Toddlers' use of cues in a search task

Search for a ball that has undergone hidden motion rapidly improves during the second year of life (Dev. Psychol., 2000; 36 :394–401). In three experiments we investigated whether the poor performance of younger toddlers was due to attentional failure by highlighting the major cue for the hidden object. We observed only slight improvement in search behaviour. We performed two other experiments that tested the depth of understanding of 3‐year‐olds in this task and found that their performance was robust to changes in the apparatus and experimental procedures. Overall, the results point to a rapidly developing ability in the second year of life to either reason about space or select the correct motor response in search tasks. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Object imagery and object identification: object imagers are better at identifying spatially-filtered visual objects

Object imagery refers to the ability to construct pictorial images of objects. Individuals with high object imagery (high-OI) produce more vivid mental images than individuals with low object imagery (low-OI), and they encode and process both mental images and visual stimuli in a more global and holistic way. In the present study, we investigated whether and how level of object imagery may affect the way in which individuals identify visual objects. High-OI and low-OI participants were asked to perform a visual identification task with spatially-filtered pictures of real objects. Each picture was presented at nine levels of filtering, starting from the most blurred (level 1: only low spatial frequencies—global configuration) and gradually adding high spatial frequencies up to the complete version (level 9: global configuration plus local and internal details). Our data showed that high-OI participants identified stimuli at a lower level of filtering than participants with low-OI, indicating that they were better able than low-OI participants to identify visual objects at lower spatial frequencies. Implications of the results and future developments are discussed.     

Object Recognition: Insights From Advances in fMRI Methods

ABSTRACT— Recent advancements in imaging methods and analysis approaches have provided important insights about the neural bases of object recognition. We address the potential limitations of standard functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and discuss methodological advancements, including fMRI-adaptation, pattern analyses, and high-resolution fMRI, that may be more appropriate for studying object and face representations. fMRI-adaptation and high-resolution fMRI measure responses of neural subpopulations within standard fMRI voxels, and pattern analyses examine the information in the distributed activations across voxels, which may differ from the mean response across these voxels. These methods have provided evidence for a multitude of representations across the human ventral stream that provide empirical constraints for cognitive theories of recognition.     

数量认知和密度认知的关系

数量和密度认知的关系是数量认知研究的关键问题。相关研究在三个方面存在不足：首先, 先前实验研究缺乏对两种加工的有效操控和区分; 其次, 现有理论或认为“数量和密度加工完全独立”, 或认为“数量加工是对密度进行推论的结果”, 比较片面; 第三, 已有理论模型抽象, 不重视功能模块的解释。基于数量认知的多阶段加工特点, 未来研究可以讨论数量认知进行基于密度认知的整合加工的可能性, 提出整合数量和密度加工的理论构想。     

注意水平对视觉工作记忆客体表征的影响

运用单探测的变化检测范式和注意分配程序,两个实验分别考察了由相同维度特征组成的客体和由不同维度特征组成的客体在工作记忆中的表征方式,以及注意对其的作用。实验1用双色框作为客体,实验2用不同颜色的形状作为客体。被试为27名大学生。结果发现,由相同维度特征组成的客体在工作记忆中只能以单一特征为储存单元,且这种储存不受注意水平的影响,可能是一种自动化的过程;由不同维度特征组成的客体在工作记忆中能以整合形式表征,但是这种表征需要集中性注意的参与。该结果表明,在知觉过程中整合起来的信息在储存到工作记忆的过程中时,仍需要消耗注意资源。     

Psychoanalytic Models of the Mind for Couple and Family Therapy

This paper describes an object relations theory of mind that highlights the interactive origin of psychic function and the beginnings of mental structure in the infant's relationships within the family group. Based on this model, psychoanalytic family and couple therapy employs the interactions between family and therapist to detect and work with developmental failures in holding and containment, skewed family projective identification, and attacks on linking, which characterize pathological and traumatized families. The coming together of transference generated by the family as a group and the therapist's countertransference are the fulcrum on which such therapy turns. An extended vignette of a session is used to illustrate the application of object relations theory to the therapeutic process of family therapy.     

表面内容不同方面相似性对样例迁移的影响

应用题表面内容分离为表面概貌和对象对应后,还可以进行再分解。本实验将表面概貌分解为具体属性和问题形式,将对象对应分解表述顺序对应和具体对象对应,研究结果表明,表面内容不同方面的相似性对原理运用有不同的影响。     

略论应用伦理学的对象、任务和方法

应用伦理学以道德与实践的关系为对象。其任务主要有：1．为提高人的道德素质服务;2．为促进社会明发展服务;3．为协调人与自然的关系服务;4．为培育人的理想信念服务。其研究方法有：依托实践,归演理念;一无为主,综合创新;以人为本,德福并举。     

Reading Loewald: Oedipus reconceived

Loewald's 'Waning of the Oedipus complex' is a watershed paper in the history of psychoanalytic thought. By means of a close reading of Loewald's paper, the author frames, discusses and clinically illustrates his understanding of Loewald's reconceptualization of the Oedipus complex. The principal elements of Loewald's reformulation include: 1) the idea that the tension between the pressures of parental infl uence and the child's innate need to establish his own capacities for originality lies at the core of the Oedipus complex; 2) the notion that oedipal parricide is driven, most fundamentally, by the child's 'urge for emancipation.' Parricide involves a revolt against, and an appropriation of, parental authority; 3) the idea that the child atones for the act of parricide by internalizing a transformed version of the child's experience of the oedipal parents. This results in an alteration of the very structure of the child's self (i.e. in the formation of the superego as the agency of autonomy and responsibility); 4) the notion that, in the child's appropriation of parental authority, he in reality 'kill[s] something vital in them [thus] contributing to their dying' and to the succession of generations; and 5) the idea that the incestuous component of the Oedipus complex involves, in health, the creation of a transitional incestuous object relationship which, over the course of one's life, mediates the interplay between undifferentiated and differentiated aspects of self and relatedness to others. The author concludes with a comparison of Freud's and Loewald's conceptions of the Oedipus complex.