Gender Schema and Social Judgments: A Developmental Study of Children from Hong Kong

The purpose of the study was to examine inferences and judgments of gender schematic and aschematic children. Kindergarten, third grade, and sixth grade Hong Kong Chinese children (n = 196) were categorized into schematic and aschematic groups on the basis of their reaction times to gender-stereotypic and counterstereotypic items. The children were then asked to make several inferences and judgments about four male and female targets behaving gender-stereotypically or counterstereotypically. Both age and gender schematicity were related to the children's inferences. Older children and gender-schematic children relied more on individuating information and younger children relied more on the gender label. The results are discussed within the framework of gender-schema theories.     

大学生的气味词分类—— 基于语义相似性和知觉相似性的探讨

通过两个实验, 考察了大学生对60个气味词的基于语义相似性和基于知觉相似性的分类, 并运用多维标度法和聚类分析法进行分析。结果发现：(1)在语义水平上, 大学生根据发出气味的物体的功能(与食物有关/与食物无关)和语义性质(人造物/自然物)对气味词分类; (2)在表象水平上, 大学生根据气味的感觉情调(气味的愉悦度)和强度(浓度)对气味词分类; (3)气味词具有粗略的语义特征, 原型在气味词概念组织中具有重要作用; (4)男、女大学生对于气味词的分类基本一致, 但在具体项目上存在着性别差异。     

Familiarity,Priming, and Perception in Similarity Judgments

We present a novel way of accounting for similarity judgments. Our approach posits that similarity stems from three main sources—familiarity, priming, and inherent perceptual likeness. Here, we explore each of these constructs and demonstrate their individual and combined effectiveness in explaining similarity judgments. Using these three measures, our account of similarity explains ratings of simple, color‐based perceptual stimuli that display asymmetry effects, as well as more complicated perceptual stimuli with structural properties; more traditional approaches to similarity solve one or the other and have difficulty accounting for both. Overall, our work demonstrates the importance of each of these components of similarity in explaining similarity judgments, both individually and together, and suggests important implications for other similarity approaches.     

Wordform Similarity Increases With Semantic Similarity: An Analysis of 100 Languages

Although the mapping between form and meaning is often regarded as arbitrary, there are in fact well‐known constraints on words which are the result of functional pressures associated with language use and its acquisition. In particular, languages have been shown to encode meaning distinctions in their sound properties, which may be important for language learning. Here, we investigate the relationship between semantic distance and phonological distance in the large‐scale structure of the lexicon. We show evidence in 100 languages from a diverse array of language families that more semantically similar word pairs are also more phonologically similar. This suggests that there is an important statistical trend for lexicons to have semantically similar words be phonologically similar as well, possibly for functional reasons associated with language learning.     

Semantic Similarity of Alternatives Fostered by Conversational Negation

Conversational negation often behaves differently from negation as a logical operator: when rejecting a state of affairs, it does not present all members of the complement set as equally plausible alternatives, but it rather suggests some of them as more plausible than others (e.g., “This is not a dog, it is a wolf/*screwdriver”). Entities that are semantically similar to a negated entity tend to be judged as better alternatives (Kruszewski et al., 2016). In fact, Kruszewski et al. (2016) show that the cosine similarity scores between the distributional semantics representations of a negated noun and its potential alternatives are highly correlated with the negated noun-alternatives human plausibility ratings. In a series of cloze tasks, we show that negation likewise restricts the production of plausible alternatives to similar entities. Furthermore, completions to negative sentences appear to be even more restricted than completions to an affirmative conjunctive context, hinting at a peculiarity of negation.     

