中国近代心理学史上的丁韪良及其《性学举隅》

传教士丁韪良出于借心理学来传播宗教的目的在1898年出版了《性学举隅》, 这是融入了许多西方科学心理学知识的中文心理学著作。中国最早开设心理学课程的登州文会馆的两名毕业生在丁韪良撰写《性学举隅》过程中进行了笔述工作。丁韪良曾为益智书会撰写心理学教材但未完成, 益智书会转而出版了颜永京的《心灵学》(上本)。以丁韪良及其《性学举隅》为纽带, 19世纪后半叶中国近代心理学发展进程中的几个重要事件构成了一副较完整的历史图景, 反映出中国近代心理学的发展与宗教传播有着密切联系。《性学举隅》吸收了当时西方心理学前沿性的生理心理学知识, 向中国引介了催眠术和颅相学知识, 并对中国的“五官说”、“七情说”进行了修正与补充, 同时也借用了汉字的造字法来阐述其部分心理学观点。由于丁韪良向中国传播心理学是其宣传宗教思想的手段之一, 而颜永京译述海文原著的《心灵学》更倾向于向中国传播心理学这一学科, 强调了心理学与众多学科的联系和应用价值, 因此丁韪良在心理学术语创制上的历史功绩要逊于颜永京。颜永京于1882年将psychology翻译为“心才学”, 这是目前发现心理学学科的最早汉语翻译名称。     

Does P3 Reflect Attentional or Memory Performances,or Cognition more Generally?

The study evaluated the off-line relationship of attention, memory and other cognitive performances with the auditory event-related potentials P3 (P300) and N2. The sample comprised 200 middle-aged construction workers. Verbal, visuomotor and memory tests were administered. Attentional domains were examined using CogniSpeed software. Slowed reaction times in the test of sustained attention (vigilance) were associated with delayed P3 latency (p < 0.001) and decreased P3 amplitude (p = 0.005), as well as with delayed N2 latency (p < 0.001). Visuomotor slowing in Digit Symbol was also related to delayed P3 latency (p = 0.030) and decreased P3 amplitude (p = 0.014). In contrast, mild cognitive impairment, short- and long-term memory, and concentrating or sharing attention with high working memory demands were not related to P3. The results suggest that P3 is linked to attentional performance with low working memory demands rather than to effortful working memory updating, retrieval from memory stores, or mild cognitive impairment.     

The occurrence of paraphasias in the spontaneous speech of children with an acquired aphasia

Two children with an acquired aphasia were observed during the recovery process. In the spontaneous speech, paraphasias belonging to different categories, such as neologisms, verbal paraphasias, and literal paraphasias, were found. Especially with regard to neologisms the time of investigation was very important. In addition, one child with a phonemic jargon aphasia and one child with a fluent aphasia and empty speech were observed. These observations implicate a modification of the current clinical picture of childhood aphasia. Some aspects are discussed in relation to adult aphasia.     

Reversal theory and personality: A review

Reversal theory is a new “mode-based” theory of motivation and personality which challenges some fundamental assumptions in these two fields and systematically develops an alternative account which emphasizes the complexity, changeability, and even inconsistency of much of behavior and experience. The present paper introduces some of the main concepts of the theory, including those of metamotivation, reversal, telic and paratelic modes, and telic dominance, and shows how the general approach involved can be characterized as “structural phenomenological.” The experimental, psychometric, psychophysiological, and other types of research which have been generated by the theory are reviewed and shown to be generally supportive of it.     

Vocational decision status and the effect of four types of occupational information on cognitive complexity

Because most vocational counseling interventions focus on giving occupational information, research investigating effects of information giving on cognitive processing styles has governed attention in the recent past. The present study was intended to determine some aspects of occupational information relevance while assessing differences in cognitive complexity between vocationally decided and undecided subjects. Two hundred eighty college student volunteers were assigned to eight groups based on their decision status (decided versus undecided) and random distribution of four types of occupational information packets. Cognitive complexity levels were measured, using the Cognitive Differentiation Grid, 48 hr after the packets were distributed. A 2 × 4 analysis of variance found no differences between decided and undecided subjects' cognitive complexity scores as a function of type of occupational information received. There was a significant main effect for information received. There was a significant main effect for information across decision status in the positively and negatively toned information groups: the positive information was associated with relatively greater cognitive simplicity scores and the negative information was associated with relatively greater cognitive complexity scores. Implications of results and further necessary research is specified.     

