性别发展的生物学取向研究述评

当前解释性别发展的理论主要有三种取向：生物学取向、社会化取向、认知取向。近年来,生物学取向日益受到关注并得到认可和接受。解释性别发展的生物学取向研究主要分为两种视角,即进化心理学和进化发展心理学、跨物种比较等远端进化解释,以及行为遗传学研究、染色体异常研究、荷尔蒙研究、大脑结构和功能研究等近端解释。本文总结阐述了这些生物学因素对性别发展的具体影响,并指出了进化心理学研究、行为遗传学研究、荷尔蒙研究、大脑结构和功能的脑成像研究在研究内容、研究方法与技术方面存在的问题,并据此展望未来研究的前景。     

Probabilistic epigenesis

The notion that phenotypic traits, including behavior, can be predetermined has slowly given way in biology and psychology over the last two decades. This shift in thinking is due in large part to the growing evidence for the fundamental role of developmental processes in the generation of the stability and variations in phenotype that researchers in developmental and evolutionary sciences seek to understand. Here I review the tenets of a metatheoretical model of development called probabilistic epigenesis (PE) and explore its implications for furthering our understanding of developmental and evolutionary processes. The PE framework emphasizes the reciprocity of influences within and between levels of an organism's developmental manifold (genetic activity, neural activity, behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural influences of the external environment) and the ubiquity of gene-environment interaction in the realization of all phenotypes.     

儿童行为抑制性与心理障碍关联的认知神经过程

行为抑制型儿童相较于普通儿童更容易在童年中期和青春期出现心理障碍, 具有更高的发展风险性。此类儿童比非抑制型儿童表现出更多的退缩动机、更长的预期过程与前注意过程、更少的注意控制、对负性信息更多的注意偏向、异常活跃的反应监控过程和更慢的习惯化过程。这些与心理障碍患者相似的认知神经过程是儿童行为抑制性与心理障碍间的重要联系途径, 并能作为预测指标筛选有更高发展风险性的个体。除儿童本身的特质外, 环境因素也能通过塑造认知神经过程, 进而影响儿童的发展结果。因此在未来的研究中, 可以考虑不同文化背景下的儿童行为抑制性与心理障碍关联的认知神经过程差异。进而从个体特质和环境因素两方面寻找行为抑制型儿童发展的保护性因素。     

A developmental perspective on decision making in young soccer players: The role of executive functions

Lately, interest in both domain-specific and domain-general cognitive processes has increased as a means to explain soccer player expertise. While the two types of processes have mostly been studied separately, we sought to connect these lines of research by investigating the role of executive functions in soccer players’ decision making from a developmental perspective. As these cognitive processes as well as their relation might differ between age groups, we took a developmental perspective to better understand this link in a sample of N = 128 soccer players (M_age = 10.69 years, SD = 1.44). Two age groups (younger vs. older players) performed a video-based option-generation and decision-making task that used temporal occlusion. Additionally, executive functions were assessed with standardized computer-based tests. Results show a link between executive functions and sport-specific decision making, most prominent for working memory. Further, older players generated better options and showed better inhibition and cognitive flexibility than younger players. We suggest there is a crucial turning point in cognitive development around the age of 11 years.     

Biocultural orchestration of developmental plasticity across levels: the interplay of biology and culture in shaping the mind and behavior across the life span

The author reviews reemerging coconstructive conceptions of development and recent empirical findings of developmental plasticity at different levels spanning several fields of developmental and life sciences. A cross-level dynamic biocultural coconstructive framework is endorsed to understand cognitive and behavioral development across the life span. This framework integrates main conceptions of earlier views into a unifying frame, viewing the dynamics of life span development as occurring simultaneously within different time scales (i.e., moment-to-moment microgenesis, life span ontogeny, and human phylogeny) and encompassing multiple levels (i.e., neurobiological, cognitive, behavioral, and sociocultural). Viewed through this metatheoretical framework, new insights of potential interfaces for reciprocal cultural and experiential influences to be integrated with behavioral genetics and cognitive neuroscience research can be more easily prescribed.     

