Prayer Behavior in Rural Kilimanjaro,Tanzania

Theories and empirical evidence regarding prayer behavior generally emerge from studies of survey respondents in developed countries. The research we describe here adds to the literature by exploring links between demographic characteristics and the frequency and content of prayers for respondents in rural Tanzania. We surveyed 349 Christian households from six villages in the country's Kilimanjaro region. In some aspects our findings match results from survey research conducted elsewhere, and in other aspects our results differ from those commonly reported in the literature. We suggest that local cultural and socioeconomic conditions may account for the differences in outcomes. These results suggest a need for caution in applying to poor countries theories and expectations drawn from the developed country context.     

汉字识别中部件的频率效应

用整字识别、整合识别和部件识别任务探讨部件频率在汉字显示识别中的作用．实验一发现第一部件频率促进低频两部件合体字识别;实验二先后呈现合体字两组成部件并识别整字,第二部件频率有干扰作用;实验三识别合体字中的部件,部件频率有易化作用．部件在汉字识别中的易化和干扰作用受整字频率和结构类型的影响．     

关于假设检验的争议:问题的澄清与解决

对传统的假设检验作为心理学实验的数据分析工具的评价涉及两个标准:首先是它是否合法,其次是它是否有用。置于频率学派统计学框架中的传统假设检验在逻辑上实际上是合法的;但它在效用性方面则有着备择假设不可证伪以及只能提供定性结论这两方面的缺陷。置信区间能够集中地改进和弥补这些缺陷。对传统假设检验使用中错误的澄清也使得研究者们开始重视PSI问题,这使得心理学实验的设计和数据分析从关注总体转向关注个体。     

人类镜像系统参与音乐情绪的自动加工：来自EEG的证据

大脑中线电极诱发的μ抑制波(包括α和β频段)是人类镜像系统活动的电生理指标。尽管音乐情绪表现被认为是通过模仿个体的心理状态来实现的, 但是尚未有研究探讨人类镜像系统与音乐情绪加工的关系。本研究通过EEG技术, 采用跨通道情绪启动范式, 探究人类镜像系统是否参与和弦情绪的自动加工。愉悦或不愉悦的和弦启动情绪一致与不一致的目标面孔。行为结果显示, 被试对情绪一致面孔的反应显著快于情绪不一致面孔的反应。EEG结果显示, 在听觉刺激出现后的500~650 ms之间, 与情绪一致条件相比, 情绪不一致条件诱发了β频段的去同步化。在听觉刺激出现后的300~450 ms, 无论是情绪一致, 还是不一致条件, 都诱发了α频段的去同步化。源分析结果显示, μ抑制波主要出现在人类镜像系统的相关脑区。这些结果表明, 音乐情绪的自动加工与人类镜像系统的活动密切相关。     

Manipulations of distractor frequency do not mitigate emotion-induced blindness

Emotional distractors can impair perception of subsequently presented targets, a phenomenon called emotion-induced blindness. Do emotional distractors lose their power to disrupt perception when appearing with increased frequency, perhaps due to desensitisation or enhanced recruitment of proactive control? Non-emotional tasks, such as the Stroop, have revealed that high frequency distractors or conflict lead to reduced interference, and distractor frequency appears to modulate attentional capture by emotional distractors in spatial attention tasks. But emotion-induced blindness is thought to reflect perceptual competition between targets and emotional distractors, and it is unclear whether high frequency emotional stimuli cause less disruption at this relatively early stage of processing. In four experiments, participants searched streams of images for a rotated target image. A negative or neutral distractor appeared before the target, and their relative frequency was manipulated. Across all experiments, the frequency of emotional distractors did not modulate emotion-induced blindness even when participants were explicitly informed that they would appear often or seldom. Thus, increased distractor frequency does not appear to mitigate the priority allotted to emotional distractors during perceptual competition.     

Word recognition in Alzheimer's disease: Effects of semantic degeneration

Impairments of word recognition in Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been less widely investigated than impairments affecting word retrieval and production. In particular, we know little about what makes individual words easier or harder for patients with AD to recognize. We used a lexical selection task in which participants were shown sets of four items, each set consisting of one word and three non‐words. The task was simply to point to the word on each trial. Forty patients with mild‐to‐moderate AD were significantly impaired on this task relative to matched controls who made very few errors. The number of patients with AD able to recognize each word correctly was predicted by the frequency, age of acquisition, and imageability of the words, but not by their length or number of orthographic neighbours. Patient Mini‐Mental State Examination and phonological fluency scores also predicted the number of words recognized. We propose that progressive degradation of central semantic representations in AD differentially affects the ability to recognize low‐imageability, low‐frequency, late‐acquired words, with the same factors affecting word recognition as affecting word retrieval.     

Shock and awe: Distinct effects of taboo words on lexical decision and free recall

Taboo stimuli are highly arousing, but it has been suggested that they also have inherent taboo-specific properties such as tabooness, offensiveness, or shock value. Prior studies have shown that taboo words have slower response times in lexical decision and higher recall probabilities in free recall; however, taboo words often differ from other words on more than just arousal and taboo properties. Here, we replicated both of these findings and conducted detailed item analyses to determine which word properties drive these behavioural effects. We found that lexical-decision performance was best explained by measures of lexical accessibility (e.g., word frequency) and tabooness, rather than arousal, valence, or offensiveness. However, free-recall performance was primarily driven by emotional word properties, and tabooness was the most important emotional word property for model fit. Our results suggest that the processing of taboo words is influenced by distinct sets of factors and by an intrinsic taboo-specific property.     

The illusion of replacement in research into the development of thinking biases: the case of the conjunction fallacy

The conjunction fallacy is a violation of a very basic rule of probability. Interestingly, although committing the fallacy seems irrational, adults are no less susceptible to the fallacy than young children. In Experiment 1, by employing tasks where the conjunctive response option involved two non-representative items, we found a large reduction in fallacy rates as compared to traditional conjunction fallacy problems. Nevertheless, fallacy rates remained relatively high in both adolescents and adults, although adults showed more consistency in their normative responses. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that children’s relatively good performance on the task was not the consequence of their missing knowledge of social stereotypes. Additionally, children were more strongly affected by explicitly presented frequency information than adults. Indeed, adults only took frequency information into account when frequencies were made relevant by a training in probabilistic reasoning. Overall, the results suggest that whereas the potential for normative reasoning increases with development, this potential is often overshadowed by a pervasive tendency in adolescence and adulthood to rely on contextual information, knowledge, and beliefs, even when conflicting information is available. By contrast, children are more strongly influenced by explicitly presented information than relevant knowledge cued by the tasks.     

The impact of L1 structural frequency and cognate status on the timing of L2 production

The present study investigates the impact of first language (L1) structural frequency and L1 lexical accessibility, manipulated via cognate status, on second language (L2) speech production. L1 German–L2 English speakers and L1 English speakers completed a production task containing pre- and post-modified possessive noun phrase (NP) constructions (e.g. The actress’s sofa vs. The sofa of the actress) in which the head nouns were English-German cognates (e.g. sofa) or noncognates. While English prefers pre-modified NPs, German has a strong frequency bias for post-modified NPs. L2 English speakers exhibited higher production accuracy than L1 English speakers on post-modified NP sentences. However, facilitative L1 effects in production latencies were restricted to post-modified NP sentences containing cognates and only developed cumulatively after repeated exposure to post-modified NP sentences. We discuss how cognate status and L1 structural frequency differentially influence the accuracy and timing of choosing between different structural alternatives during L2 production.