Chinese deaf adolescents' free recall of taxonomic, slot-filler, and thematic categories

Four experiments were conducted to show that deaf adolescents tended to process information in different ways from hearing adolescents. Memorizing items sequentially shown on computer screens under the control of their articulators' movements, deaf adolescents tended to treat items that cohered as taxonomic, thematic, or slot-filler categories as isolated pieces of information. Having to perceive information by means of sign language, however, their achievements were not worse than those of hearing adolescents anymore, no matter whether the stimuli were presented as words or pictures. They could not only utilize categories relations to help memorize categories exemplars but were relatively better aware of slot-filler or thematic than taxonomic relations as well, suggesting that they had a relatively delayed development of taxonomic category representations in comparison with hearing adolescents.     

Visual discrimination of vowel duration

Discrimination of vowel duration was explored with regard to discrimination threshold, error bias, and effects of modality and consonant context. A total of 122 normal-hearing participants were presented with disyllabic-like items such as /lal-lal/ or /mam-mam/ in which the lengths of the vowels were systematically varied and were asked to judge whether the first or second vowel was longer. Presentation was either visual, auditory, or audiovisual. Vowel duration differences varied in 24 steps: 12 with a longer first /a/ and 12 with a longer last /a/ (range: ±33–400 ms). Results: 50% JNDs were smaller than the lowest tested step size (33 ms); 75% JNDs were in the 33–66 ms range for all conditions but V /lal/, with a 75% JND at 66–100 ms. Errors were greatest for visual presentation and for /lal-lal/ tokens. There was an error bias towards reporting the first vowel as longer, and this was strongest for /mam-mam/ and when both vowels were short, possibly reflecting a sublinguistic processing strategy.     

Sociosexuality and face perception: Unrestricted sexual orientation facilitates sensitivity to female facial cues

Across two studies, sexually unrestricted men and women showed heightened sensitivity to female facial symmetry (a signal of genetic fitness) and female sexual receptivity (happy facial expressions). In Study 1, individuals assessed the attractiveness of male and female targets of varying facial symmetry. Sexually unrestricted men and women, compared to their sexually restricted counterparts, showed a stronger symmetry advantage in attractiveness ratings for female targets, an indication of greater sensitivity to facial symmetry. Study 2 asked participants to discriminate between genuine (Duchenne) and deceptive smiles on both male and female faces. Results indicated that sexually unrestricted men and women, compared to sexually restricted individuals, were better able to discriminate between these actual and deceptive signals of receptivity for female targets. Neither study found any relationship between sociosexual orientation and the perception of male targets. These results suggest that sexually unrestricted individuals are attuned to reproductively-relevant cues in female faces.     

Multistable perception: when bottom-up and top-down coincide

During prolonged observation of an ambiguous figure sudden perceptual reversals occur, while the stimulus itself stays unchanged. There is a vivid debate about whether bottom-up or top-down mechanisms underlie this phenomenon. In the present study, we investigated the interrelation of two experimental factors: volitional control and discontinuous stimulus presentation. Both factors strongly modulate the rate of perceptual reversals and each is attributed either as top-down or bottom-up. We found that participants can apply specific strategies to volitionally increase and/or decrease the stability duration of each of the possible percepts according to the experimental instructions. When attempts of volitional control are combined with discontinuous stimulus presentation the effects are fully additive. Our results indicate that perceptual reversals can originate from different neural mechanisms on different time scales.     

Electrophysiological markers of categorical perception of color in 7-month old infants

The origin of color categories has been debated by psychologists, linguists and cognitive scientists for many decades. Here, we present the first electrophysiological evidence for categorical responding to color before color terms are acquired. Event-related potentials were recorded on a visual oddball task in 7-month old infants. Infants were shown frequent presentations of one color (standard) interspersed with infrequent presentations of a color that was either from the same category (within-category deviant) or from a different category (between-category deviant) to the standard. Differences in the event-related potentials elicited by the stimuli were found that were related to the categorical relationship of the standard and the deviant stimuli. The data are discussed in relation to the processes that underlie categorical responding in infancy, as well as the debate about the origin of color categories in language and cognition.     

