The Social Ladder: A Rank-Based Perspective on Social Class

Scholars across the social sciences have studied social class for centuries. In this review, we suggest that social class is a fundamental means by which individuals are ranked on the social ladder of society. A rank-based perspective on social class shines light on several future areas of research: Specifically, understanding how social class ranks individuals vis-à-vis others leads to predictions about how class is signaled in interactions, influences social cognition and health, is shaped by global economic inequality trends, and changes across the life course. Importantly, our theory highlights the potential of experimental manipulations of social class rank for testing the causal role of social class in shaping basic patterns of cognition, emotion, and behavior. Future predictions regarding the channels of social class rank signals, along with how position on the social ladder shapes political attitudes and interacts with cultural values, are considered.     

Can implicit appraisal concepts produce emotion-specific effects? A focus on unfairness and anger

This research examined whether the non-conscious activation of an implicit appraisal concept could affect responses associated with the corresponding emotion as predicted by appraisal theories. Explicit and implicit emotional responses were examined. We focused on implicit unfairness and its effect on anger. The results show that subliminal activation of implicit unfairness affected implicit anger responses (anger facial expression and latency responses to anger words) but not explicit anger feelings (i.e., reported anger). The non-conscious effect of implicit unfairness was specific to anger, as no effect on sadness, fear, and guilt was found.     

Emotional impacts of participation in an Australian national survey on mental health-related discrimination

Institutional Review Boards have expressed concern that research into sensitive topics such as mental disorder will cause participants undue distress. This study investigated the emotional responses of 5,220 Australians to a survey on mental-health-related discrimination. Participants were interviewed about their mental health and experiences of discrimination across 10 life domains and then the emotional impacts of the survey. Results suggested that a minority experienced a negative reaction (2.8% felt depressed, 5.3% distressed, 9.5% reported intrusion on privacy, 2.5% regretted participation) in contrast to 88% reporting positive experiences. A mental health problem was associated with both negative and positive reactions.     

聚焦词素语义加工的时间轴——先形后义还是形义并行?

目前学术界在词素的认知加工这一问题上存在两种观点.“先形后义”激活论认为词素加工首先经历词形分离,然后才能激活词素语义;“形义并行”激活论则认为上述两种加工同时发生.它们争论的焦点在于词素语义加工发生的阶段.“先形后义”有两种可能:词素形、义激活均发生于前词汇阶段,但形的激活发生更早些;或词素形的激活发生在前词汇阶段,而义的激活发生在后词汇阶段.“形义并行”则只有一种可能:词素形与义在前词汇阶段同时得到激活.两派观点均有相应的实证和理论支持(前词汇和后词汇模型).未来研究需解决研究范式及理论发展方面的问题.     

Examining the relationship between free recall and immediate serial recall: The serial nature of recall and the effect of test expectancy

In two experiments, we examined the relationship between free recall and immediate serial recall (ISR), using a within-subjects (Experiment 1) and a between-subjects (Experiment 2) design. In both experiments, participants read aloud lists of eight words and were precued or postcued to respond using free recall or ISR. The serial position curves were U-shaped for free recall and showed extended primacy effects with little or no recency for ISR, and there was little or no difference between recall for the precued and the postcued conditions. Critically, analyses of the output order showed that although the participants started their recall from different list positions in the two tasks, the degree to which subsequent recall was serial in a forward order was strikingly similar. We argue that recalling in a serial forward order is a general characteristic of memory and that performance on ISR and free recall is underpinned by common memory mechanisms.     

Can tactile stimuli be subitised? An unresolved controversy within the literature on numerosity judgments

There is a growing interest in the question whether the phenomenon of subitising (fast and accurate detection of fewer than 4-5 stimuli presented simultaneously), widely thought to affect numerosity judgments in vision, can also affect the processing of tactile stimuli. In a recent study, in which multiple tactile stimuli were simultaneously presented across the body surface, Gallace et al (2006 Perception 35 247-266) concluded that tactile stimuli cannot be subitised. By contrast, Riggs et al (2006 Psychological Science 17 271 275), who presented tactile stimuli to participants' fingertips, came to precisely the opposite conclusion, arguing instead that subitising does occur in touch. Here, we re-analyse the data from both studies using more powerful statistical procedures. We show that Riggs et al's error data do not offer strong support for the subitising account and, what is more, Gallace et al's data are not entirely compatible with a linear model account of numerosity judgments in humans either. We then report an experiment in which we compare numerosity judgments for stimuli presented on the fingertips with those for stimuli presented on the rest of the body surface. The results show no major differences between the fingers and the rest of the body, and an absence of subitising in either condition. On the basis of these observations, we discuss whether the purported existence of subitisation in touch reflects a genuine cognitive phenomenon, or whether, instead, it may reflect a bias in the interpretation of the particular psychometric functions that happen to have been chosen by researchers to fit their data.     

分形与心理的分形研究

介绍了分形和心理的分形研究,分析了心理分形研究的意义,并对传统的欧几里得研究范式和分形研究范式做了区分。