Non‐human Support: Broadening the Scope of Attachment Theory

Attachment theory proposes that people form strong social ties because certain relationships provide feelings of security and support. Traditionally, theorists and researchers have assumed that because this process is innate and evolved, only human targets are capable of meeting a person's needs for security. Recent research challenges this assumption by demonstrating that an array of targets, such as places and pets, can also satisfy needs for security, particularly under conditions of threatened or absent connection to other people. We bring together these diverse findings and discuss how they enrich our understanding of the nature and operation of attachment processes and related phenomena. Specifically, this line of research contributes to a comprehensive picture of the diverse means by which people flexibly seek and maintain psychological security both within and outside of their close, interpersonal relationships. It also raises new research questions concerning the similarities and differences between human and non‐human support.     

文化视域下文化神经科学学科主张与检讨

文化神经科学是在宏大的文化背景下来全面深入考察个体的"心理、行为与脑认知机制"之间规律的一门学科。文化神经科学所倡导的神经-文化交互作用模型表明该学科以融合视野引领心理学研究范式的变革成为可能。同时,从文化学视野来审视,亦折射出其在文化学层面的短板,即人文精神与文化意蕴在"文化"名义下日渐式微。     

文化神经科学：一个新兴的跨学科领域

文化神经科学是一个将文化,心理和大脑整合起来的新兴的跨学科领域。本文简要地介绍了从2000年到2010年在文化神经科学领域内的各种观点,同时回顾了该领域里一些典型的功能性磁共振（fMRI）的研究成果。文章认为,文化神经科学可为人类心理的研究提供一个全新的,整合性的理论框架,而且,它还为中国心理学家提供了机遇：使用中国被试开展文化神经科学研究去取得世界一流的成果。     

自我概念心理表征的文化神经科学研究

人类自我概念的心理表征在心理学和哲学有深入的研究, 跨文化心理学研究揭示了东西方文化自我概念的结构差异。近年来神经科学借助脑功能成像开始研究自我相关信息加工过程的神经机制, 并探讨是否存在文化特异的自我概念的认知神经表征。跨文化神经成像研究表明自我概念在知觉水平和人格特征表征方面都存在文化差异, 本文综述该领域的研究进展。跨文化和文化启动神经成像研究结果有助于我们理解自我概念表征文化差异背后的神经机制。这些研究推动了文化神经科学的发展。     

Cultural Differences in the Self: From Philosophy to Psychology and Neuroscience

Different thinking styles in Westerners and Chinese (analytic vs. holistic) lead to disparities between the two cultures not only in perception and attention but also in high‐level social cognition such as self‐representation. Most Western philosophers discussed the self by focusing on personal self‐identity, whereas Chinese philosophers emphasized the relation between the self and others. Dissimilar philosophical thinking of the self is associated with distinct cognitive styles of self‐representation (i.e., the independent self in Westerners and the interdependent self in Chinese). Recent brain imaging studies found that Westerners employed the medial prefrontal cortex to represent only the individual self, whereas Chinese utilized the same brain area to represent both the self and close others, providing neural basis of cultural differences in self‐representation. We suggest that the cultural differences in thinking styles between Westerners and Chinese influence both psychological and neural structure of self‐representation.     

Broadening the Study of the Self: Integrating the Study of Personal Identity and Cultural Identity

This article reviews what is known and what remains to be studied, regarding the association between personal identity and cultural identity. Although these two conceptions of identity have inspired separate literatures and have developed independently of one another, globalization and mass immigration have increased the need to study these two conceptions of identity together. The article puts forth recommendations for integrating the literatures on personal identity and cultural identity. These recommendations include using multidimensional constructs to represent both personal identity and cultural identity, refining the measurement of personal identity and of cultural identity, and of studying these conceptions of identity across various ethnic, cultural, and national groups.     

Broadening Political Psychology

One hundred years ago, if we proposed that we could make you happy with a pill, we would have been ridiculed and would have entered the realm of science fiction and not science itself. Yet that is precisely where we are today. The genetics and neurobiological revolution is upon us, and we advocate that political psychology not simply join this revolution but take a lead role in it. Here in this review, we explore the various ways in which political psychology can embrace this revolution and incorporate work in neuropsychology, cognitive neuroscience, psychiatry, endocrinology, and recent advances in genetics. In doing so, we advocate the adoption of an epidemiological approach and discuss the ways in which various methods including physiological experimentation, genetic analysis, and neurological explorations including MRIs and other technical advances provide critical insight into human behavior and present intriguing possibilities for exploring the nature of political attitudes, attachments, and behaviors. In advocating for broadening the approaches used in the field, we reflect critically on how we might improve and strengthen the accuracy of our understanding of the psychological bases of political preferences and behavior in the future.     

Neuroscience and education

Neuroscience is a relatively new discipline encompassing neurology, psychology and biology. It has made great strides in the last 100 years, during which many aspects of the physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology and structure of the vertebrate brain have been understood. Understanding of some of the basic perceptual, cognitive, attentional, emotional and mnemonic functions is also making progress, particularly since the advent of the cognitive neurosciences, which focus specifically on understanding higher level processes of cognition via imaging technology. Neuroimaging has enabled scientists to study the human brain at work in vivo, deepening our understanding of the very complex processes underpinning speech and language, thinking and reasoning, reading and mathematics. It seems timely, therefore, to consider how we might implement our increased understanding of brain development and brain function to explore educational questions.     

Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience

Book reviewed:
M. R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. Reviewed by David Cockburn Department of Philosophy University of Wales Lampeter Lampeter Ceredigion SA48 7ED     

现代神经科学发展述略

现代神经科学的产生是神经解剖学、神经生物化学、神经生理学等传统生物学科与神经心理学、认知心理学等行为科学之间不断融合的结果。在神经科学产生与发展历程中,有许多值得研究总结的方法论问题。     

Posttraumatic Therapy in the Age of Neuroscience

When people develop PTSD in the wake of exposure to a traumatic event, the imprint of that trauma comes to dominate how they organize their way in the world. Verbalizing, making meaning, and putting the event in contezt may provide a means of feeling understood, rejoining the human race, and gaining perspective on the experience, but it may do, little toreorganize the person to feel safe and focused on fulfilling the demands of the present. Given the subcortical nature of trauma imprints, effctive therapy needs to help survivors tolerate the sensory reminders of the trauma, and physically experience efficacy and purpose in response to stimuli that once triggered feelings of helplessness and dependence.     

Computational Cognitive Neuroscience of the Visual System

ABSTRACT— Should psychologists care about functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)? Within the field of visual perception, the answer to this question is an emphatic "yes." There is a long history of close interactions between psychology and neuroscience in the study of vision. In the 1980s, vision researchers developed a general framework for combining the two fields, and that framework still supports much current research. This article will briefly cover this general approach and then will illustrate how neuroimaging allows the framework to be applied to human perception. In short, fMRI can measure how information is represented in sequential stages of processing. These same representations can also be measured behaviorally. Theories of vision specify how the sequential representations participate in well-defined computations that underlie perception.     

Personality Neuroscience and the Biology of Traits

Personality neuroscience involves the use of neuroscience methods to study individual differences in behavior, motivation, emotion, and cognition. Personality psychology has contributed much to identifying the important dimensions of personality, but relatively little to understanding the biological sources of those dimensions. However, the rapidly expanding field of personality neuroscience is increasingly shedding light on this topic. This article provides a survey of progress in the use of neuroscience to study personality traits, organized using a hierarchical model of traits based on the Big Five dimensions: Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness/Intellect. Evidence is reviewed for hypotheses about the biological systems involved in each trait.