The role of attentional biases in PTSD: is it interference or facilitation?

Although attentional biases have been demonstrated in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the cognitive methodologies used have not allowed for disambiguation of two types of attentional biases. It remains unclear if PTSD involves difficulty disengaging attention from threatening stimuli (interference) or facilitated detection. To differentiate between attentional interference and facilitation, 57 male Vietnam-era veterans (30 High PTSD and 27 Low PTSD) completed a visual search task with a lexical decision component. High PTSD veterans who engaged in the interference task first showed increased interference to threat-relevant words relative to Low PTSD veterans. However, no evidence was found for facilitated detection of threatening stimuli in PTSD.     

The psychological processes underlying symptoms of thought interference in psychosis

Morrison and colleagues have proposed that auditory hallucinations are the result of cognitive intrusions being misattributed to an external source due to such thoughts being inconsistent with the person's beliefs about his or her own mental processes (metacognitive beliefs). The aim of this study was to investigate the applicability of this model to psychotic symptoms of thought interference. Fifty psychotic patients with and without thought interference were compared on (i) frequency of cognitive intrusions, (ii) metacognitive beliefs, (iii) source monitoring and (iv) appraisals of an unrelated anomalous event (a card trick). As predicted, individuals with thought interference had an increased frequency of cognitive intrusions and of maladaptive metacognitive appraisals, lower perceived cognitive control, and were more likely to endorse appraisals regarding 'permeability' of the mind, on the card trick task, in comparison to individuals without thought interference. No significant differences were found on any measure when the patient group was divided into hallucinators and non-hallucinators, once other variables were controlled for. These findings suggest that Morrison's model may be more parsimonious for symptoms of thought interference than for auditory hallucinations.     

Beyond common features: the role of roles in determining similarity

Historically, accounts of object representation and perceived similarity have focused on intrinsic features. Although more recent accounts have explored how objects, scenes, and situations containing common relational structures come to be perceived as similar, less is known about how the perceived similarity of parts or objects embedded within these relational systems is affected. The current studies test the hypothesis that objects situated in common relational systems come to be perceived as more similar. Similarity increases most for objects playing the same role within a relation (e.g., predator), but also increases for objects playing different roles within the same relation (e.g., the predator or prey role in the hunts relation) regardless of whether the objects participate in the same instance of the relation. This pattern of results can be captured by extending existing models that extract meaning from text corpora so that they are sensitive to the verb-specific thematic roles that objects fill. Alternative explanations based on analogical and inferential processes are also considered, as well as the implications of the current findings to research in language processing, decision making, and category learning.     

The Normative Core Of Paternalism

The philosophical debate on paternalism is conducted as if the property of being paternalistic should be attributed to actions. Actions are typically deemed to be paternalistic if they amount to some kind of interference with a person and if the rationale for the action is the good of the person interfered with. This focus on actions obscures the normative issues involved. In particular, it makes it hard to provide an analysis of the traditional liberal resistance to paternalism. Given the fact that actions most often have mixed rationales, it is not clear how we should categorize and evaluate interfering actions for which only part of the rationale is the good of the person. The preferable solution is to attribute the property of being paternalistic not to actions, but to compounds of reasons and actions. The framework of action–reasons provides the tools for distinguishing where exactly paternalism lies in the complex web of reasons and actions.     

轻度认知损伤的语义记忆研究述评

轻度认知损伤（Mild cognitive impairment,MCI）是介于正常老化与痴呆之间的过渡阶段,表现为与年龄和教育程度不相称的认知功能减退。本文回顾了近期有关MCI语义记忆的研究,分析比较了各研究的实验任务及结果,得出MCI患者存在一定程度的由多种原因造成的语义记忆损伤,语义记忆测验对MCI的早期筛查和转归预测有重要作用。最后指出将来的研究需要将包括语义记忆成分在内的多种认知测验相结合,以便及早发现有可能发展为痴呆的危险个体并开展相应干预。     

