“非遗”视野下的塔尔寺酥油花

酥油花,是藏传佛教特有的供佛彩塑艺术,以青藏高原人民日常食用的酥油为原料,揉配鲜艳的矿物颜料,通过复杂精巧的技艺雕塑形成诸佛菩萨、人物、飞禽走兽、花鸟鱼虫、亭台楼阁等形象,内容多为佛教题材故事。青藏高原数以百计的格鲁派寺院,多会在每年的正月十五日这天供奉酥油花,但基本上都是单个的佛像和花草树木、动物的塑像,而塔尔寺的酥油花是成组的主题系列雕塑,技艺也更为精湛,因此脱颖而出备受关注。2006年塔尔寺酥油花成为我国第一批国家级非物质文化遗产项目。     

Difficult name,cold man: Chinese names,gender stereotypicality and trustworthiness

Names can play an important role in forming first impressions. While much of the literature has demonstrated how alphabet-based names influence impression formation, little is known about how character-based names (e.g., Chinese names) affect interpersonal trust. Across six studies, we demonstrated that a difficult-to-recognise Chinese name with less frequently used characters activated masculine perception, which in turn decreased trust in the name holder. The masculine inferences from difficult names were replicated across within-subjects (Study 1a and 1b) and between-subjects judgements and maintained irrespective of normative knowledge about difficult names as male names (Study 1c). The mediation of gender stereotypicality was manifested in both measured spontaneous gender inference (Study 2a and Study 2b) and manipulated gender information (Study 2c). The effects of recognisability on masculine and trust perceptions were independent of pronunciationability (Study 2b). This research extends previous research by revealing the implications of character-based names and pictographic language on the feeling-as-information theory, also in terms of interpersonal contexts.     

Children acquire the later‐greater principle after the cardinal principle

Many have proposed that the acquisition of the cardinal principle (CP) is a result of the discovery of the numerical significance of the order of the number words in the count list. However, this need not be the case. Indeed, the CP does not state anything about the numerical significance of the order of the number words. It only states that the last word of a correct count denotes the numerosity of the counted set. Here, we test whether the acquisition of the CP involves the discovery of the later‐greater principle – that is, that the order of the number words corresponds to the relative size of the numerosities they denote. Specifically, we tested knowledge of verbal numerical comparisons (e.g., Is ‘ten’ more than ‘six’?) in children who had recently learned the CP. We find that these children can compare number words between ‘six’ and ‘ten’ only if they have mapped them onto non‐verbal representations of numerosity. We suggest that this means that the acquisition of the CP does not involve the discovery of the correspondence between the order of the number words and the relative size of the numerosities they denote.     

Testing Variance Components in Linear Mixed Modeling Using Permutation

Abstract

Inference of variance components in linear mixed modeling (LMM) provides evidence of heterogeneity between individuals or clusters. When only nonnegative variances are allowed, there is a boundary (i.e., 0) in the variances’ parameter space, and regular inference statistical procedures for such a parameter could be problematic. The goal of this article is to introduce a practically feasible permutation method to make inferences about variance components while considering the boundary issue in LMM. The permutation tests with different settings (i.e., constrained vs. unconstrained estimation, specific vs. generalized test, different ways of calculating p values, and different ways of permutation) were examined with both normal data and non-normal data. In addition, the permutation tests were compared to likelihood ratio (LR) tests with a mixture of chi-squared distributions as the reference distribution. We found that the unconstrained permutation test with the one-sided p-value approach performed better than the other permutation tests and is a useful alternative when the LR tests are not applicable. An R function is provided to facilitate the implementation of the permutation tests, and a real data example is used to illustrate the application. We hope our results will help researchers choose appropriate tests when testing variance components in LMM.     

Retrospective revaluation in humans: Learning or memory?

The phenomenon of retrospective revaluation has posed considerable problems for many associative learning theories as it involves a change in the associative strength of a cue on trials on which that cue is absent. The present series of experiments pursues this idea of changes in associative strength between evoked representations of cues, in an effort to establish, de novo, an excitatory connection between two cues simultaneously activated in memory. Given the finding of Dwyer, Mackintosh, and Boakes (1998) that simultaneous activation of absent cues in the memory of rats resulted in learning comparable to that seen inretrospective revaluation, we expected that if retrospective revaluation was found in humans, then excitatory learning due to simultaneous activation would also be seen. This was not the case. The implications of our results are discussed in terms of Dickinson and Burke's (1996) modified SOP model and a version of McLaren's (1993) APECS network. We conclude that many of the effects attributed to learning in retrospective revaluation studies are better thought of as due to changes in the retrievability of items in memory.