Flexible parafoveal encoding of character order supports word predictability effects in Chinese reading: Evidence from eye movements

Several eye-movement studies have revealed flexibility in the parafoveal processing of character-order information in Chinese reading. In particular, studies show that processing a two-character word in a sentence benefits more from parafoveal preview of a nonword created by transposing rather than replacing its two characters. One issue that has not been investigated is whether the contextual predictability of the target word influences this processing of character order information. However, such a finding would provide novel evidence for an early influence of context on lexical processing in Chinese reading. Accordingly, we investigated this issue in an eye-movement experiment using the boundary paradigm and sentences containing two-character target words with high or low contextual predictability. Prior to the reader’s gaze crossing an invisible boundary, each target word was shown normally (i.e. a valid preview) or with its two characters either transposed or replaced by unrelated characters to create invalid nonword previews. These invalid previews reverted to the target word once the reader’s gaze crossed the invisible boundary. The results showed larger preview benefits (i.e. a decrease in fixation times) for target words following transposed-character than substituted-character previews, revealing a transposed-character effect similar to that in previous research. In addition, a word predictability effect (shorter fixation times for words with high than low predictability) was observed following both valid and transposed-character previews, but not substituted-character previews. The findings therefore reveal that context can influence an early stage of lexical processing in Chinese reading during which character order is processed flexibly.

     

中英双语者情绪注意偏向中的双语优势效应

采用改进的点–探测范式,考察熟练双语者在情绪注意偏向中对情绪信息加工的优势效应及该效应产生的原因。采用2（熟练双语者和非熟练双语者）×3（靶刺激与消极词汇出现的位置一致、不一致和中性条件）×2（线索呈现时间为100 ms和400 ms）的混合实验设计,记录被试对靶子的按键反应时和错误率。结果发现：线索呈现100 ms和400 ms时,两组被试在注意定向分数上无显著差异;线索呈现100 ms时,两组被试的注意解除分数无显著差异;线索呈现400 ms时,熟练双语者的注意解除分数显著小于非熟练双语者。结果表明,在情绪注意偏向任务中,熟练双语者比非熟练双语者表现出了对情绪词汇信息更好的注意抑制控制能力,体现出对情绪信息加工的双语优势效应,产生这一优势效应的原因是熟练双语者在注意的晚期阶段比非熟练双语者具有更好的情绪信息注意解除能力。     

人与自然关系:作为中西文学发展的重要线索

人与自然关系是文学表现的重要母题。透过文学的发展,可以窥视出人类社会在社会实践推动下所走过的历史道路。本文意在通过中西文学发展中人与自然关系的描写,揭示人与自然关系的变化过程,并在历史的视野中审视生态批判的当代意义。     

浅析孔子教育传播思想

教育传播学属于跨学科研究领域,在我国尚属新兴学科。从传播学的角度解读孔子的教育传播思想,可以发现其教育传播思想中教育传播平民化;以文字传播作为主要的教育传播媒介;严格的传者自律;强烈的受众意识等诸多方面的内容。     

贪官迷信鬼神的思维逻辑

我们这里最近又有一个贪官垮台了,此前他家中供神,办公室的里间供神,电香火日夜像鬼火一样烧着,到哪儿都算命打卦,身边还豢养个《易经》大师兼风水大师,每逢出门必定得摇一卦,自己的名字改来改去。我和他很熟,屡次告诉他千万别信鬼神、天命,凡信者都是愚昧和软弱。但是他坚定地认为:一切都是天命,人没有任何力量。这次他倒了,我到看守所去看他,我说:你那么虔诚地求神拜神,为什么神不能保佑你?他喟然长叹:万般皆是命,半点不由人哪,这回我更信神了,去年有个大师给我算命卜卦,说我今年有灾,我没有在意,原因在我呀!看来他是至死不悟了。其实,他…     

Promoting balance and jumping skills in children with Down syndrome

The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes in balance and qualitative and quantitative jumping performances by 20 children with Down syndrome (3 to 6 years) on jumping lessons. 30 typical children ages 3 to 6 years were recruited as a comparison group. Before the jumping lesson, a pretest was given subjects for balance and jumping skill measures based on the Motor Proficiency and Motor Skill Inventory, respectively. Subjects with Down syndrome received 3 sessions on jumping per week for 6 weeks but not the typical children. Then, a posttest was administered to all subjects. Analysis of covariance showed the pre- and posttest differences on scores for floor walk, beam walk, and horizontal and vertical jumping by subjects with Down syndrome were significantly greater than those for the typical children.     

