双语者语言切换代价的影响因素

抑制控制、语言熟练度、任务相关因素和工作记忆容量是双语者语言切换代价的重要影响因素。其中,抑制控制抑或语言熟练程度何者主要调节着双语者的语言切换代价成为抑制控制模型和语言特异性选择模型争论的焦点。为此,未来研究需要在二语习得年龄与语言使用情景等因素是否影响双语者的控制机制、语言切换代价与任务转换代价的本质是否相同、语言切换代价和工作记忆之间的关系及其认知可塑性等领域予以进一步探索。     

工作记忆的认知模型与神经机制

本文评述了工作记忆认知模型的进展,阐述工作记忆神经机制研究的基本问题。研究者在工作记忆认知模型框架下,提出了工作记忆成分结构的脑模型。根据自己的研究探索,展望进一步的研究问题,以及TMS和fMRI/ERP等脑成像技术的结合运用对工作记忆认知神经科学研究的推动。     

作记忆同中心模型

回顾了同中心模型研究方法和近期研究结果,从工作记忆注意焦点容量、存储与加工关系及工作记忆容量个体差异等三方面阐述该模型的理论意义,通过与嵌套加工模型、多成分模型及Unsworth和Engle的工作记忆观点比较,分析该模型优势及不足。文末展望未来研究方向     

熟练双语者负性情绪干扰下的认知优势效应:来自2-back的证据

熟练双语者在空间工作记忆中存在认知优势,但是在负性情绪干扰下熟练双语者在空间工作记忆中是否存在认知优势尚不清楚。空间工作记忆和负性情绪均以大脑右半球为优势脑区,加工效能理论认为空间工作记忆和负性情绪的加工使用同样的认知资源。研究采用情绪空间2-back任务,探究在负性情绪刺激干扰下的空间工作记忆任务中熟练双语者是否存在认知优势。结果表明,熟练双语者在该任务中表现出比非熟练双语者更高的正确率和更短的反应时。这一结果说明,尽管存在负性情绪刺激的干扰,相比非熟练双语者,熟练双语者在空间工作记忆中仍然表现出了认知优势。     

客体的视觉工作记忆研究进展

近年来,客体信息的视觉工作记忆问题引发了大量研究,并获得不少成果。本文对视觉工作记忆的研究范式,客体在视觉工作记忆中的存储方式、容量及保持时间等相关研究进行了概述,重点介绍关于视觉工作记忆存储单元和容量问题的"强客体"假设、"弱客体"假设和双重存储机制假设,并提出进一步的研究思路。     

人类工作记忆广度个体差异的机制

人类工作记忆广度个体差异的机制是研究者关注的一个热点问题,研究者在大量行为实验的基础上,提出了许多解释人类工作记忆广度存在个体差异的模型和理论:Daneman和Carpenter的资源分享模型;Towse和Hitch的任务转换假设;Engle及其同事提出的工作记忆广度的注意控制理论;Lustig的基于抑制的理论;以及Daily等人的资源激活模型。本文对这些模型和理论观点进行了论述、分析和评价,指出了以往研究存在的不足和未来研究应该注意的问题。     

传教士视阈下的汉籍传译——以理雅各英译《周易》为例

中国古代文化典籍经由入华传教士的传译而进入欧洲和西方世界,实现了"中学西传"。晚清入华的英华书院院长理雅各作为牛津大学的首位汉学教授,英译了包括"四书"、"五经"在内的《中国经典》。本文以理雅各英译《周易》为例,探讨理雅各透过传教士的视阈,在汉籍传译过程中对中国文化传统的"同情的理解",剖析了这种"同情的理解"所具有的多重命意及其体现出的"汉学"特征,肯定了理雅各汉籍传译的价值与贡献。     

策略的使用对工作记忆训练迁移效应的影响

近期有研究发现,在工作记忆训练中给予一定策略指导会产生训练的迁移,但也有研究发现,工作记忆训练中的策略指导仅产生有限的迁移。这可能与不同策略的使用有关,如果在工作记忆训练前就已经获得并熟悉有关策略,在工作记忆训练过程中使用该策略就成为一种自动化加工,未产生足够的认知负荷,任务对认知资源的需求降低,降低个体的注意力,未能真正提高个体的工作记忆能力,仅产生了有限的迁移。今后的研究应该关注策略的使用对工作记忆训练迁移效应的神经机制,在特殊群体中验证该问题并建立影响工作记忆训练迁移效应的综合模型。     