中文句子阅读中语义信息对眼动预视效应的影响

采用句子为阅读材料,变化句子中一个单字词形成语义连贯与语义违背两种实验条件,通过两个眼动实验探讨中文句子阅读中预视效应的产生是否受语义信息的影响。实验一运用自然阅读范式,考察当语义连贯与违背两类信息被读者直接注视时,读者眼动模式的变化。结果发现,在语义连贯与违背两种条件下,读者的眼动模式在目标位置立即产生差异,违背条件下首次注视时间更长,说明中文句子理解中语义加工可以进行得十分即时。实验二运用边界技术,使实验一的语义连贯与违背两类关键字只呈现在预视位置上,当读者的注视点越过边界时,两类预视字均变为另一个与句子意义连贯的目标字。结果发现,语义违背预视条件下,读者对预视位置将进行更长时间的加工。上述结果表明,中文句子阅读过程中,语义信息可以对预视效应产生影响     

汉字词和图片命名与分类的比较

采用命名与分类任务考察了汉字词和图片命名与分类的特点,揭示义符在汉字词和图片命名与分类中的作用。结果表明,汉字词和图片的命名与分类与拼音文字的词和图片的命名和分类既有共性,又有差异。汉字词和图片的命名与分类具有不对称性：汉字词的命名快于汉字词的分类,图片的分类快于图片的命名。义符对于汉字词和图片的命名与分类的影响具有不对称性：对汉字词的加工有重要影响,对图片的加工无影响;对汉字词的分类有重要影响,对汉字词的命名无影响。被试对有标示类别的义符的词的分类显著快于对无标示类别的义符的词的分类,甚至快于对图片的分类。所以如此,与汉字词的结构特点有关。汉字形声字多用义符来标记事物的类别,提供了重要的类别信息。根据上述结果,作者构建了汉字词和图片认知加工的综合模型     

Quality of Work Life as a Mediator Between Emotional Labor and Work Family Interference

Purpose  We adopted the conservation of resources model (COR, Hobfoll Am Psychol 44:513–524, 1989; Hobfoll in Stress, culture, and community: the psychology and philosophy of stress, Plenum, New York, 1998) to examine the associations among emotional labor, work family interference, and quality of work life. Design/Methodology/Approach  Cross-sectional, self-reported data were obtained from 442 Hong Kong Chinese service employees. Findings  Correlation and hierarchical regression analyses showed that surface acting was a salient correlate of work-to-family interference, even when organizational display rules and employees’ demographic information were controlled. Furthermore, quality of work life had partially mediated the relationship between surface acting and work-to-family interference. However, deep acting and expression of naturally felt emotion did not relate to work-to-family interference. Finally, we found that family-to-work interference was a salient correlate of the use of surface acting in workplace. Implication  This study provided useful information of how adopting different emotional labor strategies related to work family interference. Based on our results, the use of deep acting should be promoted in workplace because it related positively to quality of work life and it did not amplify the work-to-family interference. Originality/value  While past studies often explored the role of emotional labor as the precursor of work family interference, our study is among the first attempt to examine family-to-work interference as the antecedent of emotional labor. Additionally, we had also confirmed the role of quality of work life as an important mediator between emotional labor-work-to-family interference.     

免疫分析中抗体干扰相关问题的探讨

免疫分析是一项应用广泛的技术,抗体是免疫分析的关键问题。循环中内源性抗体对免疫分析的干扰与该技术本身一样古老,由于抗体干扰造成的可疑或错误的结果一直与其并存。但对于其机制、类型扣对策并未廓清。有鉴于此,有必要对抗体干扰免疫分析的诸多问题进行更深入的基础与临床研究,以提高临床诊断水平。     

Interference by process, not content, determines semantic auditory distraction

Distraction by irrelevant background sound of visually-based cognitive tasks illustrates the vulnerability of attentional selectivity across modalities. Four experiments centred on auditory distraction during tests of memory for visually-presented semantic information. Meaningful irrelevant speech disrupted the free recall of semantic category-exemplars more than meaningless irrelevant sound (Experiment 1). This effect was exacerbated when the irrelevant speech was semantically related to the to-be-remembered material (Experiment 2). Importantly, however, these effects of meaningfulness and semantic relatedness were shown to arise only when instructions emphasized recall by category rather than by serial order (Experiments 3 and 4). The results favor a process-oriented, rather than a structural, approach to the breakdown of attentional selectivity and forgetting: performance is impaired by the similarity of process brought to bear on the relevant and irrelevant material, not the similarity in item content.