Are Words Easier to Learn From Infant‐ Than Adult‐Directed Speech? A Quantitative Corpus‐Based Investigation

We investigate whether infant‐directed speech (IDS) could facilitate word form learning when compared to adult‐directed speech (ADS). To study this, we examine the distribution of word forms at two levels, acoustic and phonological, using a large database of spontaneous speech in Japanese. At the acoustic level we show that, as has been documented before for phonemes, the realizations of words are more variable and less discriminable in IDS than in ADS. At the phonological level, we find an effect in the opposite direction: The IDS lexicon contains more distinctive words (such as onomatopoeias) than the ADS counterpart. Combining the acoustic and phonological metrics together in a global discriminability score reveals that the bigger separation of lexical categories in the phonological space does not compensate for the opposite effect observed at the acoustic level. As a result, IDS word forms are still globally less discriminable than ADS word forms, even though the effect is numerically small. We discuss the implication of these findings for the view that the functional role of IDS is to improve language learnability.     

The Recruitment of Shifting and Inhibition in On‐line Science and Mathematics Tasks

Prior research has investigated the recruitment of inhibition in the use of science/mathematics concepts in tasks that require the rejection of a conflicting, nonscientific initial concept. The present research examines if inhibition is the only EF skill recruited in such tasks and investigates whether shifting is also involved. It also investigates whether inhibition and/or shifting are recruited in tasks in which the use of science/mathematics concepts does not require the rejection of an initial concept, or which require only the use of initial concepts. One hundred and thirty‐three third‐ and fifth‐grade children participated in two inhibition and shifting tasks and two science and mathematics conceptual understanding and conceptual change (CU&C) tasks. All the tasks were on‐line, and performance was measured in accuracy and RTs. The CU&C tasks involved the use of initial concepts and of science/mathematics concepts which required conceptual changes for their initial formation. Only in one of the tasks the use of the science/mathematics concepts required the concurrent rejection of an initial concept. The results confirmed that in this task inhibition was recruited and also showed that the speed of shifting was a significant predictor of performance. Shifting was a significant predictor of performance in all the tasks, regardless of whether they involved science/mathematics or initial concepts. It is argued that shifting is likely to be recruited in complex tasks that require multiple comparisons of stimuli and the entertainment of different perspectives. Inhibition seems to be a more selective cognitive skill likely to be recruited when the use of science/mathematics concepts requires the rejection of a conflicting initial concept.     

Translating the ICAP Theory of Cognitive Engagement Into Practice

ICAP is a theory of active learning that differentiates students’ engagement based on their behaviors. ICAP postulates that I nteractive engagement, demonstrated by co‐generative collaborative behaviors, is superior for learning to C onstructive engagement, indicated by generative behaviors. Both kinds of engagement exceed the benefits of A ctive or P assive engagement, marked by manipulative and attentive behaviors, respectively. This paper discusses a 5‐year project that attempted to translate ICAP into a theory of instruction using five successive measures: (a) teachers’ understanding of ICAP after completing an online module, (b) their success at designing lesson plans using different ICAP modes, (c) fidelity of teachers’ classroom implementation, (d) modes of students’ enacted behaviors, and (e) students’ learning outcomes. Although teachers had minimal success in designing Constructive and Interactive activities, students nevertheless learned significantly more in the context of Constructive than Active activities. We discuss reasons for teachers’ overall difficulty in designing and eliciting Interactive engagement.     

Who knows what's good to eat? Infants fail to match the food preferences of antisocial others

Humans gather most of their knowledge about the world, including objectively true facts and specific cultural norms, by observing and being taught by others. Some individuals are worthy teachers and objects of imitation, having knowledge of cultural practices and positive intentions to inform. Others are better ignored because they are ignorant, because they mean us harm, or simply because we do not wish to be “like them.” This study examines whether 16-month-olds are sensitive to the pro- or antisocial behavior of a source that demonstrates preference for two novel foods. Infants took the emotional reactions displayed by novel and previously prosocial sources, but not antisocial sources, into account when deciding what to eat. These results suggest that others’ social behavior influences infants’ likelihood to match their preferences, illustrating the influence of social evaluation on social learning.     

Learning to Make Selection and Detection Decisions: The Roles of Base Rate and Feedback

The effects of type of feedback and base rate on threshold learning in a multiple‐cue decision task were examined. In most such decision experiments, participants receive feedback after every trial (full feedback), and a single base rate (usually 0.5) is used. Our experiment explored conditional feedback (feedback only after positive decisions) representing common selection and detection tasks (such as hiring), where the decision maker receives no feedback unless the decision is positive (e.g., hire the applicant). We used three base rates (0.2, 0.5, and 0.8). As expected, performance was best in full feedback, but after 300 learning trials, the difference was small. Conditional feedback generally resulted in fewer positive decisions than full feedback, but this difference was not found in the low (0.2) base rate condition. There were interactions between base rates and types of feedback. Results provide partial support for the constructivist encoding hypothesis of Elwin and colleagues. Simulation results suggest that our results may reflect overconfidence when feedback is not given. With respect to rate of learning, when the base rate was 0.2, conditional feedback participants reached approximately the same selection rate but did so more slowly than the full feedback participants. Partial feedback participants learned slower and appeared to be still learning after 500 trials. When the base rate was 0.5 or 0.8, partial feedback was nearly as good as full feedback, but conditional feedback resulted in a systematically lower rate of positive decisions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Role of Atomic Repertoires in Complex Behavior

