The effects of a sportsmanship curriculum intervention on generalized positive social behavior of urban elementary school students

This study evaluated the effects of an elementary physical education curriculum in which development of positive social skills, including leadership and conflict-resolution behaviors, was the primary focus. A second goal was to determine possible generalization effects beyond the primary intervention setting. Students in two urban elementary physical education classes served as subjects, with a third class used as a comparison. The effects of the curriculum intervention were evaluated in the training setting and in the students' regular education classrooms using a multiple baseline across classrooms design. Results showed (a) an immediate increase in student leadership and independent conflict-resolution behaviors, (b) an increase in percentage of class time devoted to activity participation, and (c) decreases in the frequency of student off-task behavior and percentage of class time that students devoted to organizational tasks. Similar changes in student behavior were also observed in the regular classroom settings.     

Coping Strategies and Resolution in Mothers of Children With Cerebral Palsy

“Parental resolution” represents parents coming to terms with their child’s health condition. Differences in the use of coping strategies between mothers who were resolved versus unresolved to their child’s diagnosis was investigated, and a possible moderating effect of these strategies was explored. A strategy aimed at mobilizing the family to acquire and accept help (institutional, formal support) was shown to be a significant moderating variable, in a way that its more frequent use allowed mothers of children with better functional status (but not mothers of children with poorer functional status) to reach resolution.     

进化心理学视角下的两性冲突与缓和

进化心理学观点认为两性冲突是一个性别达到最佳适应的过程被另一个性别所阻碍,其根本原因是两性繁衍成功的根本进化利益存在冲突。从进化心理学的角度,根据两性敌对性选择理论,两性冲突可以分为基因座内的两性冲突与基因座间的两性冲突,前者可由性选择理论解释,后者涉及到两性的适应与反适应以及在军备竞赛中的协同进化。而两性冲突缓和则可以由费舍尔模型与基因复制理论、性别二态性和一夫一妻制度解释。两性冲突及缓和也分别具有进化心理学的相关实证依据支持。未来两性冲突领域的研究需要提升研究方法的客观性及两性冲突特质的多样性,并关注两性冲突缓和的现实有效途径以及婚配制度与评估方式对繁衍成功的交互作用。     

知觉负载影响注意选择和冲突解决的系列效应

研究考察了无关侧抑制项引起的侧抑制效应如何受到当前试次知觉负载和先前试次知觉负载与目标?侧抑制项关系的交互影响。被试在视觉搜索集中搜索目标朝向刺激(水平或竖直朝向)并作辨别反应, 非目标项在低负载条件下彼此朝向一致, 在高负载条件下彼此朝向不一致。在搜索集的左侧或右侧存在一个与当前目标一致或不一致的无关侧抑制项(flanker)。结果发现, 整体上, 在当前试次低负载条件下会产生较大的干扰效应, 而在当前试次高负载下无干扰效应。此外, 先前试次(trial n-1)为高负载条件时, 当前试次(trial n)出现了典型的知觉负载效应, 即低负载条件干扰效应较大, 高负载条件无干扰效应。但是, 先前试次为低负载条件时, 当前试次的干扰效应大小受到先前试次冲突解决状态的影响。先前试次为低负载条件且目标?无关侧抑制项不一致时, 下一试次低负载条件的侧抑制效应显著减小, 与高负载条件没有差异; 反之, 先前试次为低负载且目标?侧抑制项一致条件时, 下一试次低负载条件的侧抑制效应显著增大。先前试次为低负载条件时, 完成了知觉加工的侧抑制项或者引发了冲突效应(不一致条件), 或者促进了对目标的反应(一致条件), 造成不同的注意选择和冲突解决状态, 显著影响了下一试次的行为表现。这说明, 注意选择与冲突控制过程是动态变化的, 除了受到当前试次知觉负载的影响, 也受到先前试次注意选择和冲突解决状态的调节。     

