自闭症谱系障碍社交动机理论：机制及干预探索

自闭症谱系障碍(Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD)表现为社会交往困难以及重复刻板兴趣或行为。社交动机理论提出ASD个体是由于社交动机缺乏导致的社交障碍。目前该理论缺乏理论元素及结构关系的系统论证, 及基于此理论的低龄ASD儿童群体的研究证据。本研究拟采用心理实验法、眼动及近红外脑成像技术, 探索低龄ASD儿童早期社交奖赏、社交定向异常眼动标记及眶额叶脑区活动的神经机制。此外, 通过音乐奖赏强化学习的干预方式改善该理论的核心元素(社交奖赏), 观测能否改善ASD儿童的社交动机。本研究的开展有望对该理论进行系统验证, 并形成改善社交行为的潜在干预方案。     

Distress,wellbeing, and growth amidst COVID-19: Considering the dynamic interplay between positive and negative anticipatory emotions

Although negative anticipatory emotions are typically seen as risk factors for poorer psychological outcomes over COVID-19, emotion theorists suggest that this risk may be attenuated if balanced by the experience of positive emotion. Thus, the current study examined whether interactions between positive and negative anticipatory emotions were concurrently associated with psychological distress and greater personal wellbeing/posttraumatic growth (PTG) at three distinct periods (i.e., pre-lockdown, during lockdown, post-lockdown), and whether associations varied by these three COVID-19 time periods. The study utilizes two large longitudinal Australian samples, surveyed in 2020 prior to, during, and after a strict 4-month lockdown that occurred in Australia. Overall, positive emotions attenuated the adverse psychological outcomes arising from higher levels of negative emotion (i.e., higher psychological distress and lower personal wellbeing). Observed effects varied according to COVID-19 threat exposure. Specifically, the interaction was significantly associated with psychological distress prior to the lockdown for Sample 2, and during the lockdown for both samples. The interaction was significantly associated with wellbeing (Sample 2) prior to, and during, the lockdown but only marginally associated post-lockdown. The interaction, however, was not significantly associated with PTG (Sample 1). The results suggest that it is valuable for future research to consider greater emotional complexity (i.e., mixed emotions) over COVID-19, and other stressors more generally, to encompass a more nuanced understanding of resilience.     

Irrelevant behaviour,information processing and arousal homeostasis

Summary This paper expands a new hypothesis on the causal mechanisms underlying irrelevant behaviour. It begins with a critical summary of earlier theories which attempted to explain displacement activities, but failed to predict the consistency with which certain types of behaviour are shown in stressful situations by a variety of species. Behavioural and physiological studies suggest that these behaviour patterns are closely associated with the incipient activation of sleep. The functional significance of this link and some of the causal processes which may be responsible for it are discussed. Paradoxically, however, displacement activities occur when animals are in a state of high arousal. The concept of arousal is reconsidered in the light of information theory and assumed to be closely correlated with the information processing rate in the nervous system. The relationships between neural and autonomic arousal are considered in this context. It is argued that over-arousal may occur when information handling exceeds the limited channel capacity of the system, with a consequent loss of efficiency. It is pointed out that there are mechanisms capable of controlling the information influx into the brain, and it is hypothesized that they are tied up in a feedback mechanism which regulates arousal and which involves the activation of a de-arousal system, corresponding to the neurological sleep mechanism. Displacement activities are viewed as consequences of this regulatory activation of the sleep system. This hypothesis is then compared with existing theories of displacement and its relationship with them is discussed.

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Zusammenfassung Die Arbeit erweitert eine neue Hypothese über die kausalen Mechanismen, die dem übersprungverhalten zugrunde liegen. Sie beginnt mit einer kritischen Übersicht der früher vorgeschlagenen Theorien und zeigt auf, daß diese nicht die Beständigkeit, mit der gewisse Verhaltensweisen von einer Anzahl von Tierarten in Stress-Situationen gezeigt werden, erklären. Verhaltens- und physiologische Studien deuten an, daß diese Verhaltensweisen in einem engen Zusammenhang mit einer partiellen Schlafaktivierung stehen. Die funktionelle Bedeutung dieses Zusammenhanges und die möglichen physiologischen Mechanismen, die dafür verantwortlich sein könnten, werden diskutiert. Paradoxerweise werden aber Übersprungsverhalten dann gezeigt, wenn sich Tiere in einem gesteigerten Wachzustand befinden. In diesem Zusammenhang wird das Arousal-Konzept im Lichte der Informationstheorie neu beleuchtet und es wird angenommen, daß der Arousal-Zustand eines Tieres im engen Zusammenhang mit der jeweiligen Informationsverarbeitungsrate im Nervensystem steht. Die Verhältnisse zwischen neuralem und autonomischen Arousal werden diskutiert. Es wird vorgeschlagen, daß sich Überarousal dann einstellt, wenn die Informationsverarbeitungsrate die Kanalkapazität des Systems übersteigt mit einem sich daraus ergebenen Wirkungsgradverlust. Es wird darauf hingewiesen, daß es Mechanismen gibt, die den Informationsfluß in das Gehirn regeln und angenommen, daß diese innerhalb eines Rückkopplungssystems funktionieren, welches Arousal reguliert. Diese Regelung benötigt die Aktivierung eines Arousal herabsetzenden Systems, das in den neurologischen Schlafmechanismen besteht. Das Auftreten von Übersprungsverhalten wird als eine Konsequenz dieser regulatorischen Aktivierung des Schlafsystems angesehen. Die Hypothese wird dann mit den vorhandenen Übersprungsverhaltenstheorien verglichen.

