The use of auditory feedback and edible reinforcement to decrease toe walking among children with autism

We replicated and extended previous research on the use of auditory feedback to decrease toe walking exhibited by 3 children with autism. After pretreatment screening analyses suggested that toe walking occurred independent of social consequences, we attached squeakers to the heels of each participants' shoes. The squeakers provided auditory feedback when participants walked appropriately (i.e., with a heel-to-toe gait). For all participants, the auditory feedback itself produced increases in appropriate walking. For 1 participant, this feedback was sufficient to reduce toe walking to clinically acceptable levels; however, for 2 other participants, delivery of edible items paired with the auditory feedback was necessary. Intervention effects maintained when the schedule for edible delivery was thinned for all participants. In addition, for 2 participants, effects maintained when the intervention was implemented in a different setting and with a different person with no edibles or a thin schedule of edibles.     

寻找丢失的自我——精神分裂症患者的自我面孔识别

为探索精神分裂症患者自我面孔识别的能力以及在视听整合任务中面孔对声音身份识别(同性和异性)的影响, 选取34名住院精神分裂症患者和26名健康被试, 分别进行单通道动态自我面孔识别任务、单通道自我声音识别任务和视听整合任务的3个实验。结果发现：精神分裂症患者的单通道自我面孔识别能力和自我声音识别能力与健康组无区别, 但在视听整合任务中, 精神分裂症患者的声音身份识别受到视觉通道面孔识别的影响。结果表明, 精神分裂症患者有自我面孔识别的能力, 自我面孔会促进自我声音的识别, 并抑制对同性他人声音和异性他人声音的识别。     

Super-Recognisers show an advantage for other race face identification

The accurate identification of an unfamiliar individual from a face photo is a critical factor in several applied situations (e.g., border control). Despite this, matching faces to photographic ID is highly prone to error. In lieu of effective training measures, which could reduce face matching errors, the selection of “super-recognisers” (SRs) provides the most promising route to combat misidentification or fraud. However, to date, super-recognition has been defined and tested using almost exclusively “own-race” face memory and matching tests. Here, across three studies, we test Caucasian participants' performance on own- and other-race face identification tasks (GFMT, MFMT, CFMT+, EFMT, CFMT-Chinese). Our findings show that compared to controls, high-performing typical recognisers (Studies 1 and 2) and SRs (Study 3) show superior performance on both the own- and other-race tests. These findings suggest that recruiting SRs in ethnically diverse applied settings could be advantageous.     

Social recognition matters: Consequences for school participation and life satisfaction among immigrant students

Participation in society is instrumental for democracy and of special importance for minority members. Despite broad research in the context of adults' participation, the earlier formative years and the participation of students in school activities have been neglected so far. The present research examined antecedents and consequences of Latin American migrant students' participation in school activities in Chile. More specifically, we tested whether three forms of social recognition experiences (i.e., need‐based care, equality‐based respect and achievement‐based social esteem) received from Chilean society predicted different forms of school participation. Heightened school participation was assumed to further translate into satisfaction with life. Results of a study with immigrant students (N = 393; 12–20 years old; 56.7% female) revealed, that experiences of social esteem predicted an overall positive perception of school participation and this effect further translated into heightened life satisfaction. Moreover, experiences of respect were associated with participation in school decisions and rules and with participation in school events. The latter effect further translated into enhanced life satisfaction. Care did not play a role in predicting school participation when the other forms of recognition were controlled for. We discuss the importance of social recognition experiences and implications for interventions within educational systems.     

Atypicalities in sleep and semantic consolidation in autism

Sleep is known to support the neocortical consolidation of declarative memory, including the acquisition of new language. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often characterized by both sleep and language learning difficulties, but few studies have explored a potential connection between the two. Here, 54 children with and without ASD (matched on age, nonverbal ability and vocabulary) were taught nine rare animal names (e.g., pipa). Memory was assessed via definitions, naming and speeded semantic decision tasks immediately after learning (pre‐sleep), the next day (post‐sleep, with a night of polysomnography between pre‐ and post‐sleep tests) and roughly 1 month later (follow‐up). Both groups showed comparable performance at pre‐test and similar levels of overnight change on all tasks; but at follow‐up children with ASD showed significantly greater forgetting of the unique features of the new animals (e.g., pipa is a flat frog). Children with ASD had significantly lower central non‐rapid eye movement (NREM) sigma power. Associations between spindle properties and overnight changes in speeded semantic decisions differed by group. For the TD group, spindle duration predicted overnight changes in responses to novel animals but not familiar animals, reinforcing a role for sleep in the stabilization of new semantic knowledge. For the ASD group, sigma power and spindle duration were associated with improvements in responses to novel and particularly familiar animals, perhaps reflecting more general sleep‐associated improvements in task performance. Plausibly, microstructural sleep atypicalities in children with ASD and differences in how information is prioritized for consolidation may lead to cumulative consolidation difficulties, compromising the quality of newly formed semantic representations in long‐term memory.     

