Concept of uprightness in baboons: assessment with pictures of realistic scenes

How nonhuman primates process pictures of natural scenes or objects remains a matter of debates. This issue was addressed in the current research by questioning the processing of the canonical orientation of pictures in baboons. Two adult guinea baboons were trained to use an interactive key (IK) on a touch-screen to change the orientation of target pictures showing humans or quadruped mammals until upright. In experiment 1, both baboons successfully learned to use the IK when that key induced a 90 degrees rightward rotation of the picture, but post-training transfer of performance did not occur to novel pictures of natural scenes due to potential motor biases. In Experiment 2, a touch on IK randomly displayed the pictures in any of the four cardinal orientations. Baboons successfully learned the task, but transfer to novel pictures could only be demonstrated after they had been exposed to 360-480 pictures in that condition. Experiment 3 confirmed positive transfers to novel pictures, and showed that both the figure and background information controlled the behavior. Our research on baboons therefore demonstrates the development and use of an "upright" concept, and indicates that picture processing modes strongly depend on the subject's past experience with naturalistic pictorial stimuli.     

Implicit response-irrelevant number information triggers the SNARC effect: Evidence using a neural overlap paradigm

There is evidence from the SNARC (spatial–numerical association of response codes) effect and NDE (numerical distance effect) that number activates spatial representations. Most of this evidence comes from tasks with explicit reference to number, whether through presentation of Arabic digits (SNARC) or through magnitude decisions to nonsymbolic representations (NDE). Here, we report four studies that use the neural overlap paradigm developed by Fias, Lauwereyns, and Lammertyn (2001) to examine whether the presentation of implicit and task-irrelevant numerosity information (nonsymbolic arrays and auditory numbers) is enough to activate a spatial representation of number. Participants were presented with either numerosity arrays (1–9 circles or triangles) to which they made colour (Experiment 1) or orientation (Experiment 2) judgements, or auditory numbers coupled with an on-screen stimulus to which they made a colour (Experiment 3) or orientation (Experiment 4) judgement. SNARC effects were observed only for the orientation tasks. Following the logic of Fias et al., we argue that this SNARC effect occurs as a result of overlap in parietal processing for number and orientation judgements irrespective of modality. Furthermore, we found stronger SNARC effects in the small number range (1–4) than in the larger number range (6–9) for both nonsymbolic displays and auditory numbers. These results suggest that quantity is extracted (and interferes with responses in the orientation task) but this is not exact for the entire number range. We discuss a number of alternative models and mechanisms of numerical processing that may account for such effects.     

创业自我效能的中介作用机制探究

摘要 近年来,创业自我效能的研究日益受到重视,已有的研究大多把创业自我效能作为预测变量,探讨其对创业意向及创业绩效的影响。本研究梳理了性别角色取向及认知风格对创业自我效能的影响,探讨了创业自我效能的中介作用机制及其这种中介效应对理论及实践的启示。     

Cultural and Institutional Determinants of Social Dominance Orientation: A Cross‐Cultural Meta‐Analysis of 27 Societies

We investigate macrocontextual antecedents of national levels of Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). The majority of previous research, in contrast, has tended to focus on individual‐level correlates of SDO. We extend research on Social Dominance Theory by modelling national‐level differences in institutional discrimination, macroeconomic development, and value ideologies as broad situational factors affecting SDO mean levels in previous studies. Our hypotheses were tested in a three‐level meta‐analysis of aggregate data from 50,971 individuals in 95 samples from 27 different societies. Strong effects for hierarchy‐attenuating legitimizing ideologies and gender empowerment were found. Aggregate discrimination against arbitrary‐set groups was less consistently linked to SDO, suggesting that these hierarchies are context‐specific. Using mixed‐effects three‐level modelling, the patterns can be generalized to new contexts and suggest a particular institutional and social climate that fosters high SDO.     

