Task‐irrelevant own‐race faces capture attention: Eye‐tracking evidence

To investigate attentional capture by face’s race, the current study recorded saccade latencies of eye movement measurements in an inhibition of return (IOR) task. Compared to Caucasian (other‐race) faces, Chinese (own‐race) faces elicited longer saccade latency. This phenomenon disappeared when faces were inverted. The results indicated that own‐race faces capture attention automatically with high‐level configural processing.     

音乐对大学生阅读影响的眼动研究

采用眼动记录技术探讨音乐对阅读即时加工过程的影响.考查先导音乐、背景音乐与无音乐条件之间的差异.结果发现:(1)先导音乐比无音乐条件促进了阅读效率的提高,先导音乐改变了被试阅读过程中的眼动模式,瞳孔直径缩小,注视次数减少;(2)与无音乐条件相比,背景音乐对被试的阅读过程起了干扰作用,背景音乐对被试眼动模式的改变体现在瞳孔直径增大,眼跳距离缩小.由此可知,音乐影响阅读过程和阅读结果.先导音乐有助于阅读效果的提高,背景音乐对阅读起干扰作用,音乐对阅读的作用在阅读过程和阅读结果上都有体现.     

Impaired Speech Perception in Poor Readers: Evidence from Hearing and Speech Reading

The performance of 14 poor readers on an audiovisual speech perception task was compared with 14 normal subjects matched on chronological age (CA) and 14 subjects matched on reading age (RA). The task consisted of identifying synthetic speech varying in place of articulation on an acoustic 9-point continuum between /ba/ and /da/ (Massaro & Cohen, 1983). The acoustic speech events were factorially combined with the visual articulation of /ba/, /da/, or none. In addition, the visual-only articulation of /ba/ or /da/ was presented. The results showed that (1) poor readers were less categorical than CA and RA in the identification of the auditory speech events and (2) that they were worse in speech reading. This convergence between the deficits clearly suggests that the auditory speech processing difficulty of poor readers is speech specific and relates to the processing of phonological information.     

Being‐from‐others: Reading Heidegger after Cavarero

Drawing on Adriana Cavarero's account of natality, Guenther argues that Martin Heidegger overlooks the distinct ontological and ethical significance of birth as a limit that orients one toward an other who resists appropriation, even while handing down a heritage of possibilities that one can—and must—make one's own. Guenther calls this structure of natality Being‐from‐others, modifying Heidegger's language of inheritance to suggest an ethical understanding of existence as the gift of the other.     

Cross‐Situational Learning: An Experimental Study of Word‐Learning Mechanisms

Cross‐situational learning is a mechanism for learning the meaning of words across multiple exposures, despite exposure‐by‐exposure uncertainty as to the word's true meaning. We present experimental evidence showing that humans learn words effectively using cross‐situational learning, even at high levels of referential uncertainty. Both overall success rates and the time taken to learn words are affected by the degree of referential uncertainty, with greater referential uncertainty leading to less reliable, slower learning. Words are also learned less successfully and more slowly if they are presented interleaved with occurrences of other words, although this effect is relatively weak. We present additional analyses of participants’ trial‐by‐trial behavior showing that participants make use of various cross‐situational learning strategies, depending on the difficulty of the word‐learning task. When referential uncertainty is low, participants generally apply a rigorous eliminative approach to cross‐situational learning. When referential uncertainty is high, or exposures to different words are interleaved, participants apply a frequentist approximation to this eliminative approach. We further suggest that these two ways of exploiting cross‐situational information reside on a continuum of learning strategies, underpinned by a single simple associative learning mechanism.     

The Influence of Background Music on the Visitor Museum Experience: A Case Study of the Laiho Memorial Museum,Taiwan

ABSTRACT

The uses and functions of music within the museum environment are of both practical and theoretical interest. This article investigates the impact of background music on the museum visitor experience using information collected from 20 in-depth interviews with visitors to the Laiho Memorial Museum in Taiwan. Each participant heard either a piece of light music or a historical recording of a 1930s song while visiting Laiho's personal study exhibited in the museum. These two types of background music have comparable information loads, although they fit the exhibit to different degrees. Qualitative analysis of interview data indicates that background music played in museums has both emotional and cognitive influences on the visitor experience. This study showed that light music evoked warm and relaxed feelings in participants, whereas a 1930s song evoked feelings of nostalgia and curiosity to learn more about the song. The results are discussed in terms of the diverse needs, behaviors, and attitudes of museum visitors.     

