Does Scope of Attention Affect Creativity? Testing the Attentional Priming Hypothesis

Creativity is linked to broad scope of attention, a state or trait that allocates attentional resources over a wide range of perceptual stimuli. According to the attentional priming hypothesis, a mechanism underlying the creativity–attention link is that broad perceptual attention scope primes broad conceptual attention scope—the activation of a wide range of memory contents—which therefore facilitates creative ideation. This study aimed to test the hypothesis in three experiments using three manipulations and two creativity tasks. Experiment 1 used the Navon letter task to prime attention to global patterns or local details of composite stimuli and measured creativity via the task to generate alternative uses of daily objects. Experiment 2 modified a cue-size procedure in which participants repeatedly attended to large or small visual cues before a target stimulus appeared. Experiment 3 devised a manipulation that required participants to view and visualize images associated with broad or narrow attention and adopted the alternative uses task and the task to invent alien creatures. Across the experiments, although the results were in the predicted direction, they were non-significant. This study found no evidence that broadness of perceptual attention affects creativity.     

《齐物论》“八德”新诠

《庄子·齐物论》有"八德"之说,谓左、右、伦、义、分、辩、竞、争。八德两两之间看似或相反或相似,传统注解多未能厘清其内在关系,亦未精确地指出两者的区别所在。爬梳相关文献,我们发现"左""右"对应于吉与凶、生与杀、生与成、阳与阴、出与入等。与之相似,"伦"是仁爱的扩散,"义"则包含杀伐与节制;"分"是由一而多、向外滋生的过程,"辩"则是由多而一、向里合的途径;"竞"是创发性的、彼此同向的自我实现,"争"则是彼此对向的争夺与消灭。两两之间有一致的内在逻辑,既相反相对,又相续相承。     

大学生自尊和宽恕的关系:一个有调节的中介模型

采用问卷法对550名大学生进行调查研究,考察自尊对大学生宽恕的影响,同时考察共情在其中的中介作用,以及该过程是否受到特质愤怒的调节。结果表明:(1)大学生自尊与宽恕存在显著的正相关;(2)共情在大学生自尊和宽恕关系中起到完全中介作用;(3)特质愤怒在共情和宽恕之间具有调节效应,特质愤怒越高,共情对宽恕影响越小。     

算命之谜

时下外出旅游,不论是到名山古刹还是大小公园,常常会碰到算命、看手相、看面相、抽贴的算命先生。他们或是盲人,或是打扮一副仙风道骨的普通人,他们有的身边像模像样地放着一本《周易》或有关算命之类的书,或摆放着一个笔筒之类的器皿,里面放着做好的竹签,竹签上几句话,或在眼前放着几枚铜钱,专等游客上钩。十月六日,我与妻到一风景区旅游,正在一景点前休息,妻目睹一算命人正给一个大款模样的人算命,妻出于好奇,就挤进去听。架不住诱说,妻说那就给儿子抽一卦吧,给儿子算一算婚姻、事业、前途,然后报过年龄生日时辰。算命人翻翻书,闭目自言自…     

为什么有些科学家信仰宗教

在科学家与宗教的关系问题上,所说的科学家往往以自然科学家为主,他们常常是:哥白尼、布鲁诺、伽利略、牛顿、康德、达尔文等人。他们相关的宗教为基督教,他们主要生活在欧洲,他们所处的历史进程自欧洲的中世纪到19世纪。这一历史阶段,基督教由教权至上走向衰落。在基督教鼎盛时期,政权屈从于教权,教育权被宗教所把持。科学家在青少年时期接受教育,受控于宗教,要接受神学训导。在这样的时代背景下,科学家不信仰宗教是不可能的。他们全都是基督徒,也与他们出生于基督徒家庭密切相关。哥白尼10岁丧父,由舅父抚养,他舅父是一个教区的主教,他曾…     

Field dependence-independence and participation in physical activity by college students

Field-independent individuals, compared with field-dependent individuals, have higher sports potential and advantages in sport-related settings. Little research, however, has been conducted on the association of field dependence-independence and participation in physical activity. The study examined this association for college students who participated in physical activities in and beyond physical education classes. The Group Embedded Figures Test distinguished 40 field-dependent from 40 field-independent participants. Activity logs during one semester showed that field-independent participants were significantly more physically active and their physical activity behaviors were more sport-related than those of field-dependent participants.     

Young children can extend motion verbs to point-light displays

In the first study using point-light displays (lights corresponding to the joints of the human body) to examine children's understanding of verbs, 3-year-olds were tested to see if they could perceive familiar actions that corresponded to motion verbs (e.g., walking). Experiment 1 showed that children could extend familiar motion verbs (e.g., walking and dancing) to videotaped point-light actions shown in the intermodal preferential looking paradigm. Children watched the action that matched the requested verb significantly more than they watched the action that did not match the verb. In Experiment 2, the findings of Experiment 1 were validated by having children spontaneously produce verbs for these actions. The use of point-light displays may illuminate the factors that contribute to verb learning.     

The influence of task requirements on priming in object decision and matching

We argue that task requirements can be the determinant in generating different results in studies on visual object recognition. We investigated priming for novel visual objects in three implicit memory tasks. A study-test design was employed in which participants first viewed line drawings of unfamiliar objects and later made different decisions about structural aspects of the objects. Priming for both symmetric and asymmetric possible objects was observed in a task requiring a judgment of structural possibility. However, when the task was changed to one requiring a judgment of structural symmetry, only symmetric possible objects showed priming. Finally, in a matching task in which participants made a same-different judgment, only symmetric possible objects exhibited priming. These results suggest that an understanding of object representation will be most fruitful if it is based on careful analyses of both the task demands and their interaction(s) with encoding and retrieval processes.     

6—12岁儿童脑波超慢涨落功率与计算速度的关系

对176名6-12岁认知功能正常小学生进行脑波超慢涨落平均功率分布与计算速度关系的研究。结果表明：(1)计算速度快组和计算速度慢组中各年龄组的脑区平均功率符合额低枕高的前后梯度。计算速度慢组的逆转百分率高于计算速度快组。(2)在各年龄组中,计算速度快组和慢组功率前后逆转百分率的差异主要反映在右脑,右脑功率前后梯度逆转在不同计算组之间差异较大。(3)在计算速度快组和慢组中,左脑平均功率都小于右脑平均功率。计算速度快组和慢组脑波功率左右逆转百分率的差异主要反映在后脑,后脑功率左右逆转在逆转总数上计算速度快组多于计算速度慢组。