Influence of occupational information giving on cognitive complexity in decided versus undecided students

Some research in the area of vocational counseling has focused on information-processing variables of subjects, such as the cognitive complexity-simplicity dimension. Because much vocational counseling consists of giving occupational information to the client, researchers have investigated the effect of information giving on the processing styles of subjects. Bodden and James (Journal of Counseling Psychology, 23, 280–282, 1976) found that giving occupational information to subjects caused them to become more cognitively restricted; they concluded that the practice of giving occupational information in counseling should be reexamined. The present study attempts to replicate that work while additionally controlling for the decided/undecided status of the subjects. Ninety-three subjects were administered the Career Decision Scale and the Cognitive Differentiation Grid at pretest. Subjects were then randomly assigned to the experimental-information condition or the control-no-information condition and were tested 48 hr later on the Cognitive Differentiation Grid. No significant differences were found between decideds and undecideds as a result of vocational information that they were given, and the results failed to replicate the Bodden and James (1976) findings. Implications of the results are discussed and further necessary research is specified.     

Human reasoning: Some possible effects of availability

This paper discusses some possible ways in which the availability heuristic (Tversky and Kahneman, 1973) may mediate subjects' responses to experimental ‘reasoning’ tasks. A brief review of some effects of availability in other areas is given and then the application of availability to reasoning data is considered with respect to problems employing both ‘thematic’ and ‘abstract’ content.In the case of thematic content, it is argued, with reference to a variety of studies, that to produce a differential effect (to abstract content), the content must provide available cues, resulting from the subjects' experience. Differential effects of content are thus interpreted as differential effects of availability. When abstract content is used, there are cues available from the experimental situation itself, and it is shown that several known error tendencies readily lend themselves to an explanation in terms of availability.In the final section, it is pointed out that a focus on available cues, rather than logical structure, provides a psychological, rather than logical, approach to human reasoning. It is argued that a bias may be psychologically, although not logically, optimal in that it may often produce correct responses in ‘real life’. Accordingly, the possible real life utility of availability is considered, and several ways in which the bias may lead to usually correct decisions are discussed. Given this, it is argued that availability is an effective heuristic and that observed biases on a range of experimental tasks may thus be interpreted as resulting from the application of a behavior that is optimal within the limits of human cognition. However, it is concluded that limitations in both deterministic and probabilistic problem solving may lead to a consistent, but erroneous, view of the world.     

Differential effectiveness of explicit verbal feedback on children's communication skills

In order to specify by which combination of content and form dimensions the explicit verbal feedback comes to be most effective in enhancing communication skills, a training experiment was designed where both dimensions were factorially manipulated. Forty children (mean age, 5–10) were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions: Interrogative Cognitive feedback, Declarative Cognitive feedback, Interrogative Perceptual feedback, and Declarative Perceptual feedback. The Cognitive type of feedback specified the successive cognitive steps underlying the comparison activity whereas the Perceptual type of feedback stressed only the necessity of describing perceptual differences when communicating. These two contents of feedback were either provided by a set of standardized questions or of declarative statements, after each trial of a speaking training task. Subjects were given a pretest, and immediate and delayed posttests comprised of a speaking task and a listening generalization task. A 2 (Contents) × 2 (Forms) × 2 (Tasks) × 2 (Post-tests) analysis of variance showed that all subjects performed significantly better on the speaking task than on the listening generalization task and that subjects in the Interrogative Cognitive condition performed better than subjects in the three other conditions, on both post-test tasks. Results emphasize the mutual facilitating effects of the Interrogative Form and the Cognitive Content of explicit feedback and are discussed in terms of the generalization and stability of the induced learning.     

Capacity increase and chunking in the development of short-term memory

The possibility of an age-related increase in the capacity of the short-term store was examined in two short-term memory experiments, and an M-operator model was proposed to account for the data. In the first experiment, lists of 8, 10, and 12 consonants were presented to 10-, 12-, and 14-year-olds. Despite the fact that the amount of chunking was monitored and kept constant across ages, there was a definite developmental increase in short-term memory performance. The size of the increase corresponded to the prediction of Pascual-Leone's M-operator theory. An M-operator model was proposed to account for the relation between performance level and list length at each age, as well as the developmental increase. Predictions of adult performance were tested in a second experiment. Together the two experiments show that an important part of short-term memory development can be explained as a growth in short-term store capacity.