Romancing the Family: Umberto Eco’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Baudolino</Emphasis>

Referencing Umberto Eco’s novel Baudolino, the author discusses issues concerning the authenticity of the narrative, specifically the distortions in the story presented to the audience and doubts surrounding the veracity of the tale. The act of narration is associated with the shame caused by the abuse and neglect that is an integral part of this story. The ambivalence of the protagonist—to tell his story and to keep it (and his true identity) concealed—associates narration, a creative act, with lying. Trauma generates the lies and hiddenness as a means of coping with abuse and indifference. In order to deal with the feelings of inadequacy caused by his humble birth, the traumatized protagonist lies: he romanticizes his family origins, the illusion of being the offspring of distinguished parents. His attempt to win the love of the parents, by being both good and all-knowing, is one of the motivating forces of his family romance. Telling lies makes the protagonist omniscient: he is the only one who knows if and when he is telling the truth. Paradoxically, the narrator creates and undermines that image of omniscience by revealing the thought processes of one character while leaving opaque those of the protagonist, and by denying the trueness of the tale affirmed when he presents as objective his own subjective sentiments by indirectly attributing them to the protagonist. The uncertainty that underpins the narration is indicative of the storyteller’s absence. This vacancy structures the work because it allows kindred spirits, nonjudgmental readers (listeners) who willingly suspend disbelief, to enter the world of the narrator. This uncritical participation counters the chaos of the storyteller’s reality, as they create their own new world where the split parental images are united.     

不同年级学生阅读科技文章的眼动研究

本实验使用４２００Ｒ眼动仪对小学三年级、初二、高二和大学生阅读科技文章的眼动特征进行研究。结果发现;１．随年龄的提高,被试阅读课文的总注视次数显著减少;２．高年级学生能够根据阅读内容的重要性来灵活地调节自己的眼动策略;３．随着年级的提高,各年级被试使用前进式回视的比例逐渐减少,而使用选择式回视的比例逐渐增加。     

计算机辅助教学对英语阅读能力的影响

通过回顾与总结CAI英语阅读教学程序由普适化向具体阅读技能转化的发展历程,总结了英语阅读中最重要的能力、技能和主要应解决的问题,阐述了CAI程序对于阅读教学的有效性研究成果:发现相关的CAI程序有五大范畴。最后就教学语言、课程设计、教师对CAI程序的运用等问题进行了探讨与展望。     

阅读中词汇视觉编码年老化的原因:基于消失文本实验的证据

研究采用消失文本范式、操控双词消失的延迟时间,考察中文读者编码两个相邻词汇（词n与词n+1）视觉信息的年老化问题。结果发现,从40 ms延迟时间至160 ms延迟时间的所有消失条件均不影响青年人的句子总阅读时间,这意味着青年人能够并行、快速地同时编码词n与词n+1的视觉信息;而所有消失条件都影响老年人的句子阅读时间,40 ms延迟时间消失条件对总阅读时间的影响程度甚于其他较长延迟时间的消失文本条件,80 ms、120 ms和160 ms延迟时间消失条件对总阅读时间的影响程度完全相同。由这些结果可以确定,中文阅读中词汇视觉编码的年老化同时受视觉与认知因素衰退的影响。     

中文阅读中副中央凹区域文本信息加工时程的眼动研究

副中央凹文本对阅读有非常重要的作用,考察读者在注视何时起对其加工有助于解决阅读中词汇加工方式的理论问题,当前研究结果存在很大争论。本研究采用消失文本范式,操纵词n-1和n+1的呈现时间(0m/40ms),考察读者加工两侧副中央凹信息的时程。结果发现,相比0ms,在注视早期40ms内,词n+1的呈现能够显著促进阅读加工,而词n-1未对阅读产生影响,表明右侧副中央凹信息的加工发生在注视早期,而左侧则未发生在该早期阶段。结果支持阅读眼动控制的并列加工模型。     

出声阅读和默读之间的差异

阅读有两种基本模式：默读和出声阅读。文章从三个方面总结了两种阅读模式差异的研究成果：(1)不同阅读模式下阅读的行为差异; (2)不同阅读模式下阅读的认知机制差异; (3)不同阅读模式下阅读的脑机制差异。在此基础上, 文章提出了未来研究需要解决的问题：(1)出声阅读向默读转变的具体阶段; (2)两种阅读模式发展过程中眼动行为的差异; (3)语音和背景音乐对两种阅读模式下阅读的影响; (4)两种阅读模式下儿童的脑机制差异等。     

Does the Conners' Continuous Performance Test Aid in ADHD Diagnosis?

