LARGE-SCALE REDUCTIONS IN SPEEDING AND ACCIDENTS IN CANADA AND ISRAEL: A BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

We assessed the effects of posted feedback and warning ticket programs on speeding and accidents in two cities. In Experiment 1, speeding feedback signs were effective even when 10 were used in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and reductions in speeding were associated with reductions in accidents. The effectiveness of the signs was correlated with the number of intersections and residences within 0.5 km beyond them, and the signs had no effect on untreated streets. In Experiment 2, posted feedback and a warning program reduced speeding and accidents on 14 streets in Haifa, Israel.     

Body Mass Index and functional impairment: the explanatory role of anxiety sensitivity among treatment-seeking smokers

Obesity and smoking are highly prevalent public health concerns in the United States. Data indicate that elevated Body Mass Index (BMI) is related to functional impairment. However, there is limited understanding of mechanisms that may explain their comorbidity among smokers. The current study sought to test whether anxiety sensitivity explained the relation between BMI and functional impairment among 420 (46.9% females; M_age = 38 years, SD = 13.42) treatment-seeking, adult smokers. Results indicated that BMI yielded a significant indirect effect through anxiety sensitivity for functional impairment, b = 0.01, SE = .01, 95% CI = [.002, .021]. These findings remained significant after controlling for participant sex, negative affectivity, tobacco dependence, psychopathology, and medical conditions (i.e. hypertension, heart problems, respiratory disease, asthma). Such data provide novel empirical evidence that, among smokers, BMI may be a risk factor for functional impairment indirectly through anxiety sensitivity. Overall, such findings could potentially inform the development of personalized interventions among this particularly vulnerable segment of the smoking population.     

传统与改良鼻内镜下鼻骨复位术的病例对照研究

比较传统与改良鼻内镜下鼻骨复位术两种手术方式,探讨改良鼻内镜下鼻骨复位术的可行性与优势所在。局部麻醉下分别采用传统与改良鼻内镜下鼻骨复位术对闭合性单纯鼻骨骨折及部分合并鼻中隔骨折的患者进行复位后,比较两种手术方式患者的复位效果、术中出血、术后不适及住院时间。改良鼻内镜下鼻骨复位术较传统鼻内镜下鼻骨复位具有麻醉效果好、鼻...     

改变初中生吸烟态度的同伴教育干预研究

目的:检验同伴教育干预实验是否能改变初中生的吸烟态度。方法:通过KAP问卷对实验组和对照组吸烟初中生收集量化数据,评价干预效果。结果:⑴同质同伴教育者在吸烟知识、态度和行为上有明显变化(后测结果显示三组被试在知识、态度和行为上的Z值分别为:9.036、8.278、7.206,P<0.05);⑵实验组比对照组在吸烟知识、态度和行为上有显著提高(同质组与比照组在知识、态度和行为上的Z值分别为:-2.400、-2.206、-2.123,P<0.05;异质组与比照组在知识、态度和行为上的Z值分别为:-2.400、-2.300、-2.430,P<0.05);⑶同质与异质实验组在吸烟知识、态度和行为上有显著提高(同质组前后测在知识、态度和行为上的Z值分别为:-2.919、-2.371、-2.437,P<0.05;异质组前后测在知识、态度和行为上的Z值分别为:2.890、-2.091、-2.419,P<0.05);[4]同质与异质同伴组的比较没有差异。结论:同伴教育干预方法可以在一定程度上改变初中生的吸烟态度,同质团体与异质团体在同伴教育干预中不存在差异。     

Effects of unit formation on the perception of a changing sound

The effects of subunit formation on adult listeners' ability to notice changes in a continuous spectral gradient of sound were studied. Results of this experiment support the idea that the auditory system processes information differently within a unit, and that this processing does not occur unless the perceptual system detects unit boundaries. In this experiment, silences were inserted into a continuously changing sound to cause the formation of short units. Listeners noticed the change earlier in conditions with silences inserted than in to conditions where the transition was either unbroken or broken by loud noise bursts. Results are discussed in terms of two processes, one that accentuates stimulus properties present at moments of onset and offset, and a second that uses onsets and offsets to signal the beginnings and ends of units and reduces the change perceived within units.     

