数字工作记忆广度的毕生发展及其作用因素

以10~90岁的1993名自愿者为被试完成该实验研究。结果表明：（1）在最简单的心算加工负荷下,数字工作记忆广度约为6±2;（2）在10至90岁范围内,测验的最高成绩在16~19岁组（即高中生组）,回归分析表明数字工作记忆广度随年龄的对数呈抛物线变化;（3）教育因素对成年人数字工作记忆广度的随龄化过程有重要作用;（4）与我们过去的研究结果相比较,发现数字工作记忆广度受心算加工负荷的影响显著     

关于高校多媒体教学影响因素的建模与分析

基于相关认知理论和前人研究结果建立了多媒体教学环境下教师授课、学生学习和学习绩效因素结构模型。采用问卷和量表法获取在杭6所高校的多媒体教学实践数据,验证性因素分析的结果证实了3个假设模型的适宜性和合理性。文章以所建的3个模型为框架,用多媒体学习认知理论和认知负荷理论分析了当前高校多媒体教学状况,并为高校多媒体教学发展提出了相应的心理学建议。     

Sugar ingestion and dichotic listening: Increased perceptual capacity is more than motivation

Participants ingested a sugar drink or a sugar-free drink and then engaged in a pair of dichotic listening tasks. Tasks presented category labels then played a series of word pairs, one in the left ear and one in the right. Participants attempted to identify pairs containing a target category member. Target category words were homonyms. For example, arms appeared as a target in the “body parts” category. Nontargets that played along with targets were related to a category-appropriate version of the target (e.g., sleeves), a category-inappropriate version (e.g., weapons), or were unrelated to either version of the target (e.g., plant). Hence, an effect of nontarget type on number of targets missed was evidence that participants processed nontargets for meaning. In the divided attention task, participants monitored both ears. In the focused attention task, participants monitored the left ear. Half the participants in each group had the divided attention task before the focused attention task; the other half had the focused attention task before the divided attention task. We set task lengths to about 12 min so working on the first task would give sufficient time for metabolizing sugar from the drink before the start of the second task. Nontarget word type significantly affected targets missed in both tasks. Drink type affected performance in the divided attention task only after sufficient time for converting sugar into blood glucose. The result supports an energy model for the effect of sugar ingestion on perceptual tasks rather than a motivational model.     

Implicit sequence learning in a search task

This study investigated the effects of selection demands on implicit sequence learning. Participants in a search condition looked for a target among seven distractors and responded on the target identity. The responses followed a deterministic sequence, and sequence learning was compared to that found in two control conditions in which the targets were presented alone, either at a central location or over a series of unpredictable locations. Sequence learning was obtained in all conditions, and it was equivalent for the two variable location conditions, regardless of the perceptual demands. Larger effects of learning were observed in the central location, both on the indirect measures and on the measures taken from a cued-generation task. The expression of learning decreased selectively in this condition when the sequence validity was reduced over a test block. These results are consistent with the claims that implicit and explicit learning are mixed in this central condition and that implicit learning is not affected by selection difficulty.     

Task difficulty and response complexity modulate affective priming by emotional facial expressions

In this study we used an affective priming task to address the issue of whether the processing of emotional facial expressions occurs automatically independent of attention or attentional resources. Participants had to attend to the emotion expression of the prime face, or to a nonemotional feature of the prime face, the glasses. When participants attended to glasses (emotion unattended), they had to report whether the face wore glasses or not (the glasses easy condition) or whether the glasses were rounded or squared (the shape difficult condition). Affective priming, measured on valence decisions on target words, was mainly defined as interference from incongruent rather than facilitation from congruent trials. Significant priming effects were observed just in the emotion and glasses tasks but not in the shape task. When the key–response mapping increased in complexity, taxing working memory load, affective priming effects were reduced equally for the three types of tasks. Thus, attentional load and working memory load affected additively to the observed reduction in affective priming. These results cast some doubts on the automaticity of processing emotional facial expressions.     

Dual coding versus relational processing in memory for concrete and abstract words

In two experiments, participants judged whether nouns fitted particular sentence frames and then received an unanticipated recall test with the sentence frames as cues. Concrete nouns were better recalled than abstract nouns, and nouns presented in meaningful sentence frames were better recalled than nouns presented in anomalous sentence frames. In Experiment 2, performance in a test of free recall was positively related to the concreteness of the nouns but unrelated to the meaningfulness of the sentence frames. The increase in performance from free recall to cued recall was positively related to the meaningfulness of the sentence frames but not significantly related to the concreteness of the nouns. The effects of concreteness and meaningfulness showed no sign of any interaction either in their effects on recall performance or in their effects on the advantage of cued recall over free recall. These results are consistent with the dual-coding theory of imagery and verbal processes but are not consistent with either of two different interpretations of the relational-distinctiveness processing theory.     