Reading errors in first‐ and second‐grade readers of a shallow orthography: Evidence from Spanish

Background. Studies focusing on reading errors can help to understand how children learn to read and to structure key components of reading instruction. However, no prior studies have examined which letters might be a greater source of difficulty for beginning readers in Spanish. Aims. First, to examine the pattern of reading errors in beginning readers in a shallow orthography like Spanish with a particular focus on both the context‐dependant (c, g, r) and the visual similar (b, d, g, p, q) consonants. (The dual‐route cascade model is used as a theoretical framework for predictions.) Second, to examine the effect of visual similarity on orientation reversals, using upper and lower case letters. Sample. Ninety Spanish‐speaking children (45 in Grade 1 and 45 in Grade 2) participated in the study. Method. Children were required to read aloud both words and non‐words. Seven categories of errors were examined. To clarify the influence of visual similarity of easily confused consonants (b, d), upper and lower case letters were used. Results. We found that most reading errors (as a function of opportunity) were due to context‐dependant consonants (c, g, r), and a small proportion were due to the remaining consonants, or even the visually‐similar consonants. Further, visual similarity of reversible letters had a significant effect on orientation reversals. Finally, there was a significant influence of factors such as syllable frequency on the number of word errors. Conclusions. The implications of these findings for early reading instruction and future research are discussed.     

Rock Stars in Anti‐Drug‐Abuse Commercials: An Experimental Study of Adolescents' Reactions1

Two studies examined adolescents' perceptions and effectiveness of rock stars in antidrug‐abuse public‐service announcements (PSAs). In the pilot study (N= 24 teenagers), adolescents expected rock musicians, and in particular heavy metal musicians, to be drug users. In our experimental study (N= 78 high school students aged 15 to 16 years), one group was shown 4 PSAs produced by Rock Against Drugs, using rock stars Jon Bon Jovi, Aimee Mann, Gene Simmons, and Belinda Carlysle as spokespersons. The comparison group was shown 4 equivalent PSAs that were created using unknown actors selected for their similarity to the rock stars in terms of age, ethnicity, and gender, but without any reference to rock music. PSA ratings were taken on 4 scales: attractiveness, expertness, trustworthiness, and overall PSA rating. Pretest and posttest measures of drug attitudes supported our hypotheses that countermessages from rock stars denormalize the connection between rock music and drugs, and that adolescents respond more positively to PSAs with rock stars than to PSAs without rock stars.     

Self‐Awareness Part 2: Neuroanatomy and Importance of Inner Speech

The present review of literature surveys two main issues related to self‐referential processes: (1) Where in the brain are these processes located, and do they correlate with brain areas uniquely specialized in self‐processing? (2) What are the empirical and theoretical links between inner speech and self‐awareness? Although initial neuroimaging attempts tended to favor a right hemispheric view of self‐awareness, more recent work shows that the brain areas which support self‐related processes are located in both hemispheres and are not uniquely activated during self‐reflective tasks. Furthermore, self‐awareness at least partially relies on internal speech. An activation of Broca’s area (which is known to sustain inner speech) is observed in a significant number of brain‐imaging studies of self‐reflection. Loss of inner speech following brain damage produces self‐awareness deficits. Inner speech most likely can internally reproduce social mechanisms leading to self‐awareness. Also, the process of self‐reflection can be seen as being a problem‐solving task, and self‐talk as being a cognitive tool the individual uses to effectively work on the task. It is noted that although a large body of knowledge already exists on self‐awareness, little is known about individual differences in dispositional self‐focus and types of self‐attention (e.g., rumination versus self‐reflection).     

Woman‐Hating: On Misogyny,Sexism, and Hate Speech

Hate speech is one of the most important conceptual categories in anti‐oppression politics today; a great deal of energy and political will is devoted to identifying, characterizing, contesting, and (sometimes) penalizing hate speech. However, despite the increasing inclusion of gender identity as a socially salient trait, antipatriarchal politics has largely been absent within this body of scholarship. Figuring out how to properly situate patriarchy‐enforcing speech within the category of hate speech is therefore an important politico‐philosophical project. My aim in this article is twofold: first, I argue that sexist speech, though oppressive, is not hate speech. Second, I argue that misogynistic speech is hate speech, even when it is intradivisional (that is, when it targets only subsets of women). This is important because recognizing that the concept hate speech applies to certain forms of patriarchy‐enforcing speech is another step in clarifying what is wrong with the practice, and how bad it is in relation to other abuses. Consequently, this article provides a more nuanced account of the kinds of expressions that can and should count as instances of hate speech.     

