Rationales Handeln und historische Erklärung

Summary   Rational Choice and Historical Explanation. The dichotomy between narrative and causal approaches is one of the most discussed problems in historical explanation. The main problem seems to be that many philosophers and historians do not agree with the argument of analytical philosophy of history that explanations demand law-like assumptions. Even Arthur C. Danto, however, who is often regarded as the founder of narrative explanatory approaches, did not leave causality behind. Contrarily, he defended the covering-law-scheme against unfounded criticism and showed that causality and narration can be reconciled. But Danto did not say which laws should play a major role in historical explanations. This gap could be bridged by one of the most successful research programs in the social sciences over the last decades, the Rational Choice approach. This approach should, however, be reduced to its basic assumption, the presumption of subjective rationality (which principally corresponds an older hermeneutic tradition), and be integrated into the “model of a sociological explanation” (which is very popular among European sociologists). The result is a concept of a historical explanation that does justice to the linguistic turn (in its formulation by Willard Van Orman Quine), to the demands of the covering-law-scheme and to the ambitions of historians to narrate and explain a historical phenomenon at the same time.     

父母-儿童共同活动中的互动与儿童的数学学习

本研究运用结构性观察方法对两组4岁儿童与父母在四种活动中的互动进行了分析与比较。一组儿童为书面数符号测查高分者,二组儿童为书面数符号测查低分者。85对父母一儿童对子参加了4个各有15分钟的共同活动,阅读、数学题、纸和积木,并完成一个微型问卷。结果表明,在这些活动中包含了多种数学知识学习和多种以父母为主导的互动策略;两组对子之间在数学事件频次上无差异,但一组父母更多地运用了一些积极策略,二组父母更多地运用了一些消极策略;二组中有更多儿童对互动表现出消极回应和注意力问题。两个组的父母在家中与儿童一起进行诸如阅读和做数学题的共同活动的频次与质量上表现出差异。     

A Bayesian predictive analysis of test scores

In the classical test theory, a high-reliability test always leads to a precise measurement. However, when it comes to the prediction of test scores, it is not necessarily so. Based on a Bayesian statistical approach, we predicted the distributions of test scores for a new subject, a new test, and a new subject taking a new test. Under some reasonable conditions, the predicted means, variances, and covariances of predicted scores were obtained and investigated. We found that high test reliability did not necessarily lead to small variances or covariances. For a new subject, higher test reliability led to larger predicted variances and covariances, because high test reliability enabled a more accurate prediction of test score variances. Regarding a new subject taking a new test, in this study, higher test reliability led to a large variance when the sample size was smaller than half the number of tests. The classical test theory is reanalyzed from the viewpoint of predictions and some suggestions are made.     

马王堆帛书《系辞》研究

本文主要研究马王堆帛书《系辞》中几处重要的异文。今本《系辞》中的“象”,帛书作“马”。“马”义同于“数”。《庄子》中说“天地一指也．万物一马也。”此处的“马”。与帛书《系辞》中的“马”同义。今本《系辞》中的“太极”,帛书作“大恒”。恒、常同义,《仪礼》中说“假尔大筮有常。”这个“常”即帛书《系辞》中的“大恒”。亦即《吕氏春秋·大乐》中的“天常”。今本《系辞》云“显诸仁,藏诸用”,帛书作“圣者仁,壮者勇”。儒家学说重视“勇”,《论语·宪问》即有云“仁者必有勇。”帛书《系辞》云“天地之大思日生。”“思”读为“司”,今本作“天地之大德日生。”帛书《系辞》又云“夫易古物定命”,其义同于“乾知大始,坤作成物”。今本《系辞》云“圣人以此洗心”．帛书作“圣人以此佚心”,佚、乐同义,马王堆帛书《五行》云“不安则不乐。不乐则无德。”     

物理大小和面积的无意识空间表征

意识水平的研究发现,数字量的比较机制与物理刺激比较的机制是一样的;在无意识水平上的研究发现,数字加工存在无意识语义启动现象。我们假设,在数字的物理特性的比较任务中可能存在无意识启动效应和类SNARC效应。实验一的数字比较任务和数字的物理大小比较任务发现,在33毫秒的无意识启动条件下,数字语义比较任务和数字物理大小比较任务中都发现了类SNARC效应、启动效应以及Stroop效应。实验二的数字覆盖面积比较任务中发现,在33毫秒的启动水平,数字比较与数字覆盖面积的比较任务中均存在SNARC效应、Stroop效应和启动效应。     

