Talking about proportion: Fraction labels impact numerical interference in non‐symbolic proportional reasoning

Across two experiments, we investigated how verbal labels impact the way young children attend to proportional information, well before the introduction of formal fraction education. Five‐ to seven‐year‐old children were introduced to equivalent non‐symbolic proportions labeled in one of three ways: (a) a single, categorical label for multiple fractions (both 3/4 and 6/8 referred to as “blick”), (b) labels that focused on the numerator [e.g., 3/4 labeled as “three blicks” (Experiment 1) or “three‐fourths” (Experiment 2)], or (c) labels that had a complete part‐whole structure (“three‐out‐of‐four”). Children then completed measures of non‐symbolic proportional reasoning that pitted whole‐number information against proportional information for novel proportions. Across both experiments, children who heard the categorical labels were more likely to match non‐symbolic displays based on proportion than children in any of the other conditions, who demonstrated higher levels of numerical interference. These findings suggest that fraction labels have the potential to shape children's attention to proportional information even in the context of non‐symbolic part‐whole displays and for children who are not familiar with formal fraction symbols. We discuss these findings in terms of children's developing understanding of proportional reasoning and its implications for fraction education.     

郑州大学知识女性心理健康现状分析及干预对策

应用症状自评量表(SCL-90)对163名郑州大学知识女性心理健康状况进行评定,发现:郑州大学知识女性躯体化因子分高于全国常模,总分和其余因子分均低于全国常模,且有非常显著性差异(P<0.001)。郑州大学知识女性心理健康优于一般人群,但仍存在一些问题,应制定相应的心理干预对策,维护和提高郑州大学知识女性的心理健康水平。     

Effects of stimulus-stimulus compatibility and stimulus-response compatibility on response inhibition

Previous studies demonstrated that interference control in stimulus–stimulus compatibility tasks slowed down stopping in the stop signal task (e.g., Kramer, A. F., Humphrey, D. G., Larish, J. F., Logan, G. D., & Strayer, D. L. (1994). Aging and inhibition: beyond a unitary view of inhibitory processing in attention. psychology and aging, 9, 491–512). In the present study, the impact of stimulus–stimulus compatibility and stimulus–response compatibility on response inhibition is further investigated. In Experiment 1, the stop signal task was combined with a traditional horizontal Simon task and with a vertical variant. For both dimensions, stopping responses was prolonged in incompatible trials, but only when the previous trial was compatible. In Experiment 2, the Simon task was combined with a spatial Stroop task in order to compare the effects of stimulus–stimulus and stimulus–response compatibility. The results demonstrated that both types of compatibility influenced stopping in a similar way. These findings are in favor of the hypothesis that response inhibition in the stop signal task and interference control in conflict tasks rely on similar mechanisms.     

Contributions of response set and semantic relatedness to cross-modal Stroop-like picture-word interference in children and adults

Resistance to interference from irrelevant auditory stimuli undergoes development throughout childhood. To test whether semantic processes account for age-related changes in a Stroop-like picture-word interference effect, children (3- to 12-year-olds) and adults named pictures while listening to words varying in terms of semantic relatedness to the pictures and response set membership. In Experiments 1 and 2, with animal and clothing pictures, the interference effect observed in children, but not in adults, depended on the distractors' status as members of the response set. In Experiment 3, with unrelated pictures, adults, but not children, showed greater interference for trials with distractors in the response set. These results indicate developmental changes in picture-word interference involving the establishment of a response set in working memory.     

Honeybees (Apis mellifera) holding on to memories: response competition causes retroactive interference effects

Five experiments on honeybees examined how the learning of a second task interferes with what was previously learned. Free flying bees were tested for landmark-based memory in variations on a paradigm of retroactive interference. Bees first learned Task 1, were tested on Task 1 (Test 1), then learned Task 2, and were tested again on Task 1 (Test 2). A 60-min delay (waiting in a box) before Test 2 caused no performance decrements. If the two tasks had conflicting response requirements, (e.g., target right of a green landmark in Task 1 and left of a blue landmark in Task 2), then a strong decrement on Test 2 was found (retroactive interference effect). When response competition was minimised during training or testing, however, the decrement on Test 2 was small or nonexistent. The results implicate response competition as a major contributor to the retroactive interference effect. The honeybee seems to hold on to memories; new memories do not wipe out old ones.     

