Enhanced cognitive activity--over and above social or physical activity--is required to protect Alzheimer's mice against cognitive impairment, reduce Abeta deposition, and increase synaptic immunoreactivity

Although social, physical, and cognitive activities have each been suggested to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD), epidemiologic studies cannot determine which activity or combination of activities is most important. To address this question, mutant APP transgenic AD mice were reared long-term in one of four housing conditions (impoverished, social, social+physical, or complete enrichment) from 1(1/2) through 9 months of age. Thus, a stepwise layering of social, physical, and enhanced cognitive activity was created. Behavioral evaluation in a full battery of sensorimotor, anxiety, and cognitive tasks was carried out during the final 5 weeks of housing. Only AD mice raised in complete enrichment (i.e., enhanced cognitive activity) showed: (1) protection against cognitive impairment, (2) decreased brain beta-amyloid deposition, and (3) increased hippocampal synaptic immunoreactivity. The protection provided by enhanced cognitive activity spanned multiple cognitive domains (working memory, reference learning, and recognition/identification). Cognitive and neurohistologic benefits of complete enrichment occurred without any changes in blood cytokine or corticosterone levels, suggesting that enrichment-dependent mechanisms do not involve changes in the inflammatory response or stress levels, respectively. These results indicate that the enhanced cognitive activity of complete enrichment is required for cognitive and neurologic benefit to AD mice-physical and/or social activity are insufficient. Thus, our data suggest that humans who emphasize a high lifelong level of cognitive activity (over and above social and physical activities) will attain the maximal environmental protection against AD.     

Predictors of timed picture naming in Chinese

We report normative data collected from Mainland Chinese speakers for 232 objects taken from Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980). These data include adult ratings of concept familiarity, age of acquisition (AoA), printedword frequency, and word length (in syllables), as well as measures of rated visual complexity, image agreement, and name agreement. We then examined timed picture naming of these objects with native Chinese speakers in Beijing in two experiments using line drawings and colored pictures. In both experiments, the variables name agreement, rated concept familiarity, and AoA made significant independent contributions to naming latency in multiple regression analyses. We observed a correlation ofr=.85 between naming latency with line drawings and colored pictures and a reduced effect of image agreement on naming when colored pictures were presented. We discuss the implications of our findings for the study of lexical processing in Chinese. Normative data for 232 Chinese nouns may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive     

Age and culture modulate object processing and object—scene binding in the ventral visual area

Behavioral differences in the visual processing of objects and backgrounds as a function of cultural group are well documented. Recent neuroimaging evidence also points to cultural differences in neural activation patterns. Compared with East Asians, Westerners’ visual processing is more object focused, and they activate neural structures that reflect this bias for objects. In a recent adaptation study, East Asian older adults showed an absence of an object-processing area but normal adaptation for background areas. In the present study, 75 young and old adults (half East Asian and half Western) were tested in an fMR-adaptation study to examine differences in object and background processing as well as object—background binding. We found equivalent background processing in the parahippocampal gyrus in all four groups, diminished binding processes in the hippocampus in elderly East Asians and Westerners, and diminished object processing in elderly versus young adults in the lateral occipital complex. Moreover, elderly East Asians showed significantly less adaptation response in the object areas than did elderly Westerners. These findings demonstrate the malleability of perceptual processes as a result of differences in cohort-specific experiences or in cultural exposure over time.     

Do “mudsplashes” induce tactile change blindness?

The phenomenon of change blindness (the surprising inability of people to correctly perceive changes between consecutively presented displays), primarily reported in vision, has recently been shown to occur for positional changes presented in tactile displays as well. Here, we studied people’s ability to detect changes in the number of tactile stimuli in successively presented displays composed of one to three stimuli distributed over the body surface. In Experiment 1, a tactile mask consisting of the simultaneous activation of all seven possible tactile stimulators was sometimes presented between the two to-be-discriminated tactile displays. In Experiment 2, a “mudsplash” paradigm was used, with a brief irrelevant tactile distractor presented at the moment of change of the tactile display. Change blindness was demonstrated in both experiments, thus showing that the failure to detect tactile change is not necessarily related to (1) the physical disruption between consecutive events, (2) the effect of masking covering the location of the change, or (3) the erasure or resetting of the information contained within an internal representation of the tactile display. These results are interpreted in terms of a limitation in the number of spatial locations/events that can be consciously accessed at any one time. This limitation appears to constrain change-detection performance, no matter the sensory modality in which the stimuli are presented.     

