What is “the ineffable” exactly?

“The ineffable” in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is an essential term that has various interpretations. It could be divided into two types, namely, positive and negative, or real and fake. The negative or fake type can be clarified by logical analysis, while the positive or real type can be understood only through philosophical critique. Both the positive and negative types consist of infinity or absoluteness, but the infinity is subject to distinctions in meaning and logic. __________ Translated from Zhexue Yanjiu 哲学研究 (Philosophical Researches), 2005, (8): 64–68     

The effect of visual threat on spatial attention to touch

Viewing a threatening stimulus can bias visual attention toward that location. Such effects have typically been investigated only in the visual modality, despite the fact that many threatening stimuli are most dangerous when close to or in contact with the body. Recent multisensory research indicates that a neutral visual stimulus, such as a light flash, can lead to a tactile attention shift towards a nearby body part. Here, we investigated whether the threat value of a visual stimulus modulates its effect on attention to touch. Participants made speeded discrimination responses about tactile stimuli presented to one or other hand, preceded by a picture cue (snake, spider, flower or mushroom) presented close to the same or the opposite hand. Pictures of snakes led to a significantly greater tactile attentional facilitation effect than did non-threatening pictures of flowers and mushrooms. Furthermore, there was a correlation between self-reported fear of snakes and spiders and the magnitude of early facilitation following cues of that type. These findings demonstrate that the attentional bias towards threat extends to the tactile modality and indicate that perceived threat value can modulate the cross-modal effect that a visual cue has on attention to touch.     

What do people desire in others? A sociofunctional perspective on the importance of different valued characteristics

Humans, as discriminately social creatures, make frequent judgments about others' suitability for interdependent social relations. Which characteristics of others guide these judgments and, thus, shape patterns of human affiliation? Extant research is only minimally useful for answering this question. On the basis of a sociofunctional analysis of human sociality, the authors hypothesized that people highly value trustworthiness and (to a lesser extent) cooperativeness in others with whom they may be interdependent, regardless of the specific tasks, goals, or functions of the group or relationship, but value other favorable characteristics (e.g., intelligence) differentially across such tasks, goals, or functions. Participants in 3 studies considered various characteristics for ideal members of interdependent groups (e.g., work teams, athletic teams) and relationships (e.g., family members, employees). Across different measures of trait importance and different groups and relationships, trustworthiness was considered extremely important for all interdependent others; the evidence for the enhanced importance of cooperativeness across different interdependence contexts was more equivocal. In contrast, people valued other characteristics primarily as they were relevant to the specific nature of the interdependent group or relationship. These empirical investigations illuminate the essence of human sociality with its foundation of trust and highlight the usefulness of a theoretically derived framework of valued characteristics.     

Feature extraction via KPCA for classification of gait patterns

Automated recognition of gait pattern change is important in medical diagnostics as well as in the early identification of at-risk gait in the elderly. We evaluated the use of Kernel-based Principal Component Analysis (KPCA) to extract more gait features (i.e., to obtain more significant amounts of information about human movement) and thus to improve the classification of gait patterns. 3D gait data of 24 young and 24 elderly participants were acquired using an OPTOTRAK 3020 motion analysis system during normal walking, and a total of 36 gait spatio-temporal and kinematic variables were extracted from the recorded data. KPCA was used first for nonlinear feature extraction to then evaluate its effect on a subsequent classification in combination with learning algorithms such as support vector machines (SVMs). Cross-validation test results indicated that the proposed technique could allow spreading the information about the gait's kinematic structure into more nonlinear principal components, thus providing additional discriminatory information for the improvement of gait classification performance. The feature extraction ability of KPCA was affected slightly with different kernel functions as polynomial and radial basis function. The combination of KPCA and SVM could identify young-elderly gait patterns with 91% accuracy, resulting in a markedly improved performance compared to the combination of PCA and SVM. These results suggest that nonlinear feature extraction by KPCA improves the classification of young-elderly gait patterns, and holds considerable potential for future applications in direct dimensionality reduction and interpretation of multiple gait signals.     