Pupillometry reveals processing load during spoken language comprehension

This study investigated processing effort by measuring peoples’ pupil diameter as they listened to sentences containing a temporary syntactic ambiguity. In the first experiment, we manipulated prosody. The results showed that when prosodic structure conflicted with syntactic structure, pupil diameter reliably increased. In the second experiment, we manipulated both prosody and visual context. The results showed that when visual context was consistent with the correct interpretation, prosody had very little effect on processing effort. However, when visual context was inconsistent with the correct interpretation, prosody had a large effect on processing effort. The interaction between visual context and prosody shows that visual context has an effect on online processing and that it can modulate the influence of linguistic sources of information, such as prosody. Pupillometry is a sensitive measure of processing effort during spoken language comprehension.     

Pronoun resolution in Italian: The role of grammatical gender and context

The aim of this self-paced reading study was to investigate the role of grammatical and context-based gender in assigning an antecedent to a pronoun where the antecedent is an epicene or a bigender noun. In Italian, epicene nouns (e.g., vittima, victim) have grammatical gender, whereas bigender nouns (e.g., assistente, assistant) do not have grammatical gender but instead acquire it from the context in which they occur. We devised three different types of context: incongruent contexts (i.e., contexts containing a gender bias that differed from the grammatical gender of the epicene), congruent contexts (i.e., contexts where the gender bias and grammatical gender coincided), and neutral contexts. In the case of epicenes, pronoun resolution was driven by grammatical gender; in the case of bigenders it was driven by the gender assigned by context. The results are discussed in the light of current models of anaphor resolution.     

Combined Individual/Marital Therapy: A Conflict Resolution Framework and Ethical Considerations

This paper illustrates how couple and individual treatment formats can be intertwined. A conflict resolution theoretical framework structures treatment around three goals: (1) relieving symptoms (anger, depression, and marital distress), (2) facilitating resolution of the couple's conflicts, and (3) building communication and conflict resolution skills. The literature review focuses on why combining individual and couple therapy is often important for married clients. Two Bicycles, an illustrative case incorporating both conjoint and individual interventions, is presented and analyzed with regard to when each format seems beneficial. Ethical and practical issues raised by dual format treatment include potential harm, informed consent, dual roles, confidentiality, and time and financial costs.     

Aging and the use of context in ambiguity resolution: complex changes from simple slowing

Older and younger adults' abilities to use context information rapidly during ambiguity resolution were investigated. In Experiments 1 and 2, younger and older adults heard ambiguous words (e.g., fires) in sentences where the preceding context supported either the less frequent or more frequent meaning of the word. Both age groups showed good context use in offline tasks, but only young adults demonstrated rapid use of context in cross-modal naming. A 3rd experiment demonstrated that younger and older adults had similar knowledge about the contexts used in Experiments 1 and 2. The experiment results were simulated in 2 computational models in which different patterns of context use were shown to emerge from varying a single speed parameter. These results suggest that age-related changes in processing efficiency can modulate context use during language comprehension.     

Learning first-pass structural attachment preferences with dynamic grammars and recursive neural networks

One of the central problems in the study of human language processing is ambiguity resolution: how do people resolve the extremely pervasive ambiguity of the language they encounter? One possible answer to this question is suggested by experience-based models, which claim that people typically resolve ambiguities in a way which has been successful in the past. In order to determine the course of action that has been "successful in the past" when faced with some ambiguity, it is necessary to generalize over past experience. In this paper, we will present a computational experience-based model, which learns to generalize over linguistic experience from exposure to syntactic structures in a corpus. The model is a hybrid system, which uses symbolic grammars to build and represent syntactic structures, and neural networks to rank these structures on the basis of its experience. We use a dynamic grammar, which provides a very tight correspondence between grammatical derivations and incremental processing, and recursive neural networks, which are able to deal with the complex hierarchical structures produced by the grammar. We demonstrate that the model reproduces a number of the structural preferences found in the experimental psycholinguistics literature, and also performs well on unrestricted text.