身体动作与语义加工:具身隐喻的视角

概念隐喻理论认为个体建立基于身体经验的具体概念和抽象概念之间的隐喻联结是人类特有的认知方式。不管是具体概念还是抽象概念,只要有具身隐喻联结的概念,其语义的理解便会受到具身启动效应的影响。大脑在加工动词或者含动词的句子时,不仅激活了语言中枢和运动皮层,且大脑随着个体是否执行与语义相应的动作、抽象概念的熟悉程度和其文本背景是否符合等因素而激活不同的神经回路。本文将对以上研究进行梳理与分析,旨在从具身隐喻的视角为身体动作影响语义加工的神经机制模型提供初步的思路。     

Development of body emotion perception in infancy: From discrimination to recognition

Research suggests that infants progress from discrimination to recognition of emotions in faces during the first half year of life. It is unknown whether the perception of emotions from bodies develops in a similar manner. In the current study, when presented with happy and angry body videos and voices, 5-month-olds looked longer at the matching video when they were presented upright but not when they were inverted. In contrast, 3.5-month-olds failed to match even with upright videos. Thus, 5-month-olds but not 3.5-month-olds exhibited evidence of recognition of emotions from bodies by demonstrating intermodal matching. In a subsequent experiment, younger infants did discriminate between body emotion videos but failed to exhibit an inversion effect, suggesting that discrimination may be based on low-level stimulus features. These results document a developmental change from discrimination based on non-emotional information at 3.5 months to recognition of body emotions at 5 months. This pattern of development is similar to face emotion knowledge development and suggests that both the face and body emotion perception systems develop rapidly during the first half year of life.     

Knowledge and Concern about STIs/HIV and Sociodemographic Variables Associated with Getting Tested for HIV Among the General Population in Spain

HIV testing is important in terms of prevention and treatment. However, HIV testing rates in the Spanish general population remains low. Therefore, HIV testing promotion constitutes a key issue. A high level of knowledge about HIV/AIDS is associated with having been tested for HIV. The general aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of people who had ever been tested for HIV in Spain. The sample consisted of 1,106 participants from the general population — 60.0% females and 40.0% males — aged between 17 and 55 years old. The assessment instruments were a questionnaire on sociodemographic data and HIV testing, a scale of knowledge about STIs and HIV/AIDS, and a scale of concern about STIs/HIV. Results showed that greater knowledge about STIs and HIV was associated with a greater likelihood of being tested for HIV (OR = .77; 95.0% CI = .73–.82; p < .05). In addition, higher concern about HIV/AIDS decreased the likelihood of not having been tested for HIV (OR = .87; 95.0% CI = .83–.92; p < .05). In fact, the higher participants concern about STIs was, the lower their likelihood of not having been tested for HIV was (OR = .87; 95.0% CI = .83–.91; p < .05). It is necessary to promote HIV testing in the general population as well as to consider their socio-demographic and psychological characteristics.     

Do young adults show conceptual knowledge of previous distractors?

Using implicit tests, older adults have been found to retain conceptual knowledge of previously seen task-irrelevant information. While younger adults typically do not show the same effect, evidence from one study [Gopie, N., Craik, F. I. M., & Hasher, L. (2011). A double dissociation of implicit and explicit memory in younger and older adults. Psychological Science, 22, 634–640. doi:10.1177/0956797611403321] suggests otherwise. In that study, young adults showed greater explicit than implicit memory for previous distractors on a word fragment completion task. This was interpreted as evidence for maintaining access to previous conceptual knowledge of the distractors. Here, we report two failures to replicate that original finding, followed by a third study designed to test directly whether young adults use conceptual-level information that was previously irrelevant. Our findings agree with others that young adults show weak to no evidence of conceptual knowledge of previously irrelevant information.     

The Problem of Necessary and Sufficient Conditions and Conceptual Analysis

In this article the standard philosophical method involving intuition‐driven conceptual analysis is challenged in a new way. This orthodox approach to philosophy takes analysanda to be the specifications of the content of concepts in the form of sets of necessary and sufficient conditions. Here it is argued that there is no adequate account of what necessary and sufficient conditions are. So, the targets of applications of the standard philosophical method so understood are not sufficiently well understood for this method to be dependable.     

Classroom Climate and Political Learning: Findings from a Swedish Panel Study and Comparative Data

Numerous studies have shown that an open classroom climate for discussion increases students' civic knowledge. However, most previous studies draw on cross‐sectional data and have not been able to show that the effect is causal. This article presents results from a Swedish panel survey following students during the first year in the gymnasium (upper secondary level). Using this study, we are better equipped to evaluate the link between an open classroom climate and political knowledge. Results suggest that the effect is causal. A 10% increase in open classroom climate is associated with about 5 percentage points higher knowledge. The beneficial effect of an open classroom climate is an important insight that should be seriously considered not only by researchers but also by educational policy makers, school managements, and teachers.