Motion and edge sensitivity in perception of object unity

Although much evidence indicates that young infants perceive unitary objects by analyzing patterns of motion, infants' abilities to perceive object unity by analyzing Gestalt properties and by integrating distinct views of an object over time are in dispute. To address these controversies, four experiments investigated adults' and infants' perception of the unity of a center-occluded, moving rod with misaligned visible edges. Both alignment information and depth information affected adults' and infants' perception of object unity in similar ways, and infants perceived object unity by integrating information about object features over time. However, infants perceived a moving, misaligned, three-dimensional object as indeterminate in its connectedness, whereas adults perceived it as connected behind the occluder. These findings indicate that the effectiveness of common motion in specifying unified surfaces across an occluder is reduced by misalignment of edges. Alignment information enhances perception of object unity either by serving directly as information for unity or by optimizing the detectability of motion-carried information for unity. In addition, young infants are able to retain information about edge orientation over short intervals in determining connectedness via a process of spatiotemporal integration.     

语言线索对空间关系表征的影响及其机制

语言的获得会对空间认知产生深刻的影响。关于语言与空间认知,近些年来,不仅有大量的相关研究发现语言能力跟空间认知能力之间存在着密切的关联,还出现了实验研究,来试图直接揭示语言对空间关系表征的影响。研究发现,在一系列涉及不同空间关系的任务中,相较于非语言线索,语言线索提示的效果明显更好。在此基础上,从语言编码的特点和加工过程等方面进一步分析语言的作用机制,发现在空间表征中语言主要起到了选择和整合的作用,语言的作用过程是即时性的。建议未来研究在空间任务和语言表述形式上有更多的变式,从而更全面地来揭示语言的作用。     

Growing Together—Effects of a school-based intervention promoting positive self-beliefs and social integration in recently immigrated children

We present a school-based intervention geared to foster the social integration of recently immigrated (RI) primary school children by creating repeated positive contact situations with classmates brought up in the receiving society. Coaches encouraged groups of tandems, consisting of one RI and one child brought up in Germany each, to engage in cooperative activities designed to strengthen positive self-beliefs and perception of equal status. In a quasi-experimental control-group design (N = 318), we compared the 30 children (12 RI) who participated in our intervention between pre-test and post-test with a reference group. Self-beliefs were measured via self-reports, social integration via sociometric peer-nominations. The reference group (n = 288 children) included all children who did not participate in the intervention between pre-test and post-test: (a) 12 children (7 RI) of a waiting control group and (b) all classmates of both the students of the intervention and the waiting control group. Post-test self-beliefs were more positive in children having participated in the intervention. The intervention did not affect social integration: Neither the number of classmates nominating a student nor the number of peers the respective student nominated increased. Possibly, the intervention initiated self-reinforcing processes which support social integration over longer time periods.     

When the poor excel: Poverty facilitates procedural learning

Recent research has shown that poverty directly impeded cognitive functions because the poor could be easily distracted by monetary concerns. We argue that this effect may be limited to functions relying on working memory. For functions that rely on proceduralized processes however, monetary concerns elicited by reminding of financial demands would be conducive rather than harmful. Our results supported this hypothesis by showing that participants with lower income reached the learning criterion of the information‐integration categorization task faster than their more affluent counterparts after reminding of financial demands.     

Testing the subtractive pattern of cultural identification

Identity integration, and more specifically, the subtractive pattern of cultural identification, is investigated in this article. This pattern is hypothesized to occur when individuals integrate a new group identity of higher and legitimate status than their original identity, resulting in lower identification with the original group. The first study examined how relative status predicts the subtractive pattern of identification in immigrants living in Canada. Studies 2 and 3—conducted among Kyrgyz and Canadian participants—extended these results by measuring the impact of legitimacy on the subtractive pattern of identification. Results support the hypothesis that the subtractive pattern of identification takes place when the new identity has a higher and legitimate status compared with the original one, highlighting the possible different patterns of identity integration.     

A comparison of a modified sequential oral sensory approach to an applied behavior‐analytic approach in the treatment of food selectivity in children with autism spectrum disorder

Treatments of pediatric feeding disorders based on applied behavior analysis (ABA) have the most empirical support in the research literature (Volkert & Piazza, 2012); however, professionals often recommend, and caregivers often use, treatments that have limited empirical support. In the current investigation, we compared a modified sequential oral sensory approach (M‐SOS; Benson, Parke, Gannon, & Muñoz, 2013) to an ABA approach for the treatment of the food selectivity of 6 children with autism. We randomly assigned 3 children to ABA and 3 children to M‐SOS and compared the effects of treatment in a multiple baseline design across novel, healthy target foods. We used a multielement design to assess treatment generalization. Consumption of target foods increased for children who received ABA, but not for children who received M‐SOS. We subsequently implemented ABA with the children for whom M‐SOS was not effective and observed a potential treatment generalization effect during ABA when M‐SOS preceded ABA.     

自我表征的可塑性:基于橡胶手错觉的研究

自我识别是人类自我觉知的行为标记。传统方法认为稳定的自我表征是自我识别的基础。随着对橡胶手错觉及一系列自我表征和自我识别错觉的揭示,这一能让人将外部客体感知为自身一部分的错觉研究使得我们能够以多感官整合的方式来研究自我表征和自我识别。拥有感和自主感被认为是我们进行自我识别的两类基本体验,本文对一系列橡胶手错觉范式研究的系统回顾表明,拥有感和自主感会发生改变,这说明人的自我表征是可变的和可塑的。     

Judgments of blame and forgiveness: A comparison of young adults,older adults,and older adults with dementia

IntroductionAlzheimer's disease may modify moral judgment.ObjectiveIn two studies, we assessed the impact of dementia on blame and forgiveness. Study 1 compared the ways in which young adults, older adults, and older adults with dementia cognitively integrated two factors. Study 2 assessed the number of different factors that older adults with dementia were able to integrate during these moral judgments.MethodThe participants recorded their moral judgements in a blame task and in a forgiveness task. In study 1, the two questionnaires contained scenarios built from the combination of two factors. In study 2, the participants were confronted with the same tasks under three different conditions with scenarios that combined three, four or five factors.ResultsThe data from study 1 showed that the older adults with dementia did not combine the two factors in the same way as young adults did: the combination depended on the type of moral judgment. Study 2 revealed differences in moral judgment between older adults with dementia and adults without dementia in all tasks (i.e. with three, four or five factors combined).ConclusionDementia has an impact on moral judgments. Moral judgment among people with dementia is both task- and condition-dependant.     

听觉障碍对聋人视觉功能影响的理论之争：缺陷还是补偿？

听觉通道受损,是否会影响聋人的视觉功能？有三种理论对此做出了解释。缺陷理论：聋人视觉功能存在缺陷,包括听觉脚手架假说和劳动分工假说。补偿理论：聋人视觉功能会表现出增强,包括响应增强假说、知觉增强假说、超通道功能假说和背侧通路假说。整合理论：聋人视觉功能既可能表现为缺陷,也可能表现为增强,与实验任务和被试年龄有关。本文评述了听觉障碍对聋人视觉功能影响的三种理论,并对其今后的发展趋势进行了展望。