Is Standards-based School Reform Consistent with Schooling for Personal Liberty?

The purpose of this paper is to consider whether standards-based school reform is an acceptable strategy for achieving a politically legitimate school system according to a principle of personal liberty. First, it briefly describes the purpose and implementation of standards-based school reform in the U.S. It then considers the ramifications of the principle of personal liberty for the conduct of public schooling, arguing that it requires children’s access to and appreciation of a variety of liberty-consistent cultures in their society coupled with the development of children’s ability to think critically about those cultures and their meaning as possibilities for their own lives. Third, it considers whether some standards for public education might be consistent with this purpose of education and finds that certain outcome and process standards may be appropriate. Finally, it considers whether these kinds of standards are included in standards-based reform as it is currently practiced or proposed in the U.S. and concludes that they are not. Barry Bull is a professor of philosophy of Education at Indiana. His research focuses on the moral and political justification of education policies.     

Evidence for right hemisphere phonology in a backward masking task

The extent to which orthographic and phonological processes are available during the initial moments of word recognition within each hemisphere is under specified, particularly for the right hemisphere. Few studies have investigated whether each hemisphere uses orthography and phonology under constraints that restrict the viewing time of words and reduce overt phonological demands. The current study used backward masking in the divided visual field paradigm to explore hemisphere differences in the availability of orthographic and phonological word recognition processes. A 20 ms and 60 ms SOA were used to track the time course of how these processes develop during pre-lexical moments of word recognition. Nonword masks varied in similarity to the target words such that there were four types: orthographically and phonologically similar, orthographically but not phonologically similar, phonologically but not orthographically similar and unrelated. The results showed the left hemisphere has access to both orthography and phonology early in the word recognition process. With more time to process the stimulus, the left hemisphere is able to use phonology which benefits word recognition to a larger extent than orthography. The right hemisphere also demonstrates access to both orthography and phonology in the initial moments of word recognition, however, orthographic similarity improves word recognition to a greater extent than phonological similarity.     

Differential involvement of left prefrontal cortex in inductive and deductive reasoning

While inductive and deductive reasoning are considered distinct logical and psychological processes, little is known about their respective neural basis. To address this issue we scanned 16 subjects with fMRI, using an event-related design, while they engaged in inductive and deductive reasoning tasks. Both types of reasoning were characterized by activation of left lateral prefrontal and bilateral dorsal frontal, parietal, and occipital cortices. Neural responses unique to each type of reasoning determined from the Reasoning Type (deduction and induction) by Task (reasoning and baseline) interaction indicated greater involvement of left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 44) in deduction than induction, while left dorsolateral (BA 8/9) prefrontal gyrus showed greater activity during induction than deduction. This pattern suggests a dissociation within prefrontal cortex for deductive and inductive reasoning.     

The Contribution of Attention to the Right Visual Field Advantage for Word Recognition

Perceptual asymmetries have been explained by structural, attentional bias and attentional advantage models. Structural models focus on asymmetries in the physical access information has to the hemispheres, whereas attentional models focus on asymmetries in the operation of attentional processes. A series of experiments was conducted to assess the contribution of attentional mechanisms to the right visual field (RVF) advantage found for word recognition. Valid, invalid and neutral peripheral cues were presented at a variety of stimulus onset asynchronies to manipulate spatial attention. Results indicated a significant RVF advantage and cueing effect. The effect of the cue was stronger for the left visual field than the RVF. This interaction supports the attentional advantage model which suggests that the left hemisphere requires less attention to process words. The attentional asymmetry is interpreted in terms of the different word processing styles used by the left and right hemispheres. These results have ramifications for the methodology used in divided visual field research and the interpretation of this research.     

Interpersonal choice: The advantage on the left or on the right?

This study explored whether body specificity unconsciously influenced preferences for certain people. Participants were presented pictures of the heads of 2 persons who were described as having the similar personality, profession and family background. They were instructed to choose 1 in each pair as the preferred date, preferred friend, more charismatic boss or as the better national leader. The results showed body specificity had an influence on the selection preference on first impression. Participants tended to choose the character on their dominant‐hand side. This study not only provided the first social psychological evidence for the body‐specificity hypothesis, but also first demonstrated a role for body specificity in impression formation and selection preference.     

