Forum: Insiders,Outsiders, and Disclosure in the Undergraduate Classroom

In this set of essays, three authors provide different perspectives on whether personal religious sensibilities and identities affect the ways we teach religion. Elliott Bazzano discusses how, as a white Muslim convert teaching at a Catholic college, he incorporates selective autobiographical anecdotes into his classes as a way to problematize the meaning of “insider” and “outsider,” and pushes his students to recognize the many layers of identity that any given person embodies at a given time. In the second essay, Audrey Truschke explains why she makes no reference to her own religious beliefs or affiliations in class as part of her strategy to demonstrate how students can study any religion regardless of personal convictions. In the third essay, Jayme Yeo explores the benefits of discussing personal religious identity as a means to resist the categories of “inside” and “outside,” which she sees as heterogeneous concepts that do not always offer explanatory power upon close examination.     

Temporal kinetics of prefrontal modulation of the extrastriate cortex during visual attention

Single-unit, event-related potential (ERP), and neuroimaging studies have implicated the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in top-down control of attention and working memory. We conducted an experiment in patients with unilateral PFC damage (n=8) to assess the temporal kinetics of PFC-extrastriate interactions during visual attention. Subjects alternated attention between the left and the right hemifields in successive runs while they detected target stimuli embedded in streams of repetitive task-irrelevant stimuli (standards). The design enabled us to examine tonic (spatial selection) and phasic (feature selection) PFC-extrastriate interactions. PFC damage impaired performance in the visual field contralateral to lesions, as manifested by both larger reaction times and error rates. Assessment of the extrastriate P1 ERP revealed that the PFC exerts a tonic (spatial selection) excitatory input to the ipsilateral extrastriate cortex as early as 100 msec post stimulus delivery. The PFC exerts a second phasic (feature selection) excitatory extrastriate modulation from 180 to 300 msec, as evidenced by reductions in selection negativity after damage. Finally, reductions of the N2 ERP to target stimuli supports the notion that the PFC exerts a third phasic (target selection) signal necessary for successful template matching during postselection analysis of target features. The results provide electrophysiological evidence of three distinct tonic and phasic PFC inputs to the extrastriate cortex in the initial few hundred milliseconds of stimulus processing. Damage to this network appears to underlie the pervasive deficits in attention observed in patients with prefrontal lesions.     

A Psychometric Evaluation of the Approach and Avoidance of Alcohol Questionnaire Among Alcohol-Dependent Patients Attending Residential Treatment

Despite research suggesting that alcohol-dependent individuals have both craving and avoidant tendencies for alcohol, few studies have measured self-report tendencies using the Approach and Avoidance of Alcohol Questionnaire (AAAQ). The goal of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the AAAQ using a sample of adults receiving 12 step-based residential treatment for alcohol dependence. As part of a larger study, 100 adults receiving residential treatment completed the AAAQ and several other assessments shortly after treatment admission. Analyses of the AAAQ examined its factor structure, internal consistency, and convergent and predictive validity. A maximum likelihood estimation factor analysis using oblique rotation produced 3 factors accounting for 69 % of the variance. A confirmatory factor analysis suggested that the 3-factor model was a moderate fit for data from a second sample of patients. Internal consistency was fairly high and convergent validity was demonstrated by relationships with another scale of alcohol craving, time since last drink, and quantity and frequency of pre-treatment alcohol use. Regarding predictive validity, the level of approach tendencies on the AAAQ was significantly related to abstinence status during the first 6 months following treatment. Avoidance level was not related to abstinence. The results largely replicated past studies utilizing outpatient samples and suggest that the AAAQ shows promise as a psychometrically sound, internally reliable self-report craving measure for individuals with alcohol dependence.     

考试焦虑者注意偏向的认知与神经机制

应用情绪版本的外部线索任务,以高中生为研究对象,探讨考试焦虑的产生是由负性刺激的警觉还是脱离困难导致的认知神经机制,以及这种注意偏向(警觉与脱离成分)发生的具体时间进程。行为实验结果发现,相比起低考试焦虑个体,高考试焦虑个体对考试相关威胁刺激存在注意脱离困难。脑电实验结果中,P1成分揭示高考试焦虑者对考试相关和无关威胁线索后靶刺激的注意处理削弱;考试相关威胁线索后靶刺激诱发的P300对于高、低考试焦虑者具有临床鉴别的潜力。     

团体心理咨询对提高大学生自信心的效果研究

本研究探讨了团体心理咨询在提高大学生自信心方面的作用。我们精心设计了团体心理咨询活动的过程,并在活动前后用五种量表对团体成员进行了测量。通过分析量表测量结果及其他定性研究方法,我们发现：（１）团体心理咨询可以有效地提高大学生的自信心。（２）团体心理咨询在发展性目标上也是有效的。本研究结果对今后的团体心理咨询研究及其应用具有一定的参考价值。     

颜色知觉恒常理论的回顾

本文对早期颜色恒常理论、系数理论、计算理论和 Octant模型作了简要回顾 ,并结合已有的研究成果进行评述。对影响颜色恒常性机制的主要因素进行了探讨。强调了知觉经验、记忆、认知决策等高级意识活动对颜色恒常知觉的作用 ,并尝试性地提出了描述颜色恒常知觉过程的一般参照框架。     

Threshold-style processing of Chinese characters for adult second-language learners

To assess the learning of word form and meaning in an unfamiliar writing system, we carried out primed-naming experiments with learners of Chinese at the end of their first and second terms in a Chinese class at an American university. The subjects were required to name a target Chinese character after a prime character had been presented for 500 msec. There were three priming conditions defined by the relation between the prime and the target: orthographically similar, homophonic, and semantically related. At the end of the first term, there was a significant facilitation for naming speed in the orthographic condition, but not in the homophonic or semantic conditions. However, at the end of the second term, orthographical facilitation disappeared. Instead, naming speed was facilitated by semantically related primes. A threshold-style framework was proposed to illustrate the processing of Chinese orthography, phonology, and semantics by second-language learners.     

基于P2P的混合过滤文章推荐系统

研究了在分布式的情况下的混合推荐机制,根据P2P环境下文档线性增长的特点,提出了用户兴趣模板的更新算法。实验表明,基于混合过滤的方法推荐效果要远远好于基于内容过滤或基于协作过滤的方法。     

Cultural orientation and psychological well-being in Chinese Americans

Examined cultural orientation in the domains of language proficiency, cultural activity, and social relationship, and its relationship with psychological well-being in a group of 143 Chinese Americans in San Francisco. Four indicators of psychological well-being were utilized, two assessing the experience of distress (depression level and negative affect) and two assessing positive well-being (positive affect and life satisfaction). Domain-specific cultural orientations were found to hold differential relationships with psychological well-being. For instance, bicultural activity orientation predicted the best psychological well-being (regardless as to how it was assessed), but socially separatist individuals experienced less negative affect than assimilated and bicultural respondents. Findings were discussed in the context of the multicultural setting of San Francisco. It is suggested that future research retain separate assessments of domain-specific cultural orientation, examine the contribution of the community's ethnic/cultural composition to its members' cultural orientations (i.e., address the role of person-environment fit) and study their impact on psychological well-being. The data reported here were collected as part of the author's doctoral dissertation. Ricardo F. Munoz and Guillermo Bernal guided and supported the implementation of this study; Sunwoo Lee assisted with the data analysis; and Edison J. Trickett and the anonymous reviewers offered helpful suggestions.