流动儿童歧视知觉与心理健康水平的关系及其心理机制

为了探讨流动儿童所感受到的歧视对他们心理健康水平的影响, 以及应对方式和自尊在其中所起的作用, 从北京市公立学校和打工子弟学校选取1164名流动儿童、从公立学校选取525名北京儿童、从流动儿童主要来源地的农村选取568名农村儿童作为被试, 采用问卷调查的形式, 测查了流动儿童感受到的歧视、他们的心理健康水平(社交焦虑、孤独感、抑郁)、应对方式和自尊。研究发现: (1) 流动儿童所感受到的社会歧视在学校类型、流动性上存在显著的差异, 打工子弟学校的流动儿童得分显著高于公立学校的, 流动性高的儿童得分显著高于流动性低的, 但在性别上不存在显著差异, 也不存在学校类型与性别和流动性的交互作用; (2) 流动儿童的心理健康水平在性别、学校类型和流动性上存在显著的差异, 女孩、来自公立学校的流动儿童、流动性高的儿童的心理健康水平显著差于与之相对应的被试, 除在社交焦虑和抑郁上存在学校类型和性别的交互作用外, 在孤独感上不存在学校类型和流动性的交互作用; (3) 不同类别儿童在心理健康水平上存在显著差异, 流动儿童在社交焦虑、孤独感上最差; (4) 除消极应对与自尊、积极应对与抑郁相关不显著外, 歧视、心理健康水平、应对方式、自尊两两之间都相关非常显著; (5) 歧视知觉对心理健康水平有显著的直接影响, 也通过应对方式和自尊对心理健康水平产生显著的影响。自尊不仅在歧视知觉与心理健康水平之间起到显著的部分中介作用, 在应对方式和心理健康水平之间也起到了显著的部分中介作用。     

时序知觉重复启动效应的作用机制

先前研究发现,时序判断任务在启动的靶刺激先出现时出现了重复启动效应的反转,这是以往的理论所不能单独解释的。通过两个实验对我们提出的双加工表征匹配调节假说加以实证检验,实验结果支持了该假说。因此,双加工表征匹配调节假说能较完整地综合解释时序知觉重复启动效应的作用机制     

ABUNDANT NATURE'S LONG-TERM OPENNESS TO HUMANE BIOCULTURAL DESIGNS

Not by Genes Alone excellently explains Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd's important ideas about human gene‐culture co‐evolution to a broader audience but remains short of a larger vision of civilization. Several decades ago Ralph Burhoe had seen that fertile possibility in Richerson and Boyd's work. I suggest getting past present reductionistic customs to a scientific perspective having an integral place for virtue. Subsystem agency is part of this view, as is the driving role of abundance, whose ultimate origins are in the mysterious, quintessentially energetic Big Bang. The free‐rider problem may not impede higher social organization as inexorably as Richerson and Boyd believe; “the tragedy” of enervating leakage from “the commons” may often be less influential than an invigorating flow of externalities to the commons. Eukaryotic origins mark the origin of inevitable wider sharing as higher living systems evolve. I use a metaphor of flesh and spirit in drawing a parallel between that turning point and the wide sharing that occurs in civilization. This helps solve the enigma of the demographic transition. Why do so many productive participants in first‐world societies severely restrict their selfish‐gene reproduction to below replacement birth rate? It is not because culture is maladaptive but because civilization's brain and womb have become partially differentiated in distinct populations. Considerations of social boundaries, myths of sacrifice, and human creativity help in understanding how human social evolution taps potentials present in reality. Human beings' diverse vigorous activities—the organized ones and the inadvertent ones, the wise and the foolish, the good and the bad, the carefully thoughtful and the merely playful—provide the ground of being, or primordial soup, for cultural entities that transcend our intentions. If we have it right for the most part and are fortunate, we will continue to emerge at higher levels.     

风险认知的结构,因素及其研究方法

风险认知是心理学的热门研究领域之一。风险认知是人们对影响日常生活和工作的各种因素的心理感受和认识,是测量公众心理恐慌的指标。风险认知的研究方法包括:风险估计,风险认知的测量;风险认知结构具有复杂性。风险认知的影响因素有:个体因素,期望水平,风险沟通,风险的可控程度,风险的性质,知识结构,成就动机,事件风险度。     

Incidental image memorability

ABSTRACT

Recent studies using intentional memory tasks showed that images differ consistently in memorability. Here, we used a surprise recognition memory test. We asked how incidental encoding would affect the consistency and ranking of the memorability scores. If memorability is truly an intrinsic property of the image, one should not expect large differences between incidental and intentional conditions. On the other hand, participants might process images differently when not anticipating a memory test, yielding different results. The study list of our incidental memory task was identical to our previous, intentional study. Participants were to watch the images of this list carefully as they appeared on the screen one by one (free viewing); supposedly for a study about eye movements. Afterwards, a surprise recognition memory test was administered. Despite the free viewing instructions during the study phase, the resulting incidental image memorability scores still showed high levels of consistency across participants. In addition, the overlap between the incidental and intentional memorability ranking was large. These results provide further support for the idea of memorability as an intrinsic image property and add to its ecological validity, as people rarely memorise images intentionally.