Effects of prosodically modulated sub-phonetic variation on lexical competition

Eye movements were monitored as participants followed spoken instructions to manipulate one of four objects pictured on a computer screen. Target words occurred in utterance-medial (e.g., Put the cap next to the square) or utterance-final position (e.g., Now click on the cap). Displays consisted of the target picture (e.g., a cap), a monosyllabic competitor picture (e.g., a cat), a polysyllabic competitor picture (e.g., a captain) and a distractor (e.g., a beaker). The relative proportion of fixations to the two types of competitor pictures changed as a function of the position of the target word in the utterance, demonstrating that lexical competition is modulated by prosodically conditioned phonetic variation.     

Victim’s innocence, social categorization, and the threat to the belief in a just world

This research studies people’s reactions to the suffering of victims, examining the hypothesis of the belief in a just world (BJW) (Lerner, 1980) according to which the awareness of innocent victims threatens people’s BJW, and extending the scope of BJW theory to intergroup contexts. An implicit measure of the threat to the BJW (Hafer, 2000a) is used in this research. After participants viewed a videotaped film containing the victimization story they performed an emotional modified Stroop task. Study 1 examined the threat to the BJW as function of the innocence of the victim at an interpersonal level of analysis. Results show that only the innocent victim threatens the observer’s BJW. Study 2 examined the threat to the BJW as function of the victim’s group and of the victim’s innocence. Results show that an ingroup victim threatens the participant’s BJW more than a victim belonging to an outgroup.     

现代世界观中的意识及其哲学难题

人是具身心智的存在者,其存在方式独特性在于:他既依赖于物理形态的身体,又有存在论上不可还原性的主观性。因此如何在现代世界观中一致且完备地解释和理解人遂成了心智哲学的大问题。如果坚持现代世界观的基本立场一致性,那么对意识的解释和理解不可避免存在着"难问题"所界定的不完备性。人们大致从三个进路来处理不完备性的局面。然而,原则上它们都无法实现一致且完备的要求,因为这里存在一个根本的局限,即不可能通过认识论的方法在两种存在论形式(无和有)之间实现等价转换。尽管在认识论上这是一个悲观的结局,但另一方面它又是积极的,因为它显示了个体经验在存在论上是独一无二的。     

Functional cortical connectivity analysis of mental fatigue unmasks hemispheric asymmetry and changes in small-world networks

Changes in functional connectivity across mental states can provide richer information about human cognition than simpler univariate approaches. Here, we applied a graph theoretical approach to analyze such changes in the lower alpha (8–10 Hz) band of EEG data from 26 subjects undergoing a mentally-demanding test of sustained attention: the Psychomotor Vigilance Test. Behavior and connectivity maps were compared between the first and last 5 min of the task. Reaction times were significantly slower in the final minutes of the task, showing a clear time-on-task effect. A significant increase was observed in weighted characteristic path length, a measure of the efficiency of information transfer within the cortical network. This increase was correlated with reaction time change. Functional connectivity patterns were also estimated on the cortical surface via source localization of cortical activities in 26 predefined regions of interest. Increased characteristic path length was revealed, providing further support for the presence of a reshaped global topology in cortical connectivity networks under fatigue state. Additional analysis showed an asymmetrical pattern of connectivity (right > left) in fronto-parietal regions associated with sustained attention, supporting the right-lateralization of this function. Interestingly, in the fatigue state, significance decreases were observed in left, but not right fronto-parietal connectivity. Our results indicate that functional network organization can change over relatively short time scales with mental fatigue, and that decreased connectivity has a meaningful relationship with individual difference in behavior and performance.     

