不相关言语对视觉觉察的影响

前人多在记忆层面探讨不相关言语效应(the Irrelevant Speech Effect, ISE), 而本文选择在意识觉察(conscious awareness)阶段观察这一现象。所有实验均采用视觉掩蔽及听觉输入不相关声音的视听交互方式。实验1在安静、纯音及不相关言语3种听觉背景下让被试对简单图片做视觉觉察判断, 结果发现不相关言语干扰了视觉觉察, 而纯音则未产生干扰。实验2在相同的3种听觉背景下要求被试对复杂图片做视觉觉察判断, 结果同实验1。实验3采用事件相关电位技术, 在同样的3种听觉背景下观察被试对简单图片做视觉觉察判断时的脑电变化, 结果发现不相关言语干扰了视觉觉察负波的形成, 验证了行为学研究的结果。本文结果表明不相干言语在视觉意识觉察阶段就对被试的行为产生了干扰。     

Emotion regulation and aggression

This review considers the impact of deliberate emotion regulation on aggression, by integrating findings from recent emotion regulation research with a contemporary model of aggressive behavior, the General Aggression Model. First, it considers how individuals who under-regulate anger and other emotions may be more likely to behave aggressively in an attempt to repair, terminate, or avoid uncomfortable emotional states. Second, it explores how over-regulation of emotion may lead to aggressive behavior by increasing negative affect, reducing inhibitions against aggression, compromising decision making processes, diminishing social networks, increasing physiological arousal and hindering the resolution of difficult situations. Finally, it reviews three skills thought to underlie deliberate emotion regulation: emotional awareness, emotional acceptance and proficiency in a variety of emotion regulation strategies. Treatment encompassing all of these skills may improve an individual's ability to regulate difficult emotion states more adaptively and thereby lessen aggressive behavior.     

Effects of Dohsa‐hou relaxation on body awareness and psychological distress1

Relaxation is one of the most frequently used methods for treating psychological and physical problems. Many relaxation methods are effective treatments for various psychological problems. Body awareness could be an important component of body‐oriented psychological treatment. In this study, a self‐report measure for the assessment of body awareness was developed, and its psychometric characteristics and relationships with other psychological constructs were examined. The effect of Dohsa‐hou relaxation was investigated using the developed Body Awareness Scale (BAS). The results showed that the BAS had good internal consistency and test‐retest reliability, and that it was associated with related psychological constructs. Dohsa‐hou relaxation led to increased body awareness and decreased psychological distress. The BAS can be a useful instrument in the field of body‐oriented psychotherapy research and related treatment methods, and increased body awareness has an important role in Dohsa‐hou relaxation therapy.     

A neurally plausible parallel distributed processing model of event-related potential word reading data

The Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) framework has significant potential for producing models of cognitive tasks that approximate how the brain performs the same tasks. To date, however, there has been relatively little contact between PDP modeling and data from cognitive neuroscience. In an attempt to advance the relationship between explicit, computational models and physiological data collected during the performance of cognitive tasks, we developed a PDP model of visual word recognition which simulates key results from the ERP reading literature, while simultaneously being able to successfully perform lexical decision—a benchmark task for reading models. Simulations reveal that the model’s success depends on the implementation of several neurally plausible features in its architecture which are sufficiently domain-general to be relevant to cognitive modeling more generally.     

Mighty metaphors: behavioral and ERP evidence that power shifts attention on a vertical dimension

Thinking about the abstract concept power may automatically activate the spatial up-down image schema (powerful up; powerless down) and consequently direct spatial attention to the image schema-congruent location. Participants indicated whether a word represented a powerful or powerless person (e.g. ‘king’ or ‘servant’). Following each decision, they identified a target at the top or bottom of the visual field. In Experiment 1 participants identified the target faster when their spatial position was congruent with the perceived power of the preceding word than when it was incongruent. In Experiment 2 ERPs showed a higher N1 amplitude for congruent spatial positions. These results support the view that attention is driven to the image schema congruent location of a power word. Thus, power is partially understood in terms of vertical space, which demonstrates that abstract concepts are grounded in sensory-motor processing.     

