Bimodal emotion congruency is critical to preverbal infants’ abstract rule learning

Extracting general rules from specific examples is important, as we must face the same challenge displayed in various formats. Previous studies have found that bimodal presentation of grammar‐like rules (e.g. ABA) enhanced 5‐month‐olds’ capacity to acquire a rule that infants failed to learn when the rule was presented with visual presentation of the shapes alone (circle‐triangle‐circle) or auditory presentation of the syllables (la‐ba‐la) alone. However, the mechanisms and constraints for this bimodal learning facilitation are still unknown. In this study, we used audio‐visual relation congruency between bimodal stimulation to disentangle possible facilitation sources. We exposed 8‐ to 10‐month‐old infants to an AAB sequence consisting of visual faces with affective expressions and/or auditory voices conveying emotions. Our results showed that infants were able to distinguish the learned AAB rule from other novel rules under bimodal stimulation when the affects in audio and visual stimuli were congruently paired (Experiments 1A and 2A). Infants failed to acquire the same rule when audio‐visual stimuli were incongruently matched (Experiment 2B) and when only the visual (Experiment 1B) or the audio (Experiment 1C) stimuli were presented. Our results highlight that bimodal facilitation in infant rule learning is not only dependent on better statistical probability and redundant sensory information, but also the relational congruency of audio‐visual information. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KYTyjH1k9RQ     

Culture and the Structure of Affect: A Bifactor Modeling Approach

This paper tested the impact of culture on the basic structure of affect. It examined positive affect and negative affect at three levels of activation in the U.S. and China. It used a well-suited tool, the bifactor model, to separate the common variance shared by all types of affect from the variance unique to each. The findings indicate that the structure of affect is different cross-culturally. In the U.S., the most fundamental dimension is defined by moderate activation of positive affect and negative affect, which is the largely bipolar dimension of pleasure-displeasure, whereas in China, it is defined by moderate activation of positive affect only, which is pleasure. In both cultures, negative affect across levels of activation forms another important dimension. Beyond these basic dimensions, secondary dimensions are also identified in both cultures: high activation positive affect, low activation positive affect, and low activation negative affect. They form relatively weak unique factors, independent of the two basic dimensions, suggesting that they are largely mixtures of the basic dimensions.     

Common magnitude representation of fractions and decimals is task dependent

Although several studies have compared the representation of fractions and decimals, no study has investigated whether fractions and decimals, as two types of rational numbers, share a common representation of magnitude. The current study aimed to answer the question of whether fractions and decimals share a common representation of magnitude and whether the answer is influenced by task paradigms. We included two different number pairs, which were presented sequentially: fraction–decimal mixed pairs and decimal–fraction mixed pairs in all four experiments. Results showed that when the mixed pairs were very close numerically with the distance 0.1 or 0.3, there was a significant distance effect in the comparison task but not in the matching task. However, when the mixed pairs were further apart numerically with the distance 0.3 or 1.3, the distance effect appeared in the matching task regardless of the specific stimuli. We conclude that magnitudes of fractions and decimals can be represented in a common manner, but how they are represented is dependent on the given task. Fractions and decimals could be translated into a common representation of magnitude in the numerical comparison task. In the numerical matching task, fractions and decimals also shared a common representation. However, both of them were represented coarsely, leading to a weak distance effect. Specifically, fractions and decimals produced a significant distance effect only when the numerical distance was larger.     

再探框架对风险决策行为的影响

期望理论运用Ｓ状的价值函数和非线性的权重函数来解释和预测框架效应。“齐当别”抉择模型将不同框架下的抉择行为简单地看成是“最好可能结果之间的取舍”或者“最坏可能结果之间的取舍”。本研究设计了一“匹配”技术,并用此对作者所报告过的支持框架效应与不支持框架效应的选择问题加以再检验。实验表明,采用不同的框架并不能预测性地决定不同的抉择偏爱,而匹配结果所示的“齐当别”策略则能更好地对所收集到的有关框架效应的数据作出解释。     