我听故我在？自我声音识别机制的探索

自我声音是自我相关信息之一,同时也是个体识别身份时最重要的标志之一。声音具有骨传导和空气传导的传导方式和个体动机水平的差异都影响个体自我声音识别。在进行自我声音识别认知加工的过程中,会激活右半球额叶大部分脑区,并且在P3和N2成分上与在非我身份声音识别中同样存在显著差异。从声音刺激和个体动机两种角度来开展自我声音识别研究,并结合进化心理学与脑成像技术探索其神经机制,宜成为未来研究的一个方向。     

运用关键字母法记忆英文词汇的实验研究

本研究以大学生为被试,以英文单词为实验材料,采用实验室实验法,进一步探讨了关键字母法在英文单词记忆中对汉英线索提取的作用.结果表明:在单词的汉英线索提取中,关键字母法对于整个单词的提取有一定作用,对于单词关键字母部分的提取有极大的作用.文章最后讨论了这些结果以及关键字母法的汉英线索提取机制等问题.     

Self-referent phenotype matching in a brood parasite: the armpit effect in brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater)

Most birds and mammals learn characteristics of conspecifics from their parents and siblings. In interspecific brood parasites, however, early social learning could lead to species recognition errors because young are reared among heterospecifics. Conceivably, juvenile parasites might inspect and memorize aspects of their own phenotype, and later match features of encountered individuals to that template. We tested for such self-referent phenotype matching by manipulating feather colors of hand-reared fledglings (n = 21) of the parasitic brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater). In simultaneous choice trials (n = 6 trials/subject) between dyed and normal-colored adult females, juvenile cowbirds (< 2 months old) approached more quickly and associated preferentially with individuals that were colored similar to themselves. These preferences remained even when differences between the associative behaviors of juvenile males and females were controlled statistically. Our data imply that cowbirds incorporate their own plumage color into their recognition template. This provides the first evidence of self-referent phenotype matching through experimental manipulation of a recognition cue. Received: 11 April 2000 / Accepted after revision: 2 September 2000     

家庭读写环境与儿童接受性词汇发展关系的元分析

家庭读写环境(home literacy environment, HLE)与儿童接受性词汇(receptive vocabulary)发展的关系一直备受关注,但HLE内涵不清、各指标效应值强度不明,以及近年来两者关系差别较大等问题极大地限制了人们对该领域的认识。本文运用元分析技术对近30年国内外84篇相关实证研究进行分析。结果显示：HLE与儿童接受性词汇发展为中等程度正相关(r=0.31)。针对年代、文化背景、儿童年龄以及测量方法的调节效应检验表明：HLE效应值随年代发展显著降低,但其核心指标亲子阅读频率的效应值基本稳定;评估HLE的问卷法和现场观察法效应值无差异,但评估亲子阅读频率的书目清单法效应值显著高于问卷法。未见文化背景和儿童年龄的显著调节作用,原因值得进一步探究。后续研究应完善HLE的概念框架,更关注社会经济及文化视角下的概念建构以及测量改进。     

触觉二维图像识别中2D-3D空间信息转换的认知机制

可触摸的触觉二维图像是视觉障碍人群获取图像信息的重要方式。目前大多数触觉二维图像都是直接由视觉二维图像转化为的可触摸线条图。在视觉二维图像中,通常运用透视和视角等视觉原理将三维空间关系转换为二维平面关系。视觉系统经过长期大量知觉学习,习得了这种二维到三维的映射关系。但是触觉识别二维图像时,触觉系统如何建立二维平面与三维空间的映射,目前尚有待进一步的研究。影响触觉识别二维图像中二维-三维空间信息转换的视觉因素主要有透视、视角、遮挡、纹理梯度和镂空,直接将视觉二维图像转化为的触觉二维图像时,图像中包含的上述视觉因素通常会干扰触觉识别。结合已有研究,试图提出“双表象加工模型”来解释触摸二维图像时二维到三维空间信息转换的认知机制。该模型认为触觉识别二维图像依赖于两个表象系统的整合,即物体表象系统(涉及物体的大小、形状和纹理)与空间表象系统(涉及物体的空间关系、透视和视角)。两种表象系统的信息最终进行整合,在物体表象和空间表象成功匹配的基础上建立二维图像与三维空间之间的映射,通达长时记忆中的三维物体表征。双表象加工模型将有助于我们深入认识触知觉的认知机制,也将为触觉二维图像的设计提供理论依据。