Should subjects be forewarned of the possible psychological consequences of filling out a PTSD questionnaire?

In 1993 Albach investigated the long-term consequences of sexual abuse on psychological health. A group of abused women a a control group of nonabused women were asked to fill in a questionnaire assessing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For ethical reasons, the abused women were warned that filling in the questionnaire might be emotionally stressful. The control group did not receive this warning. The abused women scored higher on the questionnaire than the nonabused women. The warning they received may have influenced their reports. Our experiment investigated this. 101 psychology students were divided into two groups, one who received a warning and a control group who did not. The hypothesis was that people who had been previously warned would score higher on a PTSD questionaire than people who had not. There were, however, no significant differences in mean PTSD scores and no known initial differences between groups.     

The development of children's rule use on the balance scale task

Cognitive development can be characterized by a sequence of increasingly complex rules or strategies for solving problems. Our work focuses on the development of children's proportional reasoning, assessed by the balance scale task using Siegler's (1976, 1981) rule assessment methodology. We studied whether children use rules, whether children of different ages use qualitatively different rules, and whether rules are used consistently. Nonverbal balance scale problems were administered to 805 participants between 5 and 19 years of age. Latent class analyses indicate that children use rules, that children of different ages use different rules, and that both consistent and inconsistent use of rules occurs. A model for the development of reasoning about the balance scale task is proposed. The model is a restricted form of the overlapping waves model (Siegler, 1996) and predicts both discontinuous and gradual transitions between rules.     

Neuropsychological findings of extrapontine myelinolysis without central pontine myelinolysis

Central pontine myelinolysis (CPM) and extrapontine myelinolysis (EPM) are well recognized syndromes related to the rapid correction of hyponatremia, which are reported to show brain stem signs and various movement disorders. Cognitive dysfunction and neuropsychological findings, however, have seldom been reported. Cognitive manifestations in osmotic myelinolysis may have been underestimated due to the prominent brain stem symptoms and movement disorders. We report a case of EPM without CPM and describe the neuropsychological findings of EPM. The absence of CPM in this case made it possible to test neuropsychological function in the acute stage. Neuropsychological testing showed severe impairment of attention, verbal and visual memory, visuospatial function, and frontal/executive function. Language and language-related functions were normal except naming.     

《穆勒评注》中的交往异化:马克思的转折点——马克思《詹姆斯·穆勒《政治经济学原理》一书摘要》研究

迄今为止,人们往往把《巴黎手稿》的异化理论归结为异化劳动.而实际上它决不仅仅指《第一手稿》中的异化劳动,还指《穆勒评注》中的交往异化.交往异化是马克思走出孤立人的自我异化逻辑,走向复杂的社会关系逻辑的关键环节,也是马克思建构社会概念以及唯物史观的前提.因此,交往异化在思想水平上高于异化劳动,《穆勒评注》在理论上也比《第一手稿》成熟,我们应该遵循《第一手稿》在前《穆勒评注》在后的文献学顺序解读《巴黎手稿》.如果说马克思在其早期思想发展过程中有一次根本性转变的话,《穆勒评注》就是这次转变的转折点.     

市民社会与中国慈善组织的发育

本文把慈善组织的发育置于社会结构转型和社会福利制度改革的背景之下,探讨了市民社会与中国慈善组织发育之间的关系,认为慈善组织的发育是中国市民社会成长的重要标志。但在当前市民社会发育不足的背景下,在构建以政府责任为主、以社会化服务为辅的社会福利体制改革的过程中,慈善组织的发育受制于政府自上而下的推动,政府应当在慈善立法、弘扬慈善文化、组织管理和财政支持等方面发挥作用。     

认知年老化与执行衰退假说

在认知年老化领域,执行衰退假说是近年来新兴的一种理论。执行衰退假说在理论上具有很强的吸引力,但在实证研究中却存在很多困难,如执行功能的可分离性问题,执行功能测量的信度和效度问题,以及执行功能与加工速度的关系问题。目前,该领域研究的焦点是：在行为学水平上,控制一般性因素（加工速度）后,执行功能是否仍对认知年老化起重要的中介作用;在神经水平上,执行（额叶）功能随龄的变化情况,以及在认知年老化过程中,额叶在大脑功能重组中扮演的角色。最终实现对认知年老化的理解,需要将认知功能与大脑结构联系起来;既看到广泛存在的共同的基本机制,又不能忽略不同认知结构的选择性变化。     

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。     

A procedure for studying online conversational processing using a chat bot

This article reports the development of a tool for examining the social and cognitive processes of people involved in a conversational interaction. Research on how people process utterances while they are actually engaged in an interaction has been extremely rare. To that end, we have developed a conversational bot (computer program designed to mimic human communication) with which participants can chat in a format similar to instant messaging. This program allows for the recording of comprehension speed, and it can be interfaced with secondary tasks (e.g., lexical decisions) in order to examine online conversational processing. Additional research possibilities with this program are discussed.     

What is “the ineffable” exactly?

“The ineffable” in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is an essential term that has various interpretations. It could be divided into two types, namely, positive and negative, or real and fake. The negative or fake type can be clarified by logical analysis, while the positive or real type can be understood only through philosophical critique. Both the positive and negative types consist of infinity or absoluteness, but the infinity is subject to distinctions in meaning and logic. __________ Translated from Zhexue Yanjiu 哲学研究 (Philosophical Researches), 2005, (8): 64–68