归纳推理中的属性中心性效应

通过三个实验研究了属性的中心性程度对归纳推理的影响,结果表明,在归纳推理中存在属性中心性效应,中心属性比其他属性（次中心属性、再次中心属性）更能影响归纳推理。但属性中心性效应的出现受到了前提对象和结论对象相似性程度的制约,当前提对象和结论对象的相似程度高时,中心属性比其他属性更能影响归纳推理;随着相似性水平的降低,中心属性的归纳推理力度越来越弱,而次中心属性、再次中心属性的归纳推理力度则会依次表现出越来越强的趋势,到最后当前提对象和结论对象的属性完全不相似时,最次中心属性的归纳推理力度达到最高水平,而中心属性的归纳推理力度则降低到最低水平。由于再次中心属性的归纳推理力度的最高水平没有显著高于随机水平,而中心属性的归纳推理力度的最低水平却显著低于随机水平,因此,研究者认为,在前提对象和结论对象完全不相似的情况下,被试将确信不能采用中心属性来进行归纳推理的力度判断,而采用猜测的方式选择了肯定可以排除的项目之外的其他项目,这体现了具有不确定的归纳推理活动的过程的典型特征     

公共政策制定程序对政策可接受性的影响

根据程序公正理论提出公共政策制定程序与公众对政策的可接受性的关系问题。研究一通过访谈不同领域的学者,初步揭示了公共政策及其制定程序存在的问题——对公共问题不敏感,解决问题的措施成效低。研究二用问卷调查公众对一个制定中的公共政策的态度,恰与政策制定者的愿望相反,公众并不认可政府解决问题的设想,也不认同政府举行的听证会的结果。研究三设计了一个非等组前后测准实验,在两个互联网站的电子公告板上比较根据不同的公共政策制定程序的政策的可接受性。结果证明,制定政策时了解公众态度可增强政策的针对性,提高解决问题措施的成效和可接受性     

组织信任氛围对任务绩效的作用途径

通过问卷调查与结构方程建模分析组织信任对于员工工作绩效的影响途径。203名被试和他们的上司参与了问卷调查。结果分析采用潜变量路径分析方法。我们构建多组模型与构思模型,通过两个阶段的检验,分析了组织信任的作用机制。结果表明：组织信任作用于心理安全感,而心理安全感通过两条独立途径影响工作绩效,分别是工作聚焦与工作改进。心理安全感能够促进员工针对工作的不断改进的行为和探索新工作方法的意愿,同时也有利于员工集中精力在工作上,从而提高个人工作业绩     

对新员工入职期望变化的一项纵向研究

通过对419名企业新员工入职期望的纵向研究,并运用LGM分析,结果表明：①在组织社会化初期,新员工入职期望的变化呈独特规律,即,工作期望线性下降,团队和企业期望的变化呈不定义曲线形式;②新员工入职期望各维度的变化率都存在显著的个体差异,但仅工作期望初始状态的个体差异显著;③新员工入职期望各维度的初始状态和变化速度之间都存在显著的正相关。由本研究而引发的诸如个体差异的预测因素等问题,还有待进一步研究     

论结合CNV和P300进行犯罪心理生理测试的可行性

在国外,事件相关电位技术应用于犯罪心理生理测试已经有多年的历史,近年来我国也有所尝试;但大多是以单一的ERP成分作为判断指标。若在测试过程中能通过特殊的设计,同时诱发两种或两种以上的特异性ERP,在结果分析时采用多种指标进行相互印证、相互支持的分析,定能在一定程度上提高测试的准确性。本文以此为出发点,讨论结合CNV和P300进行犯罪心理生理测试的可行性。     

跨文化协同增效研究的3种典型视角

随着经济全球化进程的加速,跨国公司日益重视运用多元文化来创造国际竞争优势。论文首先讨论了“跨文化协同增效”的内涵以及达成跨文化协同增效的标准,然后介绍了跨文化协同增效研究的3种典型视角：加拿大研究者Adler的研究视角、德国研究者Krewer的研究视角和印尼研究者Tjitra的研究视角。3种不同的视角体现出研究者自身文化的特点。前两种视角是从西方文化出发,认为必须创造“第三种文化”来达成跨文化协同增效,而后一种视角则是从东方文化出发,针对本国文化的独特性进行跨文化协同增效理论研究。最后在比较分析3种不同研究视角基础上,认为应借鉴国外学者的研究思路,针对独特的中国文化进行跨文化协同增效研究