单侧化准备电位的含义和应用

单侧化准备电位（Lateralized readiness potential, LRP）是指在随意运动中,反应效应器方位所对应的对侧大脑皮层出现的准备电位。LRP分析的关键是确定启动时间点。LRP可以揭示刺激-反应不同阶段的认知加工时间特性。可以从反应准备的抽象性或具体性以及大脑控制运动输出的“中枢”机制或“外周”机制这两个思路去验证LRP。LRP在阈下知觉和内隐学习、运动准备和反应执行、西蒙效应等方面的认知心理学研究以及新兴的脑-机界面工程心理学研究得到了广泛的应用,但LRP的应用存在着某些限制因素,如：脑电干扰、测量的低信噪比和其本身对反应效应器的要求等     

Professional preparation of individuals who provide genetic counseling services

An unprecedented increase has occurred in demand for genetic counseling services during the current decade. This study examined the complex issue of who currently provides genetic counseling services and the professional preparation of these personnel. A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to 325 genetic counseling professionals in the southeastern United States who were members of the Southeast Regional Genetics Group (SERGG), National Society of Genetic Counselors, or American Society of Human Genetics States; 204 completed the questionnaire (63%). Seventy percent of respondents were female and 30% were male. Thirty percent of respondents held MD degrees; nine physicians held PhD degrees. Most physicians were male. Thirty-two percent of respondents held master's degrees in genetic counseling; five counselors held PhD degrees. Twenty-three percent of respondents were nurses; eight nurses held master's degrees. Three percent of respondents were social workers. Individuals with other degrees, such as an associate of science in medical technology and a doctoral degree in education, also provided genetic counseling. Genetic counseling typically involved a team effort, consisting mainly of physicians and genetic counselors. Most respondents reported college coursework in human genetics, supervised training, and seminar/workshop training. Thirty percent reported college coursework in counseling techniques, supervised training, and seminar/workshop training. Policy recommendations are offered concerning professional preparation of genetic counselors.     

精神科住院患者团体心理治疗准备性会谈与治疗后访谈初探

精神科住院患者团体心理治疗较门诊患者团体心理治疗存在临床情境的特殊性,本研究探索将准备性会谈与治疗后访谈纳入治疗计划,治疗前向患者普及住院治疗、心理治疗的知识,澄清团体心理治疗的形式、目标、内容,了解患者对团体心理治疗的疑问、期望,允许患者做出是否参加治疗的决定,并在治疗后的访谈中强化疗效因子。     

Formation of semantic associations between subliminally presented face-word pairs

Recent evidence suggests that consciousness of encoding is not necessary for the rapid formation of new semantic associations. We investigated whether unconsciously formed associations are as semantically precise as would be expected for associations formed with consciousness of encoding during episodic memory formation. Pairs of faces and written occupations were presented subliminally for unconscious associative encoding. Five minutes later, the same faces were presented suprathreshold for the cued unconscious retrieval of face-occupation associations. Retrieval instructions required participants to classify the presented individuals according to their putative (1) regularity of income, (2) length of education, and (3) creativity value of occupational activity. The three instructions yielded more classifications consistent with a person’s occupation if the person had been subliminally presented with his written occupation versus a meaningless word (control condition). This suggests that consciousness is not necessary to encode, long-term store, and retrieve semantically precise associations between primarily unrelated items.     

An asymmetric effect of relational integration on recognition memory

Two experiments assessed whether conceptual relations (e.g., contains: cookie jar) facilitate the retrieval of concepts (e.g., cookie and jar) from long-term memory. The CARIN model of nominal combination asserts that conceptual relations are represented with and selected from the modifier noun (cookie). Thus, the model predicts that relational integration will facilitate memory for modifiers but not for head nouns (jar). In Experiment 1, concepts were studied in pairs and were then tested individually. Recognition accuracy was higher for modifiers than for head nouns. In Experiment 2, the studied concepts (e.g., cookie jar) were tested in the context of a new pair that instantiated either the same relation (e.g., cookie plate) or a different relation (e.g., cookie crumb). Recognition was again better for modifiers than for head nouns, but only when the same conceptual relation was instantiated at both study and test. Thus, results indicate that conceptual relations (a) facilitate recognition memory, and (b) are associated more strongly with the modifier than with the head noun.     

Temporal preparation decreases perceptual latency: Evidence from a clock paradigm

A clock paradigm was employed to assess whether temporal preparation decreases the time to detect the onset of a stimulus—that is, perceptual latency. In four experiments participants watched a revolving clock hand while listening to soft or loud target tones under high or low temporal preparation. At the end of each trial, participants reported the clock hand position at the onset of the target tone. The deviation of the reported clock hand position from the actual position indexed perceptual latency. As expected, perceptual latency decreased with target tone intensity. Most importantly, however, greater temporal preparation decreased perceptual latency in all four experiments, especially for soft tones, which supports rather directly the idea that temporal preparation diminishes the duration of perceptual processing.     

You can't always get what you want: The influence of unexpected task constraint on voluntary task switching

The current study assessed the effect that unexpected task constraint, following self-generated task choice, has on task switching performance. Participants performed a modified double-registration voluntary task switching procedure in which participants specified the task they wanted to perform, were presented with a cue that, on the majority of trials, confirmed the choice, and then performed the cued task. On a small portion of trials, participants were cued to perform a task that did not match their choice. Trials on which cues unexpectedly failed to match the chosen task were associated with costs. These costs were particularly large when participants chose to switch tasks but had to unexpectedly repeat the previous task. The results suggest that when participants choose to switch tasks, they prepare for that switch in anticipation of the stimulus, and the preparation is durable such that it cannot be readily undone.     

The effects of ageing and visual noise on conceptual integration during sentence reading

The effortfulness hypothesis implies that difficulty in decoding the surface form, as in the case of age-related sensory limitations or background noise, consumes the attentional resources that are then unavailable for semantic integration in language comprehension. Because ageing is associated with sensory declines, degrading of the surface form by a noisy background can pose an extra challenge for older adults. In two experiments, this hypothesis was tested in a self-paced moving window paradigm in which younger and older readers’ online allocation of attentional resources to surface decoding and semantic integration was measured as they read sentences embedded in varying levels of visual noise. When visual noise was moderate (Experiment 1), resource allocation among young adults was unaffected but older adults allocated more resources to decode the surface form at the cost of resources that would otherwise be available for semantic processing; when visual noise was relatively intense (Experiment 2), both younger and older participants allocated more attention to the surface form and less attention to semantic processing. The decrease in attentional allocation to semantic integration resulted in reduced recall of core ideas in both experiments, suggesting that a less organized semantic representation was constructed in noise. The greater vulnerability of older adults at relatively low levels of noise is consistent with the effortfulness hypothesis.     

Strategic flexibility in response preparation: Effects of cue validity on reaction time and pupil dilation

This study examined the ability of participants to strategically adapt their level of response preparation to the predictive value of preparatory cues. Participants performed the finger-precuing task under three levels of cue validity: 100, 75 and 50% valid. Response preparation was indexed by means of reaction time (RT) and pupil dilation, the latter providing a psychophysiological index of invested effort. Results showed a systematic increase in RT benefits (generated by valid cues) and RT costs (generated by invalid cues) with increments in the predictive value of cues. Converging with these behavioural effects, pupil dilation also increased systematically with greater cue validity during the cue-stimulus interval, suggesting more effortful response preparation with increases in cue validity. Together, these findings confirm the hypothesis that response preparation is flexible and that it can be strategically allocated in proportion to the relative frequency of valid/invalid preparatory cues.