Tracking Reading: Dual Task Costs of Oral Reading for Young Versus Older Adults

A digital pursuit rotor was used to monitor oral reading costs by time-locking tracking performance to the auditory wave form produced as young and older adults were reading out short paragraphs. Multilevel modeling was used to determine how paragraph-level predictors of length, grammatical complexity, and readability and person-level predictors such as speaker age or working memory capacity predicted reading and tracking performance. In addition, sentence-by-sentence variation in tracking performance was examined during the production of individual sentences and during the pauses before upcoming sentences. The results suggest that dual tasking has a greater impact on older adults’ reading comprehension and tracking performance. At the level of individual sentences, young and older adults adopt different strategies to deal with grammatically complex and propositionally dense sentences.     

Speech Accuracy and Reading in Children with Cochlear Implants

The Psychological Record - Research on relations between hearing through cochlear implants and accurate speech is still scarce. The present study used the stimulus equivalence paradigm to...     

Against Thatcherite Linguistics: Rule‐following,Speech Communities,and Biolanguage

According to Chomsky and his followers, language as a biological phenomenon is a property of individual minds and brains; its status as a social phenomenon is merely epiphenomenal and not a proper object of scientific study. On a rival view, the individual's biological capacity for language cannot be properly understood in isolation from the linguistic environment, which it both depends on for its operation and—in collaboration with other speakers—builds and shapes for future generations. I argue here for the rival view by demonstrating firstly its greater consonance with several themes in current biological theory, and secondly its ability to answer two well‐known philosophical challenges to generative linguistics due to Quine and Kripke.     

Language‐Games and Relativism: On Cora Diamond's Reading of Peter Winch

We will look critically at three essays by Cora Diamond concerning Peter Winch's views on the possibility of communication and criticism between language‐games. We briefly present our understanding of Winch's approach to philosophy. Then, we argue that Diamond misidentifies Winch's views, taking them to imply language‐game relativism or linguistic idealism. When she does raise valid criticisms against language‐game relativism, her critical points mainly coincide with things that Winch has already stressed in his own work. That leaves us with the question what their real disagreement amounts to. Finally, we suggest that at the bottom of Diamond's objections lies her failure to appreciate Winch's insights about the place of logic in human intercourse.     

Hollow Sounds: Toward a Zen‐Derived Aesthetics of Contemporary Music

To attempt to fill a perceived gap in Japanese aesthetics concerning music, this article sketches a possible way into conceptualizing a Zen‐ or Kyoto‐school‐derived aesthetics of contemporary music. Drawing principally on Kyoto‐School philosopher Ueda Shizuteru's theories of language's three levels (signal, symbolic, and hollow words), the author proposes a similar distinction between different kinds of musical experience. Analogous with Ueda's analysis of poetry, the oscillation of signal or symbolic sound and hollow ones is found to be what gives certain contemporary music its spiritual power. By applying this poetic–religious theory of language to music, an entirely new way of understanding contemporary music becomes apparent. As test case of this new approach, Morton Feldman's 1970 work The Viola in My Life (2) is analyzed. The final section addresses the differences between this method of understanding via nothingness and traditional Idealist approaches via the Absolute.     

言语产生过程中语义、语音激活的ERP研究

使用ERP技术考察了言语产生过程中语音和语义的激活情况。图片上有3种条件的干扰词,分别与目标图片名称形成3种关系:语义相关,语音相同,语义、语音、字形都不相关。结果显示,当被试执行延迟命名任务(实验1)时,与目标图片名称语义相关和控制条件的波形比语音相关的波形更趋于负向。说明在图片命名过程中语音有明显的促进作用。当要求被试对上述图片进行延迟语义判断任务(实验2)时,与目标图片名称语义相关、语音相关及控制条件的波形之间无明显差异。说明在语义提取过程中没有语音的促进作用。综合实验1和实验2,本研究的结果更倾向于支持独立两阶段模型。     

音乐对认知加工过程影响的眼动研究

采用眼动记录技术探讨音乐对认知加工过程的影响.结果发现:(1)音乐导致认知加工成绩下降,对复杂题的加工成绩影响更大;(2)音乐导致认知加工时间延长,加工速度下降;(3)音乐改变了认知加工过程的眼动模式:注视次数增加,注视频率下降,注视点持续时间延长,眼跳距离缩小.结果提示,音乐改变了认知过程的跟动模式,导致认知加工准确性下降.两者关系密切.音乐通过对认知加工过程的改变影响认知加工结果.