Semantic representations of word meanings by the cerebral hemispheres

Two priming experiments investigated kind and strength of semantic knowledge underlying known, frontier, and unknown low frequency words. Results from Experiment 1 suggest that known words reflect categorical knowledge, but frontier and unknown words reflect thematic knowledge. Thematic knowledge for frontier words appears to be stronger than that for unknown words. Experiment 2 entailed visual half-field presentation of targets. All facilitory effects were restricted to the lvf/RH, and inhibitory effects to the rvf/LH. Experiment 1 findings were mirrored by the RH. Thematic knowledge appears to precede categorical knowledge for the RH, but the opposite may be true of the LH. Results are also discussed in terms of the RH role in meaning acquisition and metacontrol.     

Brain lateralization of complex movement: Neuropsychological evidence from unilateral stroke

Complex movement (CM) refers to the representation of a goal-oriented action and is classified as either transitive (use of tools) or intransitive (communication gestures). Both types of CM have three specific components: temporal, spatial, and content, which are subdivided into specific error types (SET). Since there is debate regarding the contribution of each brain hemisphere for the types of CM, our objective was to describe the brain lateralization of components and SET of transitive and intransitive CM. We studied 14 patients with a left hemisphere stroke (LH), 12 patients with a right hemisphere stroke (RH), and 16 control subjects. The Florida Apraxia Screening Test-Revised (FAST-R, Rothi et al., 1988) was used for the assessment of CM. Both clinical groups showed a worse performance than the control group on the total FAST-R and transitive movement scores (p < 0.001). Failures in Spatial and Temporal components were found in both clinical groups, but only LH patients showed significantly more Content errors (p < 0.01) than the control group. Also, only the LH group showed a higher number of errors for intransitive movements score (p = 0.017), due to lower scores in the content component, compared to the control group (p = 0.04). Transitive and intransitive CMs differ in their neurocognitive representation; transitive CM shows a bilateral distribution of its components when compared to intransitive CM, which shows a preferential left hemisphere representation. This could result from higher neurocognitive demands for movements that require use of tools, compared with more automatic communication gestures.     

珠心算过程的眼动和认知研究

本实验采用眼动技术和实验神经心理学的方法对珠心算的认知过程进行了实验研究。研究发现,在竖式运算时,接受过珠心算训练的儿童与没有接受过珠心算训练的儿童相比其眼动轨迹显著不同;神经心理实验的结果表明,训练组儿童在数学运算能力、数字记忆空间、注意力、大脑功能偏侧化等方面均与非训练组儿童有显著差别。     

视剥夺及视剥夺学习后Jun样蛋白在雏鸡两侧半球中不同表达的研究

该实验免疫组化技术,在已有实验的基础上进一步观察比较了左眼视剥夺及单眼学习后,Ｊｕｎ样蛋白在雏鸡则半ＨＶ和ＬＰＯ中表达的差异,实验表明：１．视剥夺２．２４、４８、７２小时后观测到Ｊｕｎ样蛋白在左、右半球ＨＶ和ＬＰＯ中的表达逐渐增高,并且于视剥夺４８小时表达到达峰值。同时仅在视剥夺２小时后观测到两半球ＬＰＯ中Ｊｕｎ样蛋白的表达存在差异,在其余各视剥夺时程中两侧半球的ＬＰＯ、ＨＶ中Ｊｕｎ样蛋白的表达均     

不同性质的汉语高熟悉度隐喻意义加工过程——来自ERP研究的证据

采用ERP技术考察不同性质隐喻加工的时间进程与神经机制。以词对方式呈现词源性隐喻、引发性隐喻、一般字面义,被试进行语义相关判断任务。结果发现:从引发性隐喻、一般字面义到词源性隐喻,N400平均波幅呈阶梯状递减,引发性隐喻和词源性隐喻的P600平均波幅大于一般字面义。对于不同类型词对诱发的N400,大脑左半球没有显著差异,但右半球上引发性隐喻显著大于词源性隐喻和字面义词对。并且右半球P600平均波幅更大,但三种词对间没有显著差异。结果表明:(1)日常熟悉隐喻的理解更符合平行假说但需要更多的认知资源;(2)右半球是否参与以及参与程度与隐喻性质和加工阶段有关。