离经叛道的“科学家”（二）

苏联解体后，人们精神空虚，社会上人心涣散，一片混乱。伪科学借此大行其道，一些不学无术的骗子，傲慢地夸夸其谈，以“新科学”的名义到处张扬，新闻媒体推波助澜。这些声称离经叛道的“科学家”构成了俄罗斯近几年来，伪科学强大的、有组织的努力。     

Telling young children they have a reputation for being smart promotes cheating

The present research examined the consequences of telling young children they have a reputation for being smart. Of interest was how this would affect their willingness to resist the temptation to cheat for personal gain as assessed by a temptation resistance task, in which children promised not to cheat in the game. Two studies with 3‐ and 5‐year‐old children (total N = 323) assessed this possibility. In Study 1, participants were assigned to one of three conditions: a smart reputation condition in which they were told they have a reputation for being smart, an irrelevant reputation control condition, or a no reputation control condition. Children in the smart reputation condition were significantly more likely to cheat than their counterparts in either control condition. Study 2 confirmed that reputational concerns are indeed a fundamental part of our smart reputation effect. These results suggest that children as young as 3 years of age are able to use reputational cues to guide their behavior, and that telling young children they have a positive reputation for being smart can have negative consequences.     

Verbal–spatial IQ discrepancies impact brain activation associated with the resolution of cognitive conflict in children and adolescents

Verbal–spatial discrepancies are common in healthy individuals and in those with neurodevelopmental disorders associated with cognitive control deficits including: Autism Spectrum Disorder, Non‐Verbal Learning Disability, Fragile X, 22q11 deletion, and Turner Syndrome. Previous data from healthy individuals suggest that the magnitude of the difference between verbal IQ (VIQ) and performance IQ (PIQ) scores (the VIQ>PIQ discrepancy) is associated with reduced thickness in frontal and parietal cortices (inferior frontal, anterior cingulate, inferior parietal lobule, and supramarginal gyrus) that support cognitive control. Unknown is whether the VIQ>PIQ discrepancy is associated with functional deficits in these areas in healthy or ill children and adolescents. We assessed the effects of the VIQ>PIQ discrepancy on fMRI BOLD response during the resolution of cognitive conflict in 55 healthy children and adolescents during performance of a Simon Spatial Incompatibility task. As the magnitude of the VIQ>PIQ discrepancy increased, activation of fronto‐striatal, limbic, and temporal regions decreased during conflict resolution (p < .05, corrected). In exploratory analyses, the VIQ>PIQ discrepancy was associated with reduced functional connectivity from right inferior frontal gyrus to right thalamus and increased functional connectivity to right supramarginal gyrus (ps < .03, uncorrected). The VIQ>PIQ discrepancy may be an important aspect of an individual's cognitive profile and likely contributes to, or is associated with, deficient cognitive control processes characteristic of many childhood disorders.     

Rheumatoid arthritis is associated with negatively variable impacts on domains of female sexual function: evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis

To systematically review the literature to identify the impact of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) on specific female sexual function domains. A meta-analysis was performed and the related literature were searched in MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, CNKI, CBM and Web of Science databases, and in reference lists of articles and systematic reviews. Score of the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) was used as the outcome measurement, and mean differences (MD) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. Five studies were included, including 346 women with RA and 237 healthy female controls. Each domain of the FSFI score: lubrication (MD, ?2.48; 95% CI, ?3.69, ?1.28), orgasm-1.71 (?2.09, ?1.33), sexual desire-1.27 (?1.59, ?0.95), satisfaction-1.67 (?2.18, ?1.16), arousal-1.83 (?2.85, ?0.82), pain-1.57 (?2.43, ?0.70) and the total score ?8.84 (?11.88, ?5.79) were lower in RA women than healthy controls. Furthermore, lubrication dimension was most severely affected especially. This meta-analysis showed that female RA patients scored lower in each dimension of FSFI, mostly in the lubrication domain. It demonstrated that targeted interventions should be done to improve their sexual function. Future well-designed researches with larger sample sizes are necessary to evaluate the potential risk factors which determine female sexual dysfunction.     

Association between cognitive vulnerability to depression - dysfunctional attitudes and glycaemic control among in-patients with type 2 diabetes in a hospital in Beijing: a multivariate regression analysis

This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the relationship between glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1c) and cognitive vulnerability to depression (dysfunctional attitudes) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. A total of 245 valid records from June 2016 to December 2016 were collected from a hospital in Beijing. Participants were asked to complete four questionnaires (Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale, Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire, Zung Self-rating Depression Scale, and World Health Organization Quality of Life Instrument-Short Form) to assess mental health and quality of life. Multivariate regression analysis was conducted to determine the correlations between HbA1c, mental health, quality of life and other clinical variables. The results showed that dysfunctional attitudes were associated with HbA1c, with a standardized regression coefficient (β) of .13 (p = .01), although 1 h C-peptide (β = ?.75, p < .0001) was the most significant predictor of HbA1c in the regression model. The results indicated that dysfunctional attitudes, as a cognitive vulnerability to depression, were a relevant factor in HbA1c, although further studies are needed to establish the nature of the connection between dysfunctional attitudes and glycaemic control in diabetes patients.     

