Effects of Phonetic Similarity in the Identification of Mandarin Tones

Tonal languages differ in how they use phonetic correlates e.g. average pitch height and pitch direction, for tonal contrasts. Thus, native speakers of a tonal language may need to adjust their attention to familiar or unfamiliar phonetic cues when perceiving non-native tones. On the other hand, speakers of a non-tonal language may need to develop sensitivity to tonal correlates absent from their native system. The current study examines and compares five language groups’ perception of two synthesized Mandarin tones: the high level tone and the high falling tone. It aims to examine how listeners from tonal and non-tonal backgrounds identify and categorize acoustically equidistant pitches varying along two phonetic dimensions: pitch onset and slope. Results reveal “universal” perceptual patterns across groups and also tendencies caused by native tonal systems. Our findings confirm that L1 tonal and prosodic systems affect speakers’ sensitivity to novel perceptual cues and their abilities to discern relevant phonetic differences.     

Implicit learning and emotional responses in nine-month-old infants

To study the interplay between motor learning and emotional responses of young infants, we developed a contingent learning paradigm that included two related, difficult, operant tasks. We also coded facial expression to characterise emotional response to learning. In a sample of nine-month-old healthy Chinese infants, 44.7% achieved learning threshold during this challenging arm-conditioning test. Some evidence of learning was observed at the beginning of the second task. The lowest period of negative emotions coincided with the period of maximum movement responses after the initiation of the second task, and movement responses negatively correlated with the frequency of negative emotions. Positive emotions, while generally low throughout the task, increased during peak performance especially for learners. Peak frequency of movement responses was positively correlated with the frequency of positive emotions. Despite the weak evidence of learning this difficult task, our results from the learners would suggest that increasing positive emotions, and perhaps down-regulating negative emotional responses, may be important for improving performance and learning a complex operant task in infancy. Further studies are necessary to determine the role of emotions in learning difficult tasks in infancy.     

论伽达默尔对实践哲学和解释学的融合

对实践问题的思考贯穿了伽达默尔整个学术生涯,构成了他哲学思想的起点和归宿。实践哲学不仅影响了他的哲学解释学思想的形成,而且他还将哲学解释学应用于实践问题,发展出解释学的实践哲学。实践哲学和解释学在他的思想发展中是一种互动的、相互启发的关系。他对实践哲学和解释学的融合,可分为三个阶段。早期他通过对柏拉图的政治思想研究关注到理解和相互理解问题,此外海德格尔对《尼各马可伦理学》的阐释使其注意到实践智慧概念。在中期的代表作《真理与方法》中他通过实践智慧概念阐明解释学的应用问题。后期他通过将哲学解释学应用于对现代社会的反思,寻求对实践合理性的理解,希望以此来引导人们的生活,避免技术文明对人造成的异化。对实践哲学和解释学的融合体现伽达默尔作为一个人文知识分子的现实关怀,对于我们思考现代人的生存处境具有重要启发意义。     

评价中心结构效度的多元概化理论分析研究

评价中心技术是现代人事测评的一种主要形式,主要通过多种模拟任务来测评高级管理人才。然而,少有研究能证明它具有理想的结构效度。该研究运用多质多法分析了某金融企业一次真实的评价中心测评项目,发现测评的结构效度并不理想。接着,通过多元概化理论的分析,探讨了结构效度不理想的原因,并指出了评价中心任务与所测维度之间的关系,以及对各维度的测量信度。最后,根据分析结果,探讨了优化评价中心结构效度和提升整体测量信度的途径。     

中小学教师的工作倦怠与其相关因素的关系研究

本研究旨在探讨中小学教师的工作倦怠与其职业压力应对策略、教学效能感和社会支持的关系。用教师工作倦怠问卷、职业压力应对策略调查表、教学效能感量表和社会支持评定量表对766名中小学教师进行了问卷调查。结果发现：（1）中小学教师的工作倦怠与其职业压力应对策略、教学效能感和社会支持之间存在显著的相关关系;（2）教师的主动应对、被动应对、教学效能感和社会支持分别对教师的整体工作倦怠感及其情绪衰竭、非人性化和低成就感等维度具有显著的预测作用。     

County-Level Basics of Living Affects Overall Mortality Rate in the United States – 2000

Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory proposed that there is a hierarchy of human needs, which range from the basics of survival to creativity. Building from Maslow's idea, this paper examines the first level of human needs and empirically constructs a basics of living (BOL) index for every United States county from 28 candidate factors. The final BOL Index includes nine measures of air, water, and income. This study examined whether county-level health would be poor if the BOL were not met. Findings showed a positive correlation between the BOL index and all cause mortality, the fewer BOL, the worse the all cause mortality. Strikingly, poor BOL is most often found in small jurisdictions (<25,000 population) and less often in larger jurisdictions (>150,000 population). In the mapping of the BOL index, areas of greatest need can be observed and in multivariate modeling, highest overall mortality is regional. The BOL index predicts a substantial amount of variation observed in county overall mortality and is independent of county poverty and quality of life.     

企业员工行为中庸化的特征分析

本研究采用了问卷调查法,对苏州271名企业员工的行为中庸化的特征进行了研究。结果表明：（1）企业员工的行为,总体上是趋向于中庸的;（2）男性员工较女性员工在行为上更倾向于中庸;（3）教育水平高的员工较教育水平低的员工更倾向于中庸;（4）职务水平高的员工较职务水平低的员工更倾向于中庸;（5）企业性质不同、资本来源不同的企业员工,其行为中庸化水平不同。     

樟柳碱对动物分辨学习、记忆行为和电活动的影响

樟柳碱是我国首先提取出的一种生物碱,它的作用和东莨菪碱相似,而其毒性较小,但如过量服用会引起幻觉和认知障碍。本文观察了樟柳碱对大白鼠分辨学习和记忆行为的影响,并探讨樟柳碱对家兔脑皮层的自发和诱发电活动以及脑皮层电图条件反应的影响。其主要结果如下: 樟柳减对大白鼠的分辨学习和记忆有较明显的影响,其主要表现为错误反应增多,反应时延长以及防御性条件反射的出现率低。 樟柳碱能使家兔全皮层出现高振幅慢波,并能使脑皮层电图条件反应受到明显的抑制。     

Saccadic overhead: Information-processing time with and without saccades

Information-processing time was compared for serial and spatially distributed visual presentations with performance measures that permit the separation of total time into its during-display and post-display components. For all subjects, there was a significant saccadic overhead, that is, less time was required with the serial format, which allowed data access without eye movements. However, the magnitude of the overhead decreased as task complexity increased. All subjects were able to exercise some control over the distribution of total processing time, trading off short during-display times with longer post-display times and vice versa.     

Service Employees’ Reactions to Mistreatment by Customers: A Comparison Between North America and East Asia

The authors proposed that customer service employees’ reactions to mistreatment by customers can vary between North American and East Asian employees due to differences in their cultural values. Customer mistreatment was predicted to be associated with direct, active, and target‐specific reactions (i.e., sabotage directed toward the source of mistreatment) more so among North American employees as compared to East Asian employees. In contrast, customer mistreatment was predicted to relate to more indirect, passive, and target‐general reactions (i.e., withdraw organizational citizenship behavior directed toward customers in general) among employees in East Asia as compared to employees in North America. A field study of customer service employees (N = 213) working in the same hotel chain in China and Canada found support for these predictions. Mediation analyses showed that individualism and collectivism accounted for these differences. Theoretical and practical implications are provided, and future directions are discussed.