Spatial distance effects on incremental semantic interpretation of abstract sentences: Evidence from eye tracking

A large body of evidence has shown that visual context information can rapidly modulate language comprehension for concrete sentences and when it is mediated by a referential or a lexical-semantic link. What has not yet been examined is whether visual context can also modulate comprehension of abstract sentences incrementally when it is neither referenced by, nor lexically associated with, the sentence. Three eye-tracking reading experiments examined the effects of spatial distance between words (Experiment 1) and objects (Experiment 2 and 3) on participants’ reading times for sentences that convey similarity or difference between two abstract nouns (e.g., ‘Peace and war are certainly different...’). Before reading the sentence, participants inspected a visual context with two playing cards that moved either far apart or close together. In Experiment 1, the cards turned and showed the first two nouns of the sentence (e.g., ‘peace’, ‘war’). In Experiments 2 and 3, they turned but remained blank. Participants’ reading times at the adjective (Experiment 1: first-pass reading time; Experiment 2: total times) and at the second noun phrase (Experiment 3: first-pass times) were faster for sentences that expressed similarity when the preceding words/objects were close together (vs. far apart) and for sentences that expressed dissimilarity when the preceding words/objects were far apart (vs. close together). Thus, spatial distance between words or entirely unrelated objects can rapidly and incrementally modulate the semantic interpretation of abstract sentences.     

THE BLOSSOMS OF LOSS: OVID'S FLORAL METAMORPHOSES AND POUSSIN'S REALM OF FLORA

Alluring and fertile, the flower connotes a locus of desire. The floral metamorphic myths narrated in Ovid's Metamorphoses (AD 8a) thematize the price of desire—the shame, grief, and rage of rejection and rivalrous defeat—and symbolize the generative transformation that frustrated desire and competitive loss can promote. In the deceptively beautiful painting Realm of Flora of 1631, Nicolas Poussin enlists these myths as allegories of his own great creative leap, an aesthetic metamorphosis that followed shattering defeats. Extending the association between creativity and object loss to competitive loss, Poussin holds a mirror to our powerful drive to prevail and create anew from the ashes of loss.     

Synchrony,complexity and directiveness in mothers’ interactions with infants pre- and post-cochlear implantation

This study investigated effects of profound hearing loss on mother–infant interactions before and after cochlear implantation with a focus on maternal synchrony, complexity, and directiveness. Participants included two groups of mother–infant dyads: 9 dyads of mothers and infants with normal hearing; and 9 dyads of hearing mothers and infants with profound hearing loss. Dyads were observed at two time points: Time 1, scheduled to occur before cochlear implantation for infants with profound hearing loss (mean age = 13.6 months); and Time 2 (mean age = 23.3 months), scheduled to occur approximately six months after cochlear implantation. Hearing infants were age-matched to infants with hearing loss at both time points. Dependent variables included the proportion of maternal utterances that overlapped infant vocalizations, maternal mean length of utterance, infant word use, and combined maternal directives and prohibitions. Results showed mothers’ utterances overlapped the vocalizations of infants with hearing loss more often before cochlear implantation than after, mothers used less complex utterances with infants with cochlear implants compared to hearing peers (Time 2), and mothers of infants with profound hearing loss used frequent directives and prohibitions both before and after cochlear implantation. Together, mothers and infants adapted relatively quickly to infants’ access to cochlear implants, showing improved interactional synchrony, increased infant word use, and levels of maternal language complexity compatible with infants’ word use, all within seven months of cochlear implant activation.     

Collective student characteristics alter the effects of teaching practices on academic outcomes

The goal of this study was to examine the influence of collective student characteristics (academic skills and task persistence at the beginning of first grade) and different teaching practices (child-centered, teacher-directed, and child-dominated) on the development of academic skills and task persistence during the first two years in school. We hypothesized that teaching practices would differentially impact the development of academic skills and task persistence depending on the collective needs of the classroom. Participants were 523 students (273 boys) from 32 classrooms across Estonia. By using multilevel modeling, we found several interactions indicating that both contextual influences are important in determining subsequent academic functioning and task persistence but that some teaching practices are more beneficial depending on the collective starting point of students. These findings highlight the importance of studying different contextual influences hand in hand when trying to understand what enhances young children's academic development.     

