The impact of the home musical environment on infants’ language development

There is strong evidence that musical engagement influences children’s language development but little research has been carried out on the relationship between the home musical environment and language development in infancy. The current study assessed musical exposure at home (including parental singing) and language development in 64 infants (8.5–18 months). Results showed that the home musical environment significantly predicted gesture development. For a subgroup of infants’ below 12 months, both parental singing and overall home musical environment score significantly predicted word comprehension. These findings represent the first demonstration that an enriched musical environment in infancy can promote development of communication skills.     

The recognition of emotional prosody in students with blindness: Effects of early visual experience and age development

This study examined the role of early visual experience and age in the recognition of emotional prosody among students with visual impairments in China. A total of 75 primary and junior high school students participated in the study. The ability of participants to recognize the prosody of four basic emotions (sadness, anger, happiness, and neutrality) was explored. The findings were as follows. (1) Early visual experience had a significant effect on the recognition of emotional prosody. The accuracy rate of students with congenital blindness was lower than that of students with adventitious blindness, and the performance of students with congenital blindness was lower than that of sighted students. The students with congenital blindness exhibited the slowest recognition speeds. (2) Age had a significant effect on the emotional prosody recognition accuracy of the sighted students, but it had no effect on the students with blindness.     

The Role of Animacy in Children's Interpretation of Relative Clauses in English: Evidence From Sentence–Picture Matching and Eye Movements

Subject relative clauses (SRCs) are typically processed more easily than object relative clauses (ORCs), but this difference is diminished by an inanimate head-noun in semantically non-reversible ORCs (“The book that the boy is reading”). In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigated the influence of animacy on online processing of semantically reversible SRCs and ORCs using lexically inanimate items that were perceptually animate due to motion (e.g., “Where is the tractor that the cow is chasing”). In Experiment 1, 48 children (aged 4;5–6;4) and 32 adults listened to sentences that varied in the lexical animacy of the NP1 head-noun (Animate/Inanimate) and relative clause (RC) type (SRC/ORC) with an animate NP2 while viewing two images depicting opposite actions. As expected, inanimate head-nouns facilitated the correct interpretation of ORCs in children; however, online data revealed children were more likely to anticipate an SRC as the RC unfolded when an inanimate head-noun was used, suggesting processing was sensitive to perceptual animacy. In Experiment 2, we repeated our design with inanimate (rather than animate) NP2s (e.g., “where is the tractor that the car is following”) to investigate whether our online findings were due to increased visual surprisal at an inanimate as agent, or to similarity-based interference. We again found greater anticipation for an SRC in the inanimate condition, supporting our surprisal hypothesis. Across the experiments, offline measures show that lexical animacy influenced children's interpretation of ORCs, whereas online measures reveal that as RCs unfolded, children were sensitive to the perceptual animacy of lexically inanimate NPs, which was not reflected in the offline data. Overall measures of syntactic comprehension, inhibitory control, and verbal short-term memory and working memory were not predictive of children's accuracy in RC interpretation, with the exception of a positive correlation with a standardized measure of syntactic comprehension in Experiment 1.     

试论内隐学习的多水平动态观

文章回顾了关于内隐学习意识性的实证研究和理论探讨。在此基础上,借助Karmiloff—Smith的表征重述概念,构建了一个多水平觉察状态、多水平表征机制、多水平能量需求的内隐学习机制动态观。该观点不同于以往对内隐学习的静态分析,揭示了内隐学习和外显学习在机能上的连续性,     

中美成人基本认知能力的年龄差异

为了研究中关成人基本认知能力的年龄差异,采用西亚图纵向研究模型的方法对中关被试5种基本认知能力进行测量。结果发现,不同文化下5种能力的成绩存在显著的年龄差异。并且这种差异不能完全用教育上的差异来解释。年龄较大被试在所有基本能力测验上成绩较低。男性被试在归纳推理、空间和数字能力上成绩较好,女性被试在语义和词语流畅性测验上成绩较好。研究表明文化环境和历史等因素对成人认知发展具有一定的影响。     

中学生写作文本形成能力的发展特点

从一所普通中学六个年级随机选取801名被试,使用自编测验研究了中学生写作文本形成能力的发展特点,结果发现：（1）中学生写作文本形成能力起点较高,初三年级是其基本形成的关键期;（2）中学生写作文本形成能力在高中阶段发展平缓;（3）中学生写作文本形成能力分维度的不同方面发展不均衡,较高水平方面受到认知加工容量、概括水平和抽象逻辑思维水平等心理因素的制约;（4）中学生写作文本形成能力存在性别差异,女生优于男生。     

小学三～五年级儿童类比问题解决及策略运用发展

以270名小学三~五年级儿童为被试,采用问题解决类比任务范式,探讨了小学儿童类比问题解决及策略运用的发展趋势.结果发现:(1)在儿童类比问题解决质量的发展方面,不同年级儿童差异显著,四年级儿童成绩最好;而儿童类比问题解决速度则随着年级增高而加快;(2)儿童类比策略发展更符合混合模型;随着年级发展,儿童初级、中级和高级类比策略运用逐渐增加,而非类比策略运用渐少;儿童类比策略发展的“飞跃”发生在四到五年级之间;儿童策略运用的发展呈现出多样性、竞争性、适应性的特点.     

论自我同一性概念的整合

自我同一性是西方心理学一个重要的概念,但至今没有一个普遍接受的定义。通过对自我同一性概念内涵不一得归因分析,指出了整合自我同一性概念应关注的几个范畴,进而提出自我同一性是一个与自我、人格的发展有密切关系的多层次、多维度的心理学概念。本质上,它是指人格发展的连续性、成熟性和统合感,它包含三个层面的内涵：(1)最基本的层面,即ego-idernity;(2)个人同一性;(3)社会同一性。