"得荃忘鱼"、渔父哲学与当代道德"救亡"

明末顾炎武曾把易姓改号称为“亡国”,而把道德沦丧称为“亡天下”;清末严复写《救亡决论》一文,为民族救亡大声疾呼。今天中国虽无“亡国”之忧,却有“亡天下”之虞,“得荃忘鱼”的病象,“渔父哲学”的盛行,厚黑之道的猖獗,使“道德救亡”已成为当前中国最迫切的现实课题,中国不应回避也不能头痛医头脚痛医脚地对待这个问题,只有清理历史传统、改造社会生态才是“道德救亡”的唯一出路。     

Mixed effects modeling of Morris water maze data: Advantages and cautionary notes

Morris water maze data are most commonly analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance in which daily test sessions are analyzed as an unordered categorical variable. This approach, however, may lack power, relies heavily on post hoc tests of daily performance that can complicate interpretation, and does not target the nonlinear trends evidenced in learning data. The present project used Monte Carlo simulation to compare the relative strengths of the traditional approach with both linear and nonlinear mixed effects modeling that identifies the learning function for each animal and condition. Both trend-based mixed effects modeling approaches showed much greater sensitivity to identifying real effects, and the nonlinear approach provided uniformly better fits of learning trends. The common practice of removing a rat from the maze after 90 s, however, proved more problematic for the nonlinear approach and produced an underestimate of y-axis intercepts.     

A stochastic growth model applied to repeated tests of academic knowledge

In the course of the medical program at the University of Limburg, students complete a total of 24 progress tests, consisting of items drawn from a constant itembank. A model is presented for the growth of knowledge reflected by these results. The Rasch model is used as a starting point, but both ability and difficulty parameters are taken to be random, and moreover the logistic distribution is replaced by the normal. Both individual and group abilities are estimated and explained through simple linear regression. Application to real data shows that the model fits very well.     

On the alleged memory-undermining effects of daydreaming

In three experiments, we examined the memory-undermining effects of daydreaming for (un)related stimuli. In Experiments 1 and 2, we tested whether daydreaming fosters forgetting of semantically interrelated material and hence, catalyzes false memory production. In Experiment 3, we examined the memory effects of different daydreaming instructions. In Experiment 1, daydreaming did not undermine correct recall of semantically interrelated words, nor did it affect false memories. In Experiment 2, we again failed to find that daydreaming exerted memory-undermining effects a. In Experiment 3, no memory effects were obtained using different daydreaming instructions. Together, our studies fail to show appreciable memory-undermining effects of daydreaming.     

Growth curve models in retrospective memory and prospective memory: the relationship between prediction and performance with task experience

Older adults commonly experience declines in episodic memory that affect their daily lives. The aim was to examine whether the acquired metacognitive awareness that comes with task experience, indexed by meta-retrospective memory (meta-RM)/meta-prospective memory (meta-PM), influences how older adults predict performance on later trials. Participants were 178 community-dwelling older adults. RM performance and predictions were measured using a multi-trial word-list learning task. Predictions and performance for PM were measured using a PM paradigm. Change in RM/PM performance and predictions over the trials/blocks were modelled using latent growth curve analyses. For RM, both predictions and performance increased with task experience. However, for PM, neither performance nor predictions changed with task experience. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that metacognitive awareness acquired during the RM and PM tasks influenced how older adults’ modified their predictions of subsequent task performance. Findings are consistent with [Toglia and Kirk’s (2000). Understanding awareness deficits following brain injury. NeuroRehabilitation, 15(1), 57–70] hypothesis that individuals compare ongoing performance to expectations based on metacognitive knowledge, such that a discrepancy between actual and expected performance may influence emergent awareness.     

