An investigation of DIF mechanisms in the context of differential testlet effects

This study investigated differential item functioning (DIF) mechanisms in the context of differential testlet effects across subgroups. Specifically, we investigated DIF manifestations when the stochastic ordering assumption on the nuisance dimension in a testlet does not hold. DIF hypotheses were formulated analytically using a parametric marginal item response function approach and compared with empirical DIF results from a unidimensional item response theory approach. The comparisons were made in terms of type of DIF (uniform or non‐uniform) and direction (whether the focal or reference group was advantaged). In general, the DIF hypotheses were supported by the empirical results, showing the usefulness of the parametric approach in explaining DIF mechanisms. Both analytical predictions of DIF and the empirical results provide insights into conditions where a particular type of DIF becomes dominant in a specific DIF direction, which is useful for the study of DIF causes.     

重新认识心衰机制中的心脏舒张期耗能

长期以来,对心衰和心衰机制的认识一直存在争议,所以心衰的治疗一直是国内外心血管领域中的一个挑战.为了澄清心衰机制的内涵,本文用弗兰克-斯塔灵定律以及能量守恒定律作为重建心脏理论以及心衰机制的依据,论证了心脏的做功是从动能向势能,又从势能向动能的转换过程.并根据临床事实等来证实心脏舒张是在作功,与收缩期作功是等同的.没有心脏的舒张就没有心脏的收缩,心脏功能下降实际上是舒张与收缩功能同时的下降.不存在有收缩功能正常的舒张功能下降.心功能的判定标准不能采用射血分数,而应该采取能量消耗的定量方法来测定.     

The psychology of emotion regulation: An integrative review

The present article reviews modern research on the psychology of emotion regulation. Emotion regulation determines the offset of emotional responding and is thus distinct from emotional sensitivity, which determines the onset of emotional responding. Among the most viable categories for classifying emotion-regulation strategies are the targets and functions of emotion regulation. The emotion-generating systems that are targeted in emotion regulation include attention, knowledge, and bodily responses. The functions of emotion regulation include satisfying hedonic needs, supporting specific goal pursuits, and facilitating the global personality system. Emotion-regulation strategies are classified in terms of their targets and functions and relevant empirical work is reviewed. Throughout this review, emotion regulation emerges as one of the most far-ranging and influential processes at the interface of cognition and emotion.     

Catch 22: the inflammatory nature of insight

I will describe a man I saw in psychoanalytic psychotherapy with a history of serious drug abuse and violent psychotic episodes. At the start of therapy my patient had little capacity to tolerate the anxiety, depression or the inevitable frustrations involved in facing reality. Over time and with the support of the therapy he was able to increase his capacity for self observation noticing the way he withdrew from the world of shared reality into psychotic states of mind in order to avoid painful feelings of rage, humiliation and shame. In the book ‘Catch 22?, Joseph Heller described the paradox of pilots who wish to claim insanity in order to avoid fatal flying missions, while the authorities maintain that in claiming insanity to avoid suicidal missions the individual demonstrates a sane awareness of the insanity of the missions! This insight is deemed to be evidence of the individual’s sanity and consequently their plea of insanity is denied. In this paper, I will show how Mr. A’s developing capacity for reflective functioning lead to a ‘Catch 22’ as the insight he needed as part of the process of recovery threatened to overwhelm him with depressing realities about the extent of his illness.     

幸福的体验效用与非理性决策行为的偏差机制

基于体验效用的幸福包括预期幸福、即时幸福和回忆幸福,这三者有极其重要的本质差异,导致决策偏差和非理性。本研究运用行为科学和认知神经科学相结合的研究方法,首次从行为层次—信息加工层次—脑神经层次三个层面,立体地开展幸福感的体验效用与非理性决策行为研究。研究计划分为三个部分:(1)预期幸福、即时幸福和回忆幸福的本质特点和行为规律;(2)三种体验效用产生偏差的认知心理机制;(3)体验效用与非理性决策偏差的脑神经机制。通过系列研究,拟解决三个关键问题:(1)在人类判断与决策过程中,预期、即时和回忆三种效用是如何影响人们的判断与决策?(2)三种体验效用出现偏差的信息加工特点和脑神经机制究竟是什么?(3)三种效用的偏差规律及对政府公共政策的启示。对这些问题的深入探讨,不仅对决策理论研究的发展是一个贡献;对政府管理制定有效的公共政策,避免"牺牲体验追求指标",解决"幸福悖论",同样有很强的实践指导意义。     

