Intentional Teaching Facilitates Young Children's Comprehension and Use of a Symbolic Object

Children are exposed to symbolic objects that they have to learn to use very early in life. The authors’ aim was to examine whether it is possible to intentionally teach young children the symbolic function of an object. They employed a search task in which children had to use a map to find a toy. Experiment 1 revealed that with no instruction 3-year-, 10-month-old children were quite successful; 3-year-, 6-month-olds showed a divided performance; and 3-year-, 0-month-olds failed. With this baseline, Experiment 2 compared the performance of 3-year-, 0-month-olds in three different conditions: no-instruction, complete instruction (before the task begins), and teaching (complete instruction plus corrective feedback); only children in the teaching condition succeeded. However, children 6 months younger, 2-year-, 6-month-olds, failed despite teaching that was provided (Study 3). This research shows that at some points in development instruction is not enough; intentional teaching in communicative contexts is the mechanism that boosts symbolic understanding in early childhood.     

负性情绪对压抑遗忘记忆的影响

该实验使用Think/No-think(T/NT)任务,从外显和内隐记忆两个方面探讨负性情绪、测试时间对压抑遗忘的影响。实验结果表明:在外显记忆成绩中情绪与T/NT任务的交互作用显著,在NT条件下中性词回忆的成绩优于负性词,同时,情绪的主效应显著,被试对中性词的记忆显著高于负性词。但是T/NT任务的主效应不显著,情绪×T/NT任务×测试时间的交互不显著。在内隐记忆成绩中,在所有条件下的记忆成绩均无显著性差异。     

论《荀子》的幽默艺术特色

目前对《荀子》作为著名散文著作之一的研究,从艺术性上的分析止于对其譬喻和大量排比句法的一般肯定。本文认为《荀子》中的幽默风格是应予关注到的艺术特点之一。文中的荒谬意味比喻、错倒描写、对因果不协调的现象原因的欲擒故纵的揭示、猜谜语谐隐游戏形式等幽默手法都值得珍视和进一步探索。     

小学学习成绩优生与差生有意遗忘中抑制能力的发展研究

有意遗忘是一种探讨个体抑制能力发展的新的记忆研究的实验范式。本研究以单字为实验材料,被试为小学二、四、六年级共90名学生,每个年级的学生按学习成绩好和差分别选取15人。实验结果为:1、小学生有意遗忘中的认知抑制能力是发展的;2、小学生有意遗忘中的认知抑制能力具有明显的个体差异,各年级小学生中学习成绩好的学生抑制能力强,学习成绩差的学生抑制能力弱。     

Retrieval inhibition of trauma-related words in women reporting repressed or recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse

Several authors have argued that survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) who report to have repressed their traumatic memories are more skilled in forgetting emotional stimuli than survivors who have always remembered the abuse. The current experiment employed a list-wise directed forgetting task to investigate whether women reporting repressed (n = 16) or recovered (n = 23) memories of CSA are better at forgetting disturbing material, relative to women reporting having always remembered their abuse (n = 55) or reporting no history of abuse (n = 20). We found no support for the hypothesis that women reporting repressed or recovered memories of CSA are especially versed in inhibiting retrieval of trauma-related words. Additional analyses revealed that participants characterized by a repressive coping style did not display a superior retrieval inhibition mechanism for negative material.     

Ontogeny of early event memory: I. Forgetting and retrieval by 2- and 3-month-olds

In 2 experiments, 2-month-olds, trained in the mobile conjugate reinforcement paradigm for two daily sessions, showed retrieval deficits relative to 3-month-olds. In Experiment 1, tests of simple forgetting administered to 2-month-olds after retention intervals of 1, 3, 6, and 9 days (a period over which 3-month-olds remember the contingency) indicated that their forgetting was complete after delays greater than 1 day. In Experiment 2, reactivation treatments administered to 2- and 3-month-olds alleviated forgetting after a retention interval of 28, but not 35, days in the 3-month-old group only. Previously, alleviated forgetting by a reactivation treatment had been demonstrated in 2-month-olds after a delay of 18 days. In both of the present experiments, performance of the two age groups did not differ during the immediate retention test at the end of training. These results suggest that neither the age of the infant nor the age of the memory determines memory retrieval after long delays; instead, it appears to be determined by the length of time that a memory has been inaccessible (i.e., forgotten). We propose that factors which delay simple forgetting will correspondingly increase the length of the interval over which a retrieval cue can still be effective in a reactivation paradigm, irrespective of the age of the infant or the age of the memory.     

王弼《易》注用《庄》论

《庄子》一书对王弼《周易注》的影响体现在王弼的注解方法、"理"概念及其它一些概念和运用上。受《庄子》的启发,王弼"言一象一意"的三层结构既能体察卦象和爻辞之中的深意,也能突破象敷的限制,阐发其中的义理。王弼的统宗会元之理和同理异职之理丰富了"理"概念的内涵,也对以后的宋明理学产生了巨大的影响。其它一些散见的对《庄子》的引用或化用为《周易注》添加玄学色彩之余,也让《庄子》与《周易》之间的联系变得更为紧密。     

Brief wakeful resting can eliminate directed forgetting

When cued to intentionally forget previously encoded memories, participants typically show reduced recall of the memories on a later recall test. We examined how such directed forgetting is affected by a brief period of wakeful resting between encoding and test. Encoding was followed by a “passive” wakeful resting period in which subjects heard emotionally neutral music or perceived neutral pictures, or it was followed by an “active” distraction period in which subjects were engaged in counting or calculation tasks. Whereas typical directed forgetting was present after active distraction, the forgetting was absent after wakeful resting. The findings indicate that the degree to which people can intentionally forget memories is influenced by the cognitive activity that people engage in shortly after learning takes place. The results provide first evidence on the interplay between wakeful resting and intentional forgetting.