音乐训练对4~5岁幼儿普通话声调范畴感知能力的影响

已有研究表明, 音乐训练能提高成人对普通话声调范畴感知的能力, 此种训练能否增强幼儿对声调范畴感知的能力?训练效果是否受到训练时间长短的影响?本研究对幼儿园4~5岁幼儿进行音乐训练, 共40人, 分成音乐组和控制组, 每组各20人, 追踪考察音乐训练和训练时间长短对幼儿声调范畴感知能力提升的影响。实验采用前测-中测-后测设计, 对音乐组开展每周3次, 每次30分钟, 以小钟琴演奏为主的音乐训练; 控制组不进行任何有组织的训练活动。结果发现, 12个月音乐训练提升了幼儿对声调范畴感知的程度, 表现为音乐组幼儿范畴边界宽度显著小于控制组, 而训练6个月时, 该优势并不显著。此外, 12个月音乐训练还加强了幼儿区分范畴内刺激声学差异的敏感性, 而对范畴间刺激的区分能力无显著提高。本研究结果支持了音乐学习的歌剧理论(OPERA), 音乐训练具有跨域迁移作用, 可提升4~5岁幼儿对普通话声调范畴感知的能力, 但只有长期持续的训练才可能真正提高幼儿的音高精细化加工水平。     

An overcorrection framing effect

With the “typical” attribute framing manipulation, assimilation effects have often been obtained; people often judge the attributes of a judgmental target more positively when the attributes are framed positively (e.g., 99% pure) than negatively (e.g., 1% impure). Research has not, however, explored or demonstrated the effects of correcting or overcorrecting for the frame's influence. Overcorrection framing occurs when a more positive response is produced by the negative frame. Across three experiments, overcorrection as well as typical framing effects were obtained. In Experiments 1 and 2, overcorrection effects were obtained when participants were prompted to consider complementary information and, in Experiment 3, when the frame's source was described as untrustworthy. In contrast, typical framing effects were obtained when prompts were not supplied and when the frame's source was not described as being untrustworthy. These results supported the unification model that uses a priming analysis to account for assimilation (typical framing) and contrast (overcorrection framing) effects. We discussed how overcorrection is expected with other framing manipulations, such as risky-choice framing. We provided reasons for asymmetrical correction effects and discussed implications of our analysis for holistic/analytical as well as System 1/System 2 processing styles, the influence of different amounts of cognitive resource allocations, and the possibility of a correction process involving averaging.     

样例学习条件下的因果力估计

在逐个呈现因果样例的条件下,考察单一因果关系因果力估计的特点,同时检验联想解释,概率对比模型,权重DP模型,效力PC理论和pCI规则。实验让65名大学生被试估计不同化学药物影响动物基因变异的能力。实验结果表明：（1）对产生原因的因果力估计符合权重DP模型;（2）对预防原因的因果力估计较多符合效力PC理论;（3）因果力估计具有复杂多样性,难以用统一的模式加以描述和概括。     

社会信息归类过程中刻板印象的内隐效应

采用信号检测论和间接测量方法探讨社会信息归类过程中的刻板印象内隐效应。实验结果表明 :⑴范畴启动可以自动激活有关的刻板印象内容 ,说明在很大程度上刻板印象是归类过程的一种必然结果与产物 ;⑵那些在内容上与范畴启动所导致自动的刻板印象激活及其相关内容一致、不一致或相反的建构分别易于出现同化与对比效应 ;⑶在个体水平上 ,通过意识性抑制在短期内很难压制刻板印象的自动激活 ,这表明刻板印象加工在很大程度上涉及到内隐过程     

Completed vs. interrupted priming: Reduced accessibility from post-fulfillment inhibition

We conceptualized an interrupted priming task as a state of an unfulfilled goal and a completed priming task as a post-fulfillment state. The accessibility of a primed construct was measured with both lexical decision and impression formation procedures. Lexical decisions showed enhanced accessibility of prime-related constructs after interrupted priming and reduced accessibility of the prime-related construct after completed priming. Replicating previous findings [Martin, L. L. (1986). Set/reset: Use and disuse of concepts in impression formation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 493-504], an ambiguous target was assimilated to the primed construct after interrupted priming, and was contrasted away from the primed construct after completed priming. Together, these results suggest that task fulfillment instigates inhibition of accessible constructs, in addition to (or instead of) a process of suppressing accessible constructs upon encountering a new target. These findings demonstrate how motivation can affect accessibility through inhibition as well as through suppression.     

