中英文Stroop干扰效应的脑机制

以中国大学生为被试,采用事件相关电位对比研究中英文Stroop干扰效应的脑内时程动态变化。结果发现：两种文字材料都存在反应时的Stroop干扰效应,汉字的干扰效应明显强于英文;被试在完成不同文字材料的字词颜色命名任务时所诱发的ERP成分存在差异,具体为中文Stroop干扰效应表现为在350—550ms内,不一致条件比一致条件诱发一个更负的ERP成分（N450）,主要分布于额中部电极。英文Stroop干扰效应表现为不一致条件比一致条件在250—450ms内诱发一个更正的ERP成分（P300）,主要分布于左侧额顶叶;在450—550ms内诱发一个更负的ERP成分（N500）,主要分布于中后部。研究结果表明语言类型会影响Stroop干扰效应的脑内时程变化。     

谈谈中国临床试验研究中受试者权益保障问题

随着国家《药品临床试验管理规范》的颁布与实施,我国新药临床试验研究水平有相当的提高,但也存在着一些问题。其中包括保护受试者权益问题。国家GCP有关章节中明确指出要保护受试者权益。并有具体规定,但在执行中尚有出入,如试验方案未经伦理委员会批准,未向受试者告知试验内容。或告知的不够充分,甚至在未签署知情同意书时就开始试验等。为此,我国采取了相应的措施,如设立药品临床研究培训中心;定期对临床试验基地的研究者以及相关人员如与试验有关的医师,药师及申办者进行GCP培训,基地审核制度,以法律手段来保证受试者权益等。     

Ethnic Minority Women’s Experiences with Intimate Partner Violence: Using Community-Based Participatory Research to Ask the Right Questions

Current definitions, instruments, and processes for measuring intimate partner violence, including sexual assault, are insufficient to detect the nature and scope of violence against all women. To remedy this problem, we recommend the use of community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles to develop culturally informed quantitative instruments that measure ethnic minority women’s experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV). CBPR requires community members and researchers to work equitably together throughout the research process, sharing decision-making and ownership. This paper identifies problems with current measurement approaches and describes the strengths and challenges of the CBPR approach. We argue that this research orientation offers the potential for “flexible standardization” that can provide better estimates of the extent of IPV and sexual assault, and provide communities with the knowledge they need to address these problems in a culturally sensitive manner.     

Effects of a Center-Based Parent Training Package on Parents’ Accuracy of Generalized Program Implementations at Home

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a parent training package on parents’ accuracy of program implementations and their children’s goal achievements on parent-implemented programs at home. Parents also completed a quiz with questions about three-contingencies before and after the training. Three mother-child dyads participated in this study. All three children were 4-year-old boys with developmental delays. We employed a multiple baseline across three parent-child dyads as the primary design combined with a pretest and posttest. The individual parent training sessions consisted of office meetings and in-vivo classroom coaching sessions on program implementations. Each parent was trained individually to mastery criteria on program implementations using the Teacher Performance Rate Accuracy Scale (TPRA). After completing the parent training package, all parents acquired program implementations skills, and their program implementation skills were generalized to teach new behaviors at home with a high level of fidelity. Their quiz scores on three-term contingencies also increased to a relatively high level.     

Positive Definiteness via Off-diagonal Scaling of a Symmetric Indefinite Matrix

Indefinite symmetric matrices that are estimates of positive-definite population matrices occur in a variety of contexts such as correlation matrices computed from pairwise present missing data and multinormal based methods for discretized variables. This note describes a methodology for scaling selected off-diagonal rows and columns of such a matrix to achieve positive definiteness. As a contrast to recently developed ridge procedures, the proposed method does not need variables to contain measurement errors. When minimum trace factor analysis is used to implement the theory, only correlations that are associated with Heywood cases are shrunk.     

The Impact of Fallible Item Parameter Estimates on Latent Trait Recovery

In this paper we propose an upward correction to the standard error (SE) estimation of [^(q)]_ML\hat{\theta}_{\mathrm{ML}} , the maximum likelihood (ML) estimate of the latent trait in item response theory (IRT). More specifically, the upward correction is provided for the SE of [^(q)]_ML\hat{\theta}_{\mathrm{ML}} when item parameter estimates obtained from an independent pretest sample are used in IRT scoring. When item parameter estimates are employed, the resulting latent trait estimate is called pseudo maximum likelihood (PML) estimate. Traditionally, the SE of [^(q)]_ML\hat{\theta}_{\mathrm{ML}} is obtained on the basis of test information only, as if the item parameters are known. The upward correction takes into account the error that is carried over from the estimation of item parameters, in addition to the error in latent trait recovery itself. Our simulation study shows that both types of SE estimates are very good when θ is in the middle range of the latent trait distribution, but the upward-corrected SEs are more accurate than the traditional ones when θ takes more extreme values.     

White matter development during adolescence as shown by diffusion MRI

Previous volumetric developmental MRI studies of the brain have shown white matter development continuing through adolescence and into adulthood. This review presents current findings regarding white matter development and organization from diffusion MRI studies. The general trend during adolescence (age 12–18 years) is towards increasing fractional anisotropy (FA) with age and decreasing mean diffusivity (MD) with age, findings primarily due to decreasing radial diffusivity with age. However, results of studies vary as to the regional specificity of such age-related changes, likely due in part to methodological issues. Another general trend is for FA to positively correlate and MD to negatively correlate with cognitive function. This trend is however region-specific, task-specific, and population-specific; some studies have in fact found negative correlations of FA and positive correlations of MD in specific regions with specific measures of cognitive performance. There are also published reports of sexual dimorphism in white matter development, indicating differing developmental trajectories between males and females as well as differing relationships developmentally between white matter architecture and cognitive function. There is a need for more research to further elucidate the development of white matter and its relation to cognitive function during this critical developmental period.     

On robusiness of the normal-theory based asymptotic distributions of three reliability coefficient estimates

This paper studies the asymptotic distributions of three reliability coefficient estimates: Sample coefficient alpha, the reliability estimate of a composite score following a factor analysis, and the estimate of the maximal reliability of a linear combination of item scores following a factor analysis. Results indicate that the asymptotic distribution for each of the coefficient estimates, obtained based on a normal sampling distribution, is still valid within a large class of nonnormal distributions. Therefore, a formula for calculating the standard error of the sample coefficient alpha, recently obtained by van Zyl, Neudecker and Nel, applies to other reliability coefficients and can still be used even with skewed and kurtotic data such as are typical in the social and behavioral sciences.This research was supported by grants DA01070 and DA00017 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and a University of North Texas faculty research grant. We would like to thank the Associate Editor and two reviewers for suggestions that helped to improve the paper.     

互惠教学:情境教学与认知教学结合的典范

互惠教学是一种教授阅读理解策略的教学模式,结合了专家示范教学与小组对话的特征。本文回顾了互惠教学这一教学模式的提出,以及在以往二十多年里这一领域所经历的策略研究、对话研究与教学情境研究的三个阶段;进而评价了以往研究中的不足。展望了今后研究的方向,为阅读策略的教学与研究提供了参考,并支持了专长研究的新视角。     

概化理论在绩效评估中的应用

概化理论借助其理论上的优势在很大程度上克服了基于经典测量理论绩效评估存在的缺陷。它可以对绩效评估中的信度进行更全面的估计,更好地预测和控制误差,并且概化理论的独特视角和方法还为360度绩效评估的效度求取提供了理论支持。