如何唤起和缓解重大损失情绪—— 来自行为和脑成像的证据

本研究在没有真实伤害的情况下研究重大损失情绪及相应的脑机制。通过一系列行为和脑成像实验, 研究者们摸索出了可靠诱发重大损失情绪的范式, 并从对比效应和金钱补偿角度初步探讨了缓解这种情绪的方法。研究发现, 由于自我防御机制的存在, 抑制了被迫接受条件下重大损失情绪的唤起, 但却成功唤起了被迫选择条件下重大损失的情绪。此外, 研究还发现, 金钱补偿和对比效应都是缓解重大损失情绪的有效策略。本研究不仅有利于认识重大损失情绪的信息加工机制, 而且也为涉及重大损失情绪的心理咨询和保险理赔制度等提供了行为和脑成像证据。     

Personality as a moderator of context effects on academic achievement

We investigated whether personality moderates group influence of classmates on academic achievement and whether these so-called context effects can be attributed to peer pressure. The sample consisted of 2498 students in their first year of Dutch secondary education. The data were analyzed by a two-level (students within classes) analysis, separately for boys (n = 1033, in 92 classes) and girls (n = 1465, in 119 classes). For both sexes, we found a context effect on Dutch language achievement but not on mathematics achievement. Emotional Stability appeared a moderator of this context effect but for girls only. The results suggest further that peer pressure is not a likely mechanism of group influence of classmates on academic achievement.     

Beauty is in the sex of the beholder: An examination of the effects of interviewer characteristics on assessments of respondent attractiveness

Research exploring the effects of physical attractiveness frequently assesses attractiveness by employing subjective appraisals by independent raters. However, there is reason to believe that rater characteristics – especially their sex – may systematically bias subjective ratings of physical attractiveness. The current study explores this possibility by analyzing data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 13,330). Analyses of these data revealed that ratings of physical attractiveness are significantly influenced by the sex of the interviewer/rater. Specifically, male raters were significantly less likely than female raters to assess males as attractive, very attractive, and very unattractive. The results are explained within the context of evolutionary psychology and illustrate a methodological concern for research on physical attractiveness.     

不同视觉区域OUP效应的眼动研究

摘 要 采用眼动方法,通过两个实验考察了不同视觉区域的OUP效应。结果显示：（1）当刺激材料分别平行呈现于左侧视觉区域和右侧视觉区域时,在右侧视觉区域产生了OUP效应,而在左侧视觉区域没有OUP效应,我们假设是由于左侧视觉区域首字母距离中央凹的不利位置影响了OUP效应的产生。（2）当垂直方向呈现刺激时,在两侧视觉区域均产生了明显的OUP效应,表明首字母距离中央凹处于有利位置时不会影响OUP效应的产生。实验结果支持了大脑左半球和右半球在词汇识别时的策略为系列加工,对左半球平行加工右半球系列加工的结论提出了质疑。     

Residential Mobility and Prosocial Development Within a Single City

Neighborhood social dynamics have been shown to impact behavioral development in residents, including levels of prosociality (i.e. positive social behavior). This study explores whether residential moves to neighborhoods with different social dynamics can influence further prosocial development. Prosociality, five domains of social support, and residential location were tracked between 2006 and 2009 in 397 adolescents across a small city in upstate New York. Analysis compared the role of the different forms of social support in prosocial development for movers versus non-movers. The effects of one's neighborhood of residence at Time 2 were also compared between movers and non-movers. Prosocial development in these two groups responded similarly to all forms of social support, including from neighbors. Movers experienced a greater increase in prosociality the more residentially stable the adolescent population of their new neighborhood of residence. Such neighborhood characteristics were not influential in the prosocial development of non-movers.     

Stimulus expectancy modulates inferior frontal gyrus and premotor cortex activity in auditory perception

In studies on auditory speech perception, participants are often asked to perform active tasks, e.g. decide whether the perceived sound is a speech sound or not. However, information about the stimulus, inherent in such tasks, may induce expectations that cause altered activations not only in the auditory cortex, but also in frontal areas such as inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and motor cortices, even in the absence of an explicit task. To investigate this, we applied spectral mixes of a flute sound and either vowels or specific music instrument sounds (e.g. trumpet) in an fMRI study, in combination with three different instructions. The instructions either revealed no information about stimulus features, or explicit information about either the music instrument or the vowel features. The results demonstrated that, besides an involvement of posterior temporal areas, stimulus expectancy modulated in particular a network comprising IFG and premotor cortices during this passive listening task.     

Sequential dependencies in driving

The effect of recent experience on current behavior has been studied extensively in simple laboratory tasks. We explore the nature of sequential effects in the more naturalistic setting of automobile driving. Driving is a safety-critical task in which delayed response times may have severe consequences. Using a realistic driving simulator, we find significant sequential effects in pedal-press response times that depend on the history of recent stimuli and responses. Response times are slowed up to 100 ms in particular cases, a delay that has dangerous practical consequences. Further, we observe a significant number of history-related pedal misapplications, which have recently been noted as a cause for concern in the automotive safety community. By anticipating these consequences of sequential context, driver assistance systems could mitigate the effects of performance degradations and thus critically improve driver safety.     

青少年网络游戏与心理健康:动机的调节与中介

先前研究对游戏动机在网游与心理健康关系中的作用缺乏明确的认识,相关领域的研究也存在争议。通过实证研究发现:(1)成就和归属动机对网游-健康关系均具有显著的调节作用,但方向相反;成就动机具有类似防御的积极作用,归属动机的调节作用显示了以网游满足归属需要带来的消极后果;(2)享乐动机不完全中介了网游-健康关系(系数为负),以享乐动机的满足作为网游目的的人,较少沉迷于网络游戏,心理健康问题也较少。     

关联效应中对情绪诱词的错误再认的实验研究

采用DRM范式,考察了在汉字单字词语音关联和形声关联条件下对具有情绪色彩的关键诱词的错误再认情况,结果表明:(1)汉字中存在着语音和字形关联,但是语音关联下的对诱词的错误再认率很低。(2)语音关联、形声关联条件下,尽管学习阶段没有出现带有情绪色彩的词,被试仍然对情绪诱词都产生了显著的错误再认。(3)形声关联下对关键诱词的错误再认近于语音关联的两倍,可见概括性的强度影响错误记忆的大小。     

INTERACTION EFFECTS IN MULTIELEMENT DESIGNS: INEVITABLE,DESIRABLE, AND IGNORABLE

A single-subject design often used to compare the effectiveness of two or more independent variables (like treatment programs) is the multielement (alternating treatments or simultaneous treatments) design. Variants of this design approximate the concurrent comparison of the effects of two or more variables (or levels of variables) by programming the variables (or levels) in rapid alternation, typically across or within daily sessions. Properly combined with conventional reversal designs, these designs can also display a variety of interaction effects, some of them worrisome, others highly desirable for the future development of the field. A worrisome model is the possibility that when Treatment B alternates rapidly with Treatment C, the effects of each will not be the same as when each is the only treatment used. A desirable model is the use of the multielement design as a fast-paced component of an otherwise conventional reversal design examining contextual control of some relationship: the possibility that some behavior responds differently to Controlling Variables A and B in Context X than in Context Y. This second possibility opens single-subject designs to the more efficient examination of all interactive effects and is highly desirable, considering the prevalence and importance of interactions in determining the limits and the generality of currently understood behavioral phenomena.