Thinking About Me: How Social Awareness Evolved

ABSTRACT— Humans seem unique in their consideration of others' goals, motivations, intentions, and needs. But the human form of social awareness did not spring from nowhere; certain mechanisms shared across primates formed the foundation from which these processes derived. A review of recent nonhuman primate research points to particular ancestral mechanisms, including an interest in images moving in synchrony with self, a mirror neuron system that responds in the same way to actions made by the self and by others, and inherited social tolerance that provided the bases for social thinking. Still there is a gap in tracking social awareness from these basic beginnings to the ability to think about self and other with respect to intentions and goals. Comparative and clinical work will fill in this gap and will map brain processes onto social thinking.     

Intergroup relations in action: Questions asked about lesbian,gay and bisexual issues in diversity training

This paper focuses on the questions which heterosexual trainees ask about lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) experience within diversity training about LGB issues. Drawing on a data corpus of 162 questions asked by trainees in 13 tape‐recorded training sessions, questions were coded into six categories: (1) general ‘understanding’ questions; (2) questions about the trainer's life, experience and practices; (3) professional practice questions; (4) questions about lesbian and gay related legislation, policies and procedures; (5) questions about specific people and projects and (6) questions about the meanings, derivations and correct use of terms and symbols. ‘Real’ questions are compared with the decontexualized questions (and answers to them) that are provided in training manuals and it is demonstrated that these questions differ markedly from how questions actually get asked and how they actually get answered. Recommendations are provided for improving training and the argument made for turning towards analyses of the real world in action, especially when considering intergroup relations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modulation of long-term memory by arousal in alexithymia: The role of interpretation

Moderate physiological or emotional arousal induced after learning modulates memory consolidation, helping to distinguish important memories from trivial ones. Yet, the contribution of subjective awareness or interpretation of arousal to this effect is uncertain. Alexithymia, which is an inability to describe or identify one’s emotional and arousal states even though physiological responses to arousal are intact, provides a tool to evaluate the role of arousal interpretation. Participants scoring high and low on alexithymia (N = 30 each) learned a list of 30 words, followed by immediate recall. Participants then saw either an arousing (oral surgery) or neutral video (tooth brushing). Memory was tested 24-h later. Physiological response to arousal was comparable between groups, but subjective response to arousal was impaired in high alexithymia. Yet, delayed word recognition was enhanced by arousal regardless of alexithymia status. Thus, subjective response to arousal, i.e., cognitive appraisal, was not necessary for memory modulation to occur.     

主观群体动力学模型述评

主观群体动力学模型(subjective group dynamics, SGD)探讨群际背景中个体的群体评价与群体成员评价的关系, 针对群际偏见、分化评估和分化接纳意识(awareness of differential inclusion, ADI)三个核心变量间的关系及其影响因素, 提出并验证了一系列理论假设。SGD的理论基础包括社会认同理论、复杂性–极端性假设和态度极化模型、“白乌鸦效应”和个体对人知觉的发展。SGD模型的研究结果深化了群内偏好研究, 支持了社会领域理论, 并从群体机制角度为同伴拒斥研究提供了新思路, 解释了群体同质性效应并修正了认知发展理论。该领域的发展需要从跨文化检验模型、完善模型结构、研究它与其他变量的关系等方面进行进一步探索。     

语音意识的不同成分在汉语儿童英语阅读学习中的作用

研究一测查了74名小学三、五年级儿童辨别、删除汉语和英语音节、首音-韵脚、音位等不同语音成分的能力以及英语单词阅读,考察语音意识不同成分与英语阅读学习的关系及母语语音意识的作用途径.研究二测查了83名英语阅读较差和73名英语阅读一般及以上儿童的英语语音删除和单词认读能力,考察阅读水平对于语音意识作用的调节效应.结果表明:(1)英语首音-韵脚意识对英语阅读具有显著的独立贡献;(2)汉语首音-韵脚意识和声调意识分别对英语单词认读和假词拼读具有显著的独立贡献,二者通过英语首音-韵脚意识的中介发挥作用;(3)阅读水平具有显著的调节作用.首音-韵脚意识是正常儿童阅读的有效预测变量,而音节意识是低水平儿童阅读的有效预测变量.上述结果与有关语音意识各成分在英语为母语儿童阅读学习中作用的研究结果不同,提示第二语言的学习具有特殊性,母语经验影响着个体第二语言学习的过程.     

