5岁儿童能够理解假装的心理表征:对Moe任务的质疑

本研究通过三个实验对Lillard的Moe假装任务进行了重复与改进,旨在探讨儿童对假装行为中知识状态作用的理解,进而讨论儿童对假装的心理本质的理解。实验一表明,“是否”问题使得5岁儿童在该任务上表现出肯定回答倾向;实验二表明．当改变提问方式,在问题中提供选择项目后,5岁儿童在该任务上的通过率有显著提高．肯定回答倾向明显减弱;实验三表明,当减少指导语中相互矛盾的信息、明确指出主人公知道某物而不知道另一物以及减弱对未知状态和知道状态的强调的情况下．5岁儿童能根据主人公所知道的事物来推断出其行为是在假装成该事物,能理解到知识状态在假装行为中的作用。这一结果表明5岁儿童能够理解到假装中所隐含的心理表征,Lillard所提出的Moe任务范式低估了儿童对假装的心理本质的理解能力。     

The happy personality: Mediational role of trait emotional intelligence

This study examined the relationship between the Big Five personality traits (Gosling et al., 2003), trait emotional intelligence (EI) (Petrides & Furnham, 2001) and happiness (Argyle et al., 1989) in a sample of 112 (61 female) student and non-student participants. Strong dispositional determinants of happiness were identified. In line with previous findings, four of the Big Five, namely stability, extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, were positively correlated with both happiness and trait EI, which explained 18% of unique variance (over and above age and the Big Five) in happiness. Furthermore, a significant amount of shared variance between happiness and the Big Five was explained by trait EI, which partly mediated the paths from stability and conscientiousness to happiness, and fully mediated the link between agreeableness and happiness. Limitations and implications are discussed.     

Family-centered intensive case management: A step toward understanding individualized care

New York State's initial attempt at individualizing services occurred within the context of an experiment. We randomly assigned children 5–12 years old who were referred for out-of-home placement in treatment foster care to either treatment foster care, Family-Based Treatment (n=15), or to Family-Centered Intensive Case Management (FCICM) (n=27). FCICM used teams of case managers and parent advocates to provide in-home services. Flexible service dollars, respite care, and behavior management skills training were available to assist teams in individualizing care. Preliminary outcomes indicate that children in FCICM are doing as well or better than children assigned to FBT in their functioning and symptom reduction. Parents of children in FCICM have made gains, although not at a statistically significant level, in behavior management skills and family strengths that allow them to provide care for their children at home.     

Effects of differential reinforcement on the behavior and self-esteem of children with emotional and behavioral disorders

Students in a residential special school for children with emotional and behavioral disorders participated in a study designed to reduce their levels of inappropriate behavior. The residential care staff rated the students' behavioral problems and their class teachers rated their overt self-esteem pre and post intervention. In addition, the students completed self-ratings of their self-esteem. The students were divided into two groups, experimental and control. A multiple baseline across behaviors design was used to assess behavioral changes in the experimental group. Both groups received tangible rewards to the same level but only the experimental group received them contingent upon behaving appropriately. Results showed that the experimental group students made substantial reductions in their levels of inappropriate behavior, which were maintained at a three-month followup. Also, ratings of their behavioral problems by residential child care staff suggested that this improvement in behavior had generalized beyond the classroom to the residential setting. However, no significant differences were found between the pre- and post-intervention ratings of their self-esteem or teacher ratings of their overt self-esteem.     

Knowing in advance: the impact of prior event information on memory and event knowledge

We examined the influence of newly acquired information on children's memory and general representation of a personally experienced event. Thirty-five children between the ages of 5 and 7 years participated in the novel event (Visiting the Pirate). The day before participating, children were: (1) provided with new information specific to the up-coming event; (2) engaged in a discussion generally related to the event topic based on existing knowledge; or (3) discussed an unrelated topic. Advance information specific to the event led to better recall and, in particular, to better integration of the experience into a general event representation both soon after the event and at a follow-up interview 4 months later, whereas general discussion of the topic without the event specific information neither enhanced memory reports nor facilitated the integration of event information. Providing information in advance can have significant effects on memory and knowledge acquisition although many variables, including those relating to the specific content of the information, will affect this relation.     