What constrains children's learning of novel shape terms?

In this study, 3-year-olds matched on vocabulary score were taught three new shape terms by one of three types of linguistic contrast: corrective, semantic, or referential. A 5-week training paradigm implemented four training sessions and four assessment sessions. Corrective contrast ("This is concave, it is not square," where square is the child's label for the target) produced more learning than did either semantic or referential contrast. In addition, regardless of group, more was learned about those targets that were classified more variably at pretest. Avoidance of lexical overlap (i.e., using more than one term for the same dimension) might make it more difficult for children to learn new dimensional adjectives, and a "shape bias" might make learning shape terms easier. However, children's expectations about the speaker's communicative intent interacted with the potential benefits of contrast in the semantic condition, and children in that group learned no more than did controls.     

WITHIN‐TRIAL CONTRAST: WHEN IS A FAILURE TO REPLICATE NOT A TYPE I ERROR?

Vasconcelos, Urcuioli, and Lionello-DeNolf (2007) report the results of five experiments that fail to replicate the results of our within-trial contrast study (Clement, Feltus, Kaiser, & Zentall, 2000) and suggest that our results may represent a Type I Error. We believe that this conclusion is not warranted because (a) there is considerable evidence in support of the effect and (b) the amount of training that they gave to their pigeons prior to test may not have been sufficient to observe the effect reliably. We suggest that when sufficient training is provided, reliable contrast can be found.     

Failure to replicate the 'work ethic" effect in pigeons

We report six unsuccessful attempts to replicate the "work ethic" phenomenon reported by Clement, Feltus, Kaiser, and Zentall (2000). In Experiments 1-5, pigeons learned two simultaneous discriminations in which the S+ and S- stimuli were obtained by pecking an initial stimulus once or multiple (20 or 40) times. Subsequent preference tests between the S+ stimuli and between the S- stimuli mostly revealed indifference, on average, between the S+ from the multiple-peck (high-effort) trials and the S+ from the one-peck (low-effort) trials, and likewise between the two respective Sstimuli. Using a slightly different procedure that permitted assessment of the relative aversiveness of low versus high effort, Experiment 6 again revealed a pattern of indifference despite showing that pigeons took considerably longer to begin pecking on high- than on low-effort trials. Our findings call into question the reliability of the original findings and the sufficiency of the hypothesized within-trial contrast mechanism to produce them.     

Where is the chocolate? Rapid spatial orienting toward stimuli associated with primary rewards

Some stimuli can orient attentional resources and access awareness even if they appear outside the focus of voluntary attention. Stimuli with low-level perceptual salience and stimuli with an emotional content can modulate attention independently of voluntary processes. In Experiment 1, we used a spatial cuing task to investigate whether stimuli that are controlled for their perceptual salience can modulate the rapid orienting of attention based exclusively on their affective relevance. Affective relevance was manipulated through a Pavlovian conditioning paradigm in which an arbitrary and affectively neutral perceptual stimulus was associated with a primary reward (i.e., a chocolate odor). Results revealed that, after conditioning, attentional resources were rapidly oriented toward the stimulus that was previously associated with the reward. In Experiment 2, we used the very same conditioning procedure, but we devaluated the reward after conditioning for half of the participants through a sensory-specific satiation procedure. Strikingly, when the reward was devaluated, attention was no longer oriented toward reward-associated stimuli. Our findings therefore suggest that reward associations rapidly modulate visual processing independently of both voluntary processing and the perceptual salience of the stimulus. This supports the notion that stimuli associated with primary rewards modulate rapid attention orienting on the basis of the affective relevance of the stimulus.     

Contrast Effects and Approval Voting: An Illustration of a Systematic Violation of the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Condition

In approval voting, voters indicate all alternatives acceptable to them, instead of indicating their most preferred alternative. This study sought to examine the hypothesis that, under certain conditions, approval voting systematically violates a rationality condition of social choice: the independence of irrelevant alternatives condition. Given a well-known psychological phenomenon, the contrast effect, it was hypothesized that sets of acceptable alternatives might be changed as a result of changes in unacceptable alternatives. This hypothesis was tested in a sample of undergraduates who were presented with fictional profiles of juvenile delinquents and then were asked whether they should be granted parole. The outcomes of approval voting changed merely as the result of a change in an alternative least preferred by all voters.