视觉工作记忆在视觉搜索中的作用

视觉工作记忆在视觉搜索中的作用远比偏向竞争模型所描述的要复杂,个体能根据当前任务要求灵活地利用工作记忆来引导注意选择。在系统回顾已有研究的基础上,从客体工作记忆、空间工作记忆和执行工作记忆3个方面探讨了视觉工作记忆在视觉搜索中的作用。根据近期的研究,文章在最后对视觉工作记忆在视觉搜索中的作用做了7点总结,并对已往研究中存在的若干问题给予了解释,指出未来应该从前瞻记忆和内隐记忆等角度对视觉搜索中所涉及的视觉记忆进行深入研究     

视觉工作记忆巩固机制：固化抑或衰退

视觉工作记忆巩固机制是工作记忆研究领域的前沿科学问题。Vogel等(2006)采用掩蔽的变化检测范式揭示视觉工作记忆巩固过程及其规律, 指出巩固是从容易受到干扰的感觉表征转化为稳定的工作记忆的表征的过程。本文系统梳理了视觉工作记忆巩固的实验范式, 以及相关影响因素的研究成果, 分析了视觉工作记忆巩固现象所反映的内部机制, 指出Vogel等所揭示的视觉工作记忆巩固现象反映的可能并非记忆项目的固化过程, 而是掩蔽刺激对记忆项目的干扰作用的衰退过程。     

Expertise,Working Memory and Articulatory Suppression Effect: Their Relation with Simultaneous Interpreting Performance

Simultaneous interpreting is a complex bilingual verbal activity that involves the auditory perception of an oral communication and the production of a coherent discourse. One of the cognitive functions underlying simultaneous interpreting is working memory. The aim of this work was to study the relationship between expertise, working memory capacity and articulatory suppression effect, and the ability to perform simultaneous interpreting. For this purpose, four working memory tasks and one simultaneous interpreting task were administered to thirty Spanish-speaking professional English interpreters. Results showed that simultaneous interpreting ability might be supported by the working memory´s capacity to store or process information, but also by the ability of the interpreter to cope with the articulatory suppression effect. We conclude that interpreters may have or develop resources to support the effect caused by articulatory suppression.     

Self-initiated spatial working memory in young and older adults

The age-related decline in working memory (WM) has been studied extensively. Yet, research has focused mainly on one aspect of memory, in which older adults memorised information provided to them, neglecting the frequent everyday behaviour in which memory is self-initiated (SI), meaning that individuals memorise information they selected themselves. The present study used a modified spatial span task in which young and older adults memorised spatial sequences they constructed themselves, or random sequences provided to them. The results revealed that young and older adults carefully planned and constructed structured spatial sequences, by minimising distances between successive locations, and by selecting sequences with fewer path crossings and with more linear shapes. Older adults constructed sequences that were even more structured in some aspects. Young and older adults benefited from self-initiation to the same extent, showing similar age-related declines in SI and provided spatial WM. Overall, the study shows that older adults have access to metacognitive knowledge on the structure of efficient WM representations that benefit accuracy, and shows that older adults can use strategic encoding processes efficiently when encoding is SI. More generally, SI WM explores an important aspect of behaviour, demonstrating how older adults shape their environment to facilitate cognitive functioning.     

Retest effects in working memory capacity tests: A meta-analysis

The repeated administration of working memory capacity tests is common in clinical and research settings. For cognitive ability tests and different neuropsychological tests, meta-analyses have shown that they are prone to retest effects, which have to be accounted for when interpreting retest scores. Using a multilevel approach, this meta-analysis aims at showing the reproducibility of retest effects in working memory capacity tests for up to seven test administrations, and examines the impact of the length of the test-retest interval, test modality, equivalence of test forms and participant age on the size of retest effects. Furthermore, it is assessed whether the size of retest effects depends on the test paradigm. An extensive literature search revealed 234 effect sizes from 95 samples and 68 studies, in which healthy participants between 12 and 70 years repeatedly performed a working memory capacity test. Results yield a weighted average of g =?0.28 for retest effects from the first to the second test administration, and a significant increase in effect sizes was observed up to the fourth test administration. The length of the test-retest interval and publication year were found to moderate the size of retest effects. Retest effects differed between the paradigms of working memory capacity tests. These findings call for the development and use of appropriate experimental or statistical methods to address retest effects in working memory capacity tests.     

Examining Associations Among Emotional Intelligence,Creativity, Self-efficacy,and Simultaneous Interpreting Practice Through the Mediating Effect of Field Dependence/Independence: A Path Analysis Approach

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - Simultaneous interpreting (SI) is a cognitively complex activity due to the concurrent nature of receiving and producing messages. Previous research confirms...     