汉字的视觉识别过程:对形码和音码作用的考察

本实验应用启动条件下的词汇判断法,探讨了字形和语音在汉字视觉识别过程中的作用。实验发现,当启动词中的某个成分字和目标字形状相似时,被试对目标字的反应速度显著加快,表明特征分析是汉字识别的必经阶段;启动词中的多音字不但会促进被试对和其适当读音相近的目标字的反应,而且会促进被试对和其不适当读音相近的目标字的反应。这就明,在到达心理词典之前,熟悉的中文字词的语音特征已经得到了自动的激活。     

楚简《太一生水》"托其名"考

楚简《太一生水》"托其名"之"名"是天地初开时的"混沌"名。"混沌"就是"清浊"或"清混"(也作"清浑"),即《太一生水》中之"青昏"。因此,""应厘定为"青昏"而非"请问"。"托其名"就是依照贵道——原道——循道——用道的逻辑理路循序演进,对宇宙生成过程进行逆向追述,上溯至天地的源头,因"青昏"之名,循"道"之字,以行"浑沌氏之术"。这是道家"推天理以明人事"思想的体现。     

Competence to make treatment decisions in anorexia nervosa: thinking processes and values

This paper explores the ethical and conceptual implications of the findings from an empirical study of decision-making capacity in anorexia nervosa. In the study, ten female patients aged 13 to 21 years with a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, and eight sets of parents, took part in semi-structured interviews. The purpose of the interviews was to identify aspects of thinking that might be relevant to the issue of competence to refuse treatment. All the patient participants were also tested using the MacCAT-T test of competence. This is a formalised, structured interviewer-administered test of competence, which is a widely accepted clinical tool for determining capacity. The young women also completed five brief self-administered questionnaires to assess their levels of psychopathology.The issues identified from the interviews are described under two headings: difficulties with thought processing, and changes in values. The results suggest that competence to refuse treatment may be compromised in people with anorexia nervosa in ways that are not captured by traditional legal approaches or current standardised tests of competence.     

听障学生与正常学生社会认知能力的比较研究

以配对比较的方法,通过观点采择、个性特征认知、故事复述等社会认知能力测验,考察听障学生与正常学生的社会认知能力的差异,结果表明:(1)在智力、年龄相同的情况下,听障学生的社会认知能力发展明显比正常学生迟缓;(2)听障学生与正常学生的社会认知能力不存在性别差异;(3)听障学生社会认知发展迟缓与其社会互动经验的缺乏有关联。     

Mathematical Intuition and Natural Numbers: A Critical Discussion Charles Parsons, Mathematical Thought and Its Objects, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008, xx + 378?pp

Charles Parsons’ book “Mathematical Thought and Its Objects” of 2008 (Cambridge University Press, New York) is critically discussed by concentrating on one of Parsons’ main themes: the role of intuition in our understanding of arithmetic (“intuition” in the specific sense of Kant and Hilbert). Parsons argues for a version of structuralism which is restricted by the condition that some paradigmatic structure should be presented that makes clear the actual existence of structures of the necessary sort. Parsons’ paradigmatic structure is the so-called ‘intuitive model’ of arithmetic realized by Hilbert’s strings of strokes. This paper argues that Hilbert’s strings, considered as given in intuition, cannot play the role Parsons assigns to them: the criteria of identity of these strings do not have the sharpness that Parsons wants to see in them, and Parsons inadvertently projects abstract structures into his ‘intuitive model’. This diagnosis is exemplified with respect to (a) Parsons’ distinction between addition and multiplication on the one hand and exponentiation on the other and (b) his analysis of arithmetical knowledge in simple cases like “7 + 5 = 12”. All in all, it is claimed that Parsons book contains many important insights with respect to, for example, different versions structuralism, the notion of “natural number” and its uniqueness, induction, predicativity and other things, for which he is rightly famous, but that his way of drawing on the notion of intuition leaves too many questions unanswered.     

剌佛与马礼逊在华传教事业之关系研究

剌佛是英国东印度公司驻广州商馆主席,马礼逊则是公认的基督教新教在中国传播的"开山始祖"。剌佛给予马礼逊在华事业多方帮助。可以说,马礼逊在华事业的开拓,与剌佛对其的鼎力相助是分不开的。但学界研究迄今尚付阙如。本文拟详加探究,祈望能补此方面研究之罅漏。