Decreased parahippocampal activity in associative priming: evidence from an event-related fMRI study

In recent years, there has been intense debate on the neural basis of associative priming, particularly on the role of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) in retrieving associative information without awareness. In this study, event-related fMRI was used while healthy subjects performed a perceptual identification task on briefly presented unrelated word pairs and an associative recognition memory task. Contamination of priming by explicit memory was successfully controlled, as associative priming and explicit memory were dissociated on the behavioral level. The fMRI results showed a functional dissociation within the MTL with respect to associative priming effects. The right parahippocampal cortex, but not the hippocampus, showed decreased activation for old vs. new pairs and old vs. recombined pairs (associative priming). The bilateral hippocampus and the right parahippocampal cortex were involved in explicit associative memory. These data provide evidence that subregions of the MTL participate in associative priming even when explicit involvement was controlled. Thus, different regions within the MTL play distinct roles in explicit and implicit associative memory.     

Stigma and beliefs of efficacy towards traditional Chinese medicine and Western psychiatric treatment among Chinese-Americans

In this study we examined community attitudes of efficacy and shame to investigate the factors that may underlie mental health service underutilization among Chinese Americans. We administered an experimental vignette to assess beliefs of efficacy and shame toward using traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as opposed to Western health services in a sample of 90 Chinese Americans obtained through a national telephone survey. Contrary to predictions, beliefs of efficacy for treating mental disorders were found to be greater for Western psychiatric services when compared with TCM. As predicted however, Chinese Americans perceived greater community attitudes of shame when accessing Western psychiatric services as opposed to TCM to treat a mental disorder. Furthermore, these differences in community attitudes of shame only occurred among respondents who received a psychiatric condition vignette, but not with respondents who were administered a vignette of a physical disorder. These findings suggest that perceived shame may play an important role in help seeking and that integration of TCM with Western psychiatric care may have implications for reducing shame for Chinese Americans.     

试论《管子》的“和合偕习”之治

《管子》号称“中国古代的百科全书”,其中不少思想具有超越时代性的特点。《管子·幼官》所提出的“和合偕习”,旨在使民众在共同的道德、理想基础上和谐融合,形成深人民心的社会风尚,这样就能同心协力地为社会发展而努力;达到了这种完全的地步,就没有什么力量可使之动摇。其注重社会和谐的意向甚明。这些思想对当今建设和谐社会有着重要的启迪意义和借鉴价值。     

论《尘埃落定》中的道家文化蕴含

《尘埃落定》是藏族作家阿来的作品,长期以来人们对它的解读,往往从藏民族民间文化和宗教文化角度切入,其实如果我们把作家的文人身份和作品中弘扬的人文精神结合起来研读,就会发现在文本中有着浓郁的道家文化身影。     

Whose side are you on? Relational orientations and their impacts on side‐taking among Dutch and Chinese employees

Informal relationships often influence employees who intervene in an interpersonal conflict between colleagues. We investigate and report the effects of relational orientations (reciprocity orientation and communal orientation) on employee preference of choosing sides between an acquaintance and a friend in a workplace dispute in The Netherlands and China. A scenario study was conducted among 104 Dutch and 105 Chinese employees. As hypothesized, the results indicate that employees, especially Dutch employees, with an interest‐concerned reciprocity orientation tend to side with the acquaintance who has a greater potential to return the favour. By contrast, employees, especially Chinese, with a sharing‐concerned communal orientation tend to side with their workplace friend. Explanations and implications of the findings are discussed.     

论基督教文化与中国现代文学的人道精神

在反思批判中国儒家文化传统的语境中,基督教文化成为批判儒家文化传统的思想武器,诸多曾受到基督教文化影响的中国作家在救世精神的推崇、爱人如己的描写、自我价值的追寻中,使他们的创作或多或少地呈现出人道精神,对人道主义在中国的萌动与发展起到了重要的作用.     

Object memory and change detection: dissociation as a function of visual and conceptual similarity

People often fail to detect a change between two visual scenes, a phenomenon referred to as change blindness. This study investigates how a post-change object's similarity to the pre-change object influences memory of the pre-change object and affects change detection. The results of Experiment 1 showed that similarity lowered detection sensitivity but did not affect the speed of identifying the pre-change object, suggesting that similarity between the pre- and post-change objects does not degrade the pre-change representation. Identification speed for the pre-change object was faster than naming the new object regardless of detection accuracy. Similarity also decreased detection sensitivity in Experiment 2 but improved the recognition of the pre-change object under both correct detection and detection failure. The similarity effect on recognition was greatly reduced when 20% of each pre-change stimulus was masked by random dots in Experiment 3. Together the results suggest that the level of pre-change representation under detection failure is equivalent to the level under correct detection and that the pre-change representation is almost complete. Similarity lowers detection sensitivity but improves explicit access in recognition. Dissociation arises between recognition and change detection as the two judgments rely on the match-to-mismatch signal and mismatch-to-match signal, respectively.     

A Preliminary Study on the Use of Mobile Phones amongst Migrant Workers in Beijing

The past decade has witnessed the rapid growth in the number of mobile phone users in China. According to a survey conducted amongst migrant workers and reported in this study, mobile phones have become sufficiently affordable for an overwhelming majority of migrants. Drawing on examples from Beijing, this article discusses the implications of mobile phone usage among migrant workers in China. Through an analysis of their stories about their daily lives, this paper attempts to explicate migrant workers’ mobile phone usage against a background of their alienated situation in Beijing. The author explores the responses of the migrants to their situation in relation to the social usage of mobile phone and specifically introduces and discusses four concepts for understanding patterns of migrant mobile phone use: feigned presence, concern in absence, jianghu relations, and romantic relations. The paper ends with the conclusion that the patterns of mobile phone usage contribute to changes in migrant workers’ way of life. Residual problems and avenues of future research that arise from this study are also discussed in the conclusion.