人之将尽,消费国货？死亡信息的暴露增加国货选择的现象、中介和边界条件解析

死亡信息无处无时不在。恐惧管理理论认为,死亡暴露会促使个体采取两种防御机制：支持文化世界观和提升自尊。来自西方发达国家消费者的数据显示,死亡暴露会促使这些消费者偏爱国货、支持文化世界观,内在机制是爱国主义情绪的唤醒。但对将购买外国货视为追求高自尊和高身份的发展中国家消费者而言,尚没有学者检验死亡暴露会促使他们继续购买外国货以提升自尊,还是转而购买国货以支持文化世界观。本文用实验检验了这两种竞争预测,发现死亡暴露会增加发展中国家消费者的国货选择,但机制是补偿个人控制感的缺失。同时,已有探讨死亡暴露与国货偏好的研究并没有检验何时死亡暴露将不再增加国货偏好,本文发现启动亲密的人际归属感是边界条件。     

THE CHANGING CULTURAL CONTEXT OF THE INSTITUTE ON RELIGION IN AN AGE OF SCIENCE AND ZYGON

Since Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science was founded 49 years ago and since one of its co‐publishers, the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS), was founded 60 years ago, there have been significant developments in their various cultural contexts—in science, in religion, in culture, in academia, and in the science and religion dialogue. This article is a personal remembrance and reflection that compares the context of IRAS in 1954 when it was first organized with the context of IRAS and Zygon today. It considers the contemporary niche of IRAS in relation to the developments that have occurred over the past 60 years.     

6~10岁儿童对损人情境下行为者的道德情绪判断与归因

采用故事情境法探讨6~10岁儿童对损人情境下损人者和旁观者的道德情绪判断与归因的发展。结果发现：（1）在损人情境下,6岁儿童能理解损人行为是不对的,但直到8岁儿童才能理解旁观行为是不对的;（2）随着年龄增长,儿童判断损人者的愉悦程度逐渐降低,情绪归因从结果定向过渡到道德定向;儿童判断旁观者的愉悦程度逐渐降低,情绪归因从无法有效归因过渡到道德定向;（3）儿童对不同行为者的道德情绪判断同时受年龄和性别的影响,6岁男孩判断损人者愉悦程度显著高于女孩,6岁男孩判断旁观者愉悦程度显著低于女孩;8岁和10岁儿童对两类行为者的道德情绪判断未发现显著的性别差异。     

Caffeine reduces the impact of drowsiness on driving errors

AimThe study examined the moderating effect of repeat-dose, chewing gum-administered caffeine on the well-established relationship between drowsiness and driving performance, under the conditions of accumulating sleep loss.Method50-h sleep deprivation protocol with a double-blind, placebo-controlled design. Eleven volunteers (6 male), aged 18–28 years were screened for pre-existing medical conditions (including sleep disturbances), tobacco and recreational drug use, recent time-zone travel and shift-work. They were randomly allocated to placebo or caffeine group and administered 4 oral doses of either caffeinated gum pellets (200 mg/dose) or non-caffeinated placebo gum every two hours (01:00, 03:00, 05:00, 07:00) on the first and second nights of the protocol. Participants were constantly monitored and remained awake for 50 h, while performing 15 identical, evenly-spaced 40-min monotonous driving tasks in a medium-fidelity moving-base driving simulator. Their drowsiness was monitored with a spectacle frame-mounted infra-red sensor registering ocular parameters and converting them into a Johns Drowsiness Scale (JDS) score every 60 s. Lane keeping and speed variability measures were used to assess driving performance.ResultsDriving performance declined and drowsiness increased from the first simulated drive to the last. When driving performance was examined in one-minute epochs synchronised with JDS scores, both lateral lane positioning and speed variability were found to be associated with drowsiness. The strength of this association was significantly weaker in the caffeine group, compared to placebo. Placebo group replicated the linear relationship between drowsiness and driving errors across the full range of JDS scores. This pattern was significantly weaker under the caffeine condition, and was even reversed at the upper range of JDS, with higher JDS scores not resulting in further degradation of driving performance. This dissociation between drowsiness and driving errors persisted across the 24-h cycle under the caffeine condition, despite caffeine being administered only during early morning hours.ConclusionStrategically timed, repeat 200 mg doses of caffeine administered via chewing gum can mitigate fatigue-induced impairments in driving performance by not only reducing drowsiness but also by significantly weakening its impact on driving errors. This dual effect of sustained drowsiness reduction and the dissociation between drowsiness levels and driving errors seems worth further investigation as it might offer an effective emergency countermeasure against driver drowsiness and its subsequent conversion into potentially fatal driving errors.