Learning words and learning sounds: Advances in language development

Phonological development is sometimes seen as a process of learning sounds, or forming phonological categories, and then combining sounds to build words, with the evidence taken largely from studies demonstrating ‘perceptual narrowing’ in infant speech perception over the first year of life. In contrast, studies of early word production have long provided evidence that holistic word learning may precede the formation of phonological categories. In that account, children begin by matching their existing vocal patterns to adult words, with knowledge of the phonological system emerging from the network of related word forms. Here I review evidence from production and then consider how the implicit and explicit learning mechanisms assumed by the complementary memory systems model might be understood as reconciling the two approaches.     

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE: A PSYCHOANALYTIC AND FAMILY‐LIFE‐CYCLE VIEW OF EMERGING ADULTHOOD IN THE FILM

The period during which grown children leave home and establish a new, self‐supporting family is called emerging adulthood. This paper uses psychoanalytic concepts and family‐life‐cycle theory to analyze the film Rebel without a Cause ( 1955 ) as a dramatic example of three families going through this phase. Freud's ( 1910 ) rescue‐motif of the child trying to save an endangered peer to repay his parents for having been nurtured is also characteristic of this period and is considered practice for parenting the next generation. Proximate conflict and support enable two of the film's families to continue the path to reproduce themselves.     

Selling Innovations Like Soap: The Interactive Systems Framework and Social Marketing

Despite the popularity and noted utility of Wandersman and colleagues' (2008) Interactive Systems Framework, the literature currently provides a primary focus on delivery organizations’ and supportive stakeholders’ capacities and strategies to implement innovations, presenting a critical gap in understanding. Unfortunately, reflective of a larger void in community dissemination and implementation efforts, there is a more limited focus on the dissemination of innovations. This paper presents the social marketing literature as a supplement to the Prevention Synthesis and Translation System (PSTS), the system responsible for dissemination. The study and practice of innovation synthesis and translation is examined in the literature; and based on the conclusions drawn, social marketing theory is used to provide a systematic approach to improving dissemination within the Interactive Systems Framework. Specifically, three gaps related to the PSTS are identified in the literature that align with and can be filled using social marketing. Social marketing is defined and presented as a supplement by providing theory and practices, within a systems context, for effectively communicating and influencing change. By blending social marketing with the Interactive Systems Framework, the aim is to improve the understanding of strategic communication and its role in the effective dissemination, and subsequent implementation, of innovations.     

False consensus in situational judgment tests: What would others do?

We introduce an alternative response instruction to reduce the fakability of situational judgment tests. This novel instruction is based on the false consensus effect, a robust social psychological bias whereby people infer that the majority of other people’s thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors are aligned with their own. In four studies, including both field and laboratory data (total N = 882), we demonstrate that participants show a false consensus bias when asked what others would do in situational judgment tests. Furthermore, the situational judgment test based on the false consensus effect turned out to relatively difficult to be fake, and produced scores that were meaningfully correlated with conceptually related traits, as well as both self-reported and behavioral outcomes.     

Influence of gait mode and body orientation on following a walking avatar

Regulating distance with a moving object or person is a key component of human movement and of skillful interpersonal coordination. The current set of experiments aimed to assess the role of gait mode and body orientation on distance regulation using a cyclical locomotor tracking task in which participants followed a virtual leader. In the first experiment, participants moved in the backward-forward direction while the body orientation of the virtual leader was manipulated (i.e., facing towards, or away from the follower), hence imposing an incongruence in gait mode between leader and follower. Distance regulation was spatially less accurate when followers walked backwards. Additionally, a clear trade-off was found between spatial leader-follower accuracy and temporal synchrony. Any perceptual effects were overshadowed by the effect of one’s gait mode. In the second experiment we examined lateral following. The results suggested that lateral following was also constrained strongly by perceptual information presented by the leader. Together, these findings demonstrated how locomotor tracking depends on gait mode, but also on the body orientation of whoever is being followed.     

“Pushing the Button While Pushing the Argument”: Motor Priming of Abstract Action Language

In a behavioral study we analyzed the influence of visual action primes on abstract action sentence processing. We thereby aimed at investigating mental motor involvement during processes of meaning constitution of action verbs in abstract contexts. In the first experiment, participants executed either congruous or incongruous movements parallel to a video prime. In the second experiment, we added a no‐movement condition. After the execution of the movement, participants rendered a sensibility judgment on action sentence targets. It was expected that congruous movements would facilitate both concrete and abstract action sentence comprehension in comparison to the incongruous and the no‐movement condition. Results in Experiment 1 showed a concreteness effect but no effect of motor priming. Experiment 2 revealed a concreteness effect as well as an interaction effect of the sentence and the movement condition. The findings indicate an involvement of motor processes in abstract action language processing on a behavioral level.     

Complex Systems from the Perspective of Category Theory: II. Covering Systems and Sheaves

Using the concept of adjunction, for the comprehension of the structure of a complex system, developed in Part I, we introduce the notion of covering systems consisting of partially or locally defined adequately understood objects. This notion incorporates the necessary and sufficient conditions for a sheaf theoretical representation of the informational content included in the structure of a complex system in terms of localization systems. Furthermore, it accommodates a formulation of an invariance property of information communication concerning the analysis of a complex system.     

Explaining after by before: Basic aspects of a dynamic systems approach to the study of development

The basic properties of a dynamic systems approach of development are illustrated by contrasting two simple equations. One, y_t+1 = f (y_t), is characteristic of dynamic systems models. The other, y_i = f (x_i), refers to what, for the sake of simplicity, is referred to as the standard developmental approach. We give illustrations from cognitive, language and social development to show the characteristic differences of these two types of models and show their complementarity. The article further compares the “Bloomington” with the “Groningen” approach to dynamic systems theorizing in developmental psychology. It continues with a discussion of two important questions. One involves the issue of measurement and the nature of developmental variables from the viewpoint of dynamic systems. The second concerns the question of short- and long-term time scales in developmental models, which is discussed on the basis of an example, namely dyadic interaction of young children in the context of different social statuses.     

Social dynamics in the preschool

In this paper, we consider how concepts from dynamic systems (such as attractors, repellors, and self-organization) can be applied to the study of young children’s peer relationships. We also consider how these concepts can be used to explore basic issues involving early peer processes. We use the dynamical systems approach called state space grid (SSG) analysis and consider how it can be expanded beyond the study of dyads to the study of larger social groups and networks. In particular, we explore the role of homophily—that is, behavioral and sex similarity—as factors in the self-organization of young children’s social groups. A dynamic systems approach allows for consideration of peer processes difficult to assess using more traditional approaches.     

抗抑郁药应用选择的思考

目前市场上可供选择的抗抑郁药越来越多.从系统方法论、医学模式转变和矛盾重点论的角度来阐述临床上应该如何选择用药,才能使治疗效果和医疗费用更符合个体的情况,达到比较和谐的状态.