An acute application of transcranial random noise stimulation does not enhance motor skill acquisition or retention in a golf putting task

Transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) is a brain stimulation technique that has been shown to increase motor performance in simple motor tasks. The purpose was to determine the influence of tRNS on motor skill acquisition and retention in a complex golf putting task. Thirty-four young adults were randomly assigned to a tRNS group or a SHAM stimulation group. Each subject completed a practice session followed by a retention session. In the practice session, subjects performed golf putting trials in a baseline test block, four practice blocks, and a post test block. Twenty-four hours later subjects completed the retention test block. The golf putting task involved performing putts to a small target located 3 m away. tRNS or SHAM was applied during the practice blocks concurrently with the golf putting task. tRNS was applied over the first dorsal interosseus muscle representation area of the motor cortex for 20 min at a current strength of 2 mA. Endpoint error and endpoint variance were reduced across the both the practice blocks and the test blocks, but these reductions were not different between groups. These findings suggest that an acute application of tRNS failed to enhance skill acquisition or retention in a golf putting task.     

Statistical language learning: mechanisms and constraints

What types of mechanisms underlie the acquisition of human language? Recent evidence suggests that learners, including infants, can use statistical properties of linguistic input to discover structure, including sound patterns, words, and the beginnings of grammar. These abilities appear to be both powerful and constrained, such that some statistical patterns are more readily detected and used than others. Implications for the structure of human languages are discussed.     

语言耗损研究述评

本文概述语言耗损研究的历史与现状,包括语言耗损研究的主要内容和意义,以及目前存在的若干问题和难点。作者强调指出,语言耗损乃语言习得的伴生产物,关系极其密切．研究习得决不能忽视研究耗损。此外,由于环境因素对语言耗损有重要影响以及非同源语言对语言习得具有负面作用,研究汉语语言环境下外语耗损对中国的外语教学具有特殊的重要意义。     

儿童筷子使用技能特性的发展及其与学业成绩的关系

本研究考察了我国儿童筷子使用技能特性的发展特点及其与学业成绩的关系．结果发现：(1)在儿童筷子使用技能的精确性、时效性以及稳定性上,4岁组儿童和其他组都存在显著差异,5岁组和7岁、8岁组儿童存在显著差异,8岁组儿童的发展水平与成人仍有显著差异;(2)学业成绩好和差的儿童在筷子使用技能的稳定性上存在显著差异;(3)儿童筷子使用技能的时效性和稳定性与其语文成绩显著相关,与其数学成绩相关不显著。     

Using auditory feedback to improve striking for mixed martial artists

The purpose of this study was to evaluate auditory feedback to increase the effectiveness of throwing a “right cross.” Auditory feedback, implemented by the mixed martial arts coach, was evaluated in multiple baselines across participants design with four mixed martial arts students, two males and two females, 25–54 years old. The target behavior was the percentage of correct steps in the 20‐step task analysis of throwing a right cross. In the auditory feedback procedure, the coach used a handheld clicker and make the clicking sound as a reinforcer each time the participant performed a specific step in the task analysis correctly. This process continued until all steps were performed correctly. The percentage of correct steps of the right cross improved substantially during assessment sessions following the introduction of the auditory feedback and maintained at 90% or more for all participants during follow‐up. Improvements were also noted in the social validity assessment.     

A little labeling goes a long way: Semi‐supervised learning in infancy

There is considerable evidence that labeling supports infants' object categorization. Yet in daily life, most of the category exemplars that infants encounter will remain unlabeled. Inspired by recent evidence from machine learning, we propose that infants successfully exploit this sparsely labeled input through “semi‐supervised learning.” Providing only a few labeled exemplars leads infants to initiate the process of categorization, after which they can integrate all subsequent exemplars, labeled or unlabeled, into their evolving category representations. Using a classic novelty preference task, we introduced 2‐year‐old infants (n = 96) to a novel object category, varying whether and when its exemplars were labeled. Infants were equally successful whether all exemplars were labeled (fully supervised condition) or only the first two exemplars were labeled (semi‐supervised condition), but they failed when no exemplars were labeled (unsupervised condition). Furthermore, the timing of the labeling mattered: when the labeled exemplars were provided at the end, rather than the beginning, of familiarization (reversed semi‐supervised condition), infants failed to learn the category. This provides the first evidence of semi‐supervised learning in infancy, revealing that infants excel at learning from exactly the kind of input that they typically receive in acquiring real‐world categories and their names.     

Learning to read facilitates the retrieval of phonological representations in rapid automatized naming: Evidence from unschooled illiterate,ex‐illiterate,and schooled literate adults

Rapid automatized naming (RAN) of visual items is a powerful predictor of reading skills. However, the direction and locus of the association between RAN and reading is still largely unclear. Here, we investigated whether literacy acquisition directly bolsters RAN efficiency for objects, adopting a strong methodological design, by testing three groups of adults matched in age and socioeconomic variables, who differed only in literacy/schooling: unschooled illiterate and ex‐illiterate, and schooled literate adults. To investigate in a fine‐grained manner whether and how literacy facilitates lexical retrieval, we orthogonally manipulated the word‐form frequency (high vs. low) and phonological neighborhood density (dense vs. spare) of the objects' names. We observed that literacy experience enhances the automaticity with which visual stimuli (e.g., objects) can be retrieved and named: relative to readers (ex‐illiterate and literate), illiterate adults performed worse on RAN. Crucially, the group difference was exacerbated and significant only for those items that were of low frequency and from sparse neighborhoods. These results thus suggest that, regardless of schooling and age at which literacy was acquired, learning to read facilitates the access to and retrieval of phonological representations, especially of difficult lexical items.     

政治技能的实施效果及其理论解释

政治技能(Political skill)作为一种重要的社会能力, 是组织核心竞争力的关键, 近年来受到学者广泛关注。根据内容分析法(Content analysis)要求, 深入探讨分析了政治技能的实施效果及其理论解释, 总结出5种理论视角: 社会交换理论、社会影响理论、资源保存理论、社会认知理论和社会资本理论。未来研究应关注中国组织情境下政治技能的概念和测量、探索政治技能的诱因、基于团队层面政治技能的实施效果和基于资源保存理论视角的政治技能实施效果。     

政治技能与自我效能感对职业适应能力的影响——自尊的中介作用

本研究采用问卷调查法, 以492名高校大学生为研究对象,探索政治技能和自我效能感对大学生职业适应能力的影响及自尊的中介作用。结果表明：（1）政治技能和自我效能感对个体的职业适应能力有积极影响。（2）自尊在政治技能和职业适应能力之间,自我效能感与职业适应能力之间起着双重中介作用。     

When Virtues,Roles and Duties Fail: Early Greek and Chinese Accounts of Akrasia

Both the Mohist canon and the works of Aristotle recognize that people sometimes fail to act according to virtues, roles and duties, what in a Western context is called akrasia or “weakness of will,” an important topic in both Greek and contemporary philosophy. I argue that questions of akrasia are treated different in the early Chinese and ancient Greek philosophy. Greek accounts focus on issues of will and control, while some Chinese thinkers treat akrasia as a lack of a skill, and the failure to act in the right way is less lack of will than lack of skill. I begin with a brief account of the problem of akrasia as first presented by Plato in the “Protagoras” and Republic, and developed by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics. I then turn to akrasia in an early Chinese context, focusing on a very different Mohist view of akrasia as lack of a skill. Finally, I contrast the “skill” the Mohists find lacking with a very different account of skill in the Zhuangzi.