工作记忆负荷对注意缺陷多动障碍儿童过滤新异分心刺激能力的影响*

关于启动工作记忆负荷的强度与过滤分心刺激这两种认知资源的关系一直存在争论;并且对ADHD儿童来说,新异的分心刺激是提高了唤醒水平,还是干扰了任务进程也一直存在争论。本研究选取了ADHD儿童32名,正常儿童35名。采用视听跨通道oddball任务,通过操作视觉任务工作记忆负荷的高低,以及分心刺激与目标刺激之间的时间间隔,探讨不同工作记忆负荷对 ADHD 儿童过滤新异分心刺激能力的影响。结果发现：(1)在低工作记忆负荷条件下,分心刺激对两组儿童都起到了唤醒作用;在高工作记忆负荷条件下,分心刺激影响了两组儿童对任务本身的加工过程,使其判断的精确性下降。但是 ADHD 儿童受到的影响更大,表明其过滤分心刺激的能力落后。(2)当分心刺激与目标刺激同时出现时, ADHD儿童受到的干扰最大;但随着二者时间间隔的延长,并没有出现间隔越长干扰效应越小的趋势。在本研究条件下,得出以下结论：(1)两组儿童对跨通道新异分心刺激的过滤受到目标任务的工作记忆负荷强度的影响。(2)适度延长分心刺激与目标刺激之间的时间间隔可能会帮助ADHD的注意回归。     

视觉工作记忆负载对听觉偏差干扰效应的调控：来自不同外周提示线索的证据

采用线索提示和视听Oddball结合的实验设计, 通过四个实验探讨了外周视线索下视觉工作记忆负载对听觉偏差干扰效应的调控作用。结果表明：(1)操作外周视线索有效性为50%的条件下, 视觉工作记忆负载的增加使得原本抑制无关声音的过程失败, 因此出现了显著的听觉偏差干扰效应; (2)操作外周视线索有效性为80%的条件下, 发现有策略性的注意定向消耗了注意资源, 无视觉工作记忆负载的情况下同样出现听觉偏差干扰, 并且随着工作记忆负载增加偏差干扰效应增强。研究说明视觉工作记忆负载对听觉偏差干扰的调控是有条件性的, 当来自不同感觉通道的无关刺激与目标的加工过程存在重叠时, 视觉工作记忆负载的增加使得听觉偏差干扰效应增强而不是减弱。     

Mental Juggling: When Does Multitasking Impair Reading Comprehension?

The present study investigated the conditions under which multitasking impairs reading comprehension. Participants read prose passages (the primary task), some of which required them to perform a secondary task. In Experiment 1, we compared two different types of secondary tasks (answering trivia questions and solving math problems). Reading comprehension was assessed using a multiple-choice test that measured both factual and conceptual knowledge. The results showed no observable detrimental effects associated with multitasking. In Experiment 2, the secondary task was a cognitive load task that required participants to remember a string of numbers while reading the passages. Performance on the reading comprehension test was lower in the cognitive load conditions relative to the no-load condition. The present study delineates the conditions under which multitasking can impair or have no effect on reading comprehension. These results further our understanding of our capacity to multitask and have practical implications in our technologically advanced society in which multitasking has become commonplace.     

Emotion and object processing in Parkinson’s disease

The neuropsychological literature on the processing of emotions in Parkinson’s disease (PD) reveals conflicting evidence about the role of the basal ganglia in the recognition of facial emotions. Hence, the present study had two objectives. One was to determine the extent to which the visual processing of emotions and objects differs in PD. The other was to assess the impact of cognitive load on the processing of these types of information. Thirty-one patients with idiopathic PD (IPD) under dopamine replacement therapy (DRT) were compared to 30 control subjects on emotion and object recognition tasks. Recognition of objects was more accurate and faster than recognition of facial expressions of emotion, for both groups of subjects. In a second experiment using an N-back procedure with the same stimuli—a more demanding task with a higher cognitive load—patients with IPD were as accurate as control subjects in detecting the correct sequential presentation of stimuli, but were much slower in their decision responses. This indicates that IPD patients under DRT are not impaired in encoding emotion or object information, but that they have difficulty with the processing demands of the N-back task. Thus, patients with IPD appear to be more sensitive to cognitive load than to type of information, whether facial emotions or objects. In this perspective, one must consider that a deafferented dopaminergic system has problems processing more complex information before one can posit the existence of deficits affecting a specific type of information.