The brain's hemispheres and controlled search of the lexicon: evidence from fixated words and pseudowords

Difference between the brain's hemispheres in efficiency of intentional search of the mental lexicon with phonological, orthographic, and semantic strategies was investigated. Letter strings for lexical decision were presented at fixation, with a lateralized distractor to the LVF or RVF. Word results revealed that both hemispheres were capable of using each of the three strategies, but the right hemisphere had better baseline processing of orthography and was better at processing semantics. Pseudoword results supported the right hemisphere advantage for orthography and showed a left hemisphere advantage for phonology and assessment of possible semantic relationships. Taken together, the data support the idea that the right hemisphere uses orthography to make efficient decisions about novelty of an item, while the left engages in grapheme-to-phoneme conversion to test hypotheses about unfamiliar items. The convergence of data with previous research reveals that the procedure, as well as analyses of pseudowords, inform laterality research.     

Brain activation during spatial updating and attentive tracking of moving targets

Keeping aware of the locations of objects while one is moving requires the updating of spatial representations. As long as the objects are visible, attentional tracking is sufficient, but knowing where objects out of view went in relation to one's own body involves an updating of spatial working memory. Here, multiple object tracking was employed to study spatial updating and its neural correlates. In a dynamic 3D-scene, targets moved among visually indistinguishable distractors. The targets and distractors either stayed visible during continuous viewpoint changes or they turned invisible. The parametric variation of tracking load revealed load-dependent activations of the intraparietal sulcus, the superior parietal lobule, and the lateral occipital cortex in response to the attentive tracking task. Viewpoint changes with invisible objects that demanded retention and updating produced load-dependent activation only in the precuneus in line with its presumed involvement in updating spatial working memory.     

Assessment of working memory components at 6years of age as predictors of reading achievements a year later

The ability of working memory skills (measured by tasks assessing all four working memory components), IQ, language, phonological awareness, literacy, rapid naming, and speed of processing at 6 years of age, before reading was taught, to predict reading abilities (decoding, reading comprehension, and reading time) a year later was examined in 97 children. Among all working memory components, phonological complex memory contributed most to predicting all three reading abilities. A capacity measure of phonological complex memory, based on passing a minimum threshold in those tasks, contributed to the explained variance of decoding and reading comprehension. Findings suggest that a minimal ability of phonological complex memory is necessary for children to attain a normal reading level. Adding assessment of phonological complex memory, before formal teaching of reading begins, to more common measures might better estimate children’s likelihood of future academic success.     

Developmental change in young children's use of haptic information in a visual task: the role of hand movements

Preschoolers who explore objects haptically often fail to recognize those objects in subsequent visual tests. This suggests that children may represent qualitatively different information in vision and haptics and/or that children’s haptic perception may be poor. In this study, 72 children (2½-5 years of age) and 20 adults explored unfamiliar objects either haptically or visually and then chose a visual match from among three test objects, each matching the exemplar on one perceptual dimension. All age groups chose shape-based matches after visual exploration. Both 5-year-olds and adults also chose shape-based matches after haptic exploration, but younger children did not match consistently in this condition. Certain hand movements performed by children during haptic exploration reliably predicted shape-based matches but occurred at very low frequencies. Thus, younger children’s difficulties with haptic-to-visual information transfer appeared to stem from their failure to use their hands to obtain reliable haptic information about objects.     

The role of the human extrastriate visual cortex in mirror symmetry discrimination: a TMS-adaptation study

The human visual system is able to efficiently extract symmetry information from the visual environment. Prior neuroimaging evidence has revealed symmetry-preferring neuronal representations in the dorsolateral extrastriate visual cortex; the objective of the present study was to investigate the necessity of these representations in symmetry discrimination. This was accomplished by the use of state-dependent transcranial magnetic stimulation, which combines the fine resolution of adaptation paradigms with the assessment of causality. Subjects were presented with adapters and targets consisting of dot configurations that could be symmetric along either the vertical or horizontal axis (or they could be non-symmetric), and they were asked to perform a symmetry discrimination task on the targets while fixating the center of the screen. TMS was applied during the delay between the adapter and the test stimulus over one of four different sites: Left or Right V1/V2, or left or right dorsolateral extrastriate cortex (DLO). TMS over both Left and Right DLO reduced the adaptation effect in detecting vertical and horizontal symmetry, although the Left DLO effect on horizontal symmetry and the Right DLO effect on both vertical and horizontal symmetry were present only when considering subjects who showed a behavioral adaptation effect in the baseline No-TMS condition. Application of TMS over the Left or Right V1/V2 did not modulate the adaptation effect. Overall, these data suggest that both the Left and Right DLO contain neuronal representations tuned to mirror symmetry which play a causal role in symmetry discrimination.