Right-left confusion in the adult: A verbal labeling effect

Directional judgments are typically slower when relative location is described by the words “east” and “west” or “right” and “left” than when described by the words “north” and “south” or “up” and “down.” A series of experiments are reported that disentangle verbal from perceptual encoding explanations for right-left difficulty. Overall, our results support a verbal encoding explanation for right-left confusion in the adult. Experiments 1-3 demonstrate that in a response-differentiation task, it is response to the labels “north,” “east,” “south,” and “west” that is responsible for right-left confusion. In addition, Experiments 4-6 demonstrate that right-left difficulty in a mirror image discrimination task is contingent on the use of directional labels. (The data also suggest that it may be more difficult to deal with “up,” “down,” “left,” and “right” than with “north,” “south,” “east,” and “west”) The data are interpreted as inconsistent with a bilateral symmetry explanation for right-left confusion.     

Children's understanding of sentences with contingent relations: Why are temporal and conditional connectives so difficult?

Children aged 5-, 7-, and 9 were tested on two different tasks to assess their understanding of sentences containing the connectives “when,” “as soon as,” “before,” “after,” “if,” “if-not,” “unless,” and “unless-not.” The results revealed significant improvement between the ages of 5 and 7. This improvement was attributed, in part, to an increased ability to retain information expressed in subordinate clauses. At all age levels, however, the connectives “unless” and “unless-not” were consistently misinterpreted; “unless” was treated as its polar opposite “if,” and “unless-not” was treated as its polar opposite “if-not.”     

Reaction times in a task analogous to “same”-“different” judgment

Subjects responded “yes” if two equal-length strings of letters contained a common letter in a common position; otherwise they responded “no.” Thus, the task was to judge whether all or not all of the letters in one string differed from the letter occupying the corresponding position in the other string. Conversely, in “same”-“different” judgment, the task is to judge whether all or not all of the letters in one string match the corresponding letter in the other string. Thus, common-letter judgment and “same”-“different” judgment are symmetrically related with “no” analogous to “same” and “yes” analogous to “different.” The response “same” is often faster than the response “different.” However, in the common-letter task, “no” was slower than “yes.” More specifically, both the “yes” and “no” reaction times were consistent with a serial self-terminating search. This is precisely what would be expected from Bamber’s (1969) two-process model.     

Reaction times and error rates for judging nominal identity of letter strings

Most theories of “same”-“different” judgments predict that “same” responses should be at least as slow as “different” responses. However, the contrary has often been found. To explain this, a two-processor model has been proposed. In this model, a fast processor and a slow processor operate simultaneously. “Same” responses are initiated by whichever processor first indicates that the stimuli are “same,” whereas “different” responses are initiated only by the slow processor. In the experiment reported here, Ss judged whether two successively presented letter strings were nominally “same” or “different.” It was expected that the fast processor would be incapable of making nominal identity judgments. Thus, both “same” and “different” responses would be initiated by the slow processor. Consequently, “same” responses should have been slower than “different” responses. However, this did not occur. This finding casts doubt upon, but does not disprove, the two-processor model.     

The categorical interpretation of Guo Xiang’s “independent genesis”

Seemingly, “independent genesis” refers to the independent existence and changes of each thing, but it is clear that there cannot be any truly “independent” things at all. Each thing in the world has to stay in connection or relationship with other things outside itself if it wants to represent its own “independence” and “genesis” in terms of form; and inevitably such connection or relationship itself has to be embodied in the internal nature of each thing. In the metaphysical thought of Guo Xiang, the former was known as the quality of “interdependence”; and the latter the characteristics of “quality” or “quality image.” Such characteristics of “quality” or “quality image” were interdependent, which constituted the essence of each thing itself as “beingness” and “beinglessness,” and thus resulted in the independent manifestation and change of things in terms of their external forms. The grasping of essence of things as “beingness” and “beinglessness” depended upon comprehension or rational intuition, and that was the realm of “profundity” in Guo Xiang’s terms.     

