Facial EMG reactions to facial expressions: A case of facial emotional contagion?

The purpose of this study is to explore whether subjects exposed to stimuli of facial expressions respond with facial electromyographic (EMG) reactions consistent with the hypothesis that facial expressions are contagious. This study further examines whether males and females differ in facial EMG intensity. Two experiments demonstrated that subjects responded with facial EMG activity over the corrugator supercilii, the zygomatic major , the lateral frontalis , the depressor supercilii , and the levator labii muscle regions to stimuli of sad, angry, fearful, surprised, disgusted and happy faces, that, to large extent, were consistent with the hypothesis that facial expressions are contagious. Aspects of gender differences reported in earlier studies were found, indicating a tendency for females to respond with more pronounced facial EMG intensity.     

学前儿童对汉语副词的理解和运用

在汉语中,副词是一种比较独特的词类,它没有具体形象的物体可作为理解支柱,因而儿童对它的掌握较晚。在各类副词中,５、６岁儿童对范围副词的理解最佳,时间副词次之,程度副词最差。三者的差异均有非常显著性意义。即使在每一类副词中,由于儿童概念发展的不均衡性,掌握的顺序也有先后。     

An advocacy intervention program for women with abusive partners: Six-month follow-up

Presented the 6-month follow-up findings of an experimental intervention designed to provide postshelter advocacy services to women with abusive partners. The intervention involved randomly assigning half the research participants to receive the free services of an advocate, 4 to 6 hours per week, for the first 10 weeks postshelter. One hundred forty-one battered women were interviewed about their experiences immediately upon their exit from a domestic violence shelter: 95% of the sample were interviewed 10 weeks thereafter (postintervention), and 93% were successfully tracked and interviewed 6 months later. At the 6-month follow-up, participants in both groups reported increased social support, increased quality of life, less depression, less emotional attachment to their assailants, and an increased sense of personal power. Although women in both groups reported some decrease in physical abuse over time, there were no statistically significant differences between those with and those without advocates, and abuse continued to be a problem for many women. Those who were still involved with their assailants continued to experience higher levels of abuse and had been more economically dependent upon the men prior to entering the shelter. Women who had worked with advocates continued to report being more satisfied with their overall quality of life than did the women in the control group. The authors thank the Editor and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Thanks also to all present and past staff of the Community Advocacy Project, who helped in data collection and analyses. This work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant 1R01 MH 44849.     

Teaching spontaneous requests to children with autism using a time delay procedure with multi-component toys

Children with autism were taught spontaneous requests through a time delay procedure. Unlike previous research, which usually employed food as the target stimuli to be requested, the present study used toy pieces from multi-component toys. The procedure involved presenting a child with the target stimulus, with the trainer prompting the child by immediately modeling the request response. When the response was imitated without error, prompting was delayed with the time interval gradually being increased over trials. A spontaneous or imitated response was reinforced by giving the child the requested object. As the stimulus/model interval increased, children with autism were expected to initiate the request by themselves prior to the prompt. The efficacy of the time delay procedure was assessed using a multiple baseline across subject design with three Chinese boys with autism. Results showed that the three children acquired a 100% performance within five to nine sessions of training and the skill was maintained at the one-month and three-month followups. Furthermore, the learned response transferred to various conditions when tested across setting, person, toy, and food items. These results suggest that toys, the multi-component ones in particular, served well as reinforcers for language training. Furthermore these findings confirmed the practical utility of the time delay procedure for promoting spontaneous communication skills in children with autism.     

韦伯比的拟合公式

本文以神经生理学为基础,结合感官具有调节和比较两功能的实用性,建立起刺激在大脑皮层上引起感知效应Ｅ的数学模型：Ｅ＝Ｂｌｏｇ（１＋ｋＩ）,其中ｋ＝Ｉ￣（－ｂ）／ａ。从此出发,可推出中等以上刺激的差别阈判据：△ＥＭ＝恒量。将此判据推广到弱刺激,即得到差别阈的普适规律：△Ｉ／（Ｉ＋ａＩ￣ｂ）＝Ｎ,亦即韦伯定律的修订公式。从弱到强的广大刺激范围内,它都能与实验数据拟合良好。     

Effects of differential reinforcement on the behavior and self-esteem of children with emotional and behavioral disorders

Students in a residential special school for children with emotional and behavioral disorders participated in a study designed to reduce their levels of inappropriate behavior. The residential care staff rated the students' behavioral problems and their class teachers rated their overt self-esteem pre and post intervention. In addition, the students completed self-ratings of their self-esteem. The students were divided into two groups, experimental and control. A multiple baseline across behaviors design was used to assess behavioral changes in the experimental group. Both groups received tangible rewards to the same level but only the experimental group received them contingent upon behaving appropriately. Results showed that the experimental group students made substantial reductions in their levels of inappropriate behavior, which were maintained at a three-month followup. Also, ratings of their behavioral problems by residential child care staff suggested that this improvement in behavior had generalized beyond the classroom to the residential setting. However, no significant differences were found between the pre- and post-intervention ratings of their self-esteem or teacher ratings of their overt self-esteem.     

智力落后儿童人格特性的研究

智力落后儿童由于大脑功能发育障碍,在个性的成熟和发展方面受到一定限制,表现出与正常儿童不同的个性特征。在不同智残程度的儿童中也存在着个性差异。智力与个性发展有密切关系,脑功能受损越严重,对个性发展的影响也就越明显。     

EFFECTS OF CONTEXTUAL COMPETENCE ON SOCIAL INITIATIONS

The frequency of social initiations and satisfaction with interactions in three dyads, each consisting of 1 student with disabilities and 1 nondisabled peer, were assessed under two alternating conditions: Condition 1 assessed the interactions around a set of four trained computer games, and Condition 2 assessed interactions when students were playing a set of four untrained computer games. Training was conducted with a multiple baseline design across participants and was followed by social interaction probes using an alternating treatments design. The results indicated greater frequencies of social initiations by 5 of 6 participants, higher degrees of game satisfaction by all participants, and equal or higher degrees of peer satisfaction by 5 of 6 participants when playing trained games in comparison to untrained games.     

Measuring rationality independent of social desirability

The development of a test to measure Elli's concept of rationality is described. In the first study discussed, a 58-item test is developed to measure rationality, and the reliability and convergent validity of the test is described. In a second study, the discriminant validity of the test is examined. An attempt is also made to reduce social-desirability content in the test by eliminating items most highly correlated with a Social Desirability Scale. The final 44-item test is found to be high in both reliability and validity. The factor structure of the test is also examined.