Body image perceptions among Chinese children and adolescents

In order to investigate the body image self-perception and the prevalence of body dissatisfaction among Chinese children and adolescents, 9100 children aged 3-15 years living in four cities completed a questionnaire assessing body image self-percepts and ideals by figural stimuli. The results indicate that (1) children's body ratings started to be significantly related to their BMIs at age 5 and correlations increased with age; (2) a wide range of current body sizes was chosen by Chinese boys and girls; (3) the ideal body sizes of boys and girls selected by boys and girls, respectively, were "boys by boys">"boys by girls">"girls by boys">"girls by girls" and (4) the satisfaction, mild dissatisfaction, and moderate dissatisfaction rates were 40.1%, 36.4% and 23.5%, respectively. Differences as a function of gender and age were identified. It was concluded that the prevalence of body dissatisfaction among children and adolescents of urban China was striking, and that the Chinese boys were not immune to body dissatisfaction.     

浅谈栗谷的四端七情论

关于“四端七情”的问题在中国儒学尤其是朱熹哲学的心性论方面占有核心的位置 ,但并没有被朱熹以后的性理学者们继续关注 ,却得到韩国朝鲜王朝 ( 1 392— 1 91 0年 )的性理学者们的吸收及发挥。退溪与栗谷并称为韩国性理学的双璧 ,虽然他们都受到朱熹哲学的影响 ,不过在朱熹哲学的基础之上两位学者都建立了自己独特的哲学体系。栗谷的“四端七情说”在理气之妙、理通气局、气发理乘等理气论的基础上发挥了朱子学 ,他反对退溪理气互发的观点 ,对朱熹哲学作出了自己的理解和诠释     

ERP evidence for the time course of graphic, phonological, and semantic information in Chinese meaning and pronunciation decisions

Two words that varied in their relationship were presented sequentially to Chinese readers who made meaning and pronunciation decisions. In the meaning task, they decided whether the words had the same meaning. In the pronunciation task, they decided whether the words had the same pronunciation. In both tasks, the word pairs represented 1 of 4 relationships: graphically similar, homophonic, semantically related, or unrelated. Event related potentials (ERP) recordings made from the onset of the 2nd word suggested a temporal unfolding of graphic, phonological, and semantic effects. Specifically, graphically-related pairs produced a smaller P200 in the pronunciation task and a smaller N400 in the meaning task. Homophones produced reduced N400 component with bilateral sources in the meaning task.     

Posthypnotic suggestion and the modulation of Stroop interference under cycloplegia

Recent data indicate that under a specific posthypnotic suggestion to circumvent reading, highly suggestible subjects successfully eliminated the Stroop interference effect. The present study examined whether an optical explanation (e.g., visual blurring or looking away) could account for this finding. Using cyclopentolate hydrochloride eye drops to pharmacologically prevent visual accommodation in all subjects, behavioral Stroop data were collected from six highly hypnotizables and six less suggestibles using an optical setup that guaranteed either sharply focused or blurred vision. The highly suggestibles performed the Stroop task when naturally vigilant, under posthypnotic suggestion not to read, and while visually blurred; the less suggestibles ran naturally vigilant, while looking away, and while visually blurred. Although visual accommodation was precluded for all subjects, posthypnotic suggestion effectively eliminated Stroop interference and was comparable to looking away in controls. These data strengthen the view that Stroop interference is neither robust nor inevitable and support the hypothesis that posthypnotic suggestion may exert a top-down influence on neural processing.     

颜色知觉恒常理论的回顾

本文对早期颜色恒常理论、系数理论、计算理论和 Octant模型作了简要回顾 ,并结合已有的研究成果进行评述。对影响颜色恒常性机制的主要因素进行了探讨。强调了知觉经验、记忆、认知决策等高级意识活动对颜色恒常知觉的作用 ,并尝试性地提出了描述颜色恒常知觉过程的一般参照框架。     

Differences in Beliefs About Psychological Services in the Relationship Between Sociorace and One's Social Network

The roles of previous psychological service use and social network variables in beliefs about psychological services were examined with 184 college students. Having friends and family members who used psychological services, being female, and having used psychological services positively related with beliefs about psychological services. Socioracial differences in the effects of previous use of psychological services and social network variables on students’ beliefs about psychological services were found. Suggestions for ways counselors can provide support to students are discussed.     

