前额皮层肾上腺素能受体在工作记忆中的作用

前额皮层去甲肾上腺素能神经支配主要来自脑干蓝斑核。前额皮层存在不同类型的肾上腺素能受体。其中突触后α2及β2肾上腺素能受体的激活提高工作记忆;α1及β1肾上腺素能受体的激活损害工作记忆。不同受体是通过激活不同的信号通路发挥对工作记忆的调节作用。来自人类被试的研究结果与对动物的研究结果之间尚存在不一致。了解前额皮层不同肾上腺素受体的作用为开发治疗与前额皮层功能失调相关疾病的药物提供了新的方向。     

网格细胞在空间记忆中的作用

网格细胞存在于内嗅皮层,具有显著的空间放电特征,并呈现出网格图样的放电结构。近年来网格细胞的发现及其功能研究,为深入阐释空间记忆的神经机制开辟了新的视角。本文详细介绍了网格细胞的发现、神经解剖学联系及空间放电特征;通过网格细胞与位置细胞的对比分析,阐释网格细胞利用自身运动信息进行空间编码的机制,以及在空间记忆中所发挥的路径整合器功能。     

自我超越价值观对持久幸福感的作用及机制

追求幸福是人类社会永恒的主题。价值观对个体的发展起引导作用,与幸福感密切相关。认同自我增强价值观,即关注个人利益,可以让人体验到波动的幸福感,表现为短暂快乐和消极情绪的交替循环;认同自我超越价值观,即切实关心他人利益和福祉,则可以让人拥有持久的幸福感,表现为一种持续的充实、和谐、宁静的状态。就作用机制而言,认同自我超越价值观的个体可能对自我威胁信息有较少的防御性反应,体验到更多的社会关系导向的情绪,激发更多的亲社会行为,从而获得持久的幸福体验。未来的研究可采用多种方法和手段考察自我超越价值观对持久幸福感的作用,系统探讨二者之间的其他潜在机制,并通过开展自我超越价值观教育形成良好的社会心态。     

因果关系及典型性程度对类别特征推理的影响

采用学习―测试二阶段实验范式,探讨了因果关系及典型性程度对类别特征推理的影响。研究结果表明:(1)因果关系影响类别特征推理任务;(2)典型性程度影响类别特征推理任务;(3)类别特征间存在因果关系的前提下,原因特征维度值与典型性程度间存在交互作用。典型性程度对不含原因特征的项目的特征推理影响是有限的。     

Characteristics of 12th-grade students seriously deficient in spatial ability

When spatial ability was regressed on a measure of general intelligence in a large national sample of 12th-graders, there was a distinct downturn in the regression line at about -2 SD units. A bimodal distribution of spatial ability was found among these low scoring students, suggesting 2 qualitatively different types of individuals. Relative to students of expected spatial ability, those below expected in spatial ability were high on verbal skills and low on performance skills. Students unexpectedly low in spatial ability performed relatively well on cognitive tests that required answering unambiguous questions by retrieving information directly from long term memory, whereas they performed relatively poorly on tests requiring inference and perception of relations among novel stimuli. Students unexpectedly low in spatial ability performed especially poorly at tests involving visual-spatial perception skills. Results were similar for both sexes. The relatively poor performance of those unexpectedly low in spatial ability does not appear to be related to health problems, personality, interest differences, or biographical data. An organic impairment possibly related to lateralization represents a reasonable causal hypothesis for these data.     

Counting knowledge and skill in cognitive addition: a comparison of normal and mathematically disabled children.

The relationship between counting knowledge and computational skills (i.e., skill at counting to solve addition problems) was assessed for groups of first-grade normal and mathematically disabled (MD) children. Twenty-four normal and 13 MD children were administered a series of counting tasks and solved 40 computer-administered addition problems. For the addition task, problem-solving strategies were recorded on a trial-by-trial basis. Performance on the counting tasks suggested that the MD children were developmentally delayed in the understanding of essential and unessential features of counting and were relatively unskilled in the detection of certain forms of counting error. On the addition task, the MD children committed many more computational errors and tended to use developmentally immature counting procedures. The immature counting knowledge of the MD children, combined with their relatively poor skills at detecting counting errors, appeared to underlie their poor computational skills on the addition task. Suggestions for future research are presented.     

Suicide risk among persons with foreign background in Denmark

There is a dearth of knowledge about factors correlated with suicide risk among minority groups in Western societies. In the present study we compared suicide risk among persons with foreign background with that of the majority population to determine whether certain minority groups are at a particular risk for suicide, as well as to illuminate gender differences herein. Suicide risk was generally higher among persons with foreign background compared with the majority population and the risk was highest among Nordic-born persons. Overall, suicide risk was significantly lower among Asian-born persons; however, there were gender differences in correlations between ethnicity and suicide risk.     

Owning leads to valuing: Meta-analysis of the mere ownership effect

Mere ownership effect is the phenomenon that people tend to value what they own more than what they do not own. This classic effect is considered robust, yet effect sizes vary across studies, and the effect is often confused for or confounded with other classic phenomena, such as endowment or mere exposure effects. We conducted a pre-registered meta-analysis of 26 samples published before 2019 (N = 3024), which resulted in psychological ownership on valuing effect of g ∼ 0.57 [0.46, 0.69]. Suggestive moderator analyses supported the use of replica as the strongest moderators. Mere ownership effects were different from the null across all moderator categories and in most publication bias adjustments. We consider this as suggestive evidence that psychological owning leads to valuing, yet caution that much more research is needed. All materials, data, and codes are available on https://osf.io/fdyqw/ .     

An adaptive reference/test paradigm: Application to pulsed fluoroscopy perception

We developed an adaptive forced-choice method whereby reference and test presentations were alternated in order to minimize effects from variables such as subject attention level. In our demonstration example of an X-ray fluoroscopy perception study, we measured detectability of low-contrast objects in noisy image sequences and determined X-ray dose levels for equivalent detectability of identical contrasts for a new test acquisition method (fluoroscopy at 15 acq/sec) as compared with a reference (conventional fluoroscopy at 30 acq/sec). In preliminary experiments, we found a dose savings with the test method. We derived parameter uncertainties for the adaptive procedure and demonstrated their applicability with Monte Carlo simulations. Repeated experiments on a single subject demonstrated reduced standard errors due to the reduction of day-to-day variations. It is believed that the method can be applied in a variety of situations in which one needs to compare perception measurements.