Mothers' affect in the homework context: the importance of staying positive

This research investigated mothers' affect in the context of children's homework. Mothers (N = 109) of children 8 to 12 years old were interviewed daily about their affect while interacting with children, their assistance with children's homework, and children's behavior while completing homework. At this time and 6 months later, children's motivational and emotional functioning was assessed. Although mothers' negative affect was lower than their positive affect, it was elevated on days their assistance with homework was high. This was accounted for by mothers' perceptions of children as helpless on days they provided heightened assistance. Mothers' positive affect in the homework context buffered children's motivational and emotional functioning against mothers' negative affect as well as children's helplessness.     

词切分对语文学优生与学困生阅读影响的眼动研究

采用EyeLink II眼动仪,以小学二年级语文学优生和学困生为被试,考察词切分对句子阅读的影响.实验设置四种空格呈现条件:正常无空格条件、字间空格条件、词间空格条件和非词空格条件.研究表明:(1)小学二年级学生阅读词间空格文本、字间空格文本和正常无空格文本效果相同.(2)与语文学优生相比,学困生阅读任何条件的句子需要更多的注视时间和注视次数.非词空格呈现条件对学困生的干扰更大,表明学困生更依赖文本的低水平信息.文章最后探讨了汉语阅读的基本信息单元问题.     

Stress induces glucocorticoid-mediated apoptosis of rat Leydig cells in vivo

Stress can disrupt endocrine signalling in the male reproductive axis through high concentrations of glucocorticoids, the hallmark of stress. Our previous work revealed that a stress level of exogenous glucocorticoids could induce apoptosis of rat Leydig cells, which are the primary source of testosterone. The aim of this study was to investigate whether stress can induce apoptosis in rat Leydig cells in vivo and, if so, whether the process is the result of a direct effect of glucocorticoids. In a chronically stressed rat model, serum corticosterone concentration was increased significantly whereas serum testosterone was decreased. The frequency of apoptotic Leydig cells in stressed rats was also increased. Adrenalectomised rats subjected to chronic stress showed an elevated serum testosterone, while the apoptotic frequency of Leydig cells was not increased. It was established that glucocorticoid-induced Leydig cell apoptosis is mediated by glucocorticoid receptors (GRs), which translocate from cytoplasm to nucleus. Adenovirus microRNA-induced downregulation of GR expression in vitro alleviated the corticosterone-induced increase in apoptosis of Leydig cells. These results indicate that the stress-induced increase in corticosterone secretion resulted in apoptosis in rat Leydig cells in vivo, and thereby decreased testosterone synthesis.     

Sequence effects by non-predictive arrow cues

Previous studies have found that attention orienting is influenced by the orienting processes of previous trials in a spatial cueing paradigm. This study mainly investigated whether this sequence effect could happen for a non-predictive arrow cue and whether it was influenced by the cue-target SOAs in previous and current trials. A significant sequence effect was observed for arrow cues even when voluntary control was not required, and it was significantly influenced by the SOAs of previous trials. The present results support the automatic memory check hypothesis and may reflect some temporal characteristics of the memory mechanism in sequential processes. In addition, contrary to the previous findings, we found an overall response facilitation following a catch trial, suggesting that the influence of preceding catch trials may be sensitive to experimental contexts.     

Cue effectiveness in communicatively efficient discourse production

Recent years have seen a surge in accounts motivated by information theory that consider language production to be partially driven by a preference for communicative efficiency. Evidence from discourse production (i.e., production beyond the sentence level) has been argued to suggest that speakers distribute information across discourse so as to hold the conditional per-word entropy associated with each word constant, which would facilitate efficient information transfer (Genzel & Charniak, 2002). This hypothesis implies that the conditional (contextualized) probabilities of linguistic units affect speakers' preferences during production. Here, we extend this work in two ways. First, we explore how preceding cues are integrated into contextualized probabilities, a question which so far has received little to no attention. Specifically, we investigate how a cue's maximal informativity about upcoming words (the cue's effectiveness) decays as a function of the cue's recency. Based on properties of linguistic discourses as well as properties of human memory, we analytically derive a model of cue effectiveness decay and evaluate it against cross-linguistic data from 12 languages. Second, we relate the information theoretic accounts of discourse production to well-established mechanistic (activation-based) accounts: We relate contextualized probability distributions over words to their relative activation in a lexical network given preceding discourse.     