Training and transfer effects of response inhibition training in children and adults

Response inhibition is crucial for mental and physical health but studies assessing the trainability of this type of inhibition are rare. Thirty‐nine children aged 10‐12 years and 46 adults aged 18‐24 years were assigned to an adaptive go/no‐go inhibition training condition or an active control condition. Transfer of training effects to performance on tasks assessing response inhibition, interference control, working memory updating, task‐switching, and non‐verbal fluid intelligence were assessed during 3‐ and 6‐month follow‐up sessions and/or an immediate post‐training session. Significant training improvements and positive transfer effects to a similar response inhibition task with other stimuli were observed for both children and adults. Reliable albeit short‐lived transfer effects were only found for the children, specifically to working memory updating and task switching. These results suggest some potential for response‐inhibition training programs to enhance aspects of cognitive functioning in children but not adults.     

Vocabulary growth rate from preschool to school‐age years is reflected in the connectivity of the arcuate fasciculus in 14‐year‐old children

The acquisition of language involves the functional specialization of several cortical regions. Connectivity between these brain regions may also change with the development of language. Various studies have demonstrated that the arcuate fasciculus was essential for language function. Vocabulary learning is one of the most important skills in language acquisition. In the present longitudinal study, we explored the influence of vocabulary development on the anatomical properties of the arcuate fasciculus. Seventy‐nine Chinese children participated in this study. Between age 4 and age 10, they were administered the same vocabulary task repeatedly. Following a previous study, children's vocabulary developmental trajectories were clustered into three subgroups (consistently good, catch‐up, consistently poor). At age 14, diffusion tensor imaging data were collected. Using ROI‐based tractography, the anterior, posterior and direct segments of the bilateral arcuate fasciculus were delineated in each child's native space. Group comparisons showed a significantly reduced fractional anisotropy in the left arcuate fasciculus of children in the consistently poor group, in particular in the posterior and direct segments of the arcuate fasciculus. No group differences were observed in the right hemisphere, nor in the left anterior segment. Further regression analyses showed that the rate of vocabulary development, rather than the initial vocabulary size, was a specific predictor of the left arcuate fasciculus connectivity.     

Effect of achievement motivation on cognitive control adaptations

Previous research addressing motivational effects on cognitive control adaptations primarily manipulated external rewards. In the present study, we examined whether achievement motivation, reflecting intrinsic motivation, modulates cognitive control adaptations. In each of two experiments, students were divided into a high achievement motivation group (HAM; Experiment 1: N?=?36; Experiment 2: N?=?39) and a low achievement motivation group (LAM; Experiment 1: N?=?30; Experiment 2: N?=?39) on the basis of the Achievement Motivation Scale. Cognitive control adaptations were assessed by sequential congruency effects (SCEs) in Flanker tasks. Using a standard Flanker task in Experiment 1 and examining response times, the HAM but not LAM participants showed evidence of cognitive control adaptations. Because SCEs in a standard Flanker task may reflect lower-level, bottom-up processes rather than cognitive control adaptations, we used an adapted version of the Flanker task in Experiment 2 that controlled for the potential influence of such processes. Experiment 2 again revealed evidence of SCEs in the HAM but not LAM participants. These results suggest that cognitive control adaptions may be modulated by achievement motivation. Such potential modulation could be taken into account when evaluating results of previous and future fundamental and applied studies on cognitive control adaptations.     

基于认知设计系统的几何类比推理测验的编制及认知模型分析

认知诊断是一种新的测量范式。本研究首先根据Mulholland,Pellegrino＆Glaser和Whitely＆Schneider关于类比推理的研究结果,采用认知设计系统编制了几何类比推理测试题,并对所编制的测试题的质量进行验证,然后采用口语报告法分析解决几何类比推理所涉及的认知模型,结果表明：1）编制的几何类比推理测试题的质量比较好;2）学生解决类比推理所涉及的认知属性主要为置换、翻转、旋转、数量、大小、颜色与条纹和形状。     

Emotional reactions to scandals: When does moral character make a difference?

A scandal can evoke public outrage when it is widely publicized and involves an individual who is perceived to have a high level of cultural representativeness. Two experiments showed that when the scandalous target's moral character was highlighted, emotional responses towards the target were least negative when the scandal was widely circulated and when the target was seen as a representative of his culture. These results suggest that when a cultural symbol is implicated in a widely‐circulated scandal, the negative emotions directed towards the scandalous individual can be alleviated when the public remains confident in his or her commitment to morality.