Creating a Self-Plagiarism Research Topic Typology through Bibliometric Visualisation

Self-plagiarism, textual recycling and redundancy seemed to be controversial and unethical; however some questions about its definition are still open. The objective in this paper presented study was to use bibliometric analysis to synthesise and visualize the research literature production and derive a typology of self-plagiarism research. Five topics emerged: Self-plagiarism, Institutional self-plagiarism, Self-plagiarism and ICT, Self-plagiarism in academic writing, Self-plagiarism in science. The state of the art topics seem to be “social medium”, “virtual world”, “face book”, “sociomateriality”, “knowledge sharing”, “open access”, “institutional repository”, “retraction” and “responsible conduct”.     

Concepts of Creativity: Similarities and Differences among Mainland,Hong Kong and Taiwanese Chinese

Aspects of creativity concepts across different Chinese populations were examined. A Likert style questionnaire consisting of 60 adjectives was administered to 451 undergraduates from Beijing, Guangzhou, Taipei and Hong Kong. The results show that: (a) the core characteristics of creativity identical in all the samples are: “originality”, “innovativeness”, “thinking” and “observational skills”, “flexibility”, “willingness to try”, “self confidence”, and “imagination”; (b) the Taipei sample, unlike the other three samples, does not associate “wisdom”, “assertiveness”, and “individualism” with creativity; (c) in all Chinese populations the three factors labeled innovative, dynamic, and intellectual were distinguishable in the concept of creativity; (d) “artistic” and “humorous” were missing in the Chinese perception of creativity; (e) creativity characteristics received relatively low ratings on the desirability scale.     

＂I Effaced Myself＂ and ＂The Disappearance of the Subject＂： A Comparison between Zhuangzi and Jean Baudrillard＇s Anti-Subjectivism

In the chapter ＂The Adjustment of Controversies＂ in his eponymous work, Zhuangzi has the character Nanguo Ziqi declare ＂I effaced myself,＂ thereby holding that one can return to the state of naturalness only after breaking with the ＂self＂ that is in opposition to ＂objects,＂ abandoning his subject-object standpoint and entering a state of ＂effacement＂ wherein one fuses with the Dao. Coincidently, the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard also repeatedly stresses the ＂disappearance of the subject＂ in his later philosophy, trying to dissolve subject-centrism by means of a counterattack by the object wherein its logic would entrap the subject. Although they lived in different times, both Zhuangzi and Baudrillard note the same human predicament--the situation wherein the ＂I as subject＂ constantly obscures the ＂real I.＂ Their resolutions of the predicament are similar： both put their hopes in the dissolution of the ＂I＂ or self in subject-object relations, with Zhuangzi declaring ＂I effaced myself＇ and Baudrillard mooting the ＂disappearance of the subject.＂ They differ, however, on how to dissolve the ＂I＂ （myself）. Briefly, Zhuangzi advocates ＂effacing myself through the Dao,＂ that is, quitting one＇s ＂fixed mindset＂ and ＂egoism＂ and returning to the Dao by means of ＂forgetting＂ or ＂effacing＂; Baudrillard, on the other hand, proposes to ＂efface oneself through the object,＂ i.e., replace the supremacy of the subject with that of the object. Baudrillard＇s theory has often been criticized as pataphysics because of its nihilism without transcendence; in contrast, Zhuangzi＇s view, which construes the whole world as the unfolding of the Dao, seems more thought-provoking.     

Priming effect in affirmative complex conditional connectives

We report the results of an experiment that examined the mental representations underlying the comprehension of complex conditional connectives (such as “A, on condition that B”) and the conditional if (such as “A, if B”). The mental representations during the comprehension stage were analysed using a “priming methodology”. The experiment showed that participants read the possibility “A and not-B” faster when it was primed by “A, if B” than when it was primed by “A, on condition that B”. The finding suggests that people understand the sentence “A, on condition that B” as biconditional; other possibilities (“A and B”, “not-A and B”, “not-A and not-B”) were primed equally by both connectives. We discuss the implications of this for current theories of reasoning.     