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The research underlying this paper has been supported by grants from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research through the European Office of Aerospace Research, the Science Research Council and the Royal Society to Professor N. Tinbergen, F. R. S. and myself. It was partly carried out at the Department of Zoology, Oxford. I am grateful to Dr. S. A. Hillyard who by revising an earlier version contributed much to whatever merits this paper has.     

A near-death experience among the Mapuche people

This paper describes a possible near-death experience (NDE) among the Mapuche people of Chile. The individual reporting the experience was in a cataleptic-like state for two days, the experience itself occurring at the end of this period. Some common features of NDEs, such as encounters with deceased people and being sent back, are present, together with clear evidence that past and present cultural environment shape in part the content of mental experiences.This work was funded in part by the University of Chile (DTI Project Q-3064).The author thanks Editorial Andrés Bello for permissionto translate the near death account into English.     

On becoming a leader: Effects of gender and cultural differences on power distance reduction

The present research focused on power processes in a simulated organizational structure consisting of three hierarchical levels occupied by different numbers of mules and females. Subjects were presented with a chart showing the organizational hierarchy of which they were a member placed at the lowest level, and asked to nominate any person for the leader position vacated by the current incumbent. The results of Experiment I (n = 88 Dutch male and female university students) showed that male subjects strongly overnominated themselves, whereas a majority of the female subjects nominated either self or another female. Of the others that were nominated by both males and females, almost all were occupants of positions immediately below the leader position, indicating the normative influence of a bureaucratic rule of leader succession. Experiment 2 was a replicational study carried out in a different culture (n = lOl Polish male and female university students). Polish subjects adhered to the bureaucratic rule more strongly than their Dutch counterparts, and both females and males nominated mostly males. Results are discussed with reference to gender self-stereotypes and cultural differences.     

Promoting the Culturally Sensitive Diagnosis of Mexican Americans: Some Personal Insights

This article presents a series of personal guidelines for promoting the culturally sensitive psychiatric diagnosis of Mexican American/Chicano clients. These guidelines are primarily based on the authors' collective experiences in diagnosing and treating this population.     

Exposure-based models of human parsing: Evidence for the use of coarse-grained (nonlexical) statistical records

Several current models of human parsing maintain that initial structural decisions are influenced (or tuned) by the listener's or reader's prior contact with language. The precise workings of these models depend upon the grain, or level of detail, at which previous exposures to language are analyzed and used to influence parsing decisions. Some models are premised upon the use of fine-grained records (such as lexical cooccurrence statistics). Others use coarser measures. The present paper considers the viability of models based exclusively on the use of fine-grained lexical records. The results of several studies are reviewed and the evidence suggests that, if they are to account for the data, experience-based parsers must draw upon records or representations that capture statistical regularities beyond the lexical level. This poses problems for several parsing models in the literature.Aspects of this work were supported by ESRC grant No. R0023 4062 to Don Mitchell, by a Spanish Government grant DGICVT No. PB-92-0656-C04-02 to Fernando Cuetos, and by the Belgian National Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, of which Marc Brysbaert is a Research Associate. We are grateful to Chuck Clifton, Barbara Hemforth, Martin Pickering, Matt Traxler, and an anonymous reviewer-all of whom made helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper.     

Beyond belief bias: Reasoning from conceptual structures by mental models manipulation

Mental models constitute an alternative to the rule-based systems in the explanation of human reasoning (Johnson-Laird, 1983). In this paper, we claim that the concept of believability generally used to categorize content and context effects is of little use within a semantic theory. Thus, we propose the use of categories that are directly extracted from subjective relations among concepts within the reasoning problem. We demonstrate that manipulations based on this kind of categorization produce predictable patterns of responses in reasoning problems. We present two experiments to test our predictions, using conditional and syllogistic reasoning problems, and in both cases, we demonstrate the influence of conceptual knowledge not only in natural contexts, but also in experimentally created artificial contexts.     

An auto-adjusting shaping procedure

A variable interval (VI) schedule is described that automatically adjusts the programmed rates of reinforcement in accordance with the rates of responding of subjects during the two immediately preceding 30-sec time intervals. The schedule prescribes that as rate of responding decreases, programmed reinforcement rate increases, and that when rate of responding increases, reinforcement rate decreases. Thus, programmed reinforcement rate is adjusted continuously until some target value is reached. Ten rats were exposed to this procedure five times a day at 1-h intervals. The target, set at VI 120 sec, was reached by most subjects within 4 days of training. Subsequently, all subjects responded consistently during five daily 1-h sessions with VI 120 sec. This procedure speeds up the training of subjects on long VI schedules and substantially reduces the time and effort spent observing the subjects and adjusting the schedule parameter value during the early development of responding.