An event-related potential evaluation of involuntary attentional shifts in young and older adults

Involuntary shifts in attention to irrelevant stimuli were studied in elderly and young volunteers during a dichotic-listening task. Event-related potentials and behavioral measures were recorded. Volunteers heard pairs of tones presented with 2 different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). To-be-ignored tones were presented to the left ear, followed by to-be-attended tones to the right ear. Left-ear tones were a frequent standard (700 Hz) and an infrequent small (650 Hz) and large (500 Hz) deviant. Right-ear tones (1500 Hz) were presented with 2 equiprobable intensities. Volunteers responded to the lower intensity stimulus. Behavioral performance was impaired at the short SOA when to-be-ignored large deviants preceded to-be-attended targets, but more so for the elderly volunteers. Large deviants also elicited the mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a for both age groups. It was concluded that the more impaired behavioral performance observed for the elderly was due to greater sensitivity to output from the MMN system by a frontal lobe system responsible for the maintenance of attentional focus.     

Attributional Style and Personality as Predictors of Happiness and Mental Health

This paper contains two studies which set out to examine to what extent attributional style (internal, stable, global) and personality traits predicted happiness and psychiatric symptoms in a normal, non-clinical, population of young people in their early twenties. Two hundred and three participants completed five questionnaires: the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) (version one & version two), Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Oxford Happiness Inventory, and Langner 22-Item Measure. Sample 1 (n = 120) completed ASQ version one (in both positive and negative situations) and sample 2 (n = 83) completed ASQ version two (in expanded negative situations). Regressional analysis showed that ASQ (in both versions) was the significant predictor of happiness and mental health accounting for 20% to 38% of variances. The ASQ was significantly associated with extraversion and neuroticism. Further, with happiness and mental health as dependent variables and attributional style, personality traits, and demographic variables as independent variables respectively, extraversion and attributional stability (in positive situations) were the significant predictors of happiness accounting for 59% of the total variance whilst neuroticism and psychoticism were the significant predictors of mental health accounting for 53% of the total variance. The results indicated that optimistic attributional style in positive situations was a stronger predictor of self-reported happiness than mental health and pessimistic attributional style in negative situations was a predictor of both happiness and mental health. Extraverts tended to have optimistic explanatory style for positive outcomes whereas neurotics tended to have pessimistic explanatory style for negative outcomes.     

When is a cause the "same"? Coherent generalization across contexts

Two competing psychological approaches to causal learning make different predictions regarding what aspect of perceived causality is generalized across contexts. Two experiments tested these predictions. In one experiment, the task required a judgment regarding the existence of a simple causal relation; in the other, the task required a judgment regarding the existence of an interaction between a candidate cause and unobserved background causes. The task materials did not mention assessments of causal strength. Results indicate that causal power (Cartwright, 1989; Cheng, 1997) is the mental construct that people carry from one context to another.     

小学生快速阅读的眼动研究

用自然实验和实验室实验考察了对小学四年级学生进行快速阅读训练的有效性,结果发现：（1）快速阅读训练可以显著地提高小学生的有效读速;（2）快速阅读训练可以显著减少注视次数、注视点平均持续时间;（3）快速阅读训练可以显著扩大眼跳距离。     

《管子》忠思想研究

忠,是中国传统政治文化的重要内容之一。在"忠"思想发展史上,《管子》的贡献就在于对前人"忠"思想做了批判总结,并以儒家思想为基本出发点,对"忠"做了新的界定,使得原本内涵相当丰富的"忠"思想在这里开始出现围绕"君"之事进行定向思考的倾向,从而为未来"忠=忠君"做了理论上的准备。     

个人偏好与社会公德

个人偏好是人的个性中能够表现出来的比较稳定的特征.社会公德作为全社会的基础道德共识,发挥着调节人际关系、限制和引导个人偏好、维护公共利益的职能.个人偏好的自发性和随意性、自我中心的潜在价值取向、偏离"常规"的行为方式等,不可避免地导致对公共秩序的侵蚀.适时更新社会公德规范,使其符合人性化的发展要求;适度限制和矫正个人偏好,使其向维护公共秩序的方向发展,有机协调二者的内在冲突,是建设和谐社会的内在要求,也是实现人的全面发展的必然趋势.     

从诠释学看墨辩研究的逻辑学范式

This article describes the logic paradigm in the “Mobian” 墨辩 (the debate theory of the Mohist school) investigation from the point of view of hermeneutics, discloses the relationship between the overinterpretation tradition in China and the logic paradigm in the “Mobian” investigation, observes the overinterpretation of the “Mobian” by the creators and supporters of the logic paradigm from Liang Qichao and Hu Shi to the modernists, including mathematical logicians, and analyzes Shen Youding’s reflections on the logic paradigm in his later life. Translated by Huang Deyuan (proofread by Hsiung Ming) from Xueshu Yanjiu 学术研究 (Academic Research Journal), 2005, (1): 49–56     

The role of information presentation formats in belief updating

The effects of the format by which information is presented on the cognitive processes of belief updating were investigated in the present research. Because of the differences in the affordance of verbal vs. numerical information, it is predicted that the belief updating processes involved in processing verbal and numerical information would be different. Specifically, the additive rule is used to combine information using verbal formats, while the averaging rule is used to combine information using numerical formats. Two experiments were conducted to test these hypotheses. Experiment 1 tested the belief updating process in the positive direction, and Experiment 2 tested the process in the negative direction. Two independent variables were manipulated: information presentation format (verbal vs numerical) and presentation order (strong–weak vs weak–strong). The participants were asked to adjust their purchase likelihood of a consumer product based on the sequential presentations of two experts' opinions. These two opinions varied in their formats (verbal vs. numerical) and strengths (strong vs weak). The two opinions were presented in either the strong–weak order or the weak–strong order. Participants were instructed to first anchor their purchase likelihood at 50%, and then adjust the purchase likelihood, first based on the first expert's opinion, and second based on both experts' opinions. In both experiments the hypotheses that participants employed an additive rule to integrate verbal information and an averaging rule to integrate numerical information were supported.     

Immediate emotion-enhanced memory dependent on arousal and valence: The role of automatic and controlled processing

The phenomenon that emotional stimuli are better remembered than neutral ones is called emotion-enhanced memory (EEM). Previous studies have shown that both valence and arousal of stimuli contributed to EEM. Kensinger and Corkin (2004) proposed that the EEM dependent on arousal was associated with automatic encoding processes, whereas the EEM dependent on valence was associated with controlled encoding processes. Their experiment with negative words provided some evidence for this associative pattern. However, it is unclear whether the observed association that occurred with negative emotional stimuli could be replicated with positive emotional stimuli. To further examine this issue, two experiments were conducted to investigate the immediate EEM of emotional words in three different attention conditions using a divided attention (DA) paradigm. Results indicated that the immediate EEM dependent on valence was associated with controlled processing, while the immediate EEM dependent on arousal was not always associated with automatic processing. The immediate EEM dependent on arousal for negative stimuli was associated with automatic processing, whereas the immediate EEM dependent on arousal for positive stimuli was associated with controlled processing. Therefore, the immediate EEM dependent on arousal, whether it is associated with automatic or controlled processing, is moderated by the valence of stimuli.