Relationship Between Academic Motivation and Mathematics Achievement Among Indian Adolescents in Canada and India

This study examined the relationships between academic motivation—intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, amotivation—and mathematics achievement among 363 Indian adolescents in India and 355 Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada. Results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation were not statistically significantly related to mathematics achievement among Indian adolescents in India. In contrast, both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation were statistically significantly related to mathematics achievement among Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada. While intrinsic motivation was a statistically significant positive predictor of mathematics achievement among Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada, extrinsic motivation was a statistically significant negative predictor of mathematics achievement among Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada. Amotivation was not statistically significantly related to mathematics achievement among Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada. Implications of the findings for pedagogy and practice are discussed.     

交流语境对学习双方语言准确性的影响

研究安排了交流任务和个人迁移任务,创设了三种交流语境,比较不同语境下交流学习双方的语言准确性。结果显示：（1）三种语境中仅语言交流时语言准确性水平最高,交流语境中的对象可视性阻碍了语言准确性提高的速率,表情可视性降低了语言准确性水平;交流语言相似性水平高的被试,语言准确性水平提高的效率和效果均高于低的一方;（2）交流任务中仅语言交流时语言准确性最高,个人任务中对象可视语境下准确性最低;和交流任务相比,高相似被试个人任务中的准确性更高。表明：语言认知不完全代表交流认知,对象可视性阻碍语言认知和交流认知水平,表情可视性辅助语言共同提高交流认知水平。     

The Influence of Phonological Context on the Sound Errors of a Speaker with Wernicke's Aphasia

A corpus of phonological errors produced in narrative speech by a Wernicke's aphasic speaker (R.W.B.) was tested for context effects using two new methods for establishing chance baselines. A reliable anticipatory effect was found using the second method, which estimated chance from the distance between phoneme repeats in the speech sample containing the errors. Relative to this baseline, error-source distances were shorter than expected for anticipations, but not perseverations. R.W.B.'s anticipation/perseveration ratio measured intermediate between a nonaphasic error corpus and that of a more severe aphasic speaker (both reported in Schwartz et al., 1994), supporting the view that the anticipatory bias correlates to severity. Finally, R.W.B's anticipations favored word-initial segments, although errors and sources did not consistently share word or syllable position.     

群体认同对群际敏感效应及其行为表现的影响

通过实验研究了群际互动中个体对不同来源身份的消极群体评价的情绪反应及群体认同的调节作用,并从情绪-行为反应的连续性视角探索群际敏感效应的行为表现及内在机制。结果发现:(1)相比内群体的消极群体评价,外群体的消极群体评价更能引起消极情绪反应;(2)群体认同对群际敏感效应起调节作用,高群体认同者对来自外群体消极评价的情绪反应更加负面,而低群体认同者这种趋势并不明显;(3)高群体认同者在经历外群体的消极群体评价后会表现出更多的内群体积极行为,且消极情绪反应对此起中介作用。研究扩展了群际敏感效应的适用范围,并为探讨其内部机制和后续影响提供了新的研究思路。     

The relation between children's reading comprehension level and their comprehension of idioms

We report an investigation of 9-year-olds' ability to interpret idioms in relation to their reading comprehension level. We manipulated whether the idioms were transparent or opaque, whether they were real or novel, whether they were presented in isolation or in a supportive narrative context. As predicted, children were better able to explain the meanings of idioms in context than in isolation. The good and poor comprehenders did not differ in their abilities to interpret transparent idioms in context, but the poor comprehenders were significantly worse at using context to work out the meanings of opaque idioms. The explanation task revealed the source of information used by the children to derive nontarget interpretations. We discuss these findings in relation to idiom processing strategies and Levorato and Cacciari's global elaboration model.     

