Bartlett's schema theory: The unreplicated “portrait d'homme” series from 1932

In 1932, Frederic Bartlett laid the foundation for the later schema theory. His key assumption of previous knowledge affecting the processing of new stimuli was illustrated in the famous “portrait d'homme” series. Sequenced reproductions of ambiguous stimuli showed progressive object-likeness. As Bartlett pointed out, activation of specific schemata, for instance “the face schema”, biases memory retrieval towards such schemata. In five experiments (Experiment 1, n?=?53; Experiment 2, n?=?177; Experiment 3, n?=?36; Experiment 4, n?=?6; Experiment 5, n?=?2), we tested several factors potentially influencing retrieval biases—for example, by varying the general procedure of reproduction (repeated vs. serial) and by omitting versus providing visual or semantic cues for activating face schemata. Participants inspected face-like stimuli with the caption “portrait of the human” and reproduced them repeatedly under specific conditions. None of the experiments revealed a systematic tendency towards Bartlett's described case, even when the participants were explicitly instructed to draw “a face” like the previously inspected one. In one of the “serial reproduction” experiments, we even obtained contrary effects with decreasing face-likeness over the reproduction generations. A close analysis of the original findings raises questions about the replicability of Bartlett's findings, qualifying the “portrait d'homme” series more or less as an illustrative example of the main idea of reconstructive memory.     

Inhibitory stroke neighbour priming in character recognition and reading in Chinese

In alphabetic languages, prior exposure to a target word's orthographic neighbour influences word recognition in masked priming experiments and the process of word identification that occurs during normal reading. We investigated whether similar neighbour priming effects are observed in Chinese in 4 masked priming experiments (employing a forward mask and 33-ms, 50-ms, and 67-ms prime durations) and in an experiment that measured eye movements while reading. In these experiments, the stroke neighbour of a Chinese character was defined as any character that differed by the addition, deletion, or substitution of one or two strokes. Prime characters were either stroke neighbours or stroke non-neighbours of the target character, and each prime character had either a higher or a lower frequency of occurrence in the language than its corresponding target character. Frequency effects were observed in all experiments, demonstrating that the manipulation of character frequency was successful. In addition, a robust inhibitory priming effect was observed in response times for target characters in the masked priming experiments and in eye fixation durations for target characters in the reading experiment. This stroke neighbour priming was not modulated by the relative frequency of the prime and target characters. The present findings therefore provide a novel demonstration that inhibitory neighbour priming shown previously for alphabetic languages is also observed for nonalphabetic languages, and that neighbour priming (based on stroke overlap) occurs at the level of the character in Chinese.     

Images and Symbols in Ancient and Modern Sport

Several aspects of human life are pervaded with images and symbols that often belong to what Jung (1981 Jung, G. Carl. 1981. Archetypes and the collective unconscious, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.  [Google Scholar]) called archetypes, characteristics of the mind with a profound influence on most aspects of culture and sport. The rationality introduced into our society, as the fruit of both the positivist concept of progress and the rapid development of technology, has, albeit while driving out excessiveness due to irrational explanations and often knavery, also disregarded the importance of images and symbols in everyday life. Yet a number of these inevitably still exist, since they are archetypal. With this observation as a starting point, the present work has been designed to analyse whether it is still possible to find ancient images and symbols in modern sport activities. The a priori reason for such a question arises from the acceptance that modern and ancient sports are profoundly different. This has been historically proved in terms of organisation and quantification, among other characteristics (Guttmann 1978 Guttmann, Allen. 1978. From ritual to record, New York: Columbia University Press.  [Google Scholar]).

The present analysis refers to a limited number of images and symbols concerning ancient and modern sport, which include a primordial Ur-symbol, that of bodily action or of body in movement. Others concern various aspects of the athlete's life, such as expression of religious beliefs, immortality, eternal return and the front. It suggests that many of these images and symbols may still be found in contemporary sports, in open contrast with some of the Olympic principles suggested by De Coubertin and chiefly prevalent in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.     

Effects of the degree of meaning similarity on cross-language semantic priming in highly proficient bilinguals

This study aimed to determine if access to meaning can be directly achieved from the words in the two languages, examining the influence of the degree of semantic overlap between related words across languages in the pattern of priming effects. Nonassociative semantically related words (members of the same category) were used, avoiding explicitly associative relationships. Using a priming paradigm, highly proficient Catalan–Spanish bilinguals were visually presented with pairs of words that either were translations of each other, had a very close semantic relationship (in terms of shared features), a close semantic relationship, or no semantic relationship at all. Participants performed either a lexical decision task (Experiment 1) or a semantic decision task (Experiment 2). The main results of the study were the same in both language directions (Spanish–Catalan and Catalan–Spanish), showing that the degree of semantic overlap (in terms of shared features) between words in different languages can modulate priming effects, regardless of the language of the prime and the task used. These results demonstrate that there is cross-language activation of shared semantic representations and, thus, that highly proficient bilinguals can have direct access to word meaning from the two languages.     

