The psychological construal of health behaviors

IntroductionIn order to optimize the effectiveness of behavior change interventions, we need to understand how the construal level – how we mentally represent or construe events or behaviors – influences health-related choices.ObjectiveTo examine the impact of mental construal on health decisions. Based on the Construal Level Theory, we predicted that people would give more weight to “cognitive considerations” when making a choice after being primed with the high-level perspective, whereas they would give higher weights to “sensory considerations” after being primed with the low-level perspective.MethodIn the first experiment, ninety-nine participants were primed with either high-level or low-level perspective across decision scenarios about vaccination and physical safety. The second experiment investigated nutrition decisions, which asked seventy participants to taste food that either had no label or was labelled “organic”. Organic label should prime high-level construal as it implies outcomes (e.g., product quality and healthiness) that are more distant in time and uncertain, in contrast with sensory dimensions (e.g. taste and appearance), which are immediately present. Participants rated cognitive and sensory considerations as well as action intentions.ResultsThe first study revealed that after the priming with the high-level construal, cognitive considerations became more important than sensory considerations in predicting protective action intentions, whereas after priming with the low-level construal, sensory considerations became more important. The second study revealed that only sensory considerations predicted decisions to consume the non-labelled product and only the cognitive score predicted decisions to consume the organic-labelled product.ConclusionWe demonstrated a moderating effect of construal-level mindset in health-protective decisions. We also discuss the implications for health promotion and policy, such as optimizing the effectiveness of behavior change interventions.     

二语句法加工的认知机制、影响因素及其神经基础

二语(L2)和母语(L1)在句法加工方面的差异是量的不同还是质的表现？当前, 该问题已成为语言认知领域研究的热点。研究表明, 二语句法加工受到二语习得年龄、语言熟练度、工作记忆、二语习得方式等因素的影响。有关二语句法加工的理论主要有浅层结构假说、D/P模型和统一竞争模型。未来研究应注重探讨二语句法加工中二语熟练度及二语习得年龄的交互效应, 同时也应当加强儿童二语句法加工能力的研究。     

Remembrance of things past: Cultural process and practice in the analysis of career stories

Stories can be a valuable tool for the career researcher. Questions arise, though, about how best to approach stories analytically such that their insights can be fully realised. In this paper I apply cultural theorist Raymond Williams’ analysis of cultural processes as dominant, residual and emergent (1977) to the narratives generated in a recent study into the careers of research scientists. I examine how these overlapping meaning systems are elucidated in individuals’ career narratives and consider implications for developing understanding.     

Review Essay on the Roots of Evil

I consider two essays by Joel Feinberg: his treatment of the moral obligation to obey the law, and his exploration of the evils of the Holocaust.     

Phoneme awareness is a better predictor of early reading skill than onset-rime awareness

We present the results of a short-term longitudinal study. Children in the early stages of learning to read (5 and 6 year olds) were administered three different tasks (deletion, oddity, and detection) tapping awareness of four phonological units (initial phoneme, final phoneme, onset, and rime). Measures of phoneme awareness were the best concurrent and longitudinal predictors of reading skill with onset-rime skills making no additional predictive contribution once phonemic skills were accounted for. The findings are related to recent controversy over the role of large versus small phonological units as predictors of children's reading skills.     

Different corticostriatal patterns of L-DOPA utilization in patients with untreated schizophrenia and patients treated with classical antipsychotics or clozapine

Positron emission tomography (PET) has been shown to be of great importance in elucidating the mechanism of action of antipsychotic drugs. In psychotic patients L-[11C]DOPA PET has been used to demonstrate some differences in dopaminergic activity compared with that in healthy volunteers. Ten healthy volunteers were investigated with PET and L-[11C]DOPA. Ten drug-free patients with psychosis, nine stable schizophrenics treated with clozapine, and nine stable patients treated with classical antipsychotics were also investigated with L-[11C]DOPA. Principal-component analysis was employed for the analysis of L-[11C]DOPA Ki values across a number of corticostriatal brain regions. These data revealed a significant three-component model with clear-cut separation between healthy controls and patients with unmedicated schizophrenia. Stable optimal treatment with either classical neuroleptics or clozapine partially, albeit differentially, reversed the aberrant patterns seen in drug-free schizophrenia. It can thus be concluded that schizophrenia is associated with abnormal patterns of L-[11C]DOPA utilization in corticostriatal systems. Treatment with clozapine or classical neuroleptics induces partial, albeit differential, normalization of the abnormal patterns seen in untreated schizophrenia.     

二语具身认知：自动激活还是母语中介?

语言具身认知强调语言加工不是纯粹抽象符号的内部表征, 身体和环境也在其中发挥着重要作用。已有研究多来自母语(L1)领域, 二语(L2)认知中是否存在该效应及其发生机制依然存在争论。在总结行为和神经电生理学方面L2具身效应的存在的证据的基础上, 结合相关研究, 我们提出“自动激活”和“母语中介”两种假说, 并分析和评价两种假说的优缺点和影响因素。最后讨论了该领域存在的问题并就未来研究取向进行展望, 希望有助于完善语言具身认知理论, 增进对双语表征机制的了解, 有效提升L2教学。     

《维果茨基全集》中文本解读

《维果茨基全集》中文本于2016年11月在我国出版面世,这是继20世纪80年代苏联《维果茨基文集》俄文版之后世界上最全的版本,它的出版是中国心理学界,乃至整个学术界、理论界值得庆贺的一件大事。本文拟从出版缘起、主要内容和学术价值三方面对《维果茨基全集》中文本进行解读,希望有助于国内学者和公众能比较全面和准确地了解维果茨基的学术思想,把握维果茨基理论和方法的精要,激发学界同仁对维果茨基思想的研究热情。     

L’acquisition des phrases interrogatives chez les enfants francophones

In this article we present evidence in favour of the hypothesis that Computational Complexity (CC) constrains the development of question formation in French. We predict that children acquire wh in situ questions before wh fronted questions, root questions before long distance questions and questions without subject-verb inversion before questions with inversion. The results of an elicited production experimental task (in which participated 36 French-speaking children and 24 French-speaking adults) allow us to conclude that these predictions are confirmed. The production of questions with « partial movement » of the wh word, an unexpected result, can also be explained by the CC hypothesis.     

A critical review of ERP and fMRI evidence on L2 syntactic processing

The current review focuses on recent event-related brain potential (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in L2 syntactic processing data. To this end, critical factors influencing both the dynamics of neural mechanisms (ERPs) and critical functional brain correlates (fMRI) are discussed. These entail the critical period hypothesis, levels of proficiency, cross-linguistic syntactic similarities and dissimilarities as well as brain bases that may or may not be shared during syntactic processing in a first (L1) and a second (L2) language. The data to date reveal that (i) the critical period hypothesis plays less of a significant role than initially discussed, (ii) L2 proficiency is a driving factor influencing peak and extent of activation in brain correlates and in neurophysiological mechanisms as a function of learning, and (iii) language transfer effects (i.e., positive transfer effects when L1 and L2 are structurally similar or negative transfer effects when L1 and L2 are structurally dissimilar) primarily from the L1 to the L2 and potentially vice versa need to be critically considered in future research.