Bayesian Fundamentalism or Enlightenment? On the explanatory status and theoretical contributions of Bayesian models of cognition

The prominence of Bayesian modeling of cognition has increased recently largely because of mathematical advances in specifying and deriving predictions from complex probabilistic models. Much of this research aims to demonstrate that cognitive behavior can be explained from rational principles alone, without recourse to psychological or neurological processes and representations. We note commonalities between this rational approach and other movements in psychology - namely, Behaviorism and evolutionary psychology - that set aside mechanistic explanations or make use of optimality assumptions. Through these comparisons, we identify a number of challenges that limit the rational program's potential contribution to psychological theory. Specifically, rational Bayesian models are significantly unconstrained, both because they are uninformed by a wide range of process-level data and because their assumptions about the environment are generally not grounded in empirical measurement. The psychological implications of most Bayesian models are also unclear. Bayesian inference itself is conceptually trivial, but strong assumptions are often embedded in the hypothesis sets and the approximation algorithms used to derive model predictions, without a clear delineation between psychological commitments and implementational details. Comparing multiple Bayesian models of the same task is rare, as is the realization that many Bayesian models recapitulate existing (mechanistic level) theories. Despite the expressive power of current Bayesian models, we argue they must be developed in conjunction with mechanistic considerations to offer substantive explanations of cognition. We lay out several means for such an integration, which take into account the representations on which Bayesian inference operates, as well as the algorithms and heuristics that carry it out. We argue this unification will better facilitate lasting contributions to psychological theory, avoiding the pitfalls that have plagued previous theoretical movements.     

A dynamic developmental theory of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) predominantly hyperactive/impulsive and combined subtypes

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is currently defined as a cognitive/behavioral developmental disorder where all clinical criteria are behavioral. Inattentiveness, overactivity, and impulsiveness are presently regarded as the main clinical symptoms. The dynamic developmental behavioral theory is based on the hypothesis that altered dopaminergic function plays a pivotal role by failing to modulate nondopaminergic (primarily glutamate and GABA) signal transmission appropriately. A hypofunctioning mesolimbic dopamine branch produces altered reinforcement of behavior and deficient extinction of previously reinforced behavior. This gives rise to delay aversion, development of hyperactivity in novel situations, impulsiveness, deficient sustained attention, increased behavioral variability, and failure to "inhibit" responses ("disinhibition"). A hypofunctioning mesocortical dopamine branch will cause attention response deficiencies (deficient orienting responses, impaired saccadic eye movements, and poorer attention responses toward a target) and poor behavioral planning (poor executive functions). A hypofunctioning nigrostriatal dopamine branch will cause impaired modulation of motor functions and deficient nondeclarative habit learning and memory. These impairments will give rise to apparent developmental delay, clumsiness, neurological "soft signs," and a "failure to inhibit" responses when quick reactions are required. Hypofunctioning dopamine branches represent the main individual predispositions in the present theory. The theory predicts that behavior and symptoms in ADHD result from the interplay between individual predispositions and the surroundings. The exact ADHD symptoms at a particular time in life will vary and be influenced by factors having positive or negative effects on symptom development. Altered or deficient learning and motor functions will produce special needs for optimal parenting and societal styles. Medication will to some degree normalize the underlying dopamine dysfunction and reduce the special needs of these children. The theory describes how individual predispositions interact with these conditions to produce behavioral, emotional, and cognitive effects that can turn into relatively stable behavioral patterns.     

Affect regulation, brain development, and behavioral/emotional health in adolescence

This paper addresses the importance of affect regulation (AR) in relation to a broad range of behavioral and emotional health problems that emerge during adolescence. AR is defined as the adaptive modulation of emotional experience to serve a goal or purpose. This conceptualization of AR emphasizes the use of cognitive skills to guide, inhibit, or modify emotion and behavior, including the expression of emotional responses, in learned, strategic ways-skills that ultimately underpin adult levels of social maturity and the ability to show "responsible" behavior across a range of emotional situations. Neurobehavioral systems that subserve these AR skills include areas of the inferior and orbital prefrontal cortex (PFC), with rich interconnections to several limbic structures and other cortical areas, including the dorsolateral PFC. Adolescence represents an important developmental period in the functional maturation of adult AR skills; it is also a critical time in the development of clinical disorders of AR (eg, rates of depression increase dramatically and gender differences in depression emerge). Maturational changes in AR that occur during adolescence-particularly with respect to the role of emotions influencing responsible decision making-are also relevant to understanding key aspects of the developmental pathways of some behavioral health problems, such as alcohol use and nicotine dependence. A strong case is made for developmental research in affective neuroscience aimed at this important maturational period, particularly the kind of transdisciplinary research leading toward mechanistic understanding of the development of adolescent-onset disorders. Improving understanding in these areas could ultimately lead to the development of early interventions in targeted high-risk populations, and has enormous clinical and social policy relevance.     

