青少年父母、同伴依恋与社会适应性的关系

对519个初、高中生施测青少年父母同伴依恋量表(IPPA)、自尊(SES)、中学生社会适应性量表,以探讨青少年父母、同伴依恋的现状,以及它们和自尊、社会适应之间的关系.结果表明:(1)青少年总体依恋质量较高.同伴的依恋质量高于父母依恋质量.(2)青少年的父母依恋在性别上没有差异;女生的同伴依恋得分显著高于男生.父母依恋的发展呈先降后升的趋势,初一年级最高,初三年级最低;同伴依恋呈先升后降再升趋势,但未见显著差异.(3)父亲依恋对青少年的心理弹性预测力最强,母亲依恋对心理优势感预测力最强,同伴依恋对人际适应性预测力最强.这种影响通过自尊的部分中介作用而实现.     

注视方向的知觉对注视追随行为的影响

他人的注视线索可诱导观察者将注意自动地转移到该线索所指示的方向上去(注视追随), 但仍不清楚注视方向的知觉在注视追随中起到何种作用。本研究结合注视适应和注视线索提示范式发现：知觉到的注视线索角度越大, 其线索提示效应越强; 知觉适应后被试判断注视方向的准确性下降, 注视线索引起的注意转移量显著减少。可见, 对注视方向的知觉能直接影响注视追随行为, 而注视方向抽取受到刺激显著性(注视角度)和知觉适应等因素的调节。这提示：在意识状态下, 注视知觉与注视追随存在直接联系, 即可能存在从注视知觉系统到注意转移系统的皮层加工通路; 注视追随并非纯粹的反射式加工, 它受自上而下知觉经验的调节。     

Stress and Adaptation

ABSTRACT— Animal models have contributed considerably to the current understanding of mechanisms underlying the role of stress in health and disease. Despite the progress made already, much more can be made by more carefully exploiting animals' and humans' shared biology, using ecologically relevant models. This allows a fundamental analysis of factors modulating individual adaptive capacity and hence individual vulnerability to disease. This article highlights an emerging scientific approach that uses a framework of interpretation that is more biologically oriented than previous approaches, to evaluate both the adaptive and maladaptive nature of the stress response in relation to existing environmental demands.     

Drivers’ attitudes toward imperfect distraction mitigation strategies

Studies were conducted to assess driver acceptance of and trust in distraction mitigation strategies. Previous studies have shown that in-vehicle tasks undermine driver safety, and that there is a need for strategies to reduce the effects of in-vehicle distractions. Trust and acceptance of such strategies strongly influence their effectiveness. Different strategies intended to reduce distraction were categorized in a taxonomy. Focus groups were conducted to help refine this taxonomy and explore driver acceptance issues related to these strategies. A driving simulator experiment was then conducted using two of the strategies: an advising strategy that warns drivers of potential dangers and a locking strategy that prevents the driver from continuing a distracting task. These strategies were presented to 16 middle-aged and 12 older drivers in two modes (auditory, visual) with two levels of adaptation (true, false). Older drivers accepted and trusted the strategies more than middle-aged drivers. Regardless of age, all drivers preferred strategies that provided alerts in a visual mode rather than an auditory mode. When the system falsely adapted to the road situation, trust in the strategies declined. The findings show that display modality has a strong effect on driver acceptance and trust, and that older drivers are more trusting and accepting of distraction mitigation technology even when it operates imperfectly.     

Psychoticism and attentional flexibility

In three separate experiments, we tested the hypothesis that a systematic relationship between psychoticism (P) and visual selective attention is infrequently observed because the tasks typically used to test individual differences in efficiency of attentional mechanisms do not entail attentional flexibility. We manipulated the selection rule of the computerized divided visual attention (DIVA) task to be either (a) a predictable, or (b) a random manner, and a secondary task was added to check the quality of high P scorers’ performance in an interference condition; and we also introduced breaks between DIVA tasks to allow for cue utilization. Results revealed that low P scorers outperformed high P scorers in the regular selection rule alternation condition (cue utilization possible), whereas high P scorers performed better in random alternation condition – high P scorers also showed performance superiority in the dual task condition unless stimuli presentation was speeded up. Thus, P does not necessarily impair attentional performance; indeed, our data point to performance advantages of high P, especially attentional efficiency in tasks requiring small demands of attentional control.     

