The emotional geographies of neoliberal school reforms: Spaces of refuge and containment

This paper draws from a larger research project about the post high school transitions of young people who were at school during New Zealand’s neoliberal reforms. Our participants included a group of four young men excluded from school and redirected to an Alternative Education programme. Their accounts of their experiences at school differed starkly from what they said about their Alternative Education programme. The emotional content of their accounts reveals how the social and material practices of these respective education sites are constituted differently. Alternative Education operated as a space of refuge from alienation experienced in mainstream schooling as well as a site of containment, separating Alternative Education students from their mainstream peers. Focusing on the emotional geography of one Alternative Education programme offers insight into the emotional geographies of mainstream schooling and, more broadly, of neoliberal education reforms. Drawing on ideas from Massey and Bondi, we demonstrate how alienation is produced and manifested on different scales: teacher–student interactions, school exclusions and policies establishing Alternative Education. The Alternative Education programme discussed here provides a barometer of the broader emotional geographies of New Zealand’s neoliberal education reforms.     

Is Viewing Ostracism on Television Distressing?

ABSTRACT

Being ostracized can be a painful and distressing experience and can lead to subsequent aggression by the victim. However, it is unknown whether watching someone else be ostracized either in real life or on television is similarly distressing. The purpose of the current study was to examine what type of distress (if any) is induced after viewing ostracism on television. The study consisted of 50 participants, half who viewed a movie clip containing ostracism and half who viewed a control clip. Physiological and self-report data revealed that viewing ostracism was distressing to participants. In particular, participants who viewed the ostracism clip reported a lower sense of belonging, self esteem, and mood, and a greater increase in heart rate and skin conductivity than those who viewed the control clip.     

Is ostracism a strong situation? The influence of personality in reactions to rejection

Previous research has demonstrated that ostracism from a social group generates psychological distress. As it stands, only a few previous studies have found evidence that immediate reactions to ostracism are moderated by individual differences. Using the classic Cyberball paradigm, the present research examined a comprehensive set of personality moderators and used the largest sample size to date of lab studies evaluating the effects of ostracism (N = 270). Results indicated that when personality effects were observed in the control condition, they tended to be attenuated in the exclusion condition. More broadly, however, the findings provide little evidence that negative reactions to ostracism are strongly influenced by individual differences in personality.     

不同背景噪音干扰下的数字短时记忆研究

以三种类型(交通噪音、生活噪音、舒缓乐音)三种声级(40.7dBA、56.4dBA、73.3dBA)的环境噪音作为无关声音刺激,考察其对数字短时记忆广度和Sternberg任务的影响,发现:(1)背景噪音的不同对个体数字短时记忆广度影响没有显著差异;(2)背景噪音声级的不同对个体删除极端数值后正确反应的反应时及对“极错总比率”都有显著的影响;(3)对于删除极端数值后的正确反应来说,在不同背景噪音存在下,随着记忆集的增大,反应时仍然呈直线上升趋势。     

TESTS FOR CONTROL BY EXCLUSION AND NEGATIVE STIMULUS RELATIONS OF ARBITRARY MATCHING TO SAMPLE IN A “SYMMETRY-EMERGENT” CHIMPANZEE

In the present experiments, controlling relations in arbitrary matching-to-sample performance were tested in a 9-year-old female chimpanzee who showed statistically significant emergence of symmetry in previous two-choice conditional discrimination experiments. In Experiment 1, a novel (undefined) sample stimulus was followed by a pair of trained (defined) and undefined comparison stimuli to assess the control by exclusion in arbitrary matching. The chimpanzee selected the undefined shape comparison, excluding the defined one, in color-sample-to-shape-comparison probe trials, although stimulus preferences were relatively stronger than control by exclusion in shape-sample trials. An additional test for control by relations of the sample to the positive comparison (S+ control) showed that her behavior was also under the control of relations of the sample to the positive comparison. In Experiment 2, a defined sample was followed by a pair of negatively defined and undefined comparisons to test control by the relations of the sample to the negative comparison. (S- control). The subject selected undefined comparisons in both color-shape and shape-color test trials. These results clearly indicate that the conditional discrimination behavior of this “symmetry-emergent” chimpanzee was under both S+ and S- control. Furthermore, her performance was also under control by exclusion in color-shape arbitrary matching, unlike other chimpanzees who showed no evidence of symmetry but only S+ control of arbitrary matching.     