Latent class regression analysis for describing cognitive developmental phenomena: An application to transitive reasoning

The aim of cognitive developmental research is to explain latent cognitive processes or structures by means of manifest variables such as age, cognitive behaviour, and environmental influences. In this paper the usefulness of the latent class regression model is discussed for studying cognitive developmental phenomena. Using this model, the relationships between latent and manifest variables can be explained by means of empirical data without the need of strong a priori assumptions made by a cognitive developmental theory. In the latent class regression model a number of classes are distinguished which may be characterized by particular cognitive behaviour. Environmental influences on cognitive behaviour may vary for different (developmental) classes. An application is given of the latent class regression model to transitive reasoning data. The results showed that a Five-Class model best fitted the data and that the latent classes differ with respect to age, strategy use (cognitive behaviour) and the influence of task characteristics (environmental influences) on the strategy use. The flexibility of the model in terms of mixed measurement levels and treatment of different cognitive variables offers a broad application to several cognitive developmental phenomena.     

儿童认知发展研究的前沿与动向

近一二十年,得益于认知发展理论的进步和研究方法的新发展,儿童认知发展研究取得了长足的进步。这体现在婴儿研究方兴未艾,一些新课题的出现使一些传统的研究领域重新恢复了活力。同时．发展认知神经科学和认知行为遗传学这两个边沿交叉学科研究蓬勃发展,应用认知发展心理学研究迅速发展,对认知发展心理学研究均产生了巨大的影响。     

Search in external and internal spaces: evidence for generalized cognitive search processes

ABSTRACT— There is compelling molecular and behavioral evidence that goal-directed cognition is an evolutionary descendant of spatial-foraging behavior. Across animal species, similar dopaminergic processes modulate between exploratory and exploitative foraging behaviors and control attention. Consequently, we hypothesized that spatial-foraging activity could prime attentional cognitive activity. We examined how searching in physical space influences subsequent search in abstract cognitive space by presenting participants with a spatial-foraging task followed by a repeated Scrabble task involving search for words that could be made from letter sets. Participants who searched through clumpier distributions in space behaved as if words were more densely clumped in the Scrabble task. This was not a function of arousal, but was consistent with predictions of optimal-foraging theory. Furthermore, individual differences in exploratory search were conserved across the two types of tasks. Along with the biological evidence, our results support the idea that there are generalized cognitive search processes.     

The Interpenetration of Culture and Biology in Human Development

The central argument of this article is that human development should be viewed as the product of the interpenetration1 of cultural and biological processes. Using developmental system theory, it is argued that our work as investigators of human development is to examine this mutual coregulation: how biology and culture interpenetrate over time in concert with developmental processes. Various findings from developmental research are used to provide evidence on (a) how our biology constrains, gives expression to, mediates, or moderates how culture operates on developmental processes and (b) how culture infiltrates and becomes part of our biology and basic developmental processes. Examples of advances in neuroscience are also used to illustrate this interpenetration and to argue for the pervasiveness of cultural influences on development. To conduct the necessary research, new methodologies are needed. Promise is seen in emerging areas of social cognitive neuroscience.     

Dynamic instabilities as mechanisms for emergence

That competences may emerge given appropriate environmental and behavioral context is a long-standing theme in developmental research. Work in the motor domain, but also in cognitive development, has made it possible to transform this idea into a mechanistic account closely linked to empirical evidence. In dynamic systems thinking, such capacities as keeping a motor goal in mind, remembering a location, or resisting a motor habit, are all understood in terms of the generation of stable patterns of neuronal activation. These may be input-driven, but also be stabilized by interactions within neuronal representations. A key theoretical insight is that whether a particular pattern of activation is stable or not is not determined by any single factor, learning process, or structural parameter. Instead, ongoing activity, recent activation history, current input, all may affect when a particular dynamic regime is reachable. In spite of such broad interdependence, sharp transitions may characterize the onset of a skill in any given context. Dynamic instabilities are the mechanistic basis for this phenomenon and thus form the basis for understanding development in terms of emergence. We exemplify the concepts of instability and emergence around the phenomenon of infant perseverative reaching and discuss implications for identifying key markers of development and their link to neuronal processes.     

