从王继先看宋医官与政治的关系

生活在南宋高宗建炎时期的王继先,由于精湛的医术和在朝廷中的尊贵地位,而声名显赫、盛极一时。王继先作为宫中御医,却在政治仕途上平步青云,并且在相当长的时期内权倾朝野,与权臣秦桧、宦官张去为共同构成三足鼎立的形势左右南宋政局。结合王继先的生平,对其与南宋政治的关系加以阐述。     

An interaction between prosody and statistics in the segmentation of fluent speech

Sensitivity to prosodic cues might be used to constrain lexical search. Indeed, the prosodic organization of speech is such that words are invariably aligned with phrasal prosodic edges, providing a cue to segmentation. In this paper we devise an experimental paradigm that allows us to investigate the interaction between statistical and prosodic cues to extract words from a speech stream. We provide evidence that statistics over the syllables are computed independently of prosody. However, we also show that trisyllabic sequences with high transition probabilities that straddle two prosodic constituents appear not to be recognized. Taken together, our findings suggest that prosody acts as a filter, suppressing possible word-like sequences that span prosodic constituents.     

The relation between language and cognition in 3- to 9-year-olds: the acquisition of grammatical gender in French

The French language has a grammatical gender system in which all nouns are assigned either a masculine or a feminine gender. Nouns provide two types of gender cues that can potentially guide gender attribution: morphophonological cues carried by endings and semantic cues (natural gender). The first goal of this study was to describe the acquisition of the probabilistic system based on phonological oppositions on word endings by French-speaking children. The second goal was to explore the extent to which this system affects categorization. In the study, 3- to 9-year-olds assigned gender categorization to invented nouns whose endings were typically masculine, typically feminine, or neutral. Two response conditions were used. In the determiner condition, children indicated the gender class by orally providing the determiner un or une marked for gender. In the picture condition, responses were given by pointing to the picture of a Martian-like female or male person that would be best called by each spoken pseudoword. Results indicated that as young as 3 years, children associated the determiner corresponding to the ending bias at greater than chance levels. Ending-consistent performance increased from 3 to 9 years of age. Moreover, from 4 years of age onward, sensitivity to endings affected categorization. Starting at that age, pictures were selected according to endings at greater than chance levels. This effect also increased with age. The discussion deals with the mechanisms of language acquisition and the relation between language and cognition.     

Early syntactic productivity: evidence from dative shift

The abstractness of children's early syntactic representations has been questioned in the recent acquisition literature. While some research has suggested that children's knowledge of basic constructions such as the transitive is robust and abstract at a very young age, other work has proposed that young children only have constructions that are specific to individual lexical items. The present paper seeks to resolve this discrepancy by examining children's abstract knowledge of the English dative alternation via a production study. The studies ask whether young children who hear a sentence like I pilked the cup to Petey know that the same meaning can be expressed with the sentence I pilked Petey the cup. This generalization is well-attested in the language that children hear and represents a strong test-case for determining the nature of children's early syntactic representations. The results indicate that three-year-old children have productive knowledge of the English dative alternation, but that their performance can be influenced by small changes in the nature of the task. A preference for the prepositional dative form is also found and the possible reasons for this preference are discussed.     

Developmental dyslexia: the visual attention span deficit hypothesis

The visual attention (VA) span is defined as the amount of distinct visual elements which can be processed in parallel in a multi-element array. Both recent empirical data and theoretical accounts suggest that a VA span deficit might contribute to developmental dyslexia, independently of a phonological disorder. In this study, this hypothesis was assessed in two large samples of French and British dyslexic children whose performance was compared to that of chronological-age matched control children. Results of the French study show that the VA span capacities account for a substantial amount of unique variance in reading, as do phonological skills. The British study replicates this finding and further reveals that the contribution of the VA span to reading performance remains even after controlling IQ, verbal fluency, vocabulary and single letter identification skills, in addition to phoneme awareness. In both studies, most dyslexic children exhibit a selective phonological or VA span disorder. Overall, these findings support a multi-factorial view of developmental dyslexia. In many cases, developmental reading disorders do not seem to be due to phonological disorders. We propose that a VA span deficit is a likely alternative underlying cognitive deficit in dyslexia.     

浮现理论及其对第二语言获得年龄效应的新解释

近年来,来自认知行为实验、认知神经科学的研究结果对第二语言获的关键期假设提出了质疑。浮现理论对第二语言获得的年龄效应提出了新的解释,该理论认为在第二语言获得中并不存在先天决定的关键期,第二语言的获得年龄效应是由双语之间的相互作用、相互影响决定的,即第一语言的防守和第二语言同第一语言间的竞争两种机制决定着第二语言的获得的程度。     

The development of functional response units: the role of demarcating stimuli.

An experiment with rats examined the roles of demarcating stimuli and differential reinforcement probability on the development of functional response units. It examined the development of units in a probabilistic, free-operant situation in which the presence of demarcating stimuli was manipulated. In all conditions, behavior became organized into two-response sequences framed by changes in local reinforcement probability. A tone demarcating the beginning and end of contingent response sequences facilitated the development of functional response units, as in chunking, but the same units developed slowly in the absence of the tone. Complex functional response units developed even though reinforcement contigencies remained constant. These findings demonstrate that models of operant learning must include a mechanism for changing the response unit as a function of reinforcement history. Markov models may seem to be a natural technique for modeling response sequences because of their ability to predict individual responses as a function of reinforcement history; however, no class of Markov chain can incorporate changing response units in their predictions.     

职业评定量表(VIESA)的信度和效度研究

根据D.E.Super的职业发展理论,职业选择的成熟与发展一般分为五个阶段,中学生正处在从探索到成熟的重要转变期。本研究以美国大学测验中心的职业分类系统为基础,以职业评定量表VIESA为工具和对象,对北京市第六十五中学的179名高中三年级学生和北京师范大学心理学系的55名二年级学生进行了施测,检验了量表的信度和效度。量表的信度指标基本在.70以上,构想效度良好,以专业满意感为效标的效标效度达到显著水平。     

Cognitive Ability and Personality Predictors of Training Program Skill Acquisition and Job Performance

Two important issues in the training process concern (1) the relative impact of cognitive ability and personality traits on the ability to acquire skills, and (2) whether training skill acquisition predicts subsequent job performance. We used a sample of 9,793 trainees to address these questions and were able to compare those who succeeded on the job with those who did not succeed on the job. We found that some personality factors positively correlate with skill acquisition and that skill acquisition can predict the level of subsequent job performance.