Frequency and Category Factors in the Reduction and Assimilation of Function Words: EPG and Acoustic Measures

Many studies have observed phonetic and phonological differences between function words and content words. However, as many of the most commonly cited function words are also very high in frequency, it is unclear whether these differences are the result of syntactic category or word frequency. This study attempts to determine whether syntactically defined function words are indeed phonologically and phonetically reduced or assimilated when word frequency is balanced. Three experiments were designed to distinguish the relative contributions of the factors of category and frequency on phonetic and phonological reduction and assimilation. Overall results suggest that syntactic category and word frequency interact with phonetic and phonological processes in a more complex way than previously believed. Experiment 1 measured final t/d dropping, a reduction process, using electropalatography (EPG). Experiment 2 examined vowel reduction using acoustic measures. In Experiment 3, palatalization, an assimilation process, was examined using EPG. Results showed that t/d dropping responds to the factor of syntactic category, whereas palatalization is affected by word frequency; vowel reduction responded to both factors, with a dominant syntactic category effect and a secondary within-category frequency effect. The implications of these findings for models of lexical representation and theories of language acquisition are discussed.     

The information conveyed by words in sentences

A method is presented for calculating the amount of information conveyed to a hearer by a speaker emitting a sentence generated by a probabilistic grammar known to both parties. The method applies the work of Grenander (1967) to the intermediate states of a top-down parser. This allows the uncertainty about structural ambiguity to be calculated at each point in a sentence. Subtracting these values at successive points gives the information conveyed by a word in a sentence. Word-by-word information conveyed is calculated for several small probabilistic grammars, and it is suggested that the number of bits conveyed per word is a determinant of reading times and other measures of cognitive load.     

Effects of Interspersing Additional Brief Math Problems on Student Performance and Perception of Math Assignments: Getting Students to Prefer to Do More Work

Three experiments were conducted to assess the effects of the interspersing procedure on students' mathematics performance, perceptions of mathematics assignments, and preference for mathematics assignments when more work was added. In Experiment I, college students worked computation problems from two assignments. The control assignment contained 15 three-digit by two-digit problems (3 × 2) and the experimental assignments contained 18 3 × 2 problems and 6 additional interspersed one-digit by one-digit problems (1 × 1). Students then rated the assignments and chose one for homework. Results showed significantly more students preferred (i.e., chose it for homework) the experimental assignment with the additional target (i.e., 3 × 2) and interspersed problems. Furthermore, significantly more students rated this experiment as requiring less effort and being less difficult. Moreover, students' mathematics performance was not affected by the procedure. Experiment II strengthened the internal validity by showing that students did not prefer the experimental assignment because it contained more target problems. Experiment III showed that the interspersing procedure was not powerful enough to extend findings beyond the 20% level (i.e., 40 and 60% more conditions). Results showed how the interspersing procedure could be used to encourage students to choose to do more target computation tasks. Discussion focuses on the applied value of the interspersing procedure and plausible causal mechanisms that may account for current and past findings related to student choice and interspersing brief tasks.     

The Price of Non-reductive Moral Realism

Non-reductive moral realism is the view that there are moral properties which cannot be reduced to natural properties. If moral properties exist, it is plausible that they strongly supervene on non-moral properties- more specifically, on mental, social, and biological properties. There may also be good reasons for thinking that moral properties are irreducible. However, strong supervenience and irreducibility seem incompatible. Strong supervenience entails that there is an enormous number of modal truths (specifically, truths about exactly which non-moral properties necessitate which moral properties); and all these modal truths must be explained. If these modal truths can all be explained, then it must be a fundamental truth about the essence of each moral property that the moral property is necessarily equivalent to some property that can be specified purely in mental, social and biological terms; and this fundamental truth appears to be a reduction of the moral property in question. The best way to resist this argument is by resorting to the claim that mental and social properties are not, strictly speaking, natural properties, but are instead properties that can only be analysed in partly normative terms. Acceptance of that claim is the price of non-reductive moral realism.