纳米伦理:规范分析和范式转换

鉴于纳米技术目前显现出的启发式控制活力,可以将其作为伦理学一个重要的潜在探索领域。这就要求把对纳米技术的规范分析从一般技术制品和后果评估扩大到技术隐喻、想象和语言评估,由此认为目前占据主流地位的德莱克斯勒式纳米机器是一种机械隐喻,必然导向决定论式的单向度社会命运,但其论敌斯默莱的生物模拟隐喻实际上意味着一种范式转换,因为它为人在纳米技术发展中提供了表达责任感的道德机会。沿着这一线索,目前倡导伦理导向的纳米技术发展,就是要把它作为一个多学科背景依赖领域,把参与其社会意义塑造的各种主客体要素引导到人道主义立场上来,以使纳米世界建构真正体现人的全面发展。     

成就目标导向对创业行动效能的影响研究

在调查基础上,本文研究了成就目标导向对创业行动效能的影响。研究结果表明,学习目标导向与自我效能感及创业行动效能存在正相关,业绩接近目标导向与自我效能感及创业行动效能存在较弱的负相关．业绩回避目标导向与自我效能感及创业行动效能存在较高的负相关;自我效能感对创业行动效能具有显著影响;自我效能感在成就目标导向对创业行动效能的影响中起中介作用。     

性别角色认定对领导风格的影响：以女性创业者为例

领导风格的性别差异一直受到关注。以往的研究有两种观点：领导风格存在性别差异,女性的领导风格更有效;领导风格不存在性别差异。而最新研究认为领导风格差异源于社会性别角色,探讨女性创业者的性别角色认定特征及其对领导风格的影响十分必要。实证结果显示,不同性别角色认定的女性创业者在领导风格上存在差异,双性化者多采用高定规、高关怀的领导方式,女性化者多采用高关怀的方式,而男性化者则多采用高定规的方式。影响领导风格的并不是个体的性别本身,而是其对性别角色的认定。     

On the border: perimeter patrolling as a transitional exploratory phase in a diurnal rodent,the fat sand rat (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Psammomys obesus</Emphasis>)

Exploration is an initial phase of constructing spatial representation. In an illuminated environment, exploration by nocturnal rodents takes the form of home-base behavior, with the rodents organizing their activity in relation to the base, repeatedly orienting and returning to it. In the dark, home base behavior in gerbils is preceded by looping exploration, in which travel paths tangle into loops that close at various locations so that the gerbils pilot from one loop to the next. In the present study we tested a diurnal gerbil, the fat sand rat, Psammomys obesus, in both a lit and a dark open field in order to compare its exploratory behavior with that of nocturnal rodents. We found that under lit conditions, fat sand rats used perimeter patrolling, traveling mainly along the walls of the open field. In perimeter patrolling the animal probably monitors its location in relation to the perimeter (arena walls), and not to a specific location as in home base. In the dark, fat sand rats first used looping, and gradually shifted to perimeter patrolling exploration. We suggest that perimeter patrolling is a transient phase in which the animal evaluates possible locations for a home base. Thus, perimeter patrolling is an intermediate phase between looping, which is based on piloting from one landmark to the next, and home base exploration, in which the animal continuously orients to a specific location. This spatial behavior of perimeter patrolling may shed light on phases of information processing and spatial representation during exploration and navigation.     

A Motivational Model of Authoritarianism: Integrating Personal and Situational Determinants

We describe and test a collective security model of authoritarianism. This model sees Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) as directly caused by collective security motivation (CSM), which is in turn influenced jointly by personality (with its effects mediated through group identification and dangerous world beliefs) and social threat (with its effects mediated through dangerous world beliefs). Two studies tested this model using student samples—one was correlational ( N =  218), while the other included an experimental manipulation of threat using future scenarios ( N =  136). Structural equation analyses partially supported the model suggesting that CSM fully mediated the effects of threat and group identification on RWA, but only partially mediated the effect of personality, which also had important direct effects.     

Orientation perception in Williams Syndrome: Discrimination and integration

Williams Syndrome (WS) is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder, which stems from a genetic deletion on chromosome 7 and causes a profound weakness in visuospatial cognition. Our current study explores how orientation perception may contribute to the visuospatial deficits in WS. In Experiment 1, we found that WS individuals and normal 3–4 year olds had similar orientation discrimination thresholds and had similar prevalence of mirror-reversal errors for diagonal targets (±45 deg). In Experiment 2, we asked whether this immaturity in orientation discrimination would also be reflected in a task requiring integration of oriented elements. We found that sensitivities of WS individuals for detecting orientation-defined contours were higher than sensitivities of normal 3–4 year olds, and were not significantly different from sensitivities of normal adults. Together, these results suggest that orientation discrimination and orientation integration have different maturational trajectories in normal development and different susceptibilities to damage in WS. These may reflect largely separate visuospatial mechanisms.