Developmental models for children's temperament: alternatives to chronometric polynomial curves

Partridge and Lerner (2007), in a secondary analysis of the New York Longitudinal Study, employed a chronometric polynomial growth curve model to argue that the developmental course of difficult temperament follows a non‐linear trajectory over the first 5 years of life. The free curve slope intercept (FCSI) growth curve model of Meredith and Tisak (1990) is presented as a preferable conceptual alternative because it contains a number of currently popular statistical models, including repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance, factor mean, linear growth, linear factor analysis, and hierarchical linear models as special cases. As such, researchers can compare the fit of each of these models relative to the FCSI model, and, at times, to each other. The present paper conducts a re‐analysis of the data, and establishes that fit of the FCSI model is arguably better than other statistical alternatives. The FCSI model is also used as the basis for identifying subgroups of individuals with their qualitatively distinct growth patterns within a growth mixture modeling framework. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interference in short-term auditory memory

Although interference is a well-established forgetting function in short-term auditory memory, an adequate understanding of its underlying mechanisms and time course has yet to be attained. The present study therefore aimed to explore these issues in memory for timbre. Listeners compared standard and comparison complex tones, having distinct timbres (four components varying in frequency), over a 4.7-s retention interval and made a same–different response. This interval either was silent or included one of 15 distractor tones occurring 0 ms, 100 ms, or 1,200 ms after the standard. These distractors varied in the extent to which the frequencies of their component tones were shared with the standard. Performance in comparing the two tones was significantly impaired by distractors composed of novel frequencies, regardless of the temporal position at which the distractor occurred. These results were fully compatible with the recent timbre memory model (McKeown & Wellsted, 2009 McKeown, D. and Wellsted, D. 2009. Auditory memory for timbre. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35: 855–875. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and suggested that interference in auditory memory operates via a feature-overwriting mechanism.     

The fate of being forgotten: Information that is initially forgotten is judged as less important

Is forgotten information deemed less important than remembered information? The present study examined potential biases regarding the importance of information that was initially forgotten. In Experiment 1 participants studied words paired with varying point values that denoted their importance and were encouraged to recall higher value words. Participants recalled more high-value words on an initial test. However, on a later cued recall test for the values, initially forgotten words were rated as less valuable than remembered words. Experiment 2 used a similar procedure with the exception that participants rated the importance of traits when evaluating a significant other (e.g., honest, intelligent). Participants were more likely to recall highly valued traits but regarded forgotten traits as less valuable than remembered traits. These results suggest that a forgetting bias exists: If information is initially forgotten, it is later deemed as less important.     

Statistical inference based on ranks

This paper develops a unified approach, based on ranks, to the statistical analysis of data arising from complex experimental designs. In this way we answer a major objection to the use of rank procedures as a major methodology in data analysis. We show that the rank procedures, including testing, estimation and multiple comparisons, are generated in a natural way from a robust measure of scale. The rank methods closely parallel the familiar methods of least squares, so that estimates and tests have natural interpretations.This research was supported in part by grant MCS76-07292 from the National Science Foundation.     

When are item response models consistent with observed data?

The problem of deciding whether a set of mental test data is consistent with any one of a large class of item response models is considered. The classical assumption of locla independence is weakened to a new condition, local nonnegative dependence (LND). Necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for a LND item response model to fit a set of data. This leads to a condition that a set of data must satisfy if it is to be representable by any item response model that assumes both local independence and monotone item characteristic curves. An example is given to show that LND is strictly weaker than local independence. Thus rejection of LND models implies rejection of all item response models that assume local independence for a given set of data.This research was supported in part by Grant NIE-G-78-0157 to ETS from the NIE, by the Program Statistics Research Project, and by TOEFL Program Research. I would like to thank Dr. Douglas Jones of ETS for stimulating discussions during the early stages of this research, Dr. Frederick Lord of ETS for his encouragement of this work and comments on earlier drafts of this paper and Professor Robert Berk of Rutgers University for pointing out that conditions (a), (b) and (c) of Theorem 2 were also sufficient for LND and Monotonicity. Dr. Donald Alderman of ETS provided financial support for the development of a computer program to apply these results to data from the TOEFL program.