Developmental and sex-related differences in preschoolers' affective decision making

This study investigated developmental and sex-related differences in affective decision making, using a two-deck version of Children's Gambling Task administered to 3- and 4-year-old children. The main findings were that 4-year-old children displayed better decision-making performance than 3-year-olds. This effect was independent of developmental changes in inductive reasoning, language, and working memory. There were also sex differences in decision-making performance, which were apparent only in 3-year-old children and favored girls. Moreover, age predicted awareness of task and the correlation between the latter and decision-making performance was significant, but only in 4-year-old children. This study thus indicates that there is a remarkable developmental leap in affective decision making, whose effects are apparent around the age of 4, which according to our results, also marks the age when the correlation of declarative knowledge and decision-making performance becomes significant.     

阳光书系 《不信仰宗教者:现代无神论的演进》

<正>在这本书中,现代无神论包括怀疑论、世俗主义和无神论。可以认为,前者是无神论的广义用法,后者是狭义用法。该书揭示,无神论曾经是少部分人的观点,目前越来越多的科学家、哲学家、政治家以及诸多名流倾向无神论。为什么昔日小范围私谈的世俗主义,变成了富有挑战性、但切实可行的哲学世界观,如今越来越占据主流?这本简明的著作,追溯了现代无神论近一百五十年的历史。十九世纪初,一批知识分子公开怀疑长期占统治地位的传统基督教信仰,作者考察了赫胥黎、J.M.穆尔、尼采、马克·吐温等思     

A new high-pressure phase transition in a zirconium-niobium alloy

It is reported for the first time that a g M y transformation can be induced in a g -stabilized zirconium alloy subjected to shock pressure. The y phase formed in the g matrix has been found to have a plate shape akin to martensitic plates. The lattice correspondence between the g and y structures has been found to be the same as that produced by thermal treatment. The formation of the plate-shaped y phase is explained in terms of a mechanism involving shear on <112> planes of the bcc lattice and the mechanical instability of the g phase.     

Extending the expanded model of organizational identification to occupations

We extend Kreiner and Ashforth's (2004) research on the expanded model of organizational identification to the occupational level of self. A survey of 251 customer service representatives from an Indian call center indicates that occupational identification, occupational disidentification, ambivalent occupational identification, and neutral occupational identification are empirically differentiable. Further, each form of identification in the expanded model was related to certain predictors from a set of ten situational and individual difference variables, and to certain outcomes from a set of five adjustment variables. The differing patterns of antecedents and outcomes for each form of occupational identification suggest that each form constitutes a relatively unique phenomenon.     

Active but not consistent: dietary behaviour and the stages of change model

In Stages of Change studies on dietary fat, standard algorithms allocate many respondents to the maintenance stage and their stage allocations are not always supported by objective criteria. In defining the preparation stage standard instruments emphasise inactivity allied to confident intention to change. In contrast Lamb and Joshi's (1996) staging instrument emphasises inconsistent effort, and thereby allocates inconsistently active respondents to preparation when a standard instrument might place them in action or maintenance. In the current cross-sectional study 375 respondents completed a standard algorithm, the Lamb and Joshi instrument and a 24-hour recall food diary. They also gave judgements of their current weight and diet. Unlike the standard instrument, the Lamb and Joshi instrument: (a) allocated fewer respondents to action/maintenance, (b) discriminated key behavioural stages by percent fat in diet, and (c) captured non-linear discontinuities in the respondents’ weight and diet self-perceptions. Such discontinuities in the psychosocial processes are predicted by the transtheoretical model, and support the claim that its stages are categorically distinct rather than artificially isolated points on a continuum. Distinguishing between respondents who describe themselves as consistently active and those who describe themselves as inconsistently active may help to overcome some apparent problems in the application of the transtheoretical model to behavioural change.     

The influence of skin tone, hair length, and hair colour on ratings of women's physical attractiveness, health and fertility

The present study investigated the role of skin tone, hair colour and hair length in perceptions of women's physical attractiveness, health and fertility. One-hundred and thirty men and 112 women rated a series of 12 line drawings that varied in three levels of skin tone, two levels of hair colour and two levels of hair length. Results showed a number of interactions between the three variables, suggesting that these phenotypes are highly intercorrelated. However, there were also significant main effects of each of the variables, with hair colour generally explaining the greatest amount of variance. In general, light-toned figures were rated the most positively. Contrary to expectations, however, brunettes were rated more positively than blondes, and hair length had only a weak effect on ratings of attractiveness. Implications of these findings and the limitations of the use of line drawings are discussed in conclusion.     

Whose Decision is it? Organ Donation Attitudes Among Young UK South Asians

A questionnaire study examined organ donor card holding rates and attitudes to organ donation among young adult British South Asians and Whites attending institutions of higher education in the UK. There were 382 respondents (166 male, 216 female, average age 21.8 years): 107 Indian (Hindu or Sikh), 104 Pakistani/Bangladeshi (Muslim) and 171 White (Christian or of no religion). Overall, 33% of White but only 9% of South Asian respondents had a donor card. Among Whites, only 6% thought their parents would find it emotionally very upsetting to discuss organ donation, and of the White card holders 70% had told their parents that they had a card. In contrast 18% of Indians and 52% of Pakistanis/Bangladeshis thought that their parents would find it emotionally very upsetting to discuss organ donation, and only 39% of South Asian card holders had told their parents that they had a card. Finally, 41% of White, 54% of Indian and 91% of Pakistanis/Bangladeshi respondents doubted that they would take steps to obtain an organ donor card. White respondents proffered inertia as the main explanation for their not being likely to get a card. The factors underlying South Asian respondents not planning to obtain a card were more varied and included disinterest, emotional distaste, family opposition and religion. These reasons can be interpreted as relating to an interdependent conception of self and donor decisions being a family as well as an individual matter.     

The traveling salesman problem: A hierarchical model

Our review of prior literature on spatial information processing in perception, attention, and memory indicates that these cognitive functions involve similar mechanisms based on a hierarchical architecture. The present study extends the application of hierarchical models to the area of problem solving. First, we report results of an experiment in which human subjects were tested on a Euclidean traveling salesman problem (TSP) with 6 to 30 cities. The subject's solutions were either optimal or near-optimal in length and were produced in a time that was, on average, a linear function of the number of cities. Next, the performance of the subjects is compared with that of five representative artificial intelligence and operations research algorithms, that produce approximate solutions for Euclidean problems. None of these algorithms was found to be an adequate psychological model. Finally, we present a new algorithm for solving the TSP, which is based on a hierarchical pyramid architecture. The performance of this new algorithm is quite similar to the performance of the subjects.     

Patterns of limb apraxia in primary progressive aphasia

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a syndrome characterized by a progressive language deficit without other dementia features for at least two years (). Other deficits that are likely to co-exist with aphasia, such as apraxia, have only been investigated in a few case studies and only at a rudimentary level for the most part. In this study we investigate the frequency and severity of apraxic deficits in PPA patients. Ten PPA patients and twelve aged-matched healthy adults performed eight transitive gestures to pantomime and to imitation. Gesture performance was measured along five movement dimensions and a composite score based on the arithmetic mean of the five dimensions was calculated. Overall, PPA patients performed worse than controls with both pantomime and imitation. Furthermore, individual comparisons revealed that out of the three apraxia patterns described by (pantomime alone, imitation alone, or apraxia in both conditions), the most frequent pattern in PPA patients was apraxia in both conditions. This result corresponds with previous findings in populations of stroke and Alzheimer's patients. Considering the occurrence of apraxia in this population, this study supports the idea that a comprehensive apraxia assessment should be administered in cases of PPA.