Influence of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and catechol O-methyl transferase polymorphisms on effects of meditation on plasma catecholamines and stress

Meditation may show differential effects on stress and plasma catecholamines based on genetic polymorphisms in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and catechol O-methyl transferase (COMT). Eighty adults (40 men, 40 women; mean age 26 years) who practiced meditation regularly and 57 healthy control adults (35 men, 22 women; mean age 26 years) participated. Plasma catecholamines (norepinephrine (NE), epinephrine (E), and dopamine (DA)) concentrations were measured, and a modified form of the Stress Response Inventory was administered. The results were analyzed using two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with control and meditation subjects, gene polymorphism as factors, and meditation duration as the covariate. Two-way ANCOVA showed a significant interaction between control and meditation subjects, and BDNF Val66Met polymorphism on DA/NE+DA/E (p = 0.042) and NE/E+NE/DA (p = 0.046) ratios. A significant interaction was found for control and meditation subjects with COMT Val158Met polymorphism and plasma NE concentrations (p = 0.009). Post hoc ANCOVA in the meditation group, adjusted for meditation duration, showed significantly higher plasma NE concentrations for COMT Met carriers than COMT Val/Val subjects (p = 0.025). Significant differences of stress levels were found between the control and meditation subjects in BDNF Val/Met (p < 0.001) and BDNF Met/Met (p = 0.003), whereas stress levels in the BDNF Val/Val genotype did not differ between the control and meditation groups. This is the first evidence that meditation produces different effects on plasma catecholamines according to BDNF or COMT polymorphisms.     

Eye movements of second language learners when reading spaced and unspaced Chinese text

The effect of spacing in relation to word segmentation was examined for four groups of non-native Chinese speakers (American, Korean, Japanese, and Thai) who were learning Chinese as second language. Chinese sentences with four types of spacing information were used: unspaced text, word-spaced text, character-spaced text, and nonword-spaced text. Also, participants' native languages were different in terms of their basic characteristics: English and Korean are spaced, whereas the other two are unspaced; Japanese is character based whereas the other three are alphabetic. Thus, we assessed whether any spacing effects were modulated by native language characteristics. Eye movement measures showed least disruption to reading for word-spaced text and longer reading times for unspaced than character-spaced text, with nonword-spaced text yielding the most disruption. These effects were uninfluenced by native language (though reading times differed between groups as a result of Chinese reading experience). Demarcation of word boundaries through spacing reduces non-native readers' uncertainty about the characters that constitute a word, thereby speeding lexical identification, and in turn, reading. More generally, the results indicate that words have psychological reality for those who are learning to read Chinese as a second language, and that segmentation of text into words is more beneficial to successful comprehension than is separating individual Chinese characters with spaces.     

Implicit Science Stereotypes Mediate the Relationship between Gender and Academic Participation

While the gender gap in mathematics and science has narrowed, men pursue these fields at a higher rate than women. In this study, 165 men and women at a university in the northeastern United States completed implicit and explicit measures of science stereotypes (association between male and science, relative to female and humanities), and gender identity (association between the concept “self” and one’s own gender, relative to the concept “other” and the other gender), and reported plans to pursue science-oriented and humanities-oriented academic programs and careers. Although men were more likely than women to plan to pursue science, this gap in students’ intentions was completely accounted for by implicit stereotypes. Moreover, implicit gender identity moderated the relationship between women’s stereotypes and their academic plans, such that implicit stereotypes only predicted plans for women who strongly implicitly identified as female. These findings illustrate how an understanding of implicit cognitions can illuminate between-group disparities as well as within-group variability in science pursuit.