasks are often associated with negative feelings. This can be already the case for the mere anticipation of having to do a difficult task. For the case of difficult math tasks, it was recently suggested that such a negative emotional response may be exclusive to highly math-anxious individuals. However, it is also conceivable that negative emotional responses simply reflect that math is perceived as difficult. Here we investigated whether non-math-anxious individuals also experience negative emotional responses when anticipating to do difficult math tasks. Methods: We compared brain activation following the presentation of a numerical cue indicating either difficult or easy upcoming proportion magnitude comparison tasks. Results: Comparable to previous results for highly math-anxious individuals we observed a network associated with negative emotions to be activated in non-math-anxious individuals when facing cues indicating a difficult upcoming task. Importantly, however, math anxiety scores did not predict the neural response. Furthermore, we observed activation in areas associated with processes of cognitive control areas such as anterior cingulate cortex, which were suggested to play a key role in emotion regulation. Conclusion: Activation in the emotion processing network was observed when anticipating an upcoming difficult (math) task. However, this activation was not predicted by individual' degree of math anxiety. Therefore, we suggest that negative emotional responses to difficult math tasks might be a rather common reaction not specific to math-anxious individuals. Whether or not this initial negative response impairs math performance, however, might depend on the ability to regulate those emotions effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though game elements can increase motivation and engagement, they also might distract learners and thereby decrease performance and learning outcomes. In the current study, we investigated the effects of intrinsically integrated game elements on performance and learning outcomes. In a pre-post training study, 85 adult participants were randomly assigned either to the game-based or non-game-based training condition. Participants trained their fraction magnitude understanding with digital number line estimation tasks on five consecutive days (á 15–20 min). The learning outcomes were evaluated using a paper-based number line estimation task. While participants in both the game-based and non-game-based condition improved their fraction magnitude understanding from pretest to posttest, their improvement did not differ significantly. However, during the training, participants in the game-based condition responded more accurately but were slower than those in the non-game-based condition. The current results suggest that game elements might increase participants' cognitive engagement and change their priorities or strategies (i.e., accuracy over speed) during learning. Nevertheless, better training performance did not lead to superior learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conditionality in Australia's welfare state has sustained a significant academic critique, including the critique published in this journal. In this Special Issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues, we contribute to the existing critical literature on welfare conditionality. This Special Issue aimed to provide empirical scrutiny into welfare reform and conditionality in Australia. The articles extend our understanding of welfare conditionality's underpinnings and its lived effects. These case studies illuminate the aspects of welfare conditionality that have not received enough attention: the role of technology, the question of mobility, the relationship with housing and the little thought given to the state's role in mutual obligation. What is clear is that the individualisation of structural problems is not just a theoretical and political misstep ripe for critique, but leads to the formulation of policies that impact marginalised people's capacity to shape life on their own terms. Through different empirical foci, all papers in this Special Issue demonstrate how welfare conditionality is put forward as a solution to address the consequences of structural disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the relationship between the first two trials of the Cashless Debit Card (CDC) and Indigenous mobility? In Ceduna, Vincent conducted ethnographic research into lived experiences of the first CDC trial. In the East Kimberley, Klein conducted 51 structured interviews with people on the card and 37 semi‐structured interviews with key informants. Markham used regression analysis of net migration rates at the Statistical Area 2 level to determine whether the CDC trial sites were associated with greater net population loss in 2016 census data than comparable locations. Our exploratory study finds significant local talk of displacement arising from the introduction of the CDC, as well as discussion of short‐term trips away from the trial sites being made more difficult. The regression analysis found that the net migration rate was 9.3 per cent points (95% CI: 2.0, 16.5) lower in Ceduna, Wyndham and Kununurra when compared with a group of comparable towns, and 5.2 per cent points (95% CI: 0.9, 9.5) lower when compared with Australia as a whole, meaning that the populations of these towns declined faster than