解读曼殊五部曲

苏曼殊是清末民初萃集革命与刨作于一身的“奇人异僧”。从革命的角度说,他意志坚定,积极投身于孙中山领导的资产阶级民主革命,为推翻清朝统治和袁世凯帝制尽心竭力;从创作的角度说,他多才多艺,以风格独特的诗歌、小说、散、翻译、绘画树帜坛,赢得生前和身后无数读的击节和赞赏;从身份的角度说,他是个亦僧亦俗、亦侠亦儒的革命和艺家。他曾获得的桂冠大体停留在不大反映本质的“诗僧”、“情僧”、“风流和尚”、“革命和尚”等一类称号上,然而随着这位传奇的历史人物的“真面目”越来越清晰呈现于世,而不再继续充当人们揣测的对象。     

The acquisition of odour qualities

Odours can evoke a large range of qualities. Some of these qualities (e.g., sweetness) appear to be acquired through simultaneously experiencing odours mixed with tastes. Acquisition might also occur when two odours are experienced as a mixture. In this case mixture components might acquire each other's qualities. This was tested in two experiments. In the first, subjects repeatedly sniffed two odour mixtures (either AX, BY or AY, BX). Odours mixed with A acquired A's properties and were judged more similar to A than to B. Odours mixed with B were not clearly discriminable. The second experiment used a similar approach except that Odour B was replaced. Subjects now smelled either AX, CY or AY, CX. All components were discriminable. Odours mixed with A acquired A's properties and were judged more similar to A than to C. Although odours mixed with C did not acquire C's qualities due to a confusion of quality terms, odours previously mixed with C were judged as more similar to C than to A. Evidence of other quality exchanges were also obtained. These results suggest that pure odour qualities can be learnt and lend support to William James's (1890) notion of the acquired equivalence/distinctiveness of cues.     

Deduction from Uncertain Premises

We investigate how the perceived uncertainty of a conditional affects a person's choice of conclusion. We use a novel procedure to introduce uncertainty by manipulating the conditional probability of the consequent given the antecedent. In Experiment 1, we show first that subjects reduce their choice of valid conclusions when a conditional is followed by an additional premise that makes the major premise uncertain. In this we replicate Byrne (1989). These subjects choose, instead, a qualified conclusion expressing uncertainty. If subjects are given a third statement that qualifies the likelihood of the additional premise, then the uncertainty of the conclusions they choose is systematically related to the suggested uncertainty. Experiment 2 confirms these observations in problems that omit the additional premise and qualify the first premise directly. Experiment 3 shows that the qualifying statement also affects the perceived probability of the consequent given the antecedent of the conditional. Experiment 4 investigates the effect of suggested uncertainty on the fallacies and shows that increases in uncertainty reduce the number of certain conclusions that are chosen while affirming the consequent but have no effect on denying the antecedent. We discuss our results in terms of rule theories and mental models and conclude that the latter give the most natural account of our results.