"Remember where you last saw that card": children's production of external symbols as a memory aid

Four experiments examined the age at which children start to use external symbols to aid their memory and how external symbol use affects both their memory performance and information allocation strategies. In Experiment 1, children in Grades 1, 3, 5, and 7 played a memory card game (Concentration) twice, once with the opportunity to make notes to aid performance and once without the opportunity. Grades I and 3 students tended to produce nonmnemonic notations, whereas Grades 5 and 7 students were more likely to produce functional, adultlike notations that aided performance in the task. In Experiments 2a and 2b, unexpected removal of children's notations led to a decrease in performance. suggesting that the spontaneously produced notations were being used as an external store rather than as an aid to encoding information. Experiment 3 examined whether all information was placed in external storage or if some types of information remained in memory. Grade 7 students who had their notations unexpectedly taken away were able to recognize the identity of the cards they had previously seen but had more difficulty remembering their locations. They appeared to place the location information mainly in external storage while retaining the identity information in memory. These results suggest that in mid-childhood, children begin to distribute information actively between internal and external memory storage.     

Sex-specific finger-length patterns linked to behavioral variables: consistency across various human populations

In humans, as in nonhuman primates, the digits of the hands are similar in length during early fetal development. Subsequently, differentiation leads to a patter of unequal finger lengths, described by George as the finger-length pattern. Recent work by Manning and colleagues suggested that digit length patterns are due to early influences of sex hormones. Most importantly for psychology, such patterns might also relate to cognitive activities that are influenced by early organizing actions of sex hormones. The exciting possibility of having an easily measurable indicator of early action of sex hormones that relates to behavior led us to examine the universality of digit length patterns. With samples from Brazil, Canada, India, Turkey, and Korea, we showed that patterns of distal extent of finger tips are similar across different human populations. Consistent sex differences were found across the samples, showing that the index finger in males extends less far distally relative to the middle finger than is the case for females and that the difference in distal extent between index and ring fingers, relative to the middle finger, is smaller in females than in males.     

对我国高等医学教育学制与学位改革和发展的思考

通过对国内外医学教育学制与学位的比较,以及对我国目前试行的住院医师培训制度存在问题的分析,提出我国六年制培养医学硕士的模式;认为这有利于提高中国高等医学教育层次,有利于统一医学教育学制和学位,有利于国际交流;也为毕业生衔接新体制留下了接口。     

A new "fat face" illusion

We report a novel fat face illusion that when two identical images of the same face are aligned vertically, the face at the bottom appears 'fatter'. This illusion emerged when the faces were shown upright, but not inverted, with the size of the illusion being 4%. When the faces were presented upside down, the illusion did not emerge. Also, when upright clocks were shown in the same vertically aligned fashion, we did not observe the illusion, indicating that the fat illusion does not generalize to every category of canonically upright objects with similar geometric shape as a face.     

定位核心文化打造无双品牌——再论五台山需要包装

文化是旅游的灵魂,这一观点已成为人们的共识。旅游资源向旅游产品的转化,或对现有旅游产品的再度整合,实质是规划建设者对旅游资源(待整合的旅游产品也是一定意义上的旅游资源)的文化内涵或现有文化状态,进行挖掘、提炼或深化、创新的过程。它不但塑造或改变着景区(点)的外貌,更决定着景区(点)的品位、档次和持续发展的潜力。不但旅游客体要体现文化,作为旅游主体的游人追求的也是文化,所谓的求新求异,其实就是求新文化、求异文化、求精品文化。那些粗制滥造的景点和修一道栅栏围起一条山沟式的简易景点,是少人甚至无人问津的。同样,如果满…     

Children's moral evaluations of reporting the transgressions of peers: age differences in evaluations of tattling

The way children evaluate the reporting of peers' transgressions to authority figures was investigated. Participants, ages 6-11 years (N = 60), were presented with a series of vignettes, each of which depicted a child who committed either a minor transgression (such as not finishing the vegetables at lunch) or a more serious transgression (such as stealing from a classmate). Participants were asked to evaluate the decision of a child observer who either did or did not report the transgression to a teacher. Younger children considered reporting to be appropriate for both types of transgressions, but older children considered reporting to be appropriate for major transgressions only. Results are interpreted with reference to (a) a changing peer culture in which the social cost of reporting transgressions increases and (b) a developmental change in children's cognitive capabilities.     

JUMPING TOGETHER: A WAY FROM SOCIOBIOLOGY TO BIO‐SOCIO‐HUMANITIES

Sociobiology is a grand narrative of evolutionary biology on which to build unified knowledge. Consilience is a metaphorical representation of that narrative. I take up the same metaphor but apply it differently. I evoke the image of jumping together, not on solid ground but on the strong, flexible canvas sheet of a trampoline, on which natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities jump together. This image overlaps with the traditional East Asian way of understanding—that is, the “Heaven‐Earth‐Person Triad.” Using recent insights from cognitive science—metaphor, embodiment, and conceptual blending—I propose the alternative way of “bio‐socio‐humanities” to understand and experience the world.     

Chinese children's evaluations of white lies: weighing the consequences for recipients

This research examined how Chinese children make moral judgments about lie telling and truth telling when facing a “white lie” or “politeness” dilemma in which telling a blunt truth is likely to hurt the feelings of another. We examined the possibility that the judgments of participants (7-11 years of age, N = 240) would differ as a function of the social context in which communication takes place. The expected social consequences were manipulated systematically in two studies. In Study 1, participants rated truth telling more negatively and rated lie telling more positively in a public situation where telling a blunt truth is especially likely to have negative social consequences. In Study 2, participants rated truth telling more positively and rated lie telling more negatively in a situation where accurate information is likely to be helpful for the recipient to achieve future success. Both studies showed that with increased age, children’s evaluations became significantly influenced by the social context, with the strongest effects being seen among the 11-year-olds. These results suggest that Chinese children learn to take anticipated social consequences into account when making moral judgments about the appropriateness of telling a blunt truth versus lying to protect the feelings of another.     

情绪记忆编码增强效应的认知神经机制

相对于中性刺激,情绪信息在记忆的准确性和细节方面都会得到显著的增强,这种增强效应在编码阶段受到情绪效价和唤醒的影响。涉及到的脑区主要包括:双侧杏仁核、海马前部、海马回和前额叶皮层。杏仁核—内侧颞叶(MTL)系统支持唤醒信息的编码增强效应,反映的是情绪对记忆自动化的影响,属于自动加工,主要受情绪唤醒的调节;前额叶网络支持消极无唤醒信息的编码增强效应,对情绪信息的加工属于控制加工,主要受情绪效价的调节。     

靶刺激变换对情景知觉过程中注视控制的影响

研究考察了情景浏览过程中靶刺激变换对注视控制的影响,运用了眼动记录技术。实验采用2(靶刺激位置:左、右)×2(变换方式:增加靶刺激、删除靶刺激)的重复测量设计。结果发现:(1)靶刺激变换方式对靶刺激所属兴趣区首次注视启动时间存在显著性影响,并对靶刺激所属兴趣区的前3次注视持续时间产生影响;(2)靶刺激位置属性对兴趣区首次注视启动时间、前3次注视持续时间均不存在显著影响。结果表明,与靶刺激增加相比,靶刺激的删除更易引起被试的优先注意,而且会抑制首次注视过程中的信息提取。