收益—风险并存情境中海洛因戒除者的行为冲动性

以64名男性生理脱瘾后处于不同康复阶段的海洛因戒除者和30名男性无毒品依赖行为的社会招募人员为被试,采用Iowa赌博任务探讨了收益-风险并存情境中海洛因戒除者的冲动性行为模式。结果发现,相对于正常人群,海洛因戒除者表现出"即时收益优先"的决策模式和对高风险的耐受性,且该特征不随戒除期的延长而改善。该研究为解释海洛因戒除者不顾其潜在的严重不利后果仍维持其复吸行为的现象提供了实验证据。     

Neurocognitive Functioning in AD/HD,Predominantly Inattentive and Combined Subtypes

The Predominantly Inattentive (PI) and Combined (CB) subtypes of AD/HD differ in cognitive tempo, age of onset, gender ratio, and comorbidity, yet a differentiating endophenotype has not been identified. The aim of this study was to test rigorously diagnosed PI, CB, and typical children on measures selected for their potential to reveal hypothesized differences between the subtypes in specific neurocognitive systems (anterior vs. posterior attentional systems) and processes (arousal vs. activation). Thirty-four CB and 26 PI children meeting full DSM-IV criteria for subtype both in school and at home, without confounding reading disability or emotional disorder, were enrolled along with 20 typically developing children. Neurocognitive functions measured included attention, inhibitory control, working memory, learning, and executive functions. Tasks included the Stroop, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Continuous Performance Test (CPT). Buschke Selective Reminding Test, ad the Tower of London (TOL), as well as instruments developed by Posner and Sternberg, and tasks assessing the impact on reaction time of [corrected] varying preparatory intervals and stimulus/response complexity. After co-varying for IQ, subtypes differed primarily on measures of impulsivity during tests of vigilance (CPT) and executive function (TOL), with the CB group showing greater impulsivity than both other groups. In addition, the PI group showed worse performance than CB and control groups on the WISC-III Processing Speed Index. Whether analyzed with or without an IQ co-variate, there was no support in the data for hypothesized differences between subtypes in functioning of the anterior vs. posterior attentional systems, nor in involvement of arousal vs. activation processes. The results indicate that the PI and CB subtypes are best differentiated by ratings, observations and tests of cognitive tempo and behavioral impulsivity. Neuropsychological methods have yet to identify critical neuropsychological [corrected] substrates of these differences.     

Negative mood regulation mediates the relationship between distraction and engagement in pleasurable activities among college smokers

Smoking for negative mood alleviation is a strong predictor of early smoking and early dependence among undergraduates. Little is known about whether adaptive cognitive coping processes (e.g., distraction) may help decrease the likelihood of student smoking for negative mood regulation. The present study tested the hypothesis that distraction would predict (a) greater engagement in adaptive pleasant pastimes and (b) lower rates of smoking behavior among undergraduates (n = 162, 41.9% female). We further assessed whether negative mood regulation expectations would explain both relationships. Results indicated that negative mood regulation fully mediated the relationship between distraction and engagement in pleasurable activities among college smokers. Although the relationships among distraction, negative mood regulation, and cigarette consumption were not significant, they were in the expected direction (negative). Results from the present study point to the importance of prevention efforts focused on enhancing cognitive coping skills in college smokers. Such a focus may lead to more frequent adaptive cognitive coping during negative mood states, presumably instead of smoking.     

逻辑－信念冲突与推理难度对逻辑和信念判断的影响

双加工理论框架下的平行竞争模型和默认干涉模型对推理过程中启发式和分析式加工的启动次序和相互作用的性质提出了不同假设。本研究通过考察被试在信念判断和逻辑判断两种指导语下解决不同难度和不同类型推理问题的正确率和反应时,对两个模型的预测进行了检验。实验结果表明,解决简单问题时,问题类型对信念判断有显著影响,对逻辑判断无显著影响;解决复杂问题时,问题类型对逻辑判断的影响显著大于对信念判断的影响。实验结果支持平行竞争模型的假设,即两类加工在推理过程中同时启动,共同竞争最终的推理反应。     

A Cross‐Cultural Study of Task Specificity in Creativity

This study provides new evidence concerning task specificity in creativity—examining through a cross‐cultural perspective the extent to which performance in graphic versus verbal creativity tasks (domain specificity) and in divergent versus convergent creativity tasks (process specificity) are correlated. The relations between different creativity tasks in monocultural and multicultural samples of Chinese and French children were compared. Electronic versions of the Wallach and Kogan Creativity Test (WKCT , W allach & K ogan, 1965; L au & C heung, 2010) and the Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EP oC; L ubart, B esançon, & B arbot, 2011; B arbot, B esançon, & L ubart, 2011) were used. Both measures showed satisfactory psychometric properties and cross‐cultural structural validity. The results showed that culture has an impact on the structure of creative ability: It appeared that correlation patterns were different across Chinese and French groups and across monocultural and multicultural groups. Such results show that it is crucial to take task specificity into account when investigating the effect of culture on creativity. Indeed, our study implies that cultural differences that are found using one specific creativity task might not be automatically generalizable to all sorts of creativity tasks. Limitations are discussed and perspectives for future research on culture and task specificity in creativity are proposed.     

