Are effect sizes in self-efficacy field changing over time? A meta–meta analysis

Theories relating to self-efficacy have developed rapidly since Bandura first proposed the concept in 1977. In the past two decades, psychologists have carried out numerous studies to research the cultural and psychological changes in social development. The research topic of this study is whether self-efficacy changes over time. This study uses a meta–meta analysis and includes 13 meta-analyses, including 536 effect sizes, with a total sample size of 421,880. We find that individual self-efficacy increases over time, which may be related to social development trends. However, the effects of interventions on self-efficacy remain similar (Q_model = 1.807, df = 1, p > .05), and a possible explanation is that time effects of self-efficacy confuse the effects of intervention, because both in the intervention group and control group, the average of self-efficacy increases over time. And we find that a general decline in the predictive effects of self-efficacy (Q_model = 5.117, df = 1, p = .024), especially the ability to predict relatively objective variables (e.g. job performance, teaching effectiveness, and transfer of training). A possible explanation is that as social development people tend to overestimate their self-efficacy. Another possible explanation is that the effect sizes in the original studies being overrated, may due to intentional selective reporting or unintentional statistical errors.     

The effects of exposure to political and domestic violence on preschool children and their mothers

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of exposure to political violence on preschool children and their mothers. We explored whether these dyads are different from dyads with no known history of exposure to violence and from mother–child dyads with known exposure to domestic violence. Specifically, we explored differences in mothers' psychological status (depression and anxiety), dyadic emotional availability (EA), children's social information processing, and children's social behaviour, in a sample of 216 dyads divided into three groups (exposure to political violence, no exposure to violence, and exposure to domestic violence). We found evidence to support our hypotheses that children exposed to domestic violence exhibit the highest levels of social maladjustment with smaller but still significant differences between children exposed to political violence and children in the comparison group. As expected, the lowest EA scores were found in the exposure to domestic violence group, followed by dyads in the exposure to political violence group. Dyads belonging to the comparison group (no exposure) exhibited the highest levels of EA. These findings contribute to our understanding of the meaning of exposure to political violence, as well as sharpen the difference between exposure to political and domestic violence.     

受欺负与青少年外化问题关系的“健康环境悖论”：敌意性归因的中介作用

“健康环境悖论”是指在总体受欺负水平较低的环境中, 受欺负的个体会表现出更多适应问题。本研究以来自47个班级的1764名5年级到8年级学生为被试(男生956人, 平均年龄14.46岁), 考察了班级平均受欺负水平在个体受欺负经历与外化问题间的调节作用及敌意性归因的中介作用。结果发现：(1)受欺负与外化问题的关系存在“健康环境悖论”现象, 即班级平均受欺负水平能调节个体受欺负经历与外化问题的关系, 在班级平均受欺负水平较低的班级中受欺负经历与外化问题的关联更强; (2)班级平均受欺负水平对受欺负与外化问题的调节作用通过敌意性归因的中介作用实现。本研究证实了受欺负与外化问题的健康环境悖论现象, 并首次揭示了敌意性归因的中介作用机制。     

概念内隐记忆中的注意促进效应

Swallow和Jiang (2010)最早发现, 编码时的目标探测会促进同时呈现的背景信息在随后记忆测验中的表现, 并将这一现象称为注意促进效应(Attentional Boost Effect, ABE)。随后研究发现这一现象并不会出现在概念内隐测验中, 由此提出目标探测主要促进的是背景信息的知觉加工, 而非语义加工。本研究通过3个实验, 操纵了对背景信息的编码加工类型(知觉加工或概念加工)。结果发现, 当与目标探测同时进行的是对背景信息的概念加工任务, 则ABE会出现在随后的概念内隐测验中。反之, 当对背景信息进行的是知觉加工任务时, 则ABE会出现在随后的知觉内隐测验而不是概念内隐测验中。这些结果表明, 目标探测既可能促进背景信息的知觉加工, 也可能促进背景信息的语义加工, 但只有在目标探测下背景信息的编码加工与随后内隐测验中所依赖的提取加工具有一致性, 才会产生ABE。     

汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童视觉同时性加工技能子成分的发展及其与阅读的关系

通过分别以高频汉字(实验1)和图形非言语材料(实验2)为刺激的两个联合视觉注意任务, 并采用基于Budensen视觉注意理论的参数估计方法, 系统地探查小学三~六年级汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童的视觉同时性加工技能缺陷的内在机制。以43名汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童和46名生理年龄匹配典型发展儿童为被试, 每类被试均被分为小学中年级组(三、四年级)和高年级组(五、六年级)。两个实验均发现不同年级组的阅读障碍儿童在知觉加工速度参数上显著小于控制组儿童。在空间注意分布权重参数上, 实验1的结果显示, 不同于控制组儿童向左侧化发展的注意分布模式, 两个年级组的阅读障碍儿童均表现为无偏的注意分布; 而实验2未发现显著组别差异。且这两种同时性加工子技能分别与不同水平的汉语阅读技能密切相关。结果表明, 汉语阅读障碍儿童在同时加工多个视觉刺激时存在持续的知觉加工速度缓慢的问题, 在同时加工言语类刺激时还表现出异常的空间注意分布模式。本研究有助于从基础认知层面揭示汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童的缺陷机理, 为进一步设计相关的提高阅读效率的干预方案提供理论依据。     

Single-Stage Prediction Models Do Not Explain the Magnitude of Syntactic Disambiguation Difficulty

The disambiguation of a syntactically ambiguous sentence in favor of a less preferred parse can lead to slower reading at the disambiguation point. This phenomenon, referred to as a garden-path effect, has motivated models in which readers initially maintain only a subset of the possible parses of the sentence, and subsequently require time-consuming reanalysis to reconstruct a discarded parse. A more recent proposal argues that the garden-path effect can be reduced to surprisal arising in a fully parallel parser: words consistent with the initially dispreferred but ultimately correct parse are simply less predictable than those consistent with the incorrect parse. Since predictability has pervasive effects in reading far beyond garden-path sentences, this account, which dispenses with reanalysis mechanisms, is more parsimonious. Crucially, it predicts a linear effect of surprisal: the garden-path effect is expected to be proportional to the difference in word surprisal between the ultimately correct and ultimately incorrect interpretations. To test this prediction, we used recurrent neural network language models to estimate word-by-word surprisal for three temporarily ambiguous constructions. We then estimated the slowdown attributed to each bit of surprisal from human self-paced reading times, and used that quantity to predict syntactic disambiguation difficulty. Surprisal successfully predicted the existence of garden-path effects, but drastically underpredicted their magnitude, and failed to predict their relative severity across constructions. We conclude that a full explanation of syntactic disambiguation difficulty may require recovery mechanisms beyond predictability.     

Socially Situated Transmission: The Bias to Transmit Negative Information is Moderated by the Social Context

Cultural evolutionary theory has identified a range of cognitive biases that guide human social learning. Naturalistic and experimental studies indicate transmission biases favoring negative and positive information. To address these conflicting findings, the present study takes a socially situated view of information transmission, which predicts that bias expression will depend on the social context. We report a large-scale experiment (N = 425) that manipulated the social context and examined its effect on the transmission of the positive and negative information contained in a narrative text. In each social context, information was progressively lost as it was transmitted from person to person, but negative information survived better than positive information, supporting a negative transmission bias. Importantly, the negative transmission bias was moderated by the social context: Higher social connectivity weakened the bias to transmit negative information, supporting a socially situated account of information transmission. Our findings indicate that our evolved cognitive preferences can be moderated by our social goals.     

汉语阅读中词切分研究进展

词切分指读者在文本阅读过程中将词从句子或语篇中切分出来以促进文本阅读与加工的过程。本文对近20 年来汉语词切分研究成果总结发现:词间空格、词素特性、词意识、词汇预期均可作为词切分的依据; 汉语阅读存在词n和词n+1两种切分,两种切分过程中字词加工均遵循交互激活假设,切分词n过程中字词加工的交互激活特点表现为字词同等相互影响,切分词n+1过程中字词加工的交互激活特点更多表现为词汇加工影响字加工; 重叠歧义词切分遵循多重激活假设,其中被激活的单词之间的竞争机制符合竞争假设,左侧词汇在这一竞争中具有优势,此外,重叠歧义词的切分受到词频,语境的影响。     

Gradedness of visual awareness depends on attentional scope: Global perception is more graded than local perception

The gradedness or discreteness of our visual awareness has been debated. Here, we investigate the influence of spatial scope of attention on the gradedness of visual awareness. We manipulated scope of attention using hierarchical letter-based tasks (global: broad scope; local: narrow scope). Participants reported the identity of a masked hierarchical letter either at the global level or at the local level. We measured subjective awareness using the perceptual awareness scale ratings and objective performance. The results indicate more graded visual awareness (lesser slope for the awareness rating curve) at the global level compared to the local level. Graded perception was also observed in visibility ratings usage with global level task showing higher usage of the middle PAS ratings. Our results are in line with the prediction of level of processing hypothesis and show that global/local attentional scope and contextual endogenous factors influence the graded nature of our visual awareness.