Updating egocentric representations in human navigation

Seven experiments tested whether human navigation depends on enduring representations, or on momentary egocentric representations that are updated as one moves. Human subjects pointed to unseen targets, either while remaining oriented or after they had been disoriented by self-rotation. Disorientation reduced not only the absolute accuracy of pointing to all objects ('heading error') but also the relative accuracy of pointing to different objects ('configuration error'). A single light providing a directional cue reduced both heading and configuration errors if it was present throughout the experiment. If the light was present during learning and test but absent during the disorientation procedure, however, subjects showed low heading errors (indicating that they reoriented by the light) but high configuration errors (indicating that they failed to retrieve an accurate cognitive map of their surroundings). These findings provide evidence that object locations are represented egocentrically. Nevertheless, disorientation had little effect on the coherence of pointing to different room corners, suggesting both (a) that the disorientation effect on representations of object locations is not due to the experimental paradigm and (b) that room geometry is captured by an enduring representation. These findings cast doubt on the view that accurate navigation depends primarily on an enduring, observer-free cognitive map, for humans construct such a representation of extended surfaces but not of objects. Like insects, humans represent the egocentric distances and directions of objects and continuously update these representations as they move. The principal evolutionary advance in animal navigation may concern the number of unseen targets whose egocentric directions and distances can be represented and updated simultaneously, rather than a qualitative shift in navigation toward reliance on an allocentric map.     

Perception of dynamic acoustic patterns by an individual with unilateral verbal auditory agnosia

Previous studies have found that subjects diagnosed with verbal auditory agnosia (VAA) from bilateral brain lesions may experience difficulties at the prephonemic level of acoustic processing. In this case study, we administered a series of speech and nonspeech discrimination tests to an individual with unilateral VAA as a result of left-temporal-lobe damage. The results indicated that the subject's ability to perceive steady-state acoustic stimuli was relatively intact but his ability to perceive dynamic stimuli was drastically reduced. We conclude that this particular aspect of acoustic processing may be a major contributing factor that disables speech perception in subjects with unilateral VAA.     

In the eye of the storm: race and genomics in research and practice

The difficulties of operationalizing race in research and practice for social, behavioral, and genetic researchers and practitioners are neither new nor related to recent genetic knowledge. For geneticists, the bases for understanding groups are clines, observed traits that gradually change in frequency between geographic regions without distinct identifiable population boundaries and population histories that carry information about the distribution of genetic variants. For psychologists, race may not exist or be a social and cultural construct associated with fluid social inferences. Because definitions of populations and race can be socially and biologically incongruent, the authors suggest that geneticists and social and behavioral scientists and clinicians attend to external validity issues by operationalizing population and racial categories and avoiding race proxies for other biological, social, and cultural constructs in research designs, data analyses, and clinical practice.     

Mothers' affect in the homework context: the importance of staying positive

This research investigated mothers' affect in the context of children's homework. Mothers (N = 109) of children 8 to 12 years old were interviewed daily about their affect while interacting with children, their assistance with children's homework, and children's behavior while completing homework. At this time and 6 months later, children's motivational and emotional functioning was assessed. Although mothers' negative affect was lower than their positive affect, it was elevated on days their assistance with homework was high. This was accounted for by mothers' perceptions of children as helpless on days they provided heightened assistance. Mothers' positive affect in the homework context buffered children's motivational and emotional functioning against mothers' negative affect as well as children's helplessness.