ERP correlates of language-specific processing of auditory pitch feedback during self-vocalization

The present study investigated whether the neural correlates for auditory feedback control of vocal pitch can be shaped by tone language experience. Event-related potentials (P2/N1) were recorded from adult native speakers of Mandarin and Cantonese who heard their voice auditory feedback shifted in pitch by −50, −100, −200, or −500 cents when they sustained the vowel sound /u/. Cantonese speakers produced larger P2 amplitudes to −200 or −500 cents stimuli than Mandarin speakers, but this language effect failed to reach significance in the case of −50 or −100 cents. Moreover, Mandarin speakers produced shorter N1 latencies over the left hemisphere than the right hemisphere, whereas Cantonese speakers did not. These findings demonstrate that neural processing of auditory pitch feedback in vocal motor control is subject to language-dependent neural plasticity, suggesting that cortical mechanisms of auditory-vocal integration can be shaped by tone language experience.     

Teaching Engineering Ethics using BLOCKS Game

The aim of this study was to investigate the use of a newly developed design game called BLOCKS to stimulate awareness of ethical responsibilities amongst engineering students. The design game was played by seventeen teams of chemical engineering students, with each team having to arrange pieces of colored paper to produce two letters each. Before the end of the game, additional constraints were introduced to the teams such that they faced similar ambiguity in the technical facts that the engineers involved in the Challenger disaster had faced prior to the space shuttle launch. At this stage, the teams had to decide whether to continue with their original design or to develop alternative solutions. After the teams had made their decisions, a video of the Challenger explosion was shown followed by a post-game discussion. The students’ opinion on five Statements on ethics was tracked via a Five-Item Likert survey which was administered three times, before and after the ethical scenario was introduced, and after the video and post-game discussion. The results from this study indicated that the combination of the game and the real-life incident from the video had generally strengthened the students’ opinions of the Statements.     

Effects of level of processing on emotional memory: gist and details

The object of this study was to investigate whether level of processing (LOP) modulates enhanced memory performance for emotional stimuli, and, if so, whether the LOP effects relate to their gist and details. During the study phase, participants were presented with colourful pictures with negative, neutral and positive valences and encoded the emotional pictures under either a semantic (living/non-living judgement) or a perceptual (left/right position judgement) condition. During the test phase, they judged whether the presented picture was old or new in Experiments 1 and 2, and also judged whether a specific concept, labelled using words, had been studied in Experiment 2. The results showed that under both encoding conditions, the details of both negative and positive pictures were recognised better than those of neutral pictures. Also, the gist of negative pictures was recognised better than that of neutral pictures but only under the semantic condition. These data provide evidence that the LOP differentially modulates enhanced emotional memory for gist and details of pictures.     

汉字部件及其位置的发展研究

选取小学二年级、五年级学生和大学生对汉字部件及其位置的发展进行了研究。结果表明,汉字部件的发展在3个年级表现出一致的趋势。部件位置的发展趋势不一致,它在小学五年级阶段表现出更重要的作用。     

超越传统：动态进化心理学研究进展

立足于基本适应目标与决策原则的功能分析,致力于心理过程多维度的动态考察,动态进化心理学在坚持适应主义原则基础上,将基因与经验、环境同时纳入心理发展解释框架,更为彻底地贯彻了有机体与环境交互作用观,在一定程度上克服了传统进化心理学的局限。但由于忽略社会实践的作用,它所展示的更多的是生物学意义上的人的发展图景,对心理过程的动态分析亦难以挣脱形而上学的桎梏。     

代谢综合征：动脉粥样硬化危险因素的聚集

代谢综合征是动脉粥样硬化危险因素的聚集状态,包括肥胖、高血压、血糖异常、血脂紊乱等,共同的病理基础是肥胖和胰岛素抵抗。高胰岛素血症、脂肪因子、高血糖、血脂异常和高血压导致内皮细胞损伤和血管炎症,促进动脉粥样硬化发展。提高对代谢综合征的认识有助于从整体观念出发防治肥胖带来的相关疾病。     

平板运动试验心脏变时功能不全对冠心病的诊断价值

为探讨平板运动试验(treadmill exercise testing,TET)心脏变时功能不套(chronotropic incompetence,CI)对冠心病(coronary heart disease,CHD)的诊断价值,分析112例临床拟诊冠心病患者,先后均行TET及冠状动脉造影检查(coronary angiography,CAG),并按CAG结果分为CHD组和非CHD组,分析比较两组间心脏变时性指标;并对传统的ST标准、CI指标及两项指标联合诊断冠心病的敏感性、特异性、准确性进行比较.运动后最大心率小于预测最大心率的85％和变时性指数(chronotropic response index,CRI)小于0.8为心脏变时功能不全.结果表明CHD组运动后最大心率、CRI两种变时功能不全的指标均低于非CHD组(P＜0.01);与传统的ST段标准相比,CI指标诊断CHD的敏感性、特异性、准确性无明显差异(P＞0.05),而两项指标联合诊断冠心病的敏感性与传统的ST段标准相近,特异性及准确性显著高于传统ST标准,差异有统计学意义(P＜0.05).故CI指标是诊断CHD的重要价值的指标,可以提高TET对CHD的诊断率.     

当今高校新生的主要心理问题及辅导策略

为深入认识当今高校新生的心理问题,探究学生辅导策略,本研究用SCL-90对来自全国各地的6619名2004级江西高校新生做深入调查,发现新生群体的心理问题广泛存在,强迫症状尤其严重,并具体分析了心理问题的社会、教育及新生自身等多方原因,还进一步提出了提高自觉性、强化针对性和增强协调性的学生辅导策略。     

Culture and systems of thought: holistic versus analytic cognition

The authors find East Asians to be holistic, attending to the entire field and assigning causality to it, making relatively little use of categories and formal logic, and relying on "dialectical" reasoning, whereas Westerners are more analytic, paying attention primarily to the object and the categories to which it belongs and using rules, including formal logic, to understand its behavior. The 2 types of cognitive processes are embedded in different naive metaphysical systems and tacit epistemologies. The authors speculate that the origin of these differences is traceable to markedly different social systems. The theory and the evidence presented call into question long-held assumptions about basic cognitive processes and even about the appropriateness of the process-content distinction.     

Career maturity and state anxiety of Taiwanese college student athletes given cognitive career-oriented group counseling

In this study, the extent to which a cognitive career-based group counseling program might promote career maturity and decrease state anxiety among student athletes was investigated at two business colleges in Taiwan. 80 male and female participant volunteers, averaging about 19 years of age, were divided into control and treatment groups in each college. The treated group was given instruction. Analysis indicates that treated students exhibited overall lower mean state anxiety than the nontreated group. However, no significant treatment group differences were detected among participants' career maturity scores. The results raise important questions regarding the ways in which institutions of higher education seek benefit from student athletes' physical talents, e.g., increased name recognition, yet often do not prepare them for their careers postgraduation.