Gross Motor Performance in Minimally Brain Injured Children

As a pre-requisite to curriculum development, the characteristics of the gross motor performance of special education classes of minimally brain injured boys and girls were described. In general, age changes in mean performance were linear, the scores of the boys being the superior. The level of performance very closely resembled that of comparison groups of educable mentally retarded children from the same school districts.     

Putting motion in emotion: Do dynamic presentations increase preschooler's recognition of emotion?

In prior research, preschoolers were surprisingly poor at naming the emotion purportedly signaled by prototypical facial expressions—when shown as static images. To determine whether this poor performance is due to the use of static stimuli, rather than dynamic, we presented preschoolers (3-5 years) with facial expressions as either static images or dynamic audiovisual clips. Dynamic clips presented face alone (Study 1, N = 48) or face, body movement, and vocal intonation (Study 2, N = 72). Contrary to expectations, dynamic presentation did not increase children's naming of the emotion in either study and decreased it in Study 1.     

Happy to See Me,Aren’t You,Sally? Signal Detection Analysis of Emotion Detection in Briefly Presented Male and Female Faces

Using signal detection methods, possible effects of emotion type (happy, angry), gender of the stimulus face, and gender of the participant on the detection and response bias of emotion in briefly presented faces were investigated. Fifty-seven participants (28 men, 29 women) viewed 90 briefly presented faces (30 happy, 30 angry, and 30 neutral, each with 15 male and 15 female faces) answering yes if the face was perceived as emotional and no if it was not perceived as emotional. Sensitivity [d', z(hit rate) minus z(false alarm rate)] and response bias (β, likelihood ratio of "signal plus noise" vs. "noise") were measured for each face combination for each presentation time (6.25, 12.50, 18.75, 25.00, 31.25 ms). The d' values were higher for happy than for angry faces and higher for angry-male than for angry-female faces, and there were no effects of gender-of-participant. Results also suggest a greater tendency for participants to judge happy-female faces as emotional, as shown by lower β values for these faces as compared to the other emotion-gender combinations. This happy-female response bias suggests, at least, a partial explanation to happy-superiority effects in studies where performance is only measured as percent correct responses, and, in general, that women are expected to be happy.     

Books Received

Leg-to-body ratio (LBR) is one of the morphological traits that influences a person's attractiveness. To date, studies confirming that hypothesis have been conducted mainly in Western cultures. They have shown that the average or slightly higher-than-the-average LBR is perceived to be attractive in women. In the case of men, results were more ambiguous; however generally shorter or similar LBRs compared to females were attractive. Here, data on LBR preferences of a traditional, semi-nomad ethnic group (i.e., the Himba of northern Namibia, n = 81) are reported. Also in Himba people LBR influences a person's attractiveness. Similar to Western societies, extremely high and low LBRs were unattractive. However, contrary to previous findings, Himba preferred women of relatively low LBR and men of relatively high LBR.     

耳机传送双重听觉信号的知觉特点研究

本研究探讨了耳机以叠加法和分离法传送双重听觉信号的知觉特点.实验结果表明(1)响度感觉是听觉中枢对同一信号的双耳输入强度加工整合的结果;(2)信号间的中枢干扰作用比外周干扰作用要小.前一论点在对三维虚拟听觉显示研究中也是应十分注意的.     

在线抑制控制训练对失败的限制性饮食者不健康食物选择的改善

失败的限制性饮食者是进食障碍的高危人群,他们面对食物时的抑制控制能力通常很弱,从而更易发展为肥胖,所以改善失败的限制性饮食者对不健康食物的进食选择十分重要。本文采用在线停止信号任务,通过提高失败的限制性饮食者对不健康食物图片的抑制控制能力,从而减少他们在日常生活中对不健康食物的选择。首先对66名失败的限制性饮食者实施前测,然后随机分为对不健康食物图片进行抑制反应的干预组(n=33)和对非食物图片进行抑制反应的控制组(n=31),两组被试接受每天一次(每次10 min左右)共计7次的训练。完成训练后,所有被试均接受后测。结果发现,干预训练后,与控制组相比,干预组被试对不健康食物的选择频率以及对不健康食物自我报告的吸引力和喜爱程度均显著降低。     

4～5岁儿童一一对应任务中的比例效应

一一对应和数量比较是幼儿数概念发展的两个重要方面。在本研究中．40名4岁和39名5岁的儿童分别完成了不同比例数量的一一对应任务和数量比较任务。结果表明：（1）两种实验任务下均出现比例效应．说明儿童在解决一一对应问题时,仍然用数量比较的方法来进行判断;（2）任务类型的主效应显著,一一对应任务下的正确率要显著低于数量比较任务下的正确率;（3）知觉线索更多地影响数量比较任务。