元音和复合声识别中噪声分离机制的实验研究

该文用配对比较方法,从人调谐波的数量对谐波筛的影响（实验一）,失调谐波的位置（实验二）以及谐波相位与其失调幅度之间的相互作用（实验三）等三个方面对失调谐波的分离机制进行了探讨,研究结果表明：（１）多个谐波同时失调时其失效效应要比单个谐波强,即谐波失调存在累积效应;（２）谐波次数不同,其失调效应也存在的差异,这种差异与谐波和共振峰之间的距离有关,谐波越靠近共振峰,其失调效应明显,但对由等振幅的谐波系     

汉字内隐记忆的实验研究(Ⅲ):检验加工分离说的修正模型

实验1和实验2依据目标字和非目标字两种条件,比较了再认、整字偏好、包含、排除四类测验。在“过程不纯净”假设的前提下．检验了加工分离说（PDP）的修正模型并得到以下结果：（1）PDP修正馍型的结论与匹配比较法的结果吻合。本实验条件下,偏好测验是“纯净”的．但无意识影响参与了再认测验。（2）PDP修正模型关于R＞R。的理论结果得到了目标字与非目标字两种条件下的实验的证实。另外．关于无意识影响遵循的规律与指导语无关的理论推测也得到了证实。（3）再认与偏好测验出现了功能分离。PDP修正模型可以解释其本质。（4）750ms呈现刺激时,反应倾向的规津是：外显过程比内隐过程严格;两过程均不受注意程度的作用而发生波动。     

Empirically Supported Complexity

Abstract— Over the last 10 years, evidence-based practice in psychology has become synonymous with a particular operationalization of it aimed at developing a list of empirically supported therapies. Although much has been learned since the emergence of the empirically supported therapies movement, its restrictive definition of evidence (excluding, for example, basic science as a source of evidence to be used by clinicians) is problematic, and the assumptions inherent in its nearly exclusive focus on brief, focal treatments for specific disorders are themselves not generally supported by the available data. Recent meta-analytic data support a more nuanced view of treatment efficacy than one that makes dichotomous judgments of empirically supported or unsupported, suggesting the need for a more refined concept of evidence-based practice in psychology.     

Feelings of control during social exclusion are partly accounted for by empathizing personality

It has been demonstrated that social exclusion, or ostracism, results in a decrease in four fundamental human needs: belonging, control, self-esteem, and meaningful existence. We replicated these results, and examined how empathizing and systemizing cognitive styles accounts for variation in the experience of social exclusion (self-reported distress and the four fundamental needs) during an internet ball toss game. Participants’ standardized combined score (D Score) from the Empathizing Quotient (EQ-S) and Systemizing Quotient (SQ-S) (Wakabayashi et al., 2006) was a significant predictor of the decrease in the fundamental need, control. In other words, empathizers reported feeling less in control compared to systemizers during the ball toss game regardless of exclusion or inclusion. These findings suggest that individuals who score high on empathizing struggle more with the lack of control when involved in an situation where they do not have influence over the social interaction in which they are taking part.     

The role of the auditory brainstem in processing linguistically-relevant pitch patterns

Historically, the brainstem has been neglected as a part of the brain involved in language processing. We review recent evidence of language-dependent effects in pitch processing based on comparisons of native vs. nonnative speakers of a tonal language from electrophysiological recordings in the auditory brainstem. We argue that there is enhancing of linguistically-relevant pitch dimensions or features well before the auditory signal reaches the cerebral cortex. We propose that long-term experience with a tone language sharpens the tuning characteristics of neurons along the pitch axis with enhanced sensitivity to linguistically-relevant, rapidly changing sections of pitch contours. Though not specific to a speech context, experience-dependent brainstem mechanisms for pitch representation are clearly sensitive to particular aspects of pitch contours that native speakers of a tone language have been exposed to. Such experience-dependent effects on lower-level sensory processing are compatible with more integrated, hierarchically organized pathways to language and the brain.