不同年龄广告名人效应的心理加工机制研究

本研究从自动化加工和控制性加工这个视角研究了名人效应的心理加工机制。实验运用加工分离程序,探讨了不同年龄阶段的受众对名人广告的信息加工模式。结果发现：(1)名人效应是一个普遍存在的现象,与用一般消费者做代言人相比,青少年、成年人(大学生)以及老年人对名人广告均明显存在更多的自动化加工,且加工水平没有年龄差异。但是,老年人的控制性加工明显低于其他两组;(2)在非注意条件下,代言人的专业化程度明显地影响了大学生组的控制性加工,但与各组被试的自动化加工都关系不大。这些研究发现为广告策略的制定带来了一些新的启示。     

Self-deception as affective coping. An empirical perspective on philosophical issues

In the philosophical literature, self-deception is mainly approached through the analysis of paradoxes. Yet, it is agreed that self-deception is motivated by protection from distress. In this paper, we argue, with the help of findings from cognitive neuroscience and psychology, that self-deception is a type of affective coping.First, we criticize the main solutions to the paradoxes of self-deception. We then present a new approach to self-deception. Self-deception, we argue, involves three appraisals of the distressing evidence: (a) appraisal of the strength of evidence as uncertain, (b) low coping potential and (c) negative anticipation along the lines of Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis. At the same time, desire impacts the treatment of flattering evidence via dopamine. Our main proposal is that self-deception involves emotional mechanisms provoking a preference for immediate reward despite possible long-term negative repercussions. In the last part, we use this emotional model to revisit the philosophical paradoxes.     

Eighteenth-century French materialism clockwise and anticlockwise

ABSTRACT

Because of their reliance on mechanistic metaphors and analogies referring to machines, the eighteenth-century materialists La Mettrie and Diderot have sometimes been described as ‘mechanistic materialists’. However, if one pays close attention to the ways in which mechanical analogies and metaphors were used in eighteenth-century French materialism, one sees that the recourse to these metaphors and comparisons in no way implies mechanism in the sense of physicalist reductionism. Instead, early instances of these comparisons appear in arguments pointing out that technological artefacts have functional properties which are not reducible to their physical properties. When La Mettrie compares man to a machine in his L'homme machine, he insists at the same time on the fact that, just like a machine, man is a cultural artefact. According to La Mettrie, man's very existence depends on language and culture, and it is precisely this dependence on culture which distinguishes him from other animals. However, La Mettrie's sceptical stance renders his position towards physicalistic reductionism ambiguous. Diderot, who by contrast was interested in the distinction between the living and non-living, distances himself from the ambiguous use of mechanistic metaphors and insists on the irreducibility of physiological and biological phenomena to the physical.     

Varieties of early modern materialism

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses how early modern materialism can be defined and delineated, before turning to a brief survey of the main philosophical resources early modern materialist theories draw on. Subsequently, I discuss competing overall narratives concerning early modern materialism, and conclude with a defence of the controversial view that material soul theories belong to materialism proper.     

Theology, Science, and Postmodernism: Responding to Stanley Grenz

This article responds to Stanley J. Grenz's Templeton Lecture, “Why Do Theologians Need to Be Scientists?” published in the June 2000 issue of Zygon (Grenz 2000). In the first part I outline my reasons for finding the kind of theological reflections in which Grenz engages worthy of attention by noting my disagreement with the view that a sufficient response to theological issues can be formulated on the basis of an examination of our biological nature. I assert, in that connection, the autonomy of reason as a way of investigating and understanding the world. In the second part I respond directly to Grenz by explaining my disagreement with the postmodern critique of science upon which he relies and his adherence to Christian eschatology as an answer to the conundrums into which, he posits, we are drawn as a result of that critique. I note that I agree with Grenz, however, that the activity of valuing is necessarily a forward‐looking Godlike endeavor that is not derivable from science. In the third part I suggest that we must be open to the investigation of the possible existence of an objective realm of value and that, in any case, rejection of the postmodern critique of science in many cases pro‐vides a sound basis for the disciplined resolution of factual questions that frequently lie at the base of disagreements about values.