In search of the ‘Aha!’ experience: Elucidating the emotionality of insight problem‐solving

Although the experience of insight has long been noted, the essence of the ‘Aha!’ experience, reflecting a sudden change in the brain that accompanies an insight solution, remains largely unknown. This work aimed to uncover the mystery of the ‘Aha!’ experience through three studies. In Study 1, participants were required to solve a set of verbal insight problems and then subjectively report their affective experience when solving the problem. The participants were found to have experienced many types of emotions, with happiness the most frequently reported one. Multidimensional scaling was employed in Study 2 to simplify the dimensions of these reported emotions. The results showed that these different types of emotions could be clearly placed in two‐dimensional space and that components constituting the ‘Aha!’ experience mainly reflected positive emotion and approached cognition. To validate previous findings, in Study 3, participants were asked to select the most appropriate emotional item describing their feelings at the time the problem was solved. The results of this study replicated the multidimensional construct consisting of approached cognition and positive affect. These three studies provide the first direct evidence of the essence of the ‘Aha!’ experience. The potential significance of the findings was discussed.     

Psychological experiences of Korean missionary “kids” (MKs): a qualitative inquiry

The present study is a qualitative investigation of the psychological experiences of children of Korean missionaries, through the eyes of Korean missionary kids (MKs) and missionary workers. A semi-structured interview was conducted with 11 MKs and MK workers, and data were analysed using the Consensual Qualitative Research method. Several domains emerged: challenges associated with the MK experience, resiliency of MKs, intrapersonal and interpersonal coping skills, mental health concerns, religion and spirituality, a complex cultural identity, preparation for college transition, and hopes for MKs and their missionary parents. Categories corresponding to the domains are highlighted. The present study addresses a need for more attention paid to the non-American MK experience, and it presents some implications for the church and higher educational institutions.     

Connectionist Models of Language Production: Lexical Access and Grammatical Encoding

Theories of language production have long been expressed as connectionist models. We outline the issues and challenges that must be addressed by connectionist models of lexical access and grammatical encoding, and review three recent models. The models illustrate the value of an interactive activation approach to lexical access in production, the need for sequential output in both phonological and grammatical encoding, and the potential for accounting for structural effects on errors and structural priming from learning.     

体育馆比赛厅观众席距离与视觉辨认的关系

問題 深入地探討体育館內观众席的视觉效果問題,是保証观众“看得好”的首要因素,是合理分布观众席、决定比賽厅平面形式(如圓形、椭圓形、方形、矩形等)的必备前提。决定观众席视觉效果的两大因素是观察距离及观察方位。关于这两个問題,国內外先后都进行过研究,但距离、方位与观众席分区方法的关系等問題,一般多局限在理論方面的討論,不能完全符合于实际情况。要对这些問題进行更深入的探討,必需进行视知觉心理学方面的实驗和研究,非仅靠建筑学知識所能解决,本研究卽试图通过知觉心理学的研究方法,对体育館比賽厅观众席距場地距离与視觉辨认的关系进行一些探索。     

心算活动机制的研究

心算是一种重要的思维活动,是认知心理学的研究主题之一。心算活动具有明显的问题大小效应,其加工过程与工作记忆和长时记忆存在密切关系。此外,对心算的加工机制进行跨学科（认知心理学、神经科学等）的综合研究,是今后心算研究的主要方向。     

Establishing the feasibility of direct observation in the assessment of tics in children with chronic tic disorders

Behavior analysis has been at the forefront in establishing effective treatments for children and adults with chronic tic disorders. As is customary in behavior analysis, the efficacy of these treatments has been established using direct-observation assessment methods. Although behavior-analytic treatments have enjoyed acceptance and integration into mainstream health care practices for tic disorders (e.g., psychiatry and neurology), the use of direct observation as a primary assessment tool has been neglected in favor of less objective methods. Hesitation to use direct observation appears to stem largely from concerns about the generalizability of clinic observations to other settings (e.g., home) and a lack of consensus regarding the most appropriate and feasible techniques for conducting and scoring direct observation. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate and establish a reliable, valid, and feasible direct-observation protocol capable of being transported to research and clinical settings. A total of 43 children with tic disorders, collected from two outpatient specialty clinics, were assessed using direct (videotape samples) and indirect (Yale Global Tic Severity Scale; YGTSS) methods. Videotaped observation samples were collected across 3 consecutive weeks and two different settings (clinic and home), were scored using both exact frequency counts and partial-interval coding, and were compared to data from a common indirect measure of tic severity (the YGTSS). In addition, various lengths of videotaped segments were scored to determine the optimal observation length. Results show that (a) clinic-based observations correspond well to home-based observations, (b) brief direct-observation segments scored with time-sampling methods reliably quantified tics, and (c) indirect methods did not consistently correspond with the direct methods.     

Comments on ‘A model of diffusion-induced grain boundary migration’ by T. K. Chaki

Abstract

Chaki (1988) has recently proposed a model for diffusion-induced grain boundary migration (DIGM). In his Letter he concluded that the interface energy of a grain boundary and the free energy of mixing are responsible for DIGM and, from the equations he derived, it was claimed that they can explain many DIGM experimental results. However, on examining his model closely there appear to be some fundamental difficulties. The following are comments on his Letter:

(1) In Chaki's calculation of ΔG_s he assumed that, after interface 1 had moved a distance δx, the radius of curvature of this interface increased from R to R + δx, which gives a surface energy drop of 2γV_m δx/R². However from many DIGM observations (for example Balluffi and Cahn (1981)) the curvature of a migrating boundary is increased rather then decreased, that is, the surface free- energy term actually prevents a grain boundary from migrating rather than helping it!

(2) Chaki considered ΔG_cryst during the migration of interface 2. It is also necessary to consider AGcrys, during the migration of interface 1, since within the migration distance δx the structure is changed from a crystalline structure to a grain boundary core structure. ΔG_m should also be considered during the migration of interface 2 since the concentration of the area swept by interface 2 will not be the same as that of a grain boundary core.     

Exercise type relates to inhibitory and error processing functions in older adults

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the association between exercise type and inhibition of prepotent responses and error detection. Totally, 75 adults (M = 68.88 years) were classified into one of three exercise groups: those who were regular participants in open- or closed-skill forms of exercise, and those who exercised only irregularly. The participants completed a Stroop and task-switching tasks with event-related brain potentials (ERPs) recorded. The results revealed that regular exercisers displayed faster reaction times (RTs) in the Stroop task compared with irregular exercisers. The open-skill exercisers exhibited smaller N200 and larger P300a amplitudes in the Stroop task compared with irregular exercisers. Furthermore, the open-skill exercisers showed a tendency of shorter error-related negativity latencies at the task-witching test. The findings suggest that older adults may gain extra cognitive benefits in areas such as inhibition functioning and error processing from participating in open-skill forms of physical exercises.