共情的认知神经研究回顾

共情是指个体对他人情绪和想法的感受及理解,它在人类个体和社会的发展中起到了重要作用。近年来,脑成像技术为研究共情的神经基础提供了有力的技术支持,发现了共情的关键功能脑区。基础与临床的实验证据表明,更好地理解共情的神经机制对于孤独症、反社会人格等精神障碍有重要的意义。该文对相关的研究进行了综述并对未来可能的研究方向提出了展望     

患者隐私杈的法学思考

结合法学理论、医疗实践和目前患者隐私权的法律保护现状,就侵权行为、民事责任的认定以及隐私权的限制等问题予以理论阐释,并提出了切实可行的保护措施,如建立健全相关法律法规、医务人员要增强法律保护意识等,以期为患者隐私权的保护提供有益的参考。     

《管子》生态伦理思想及其当代启示

《管子》生态伦理思想具有丰富而深刻的内涵,“天人相分”与“天人合一”的天人观,“道为物要”与“德润万物”的伦理观,“人君天地”与“人与天调”的实践观。其深刻的精神理念对我们今天的生态文明建设具有重要的借鉴意义。这些启示我们应从强化生态意识、加强生态制度建设、实施行为生态化建设、坚持生态化修养建设等方面加强生态文明建设。     

基于分部评分模型思路的多级评分认知诊断模型开发

基于分部评分模型的思路, 本文提出了一般化的分部评分认知诊断模型(General Partial Credit Diagnostic Model, GPCDM), 与国际上已有的基于分部评分模型思路的多级评分模型GDM (von Davier, 2008)和PC-DINA (de la Torre, 2012)相比, GPCDM的Q矩阵定义更加灵活, 项目参数的约束条件更少。Monte Carlo实验研究表明, GPCDM模型的参数估计精度指标RMSE介于[0.015, 0.043], 表明估计精度尚可; TIMSS (2007)实证数据应用研究表明, 与GDM和PC-DINA模型相比, GPCDM与该数据的拟合度更好, 并且使用GPCDM分析该数据的诊断效果也更优。总之, 本研究提供了一种约束条件更少、功能更为强大的多级评分认知诊断模型。     

自我损耗：理论、影响因素及研究走向

自我的活动消耗心理能量后引起执行功能下降的过程称为自我损耗, 自我损耗是生活中诸多的适应不良现象的原因之一。近几年, 自我损耗理论在发生领域、损耗状态的时限和内在机制等方面均有所发展; 对自我损耗影响因素的探究主要集中于认知、情绪及人格特质等领域; 自我损耗后效的研究逐渐呈现出应用化的趋势。未来研究需要进一步探究自我损耗的机制, 对影响因素和损耗后效上存在的争议进行澄清, 并在测量工具上寻找突破以满足理论的发展需求。     

Eye-contact perception in schizophrenia: relationship with symptoms and socioemotional functioning

Accurately perceiving self-referential social signals, particularly eye contact, is critical to social adaptation. Schizophrenia is often accompanied by deficits in social cognition, but it is unclear whether this includes gaze discrimination deficits. This study investigated whether eye-contact perception is preserved or impaired and if it is related to symptoms and broader socioemotional functioning in schizophrenia. Twenty-six participants with schizophrenia (SCZ) and 23 healthy controls (HC) made eye-contact judgments for faces in varying gaze direction (from averted to direct in ten 10% increments), head orientation (forward, 30° averted), and emotion (neutral, fearful). Psychophysical analyses for forward faces showed that SCZ began endorsing eye contact with weaker eye-contact signal and their eye-contact perception was less of a dichotomous function, as compared with HC. SCZ were more likely than HC to endorse eye contact when gaze was ambiguous, and this overperception of eye contact was modulated by head orientation and emotion. Overperception of eye contact was associated with more severe negative symptoms. Decreased categorical gaze perception explained variance of socioemotional deficits in schizophrenia after taking basic neurocognition into consideration, suggesting the relationship was not solely due to a general deficit problem. These results were discussed in relation to the nature of categorical gaze perception and its significance to clinical and functional presentations of schizophrenia.