The impact of informant gender on children’s endorsement of scientific and non-scientific information

By roughly 6 years of age, children acquire the stereotype that men are more competent than women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), potentially leading to greater trust in scientific information provided by men. This study tested whether 3- to 8-year-old children differentially endorsed conflicting information about science and toys presented by male and female informants depicted as a ‘man’ and ‘woman’ (Exp1) or ‘scientists’ (Exp2). Children were expected to endorse toy testimony from gender-matched informants; thus, the key question concerned endorsement of science testimony. In Exp1 (N = 149), boys and girls showed a same-gender informant preference for toy testimony; however, girls endorsed the male informant's testimony more for science than for toys – but only when tested by a male experimenter. In Exp2 (N = 264), boys and girls showed a same-gender preference, irrespective of content. Findings suggest that STEM-related gender stereotypes might lead girls to trust scientific information presented by men over women in certain contexts.     

陈莲笙道长生平

陈莲笙道长生于1917年10月25日,上海市人.历任中国道教协会副会长,中国道教协会顾问,上海市道教协会会长.上海市道教协会名誉会长,上海城隍庙住持,上海道学院院长,<上海道教>杂志主编,上海市宗教学会理事,上海市政协第七届委员,上海市政协第八、九届常委等职.     

Lateralized interference effects: evidence for a processing style by modality interaction

A time-sharing paradigm was used to study potential interference effects of concurrent successive-auditory/vocal, successive-visual/motor, simultaneous-auditory/vocal, and simultaneous-visual/motor tasks on right- and left-handed manual-motor behaviors of differential levels of difficulty. Participants were selected from each of three developmental levels from 9 through 20 years of age. Results suggested that processing style (i.e., successive or simultaneous) interacts with modality (i.e., auditory/vocal or visual/motor) in terms of lateralized interference effects; however, potential effects due to age level were obfuscated by differential concurrent-task difficulties.     

The Creativity Matrix: Spotlights and Blind Spots in Our Understanding of the Phenomenon

In this paper, we organize past and present theories and models of creativity by using a new conceptual framework—the creativity matrix—with the aim of highlighting the dimensions of creativity we know a lot about and those we tend to either ignore or find difficult to study. This matrix is formed by bringing together a developmental model of creativity (the 4 C's) and a structural one (the 5 A's). We start by briefly describing these two conceptual frameworks, and then, we proceed to exploring the matrix itself by describing how the 5 A's are dynamically organized at each “level” of the 4 C's. Importantly, our overview of the matrix is informed by existing models and concepts that address one of more of the C's and the A's. This gives us a unique opportunity to take stock of what has been studied so far and, toward the end, consider new avenues for the development of theory and research agendas within creativity studies.     

Observing responses in rats: Support for the secondary reinforcement hypothesis

Rats' lever presses on a retractable lever earned brief presentations of discriminative stimuli signalling periods in which responding on an alternative lever was either non-reinforced (extinction) or reinforced on a random ratio schedule. The predictions of two theoretical accounts of this behaviour were tested by studying the effects of omitting either the stimulus signalling the reinforced or that signalling the non-reinforced schedule component. Under these conditions rats' behaviour is determined by the conditioned, affective properties of the stimuli rather than by their purely informational properties.     

Persistent alterations in biological profiles in women with abuse histories: influence of premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

OBJECTIVE: To examine dysregulation in biological measures associated with histories of abuse in women and whether women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) differ in their dysregulation. DESIGN: Twenty-five women meeting prospective criteria for PMDD and 42 non-PMDD controls underwent structured interview to determine abuse histories and lifetime Axis I diagnoses, excluding those with current Axis I disorders or using medications. MAJOR OUTCOME MEASURES: Plasma cortisol and norepinephrine (NE), heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP), and vascular resistance index (VRI) were assessed at rest and in response to mental stress. RESULTS: A greater proportion of PMDD women had prior abuse compared with non-PMDD women. Regardless of PMDD status, all abused women had lower plasma NE and higher HRs and tended to have lower plasma cortisol at rest and during stress. Abused women also reported more severe daily emotional and physical symptoms. Greater VRI and BP at rest and during stress were seen only in PMDD women with abuse. CONCLUSION: There is persistent dysregulation in stress-responsive systems in all abused women that cannot be accounted for by current psychiatric illness or medications, and PMDD women may be differentially more vulnerable to the impact of abuse on measures reflecting alpha-adrenergic receptor function.     

Binocular cues in the perception of distance of a point source of light

The ability to make egocentric distance estimates of a single point source of light, seen in darkness and without the cues of changing size and luminance, was investigated in sixteen observers. The attenuation required to maintain constant luminance, when the target was viewed from different distances, was shown to follow the inverse square law providing the angle subtended by the light was less than 20 s arc. Distance changes were also simulated by means of a split mirror which produced vergence cues, or by test lenses to provide accommodation cues. Over the range 0.5 to 9.2 m distance estimates were surprisingly accurate, although there was some overestimation of near and underestimation of far distances. Most observers made good judgements when only convergence cues were varied, whereas no observers made consistently good judgements when only accommodation cues were varied. The difficulties are discussed in terms of the accommodation-convergence link. When distance was simulated by changing convergence and accommodation cues, estimates were not as good as when real distance was changed. Since good estimates were made with brief target exposures, these judgements were not based on subsequent convergence or accommodation changes. It is suggested that the metric or reference against which the apparently absolute judgements were made was the efferent demand signal associated with a 'resting' position of convergence in darkness.