东西方面孔异族效应机理的电生理学证据

采取事件相关电位方法研究东西方面孔记忆编码的差异（DM效应）,从而阐明异族效应的神经机制。14名被试学习和再认东西方面孔照片的实验结果表明,无论记住与否,西方面孔产生的早期成分（潜伏期70~220ms）在头皮额部有一个比东方面孔更为正向的变化,表明在此阶段更多的资源分配于异族面孔,支持异族效应产生的特征选择假说。无论东方面孔还是西方面孔,记住与未记住相比较,则在额部和顶部产生潜伏期在晚期正成分（LPC）范围的正走向变化,但西方面孔在240~320ms潜伏期范围内,DM效应较小。另外,东方面孔在枕部诱发出一个明显的负波N260,而西方面孔产生的N260很小甚至没有,反映了大脑对不同种族面孔的编码机制有所不同,因而可能被称为“种族特异波”     

Contextual learning induces an increase in the number of hippocampal CA1 neurons expressing high levels of BDNF

We examined behaviorally induced expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in area CA1 of the hippocampus. Sprague-Dawley rats were trained in a contextual fear conditioning (CFC) task, sacrificed 4h later, and their brains were processed for immunohistochemistry. We found distinctively high levels of BDNF immunoreactivity in a small number ( approximately 1%) of CA1 neurons in untrained animals. The number of these exceptional neurons, which are identified as BDNF(++) in this study, was increased by up to approximately 3% after CFC. This increase was blocked in the presence of a memory-impairing dose of a NMDA receptor antagonist (MK801 0.3 mg/kg, i.p.) given 30 min prior to training. The BDNF signal intensity in BDNF(++) neurons correlated with that of surrounding glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) 65. This correlation between GAD65 and BDNF signal intensities suggests that BDNF upregulation was associated with increased signaling via inhibitory GABAergic synapses that would lessen further intervening neuronal activity. Our observation that neurons which upregulate BDNF expression following a learning experience are rich in GAD65-enriched afferent synapses suggests that these neurons may have distinct roles in memory consolidation.     

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。     

Managing religions: state responses to religious diversity

After 9/11 there is a general sense of the crisis of liberalism and secularism, and the need for greater security and surveillance. Diasporic Muslim communities have been increasingly the target of government interventions and investigations, resulting in various forms of governmentality that in fact constitute a ‘management of Muslims.’ The traditional strategies of benign neglect have been replaced by periods of intense governmental activity. The idea of ‘managing Muslims’ is often disguised by a more neutral terminology such as pluralism or multiculturalism. This article examines two versions of the management of religions from policies of ‘upgrading’ or retraining of Muslims for modernity to more robust policies of containment, rendition and seclusion. The result of securitisation and globalisation is the rise of a new type of society that I call ‘the enclave society.’ In such societies governments are creating new policies of ‘enclavement’ to quarantine communities that are undesirable or unwanted or dangerous. The mobility of a global society is now being constrained by encirclement and enclavement through building walls, ghettoes, catchments and no-go areas. Such policies are likely to be counter productive, requiring an escalation of draconian interventions.     

The contributory role of worry in emotion generation and dysregulation in generalized anxiety disorder

The role of worry in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) has been posited to serve as an avoidance of emotional experience, and emotion regulation deficits in GAD have been found in several previous studies. It remains unclear whether those with GAD experience more dysregulated emotions during periods of euthymia and positive affect or whether these deficits occur only during periods of worry. Individuals with GAD (with and without co-occurring dysphoria) and non-anxious controls were randomly assigned to receive a worry, neutral, or relaxation induction. Following the induction, all participants viewed a film clip documented to elicit sadness. Intensity of emotions and emotion regulation were examined following the induction period and film clip. The results revealed that, regardless of co-occurring dysphoria, individuals with GAD in the worry condition experienced more intense depressed affect than GAD participants in the other conditions and controls participants. In contrast, presence of worry appeared to have less impact on indices of emotion dysregulation, which were greater in participants with GAD compared to controls, but largely insensitive to contextual effects of worry or of relaxation. Following film viewing, both GAD participants with and without dysphoria displayed poorer understanding, acceptance, and management of emotions than did controls. However, acceptance and management deficits were most pronounced in individuals with both GAD and co-occurring dysphoria. Implications for the role of emotions in conceptualization and treatment of GAD are discussed.     