Beyond Skills and Structure: Justice Dispositions as Antecedents of Young Citizens' Volunteering and Political Participation

Community involvement is usually attributed to opportunity structures and individuals' ability to be involved. Building on psychological justice research, this paper proposes that justice dispositions add to explaining why young citizens become active in their communities or not. Furthermore, it is argued that justice dispositions help to understand why most studies find only moderate relationships between youth volunteering and forms of political involvement. In a sample of 321 young Swiss volunteers, this study shows justice centrality and belief in a just world to predict the extent of volunteering and political participation, even after controlling for civic skills and opportunity structures. However, scrutinising the motivations to volunteer, self‐oriented motivations (enhancement, social, career and understanding) more strongly affected the level of volunteering than motivations related to justice dispositions (political responsibility and social responsibility). These findings have implications for the attraction and retention of volunteers as well as for the politics of volunteering and community development in general. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE ANALYST'S WAY OF BEING: RECOGNIZING SEPARABLE SUBJECTIVITIES AND THE PENDULUM'S SWING

Whether the analyst finds the patient's emerging transference affectively tolerable or intolerable plays an important role in the analytic couple's negotiation of the configuration that the transference‐countertransference relationship ultimately assumes. If the analyst is deeply repelled by transference‐related roles to which he is assigned, patient‐ascribed attributions, or projection‐drenched interactions, he may react in violent protest, engaging in enactments that say more about his separable subjectivity than about the intersubjective situation. While there has been a recent trend to view enactments as a crucial aspect of psychoanalytic technique, this trend risks overlooking the way in which the analyst's way of being comes into play in the treatment.     

Agreement of adolescent ratings with mother ratings and teacher ratings of ADHD symptom groups: A correlated trait-correlated method minus one analysis

This study examined the level of agreement of adolescent ratings with mother ratings, and adolescent ratings with teacher ratings of the inattention (IA) and hyperactivity/impulsivity (HI) symptom groups of ADHD. A total of 214 adolescents provided self-ratings of IA and HI, and their IA and HI were also rated by their mothers and teachers. The correlated trait-correlated method minus one model was applied, with adolescent ratings as the reference method, and the other two ratings as the non-reference methods. The findings indicated no additional variance in adolescent ratings for IA and HI that could not be accounted by mother ratings of IA and HI, respectively. In contrast, there was additional variance in adolescent ratings for IA and HI that could was not accounted by teacher ratings of IA and HI, respectively. The findings suggest that when diagnosing ADHD in adolescents, their reports of their own ADHD behaviors are not needed when mother reports of such behaviors are used.     

The Interplay of Cross‐Situational Word Learning and Sentence‐Level Constraints

A variety of mechanisms contribute to word learning. Learners can track co‐occurring words and referents across situations in a bottom‐up manner (cross‐situational word learning, CSWL). Equally, they can exploit sentential contexts, relying on top–down information such as verb–argument relations and world knowledge, offering immediate constraints on meaning (word learning based on sentence‐level constraints, SLCL). When combined, CSWL and SLCL potentially modulate each other's influence, revealing how word learners deal with multiple mechanisms simultaneously: Do they use all mechanisms? Prefer one? Is their strategy context dependent? Three experiments conducted with adult learners reveal that learners prioritize SLCL over CSWL. CSWL is applied in addition to SLCL only if SLCL is not perfectly disambiguating, thereby complementing or competing with it. These studies demonstrate the importance of investigating word‐learning mechanisms simultaneously, revealing important characteristics of their interaction in more naturalistic learning environments.     

应重视对马克思主义人生观的理论研究

马克思主义的人生观和世界观在马克思主义的历史唯物主义中是统一的。历史唯物主义明确反对从“抽象的人”、“人的当下存在”出发理解人生的有关问题,但这并不一定意味着坚持历史唯物论就要排斥从个体生命的视角研究人生的问题。我们的马克思主义理论研究和建设工作,应重视对马克思主义人生观理论的发掘和整理,为社会主义精神文明建设和和谐社会的构建作出贡献。     

症状对临床决策重要性的哲学解析

症状是疾病所引起患者主观上的异常感觉或某些客观病态改变,是医师对患者进行疾病调查的起点,以症状为导向的诊疗模式更符合临床实践;充分了解患者症状,可以便捷、高效扩展医生的横向思维,而大型仪器的使用也是以症状学为基础,用来验证医生临床决策;医生最早接触的是患者的症状,因此,症状能更早提示鉴别危重患者,减少过度医疗;症状学是通向患者真实世界的途径之一,不仅能判断患者整体情况和病情转归,还是医学人文融入临床的落脚点。