Minority stress and college persistence attitudes among African American, Asian American, and Latino students: perception of university environment as a mediator

We examined whether perception of university environment mediated the association between minority status stress and college persistence attitudes after controlling for perceived general stress. Participants were 160 Asian American, African American, and Latino students who attended a predominantly White university. Results of a path model analysis showed that university environment was a significant mediator for the association between minority status stress and college persistence attitudes. Additionally, minority status stress was distinct from perceived general stress. Finally, the results from a multiple-group comparison indicated that the magnitude of the mediation effect was invariant across Asian American, African American, and Latino college students, thus supporting the generalizability of the mediation model.     

Interaction between stimulus-driven orienting and top-down modulation in attentional capture

The present study investigated whether visual and kinesthetic stimuli are stored as multisensory or modality-specific representations in unimodal and crossmodal working memory tasks. To this end, angle-shaped movement trajectories were presented to 16 subjects in delayed matching-to-sample tasks either visually or kinesthetically during encoding and recognition. During the retention interval, a secondary visual or kinesthetic interference task was inserted either immediately or with a delay after encoding. The modality of the interference task interacted significantly with the encoding modality. After visual encoding, memory was more impaired by a visual than by a kinesthetic secondary task, while after kinesthetic encoding the pattern was reversed. The time when the secondary task had to be performed interacted with the encoding modality as well. For visual encoding, memory was more impaired, when the secondary task had to be performed at the beginning of the retention interval. In contrast, memory after kinesthetic encoding was more affected, when the secondary task was introduced later in the retention interval. The findings suggest that working memory traces are maintained in a modality-specific format characterized by distinct consolidation processes that take longer after kinesthetic than after visual encoding.     

《老子》首章新释

《老子》首章在《老子》思想研究中有着举足轻重的地位,历代讨论的论作不胜枚举。但对《老子》首章的本义究竟如何解读,仍然是一个有待探讨的问题。下面,本文试对《老子》首章的各句逐一讨论,并对其主旨作一辨析。不妥之处,敬请批评。     

意外地点任务中不同测试问题及意图理解与执行功能的关系

旨在讨论意外地点任务中“知否问题”与“预测问题”可能存在的差异及两者与执行功能任务的关系,并初步探讨意图理解与执行功能间的关系。用意外地点任务、膝跳反射任务和两个执行功能的任务（DCCS和手部游戏）对59名3~5岁的儿童施测。结果显示：（1）儿童在意外地点任务的“知否问题”上的表现显著好于“预测问题”,儿童对“知否问题”和“预测问题”的回答可能反映了心理理论发展的不同阶段。（2）膝跳反射任务,DCCS任务与“知否问题”三者间有显著的相关,且其高相关在排除年龄及语言能力的影响后仍保持显著。“双表征区分结构”可能是三者间具有共同的成分。     

人在多项任务中的业绩及脑力负荷

在超脑力负荷状态下人的业绩是如何变化的？在实验中,让被试者同时完成四项内容不同的任务,即补偿追踪,选择反应,模拟雷达观察和算术运算。脑力负荷的强度是由改变工作的快慢节奏来实现的。实验的数据表明,随着脑力负荷的增加,人的业绩是逐渐下降的。在面对超负荷的多项任务时,人的信息处理过程更像一个单通道系统,集中精力完成某一工作,然后迅速地转移到下一个工作。     

Distinguishing between haloperidol's and decamethonium's disruptive effects on operant behavior in rats: use of measurements that complement response rate.

The behavioral effects of haloperidol (0.04 to 0.16 mg/kg) and nonparalytic doses of decamethonium (0.2 to 0.8 mg/kg) were studied with operant methods that permitted the measurement of response rate, peak force of response, duration of response, and duration of the rat's head entry into the reinforcement dipper well. Type of operant response topography (forelimb press or forelimb grasp-and-pull) and peak force (low or high) required for reinforcement delivery were independent variables. The low-force, press-topography condition yielded qualitatively different profiles for the two drugs. Haloperidol increased peak force and duration of operant response, increased maximum head entry duration, and temporally dissociated forelimb and head entry behavior. Decamethonium decreased force and duration of operant response, did not appreciably affect maximum head entry duration, and did not influence the normal temporal coupling of forelimb and head entry responses. The haloperidol effects were seen as reflections of pseudo-Parkinsonism, not muscle weakness, which appeared to be the primary source of decamethonium's behavioral effects.     

Controlling item exposure and test overlap on the fly in computerized adaptive testing

This paper proposes an on‐line version of the Sympson and Hetter procedure with test overlap control (SHT) that can provide item exposure control at both the item and test levels on the fly without iterative simulations. The on‐line procedure is similar to the SHT procedure in that exposure parameters are used for simultaneous control of item exposure rates and test overlap rate. The exposure parameters for the on‐line procedure, however, are updated sequentially on the fly, rather than through iterative simulations conducted prior to operational computerized adaptive tests (CATs). Unlike the SHT procedure, the on‐line version can control item exposure rate and test overlap rate without time‐consuming iterative simulations even when item pools or examinee populations have been changed. Moreover, the on‐line procedure was found to perform better than the SHT procedure in controlling item exposure and test overlap for examinees who take tests earlier. Compared with two other on‐line alternatives, this proposed on‐line method provided the best all‐around test security control. Thus, it would be an efficient procedure for controlling item exposure and test overlap in CATs.     

Perceived deep-level dissimilarity: Personality antecedents and impact on overall job attitude, helping, work withdrawal, and turnover

The current research extends three research areas in relational demography: considering deep-level dissimilarity in theory building, assessing dissimilarity perceptions directly in theory testing, and examining the antecedents of dissimilarity perceptions. The results, based on two field studies using diverse samples, demonstrate the effects of enduring personality traits of Extraversion and Agreeableness on an individual’s perceived deep-level dissimilarity to coworkers in the workgroup, and the effects of perceived deep-level dissimilarity beyond the effects of actual dissimilarity and perceived surface-level dissimilarity on critical work outcomes, including the individual’s overall job attitude, and behaviors of helping, work withdrawal, and actual voluntary turnover.