Stress and Risky Decision Making: Cognitive Reflection,Emotional Learning or Both.

Stressful situations hinder judgement. Effects of stress induced by anticipated public speaking on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) were examined. The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) was used to examine the relationship between reflective thinking and IGT performance. The stress manipulation increased blood pressure and was associated with poorer IGT and CRT performance. Stressed participants were slower to avoid the disadvantageous decks. Moreover, CRT scores correlated with optimal deck selections indicating the importance of reflective thinking for good performance on the IGT. These correlations were observed in relatively early trials, which challenges the view that analytic thinking is not important when card contingencies are being learned. Data revealed that IGT performance in healthy individuals is not always optimal; stress levels impair performance. A mediation analysis was consistent with the proposal that the stress manipulation reduced IGT performance by impeding reflective thinking. Thus, reflective processing is an important explanation of IGT performance in healthy populations. It was concluded that more reflective participants appear to learn from the outcomes of their decisions even when stressed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A socially-based distributed self-organizing algorithm for holonic multi-agent systems: Case study in a task environment

Holonic multi-agent systems (HMASs) have recently attracted many researches in multi-agent systems community. Inspired from the multi-level and self-similar structures of social and biological system, holonic multi-agent systems have been widely used to model and solve complex real-world problems. The main concern in deploying HMASs is the problem of building the hierarchical holonic structure, called holarchy, and dynamically managing it during its lifetime. The way an HMAS is organized has a great impact on its applicability and performance. This paper proposes a self-organizing algorithm to build and manage the holoic structures in multi-agent systems. This algorithm is based on the local information of the agents about other agents they can communicate with. Using common social concepts, like skills, diversity, social exchange theory, and norms in definition of the algorithm, the outcomes of this research can be used in wide ranges of distributed applications. The proposed model is extensively tested in a task allocation problem; and its performance based on various design parameters is studied. Empirical results show that the proposed model properly increases the performance of the system in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.     

The effect of stereotype threat on student-athlete math performance

ObjectivesTo assess whether a subtle stereotype threat of student-athletes would cause a decrease in both academic effort and performance.DesignA 2 (Male/Female) x 2 (Athlete Prime/No Athlete Prime) design was used to assess effort and performance on a math test.MethodA subtle threat manipulation was used to prime half of 60 NCAA Division III student-athletes with their athletic identity prior to taking a difficult math test.ResultsSupporting the hypotheses, student-athletes who were primed with their athletic identity attempted significantly fewer problems and received lower mean math scores than those who were not primed. Contrary to hypotheses, gender did not impact effort or performance, and there was no evidence of buffering effects of priming non-athlete identities.ConclusionsThe results of this experiment provide evidence for stereotype threat effects across genders and into Division III athletes, which potentially impact student-athlete academic performance.     

Is word perception in a second language more vulnerable than in one's native language? Evidence from brain potentials in a dual task setting

We assessed the effect of additional tasks on language perception in second-language and native speakers. The N400 component of the event-related potential was recorded to spoken nouns that had to be judged for synonymity with a preceding word, while additional choice responses were required to visual stimuli. In both participant groups N400 was delayed as a function of temporal overlap with the additional task. In second-language speakers there was a global delay of N400 independent of additional task load and a decrease of accuracy at highest overlap. These findings are interpreted within a single channel account of language perception.     

Behavioral pharmacology of the odor span task: Effects of flunitrazepam,ketamine, methamphetamine and methylphenidate

The Odor Span Task is an incrementing non‐matching‐to‐sample procedure that permits the study of behavior under the control of multiple stimuli. Rats are exposed to a series of odor stimuli and selection of new stimuli is reinforced. Successful performance thus requires remembering which stimuli have previously been presented during a given session. This procedure has been frequently used in neurobiological studies as a rodent model of working memory; however, only a few studies have examined the effects of drugs on performance in this task. The present experiments explored the behavioral pharmacology of a modified version of the Odor Span Task by determining the effects of stimulant drugs methylphenidate and methamphetamine, NMDA antagonist ketamine, and positive GABA_A modulator flunitrazepam. All four drugs produced dose‐dependent impairment of performances on the Odor Span Task, but for methylphenidate and methamphetamine, these occurred only at doses that had similar effects on performance of a simple odor discrimination. Generally, these disruptions were based on omission of responding at the effective doses. The effects of ketamine and flunitrazepam were more selective in some rats. That is, some rats tested under flunitrazepam and ketamine showed decreases in accuracy on the Odor Span Task at doses that did not affect simple discrimination performance. These selective effects indicate disruption of within‐session stimulus control. Overall, these findings support the potential of the Odor Span Task as a baseline for the behavioral pharmacological analysis of remembering.