Exploring learners' self-efficacy, autonomy and motivation toward e-learning

A questionnaire survey was conducted with 116 college students (47 men, 69 women) in Central Taiwan to investigate predictive relationships among four attitudinal variables, perceived self-efficacy, learners' autonomy, intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation toward e-learning. Analysis showed learners' autonomy was predictive of both intrinsic (57% independent variance explained) and extrinsic motivation (61% independent variance explained). Although perceived self-efficacy was not a predictor of intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, it correlated significantly with extrinsic motivation.     

Evidence for auditory feature integration with spatially distributed items

Recent auditory research using sequentially presented, spatially fixed tones has found evidence that, as in vision for simultaneous, spatially distributed objects, attention appears to be important for the integration of perceptual features that enable the identification of auditory events. The present investigation extended these findings to arrays of simultaneously presented, spatially distributed musical tones. In the primary tasks, listeners were required to search for specific cued conjunctions of values for the features of pitch and instrument timbre. In secondary tasks, listeners were required to search for a single cued value of either the pitch or the timbre feature. In the primary tasks, listeners made frequent errors in reporting the presence or absence of target conjunctions. Probability modeling, derived from the visual search literature, revealed that the error rates in the primary tasks reflected the relatively infrequent failure to correctly identify pitch or timbre features, plus the far more frequent illusory conjunction of separately presented pitch and timbre features. Estimates of illusory conjunction rate ranged from 23% to 40%. Thus, a process must exist in audition that integrates separately registered features. The implications of the results for the processing of isolated auditory features, as well as auditory events defined by conjunctions of features, are discussed.     

Individual and sex differences in reminiscence

Inverted alphabet printing, rotary pursuit, and mirror tracking tasks were administered to 84 subjects in order to ascertain (a) reproducibility of reminiscence scores within and between tasks and (b)sex differences in reminiscence. With prerest performance levels held constant by second-order partial correlation procedures, reproducibility of individual reminiscence differences within tasks was significant but quite low, while predictability of reminiscence from one task to another was negligible. The sexes reminisced essentially alike on inverted alphabet printing, but females reminisced more than males on the other tasks, presumably because they were relatively more depressed by massed practice on these tasks. Thus, individual and sex differences were essentially task specific. Implications of results for reminiscence theories and for the credibility of alleged relationships between reminiscence and other organismic variables were discussed.     

Speed of simple arithmetic in bilinguals

Four types of bilinguals solved simple addition problems that were auditorily presented in their preferred language, the language in which they first learned arithmetic, or in their nonpreferred language. Subjects responded in the language in which the problems were presented. Solution time averaged .227 sec faster in the preferred language and was an increasing linear function of the number of addition operations required. The intercepts of the preferred and nonpreferred language functions significantly differed, but the slopes did not. The preferred language advantage was attributed to faster encoding and/or response times in the preferred language. When bilinguals used only one of their languages in a given experimental session, encoding/response times in the two languages were equivalent and the preferred language advantage was eliminated.     

Sulcus topography of the parietal opercular region: an anatomic and MR study

The study describes the sulcal and gyral topography, variability, and left-right asymmetry of the parietal operculum. Eighty postmortem hemispheres as well as sagittal magnetic resonance images from 20 health volunteers (40 hemispheres) were evaluated. Four different types of parietal opercular sulcus topography were recognized. Most frequently, and conforming with the anatomic "textbook pattern", the inferior postcentral sulcus (POCS) is the sulcus anterior to the posterior ascending ramus (PAR) of the Sylvian fissure (type 1). Variations were the following: lack of a PAR (type 2), interposition of an intermediate opercular sulcus and gyrus between PAR and POCS (type 3), and direct transition of PAR into POCS with subsequent lack of a classical supramarginal gyrus (type 4). Inconstancy of the sulcal standard arrangement was especially pronounced among left hemispheres, where the patterns differed from type 1 in one third of the cases. Types 2 and 3 were significantly more frequent in left hemispheres, whereas type 4 occurred significantly more frequently in right hemispheres. Upon intraindividual left-right comparison, a remarkable 38% of the brains showed gross asymmetry of the parietal opercular sulcus patterns, characterized by a left type 2 or 3 and/or a right type 4; another 5% exhibited a reverse type of asymmetry. The findings supplement previous data on gross variability and left-right asymmetry of the posterior Sylvian fissure and its lower bank. They indicate that the Sylvian fissure is an unreliable landmark with respect to inferior parietal structures especially in left hemispheres. Individual mapping of perisylvian topography may contribute to studies on structural-functional relationship.     

土家族还傩愿与祭虎

还傩愿是土家族民间普遍流行的文化现象,至今还残存于边远的土家山寨.土家族民间还傩愿与祭虎往往联系在一起,还傩愿时所敬奉的罗神公公和罗神娘娘就是虎的化身;跳摆手舞和玩茅谷斯等祭祀活动也有祭虎的内容.土家族还傩愿祭虎与彝族的跳老虎、土族的跳於兔一脉相承.此种文化现象缘于史前西北崇虎的氐羌族群的信仰.     

2004年我国大陆佛教研究综述

2004年的佛教研究,除继承了以往的研究特点外,又有了新的特色.下面即对此作一综述.供方家参考.     

大学生就业观念中的非理性信念

面对激烈的社会竞争,大学生的就业心态明显不成熟,存在许多非理性信念,严重影响正常的择业和就业,须引起广泛关注和重视。