The performance of clinic-referred children aged 6–11 (N = 100) was examined using the Conners' Continuous Performance Test (CPT) and measures of auditory attention (Auditory Continuous Performance Test; ACPT), phonological awareness, visual processing speed, and visual-motor competence. The Conners' CPT overall index was unrelated to measures of visual processing speed or visual-motor competence. Although the Conners' CPT converged with the ACPT, the latter demonstrated age and order effects. Significant variance in Conners' CPT parameters was predicted by phonological awareness measures, suggesting that Reading Disordered (RD) children could be false positives on the Conners' CPT. The Conners' CPT overall index, phonological awareness, and visual-motor measures were submitted to a 2×2 MANCOVA (ADHD vs. RD, covarying for age and socieoeconomic status): a main effect for RD status was found. Children with ADHD did not have higher Conners' CPT scores than did clinical controls; however, children with Reading Disorders did. Phonological measures distinguished RD children from ADHD children and other clinical controls. ADHD children who failed the Conners' CPT were rated by teachers as more hyperactive. Despite the strengths of the Conners' CPT, its utility for differential diagnosis of ADHD is questioned.     

Zero Anaphora: Transfer of Reference Tracking Strategies from Chinese to English

English contains many nominals that would be absent in Chinese because Chinese makes greater use of zero anaphora, which is an empty grammatical slot in a sentence standing for a previously mentioned referent. Native Chinese and native English speakers were compared in comprehending modified English passages from a standardized reading test with nominals deleted that would be absent in Chinese. In three experiments, Chinese speakers showed superior comprehension as measured by objective multiple-choice questions in this case, but not when no words were deleted or when nominals were deleted that would not be absent in Chinese. These results imply that native Chinese speakers develop reference tracking strategies that they transfer to comprehending English.This research was supported in part by United States Army Research Institute Contracts MDA903-93-K-0010, DASW01-96-K-0010, DASW01-99-K-0002, and DASW01-03-K-0002 to the University of Colorado (Alice Healy, Principal Investigator).We thank Lyle Bourne and Barbara Fox for stimulating discussions about this research. We are also grateful to the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado for their support of this research.Experiments 1 and 2 were reported at the International Conference on Functional Approaches to Grammar, Albuquerque, NM, July 25, 1995, and at the 37th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Chicago, IL, November 3, 1996, and all three experiments were reported at the 2001 American Association for Applied Linguistics conference, St. Louis, MO, February 24, 2001.     

Something Covered with an Old Blanket”: Nancy and Other Dead Mothers in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Oliver Twist</Emphasis>

In Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Julia Kristeva outlines her theory of abjection as a simultaneous fascination and horror stemming from sensorial reminders of the subject’s primal, psychological relation to the mother. In this essay, I show how these psychological perspectives can potentially result in acts of physical violence, which I call the “abject response.” Applied to literature, a study of the abject response explains why sexually active female characters, such as Nancy, the prostitute, in Oliver Twist, suffer extreme acts of physical violence: not simply because they are sexual, as critics of Victorian domestic ideology most often argue, but rather because their particularly female bodies give them an agency which threatens to destroy the mastery of women on which Victorian male identity is based. Reading Oliver Twist through the lens of Kristeva reveals the ways in which Sikes, Nancy’s murderer, psychically links her sexuality to the fatal potential he perceives in her body. This threatening construction of women’s sexuality derives from an imbalanced focus in the male psyche on the repulsion aspect of abjection, a focus socially inscribed as a threatening power, which is used to justify violent usurpations of the feminine in masculine constructions of gender.     

A TOKEN SYSTEM FOR A CLASS OF UNDERACHIEVING HYPERACTIVE CHILDREN

Using a BAB design, a token system requiring cooperative interaction was used to change the reading and vocabulary performance of an 18-member class of third-grade hyperactive boys. Four different colored tokens, which could be exchanged for 15 minutes of play on electrovideo games, were earned by successful completion of two tasks that involved learning to read and to use new vocabulary words in sentences, and two tasks in which the student served as a proctor to a student who had not yet completed those tasks. The mean number of tasks completed during the intervention periods rose to over nine times the number completed during reversal. Additionally, the average completion rate for the school district's standardized weekly reading level examinations rose from four to eight fold during the token conditions. All 18 students responded to the token program by increasing their academic performance.