County-Level Basics of Living Affects Overall Mortality Rate in the United States – 2000

Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory proposed that there is a hierarchy of human needs, which range from the basics of survival to creativity. Building from Maslow's idea, this paper examines the first level of human needs and empirically constructs a basics of living (BOL) index for every United States county from 28 candidate factors. The final BOL Index includes nine measures of air, water, and income. This study examined whether county-level health would be poor if the BOL were not met. Findings showed a positive correlation between the BOL index and all cause mortality, the fewer BOL, the worse the all cause mortality. Strikingly, poor BOL is most often found in small jurisdictions (<25,000 population) and less often in larger jurisdictions (>150,000 population). In the mapping of the BOL index, areas of greatest need can be observed and in multivariate modeling, highest overall mortality is regional. The BOL index predicts a substantial amount of variation observed in county overall mortality and is independent of county poverty and quality of life.     

Inpatient suicide in a Chinese psychiatric hospital

Little is known about the risk factors for suicide among psychiatric inpatients in China. In this study we identified the risk factors of suicide among psychiatric inpatients at Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital. All psychiatric inpatients who died by suicide during the 1956-2005 period were included in this study. Using a case-control design, 64 inpatients with schizophrenia who died by suicide were compared with a matched 64 controls. The results indicate that the rate of suicide was 133.1/100,000 admissions (95%CI 103.4-162.9). There were no significant differences in the method, location, or time of suicide between male and female inpatients. The number of hospitalizations was significantly larger in the suicide group than that in the control group. In logistic regression analyses, guilty thought, depressive mood, and suicidal ideation and suicide attempt 1 month before hospital admission were identified as independent predictors of suicide among inpatients with schizophrenia. The findings of risk factors for schizophrenic inpatient suicide should be taken into account when developing interventions to prevent suicide among these patients.     

早期天师道斋法的美学研究

关于道教斋醮,学术界和道教界已在思想和仪轨方面研究得较为深入.如柳存仁的论文<五代到南宋时的道教斋醮>考察了斋醮的历史和特点. 陈耀庭的研究论文:<上海道教斋醮和"进表"科仪概述>、<论"先天斛食济炼幽科"仪的历史发展及其社会思想内容>、<论道教仪式的结构--要素及其组合>,系统地提出了在仪式研究中的结构分析和层次分析的研究方法,在学术上取得了突破性进展.     

5～8岁儿童失言探测与理解的发展特点

失言探测与理解是一种融入了人际互动,需要个体体会交往双方心理感受的高级心理理论任务.本研究采用图片-故事法探讨失言情境(他人对自我、自我对他人和他人对他人 )对5～8岁儿童失言探测与理解的影响.结果发现,7～8岁儿童基本拥有了失言探测与理解能力,6、7、8岁儿童在所有情境下失言探测和理解能力同步发展,而5岁儿童在他人对自我情境下失言探测与理解的成绩显著好于自我对他人情境下的成绩,提示失言探测与理解能力在不同阶段会表现出不同的发展特点.     

Talking about others facilitates theory of mind in Chinese preschoolers

A longitudinal study and a training study were conducted to show that simply referring to others facilitated theory of mind (ToM) development in Chinese children. In Study 1, 3- to 4-year-old Chinese children (N = 52) were tested on ToM and autobiographical memory (AM). One year later, in the group of children who initially failed the false belief tasks, only those who increased their references to others in AM recall passed the tasks. In Study 2, Chinese preschoolers who were trained to talk about others through storytelling showed improvement in their ToM performance. These findings suggest alternative pathways for ToM development in non-Euro-American context.     

Pictorial superiority effects in oldest-old people

We examined memory for pictures and words in middle-age (45-59 years), young-old (60-74 years), old-old (75-89 years), and the oldest-old adults (90-97 years) in the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study. Stimulus items were presented and retention was tested in a blocked order where half of the participants studied 16 simple line drawings and the other half studied matching words during acquisition. Free recall and recognition followed. In the next acquisition/test block a new set of items was used where the stimulus format was changed relative to the first block. Results yielded pictorial superiority effects in both retention measures for all age groups. Follow-up analyses of clustering in free recall revealed that a greater number of categories were accessed (which reflects participants' retrieval plan) and more items were recalled per category (which reflects participants' encoding strategy) when pictures served as stimuli compared to words. Cognitive status and working memory span were correlated with picture and word recall. Regression analyses confirmed that these individual difference variables accounted for significant age-related variance in recall. These data strongly suggest that the oldest-old can utilise nonverbal memory codes to support long-term retention as effectively as do younger adults.     

4~7岁儿童绘画摹写的语义编码特点

以二维模型为主对儿童绘画编码特点及发展进程的探讨。研究对象为4—7岁儿童,按年龄分为4组,共163人。主要实验有二：一是选择同一实物的三维和二维两类模型让被试摹写;二是选择语义熟悉程度和语义多寡不同的二维模型让被试摹写。个别实验,实验顺序随机安排。研究结果表明：儿童对维度不同的模型绘画编码具有共同的特点,表现出三种编码形式：其一,将模型的各构件分离,各自独立编码;其二,依模型的典型特征编码;其三,按各模型真实形象编码。儿童对不同维度模型绘画编码发展的进程不同。对二维模型绘画编码水平和发展速度比三维模型提早1年。模型语义的多寡及熟悉程度影响儿童二维模型绘画编码。     

线索有效性对儿童返回抑制的影响

采用通常的线索—靶子实验,来考察不同的线索有效性对儿童返回抑制的影响。所用的外源性线索分高有效性、低有效性和非信息性三类。儿童被试在实验中的任务为觉察圆形光点后即按键反应,记录反应时。结果表明,7岁、9岁和11岁儿童在高有效性和非信息性线索条件下均出现返回抑制;但7岁和9岁儿童在低有效性线索条件未出现返回抑制,而11岁儿童则出现。这些儿童的实验结果有别于成人。结果提示,7岁、9岁和11岁儿童的返回抑制是在外源性线索的作用下自动出现的,具有反射性质;但7岁和9岁儿童的返回抑制仍受线索有效性的制约,而11岁儿童返回抑制的发展已不受线索有效性的影响。     

儿童心理理论能力中的情绪理解

情绪理解是儿童心理理论能力中的一个重要组成部分,它在人们的社会交往中具有不容忽视的作用。按Tager-Flusber和Sullivan提出的心理理论两成分模型,它属于心理理论的社会知觉成分,先于社会认知成分出现;但是随着儿童年龄的增长,社会知觉成分与社会认知成分越来越难以分离。情绪理解可分为几个不同的层次：简单情绪的理解;和愿望、信念有关的情绪理解;复杂情绪的理解;情绪调节。该文综述了近20年来心理理论中有关儿童情绪理解的研究,对该领域的研究在方法上和内容上提出了可能的发展方向。