Development of using experimenter-given cues in infant chimpanzees: longitudinal changes in behavior and cognitive development

The use of gaze shifts as social cues has various evolutionary advantages. To investigate the developmental processes of this ability, we conducted an object-choice task by using longitudinal methods with infant chimpanzees tested from 8 months old until 3 years old. The experimenter used one of six gestures towards a cup concealing food; tapping, touching, whole-hand pointing, gazing plus close-pointing, distant-pointing, close-gazing, and distant-gazing. Unlike any other previous study, we analyzed the behavioral changes that occurred before and after choosing the cup. We assumed that pre-choice behavior indicates the development of an attentional and spatial connection between a pointing cue and an object (e.g. Woodward, 2005); and post-choice behavior indicates the emergence of object permanence (e.g. Piaget, 1954). Our study demonstrated that infant chimpanzees begin to use experimenter-given cues with age (after 11 months of age). Moreover, the results from the behavioral analysis showed that the infants gradually developed the spatial link between the pointing as an object-directed action and the object. Moreover, when they were 11 months old, the infants began to inspect the inside of the cup, suggesting the onset of object permanence. Overall, our results imply that the ability to use the cues is developing and mutually related with other cognitive developments. The present study also suggests what the standard object-choice task actually measures by breaking the task down into the developmental trajectories of its component parts, and describes for the first time the social-physical cognitive development during the task with a longitudinal method.     

Reinforcement sensitivity theory and major motivational and self-regulatory processes in children

The present research explores the role of sensitivity in the BIS and the BAS as antecedents to cognitive and affective motivational processes in middle-school children. Two studies were initiated to examine the relationship between sensitivity in the behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and behavioral approach system (BAS) and several important motivational factors. The first study looked at the assumption that the BIS and the BAS are systematically linked to motives and achievement goals. The second study investigated the links between BIS/BAS and individual differences in self-regulatory processes and affect during problem-solving. The findings indicate that the motive to avoid failure, the inability to take action after failure and to initiate intended goal-directed activities, as well as the tendency to focus on avoiding misunderstanding are all grounded in threat responsiveness. Conversely, the motive to approach success, self-efficacy and the tendency to focus on comparison with others in a problem-solving setting are grounded in incentive responsiveness.     

Development and Disequilibration: Predicting Counselor Trainee Gain and Loss Scores on the Supervisee Levels Questionnaire

Relative importance of adult cognitive development (according to Perry), education, and experience in predicting longitudinal gain and loss scores on a measure of counselor supervisee development (Supervisee Levels Questionnaire) was examined. Results indicated cognitive & #x2013;developmental stage predicted score change better than age, education, or experience. In addition, an unanticipated, discontinuous, patterned relationship between student cognitive stage and the gain/loss scores was discovered. The possibility of developmental disequilibration is discussed along with implications for counselor education and adult development theory.     

Connectionist models of development

How have connectionist models informed the study of development? This paper considers three contributions from specific models. First, connectionist models have proven useful for exploring nonlinear dynamics and emergent properties, and their role in nonlinear developmental trajectories, critical periods and developmental disorders. Second, connectionist models have informed the study of the representations that lead to behavioral dissociations. Third, connectionist models have provided insight into neural mechanisms, and why different brain regions are specialized for different functions. Connectionist and dynamic systems approaches to development have differed, with connectionist approaches focused on learning processes and representations in cognitive tasks, and dynamic systems approaches focused on mathematical characterizations of physical elements of the system and their interactions with the environment. The two approaches also share much in common, such as their emphasis on continuous, nonlinear processes and their broad application to a range of behaviors.     

Four routes of cognitive evolution

Four routes of cognitive evolution are distinguished: phylogenetic construction, in which natural selection produces qualitative change to the way a cognitive mechanism operates (language); phylogenetic inflection, in which natural selection biases the input to a cognitive mechanism (imprinting and spatial memory); ontogenetic construction, in which developmental selection alters the way a cognitive mechanism operates (face recognition and theory of mind); and ontogenetic inflection, in which developmental selection changes the input to a cognitive mechanism (imitation). This framework integrates findings from evolutionary psychology (i.e., all research on the evolution of mentality and behavior). In contrast with human nativist evolutionary psychology, it recognizes the adaptive significance of developmental processes, conserves the distinction between cognitive and noncognitive mechanisms, and encompasses research on human and nonhuman animals.     

青少年焦虑、抑郁与偏差行为的行为遗传学研究

焦虑、抑郁和偏差行为等问题的行为遗传学研究有助于了解人类情绪与行为受遗传和环境交互影响的内在机制。近年来,行为遗传学研究方法的迅速发展使科学家们能够更深入地探讨了基因与环境的作用和影响。文章了分析了焦虑、抑郁和偏差行为的行为遗传学研究进展,介绍了国内外双生子研究的发展情况,提出在我国建立双生子数据库,开展有关青少年焦虑、抑郁和偏差行为的行为遗传学研究