Representing others' actions: just like one's own?

Previous research has shown that observing others' actions can affect individual performance of the same actions. In the present study, we developed a new paradigm to investigate whether and how complementary actions at the disposal of another agent are represented and influence one's own actions. A spatial compatibility task was distributed among two people so that each participant took care of one of two responses. The identical task was performed alone and alongside another participant. There was a spatial compatibility effect in the group setting only. It was similar to the effect obtained when one person took care of both responses. This result suggests that one's own actions and others' actions are represented in a functionally equivalent way.     

情绪Stroop效应：威胁驱动还是反应偏差？

为了考查情绪Stroop效应的产生机制是威胁驱动还是反应偏差,本研究进行了两个实验.实验一用一般负性情绪词语和中性词语作为实验材料,实验二用威胁性的情绪图片和中性图片作为实验材料.每个实验均要求一组被试做按键反应,另一组被试做摇杆反应.结果发现,当实验材料为词语时,未出现情绪Stroop效应;当实验材料为威胁性图片时,无论是趋向性反应方式还是回避性反应方式,都出现了情绪Stroop效应.本研究结果支持威胁驱动机制.     

A review of the animate-inanimate distinction in infancy: Implications for models of social and cognitive knowing

The ability to distinguish people from things sheds light on an important theoretical question: how is the development of social cognition related to the development of physical cognition? According to Piaget (1954), cognition is unitary and the processes used in dealing with the physical world are the same as those employed in the social world. This statement should be questioned. Although people and objects share certain fundamental properties (size, shape, etc.), only people can communicate, act independently and have feelings and intentions. Thus, people seem much more complex to deal with than things. If all cognitive development derives from the growth of a unitary system, then knowledge about animate objects should lag behind that of inanimate objects. The present paper explores this idea by examining what infants know about the attributes that distinguish people from things. It is concluded that the onset of this distinction begins early in life. Even 2-month-old infants treat people and objects differently when confounding variables of the stimuli are controlled. Rather than lagging behind, the infants' understanding of people appears precocious. The infants' recognition of the crucial distinction between the two classes suggests that a conceptual system is beginning to be formed soon after birth. This conceptual system appears different for social and non-social objects and serves as a foundation from which infants might come to understand the distinctive properties of animate and inanimate objects.     

不同概率表征的贝叶斯推理试题形式结构的同质性研究

研究从先验概率、概率表征、推理任务等方面探讨了经典贝叶斯推理研究中存在的不足,试图在＂知识和试题双重模型＂框架下,探索现实和标准贝叶斯试题的形式结构的同质性,结果表明：1）自然频次表征比百分比表征的贝叶斯推算题正确率高,这是因为试题的形式结构不同,与概率表征无关;2）贝叶斯判断题与贝叶斯推算题的试题形式结构存在显著差异;3）贝叶斯推算题中,概率词表征与其它两种表征的试题形式结构存在显著差异,其实质是贝叶斯判断。     

Number versus continuous quantity in numerosity judgments by fish

A fundamental question in human cognition is how people reason about space. We use a computational model to explore cross-cultural commonalities and differences in spatial cognition. Our model is based upon two hypotheses: (1) the structure-mapping model of analogy can explain the visual comparisons used in spatial reasoning; and (2) qualitative, structural representations are computed by people’s visual systems and used in these comparisons. We apply our model to a visual oddity task, in which individuals are shown an array of two-dimensional images and asked to the pick the one that does not belong. This task was previously used to evaluate understanding of geometric concepts in two disparate populations: North Americans, and the Mundurukú, a South American indigenous group. Our model automatically generates representations of each hand-segmented image and compares them to solve the task. The model achieves human-level performance on this task, and problems that are hard for the model are also difficult for people in both cultures. Furthermore, ablation studies on the model suggest explanations for cross-cultural differences in terms of differences in spatial representations.