Task-switching and long-term priming: role of episodic stimulus-task bindings in task-shift costs

When subjects switch between two tasks, performance is slower after a task switch than after a task repetition. We report five experiments showing that a large part of these "task-shift-costs" cannot be attributed to a control operation, needed to configure the cognitive system for the upcoming task (e.g., ). In all experiments subjects switched between picture-naming and word-reading. We presented different stimuli either in just one of the two tasks, or in both of them. Shift-costs were larger for stimuli presented in both tasks than for those presented in only one task, even after more than 100 intervening trials between prime and probe events. We suggest (as proposed by ) that stimuli acquire associations with the tasks in which they occur. When the current task activation is weak, as on a switch of tasks, stimuli can trigger retrieval of the associated, competing task, provoking larger time costs.     

Modality independence of order coding in working memory: Evidence from cross-modal order interference at recall

Working memory researchers do not agree on whether order in serial recall is encoded by dedicated modality-specific systems or by a more general modality-independent system. Although previous research supports the existence of autonomous modality-specific systems, it has been shown that serial recognition memory is prone to cross-modal order interference by concurrent tasks. The present study used a serial recall task, which was performed in a single-task condition and in a dual-task condition with an embedded memory task in the retention interval. The modality of the serial task was either verbal or visuospatial, and the embedded tasks were in the other modality and required either serial or item recall. Care was taken to avoid modality overlaps during presentation and recall. In Experiment 1, visuospatial but not verbal serial recall was more impaired when the embedded task was an order than when it was an item task. Using a more difficult verbal serial recall task, verbal serial recall was also more impaired by another order recall task in Experiment 2. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis of modality-independent order coding. The implications for views on short-term recall and the multicomponent view of working memory are discussed.     

Additivity of semantic and phonological effects: Evidence from speech production in Mandarin

A number of previous studies using picture–word interference (PWI) tasks conducted with speakers of Western languages have demonstrated non-additive effects of semantic and form overlap between pictures and words, which may indicate underlying non-discrete processing stages in lexical retrieval. The present study used Mandarin speakers and presented Chinese characters as distractors. In two experiments, we crossed semantic relatedness with “pure” phonological (i.e., orthographically unrelated) relatedness and found statistically additive effects. In a third experiment, semantic relatedness was crossed with orthographic overlap (phonological overlap was avoided), and once again we found an additive pattern. The results are discussed with regard to possible cross-linguistic differences between Western and non-Western languages in terms of phonological encoding, as well as concerning the locus of relatedness effects in PWI tasks.     

Unwanted reminders: The effects of emotional memory suppression on subsequent neuro-cognitive processing

The neural basis of voluntarily suppressing conscious access to one’s own memories (retrieval suppression [RS]) has recently received considerable attention. However, to date there has been limited research examining the effects of RS on subsequent processing of associated retrieval cues. In this study 47 healthy participants completed a Think/No Think task for memories of emotionally unpleasant visual scenes. While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), participants were then presented with cues associated with both suppressed (“no-think-cues”) and non-suppressed (“think-cues”) memories, and then asked to perform simple arithmetic problems. We observed that, compared to think-cues, no-think-cues were associated with greater left mid/anterior insula activation and with greater insula-anterior cingulate functional connectivity; left insula activation also predicted worse arithmetic performance. These results suggest that cues associated with suppressed negative memories may lead to greater activation of the brain’s “salience” network, and reduced available cognitive resources for completion of an ongoing goal-directed task.     

儿童认知几何图形干扰因素的研究

本研究旨在探讨影响儿童几何图形认知的几个主要因素及其作用的变化过程。研究对象是５－１０岁儿童１４５名,研究材料有长方形、三角形、梯形、椭圆形、平行四边形。选择直观因素、种类内干扰、种类外干扰３种干扰。采取称名、指认、分类、确认、鉴别５种实验指标。实验结果表明对几何图形非本质因素的摆脱、对变式图形的确认、对非同类相似图形的鉴别是儿童初级几何认知发展的重要标志;采集双重标准分类,对本质特征和非本质特征的离析是儿童几何图形分类能力发展的主要过渡形态;语言提示对儿童几何图形分类的改进作用不大,对确认和鉴别图形有显著性影响;小学二年级儿童的初级几何知识只相当于５岁儿童水平,这种现象值得有关教育部门重视。