The precursors of mathematics learning: Working memory,phonological ability and numerical competence

This research aims at identifying the precursors of mathematics learning at the beginning of primary school. There are few experimental studies on this topic and existing ones use between-subjects designs and correlation analysis. This paper analyses longitudinal data to investigate whether the relationship between basic abilities and mathematics learning is causally interpretable, rather than one where cognitive abilities are correlated to early mathematics learning in a cross-section design.     

Developmental dyslexia: the visual attention span deficit hypothesis

The visual attention (VA) span is defined as the amount of distinct visual elements which can be processed in parallel in a multi-element array. Both recent empirical data and theoretical accounts suggest that a VA span deficit might contribute to developmental dyslexia, independently of a phonological disorder. In this study, this hypothesis was assessed in two large samples of French and British dyslexic children whose performance was compared to that of chronological-age matched control children. Results of the French study show that the VA span capacities account for a substantial amount of unique variance in reading, as do phonological skills. The British study replicates this finding and further reveals that the contribution of the VA span to reading performance remains even after controlling IQ, verbal fluency, vocabulary and single letter identification skills, in addition to phoneme awareness. In both studies, most dyslexic children exhibit a selective phonological or VA span disorder. Overall, these findings support a multi-factorial view of developmental dyslexia. In many cases, developmental reading disorders do not seem to be due to phonological disorders. We propose that a VA span deficit is a likely alternative underlying cognitive deficit in dyslexia.     

Semantic interference on a phonological task in illiterate subjects

Previous research suggests that learning an alphabetic written language influences aspects of the auditory-verbal language system. In this study, we examined whether literacy influences the notion of words as phonological units independent of lexical semantics in literate and illiterate subjects. Subjects had to decide which item in a word- or pseudoword pair was phonologically longest. By manipulating the relationship between referent size and phonological length in three word conditions (congruent, neutral, and incongruent) we could examine to what extent subjects focused on form rather than meaning of the stimulus material. Moreover, the pseudoword condition allowed us to examine global phonological awareness independent of lexical semantics. The results showed that literate performed significantly better than illiterate subjects in the neutral and incongruent word conditions as well as in the pseudoword condition. The illiterate group performed least well in the incongruent condition and significantly better in the pseudoword condition compared to the neutral and incongruent word conditions and suggest that performance on phonological word length comparisons is dependent on literacy. In addition, the results show that the illiterate participants are able to perceive and process phonological length, albeit less well than the literate subjects, when no semantic interference is present. In conclusion, the present results confirm and extend the finding that illiterate subjects are biased towards semantic-conceptual-pragmatic types of cognitive processing.     

How to Make Naturalism Safe for Supernaturalism: An Evaluation of Willem Drees's Supernaturalistic Naturalism

Naturalism is often considered to be antithetical to theology and genuine religion. However, in a series of recent books and articles, Willem Drees has proposed a scientifically informed naturalistic account of religion, which, he contends, is not only compatible with supernaturalistic religion and theology but provides a better account of both than either purely naturalistic or purely supernaturalistic accounts. While rejecting both epistemological and methodological naturalism, Drees maintains that ontological naturalism offers the best philosophical account of the natural world and that, in addition, it provides the opening for a supernaturalistic understanding of religion and theology, one that best fits the condition of epistemic and moral distance from the transcendent characteristic of religious wonderers and wanderers. In this paper I examine Drees's claim and argue that it is seriously flawed. I show that Drees's naturalism is, in fact, both methodologically and epistemologically naturalistic. I also show that his attempts to limit naturalism to the sphere of the natural world by means of the phenomena of limit questions and underdetermination fail. Arguing for a more optimistic, but also, I contend, more empirically accurate account of human epistemic and moral capacities, I propose a full-fledged scientifically based naturalistic account of theology.     

驾驶员视觉注意对危险识别的影响及作用机制

驾驶中, 有效的视觉注意模式是驾驶员搜索与识别潜在道路危险的先决条件。通过分析驾驶员视觉注意对危险识别的影响, 提出情境意识假设与心理负荷假设。情境意识假设认为, 情境意识的质量决定了驾驶员视觉注意模式的灵活性, 进而影响危险识别。心理负荷假设认为, 心理负荷水平提高, 驾驶员视觉注意趋于集中, 不利于危险识别。建议未来研究可以在比较不同驾驶员情境意识的认知兼容性, 应用汽车驾驶自动化技术降低心理负荷以及检测并区分情境意识与心理负荷的影响等方面加以深入。