Improving postswitch performance in the dimensional change card-sorting task: the importance of the switch and of pretraining by redescribing the test cards

The dimensional change card-sorting task (DCCS) is used to assess the executive abilities of young children. Typically, 3-year-olds have difficulty in performing this task. However, the exact nature of this difficulty is still being debated. In the standard DCCS, children need to sort, for example, test cards with a blue flower or a red car into two boxes marked with the target cards. The 3-year-olds commonly have pronounced difficulty in switching from one sorting criterion (e.g., color) to another (e.g., shape). Here two experiments with 3-year-olds showed that making the transition between the sorting criteria more distinct improved performance significantly. This was achieved by taking away the target cards for a brief time period, asking a question irrelevant to the task, and pretraining the children by redescribing the test cards.     

Oculomotor and manual indexes of incidental and intentional spatial sequence learning during middle childhood and adolescence

The goal of this study was to examine incidental and intentional spatial sequence learning during middle childhood and adolescence. We tested four age groups (8-10 years, 11-13 years, 14-17 years, and young adults [18+ years]) on a serial reaction time task and used manual and oculomotor measures to examine incidental sequence learning. Participants were also administered a trial block in which they were explicitly instructed to learn a sequence. Replicating our previous study with adults, oculomotor anticipations and response times showed learning effects similar to those in the manual modality. There were few age-related differences in the sequence learning indexes during incidental learning, but intentional learning yielded differences on all indexes. Results indicate that the search for regularities and the ability to learn a sequence rapidly under incidental conditions are mature by 8 to 10 years of age. In contrast, the ability to learn a sequence intentionally, which requires cognitive resources and strategies, continues to develop through adolescence.     

Multiple Cues in Social Perception: The Time Course of Processing Race and Facial Expression

The purpose of the present study was to examine the time course of race and expression processing to determine how these cues influence early perceptual as well as explicit categorization judgments. Despite their importance in social perception, little research has examined how social category information and emotional expression are processed over time. Moreover, although models of face processing suggest that the two cues should be processed independently, this has rarely been directly examined. Event-related brain potentials were recorded as participants made race and emotion categorization judgments of Black and White men posing either happy, angry, or neutral expressions. Our findings support that processing of race and emotion cues occur independently and in parallel, relatively early in processing.     

Developmental changes in infants' processing of happy and angry facial expressions: a neurobehavioral study

Event-related brain potentials were measured in 7- and 12-month-old infants to examine the development of processing happy and angry facial expressions. In 7-month-olds a larger negativity to happy faces was observed at frontal, central, temporal and parietal sites (Experiment 1), whereas 12-month-olds showed a larger negativity to angry faces at occipital sites (Experiment 2). These data suggest that processing of these facial expressions undergoes development between 7 and 12 months: while 7-month-olds exhibit heightened sensitivity to happy faces, 12-month-olds resemble adults in their heightened sensitivity to angry faces. In Experiment 3 infants' visual preference was assessed behaviorally, revealing that the differences in ERPs observed at 7 and 12 months do not simply reflect differences in visual preference.     

事件性前瞻记忆的加工机制：来自ERP的证据

采用事件相关电位技术,对前瞻记忆的加工机制——主要是执行前的加工机制进行研究。控制条件为单纯的背景任务,实验条件为背景任务含前瞻记忆任务,对两种条件下非靶线索的行为数据进行比较,结果表明实验条件下被试的反应时显著长于控制条件,可能说明两种条件的认知过程存在差异,这种差异在ERPs上主要体现为刺激呈现200ms以后,两种条件的波形和脑地形图存在显著差异。结果支持预备注意加工和记忆加工理论,也部分支持多重加工理论