The Moral Community Divide: Underage Marijuana Use Across Religious Contexts

Compared to individual‐level research on religion and marijuana use, much less research has been conducted to investigate how the overall religious context of a geographic location may influence marijuana use during adolescence and early adulthood. Using multilevel analyses on two waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) merged with county‐level variables from the U.S. Census and the Religious Congregations and Membership Study (RCMS), this study finds that a county's higher Catholic population share is negatively associated with underage marijuana use frequency even after controlling for a wide range of individual and county‐level variables. Besides being robust, the Catholic contextual effect on marijuana use is also diffusive, influencing both Catholic and non‐Catholic youth who live in the same county. This study highlights the importance of viewing religious influence on substance use as a contextual, cultural force across different kinds of religious moral communities.     

反馈评估的局部背景依赖效应：ERP研究

人脑对反馈的评估依赖于其所处背景。但是只能依赖整体背景(整个组块的结果范围), 还是可以依赖局部背景(单个试次的结果范围)进行评估, 目前并不清楚。本研究通过获益/损失线索操纵所在试次的反馈背景, 探讨反馈评估仅依赖整体背景, 还是可延伸到局部水平。25名被试参与实验。结果发现, 背景试次间变化时, 在获益背景下, ￥0 (负反馈)比+ ￥4 (正反馈)引发更负的FRN (feedback-related negativity); 在损失背景下, - ￥4 (负反馈)比￥0 (正反馈)引发更负的FRN。这一结果说明反馈评估以某线索背景中可能的结果为参考对象, FRN的背景依赖可以延伸到局部水平。结合前人研究, 推测任务类型和反馈真实性会调节背景依赖水平。在含真实反馈的主动性任务中, FRN的背景依赖效应可延伸至局部水平。     

Contrast effects in judgmental forecasting when assessing the implications of worst and best case scenarios

Two experiments investigated whether individuals' forecasts of the demand for products and a stock market index assuming a best or worst case scenario depend on whether they have seen a single scenario in isolation or whether they have also seen a second scenario presenting an opposing view of the future. Normatively, scenarios should be regarded as belonging to different plausible future worlds so that the judged implications of one scenario should not be affected when other scenarios are available. However, the results provided evidence of contrast effects in that the presentation of a second “opposite” scenario led to more extreme forecasts consistent with the polarity of the original scenario. In addition, people were more confident about their forecasts based on a given scenario when two opposing scenarios were available. We examine the implications of our findings for the elicitation of point forecasts and judgmental prediction intervals and the biases that are often associated with them.     

Enabling diverse learners to thrive in the online homiletics classroom

Many early efforts at teaching preaching online incurred disastrous losses in quality. Revamped versions now claim to meet, and in some areas even exceed, classroom learning effectiveness, with potentially significant gains for students from non‐dominant cultures. Students preach in local ethnic and denominational contexts, so a wider range of sermon styles can flourish in indigenous soil. Students hear immediate feedback from their community, and from their online peers and professor. Online discussion formats level the playing field for non‐native speakers. By remaining embedded in their denominational and ethnic environments, student's cultural differences may be simultaneously affirmed and critiqued. This article describes capacities which predict success among preaching students, and how culture may influence the manifestation of these capacities. It details best practices and continuing challenges for professors making the transition to online preaching courses, as they seek to build culturally sustaining learning environments in which diverse students may flourish.     

Same face,same place,different memory: manner of presentation modulates the associative deficit in older adults

One of the more severe and consequential memory impairments experienced by older adults is the loss of the ability to form and remember associations. Although the associative deficit is often assumed to be unitary, memory episodes may contain different types of associations (e.g., item–item, item–context). Research in younger adults suggests that these different association types may involve different neural mechanisms. This raises the possibility that different association types are not equally affected by aging. In order to investigate this, the current study directly compared memory across item–item and item–context associations in younger and older adults by manipulating the manner of presentation of the associations. Results indicate that the associative deficit in aging is not uniform and that aging has a greater impact on item–context compared to item–item associations. The results have implications for theories of associative memory, age-related cognitive decline, and the functional organization of the medial temporal lobe in aging.