The moderating role of attitude strength in selective exposure to information

Individuals prefer to receive information that is consistent with their attitudes. Three experiments examined whether attitude strength moderates this selective exposure effect. Experiments 1A and 1B found that participants preferred attitudinally consistent information but that this effect was more pronounced to the extent that the attitude was strongly held. Experiment 2 replicated these findings and ruled out an alternative interpretation that a general tendency to hold strong attitudes rather than issue-specific attitude strength moderates selective exposure. Discussion concerns the implications of these findings and the possibility that other variables moderate the selective exposure effect.     

The Cultural Adaptation of the Youth Quality of Life Instrument-Research Version for Latino Children and Adolescents

We reviewed the Spanish translation of the Youth Quality of Life Instrument-Research Version (YQOL-R) and culturally adapted the measure with Puerto Rican and Mexican American children and adolescents. The YQOL-R is a self-reported measure that includes four domains: Sense of Self, Social Relationships, Environment, and General Quality of Life. A total of 10 focus groups were conducted with children aged 9 to 11, adolescents aged 12 to 17, their parents, and mental health providers. Five focus groups were conducted in San Diego, California and five in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Eligible participants were recruited from children’s outpatient psychiatry clinics. We followed an iterative and recursive process in reviewing changes and modifications to the instrument using a bilingual committee and a Multi National Bilingual Committee. Greater semantic, content, and technical equivalence of the Spanish and English versions for the YQOL-R was achieved for the two largest U.S. Latino subgroups: Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans. The cultural adaptation process revealed several important issues regarding the measurement of quality of life in different age groups. Additional items for school, relationships (both family and friends) and spare time suggested the need for a future children’s version of the instrument. For the adolescents, additional items were suggested in the areas of sexuality, intergenerational conflict and acculturative stress.     

文化智力研究评述与展望

文化智力是指人们与来自不同文化的其他人打交道时,采取有效措施以适应新文化的能力。文化智力的结构与测量,与其他相关构念的关系,以及不同的开发方法成了现有研究的重点;另外,也有实证研究表明,文化智力对一些结果变量有显著影响,例如认知结果、情感结果以及行为结果。本文对文化智力的相关研究进行了较为全面的总结,并指出了今后的研究趋势与方向     

THE INTERTWINED ROLES OF GENES AND CULTURE IN HUMAN EVOLUTION

This essay critiques dual-inheritance theory as presented in Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd's book Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (2005). The theory states that culture became prominent in human evolution because it allowed relatively rapid adaptation to changing environments by means of imitation. Imitating the behavior of other members of one's community produces adaptive behaviors more readily than either genetic evolution or individual learning. Imitation follows a number of patterns: imitating high-status individuals, imitating the most common forms of behavior, imitating behaviors perceived to be the most effective solutions to various problems relevant to survival. This process combined with occasional innovations in behavior lead to a process of cultural evolution involving populations of cultural variants. Different local human populations were associated with different local populations of cultural variants, and both the human and the cultural populations evolved over time. Human evolution cannot be understood without taking into account these parallel processes of genetic and cultural evolution. Not by Genes Alone traces the implication of dual-inheritance theory for understanding human evolution and refers to various bodies of evidence relevant to the theory.     

Interference by process, not content, determines semantic auditory distraction

Distraction by irrelevant background sound of visually-based cognitive tasks illustrates the vulnerability of attentional selectivity across modalities. Four experiments centred on auditory distraction during tests of memory for visually-presented semantic information. Meaningful irrelevant speech disrupted the free recall of semantic category-exemplars more than meaningless irrelevant sound (Experiment 1). This effect was exacerbated when the irrelevant speech was semantically related to the to-be-remembered material (Experiment 2). Importantly, however, these effects of meaningfulness and semantic relatedness were shown to arise only when instructions emphasized recall by category rather than by serial order (Experiments 3 and 4). The results favor a process-oriented, rather than a structural, approach to the breakdown of attentional selectivity and forgetting: performance is impaired by the similarity of process brought to bear on the relevant and irrelevant material, not the similarity in item content.