Evolution and reinforcement shape adaptive forms and adaptive behavior through many cycles of blind variation and selection, and therein lie their parsimony and power. Human behavior is distinctive in that this shaping process is commonly "short circuited": Critical variations are induced in a single trial. The processes by which this economy is accomplished have a common feature: They all exploit one or more atomic repertoires, elementary units of behavior each under control of a distinctive stimulus. By appropriate arrangements of these discriminative stimuli, an indefinite number of permutations of atomic units can be evoked. When such a permutation satisfies a second contingency, it can come under control of the relevant context, and the explicit arrangement of discriminative stimuli will no longer be required. Consequently, innovations in adaptive behavior can spread rapidly through the population. A consideration of atomic repertoires informs our interpretation of generalized operants and other phenomena that are otherwise difficult to explain. Observational learning is discussed as a case in point.     

Learning Painting Styles: Spacing is Advantageous when it Promotes Discriminative Contrast

Repetitions that are distributed over time benefit long‐term retention more than when massed. Recent research has suggested that the advantage of spacing may extend to induction learning‐‐learners were better able to identify the artists of previously unseen paintings when, during training, artists' paintings were spaced (paintings by different artists were interleaved) rather than massed (a given artist's paintings were blocked and presented consecutively). Increasing temporal spacing between paintings while maintaining a presentation sequence that was blocked by artist produced test performance no better than massed presentation (both worse than interleaved presentation) (Experiment 1). Displaying paintings by different artists simultaneously produced test performance as good as interleaved presentation and better than massed presentation (Experiment 2). Our findings argue that spacing benefits perceptual induction learning not because of increased temporal spacing per se but rather because interleaving paintings by different artists enhances discriminative contrast between the artists' styles. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

孔子是怎样解释《周易》的

孔子与《易》是有密切关系的,抛开《史记》和帛书的记载不言,仅就《论语》中两条最直接的材料来看确实如此。"加我数年……"当为孔子五十之前所说。五十之前,孔子也曾学《易》,而孔子认为知天命之年尤需学《易》。"不占而已"表明孔子解《易》以德,判定吉凶不需要占筮,而是取决于人的德性。孔子以"生生之德性"解《易》,以"道德必然性"解"天命",通过揭去《周易》的神秘外衣,发掘并发展其天人之学,将隐微难言的性与天道托诸于显著的人道德性,发展出天人合一的德性学说。     

高校多媒体教学环境下的教-学-学习绩效关系的建模与分析

本文是在先前建立的多媒体教学环境下教师授课、学生学习和学习绩效的3个因素结构模型基础上,采用路径建模技术,建立了多媒体教学环境下教一学一学习绩效关系模型。基于对该路径模型的分析,获得如下结论：（1）多媒体教学中影响因素的主导作用是沿着学习者认知加工过程中的信息流而展开的;（2）对于学生在课堂中的信息加工,影响最大的因素是教师授课时对学生的能力培养,影响为其次的因素是教师的授课技术;（3）课件的良好界面信息设计对学生的知识掌握起重要作用;（4）诸如授课速度过快、信息量过大等多媒体教学中的易现问题会增加学生的外在认知负荷而降低学习效果;（5）在多媒体教学中,教师与学生都要注意学生学习风格来更好地进行教学或学习。     

Validating the coping scale for Chinese athletes using multidimensional Rasch analysis

Objective

The Coping Scale for Chinese Athletes (CSCA) was developed and validated using classic testing theory in 2004 (Chung, Si, Lee, & Liu, 2004). This study aimed to validate CSCA using multidimensional Rasch analysis with the ConQuest software programme.

Method

The sample in this study comprised 367 athletes from mainland China. A Multidimensional Rating Scale model was applied to investigate the validity of the four-dimension scale. Standard fit statistics (Infit and Outfit MNSQ) and Differential item functioning (DIF) were computed to examine the model-data fit. Test reliability and category functioning were also checked.

Results

The item difficulty and the athletes’ trait level of coping were calibrated along the same latent trait scale. Three items were removed from the scale due to misfit with the Rasch model. No DIF across gender was found for the remaining 21 items. Test reliabilities for the four subscales ranged from 0.66 to 0.76. The results also indicated that the original 5-category rating scale structure did not function well.

Conclusion

The multidimensional Rasch analysis supported that the 21-item CSCA measures four latent traits of coping of Chinese athletes as expected. The results also demonstrated advantages of multidimensional Rasch analysis over unidimensional Rasch analysis as well as traditional approach in examining the quality of multidimensional scale in sport settings.