Explanations for cultural differences in thinking: Easterners’ dialectical thinking and Westerners’ linear thinking

ABSTRACT

Since Easterners’ naïve dialectical thinking, which is contrasted with Westerners’ linear thinking, was introduced, many cross-cultural studies on human thinking have been conducted, and explanations for the cultural differences have been proposed. First, after examining the robustness of these cultural differences, two existing explanations are discussed in this paper. The first is based on the discinction between Westerners' analytic cognition and Easterners' holistic cogntion. This is related to the distinction between Westerners’ independent self and Easterners’ interdependent self. The second is based on the philosophical tradition of China’s Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which is contrasted with that of Ancient Greece. Second, we propose a new explanation based on the distinction between Westerners’ low-context culture and Easterners’ high-context culture (Beyond culture. Garden City, NJ: Anchor Books/Doubleday.). Finally, we show that this distinction can be based on socioecological approaches, and it is expected to explain the cultural differences between the Chinese and Japanese.     

Make the manikin move: Symbolic approach–avoidance responses affect implicit and explicit face evaluations

The present research aimed to replicate and extend findings of Huijding, Muris, Lester, Field, and Joosse (2011), investigating whether symbolic approach–avoidance responses can induce implicit and explicit evaluation biases. Faces with a neutral expression were shown on a computer screen, and participants were instructed to repeatedly move a manikin towards some faces (approach) and away from other faces (avoidance). An affective priming task and a face rating task were used to assess training-compatible differences in implicit and explicit face evaluations, respectively. Results showed that the manikin training was successful: The priming task revealed more positive implicit evaluations of approached than avoided faces, and approached faces were rated more positively than avoided ones in the face rating task. These findings replicate those of Huijding and colleagues by demonstrating training effects on explicit evaluations, and they extend them by demonstrating effects on implicit evaluations.     

Why do people disagree with a statement they do not understand? Relations between comprehension and evaluation of a simple assertion

This article presents the results of a quasi-experimental study that examined the relation between the metacomprehension (i.e., understand/do not understand) and evaluative (i.e., agree/disagree) response to a simple one-sentence statement to compare the relative timing in which these two responses are generated in the course of sentence processing. In the study, participants were asked to provide metacomprehension and evaluative judgements to simple one-sentence assertions, and their response times were measured. Two of the main findings are: first, the response time for the evaluative judgement is faster than the response time for the metacomprehension judgement and, second, the faster response time of the evaluative judgement relative to the metacomprehension judgement is more pronounced either when they are not sure about whether they understand a statement or when they feel they do not understand a statement. The findings are analysed in relation to a multiple constraint satisfaction model of sentence comprehension to generate a possible processing model of a simple one-sentence assertion underlying the generation of metacomprehension and evaluative responses.     

汉字:国人释梦实践的本土化面向

汉字释梦是根据梦像的视觉形象构造,寻找书写结构与其相对应的汉字,再依于汉字的本义把握梦的意义。首先依据现代心理学探讨传统梦学中汉字释梦的思想;然后对汉字释梦的可行性进行深入分析,认为梦和汉字都以表意为首要目的,都采取象形的表达方式,进而提出汉字释梦的操作思路;最后结合案例展现了汉字释梦在实践中的应用。     

The relative contributions of subjective and objective measures of body shape and size to body image and disordered eating in women

This research explored the relative contributions of subjective perceptions of body weight and body shape/proportion, as well as objective measures of body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) to disordered eating, exercise involvement, and body image. One hundred and fifty-eight female university students completed questionnaires and provided body measurements for this study. Although an interaction between BMI and WHR was found for some measures (i.e., Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire total and subscale scores), results indicated that BMI was consistently the better objective predictor of disordered eating and body image. Subjective perceptions of body weight and, to a lesser extent, body shape, were found to account for the greatest proportion of variance in the dependent measures (disordered eating, body esteem, and body dissatisfaction). Overall, these results offer more support for sociocultural theories emphasizing the importance of thinness for women, than evolutionary theories emphasizing the role of WHR.     

Young Adults' Attitudes toward Multiple Role Planning: The Influence of Gender, Career Traditionality, and Marriage Plans

This study examined personal and relationship influences on attitudes toward multiple role planning, specifically preparing to combine work and partnership roles. Survey data were collected from 66 young adult heterosexual couples. Results revealed that marriage plans related positively to knowledge and certainty about multiple role planning. Gender and career traditionality interacted with marriage plans in its influence on commitment to and involvement in multiple roles. Moreover, attitudes toward multiple role planning mediated the association between marriage plans and planning activity for work-family balance. Implications for research and application in multiple role planning are addressed.