Does the processing fluency of a syllabus affect the forecasted grade and course difficulty?

Processing fluency is known to affect a variety of cognitive assessments, but most research has not examined such effects in the context of a real-life experience. In the first experiment, college students, enrolled in either a statistics or cognitive psychology course, read a course syllabus which varied in the clarity of its font and frequency of its vocabulary. Based on the syllabus, students then forecasted their final course grade and the course's difficulty. Despite methodological similarity to other fluency experiments and adequate statistical power, there were no significant differences in forecasts across fluency conditions. Fluency may be discounted in a task which provides information that affects people's lives. This interpretation was bolstered by a second experiment whose participants were students in a statistics course. These students read the cognitive course's syllabus and forecasted better grades and less difficulty in the cognitive course when the font of the syllabus was more clear than unclear.     

瓜蒌皮与前列地尔预处理对心肌缺血再灌注的影响

探讨瓜蒌皮和前列地尔预处理对心肌缺血再灌注的作用机制.通过建立SD大鼠心肌缺血再灌注的模型,采用Tunel法检测组织样本细胞凋亡和免疫组化法检测bax,bcl-2,caspase-3的蛋白表达情况进行研究.结果显示,瓜蒌皮和前列地尔半剂量联合组的凋亡细胞数、Bax和caspase-3的蛋白表达量较其他各实验组均明显降低,Bcl-2的表达量升高,且有统计学意义(P＜0.05);瓜蒌皮单用药组也表现为凋亡细胞数、Bax和caspase-3的表达量降低,Bcl-2的表达量升高,但程度不如两组联合用药组.实验可以证明细胞凋亡发生在心肌缺血/再灌注损伤中,瓜蒌皮可对心肌缺血/再灌注起保护作用,并且与前列地尔联合后更有利于对心肌细胞的保护作用.     

The sense of agency during skill learning in individuals and dyads

The sense of agency has received much attention in the context of individual action but not in the context of joint action. We investigated how the sense of agency developed during individual and dyadic performance while people learned a haptic coordination task. The sense of agency increased with better performance in all groups. Individuals and dyads showed a differential sense of agency after initial task learning, with dyads showing a minimal increase. The sense of agency depended on the context in which the task was first learnt, as transfer from joint to individual performance resulted in an illusory boost in the sense of agency. Whereas the quality of performance related to the sense of agency, the generated forces to achieve the task did not. Our findings are consistent with a predictive model account at the perceptual level, such that the sense of agency relies most strongly on sharable perceptual information.     

Is There a Home Choke in Decisive Playoff Basketball Games?

Previous studies (Baumeister & Steinhilber, 1984 Baumeister, R. F. 1984. Choking under pressure: Self-consciousness and paradoxical effects of incentives on skillful performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46: 610–620. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Schlenker, Phillips, Boniecki, & Schlenker (1995a) Schlenker, B. R., Phillips, S. T., Boniecki, K. A. and Schlenker, D. R. 1995a. Championship pressures: Choking or triumphing in one's own territory?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68: 632–643. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] have found conflicting results regarding whether home teams have an advantage or not in athletic performance. We conducted two studies to explore the effects of basketball teams playing at home in playoff competition. We archived more than fifty years of National Basketball Association (NBA) playoff data, extending previous research to include a longer range of time and broader sample of NBA playoff games. We also extended previous studies by archiving a unique sample of college playoff basketball competition. Results are discussed in terms of both theoretical and applied implications. In sum, we found virtually no evidence of a home choke and strong evidence in favor of a home court advantage.     

A Modeling Study of Potential Sources of Curvature in Human Reaching Movements

The authors of this article suggest that the slight but consistent posture-dependent curvature of the spatial paths in the kinematic transformation between intrinsic and extrinsic coordinates may result in a systematic curvature of movements initially planned as straight-line trajectories toward the target. A kinematic planning model is presented that takes into account the anisotropy of the intrinsic and extrinsic transformation and tends to avoid movements that require excessive joint rotations by introducing slight deviations from a straight-line trajectory. Preliminary simulations showed reasonably good agreement with experimental data, especially considering that the current model is strictly based on kinematics. A quantitative analysis showed that the strategy used in the model achieves a favorable compromise between straight-line movements and angular joint changes: By slightly increasing the spatial length of the movement (i.e., by introducing curvature), an individual can greatly reduce the total amount of joint rotation required to produce the movement.     

Deconstructing the better-than-average effect

The tendency for people to evaluate themselves more favorably than an average-peer--the better-than-average effect (BTAE)--is among the most well-documented effects in the social-psychological literature. The BTAE has been demonstrated in many populations with various methodologies, and several explanations have been advanced for it. Two essential questions remain conspicuously unanswered in the BTAE literature. The first concerns the extent to which the BTAE can be represented as a social-comparative phenomenon, and the second concerns the role that strategic motivational processes play in self versus average-peer judgments. With regard to the first question, Study 1 provides direct experimental evidence that self versus average-peer judgments are made relationally rather than independently and, further, that self-ratings anchor these relational judgments. Moreover, Study 1 demonstrates that the consequence of this comparison is for judgments of average to be assimilated toward, not contrasted from, self-ratings. Studies 2-4 provide evidence that self-enhancement motives play a moderating role in the outcome of self versus average-peer judgments. We show that for dimensions on which the self is positively evaluated, enhancement motives restrict the extent to which average-peer assimilation occurs (Study 2). But for dimensions on which the self is negatively evaluated, enhancement motives amplify average-peer assimilation (Studies 3 and 4). Discussion focuses on the function of such differential assimilation, the relation of the current findings to extant perspectives, and directions for future research.     

环境基因组计划(EGP)对预防医学发展的影响

1998年美国正式启动环境基因组计划,该计划旨在探讨环境－基因的交互作用,寻找对环境因素损伤的易感基因及环境反应基因的多态性在疾病病因和发病过程中的作用,因而该计划的实施将对预防医学的发展产生重要的影响。     

A Systematic Review of the Relationship Between Rumination and Suicidality

Rumination has been persistently implicated in the etiology of hopelessness and depression, which are proximal predictors of suicidality. As a result, researchers have started to examine the role of rumination in suicidality. This systematic review provides a concise synopsis of the current progress in examining the relationship between rumination and suicidality, and highlights areas for future research. A search of the international literature was conducted using the three main psychological and medical databases. Eleven studies were identified providing evidence, with one exception, of a relationship between rumination and suicidality. This review also highlights the considerable dearth of studies on this area of concern, specifically of case‐control and prospective, clinical studies, in the worldwide literature.     

尼可地尔与前列地尔预处理对大鼠心肌缺血再灌注的影响

研究尼可地尔、前列地尔及两药物联合应用预处理对心肌缺血再灌注中的影响,探究其作用机制.采用Tunel法检测心肌组织的凋亡情况,免疫组化法检测Bax、Bcl-2和caspase-3的蛋白表达情况.结果显示尼可地尔和前列地尔半剂量联合组细胞凋亡数、Bax和caspase-3的表达量均明显低于其他给药组(P＜0.05),Bcl-2的表达量明显高于其他给药组(P＜0.05);尼可地尔和前列地尔单给药组细胞凋亡、Bax、caspase-3表达均有降低,Bcl-2表达升高,但效果不及联合用药半剂量组.以此得出结论尼可地尔和前列地尔的联合用药效果较好,可加强对心肌的保护作用.