The impact of emotion on perception: bias or enhanced processing?

Recent studies have shown that emotionally significant stimuli are often better identified than neutral stimuli. It is not clear, however, whether these results are due to enhanced perceptual processing or to a bias favoring the identification of emotionally significant stimuli over neutral stimuli. The present study used a two-alternative forced-choice perceptual identification task to disentangle the effects of bias and enhanced processing. We found that emotionally significant targets were better identified than neutral targets. In contrast, the emotional significance of the foil alternative had no effect on performance. The present results support the hypothesis that perceptual encoding of emotionally significant stimuli is enhanced.     

Hippocampal train stimulation modulates recall of fear extinction independently of prefrontal cortex synaptic plasticity and lesions

It has been shown that long-term potentiation (LTP) develops in the connection between the mediodorsal thalamus (MD) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and between the hippocampus (HPC) and the mPFC following fear extinction, and correlates with extinction retention. However, recent lesion studies have shown that combined lesions of the MD and mPFC do not interfere with extinction learning and retention, while inactivation of the dorsal HPC disrupts fear extinction memory. Here we found in rats that immediate post-training HPC low-frequency stimulation (LFS) suppressed extinction-related LTP in the HPC-mPFC pathway and induced difficulties in extinction recall. HPC tetanus, applied several hours later, failed to re-establish mPFC LTP but facilitated recall of extinction. Delayed post-training HPC LFS also provoked mPFC depotentiation and difficulties with extinction recall. HPC tetanus abolished these two effects. We also found that damage to the mPFC induced fear return only in rats that received HPC LFS following extinction training. HPC tetanus also reversed this behavioral effect of HPC LFS in lesioned rats. These data suggest that the HPC interacts with the mPFC during fear extinction, but can modulate fear extinction independently of this interaction.     

视空工作记忆负载对场景主旨加工的影响

本研究采用工作记忆任务和场景辨别任务相结合的双任务范式探究客体工作记忆负载 (实验1)和空间工作记忆负载 (实验2) 对场景主旨辨别的影响。结果发现: (1) 与无负载条件相比, 客体负载条件下的非参辨别力指数(A’)明显下降, 而空间负载条件下A’无明显变化; (2) 随着场景图片呈现时间的延长, 场景辨别任务的A’逐渐提高; (3) 对自然场景和人工场景匹配情况下的A’ 明显高于对自然与自然或者人工与人工匹配情况下的A’。由此可见, 场景主旨识别, 特别是基本水平的场景主旨辨别, 与客体工作记忆共享部分认知资源, 而不与/很少与空间工作记忆共享认知资源; 在识别过程中, 上级水平范畴识别优先于基本水平范畴识别, 进一步支持了上级水平范畴优先的主旨层级加工观点。     

Word Detection in Sung and Spoken Sentences in Children With Typical Language Development or With Specific Language Impairment

Background: Previous studies have reported that children score better in language tasks using sung rather than spoken stimuli. We examined word detection ease in sung and spoken sentences that were equated for phoneme duration and pitch variations in children aged 7 to 12 years with typical language development (TLD) as well as in children with specific language impairment (SLI ), and hypothesized that the facilitation effect would vary with language abilities. Method: In Experiment 1, 69 children with TLD (7–10 years old) detected words in sentences that were spoken, sung on pitches extracted from speech, and sung on original scores. In Experiment 2, we added a natural speech rate condition and tested 68 children with TLD (7–12 years old). In Experiment 3, 16 children with SLI and 16 age-matched children with TLD were tested in all four conditions. Results: In both TLD groups, older children scored better than the younger ones. The matched TLD group scored higher than the SLI group who scored at the level of the younger children with TLD . None of the experiments showed a facilitation effect of sung over spoken stimuli. Conclusions: Word detection abilities improved with age in both TLD and SLI groups. Our findings are compatible with the hypothesis of delayed language abilities in children with SLI , and are discussed in light of the role of durational prosodic cues in words detection.     

比较短尾猴和恒河猴的社会行为模式

短尾猴和恒河猴同是猴科猕猴属中两个不同的物种。从习性学的观点看,它们的社会行为模式应是大同而小异的。作者通过对生活在自然栖息地和实验笼内短尾猴所观察到的行为模式,同文献中已公认的恒河猴的行为模式进行比较后发现,这两种动物的社会行为模式虽然在基本上是相似的,但也有明显的差异。有的是行为模式相同,社会含意不尽相同;有的是社会含意相同,模式不同;也有的模式只是短尾猴有,而恒河猴没有。本文把初步观察到的7种不同情况列出。     

The Distinction between Knowledge-That and Knowledge-How

I first argue why Stanley and Williamson fail to eliminate the distinction between knowledge-that and knowledge-how. Then I argue that knowledge-how consists in a special kind of ways of thinking of ways of engaging in actions. So the distinction between knowledge-that and knowledge-how is twofold: the objects of knowledge-that and knowledge-how are different; the ways in which we entertain the object of knowledge are also distinct when we have knowledge-that and knowledge-how. At the end, I consider two recent intellectualist efforts on knowledge-how and show why they fail.     

Religious Bias Among Religiously Conscious Black Christians in the United States

Research with White participants has demonstrated religious intergroup bias; however, religious identity may be different for Black Americans. Only religiously conscious Black Christians demonstrated a preference for Christian targets over Muslim and Atheist targets. Future research should consider what factors result in a person becoming conscious of other's religion.