Cognitive imitation in typically-developing 3- and 4-year olds and individuals with autism

Individuals diagnosed with autism suffer from numerous social, affective and linguistic impairments. It has also been suggested that they have a global imitation deficit. That hypothesis, however, is compromised by the fact that individuals with autism suffer from various motor impairments. Here we describe an experiment on cognitive imitation, a type of imitation that doesn’t require motor learning. Nine male autistic subjects and 20 typically-developing 3- and 4-year olds were trained to respond, in a prescribed order, to different lists of photographs that were displayed simultaneously on a touch-sensitive monitor. Because the position of the photographs varied randomly from trial to trial, sequences could not be learned by motor imitation. In three different imitation treatments, including a ghost control, autistic subjects learned new sequences more rapidly after observing a model execute those sequences than when they had to learn new sequences entirely by trial and error. Moreover, the performance of autistic subjects did not significantly differ from the performance of typically-developing controls. The result of this and other studies suggests that individuals with autism suffer from a specific novel motor imitation deficit.     

Beyond stop consonants: Consonantal specificity in early lexical acquisition

Previous research has shown that 20-month-old infants can simultaneously learn two words that only differ by one of their consonants, but fail to do so when the words differ only by one of their vowels. This asymmetry was interpreted as developmental evidence for the proposal that consonants play a more important role than vowels in lexical specification. However, the consonant/vowel distinction was confounded with another distinction, that of the continuous status of the phonemes used (discontinuous stop consonants versus continuous vowels). The present study investigated 20-month-olds’ use of phonetic specificity while simultaneously learning two words that differ by a continuous consonant. The results obtained parallel those previously found for stop consonants, confirming the original claim of an asymmetry between the roles of consonants and vowels at the lexical level.     

Auditory-Processing Malleability: Focus on Language and Music

ABSTRACT— Auditory processing forms the basis of humans' ability to engage in complex behaviors such as understanding spoken language or playing a musical instrument. Auditory processing is not a rigid, encapsulated process; rather, it interacts intimately with other neural systems and is affected by experience, environmental influences, and active training. Auditory processing is related to language and cognitive function, and impaired auditory processing negatively affects the quality of life of many people. Recent studies suggest that the malleability of the auditory system may be used to study the interaction between sensory and cognitive processes and to enhance human well-being.     

Increasing Retention Without Increasing Study Time

ABSTRACT— Because people forget much of what they learn, students could benefit from learning strategies that yield long-lasting knowledge. Yet surprisingly little is known about how long-term retention is most efficiently achieved. Here we examine how retention is affected by two variables: the duration of a study session and the temporal distribution of study time across multiple sessions. Our results suggest that a single session devoted to the study of some material should continue long enough to ensure that mastery is achieved but that immediate further study of the same material is an inefficient use of time. Our data also show that the benefit of distributing a fixed amount of study time across two study sessions—the spacing effect —depends jointly on the interval between study sessions and the interval between study and test. We discuss the practical implications of both findings, especially in regard to mathematics learning.     

学习能力、知识经验对儿童问题解决的影响

采用问题解决类比任务范式,考察了学习能力、知识经验对90名小学4年级儿童在问题解决过程中类比问题解决及策略运用的影响。结果发现:(1)在问题解决的质量上,学习能力具有显著制约作用,学习能力越高,问题解决成绩越好,而知识经验作用不显著;在问题解决速度上,学习能力和知识经验作用均不显著。(2)学习能力对问题解决策略运用的总体分布、高级类比和非类比策略运用具有显著性作用。(3)不同知识经验对策略运用总体分布及高级类比策略有显著性作用。     

第二语言学习中的反馈

在第二语言学习中,反馈指针对学习者的言语行为给予学习者的评价性信息。该文阐释了反馈的概念、类型以及反馈在第二语言学习中的角色,并从反馈的时机与对象、对学习者注意力的引导、学习者认知资源的限制、情感支持等方面分析了有效反馈的特征,最后对反馈研究对我国第二语言学习与教学的意义及以后的研究方向进行了探讨     

学习不良儿童的策略研究

策略作为目标指向的旨在解决问题的心理操作,负责对基本信息加工的执行和控制,影响着个体的学习效果,因而被引入到学习不良领域。对学习不良儿童的策略研究具有重要价值。文章分析和综合了已有研究,阐述了学习不良与策略的关系、学习不良儿童的策略表现以及学习不良儿童策略低下的原因,提出了当前研究中存在的问题以及今后的发展趋势。     

国外有关学习时间分配决策能力的研究概述

学习时间分配决策是记忆监控的核心内容之一。文章围绕学习时间分配决策能力的新近研究,重点介绍了如下问题：（1）儿童学习时间分配决策能力的发展;（2）学习时间分配决策机制的探讨,特别对最新的理论模型——学习层次模型和最近学习区假设进行了比较详细的介绍;（3）对今后研究发展的趋势进行了展望。     

组织学习整合理论模型

如何提高组织学习能力、如何创建学习型组织、学习型社会,这已经成为我国企业和社会发展需要迫切解决的问题。文章从定义的根本假设、组织学习层次、组织学习过程、内部推动因素四个方面对文献进行了综述,在此基础上提出了组织学习的界定以及整合的组织学习模型,它包括：个体、团队、组织层、组织间四个学习层次,获得和产生、解释、整合、制度化四个心理和社会互动过程,反馈学习（feedback）和前馈学习(feed forward)两个信息或知识流动过程。最后提出了今后研究的方向。     

中学生自我概念、学业归因与学业成绩关系的研究

该研究采用问卷法探讨中学生自我概念、学业归因与学业成绩的关系,并分别对初中生和高中生建立了因果关系模型。两模型区别在于：（1）学业成绩对初中生自我概念的影响大于对高中生的;（2）高中生学业自我概念受内部控制、非学业自我概念受未知方控制直接影响。研究还表明：（1）初中生的学业自我概念显著高于高中生的;（2）学业自我概念、一般自我概念与学业成绩高低一致;（3）内部控制源与有势力的他人控制源显著相关。