those of comparable towns. Policy effects on mobility should be taken seriously by researchers and policymakers when considering place‐based welfare policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Computerized neglect tests could significantly deepen our disorder-specific knowledge by effortlessly providing additional behavioral markers that are hardly or not extractable from existing paper-and-pencil versions. This study investigated how testing format (paper versus digital), and screen size (small, medium, large) affect the Center of cancelation (CoC) in right-hemispheric stroke patients in the Letters and the Bells cancelation task. Our second objective was to determine whether a machine learning approach could reliably classify patients with and without neglect based on their search speed, search distance, and search strategy. Method: We compared the CoC measure of right hemisphere stroke patients with neglect in two cancelation tasks across different formats and display sizes. In addition, we evaluated whether three additional parameters of search behavior that became available through digitization are neglect-specific behavioral markers. Results: Patients' CoC was not affected by test format or screen size. Additional search parameters demonstrated lower search speed, increased search distance, and a more strategic search for neglect patients than for control patients without neglect. Conclusion: The CoC seems robust to both test digitization and display size adaptations. Machine learning classification based on the additional variables derived from computerized tests succeeded in distinguishing stroke patients with spatial neglect from those without. The investigated additional variables have the potential to aid in neglect diagnosis, in particular when the CoC cannot be validly assessed (e.g., when the test is not performed to completion). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mood disorders can be difficult to treat during pregnancy. There is still lack of evidence whether pregnancy influences their natural course and whether continuation of pharmacotherapy, despite potential risks for the unborn child, is beneficial in preventing recurrence of mood episodes during pregnancy.Methods: Systematic review conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines, searching Pubmed, PsycINFO, Embase and Cochrane databases up till January 9th, 2018. Recurrence rates and various measures of risk were calculated.Results: Out of 1387 articles from an initial search 22 studies met the inclusion criteria. Included studies reported a wide variation in the recurrence rate of bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder during pregnancy (BD: mean = 19%, range = 4%-73%; MDD: mean = 8%, range = 1%-75%). Observational data showed a relative risk reduction of maintenance therapy during pregnancy of 66% in women with BD and 54% for women with MDD, a significant difference (95% CI 9.4-14.6; p < 0.001).Limitations: heterogeneous samples, study designs, and reported outcomes in included studies.Conclusions: Despite the importance of the topic there is a paucity of evidence on recurrence rates of mood episodes during pregnancy among women with MDD or BD. Unlike the impact of the postpartum period, it is still uncertain whether the course of mood disorders is influenced by pregnancy. Non-randomized studies show that maintenance pharmacotherapy during pregnancy in women with mood disorders significantly (p < 0.01) reduces the risk of recurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has proposed that the approximate number system (ANS) constitutes a building block for later mathematical abilities. Therefore, numerous studies investigated the relationship between ANS acuity and mathematical performance, but results are inconsistent. Properties of the experimental design have been discussed as a potential explanation of these inconsistencies. In the present study, we investigated the influence of set size and presentation duration on the association between non-symbolic magnitude comparison and math performance. Moreover, we focused on strategies reported as an explanation for these inconsistencies. In particular, we employed a non-symbolic magnitude comparison task and asked participants how they solved the task. We observed that set size was a significant moderator of the relationship between non-symbolic magnitude comparison and math performance, whereas presentation duration of the stimuli did not moderate this relationship. This supports the notion that specific design characteristics contribute to the inconsistent results. Moreover, participants reported different strategies including numerosity-based, visual, counting, calculation-based, and subitizing strategies. Frequencies of these strategies differed between different set sizes and presentation durations. However, we found no specific strategy, which alone predicted arithmetic performance, but when considering the frequency of all reported strategies, arithmetic performance could be predicted. Visual strategies made the largest contribution to this prediction. To conclude, the present findings suggest that different design characteristics contribute to the inconsistent findings regarding the relationship between non-symbolic magnitude comparison and mathematical performance by inducing different strategies and additional processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]