Right and Righteous: Children's Incipient Understanding and Evaluation of True and False Statements

Two studies examined young children's early understanding and evaluation of truth telling and lying and the role that factuality plays in their judgments. Study 1 (one hundred four 2- to 5-year-olds) found that even the youngest children reliably accepted true statements and rejected false statements and that older children's ability to label true and false (T/F) statements as “truth” and “lie” emerged in tandem with their positive evaluation of true statements and “truth” and their negative evaluation of false statements and “lie.” The findings suggest that children's early preference for factuality develops into a conception of “truth” and “lie” that is linked both to factuality and moral evaluation. Study 2 (one hundred twenty-eight 3- to 5-year-olds) revealed that whereas young children exhibited good understanding of the association of T/F statements with “truth,” “lie,” “mistake,” “right,” and “wrong,” they showed little awareness of assumptions about speaker knowledge underlying “lie” and “mistake.” The results further support the primacy of factuality in children's early understanding and evaluation of truth and lies.     

“Ratios” and “differences” in perceived sweetness intensity

For a number of perceptual continua, it has been shown in previous studies that subjects use only one quantitative comparison between two sensory impressions of a pair of stimuli, irrespective of whether they are instructed to judge “ratios” or “differences”. This comparison can be described by algebraic subtraction. The present study was designed to investigate whether this one-operation theory for psychophysical judgment also applied to the sensory continuum of sweetness. Subjects were presented with pairs of fructose solutions, and judged “ratios” of, or “differences" in, perceived sweetness intensities. The pairs were constructed on the basis of a factorial judgment design. The results showed that the reported “differences” could be adequately described by a difference response model, and that the reported “ratios” could be adequately described by a ratio response model. However, the reported “ratios” and reported “differences” were monotonically related, and the marginal means of the log-transformed response matrix of “ratios” were a linear function of the marginal means of the response matrix of “differences”. These results are incompatible with the notion that subjects judged differences when instructed to judge “differences”, but ratios when instructed to judge “ratios”. The consistency of the ratio response model with “ratio” judgments is probably caused by a comparative operation based on “differences” in combination with an exponential response output function. It may be concluded that subjects judge only “differences”, and not “ratios”, between perceived sweetness intensities.     

“自爱”指标与维度的初探——《四库全书》中“自爱”的心理学研究

从《四库全书》中检索到1700部涉及“自爱”的古籍,形成包含2370条句段的语料库并逐条进行内容分析。结果发现,自爱包含自我珍重、自我接纳与自我约束三个主要指标以及个我自爱、小我自爱与大我自爱三个主要维度。未来研究将依据我国社会文化和历史的脉络,结合新时代人们对自爱的理解,编制相应的测量工具,从而为健全人格养成服务。     

Inherent directionality of “even if” counterfactual conditionals

In this research, we investigate whether semifactual conditionals such as “even if there had been an A, there would have been a B” are understood by thinking initially of the antecedent “A”, as was found with factual conditionals. The “inherent directionality” hypothesis assumes that for the comprehension of most relational statements, a presuppositional element (i.e. the “relatum”) is initially established. For “even if”, both terms could work as “relatum”. This is because on the one hand, people tend to infer “B” from “A” and “not-A” and, on the other hand, “B” could work as a pragmatic presupposition. In the present experiment, semifactual and factual conditionals were tested with a sentence-picture verification task. Results were consistent with the “inherent directionality” hypothesis: only “if then” factual conditionals, but not semifactuals, showed a preference for reasoning from the antecedent, with faster verifications.     

