Traffic-entry behavior and crash risk for older drivers with impairment of selective attention

Current research suggests that older drivers with declines in selective attention would make more unsafe traffic-entry judgments than would older drivers with normal attention. This hypothesis was tested using an instrumented vehicle and a LIDAR speed and range detector. Participants were 20 older drivers: 10 (M=72.0 yr.) had impairments of selective attention, measured with the Visual Attention Analyzer, Model 3000, and 10 were nonimpaired (M=71.2 yr.). Drivers pressed a button to indicate the last possible moment they could safely cross a road in front of an oncoming vehicle. The speed and distance of the oncoming vehicles were measured and time-to-contact was calculated. Each driver's time-to-cross the roadway was independently measured. Attention-impaired drivers showed shorter time-to-contact values (5.60 sec. versus 6.86 sec.), took longer to cross the roadway (5.41 sec. versus 4.84 sec.), and had shorter safety cushions (the difference between time-to-contact and time-to-cross the roadway). Monte Carlo simulation showed that these performance differences increased the crash risk of the impaired group by up to 17.9 times that of the nonimpaired group.     

How brand names are special: brands,words, and hemispheres

Previous research has consistently shown differences between the processing of proper names and of common nouns, leading to the belief that proper names possess a special neuropsychological status. We investigate the category of brand names and suggest that brand names also have a special neuropsychological status, but one which is different from proper names. The findings suggest that the hemispheric lexical status of the brand names is mixed--they behave like words in some respects and like nonwords in others. Our study used familiar upper case brand names, common nouns, and two different types of nonwords ("weird" and "normal") differing in length, as stimuli in a lateralized lexical decision task (LDT). Common nouns, brand names, weird nonwords, and normal nonwords were recognized in that decreasing order of speed and accuracy. A right visual field (RVF) advantage was found for all four lexical types. Interestingly, brand names, similar to nonwords, were found to be less lateralized than common nouns, consistent with theories of category-specific lexical processing. Further, brand names were the only type of lexical items to show a capitalization effect: brand names were recognized faster when they were presented in upper case than in lower case. In addition, while string length affected the recognition of common nouns only in the left visual field (LVF) and the recognition of nonwords only in the RVF, brand names behaved like common nouns in exhibiting length effects only in the LVF.     

Conditioning the unconditioned response: modification of the rabbit's (Oryctolagus cuniculus) unconditioned nictitating membrane response

Conditioning-specific reflex modification (CRM) occurs when classical conditioning modifies responding to an unconditioned stimulus (US) in the absence of a conditioned stimulus (CS). Three experiments monitored rabbit nictitating (Oryctolagus cuniculus) membrane unconditioned responses to 5 intensities and 4 durations of periorbital electrical stimulation before and after CS or US manipulation. CRM occurred after 12 days of CS-US pairings but not following unpaired CS/US presentations or restraint. CRM survived CS-alone and CS/US-unpaired extinction of the conditioned response (CR) but not presentations of the US alone, although CRs remained intact. Thus, CRs could be weakened without eliminating CRM and CRM could be weakened without eliminating CRs. Data indicate CRM is a reliable, associative effect that is more than a generalized CR and may not be explained by habituation, stimulus generalization, contextual conditioning, or bidirectional conditioning.     

影响中学生自我价值感形成的诸因素研究

本研究采用<青少年学生自我价值感量表>对重点中学一所、普通中学一所和职业中学一所共774名学生进行调查,问卷的表头加入年级、学习成绩、家庭经济、居住环境等10多项需要了解的学生生活环境类型,测验结果发现学习和年级因素对价值感影响最大,作用非常显著,在初二和高三年级,价值感发展最快.学习成绩越好,价值感越高.其次是家庭居住环境、家庭经济状况、父母职业、家庭结构等因素.家庭居住环境是学校居住区最有利于学生价值感的发展,家庭经济状况是经济一般的学生价值感最好,其次是富裕家庭的,贫困的最差.父母职业是教师最高,其次是军人、干部、医生等.家庭结构是健全的发展最好,其次是离异的,再次是分居的,最差的是死亡的.     

Regional grey matter volume in the posterior cingulate cortex predicts positive risk-taking: A moderation model

Positive risk-taking is a crucial element of individual creativity and social development. However, little is known regarding the relation between individual neural differences and positive risk-taking. In addition, critical thinking (CT) and gender have been proven to be two important individual-specific factors associated with risk-taking behaviour, and different levels of CT and gender may have diverse effects on the relationship between brain structure and positive risk-taking. The present study examined the relationship between positive risk-taking and regional grey matter volume (rGMV) in 292 healthy participants. The results showed that positive risk-taking was significantly positively associated with the rGMV of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). In addition, this study investigated individual differences in critical thinking and found that it moderated the relationship between rGMV and positive risk-taking. Individuals with lower CT had a stronger association between rGMV and positive risk-taking. Further analysis showed that for males, a greater rGMV was significantly linked to higher positive risk-taking tendency. These findings suggest that PCC evaluates risk and serves as a behavioural adaptation hub for positive risk-taking. This study thereby contributes to the literature on individual differences in brain structure and risk-taking by elucidating the moderating effects of CT and gender in healthy adults.     