负性情绪在冲突适应中的作用机制：分离与整合视角

负性情绪如何影响冲突适应一直以来受到领域内研究者们的广泛关注。根据负性情绪产生的源头(冲突外部操纵vs.冲突内部固有), 对于该问题的论述可以分别从认知与情绪的分离与整合视角展开。分离视角下, 操纵于冲突之外的负性情绪(外部负性情绪)独立于冲突加工过程, 通过情绪加工系统或个体自身的动机/唤醒水平影响冲突适应。近些年来的研究发现冲突加工自动产生负性情绪(固有负性情绪), 寓示着认知冲突与负性情绪间的内在关联, 固有负性情绪因此可被视作诱发冲突适应的另一个有效来源。整合视角下, 操纵于冲突内部的(固有)负性情绪高度整合于冲突加工过程, 其功能与冲突信息类似, 通过内在地促进目标导向行为直接诱发冲突适应。对这一主题的论述加深了我们对负性情绪如何作用于冲突适应过程的理解, 也为探索认知与情绪系统的整合过程及作用机制提供了一个全新的视角, 在此基础上, 我们也提出一些未来可行的研究方向。     

多元文化经历对领导者能力及发展的影响

随着全球化发展的深入, 越来越多的企业领导者具有多元文化经历。多元文化经历是指个体具有直接或间接与外国文化元素或人群进行交互的经历。拟从领导者发展(leader development)和领导力发展(leadership development)两个层面, 全面地探讨多元文化经历对企业领导者能力形成及发展的影响：第一, 探讨多元文化经历对领导者能力发展(包括个人层面、关系层面和社会层面能力)的影响及内部机制; 第二, 探讨多元文化经历对领导力发展(包括领导力涌现、领导力选拔和领导力效能)的影响及内部机制。项目成果不仅能够丰富领导者能力形成与发展等组织管理相关理论, 还能为企业的全球化管理及国际化人才培养实践提供建议。     

Effects of telephone support on exercise capacity and quality of life in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a meta-analysis

The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the effects of disease education or pulmonary rehabilitation programs assisted with telephone support on physical capacity and quality of life (QOL) in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. A systematic search of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and The Cochrane Library was conducted until May 2017. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) examining the effects of telephone-assisted intervention versus a control group on exercise tolerance and QOL in patients with COPD were included. Two independent authors assessed the methodological quality of the trials using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. A meta-analysis was conducted with the Revman5.3 to quantify the effects of telephone-assisted interventions on walking capacity and QOL. In total, 10 studies involving 1037 participants were included. Due to the effect of telephone-assisted interventions, statistically significant results were found on Saint-George’s Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) symptom scores [standard mean difference (SMD) ?.18, 95% confidence interval (CI) ?.33, ?.03, p-value .02)], SGRQ impact scores [SMD ?.35, 95% CI ?.60, ?.10, p-value .006)], SGRQ activity scores [SMD ?.30, 95% CI ?.45, ?.15, p-value < .0001)], SGRQ total score [SMD ?.36, 95% CI ?.51, ?.21, p-value < .00001)]. The effects on 6-min walk test (6MWT) and all Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire (CRQ) subscales were not significant (p > .05) based on the insufficient evidence. In conclusion, the role of telephone-assisted interventions in the management of COPD remains equivocal. Some encouraging results were seen with regard to SGRQ symptom, SGRQ impact, SGRQ activity and SGRQ total score. We believe that more methodologically rigorous large-scale randomized controlled trials are necessary to answer this study question.     

Looking for Renaissance People: Examining Domain Specificity-Generality of Creativity Using Item Response Theory Models

Creativity is increasingly identified as a key educational outcome at the local, regional, and national levels in several countries. Yet one key issue about the nature of creativity remains controversial: Whether creativity is domain specific or domain general. Resolving this issue would significantly impact the way creativity is identified, nurtured, and assessed in our schools. Three-hundred and fifty-nine undergraduate and graduate students completed measures that assessed their creative achievements in 6 distinct domains. Results based on item response theory models suggested that creativity was domain general, rather than domain specific, and part of the evidence provided by the classical test theory models seemed to favor the domain-specific view. These findings have great implications for researchers and practitioners who aim to assess and promote creativity in schools.     

Sequence effects of the involuntary and the voluntary components of symbolic cueing

The orienting of attention has been found to be influenced by the previous cueing status in a spatial-cueing paradigm. The explanation for this sequence effect remains uncertain. This study separated the involuntary and the voluntary components of arrow cueing by manipulating the predicted target locations. For example, a left arrow cue may have indicated that the target was more likely to appear at the up location. Therefore, three trial types were repeated or switched between trials: cued (targets appeared along the direction of the arrows), predicted (targets appeared at the locations predicted by the arrows), and unrelated (targets appeared at the other two locations, neither cued nor predicted). RTs of cued trials were found to be significantly facilitated after a previous cued trial; however, the same effect was not observed for predicted trials. The results suggest that significant sequence effects are induced only in the involuntary component of arrow cueing. The findings support the feature-integration hypothesis for the sequence effect of symbolic cueing.