STRUCTURING GLOBAL DEMOCRACY: POLITICAL COMMUNITIES, UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND TRANSNATIONAL REPRESENTATION

Abstract: The emergence of cross-border communities and transnational associations requires new ways of thinking about the norms involved in democracy in a globalized world. Given the significance of human rights fulfillment, including social and economic rights, I argue here for giving weight to the claims of political communities while also recognizing the need for input by distant others into the decisions of global governance institutions that affect them. I develop two criteria for addressing the scope of democratization in transnational contexts— common activities and impact on basic human rights —and argue for their compatibility. I then consider some practical implications for institutional transformation and design, including new forms of transnational representation .     

Chinese deaf adolescents' free recall of taxonomic, slot-filler, and thematic categories

Four experiments were conducted to show that deaf adolescents tended to process information in different ways from hearing adolescents. Memorizing items sequentially shown on computer screens under the control of their articulators' movements, deaf adolescents tended to treat items that cohered as taxonomic, thematic, or slot-filler categories as isolated pieces of information. Having to perceive information by means of sign language, however, their achievements were not worse than those of hearing adolescents anymore, no matter whether the stimuli were presented as words or pictures. They could not only utilize categories relations to help memorize categories exemplars but were relatively better aware of slot-filler or thematic than taxonomic relations as well, suggesting that they had a relatively delayed development of taxonomic category representations in comparison with hearing adolescents.     

时序知觉重复启动效应的作用机制

先前研究发现,时序判断任务在启动的靶刺激先出现时出现了重复启动效应的反转,这是以往的理论所不能单独解释的。通过两个实验对我们提出的双加工表征匹配调节假说加以实证检验,实验结果支持了该假说。因此,双加工表征匹配调节假说能较完整地综合解释时序知觉重复启动效应的作用机制     

ABUNDANT NATURE'S LONG-TERM OPENNESS TO HUMANE BIOCULTURAL DESIGNS

Not by Genes Alone excellently explains Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd's important ideas about human gene‐culture co‐evolution to a broader audience but remains short of a larger vision of civilization. Several decades ago Ralph Burhoe had seen that fertile possibility in Richerson and Boyd's work. I suggest getting past present reductionistic customs to a scientific perspective having an integral place for virtue. Subsystem agency is part of this view, as is the driving role of abundance, whose ultimate origins are in the mysterious, quintessentially energetic Big Bang. The free‐rider problem may not impede higher social organization as inexorably as Richerson and Boyd believe; “the tragedy” of enervating leakage from “the commons” may often be less influential than an invigorating flow of externalities to the commons. Eukaryotic origins mark the origin of inevitable wider sharing as higher living systems evolve. I use a metaphor of flesh and spirit in drawing a parallel between that turning point and the wide sharing that occurs in civilization. This helps solve the enigma of the demographic transition. Why do so many productive participants in first‐world societies severely restrict their selfish‐gene reproduction to below replacement birth rate? It is not because culture is maladaptive but because civilization's brain and womb have become partially differentiated in distinct populations. Considerations of social boundaries, myths of sacrifice, and human creativity help in understanding how human social evolution taps potentials present in reality. Human beings' diverse vigorous activities—the organized ones and the inadvertent ones, the wise and the foolish, the good and the bad, the carefully thoughtful and the merely playful—provide the ground of being, or primordial soup, for cultural entities that transcend our intentions. If we have it right for the most part and are fortunate, we will continue to emerge at higher levels.     

刻板印象的心理表征:范畴还是样例

选取较为强烈的、具有普遍性的性别刻板印象,操纵抽象范畴与具体样例的不同水平,探讨刻板印象的心理表征。结果发现：（1）刻板印象遵循典型样例优先、基础范畴次之、最后至上位范畴的“金字塔”表征模型,非典型样例则按上位范畴进行表征;（2）刻板印象抽象范畴与具体样例在加工过程中是独立的,二者遵循自我停止的系列加工方式;（3）刻板印象的抽象范畴和典型样例在后继信息加工中具有同化效应。     

对不同类网络信息态度的IAT研究

采用内隐联想测验（Implicit Association Test简称IAT）对不同类网络信息态度进行测量和研究。结果显示,无论是词汇测验还是图片测验,相容联结的平均反应时均小于不相容联结平均反应时,且差异显著。结论：（1）人们对于不同类的网络信息有一定的偏好,产生了IAT效应;（2）与政策信息相比,被试对娱乐信息的形式和内容（即实验中所采用的截图与词语）都表现出显著的偏好;（3）在内隐社会认知领域,存在对娱乐信息的偏好,且男女之间无性别差异。     

Effect of visual experience on iocational judgements after perspective change in small-scale space

Congenitally blind, late blind and blindfold sighted adults overleamed an object-array within a square frame by touch, and judged, facing the midpoint of the frame, the near/far/left/right locations of objects from sides and diagonally from corners. One-half were first guided to points (A-condition), the rest were first asked to imagine themselves as being at points (I-condition). Group and condition did not, but group and observation point did, interact. Lack of visual experience added to RTs and total times and increased errors especially at diagonal stations. Congenitally blind subjects differed from both late blind and blindfold sighted subjects. However, a section of the congenitally blind subjects attained the level of blindfold sighted subjects. The sequence A-I speeded up judgements in all groups. Group did not interact with size of space. Congenitally blind subjects reportedly resorted to holistic representations, but had specific limitations in using them at diagonal stations. Orientation skills of the congenitally blind in far space could be improved by practising perspective taking in near space.     

An account of consciousness in physical and functional terms: A target for research in the neurosciences

The neurophysiology of mental events cannot be fully understood unless that of consciousness is understood. As the first step in a top-down approach to that problem, one needs to find an account of consciousness as a property of the biological organism that can be clearly defined as such. However, if it is to deliver what must be expected of it, it should address what is commonly meant by the wordconsciousness. Unless the last condition is satisfied, the theory will fail to deliver what must ultimately be expected of it. Although current interest lies mainly in the higher functions of consciousness, such as its role in language and social relationships, the common usage of the word relates to modes of awareness that are not denied to creatures lacking language or social relationships. The basic features to be covered include awareness of the surrounding world, of the self, and of one’s thoughts and feelings; the subjective qualities of phenomenal experience (qualia); the conditions a brain event must satisfy to enter consciousness; and the main divisions of mental events, such as sensations, feelings, perceptions, desires, volitions, and mental images.     

条件推理中的命题语义加工

本研究运用五种不同情境内容的大前提和四种不同逻辑形式的小前提,组成２０种条件推理题,对１２７名大学生进行了测试,力图研究不同命题内容对不同形式的逻辑推理的影响,并进而探讨人们在条件推理中对前提进行语义加工的机制．本文提出了前提语义加工的“问题空间“的解释．     

Book Reviews

Kressel, Neil J. (ed.) Political Psychology: Classic and Contemporary Readings
Barber, James David The Book of Democracy
Aron, Adrianne and Corne, Shawn (eds) Writings for a Liberation Psychology: Ignacio Martin-Baró
Ettin, Mark F.; Fidler, Jay W. and Cohen, Bertram D. Group Processes and Political Dynamics