The goal of consistency as a cause of information distortion

Why, during a decision between new alternatives, do people bias their evaluations of information to support a tentatively preferred option? The authors test the following 3 decision process goals as the potential drivers of such distortion of information: (a) to reduce the effort of evaluating new information, (b) to increase the separation between alternatives, and (c) to achieve consistency between old and new units of information. Two methods, the nonconscious priming of each goal and assessing the ambient activation levels of multiple goals, reveal that the goal of consistency drives information distortion. Results suggest the potential value of combining these methods in studying the dynamics of multiple, simultaneously active goals.     

Spatial-attention and emotional evocation: line bisection performance and visual art emotional evocation

Lesion studies demonstrate that the right temporal-parietal region (RTP) is important for mediating spatial attention. The RTP is also involved in emotional experiences that can be evoked by art. Normal people vary in their ability to allocate spatial attention, thus, people who can better allocate attention might also be more influenced by the emotional messages of the paintings (evocative impact). Seventeen healthy participants bisected an unlabeled 100mm line and their performance on this task was used to create two groups, individuals who were more (mALB) and less accurate (lALB). These participants also judged 10 paintings on five qualities, Evocative Impact, Aesthetics, Novelty, Technique, and Closure by marking a 100mm line from 1 (low degree) to 10 (high degree). An ANOVA indicated differences in accuracy on the line bisection (LB) between the two groups. Additional ANOVAs, using the quality ratings as the dependent measure, revealed that the mALB group scored the Evocative Impact greater than the lALB group. These results suggest that the differences in attentional bias between the two groups, as indicated by their LB performance, might influence their evocative impact or reactions and also be a 'barometer' of other RTP functions, including emotional processing.     

关于社会主义科技荣辱观的若干思考

随着科学技术的发展及其日益社会化,人们的思维方式、价值观念发生了变化,一些有违科技荣辱观的问题日益凸显。它们不仅败坏学术风气,损害我国科技界声誉,而且阻碍我国科学技术的进步,影响我国科教兴国战略的实施。因此,在当前建设社会主义核心价值体系、弘扬社会主义荣辱观的形势下和过程中,加强社会主义科技荣辱观的研究和建设,既十分紧迫,又非常重要。     

工作嵌入概述

工作嵌入是个体和组织内外所有与工作相关的情境之间所形成关系网络的密切程度,它从非主观和工作之外的因素入手,为我们理解组织行为提供了一个全新的视角。本文就工作嵌入的内涵、结构、理论背景展开阐述,并在对以往研究进行总结的基础之上,对未来的研究做出了展望。     

The origins of causal perception: evidence from postdictive processing in infancy

The currency of our visual experience consists not only of visual features such as color and motion, but also seemingly higher-level features such as causality--as when we see two billiard balls collide, with one causing the other to move. One of the most important and controversial questions about causal perception involves its origin: do we learn to see causality, or does this ability derive in part from innately specified aspects of our cognitive architecture? Such questions are difficult to answer, but can be indirectly addressed via experiments with infants. Here we explore causal perception in 7-month-old infants, using a different approach from previous work. Recent work in adult visual cognition has demonstrated a postdictive aspect to causal perception: in certain situations, we can perceive a collision between two objects in an ambiguous display even after the moment of potential 'impact' has already passed. This illustrates one way in which our conscious perception of the world is not an instantaneous moment-by-moment construction, but rather is formed by integrating information over short temporal windows. Here we demonstrate analogous postdictive processing in infants' causal perception. This result demonstrates that even infants' visual systems process information in temporally extended chunks. Moreover, this work provides a new way of demonstrating causal perception in infants that differs from previous strategies, and is immune to some previous types of critiques.     

DIVINING “DIVINE ACTION” IN THEOLOGY‐AND‐SCIENCE: A REVIEW ESSAY

The topic of divine action has been central to the theology‐and‐science discussion over the last twenty years. Some tentative conclusions are currently being drawn in light of research initiatives that have been engaged on this topic. I review three recent books that have responded in some way to the ongoing discussion. These responses show that, notwithstanding the advances made in the conversation, much work remains to be done before a plausible theory of divine action emerges at the interface of theology and science.     

Elucidating the neural correlates of egoistic and moralistic self-enhancement

Self-enhancement is the biasing of one’s view of oneself in a positive direction. The brain correlates of self-enhancement remain unclear though it has been reported that the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) may be important for producing self-enhancing responses. Previous studies have not examined whether the neural correlates of self-enhancement depend on the particular domain in which individuals are enhancing themselves. Both moralistic and egoistic words were presented to participants while transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied to the MPFC, precuneus or in a sham orientation. Participants were asked to make decisions as to the words describing themselves, some of which were positive and some of which were negative. It was found the MPFC TMS significantly disrupted egoistic self-enhancement when TMS was delivered to the MPFC. Judgments involving moralistic words were not influenced by TMS. These data provide further evidence that MPFC is involved in self-enhancement, and that the role of MPFC may be selective in this regard.     

《周易》古经义利观浅探

作为我国古代占卜之书的<易经>,隐含着对义利问题的思考.<易经>的义利观明显侧重谈利,更多是为满足最低生存欲望为基础而提出的,道德观念原始而简约.     

经皮肺活检对肺部病变的诊断价值

经皮肺活检技术应用已有100多年历史。随着影像技术的不断进步,目前已发展成为肺部疾病的重要诊断技术。本文综述了经皮肺活检对肺部病变的诊断价值。并探讨和比较了不同引导技术的特点,以及适应症、并发症及其处理。     

论构建和谐医患关系的社会责任

围绕近年来备受社会关注的医患关系,对当前医患关系不和谐的社会失责进行了分析,认为造成这种失责原因是医疗体制不合理、社会卫生保障制度不完善、医疗卫生改革滞后、医药市场存在严重弊端、医学人文教育不尽人意等。在此基础上,明确提出构建和谐医患关系的社会责任是要建立平等互惠的医患关系、完善和谐医患关系的制度建设、建立有效的社会监督体系、健全社会医疗保障体系、深化医疗卫生体制改革、加强对医患冲突的社会管理等。