Hormones and Cognition: Current Concepts and Issues in Neuropsychology

This article provides an extensive and comprehensive review of the effects of hormones on cognition. Studies detailing specific neurocognitive functions affected by variation in hormone levels across the life span are presented. Dysregulation of hormone levels is considered from models of both normal and diseased functioning. Patterns of cognitive dysfunction are described for a range of syndromes involving the neuroendocrine system, and evidence of specific neurophysiological mechanisms that can account for these findings is outlined. This review includes discussion of treatment outcomes and the permanency of endocrine-related cognitive dysfunction. The authors present a set of guidelines for clinical neuropsychologists to use for assessment of patients with neuroendocrine system dysfunction. Clinical and methodological issues in research and treatment settings are discussed.     

Why Don't People Change? What Stops Them from Changing? An Integrative Commentary on the Special Issue on Resistance

This commentary discusses the four papers from the vantage point of a cognitive-developmental view. Psychotherapeutic change involving changes in core cognitive structures is seen as threatening an individual's personal sense of identity as well as security and safety needs. Core cognitive constructs are laid down early via the principle of covariation of events and form the basis of our tacit knowledge base. Subsequent changes in this tacit knowledge is difficult because the core cognitive constructs act like a mental filter to screen in confirming data and screen out disconfirming data. Ambiguous stimuli tend to be interpreted on the basis of preexisting cognitive constructs, even when the match between event and interpretation is not ideal. Several suggestions are given for increasing the probability of changes occurring in core cognitive constructs.     

Re-evaluating evidence for linguistic relativity: reply to Boroditsky (2001)

Six unsuccessful attempts at replicating a key finding in the linguistic relativity literature [Boroditsky, L. (2001). Does language shape thought?: Mandarin and English speakers' conceptions of time. Cognitive Psychology, 43, 1-22] are reported. In addition to these empirical issues in replicating the original finding, theoretical issues present in the original report are discussed. In sum, we conclude that Boroditsky (2001) provides no support for the Whorfian hypothesis.     

Postural change effects on infants' AB task performance: visual, postural, or spatial?

Smith and colleagues (Smith, L. B., Thelen, E., Titzer, R., & McLin, D. (1999). Knowing in the context of acting: The task dynamics of the A-not-B error. Psychological Review, 106, 235-260) demonstrated that 10-month-olds succeed on a Piagetian AB search task if they are moved from a sitting position to a standing position between A and B trials. These authors explained this result by suggesting that because the reach must be executed by different muscle forces from the standing position, an appropriate reach to B is programmed without the memory of the previous reach interfering with the current reach. In the main study reported here, the influences of postural and spatial factors are separated by adding a condition in which the table containing the hiding wells is moved up at the same time as the infant is shifted to standing, thereby allowing a postural change without a change in the spatial relations between the hand and hiding locations. Results showed that in both a standard control condition and the sitting-to-standing condition in which the table also moved up, performance was poor. Only in the sitting-to-standing condition in which the spatial relation between the hand and apparatus was altered were infants successful. These outcomes demonstrate that perseveration effects are likely to occur at the level of reach planning rather than at the level of execution, thereby narrowing the gap between explanations of improvements in AB performance with age that emphasize prefrontal maturation as opposed to improvements in reaching ability.     

当代大学生对竞争认识的调查研究

以天津市和广州市532名大学生为被试,采用半开放式问卷,采用团体测试的方式,研究了他们对竞争的认识,并对这种认识进行了理论分析。研究结果发现：（1）大学生由竞争一词最易联想到“激烈”、“残酷”、“公平或不公平”、“压力或动力”等内容;（2）大学生认为竞争存在的领域从高到低依次是商业与市场经济、就业与工作、比赛与体育运动、学习与考试、国家与社会等;（3）大学生认为竞争是“激烈”、“残酷”、“对抗”等;（4）大学生认为竞争的主要作用是动力、压力和机遇或挑战;（5）大学生对竞争性质的认识存在显著的性别差异和地区差异。     

替代指标在心血管疾病临床决策中的正确认识

在心血管疾病临床试验中,替代指标常用于评价干预措施的疗效。但替代指标在心血管疾病临床试验中非常复杂,因此,心血管医生在解读和评价心血管疾病临床试验的结果时,应正确认识替代指标的内涵、应用背景及其局限性,同时,还应客观地评价相关替代指标的证据强度,以寻找最好的医学证据指导其临床决策和实践。     

认知需要与战略决策过程之间的关系

认知需要指人们在信息加工过程中是否愿意投入周密的心考以及能否从深入的思考中获得享受．它反映的是人的认知动机。由于企业管理者在决策过程中涉及诸多处理信息和思考问题的环节,认知需要必然在这一过程中起作用。本研究运用情境案例法探讨了在不确定环境下决策者的认知需要与其在战略决策过程中分析环境和判断战略导向的关系。通过相关分析发现高认知需要者在决策过程中更倾向于关注环境、对环境做出积极判断、强调从长远和全面的角度去分析企业战略。     

差异与互补:皮亚杰与维果茨基认知发展观比较的新思考

皮亚杰与维果茨基是10世纪两位最有影响的发展心理学家．他们开辟了研究儿童发展的两条线路。这两种取向存在着根本性的差异,同时在研究方法与具体观点中又存在着多方面的类似和交叉．两种取向互动互补．共同描绘了儿童发展的整体画卷。     

Mothers' Overreactive Discipline and Their Encoding and Appraisals of Toddler Behavior

The relations of observed overreactive discipline with mothers' tendencies to notice negative, relative to positive, child behavior (preferential negative encoding), and mothers' negative appraisals of neutral and positive child behavior (negative appraisal bias), were examined in mothers of toddlers. The mothers rated both their own children's and unfamiliar children's behavior. Negative appraisal bias with respect to mothers' own (but not unfamiliar) children was related to mothers' overreactivity, independent of child misbehavior. Overreactivity was not related to mothers' preferential negative encoding either of their own or of unfamiliar children's behavior. However, in the case of mothers' own children, preferential negative encoding moderated the relation between negative appraisal bias and overreactive discipline, such that the negative appraisal bias-overreactivity relation was significant only in the context of high preferential negative encoding.