Response probabilities and “same-different” reaction times

A “same-different” reaction-time (RT) task with multidimensional stimuli was used with a 50:50 and a 75:25 proportion of “different” to “same” response. The “different” RTs to each dimension were similar for the two proportions. However, the “same” RT in the 50:50 condition was faster than the “same” for the 75:25 condition and faster than the slowest “different” RT. Interpretations of the results in terms of response bias and processing criteria are offered.     

Therapeutic popularity and personality: Association between peer therapist nominations and the “Big Five” personality factors

The “Big Five” personality factors of three groups of psychology students differing in popularity as therapist among their peers were compared (n=33). In agreement with earlier research, popular therapists are “agreeable”, “conscientious” and “stable”. However, popular therapists are not “surgent/extravert” and especially not “dominant” and “talkative”. No support was found for the hypothesis that similarity in “agreeableness” or dissimilarity in “surgency” (the complementarily hypothesis derived from interpersonal theory) predicts therapist popularity. However, similarity between client and therapist in “stability” was predictive of nominations for therapist. On the assumption that therapist popularity predisposes good therapeutic alliances, the results indicate that therapists agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability are relative to success in therapeutic interventions.     

The phenomenological ontology of literature

Literary ontology is essentially a phenomenological issue rather than one of epistemology, sociology, or psychology. It is a theory of the phenomenological essence intuited from a sense of beauty, based on the phenomenological ontology of beauty, which puts into “brackets” the sociohistorical premises and material conditions of aesthetic phenomena. Beauty is the “objectified” emotion. This is the phenomenological definition of the essence of beauty, which manifests itself on three levels, namely “emotion qua selfconsciousness,” “sense of beauty qua emotion,” and “sentiment qua sense of beauty.” Art on the other hand is the “objectification of emotion” whose most general and closest manner to “humanity” is literature and poetry. Poetry is the origin of language and the linguistic essence is a metaphor. Language as “the house of being” is both “thinking” and “poetry.” Literature expresses the essence of art in the most direct way and, in traditional Chinese aesthetic terminology, literature is the “language of emotion” conveyed by the writer based on his own emotion towards the “language of scene.”     

Response to Ranganathan

This essay responds to Bharat Ranganathan's “Comment” on my essay, “The Concept of Dignity in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (2011). Addressing key criticisms in this “Comment,” I make the following points. First, neither the idea of inherent dignity being “imparted” to humans, nor the Universal Declaration's implication—through its use of terms such as “inherent” and “inalienable”—that humans participate in transcendent reality, necessarily presuppose a Christian metaphysics. Second, a concept such as “inherent dignity” must be affirmed to be intrinsically heuristic unless we are to assume that its meaning can be completely known within the conditions of existence; but this affirmation does not render such concepts “indeterminate of sense.” Finally, Ranganathan's distinction between“weak” and “strong” senses of transcendence is untenable. If human truths beyond all contingencies are knowable (“weak” transcendence), then there must be a real dimension of meaning that transcends all contingencies (“strong” transcendence).     

黄震心理学思想探微

黄震是我国宋代著名的理学思想家。他既是程、朱思想的继承者,又是修正者。其心理学思想的特点主要表现为：在人性论问题上,他推崇“性相近”、“性即理”说;在认识问题上。他继承了程、朱的“人心有知”、“心具从理”、“格物致知”、“居敬穷理”的观点,但反对“圣人生而知之”和静坐养心说。强调“学而知”,并十分重视躬行。     

论庄存与的《公羊》学

庄存与的《公羊》学虽然受到赵《春秋属辞》的影响 ,但主要限于治学体例 ,而在治学立场上 ,二者其实有根本的歧异。庄存与克服了赵以策书之体说《春秋》的倾向 ,并注重《春秋》例辞背后的立场。这点直接上承汉代《公羊》学。不过 ,庄氏《春秋》学在某些具体的事例解释上与汉代《公羊》学也有差异。庄氏的特点在于对《春秋》变辞的引申与发挥 ,并补充了汉代《公羊》学未曾论述的诸多方面 ,为后人理解《公羊》大义提供了新的线索。