The role of risk,regret, and rejoice in non-instrumental information seeking

Standard theories suggest that humans should seek information only when it can help them make better decisions. However, recent work suggests that people choose to seek information even when it cannot influence the outcome of a choice. Across three experiments, we examined how this preference for non-instrumental information was related to the risk, regret, and rejoice associated with different choices. Experiment 1 examined how risk preference informed the appetite for non-instrumental information and tested how risk and information preference in a gamble-task related to the desire for knowledge across a range of hypothetical real-world scenarios. In Experiment 2, we tested how risk, operationalized as variance, related to non-instrumental information seeking when allowing participants to mentally simulate the potential outcomes of gambles. In Experiment 3, we provided explicit feedback about forgone options, intending to make the potential for regret or rejoice more salient. Taken together, our results show a consistent appetite for information that was robust to changes across all experimental manipulations. We found some evidence of a positive correlation between the desire for knowledge and the level of anticipated regret (Experiment 1), but overall, our data appear more consistent with the idea that non-instrumental information seeking is driven by a general aversion to uncertainty than by an attempt to regulate specific future emotions.     

Taking control of violence against doctors

Violence against healthcare professionals is a serious but understudied global problem and one that lacks evidence-based solutions. The current research offers a novel explanation and intervention for addressing this issue: We propose that low feelings of control among patients and their family members play an important role in shaping doctor-patient relationships. To regain a sense of control, we suggest that patients attribute responsibility to doctors for their suffering, which may in turn lead to aggressive behavioural intentions against one's doctors. We conducted three studies to understand whether individuals with low perceived control blame doctors more, and whether threats to their sense of control cause participants to attribute more responsibility to doctors. Study 1 found that feelings of lack of control were an important predictor of attributing responsibility for negative illness-related incidents to doctors in a manner consistent with blame. Study 2 specified that the chaotic and unpredictable nature of illness, and not just its negative valence, is what drives attributions of increased responsibility to doctors. Study 3, which utilized a field setting in hospitals, found that an experimental intervention to increase feelings of control decreased frustration against (Study 3a/3b) and intention to harm doctors (Study 3b). These findings suggest that increasing feelings of control among patients can improve patient-doctor relationships. We also discuss the role of control and scapegoating during the COVID-19 pandemic.     

影响学生道德行为的两个因素的实验研究

本实验对学校情境中教师的榜样作用和学生同伴之间的相互作用进行了比较。结果表明:在小学低年级,学生对榜样的模仿和对同伴团体的从众都比较普遍;在小学高年级,榜样的作用下降了,而对同伴团体的从众倾向在高中以前一直很明显。因此,学校道德教育应根据学生的发展特点,在不同时期采取相应的有效措施。     

十年来我国儿童发展教育心理学研究的一般水平

利用“1979—1988我国儿童发展教育心理学文献数据库”,根据选定的几项有关质量的指标,分析了十年来儿童发展教育心理学研究的一般水平,发现有些方面有进步,有些方面无进展。进步最大的是统计方法,十年来取得长足进展;被试数量10年内共362665人,工作量巨大,4—16岁是研究的重点。研究方法有进步,目前研究采用的主要方法是实验法,测量法和理论分析法,测量法发展较快;从问题提出的形式看,代表较高水平的研究—深入型研究所占比例呈波浪式下降的趋势,88年下降较为明显,而重复性研究却呈上升趋势。创新型的研究虽然量不大,但有发展,值得进一步探讨;文献著录的引文量明显低于世界平均值,亦明显低于全国平均值。在引文类型上,引证图书略高于引证期刊,这与国内外科技文献引证期刊为主的调查结论不一致。引文文种以中文和英文为主。引证近5年的文献比例较低,文献更新速度较慢,且十年中没有进步。     

Interpersonal Process of Emotional Labor: The Role of Negative and Positive Customer Treatment

Emotional labor refers to the process of regulating both feelings and expressions in response to the display rules for promoting organizational goals. Existing literature has provided strong evidence for the impact of emotional labor (i.e., surface acting and deep acting) on service employees’ emotional exhaustion. However, the empirical examination of the mechanisms underlying this association is largely missing from prior research. Drawing on the social interaction model of emotion regulation, this article reported 2 daily diary studies examining the role of customer treatment toward employees in channeling emotional labor's impact on employee emotional well‐being. Specifically, Study 1 measured emotional labor at the between‐person level as habitual emotional regulation strategies used by service employees, and Study 2 measured emotional labor at the within‐person level to capture its fluctuations. Results showed that employees engaging in more surface acting were more likely to receive negative treatment from customers, which in turn increased their negative affect and emotional exhaustion. Further, employees engaging in more deep acting were more likely to receive positive treatment from customers, which in turn increased their positive affect. Implications and limitations of these findings were discussed.