Preconscious effects of temporary goals on attention

Two experiments examined whether accessible goals preconsciously direct selective attention. Goal activation was manipulated by one's goal pursuit being either undermined or affirmed (resulting in an experienced state of either incompleteness or completeness). Attention responses were assessed through a Stroop-like task (Experiment 1) and a response-time task in which participants indicated a stimulus' direction of motion (Experiment 2). Results showed that when goals were accessible, attention was drawn toward goal-relevant items—even when these items were to be ignored and when responses occurred too fast for conscious control. Accessible goals directed implicit cognition (i.e., attention toward stimuli associated with the goal), despite the fact that these goals were not chronically held, but manipulated in the lab.     

学习不良儿童社会信息加工的特点

设置儿童与同伴、成人相互作用的三类情景,每类情景又分为模糊情景和清晰情景两种情况,通过对51名小学生进行结构性访谈,比较了学习不良儿童与一般儿童在信息加工各阶段的差异。结果发现,无论是模糊情景还是意义清晰情景,学习不良儿童和一般儿童在对权威社会情景进行编码时存在显著差异,学习不良儿童的编码准确性和全面性显著低于一般儿童;在模糊同伴情景下,学习不良儿童的反应数量显著多于一般儿童,其消极或侵犯性的反应也多于一般儿童。     

基于概念复杂度的加工容量观

探讨了一个认知科学的概念——容量,主要是介绍一种基于概念维度的加工容量观.这种观点认为加工容量最好以进入某一特定运算过程的独立维度来定义,容量的增长意味着可以表征更多的维度,而概念的组块与分割是常用的表征策略.个体差异通过表征的清晰度和有效性的差异来表现,而认知的发展则是成熟与经验相互作用的结果.     

不同年龄广告名人效应的心理加工机制研究

本研究从自动化加工和控制性加工这个视角研究了名人效应的心理加工机制。实验运用加工分离程序,探讨了不同年龄阶段的受众对名人广告的信息加工模式。结果发现：(1)名人效应是一个普遍存在的现象,与用一般消费者做代言人相比,青少年、成年人(大学生)以及老年人对名人广告均明显存在更多的自动化加工,且加工水平没有年龄差异。但是,老年人的控制性加工明显低于其他两组;(2)在非注意条件下,代言人的专业化程度明显地影响了大学生组的控制性加工,但与各组被试的自动化加工都关系不大。这些研究发现为广告策略的制定带来了一些新的启示。     

词汇表征和加工理论及其认知神经心理学证据

认知神经心理学为探讨语言心理表征和加工理论提供了新途径 ,使得人们对心理词典结构的认识不断深入细化。研究表明词汇不同性质的信息在表征上相互独立 ,词典系统至少包括语义系统、语音输入词典与语音输出词典、字形输入词典与字形输出词典等模块。本文着重介绍了这一词典系统及其认知神经心理学证据     

On the Meaning of Words and Dinosaur Bones: Lexical Knowledge Without a Lexicon

Although for many years a sharp distinction has been made in language research between rules and words—with primary interest on rules—this distinction is now blurred in many theories. If anything, the focus of attention has shifted in recent years in favor of words. Results from many different areas of language research suggest that the lexicon is representationally rich, that it is the source of much productive behavior, and that lexically specific information plays a critical and early role in the interpretation of grammatical structure. But how much information can or should be placed in the lexicon? This is the question I address here. I review a set of studies whose results indicate that event knowledge plays a significant role in early stages of sentence processing and structural analysis. This poses a conundrum for traditional views of the lexicon. Either the lexicon must be expanded to include factors that do not plausibly seem to belong there; or else virtually all information about word meaning is removed, leaving the lexicon impoverished. I suggest a third alternative, which provides a way to account for lexical knowledge without a mental lexicon.     

语言和文化对自我参照条件下提取诱发遗忘的影响——来自汉族人和摩梭人的证据

采用提取诱发遗忘范式考察摩梭人和汉族人在自我参照、母亲参照、姨母参照和他人参照条件下的加工规律, 发现摩梭被试在自我参照、母亲参照、姨母参照条件下都未出现提取诱发遗忘, 而在一般他人参照条件下出现了提取诱发遗忘; 汉族被试在自我参照、母亲参照条件下未出现提取诱发遗忘, 而在姨母参照、他人参照条件下出现了提取诱发遗忘。这表明, 不同的文化和语言影响人的自我构建, 在汉族人的自我结构中包含有母亲, 而摩梭人将母亲、姨母皆作为重要的他人纳入自我建构中, 使得母亲参照和姨母参照产生与自我参照同样的记忆优势。     

Emotions help memory for faces: Role of whole and parts

The role of holistic or parts-based processing in face identification has been explored mostly with neutral faces. In the current study, we investigated the nature of processing (holistic vs. parts) in recognition memory for faces with emotional expressions. There were two phases in this experiment: learning phase and test phase. In the learning phase participants learned face–name associations of happy, neutral, and sad faces. The test phase consisted of a two-choice recognition test (whole face, eyes, or mouth) given either immediately or after a 24-hour delay. Results indicate that emotional faces were remembered better than neutral faces and performance was better with whole faces as compared to isolated parts. The performance in immediate and delayed recognition interacted with emotional information. Sad eyes and happy mouth were remembered better in the delayed recognition condition. These results suggest that in addition to holistic processing, specific parts–emotion combinations play a critical role in delayed recognition memory.     

Positive mood boosts the expression of a dispositional need for closure

Three studies (N=539) examined the hypothesis that positive mood increases the degree to which epistemic motivation, i.e., the need for closure (NFC), affects the way in which an individual processes information (heuristic vs. systematic processing). In each of the studies, different methods of operationalising mood were used: in Study 1, mood was measured as a state; in Study 2, mood was induced by asking participants to recall emotional events; and in Study 3, mood was induced by emotional pictures. The styles of information processing that were utilised by our participants were operationalised in terms of their preferences for (Study 1) and ability to recall (Studies 2 and 3) schema-consistent and schema-inconsistent information. Taken together, the results of the three studies show that only under positive mood, NFC level of an individual is consistent with his or her style of information processing, that is, only under positive mood is there a negative relationship between the NFC level of an individual and the utilisation of schema-inconsistent information. Our results can be explained in terms of the effect that mood has on an individual's perceived ability to achieve NFC.