The unexpected killer: effects of stimulus threat and negative affectivity on inattentional blindness

Inattentional blindness (IB) occurs when observers fail to detect unexpected objects or events. Despite the adaptive importance of detecting unexpected threats, relatively little research has examined how stimulus threat influences IB. The current study was designed to explore the effects of stimulus threat on IB. Past research has also demonstrated that individuals with elevated negative affectivity have an attentional bias towards threat-related stimuli; therefore, the current study also examined whether state and trait levels of negative affectivity predicted IB for threat-related stimuli. One hundred and eleven participants (87 female, aged 17–40 years) completed an IB task that included both threat-related and neutral unexpected stimuli, while their eye movements were tracked. Participants were significantly more likely to detect the threatening stimulus (19%) than the neutral stimulus (11%) p = .035, odds ratio (OR) = 4.0, 95% confidence interval OR [1.13, 14.17]. Neither state nor trait levels of negative affectivity were significantly associated with IB. These results suggest observers are more likely to detect threat-related unexpected objects, consistent with the threat superiority effect observed in other paradigms. However, most observers were blind to both unexpected stimuli, highlighting the profound influence of expectations and task demands on our ability to perceive even potentially urgent and life-threatening information.     

The Construction of Masculinity: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Men’s Lifestyle Magazine Advertisements

The increasing global popularity of men’s lifestyle magazines offers a unique opportunity to study how advertising constructs masculinity across cultures. This study conducted a content analysis of 636 ads from the three most popular men’s lifestyle magazines in Taiwan, China, and the United States to examine the representations of masculinity in their advertisements between 2008 and 2010. The objectives were to determine how masculinities are currently portrayed in terms of types and roles. The study found that the magazines from all three countries typically portrayed men as refined and sophisticated. The defining characteristic of global hegemonic masculinity is commodity consumption, with a particular emphasis on a trendy and refined appearance. We found no significant cross-cultural differences in the types of masculinity, namely, “Vigorous and Macho”, “Refined and Sophisticated”, and “Trendy and Cool”. The traditional preference for “Refined and Sophisticated” in Chinese and Taiwanese ads and a preference for “Vigorous and Macho” in the U.S. ads have largely disappeared. Instead, the global consumption market and its associated consumer culture are the primary determinants regarding representations of masculinity in men’s lifestyle magazine ads. This global culture may underlie the lack of differences found.     

高校毕业生可雇佣能力的因素、结构与测量

该研究在文献理论分析、招聘广告词频分析、专家反馈、焦点团队访谈和半开放式问卷调查的基础上,编制了高校毕业生可雇佣能力问卷,并对已签订就业协议的930名高校毕业生进行了施测。探索性和验证性因素分析结果表明高校毕业生可雇佣能力是一个多层次多维度的结构,主要包括15个基本因素,分别归属于5个二阶维度和一个三阶维度,量表的信、效度指标均达到心理测量学要求。     

罗尔斯契约论中的正常能力假定与能力缺陷问题

罗尔斯的契约论强调公民是正常而充分合作的社会成员,而且它还假定他们的种种天赋才能处于正常范围。在可行能力思路看来,由于这样一种契约主义的方法论,那些具有严重能力缺陷的人不能从正义原则中公平受益,他们甚至被排除在正义原则的选择过程之外了,因此这种理论没能真正保障每一个人基于正义的不可侵犯性。但在罗尔斯的契约论中,作为正常合作成员之基础的两种道德能力应当被理解为是每一个公民所拥有的,而正常能力的假定意在排除能力差异在原则选择过程中的影响,因而它反而是包容性的。在组织有序的社会中,有能力缺陷的人的一些特殊需要确实没有被当作一个基本正义问题来对待,但这一点乃是平等的政治自主性的代价。     

Observing neighborhood effects without neighbors

With a new metric called phonological Levenshtein distance (PLD20), the present study explores the effects of phonological similarity and word frequency on spoken word recognition, using polysyllabic words that have neither phonological nor orthographic neighbors, as defined by neighborhood density (the N-metric). Inhibitory effects of PLD20 were observed for these lexical hermits: Close-PLD20 words were recognized more slowly than distant PLD20 words, indicating lexical competition. Importantly, these inhibitory effects were found only for low- (not high-) frequency words, in line with previous findings that phonetically related primes inhibit recognition of low-frequency words. These results indicate that the properties of PLD20--a continuous measure of word-form similarity--make it a promising new metric for quantifying phonological distinctiveness in spoken word recognition research.     

Validity of the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-4 (PDQ-4+) among mentally ill prison inmates in Singapore

We examined the validity of the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire--4+ (PDQ-4+) as a screening instrument for personality disorders among mentally ill prison inmates in Singapore. A total of 313 prison inmates completed the PDQ-4+ and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Disorders (SCID-II). The subjects were 303 (96.8%) males and 10 (3.2%) females with a mean (SD) age of 40.7 (8.8) years. Kappa agreement between PDQ-4+ and SCID-II for the presence at least one personality disorder was moderate with high sensitivity and low specificity. For specific personality disorders and clusters, we found that the PDQ-4+ diagnosed more subjects as having each of the personality disorders than SCID-II with high negative predictive values. The area under the curve indicated moderate discriminatory capabilities. Our results suggest that the PDQ-4+ could be used as a potential screening instrument for personality disorders in prison inmates.     

Academic expectations as sources of stress in Asian students

Education is highly valued in Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) countries such as China, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea but the expectations of parents, teachers and students themselves to excel academically can also be a source of intense stress for many students. The Academic Expectations Stress Inventory (AESI), developed by Ang and Huan (Educ Psychol Meas 66: 522–539, 2006) to measure parent, teacher and self expectations as sources of academic stress in Asian adolescents, was administered to 176 Singaporean secondary and college students one month before their major examinations. Rasch analyses of the students’ responses to the AESI showed the nine items in the inventory formed a robust unidimensional scale of academic stress, with two separate unidimensional subscales of Expectations of Parents and Teachers and Expectations of Self complementing the factor analysis conducted by Ang and Huan (Educ Psychol Meas 66: 522–539, 2006). The item thresholds showed the AESI measured the student trait range adequately, and affirmed the inventory as a brief yet valid measure of academic stress for Asian students from a CHC background. The AESI is a valuable tool for teachers and researchers, as it provides an understanding of the role of parents, teachers and self expectations as sources of academic stress among students from a CHC background.     

自我解释的研究现状与展望

自我解释(self-explanation)是指学习者在学习过程中通过自己向自己解释学习内容而获得知识的过程。文章主要阐述了自我解释的含义、分类、三种自我解释效果的认知机制,并且提出自我解释研究中尚待解决的问题及对其进行展望。     

爱克哈特大师的非二元性思想——纪念爱克哈特大师诞生750周年

神秘神学并非让人进入到某种非理性内,通过否定和无执,神秘神学揭示出另类的认知和现实。建立在时间和空间背景上的表象思维,它无法领会诸如三位一体、道成肉身、圣爱的意义。倒是通过神圣的生命现象,圣爱的现象,差异性与同一性呈现出一种闻所未闻的关系来,这种关系在时空的存在物中是不会出现的。经由爱的感悟,爱克哈特(MasterEckhart,约1260—1328)大师认识到,神与世界,神与人之间存在着一种非同寻常的,非二元性的关系。正是在爱克哈特大师的这种非二元性思想之上,后来黑格尔在时空世界(康德)与神圣世界(基督教信仰)之间所做的综合获得了理解的线索。