Listening while talking: The retention of prose under articulatory suppression in relation to simultaneous interpreting

According to working memory theory (e.g., Baddeley & Logie, 1999) articulatory suppression (AS) prevents rehearsal in the articulatory loop of to be remembered material, which, in turn, has a disruptive effect on recall. Simultaneous interpreting is an activity where people routinely comprehend and maintain speech while articulating at the same time. We examined whether AS also affects retention when, as in interpreting, coherent text is to be remembered or meaningful and phonologically more complex material is articulated. In the first part of the study, participants listened to a set of stories, and were involved in traditional or complex AS. Also coherence of the texts was manipulated. We found that the effects of AS generalises to stories, that coherence influences recall and that both variables interact. In the second part, we related individual differences in retention under conditions of AS to simultaneous interpreting performance. The results are discussed in terms of the episodic buffer component (e.g., Baddeley, 2000).     

Capitalization on chance: The case of Guilford's Memory Abilities

Reanalysis of a memory study originally interpreted to support J. P. Guilford's Structure-of-Intellect (SI) model fails to give support for the SI distinctions: (1) When capitalization on chance was limited by selecting a subsample of variables for analysis, only 3 out of 9 hypothesized factors were identified, (2) the root-one number-of-factor criterion indicate that the SI model leads to a rather dramatic over-factoring even when the factors are theoretically over-determined, and (3) although the fit to the model is somewhat better than is expected on the basis of a completely random model, more reasonable semi-random null-hypotheses cannot be rejected in favor of the SI model.     

How is the visual working memory load of driver influenced by information density of traffic signs?

The rapid development of urban roads has resulted in an increase in the amount of information that needs to be displayed on traffic signs. The overloading of information on traffic signs may increase drivers’ visual cognition burden and cause driving errors. It could be an important factor affecting driving safety and result in accidents. To enable drivers to cognize traffic signs, the information density that they could endure under reasonable workload levels should be determined. In this study, we designed and implemented trials to analyze drivers’ visual working memory load (VWML) caused by different information densities (including stimulus intensity (SI) and interval time of stimulus (IS)) of traffic signs. Twenty-four paid participants (12 females) with a mean age of 23.38 years (SD = 1.38) participated in laboratory simulation trials based on the memory retrieval approach. Subjective ratings (rating scale mental effort (RSME)), and performance measurement based on reaction time and accuracy of information-matching task were measured to reflect drivers’ VWML at different information densities. The results show that information density is an important factor affecting drivers’ VWML. The following are the significant observations of the study: (1) The subjective ratings on mental effort increased with increase in the SI. Meanwhile, it first decreased and then increased with increase in the IS. (2) The response accuracy results show that a high accuracy (≥0.7) was achieved by drivers in an IS of 15 s when the SI was at most 14.16 bit/m². Correspondingly, the drivers underwent less mental workload as a result of their better short-term memory characteristic. (3) The mean reaction time was over 1800 ms when the SI was over 14.16 bit/m². This indicated a reduction in the information-processing capability of the drivers. The results indicate that cognition of information of unreasonable density on traffic signs would increase drivers’ VWML. This would, in turn, result in an increase in their reaction time and decrease in accuracy. The threshold of information density was also determined through the experiment. It would satisfy the information demand of drivers and prevent information redundancy. The results contribute to an understanding of drivers’ VWML while cognizing traffic signs with different information densities and provide safety, effectiveness, and information continuity considerations for the design and setting of traffic signs.     

Experience and sentence processing: statistical learning and relative clause comprehension

Many explanations of the difficulties associated with interpreting object relative clauses appeal to the demands that object relatives make on working memory. MacDonald and Christiansen [MacDonald, M. C., & Christiansen, M. H. (2002). Reassessing working memory: Comment on Just and Carpenter (1992) and Waters and Caplan (1996). Psychological Review, 109, 35-54] pointed to variations in reading experience as a source of differences, arguing that the unique word order of object relatives makes their processing more difficult and more sensitive to the effects of previous experience than the processing of subject relatives. This hypothesis was tested in a large-scale study manipulating reading experiences of adults over several weeks. The group receiving relative clause experience increased reading speeds for object relatives more than for subject relatives, whereas a control experience group did not. The reading time data were compared to performance of a computational model given different amounts of experience. The results support claims for experience-based individual differences and an important role for statistical learning in sentence comprehension processes.     

Reflexively mindblind: Using theory of mind to interpret behavior requires effortful attention

People commonly interpret others’ behavior in terms of the actors’ underlying beliefs, knowledge, or other mental states, thereby using their “theory of mind.” Two experiments suggest that using one’s theory of mind is a relatively effortful process. In both experiments, people reflexively used their own knowledge and beliefs to follow a speaker’s instruction, but only effortfully used their theory of mind to take into account a speaker’s intention to interpret those instructions. In Experiment 1, people with lower working memory capacity were less effective than people with larger working memory capacity in applying their theory of mind to interpret behavior. In Experiment 2, an attention-demanding secondary task reduced people’s ability to apply their theory of mind. People appear to be reflexively mindblind, interpreting behavior in terms of the actor’s mental states only to the extent that they have the cognitive resources to do so.