Sex differences in number line estimation: The role of numerical estimation

Sex differences in mathematical performance have frequently been examined over the last decades indicating an advantage for males especially when numerical problems cannot be solved by (classroom‐)learnt strategies and/or estimation. Even in basic numerical tasks such as number line estimation, males were found to outperform females – with sex differences argued to emerge from different solution strategies applied by males and females. We evaluated the latter using two versions of the number line estimation task: a bounded and an unbounded task version. Assuming that women tend more strongly to apply known procedures, we expected them to be at a particular disadvantage in the unbounded number line estimation task, which is less prone to be solved by specific strategies such as proportion judgement but requires numerical estimation. Results confirmed more pronounced sex differences for unbounded number line estimation with males performing significantly more accurately in this task version. This further adds to recent evidence suggesting that estimation performance in the bounded task version may reflect solution strategies rather than numerical estimation. Additionally, it indicates that sex differences regarding the spatial representation of number magnitude may not be universal, but associated with spatial–numerical estimations in particular.     

Empirically Corrected Rescaled Statistics for SEM with Small N and Large p

Survey data often contain many variables. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is commonly used in analyzing such data. With typical nonnormally distributed data in practice, a rescaled statistic T_rml proposed by Satorra and Bentler was recommended in the literature of SEM. However, T_rml has been shown to be problematic when the sample size N is small and/or the number of variables p is large. There does not exist a reliable test statistic for SEM with small N or large p, especially with nonnormally distributed data. Following the principle of Bartlett correction, this article develops empirical corrections to T_rml so that the mean of the empirically corrected statistics approximately equals the degrees of freedom of the nominal chi-square distribution. Results show that empirically corrected statistics control type I errors reasonably well even when N is smaller than 2p, where T_rml may reject the correct model 100% even for normally distributed data. The application of the empirically corrected statistics is illustrated via a real data example.     

Number comparison and number ordering as predictors of arithmetic performance in adults: Exploring the link between the two skills,and investigating the question of domain-specificity

Recent evidence has highlighted the important role that number-ordering skills play in arithmetic abilities, both in children and adults. In the current study, we demonstrated that number comparison and ordering skills were both significantly related to arithmetic performance in adults, and the effect size was greater in the case of ordering skills. Additionally, we found that the effect of number comparison skills on arithmetic performance was mediated by number-ordering skills. Moreover, performance on comparison and ordering tasks involving the months of the year was also strongly correlated with arithmetic skills, and participants displayed similar (canonical or reverse) distance effects on the comparison and ordering tasks involving months as when the tasks included numbers. This suggests that the processes responsible for the link between comparison and ordering skills and arithmetic performance are not specific to the domain of numbers. Finally, a factor analysis indicated that performance on comparison and ordering tasks loaded on a factor that included performance on a number line task and self-reported spatial thinking styles. These results substantially extend previous research on the role of order processing abilities in mental arithmetic.     

The Episodic Nature of Experience: A Dynamical Systems Analysis

Context is an important construct in many domains of cognition, including learning, memory, and emotion. We used dynamical systems methods to demonstrate the episodic nature of experience by showing a natural separation between the scales over which within‐context and between‐context relationships operate. To do this, we represented an individual's emails extending over about 5 years in a high‐dimensional semantic space and computed the dimensionalities of the subspaces occupied by these emails. Personal discourse has a two‐scaled geometry with smaller within‐context dimensionalities than between‐context dimensionalities. Prior studies have shown that reading experience (Doxas, Dennis, & Oliver, 2010) and visual experience (Sreekumar, Dennis, Doxas, Zhuang, & Belkin, 2014) have a similar two‐scaled structure. Furthermore, the recurrence plot of the emails revealed that experience is predictable and hierarchical, supporting the constructs of some influential theories of memory. The results demonstrate that experience is not scale‐free and provide an important target for accounts of how experience shapes cognition.