Multiculturalism as a dimension of school climate: the impact on the academic achievement of Asian American and Hispanic youth

Multiculturalism constitutes an important element of school climate, but the relation between perceived multiculturalism and academic achievement has not been widely studied. This study examined the influence of students' perceptions of school support for multiculturalism on academic achievement among 280 Asian American and Hispanic youth, including ethnic identity and ethnocultural empathy as potential mediators. Results of structural equation modeling revealed that perceived multiculturalism was significantly positively related to ethnocultural empathy for Asian Americans and Hispanics, and that ethnocultural empathy, in turn, was predictive of academic achievement for Hispanics only. Results of bootstrapping to test for mediation effects revealed ethnocultural empathy to be a salient mediator for Hispanic youth. Although ethnic identity did not mediate the link between multiculturalism and academic achievement, ethnic identity was significantly predictive of achievement for Hispanics. On the whole, these findings suggest that fostering a school climate supportive of multiculturalism may improve empathy toward ethnic out-groups. Furthermore, schools that promote compassion and tolerance for diverse ethnic groups may achieve better academic outcomes among Hispanic youth.     

The attention-getting capacity of whines and child-directed speech

The current study tested the ability of whines and child-directed speech to attract the attention of listeners involved in a story repetition task. Twenty non-parents and 17 parents were presented with two dull stories, each playing to a separate ear, and asked to repeat one of the stories verbatim. The story that participants were instructed to ignore was interrupted occasionally with the reader whining and using child-directed speech. While repeating the passage, participants were monitored for Galvanic skin response, heart rate, and blood pressure. Based on 4 measures, participants tuned in more to whining, and to a lesser extent child-directed speech, than neutral speech segments that served as a control. Participants, regardless of gender or parental status, made more mistakes when presented with the whine or child-directed speech, they recalled hearing those vocalizations, they recognized more words from the whining segment than the neutral control segment, and they exhibited higher Galvanic skin response during the presence of whines and child- directed speech than neutral speech segments. Whines and child-directed speech appear to be integral members of a suite of vocalizations designed to get the attention of attachment partners by playing to an auditory sensitivity among humans. Whines in particular may serve the function of eliciting care at a time when caregivers switch from primarily mothers to greater care from other caregivers.     

创造力的脑结构与脑功能基础

从脑结构和脑功能两方面对创造力的脑神经基础进行了评述。就创造力的脑结构而言,尸体脑解剖研究表明创造力可能与顶叶与角回有关;活体脑结构成像研究则显示,创造力主要与额叶、扣带回以及皮下白质或灰质浓度有关。就创造力的脑功能而言,任务取向研究表明创造力任务主要激活了额叶和顶叶及少数其他皮层区域;而个体差异取向研究则表明创造力被试激活了右侧额叶、大脑皮层以及小脑的某些区域。未来研究需在加强脑结构影像研究基础上,注重从被试抽样和筛选等方面细化任务模式和个体差异模式的创造力研究,以获得更一致的结果。     

道德伪善的心理学研究述评

道德伪善(moral hypocrisy)是对道德知行脱离进行反思的产物, 反映了道德心理学和社会认知领域的最新进展。从社会学习理论、认知失调理论、社会影响理论和双加工理论四个理论来对道德伪善产生缘由进行了探讨, 并在此基础上对其产生机制进行了阐述。为了避免道德伪善的消极效应与不良后果, 进一步从个体和群体两个层面来探讨了道德伪善的影响因素。考虑到现实生活中过分强调道德伪善的负面价值, 研究积极地审视了道德伪善在诱导认知失调、塑造和培养亲社会行为以及促进组织发展等领域的应用。未来研究需在现有研究基础上, 进一步借鉴反应时和内隐测量技术来对道德伪善进行本土化和跨文化研究, 并对其应用性开展更深入和系统的探讨。     

评述一个新的类别学习模型:SUSTAIN

近些年来,对于类别学习的研究取得了长足的发展,研究者们已成功地构建了一系列类别学习理论与模型.本文在评述先前模型的基础上,介绍一个晚近的类别学习模型--SUSTAIN.阐述其运行原则和流程,以期对未来类别学习的研究提供参考和启发.     

视觉恐惧加工的神经通路

对危险信号的快速警觉具有生物学意义,研究发现视觉恐惧信号可以经过两条不同的通路传达杏仁核:一条直接的皮层下通路,另一条是间接的视觉皮层通路.最近三年(2004-2006)一批脑成像和电生理研究对此进行了深入探讨.本文以此为基础对两条通路的主要神经结构,神经传递的先后过程以及它们间的关系进行了详细的综述.     

农村留守儿童人格特征研究

留守儿童是我国社会转型期的产物,是新时期出现的特殊儿童群体.本文采用Y-G性格测验、学生团体主题统觉测验(G-TAT)和S-K克雷佩林心理测验方法,对江西玉山县242名农村留守儿童和一般儿童的人格发展进行调查,比较分析了留守儿童和一般儿童在人格特征方面存在差异,并从亲子关系角度尝试分析了导致这些人格特征差异的原因.     

全球一体与世界和谐

到今天为止的整个人类的历史是从分散的人群走向一体的世界和谐的历史.今天的人类应该追求世界一体化,但这种一体华应该是和谐主义的,而不应该是霸权主义的.世界走向和谐是世界各国利益的需要,也是人类整体生存、发展的需要.人类文明发展到今天,也为世界走向和谐提供了可能.首先,要增强整体意识,坚持世界中心主义、人类中心主义和博爱主义;其次,要强化世界组织的作用;第三,要扩大国际合作.     

Visual pattern memory requires foraging function in the central complex of Drosophila

The role of the foraging (for) gene, which encodes a cyclic guanosine-3',5'-monophosphate (cGMP)-dependent protein kinase (PKG), in food-search behavior in Drosophila has been intensively studied. However, its functions in other complex behaviors have not been well-characterized. Here, we show experimentally in Drosophila that the for gene is required in the operant visual learning paradigm. Visual pattern memory was normal in a natural variant rover (for(R)) but was impaired in another natural variant sitter (for(S)), which has a lower PKG level. Memory defects in for(S) flies could be rescued by either constitutive or adult-limited expression of for in the fan-shaped body. Interestingly, we showed that such rescue also occurred when for was expressed in the ellipsoid body. Additionally, expression of for in the fifth layer of the fan-shaped body restored sufficient memory for the pattern parameter "elevation" but not for "contour orientation," whereas expression of for in the ellipsoid body restored sufficient memory for both parameters. Our study defines a Drosophila model for further understanding the role of cGMP-PKG signaling in associative learning/memory and the neural circuit underlying this for-dependent visual pattern memory.     

Automatic evaluation of syntactic learners in typologically-different languages

Human syntax acquisition involves a system that can learn constraints on possible word sequences in typologically-different human languages. Evaluation of computational syntax acquisition systems typically involves theory-specific or language-specific assumptions that make it difficult to compare results in multiple languages. To address this problem, a bag-of-words incremental generation (BIG) task with an automatic sentence prediction accuracy (SPA) evaluation measure was developed. The BIG–SPA task was used to test several learners that incorporated n-gram statistics which are commonly found in statistical approaches to syntax acquisition. In addition, a novel Adjacency–Prominence learner, that was based on psycholinguistic work in sentence production and syntax acquisition, was also tested and it was found that this learner yielded the best results in this task on these languages. In general, the BIG–SPA task is argued to be a useful platform for comparing explicit theories of syntax acquisition in multiple languages.