2~3岁幼儿执行功能与母子互动的关系:幼儿气质的调节作用

研究考察幼儿气质与母子互动质量对执行功能的作用。160名2~3岁幼儿及其母亲（主要抚养者）完成了亲子互动任务,然后幼儿完成工作记忆、认知灵活性与抑制控制的测查任务。结果发现母子互动质量对幼儿认知灵活性有显著预测作用,幼儿努力控制负向调节母子互动与认知灵活性的关系,即幼儿努力控制维度得分越高,母子互动对幼儿认知灵活性的作用越小。研究表明幼儿气质与亲子互动质量的交互作用解释幼儿执行功能的发展水平。     

超重女性对食物信息加工的注意偏向和记忆偏向

采用与食物图片相关的点探测任务和学习—再认范式考察超重女性对不同热量食物信息的注意偏向和记忆偏向。结果发现：(1) 超重女性对高热量食物信息存在注意警觉—注意脱离困难模式,对低热量食物信息仅表现为注意回避模式。(2) 超重组女性对高热量食物信息的再认正确率显著高于正常体重组,而对低热量食物信息的再认成绩组间差异不显著。研究结果证实了超重女性对高热量食物信息投入更多的认知资源,存在注意偏向和记忆偏向。     

Multiple sclerosis,emotion perception and social functioning

People with multiple sclerosis (MS) can experience problems in interpreting others’ emotions from faces or voices. However, to date little is known about whether difficulties in emotion perception in MS are related to broader aspects of social functioning. Also, there are few studies reporting the effect of MS on more ecologically valid assessments of emotion perception using multimodal videos. The current study looks at (1) the effect of MS on perceiving emotions from faces, voices and multimodal videos; (2) the possible role of slowed processing and executive dysfunction in emotion perception problems in MS and (3) the relationship between emotion perception and broader social functioning in MS. 53 people with MS and 31 healthy controls completed tasks of emotion perception and cognition, and assessed their levels of social support and social participation. Participants with MS performed worse than demographically matched controls on all measures of emotion perception. Emotion perception performance was related to cognitive measures in those with MS. Also, significant associations were found between emotion perception difficulties in MS and poorer social function. In particular, people with MS who had poorer emotion perception also reported lower levels of social support from their friends, and regression analysis showed that this prediction was maintained even when disease severity and cognitive function were taken into account. These results show that problems with emotion perception in MS extend to more realistic tasks and may predict key aspects of social functioning.     

A comparison of 8- and 11-year-old girls' and boys' participation in specific types of rough-and-tumble play and aggressive fighting: Implications for functional hypotheses

Study 1 compared the extent to which 8- and 11-year-old girls and boys (N = 86) participated in specific types of rough-and-tumble play. It used an observational methodology. The data were used to test two prominent hypotheses about the evolutionary function of this general category of play behaviour that have been applied to children, especially boys, of this age. One is that rough-and-tumble play provides practice for the development of real fighting skills and the other that it serves as a safe way to establish/display social dominance. Both hypotheses predict that boys will engage in more rough-and-tumble play than girls, especially those types that are used in fighting/dominance contests. Boys were found to engage in significantly more chase initiation activities, more bouts of brief rough-and-tumble play, more bouts of restraining and more bouts of boxing/hitting than girls. These data provide some support for the two hypotheses, although significant sex differences were not found for all types of rough-and-tumble play observed. No significant age differences were obtained, suggesting that the two hypotheses may be applicable throughout the 8- to 11-year-old period and not just at the end of it as previous research had suggested. Study 2 presented observational data concerning the motor patterns used in aggressive fighting. In all but one case, there were no significant differences in the extent to which 8/9- and 10/11-year-old girls and boys employed wrestling, hitting and restraining, supporting the view that the practice fighting hypothesis is relevant throughout the 8-11-year-old period. It was argued that age and sex differences provide a useful means of scrutinising functional hypotheses, and that splitting behavioural categories that contain disparate action patterns facilitates more refined tests of those hypotheses. © 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

On the evaluation of one-sided evidence

We examine predictions and judgments of confidence based on one-sided evidence. Some subjects saw arguments for only one side of a legal dispute while other subjects (called ‘jurors’) saw arguments for both sides. Subjects predicted the number of jurors who favored the plaintiff in each case. Subjects who saw only one side made predictions that were biased in favor of that side. Furthermore, they were more confident but generally less accurate than subjects who saw both sides. The results indicate that people do not compensate sufficiently for missing information even when it is painfully obvious that the information available to them is incomplete. A simple manipulation that required subjects to evaluate the relative strength of the opponent's side greatly reduced the tendency to underweigh missing evidence.     

Information seeking on Bayesian conditional probability problems: A fuzzy-trace theory account

Recently, the ‘heuristics and biases’ approach to the study of decision making has been criticized, with a call for better integrated theory. Three experiments stemming from fuzzy-trace theory addressed information seeking on probability problems, and the cognitive representation of hit-rates, base-rates, and the contrapositive. As predicted by the fuzzy-trace principle of ‘denominator neglect’, many subjects exhibited ‘conversion errors’, confusing the hit-rate, P(A|B), with the answer, P(B|A). These subjects sought base-rates less often than other subjects. On causal problems, more subjects correctly represented base-rates, sought base-rates more often, and produced more accurate estimates than on non-causal problems. Subjects tutored on the meaning of the hit-rate sought the base-rate more often, and were more accurate than control subjects. Results are explained by fuzzy-trace theory principles of gist extraction, fuzzy processing preference, denominator neglect, and output interference.     

Teaching children with autism spectrum disorder to ask “where” questions using a speech-generating device

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who have limited speech are often taught to communicate using a speech-generating device (SGD). We evaluated procedures for teaching a mand for information (i.e., Where is [item]?) using an interrupted behavior chain procedure. In Experiment 1, all participants (3 children with ASD who communicated using an SGD) acquired the target mand but transfer to a novel stimulus did not occur. In the second experiment, 2 participants were taught to approach alternative communication partners when the first partner did not provide the information. The second experiment also included procedures to test whether the responses were under the control of appropriate motivating operations (MOs). Generalization across communication partners occurred with both participants, but transfer across behavior chains with only 1 participant. The results of both experiments suggest that teaching multiple behavior chains and evaluating MO control may be necessary to establish generalized manding for information.