Role of structure and component in judgments of visual similarity of Chinese characters

Skilled readers of Chinese participated in sorting and visual search experiments. The sorting results showed that under conditions of conflicting information about structure and component, subjective judgments of the visual similarity among characters were based on the characters' overall configurations (i.e., structures) rather than on the common components the characters possessed. In visual search, both structure and component contributed to the visual similarity reflected by the search efficiency. The steepest search slopes (thus the most similar target-distractor pairs) were found when the target and the distractor characters had the same structure and shared 1 common component, compared with when they had different structures and/or shared no common components. Results demonstrated that character structure plays a greater role in the visual similarity of Chinese characters than has been considered.     

The emergence of competing modules in bilingualism

How does the brain manage to store and process multiple languages without encountering massive interference and transfer? Unless we believe that bilinguals live in two totally unconnected cognitive worlds, we would expect far more transfer than actually occurs. However, imaging and lesion studies have not provided consistent evidence for the strict neuronal separation predicted by the theory of modularity. We suggest that emergentist theory offers a promising alternative. It emphasizes the competitive interplay between multiple languages during childhood and by focusing on the dual action of competition and entrenchment, avoids the need to invoke a critical period to account for age of acquisition effects in second-language learning. This view instantiates the motto formulated by Elizabeth Bates that 'modules are made, not born.'     

The Processing of Coreference for Reduced Expressions in Discourse Integration

Three reading-time experiments in Chinese are reported that test contrasting views of how pronominal coreference is achieved. On the one hand, studies of reading time and eye tracking suggest that reduced expressions, such as the pronoun he, serve as critical links to integrate separate utterances into a coherent model of discourse. On the other hand, probe-word recognition studies indicate that full anaphoric expressions, such as a repeated name, are more readily interpreted than reduced expressions due to their rich lexical information, which provides effective cues to match the representation of the appropriate referent in memory. The results indicate that the ease of integrating the critical referent into a model of discourse is a function of the congruence of lexical, semantic, and discourse features conveyed by a syntactically prominent reduced expression within linguistic input. This pattern supports the view that a reduced expression is interpreted on-line and indeed plays a critical role in promoting discourse coherence by facilitating the semantic integration of separate utterances.     

错误再认:意识、注意和刺激特性

该研究基于错误再认现象,确立了意识知觉和无意识知觉在行为结果上的质的差异。在决定一个刺激是被有意识知觉还是无意识知觉时,刺激特性和注意之间存在着相互补偿的作用。实验一表明,当一个刺激短暂呈现而被无意识知觉的时候,增强刺激特性或提高注意水平都能使它的知觉变为有意识的;相对应地,实验二表明,一个处于分散注意条件下被无意识知觉的刺激,也可以通过使注意集中或增强刺激特性而使它的知觉变为有意识的。该研究对意识、注意和刺激特性三者间的关系进行了讨论。     

艾勒悖论(Allais Paradox)另释

艾勒悖论违背了期望效用(Expected Utility)理论的独立性(independence)原则,成为欲推翻期望效用理论的杠杆。“齐当别”抉择模型不将风险决策行为看成是追求某种“最大期望值”的抉择反应,而将其看成是“最好可能结果之间的取舍”或者“最坏可能结果之间的取舍”。此项研究设计了一“判断”技术,并用此对艾勒设计的选择问题加以检验。实验表明,判断结果所示的“齐当别”策略能满意地对艾勒选择题作出解释。     

转型期初中生心理健康与父母养育方式的研究

本研究采用《心理健康诊断量表》和《父母养育方式问卷》对196名初中生进行测量,探讨初中生心理健康与父母养育方式的影响因素及其相互之间的关系。结果表明,初中生的心理健康问题的检出率依次是自责倾向、恐怖倾向、冲动倾向和对人焦虑;性别因素只在心理健康的学习焦虑、养育方式上的父亲的惩罚、严厉、母亲的过干涉、过保护、父母的拒绝、否认等因素上表现出了显著差异;独生子女与非独生子女子女比较,在恐怖倾向以及惩罚、严厉的养育方式上存在显著差异;父母的文化程度、职业状况、离异、下岗等因素,只有母亲的职业状况因素对心理健康构成了影响;父母消极的教养方式将使学生的焦虑增加,母亲积极的教养方式将使学生的焦虑减少。     

21世纪医生培养目标研究的主要内容及实现措施

为了重新设计21世纪的医生,世界各国都把研究和制订21世纪医生的培养目标作为医学教育改革的重大研究课题。培养目标研究的主要内容包括明确培养目标的总体要求、强调医生能力的培养以及体现医生的综合角色等。为了保障21世纪医生培养目标的顺利实现,采取了立法、试点及课程的全面改革措施。作者还针对我国情况提出了修订我国培养目标的几点建议。     

Segregation by color/luminance does not necessarily facilitate motion discrimination in the presence of motion distractors.

Under what circumstances is the common motion of a group of elements more easily perceived when the elements differ in color and/or luminance polarity from their surround? Croner and Albright (1997), using a conventional global motion paradigm, first showed that motion coherence thresholds fell when target and distractor elements were made different in color. However, in their paradigm, there was a cue in the static view of the stimulus as to which elements belonged to the target. Arguably, in order to determine whether the visual system automatically groups, or prefilters, the image into different color maps for motion processing, such static form cues should be eliminated. Using various arrangements of the global motion stimulus in which we eliminated all static form cues, we found that global motion thresholds were no better when target and distractors differed in color than when they were identical, except under certain circumstances in which subjects had prior knowledge of the specific target color. We conclude that, in the absence of either static form cues or the possibility of selective attention to the target color, features with similar colors/luminance-polarities are not automatically grouped for global motion analysis.     

概化理论中的模型选择、数据解释和指标比较——评刘远我等的两篇论文

对刘远我等在1998年《心理学报》和1999年《心理科学》上发表的两篇慨化理论(GT)的应用研究论文．提出了对GT的一些主要问题的不同理解。这些问题包括模型选择、方差分量解释、一致性指标比较等。     

关于小学四年级至初中一年级学生阅读理解能力的研究

本研究从一般性阅读理解的角度．对738名小学四年级至初中一年级学生的阅读理解能力进行研究,得出由七种成分构成的阅读理解能力结构,并初步探讨了各年级学生以及不同阅读理解能力学生的发展特点。