Expectation-based syntactic comprehension

This paper investigates the role of resource allocation as a source of processing difficulty in human sentence comprehension. The paper proposes a simple information-theoretic characterization of processing difficulty as the work incurred by resource reallocation during parallel, incremental, probabilistic disambiguation in sentence comprehension, and demonstrates its equivalence to the theory of Hale [Hale, J. (2001). A probabilistic Earley parser as a psycholinguistic model. In Proceedings of NAACL (Vol. 2, pp. 159-166)], in which the difficulty of a word is proportional to its surprisal (its negative log-probability) in the context within which it appears. This proposal subsumes and clarifies findings that high-constraint contexts can facilitate lexical processing, and connects these findings to well-known models of parallel constraint-based comprehension. In addition, the theory leads to a number of specific predictions about the role of expectation in syntactic comprehension, including the reversal of locality-based difficulty patterns in syntactically constrained contexts, and conditions under which increased ambiguity facilitates processing. The paper examines a range of established results bearing on these predictions, and shows that they are largely consistent with the surprisal theory.     

Existential fulfillment and burnout among principals and teachers

The aim of the current study was to determine the prevalence of burnout in primary education teachers and primary school principals and to explore the relationship of existential fulfillment to self‐reported burnout scores. Random samples of 215 teachers and 514 principals participated in a cross‐sectional study using an anonymous, mailed survey. Two questionnaires were used in both studies. The Dutch version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory for teachers was used to assess the teachers’ and principals’ burnout level. Second, existential fulfillment was measured by the Längle, Orgler and Kundi Existence Scale. The results of the present study indicated that teachers’ and principals’ existential fulfillment is related to their burnout level. Lack of existential fulfillment was an important burnout determinant. Unfortunately, this concept has been neglected to date. Existential fulfillment may be a significant and usable point of departure for devising psychological interventions aimed at teachers and principals.     

海峡两岸大学生生命意义比较研究——以广州市与台中市为例

该研究以广州市与台中市大学生为被试,抽取500人为预测样本及800人为正式施测样本,通过探索性因素分析和验证性因素分析编制生命意义量表,并通过t检验和潜在剖面分析考察两岸大学生生命意义现况的差异.结果表明：（1）编制的生命意义量表由存在意义、追寻意义、存在盈实、苦难接纳、死亡接纳以及求意义的意志等6个维度组成,具有良好的信度和效度.（2）两岸大学生生命意义总体无显著差异;存在盈实、苦难接受与死亡接纳维度有显著或非常显著的差异.（3）潜在剖面分析结果显示,两岸大学生生命意义类型相似.Wald检验结果表明,对于“死亡接纳”维度,台湾与大陆学生在各潜在类别的均分上存在显著的差异.     

Changes in meaning in life across the course of psychodynamic psychotherapy

Using the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ), we studied Presence and Search for meaning for 34 adult clients in psychodynamic psychotherapy. Clients completed the MLQ and Outcome Questionnaire (OQ) before intake and after every eight sessions. Variance in Presence scores was mostly attributable to clients; variance in Search scores was mostly attributable to clients and therapists. Clients initially high in Presence decreased and then increased back to initial levels; clients initially low in Presence increased and then decreased back to initial levels. Clients initially low in Search increased and then leveled off; clients initially high in Search decreased and then leveled off. In lagged cross panel analyses, when clients decreased in psychological distress during one eight-week time period, they increased in Presence during the next eight-week time period; when they increased in psychological distress during one eight-week time period, they increased in search in the next time period. Excerpts from post-therapy interviews illustrate the process of working with meaning in life in psychotherapy. Implications for practice and training are discussed.     

Effects of children’s hearing loss on the synchrony between parents’ object naming and children’s attention

Children’s attentional state during parent-child interactions is important for word learning. The current study examines the real-time attentional patterns of toddlers with and without hearing loss (N = 15, age range: 12–37 months) in parent-child interactions. High-density gaze data recorded from head-mounted eye-trackers were used to investigate the synchrony between parents’ naming of novel objects and children’s sustained attention on the named objects in joint play. Results show that the sheer quantities of parents’ naming and children’s sustained attention episodes were comparable in children with hearing loss and their peers with normal hearing. However, parents’ naming and children’s sustained attention episodes were less synchronized in the hearing loss group compared to children with normal hearing. Possible implications are discussed.     

Perceptual simulation in developing language comprehension

We tested an embodied account of language proposing that comprehenders create perceptual simulations of the events they hear and read about. In Experiment 1, children (ages 7–13 years) performed a picture verification task. Each picture was preceded by a prerecorded spoken sentence describing an entity whose shape or orientation matched or mismatched the depicted object. Responses were faster for matching pictures, suggesting that participants had formed perceptual-like situation models of the sentences. The advantage for matching pictures did not increase with age. Experiment 2 extended these findings to the domain of written language. Participants (ages 7–10 years) of high and low word reading ability verified pictures after reading sentences aloud. The results suggest that even when reading is effortful, children construct a perceptual simulation of the described events. We propose that perceptual simulation plays a more central role in developing language comprehension than was previously thought.     

Within my breast, alas, two souls ...

The obsession is pursued of a word, a sign, a thought that is identical with the thing it signifies, where there is no space between the two. And the nightmare is entertained that, if such an identity is not attained, then intellectual work in general is worth nothing and should be destroyed.     

自我超越生命意义对压力和健康关系的调节作用

研究目的是检验一个新的应激应对资源—自我超越生命意义的健康调节作用。自我超越生命意义的理论基础是东方的佛教哲学和道家哲学。研究的测量工具有：大学校园压力量表,一般健康问卷（GHQ-20）,自尊量表和自我超越生命意义量表。被试为来自北京市三所高校的788名大学生。研究结果为：自我超越生命意义可以调节应激条件下的忧郁情绪、一般健康问题和自尊,但是对于焦虑情绪和自我肯定的调节作用不明显。研究结论是：自我超越生命意义对心理健康的某些方面具有调节作用     

相互作用的认知子系统理论述评

该介绍和分析了“相互作用的认知子系统”理论的基本观点,即信息的意义分为具体的、低层次的意义和一般的、高层次的意义;编码形式的转换遵循着特定的规则;不同信息的存储具有各自独立的记忆存储系统：高层次的意义对情绪产生具有直接作用。同时阐述了该理论对抑郁性情绪障碍的研究,并指出了该研究对治疗情绪障碍的意义及存在的问题。