语义相似性与类别大小对图-词干扰范式下语义效应的影响

采用基本水平命名和类别水平命名任务, 通过2个实验, 考察了图-词之间的语义相似性与类别大小对图-词干扰范式下语义效应的影响。实验1发现, 图片命名时间在语义相似性高的干扰词条件下显著快于在语义相似性低的干扰词条件下, 但这种效应只出现在基本水平命名任务中, 未出现在类别水平命名任务中。图-词之间的语义相似性高低对低熟悉图片命名影响大, 对高熟悉图片命名影响小。实验2显示, 语义关联的干扰词对图片的基本水平命名产生了语义干扰效应, 对图片的类别水平命名产生了语义促进效应。类别大小强化了语义效应：类别大, 图片的基本水平命名的语义干扰效应更大, 图片的类别水平命名的语义促进效应更强。整个研究表明, 图-词之间的语义关联的强度影响语义效应的方向, 图-词之间的语义关联的广度影响语义效应的强弱。需要结合多种理论来解释图-词之间的语义相似性和类别大小对图-词干扰范式下语义效应的影响。     

配对刺激的结构对相似性判断非对称性的影响

笔者考察一个被先前相似性研究忽略的问题:配对刺激的结构对有方向相似性判断的非对称性的可能影响。实验被试是大学生。实验自变量是人工概念配对的特征结构,有三种实验条件:对齐且对称结构、非对齐且对称结构和非对齐且不对称结构。结果发现,在对齐且对称结构条件和非对齐且对称结构条件下没有出现相似性判断的非对称现象,在非对齐且不对称结构条件下出现相似性判断的非对称现象。相似性判断是否出现非对称性取决于配对刺激的结构是否非对称,而不受配对刺激的结构是否对齐的影响。这支持相似性判断的特征对比模型在αβ时的预测,而不支持Tversky原初主张αβ时特征对比模型的预测,也不支持量子相似性模型的预测。     

Social Concepts and Judgments: A Semantic Differential Analysis of the Concepts Feminist, Man, and Woman

Male and female participants  ( N = 274)  made judgments about the social concepts of feminist , man , and woman on 63 semantic differential items. Factor analysis identified three basic dimensions termed evaluative, potency, and activity as well as two secondary factors called expressiveness and sexuality. Results for the evaluative dimension showed that the concept feminist was rated negatively with male participants rating feminist more negatively than female participants. In terms of potency, feminist was judged higher than man whereas the concept woman was rated low on this dimension. Participants also judged the concept feminist as low in expressiveness and rated woman as the most expressive. Feminist received low ratings on the erotic-sexual dimension (sexuality) by female participants and negative sexuality ratings by men. These results are discussed in terms of social role theory, gender stereotypes, and the changes in women's roles and behavior.     

Metacognitive Judgments and Control of Study

ABSTRACT— Recent evidence indicates that people's judgments of their own learning are causally related to their study behavior and not epiphenomenal. I argue here that people use these metacognitions in an effort to selectively study material in their own region of proximal learning. First they attempt to eliminate materials that are already well learned. Then they progress successively from studying easier to more difficult materials. Successful implementation of this metacognitively guided strategy enhances learning. The necessary components are, first, that the metacognitions be accurate, and second, that the appropriate choices are implemented for study. With these parts in place, the individual is in position to effectively take control of his or her own learning.     

A Semantic Differential Study of the Yin-Yang Symbol

The inherent meanings of the ancient and culturally significant symbol known as the Yin-Yang was investigated by having 242 students rate it on the Semantic Differential. The investigation further explored the meanings of the symbol as it might relate to Jung's controversial concept of the archetype. The results indicated that the qualities of the symbol supported the concept of the Yin-Yang archetype and, surprisingly, these were consistent with Jung's concept of the anima and animus.     

Worry in Adults and Children: Developmental Differences in the Importance of Probability and Cost Judgments

This study investigated developmental differences in the relationship of probability and cost estimates to worrying. Adults, younger children (M age = 8.67 years) and older children (M age = 11.06 years) rated the extent to which they worry about a list of negative social and physical outcomes and provided subjective probability and cost estimates for the same outcomes. Adults reported worrying more about social outcomes and rated them as less ‘bad’ (or costly) but more likely to occur than physical outcomes. Unlike adults, children in both age groups reported worrying more about physical outcomes. However, similar to adults, they also rated social outcomes as less ‘bad’ but more likely to occur than physical outcomes. Regression analyses showed that probability ratings were the best predictors of worry in adults, both probability and cost ratings equally predicted worry in older children, but only cost ratings predicted worry in younger children.

汉语发展性阅读障碍亚类型的初步探讨

以阅读水平匹配组为参照对29名汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童的认知缺陷模式进行了分析,并考察了不同亚类型阅读障碍儿童的汉字识别模式。结果表明汉语发展性阅读障碍存在不同的亚类型,以语音缺陷型、快速命名缺陷型及两者结合的双重缺陷型为主,与英语国家研究中的双重缺陷假设一致。语音缺陷型儿童汉字识别时有更多的语义错误,对声旁中的部分语音线索不敏感;快速命名缺陷型儿童汉字识别时依赖声旁语音线索,表现出阅读发展的一般延迟;双重或多重认知缺陷型是阅读损伤最严重的亚类型     

学龄前儿童握笔姿势的发展性研究

以握笔画圆为测查任务,考察了学龄前儿童握笔姿势的发展趋势及特点.结果表明3.5-5.5岁是儿童握笔姿势的迅速发展期,大部分儿童在5.5岁发展到成熟的握笔姿势,5.5-6.5岁发展相对平缓.学龄前儿童握笔姿势的发展趋势表现为自然阶段和过渡阶段握笔姿势的减少,成熟阶段握笔姿势的不断增多.中美儿童握笔姿势的发展趋势基本一致,但是中国学龄前儿童使用成熟阶段握姿的比率要低于美国儿童.     

An Exploratory Study of Counselor Judgments in Multicultural Research

Archival data were used to explore intake judgments made by 45 counselors about 344 African-American and White clients seen at a counseling center during a 2-year period. Counselor gender was significantly associated with ratings of client severity of current condition. Neither ethnicity nor counselor experience were predictive of intake judgments.     

Giving Meaning to Movement: A Developmental Study

Recently, researchers have been investigating the effects of kinematics stimulus properties on pattern perception and recognition. However, the stimulus properties that are used to discriminate animate from inanimate objects have received relatively little attention. Earlier research has indicated that the external movement of artificially generated objects is perceived as animate by observers of all ages. In this investigation, children in Grades 1,4, and 7 and university adults were asked to describe what they saw after viewing computer-generated displays of two circular objects that exhibited variations of external and internal movement. We predicted that observers would incorporate and integrate the salient kinematic properties of the objects in a display into a coherent narrative and that their ability to achieve matches among the properties of objects in a display and the properties of objects described in the narrative would increase with age. Moreover, because of their relative insensitivity to the actual properties of objects in the display, we predicted that younger observers would make more animate attributions for nonmoving objects and fewer animate attributions for moving objects than would older observers. The result supported these predictions.     

A Unified Empirical Account of Responsibility Judgments*

Skeptical worries about moral responsibility seem to be widely appreciated and deeply felt. To address these worries—if nothing else to show that they are mistaken—theories of moral responsibility need to relate to whatever concept of responsibility underlies the worries. Unfortunately, the nature of that concept has proved hard to pin down. Not only do philosophers have conflicting intuitions; numerous recent empirical studies have suggested that both prosaic responsibility judgments and incompatibilist intuitions among the folk are influenced by a number of surprising factors, sometimes prompting apparently contradictory judgments. In this paper, we show how an independently motivated hypothesis about responsibility judgments provides a unified explanation of the more important results from these studies. According to this ‘Explanation Hypothesis’, to take an agent to be morally responsible for an event is to take a relevant motivational structure of the agent to be part of a significant explanation of the event. We argue that because of how explanatory interests and perspectives affect what we take as significant explanations, this analysis accounts for the puzzling variety of empirical results. If this is correct, the Explanation Hypothesis also provides a new way of understanding debates about moral responsibility.