强弱语义语境下的否定句加工机制

2个眼动实验分别探讨强弱语义语境下的否定句加工机制, 以便考察语言理解是命题表征的过程还是经验模拟的过程, 抑或是二者兼具。在实验中, 被试首先听句子(强语义语境：如“胳膊不是弯曲的”的备择选项为“伸直的胳膊”, 其中“弯曲−伸直”为具有反义关系的强语义连接关系; 弱语义语境：如加工“裙子不是蓝色的”的备择选项为“黑色的裙子”, “蓝色−黑色”为弱语义连接关系), 然后会看到4张同时呈现的图片, 被试的任务是按键选择与句子描述匹配的图片。结果发现, 在强语义语境条件下, 被试在早期(201~600 ms时窗)对描述事件否定状态的图片(弯曲的胳膊)与描述事件实际状态的图片(伸直的胳膊)的注视概率没有差别, 晚期(601 ms后)仅对描述事件实际状态的图片的注视概率更高; 弱语义语境条件下, 被试在早期(401~600 ms)仅对描述事件否定状态的图片(蓝裙子)注视概率更高, 晚期(801 ms后)仅对描述事件实际状态的图片(黑色裙子)注视概率更高; 并且, 都对描述事件否定状态的图片的注视概率低于随机水平。结果支持符号依存假设和抑制假设。     

Does attention impair temporal discrimination? Examining non-attentional accounts

Recently, Yeshurun and Levy (Psychol Sci 14:225-231, 2003) have provided evidence for the notion that visual attention impairs the temporal resolution of the visual system. Specifically, the detection of a temporal gap within a visual stimulus was impaired when a cue directed attention towards the spatial location of the stimulus. As this negative cueing effect is important to constrain theories about visual attention, we further investigated this novel effect and assessed whether it truly reflects an attentional effect. Experiment 1 examines whether the negative cueing effect is due to local temporal interference, and Experiments 2 and 3 investigate whether it reflects a luminance confound. The complete pattern of results argues against these alternatives and thus further strengthens the conclusion of Yeshurun and Levy (Psychol Sci 14: 225-231, 2003).     

背景线索效应的研究综述

背景线索效应(contextual cueing effect)是近年来场景知觉的一个研究热点。本文简要介绍了背景线索效应的发现及进展、理论解释和神经基础,并探讨了未来的发展方向。     

Theory as metaphor: clinical knowledge and its communication

Abstract :  This paper investigates the relationship between clinical knowledge and psychological theory and considers the implications for clinical writing. I argue that clinical knowledge is a way of understanding rather than a body of facts and compare clinical material to 'texts' that generate multiple and indeterminate meanings. Analytic theories, which represent the crystallization of ways of understanding clinical phenomena, have an inherently metaphorical 'as if' quality since they are derived from and adapted to the clinical process of making meaning by representing psychic states in symbolic form. Thus good clinical writing demonstrates an integration of theory and clinical material into a unified network of symbolic meanings. Redfearn's paper, 'The captive, the treasure, the hero and the "anal" stage of development' (1979), is discussed as an exemplar of such integration. It is suggested that clinical knowledge is equivalent to the skill of making effective interpretations.     

No reliable effects of emotional facial expression, adult attachment orientation, or anxiety on the allocation of visual attention in the spatial cueing paradigm

The primary goal of the current study was to examine the allocation of attention to emotional facial stimuli as a function of adult attachment orientation. Using a modified version of the spatial cueing paradigm we examined these effects in three experiments. In each experiment predictable cue validity effects were observed and these effects were always modulated by the expression of the facial cue. Furthermore, the magnitude of these cue validity effects was also influenced by individual differences in both adult attachment orientation and anxiety. The direction of these effects, however, was not consistent across experiments and did not replicate previous findings. We conclude that this paradigm may not usefully elucidate the processes underlying the allocation of attention to emotional stimuli.     

Two‐year‐olds’ understanding of self‐symbols

This study investigated 48 2.5‐year‐olds’ ability to map from their own body to a two‐dimensional self‐representation and also examined relations between parents’ talk about body representations and their children's understanding of self‐symbols. Children participated in two dual‐representation tasks in which they were asked to match body parts between a symbol and its referent. In one task, they used a self‐symbol and in the other they used a symbol for a doll. Participants were also read a book about body parts by a parent. As a group, children found the self‐symbol task more difficult than the doll‐task; however, those whose parents explicitly pointed out the relation between their children's bodies and the symbols in the book performed better on the self‐symbol task. The findings demonstrate that 2‐year‐old children have difficulty comprehending a self‐symbol, even when it is two‐dimensional and approximately the same size as them, and suggest that parents’ talk about self‐symbols may facilitate their understanding.     

Children acquire the later‐greater principle after the cardinal principle

Many have proposed that the acquisition of the cardinal principle (CP) is a result of the discovery of the numerical significance of the order of the number words in the count list. However, this need not be the case. Indeed, the CP does not state anything about the numerical significance of the order of the number words. It only states that the last word of a correct count denotes the numerosity of the counted set. Here, we test whether the acquisition of the CP involves the discovery of the later‐greater principle – that is, that the order of the number words corresponds to the relative size of the numerosities they denote. Specifically, we tested knowledge of verbal numerical comparisons (e.g., Is ‘ten’ more than ‘six’?) in children who had recently learned the CP. We find that these children can compare number words between ‘six’ and ‘ten’ only if they have mapped them onto non‐verbal representations of numerosity. We suggest that this means that the acquisition of the CP does not involve the discovery of the correspondence between the order of the number words and the relative size of the numerosities they denote.     

Delayed stimulus control: recall for single and relational stimuli.

In a discrete-trial symbolic matching-to-sample procedure, pigeons' left-key responses were reinforced following presentation of one center-key sample, and right-key responses were reinforced following presentation of another. Recallability was measured by the difference between log ratios of left to right responses following each sample. In Experiment 1, samples were successively presented same or different wavelengths in the relational discrimination, or individual wavelengths in the single discrimination. The rate at which recallability decreased with increasing delay since sample presentation was the same for single and relational discriminations, but the initial level of performance differed, indicating that the relational discrimination was more difficult. In Experiment 2, recall functions for easy and difficult discriminations between individual wavelengths also differed in levels of initial performance but not in rate of decrement of recallability over time. Recall for stimuli differing in complexity may therefore reflect differences in discrimination difficulty.     

Exploring Connections of the Supervisors in Supervision

Four therapists have worked closely in a professional support group. More recently attention has been given to the group processes and internal experiences of the group itself. An observation of the four members of this group is that the group process has allowed for peer validation, fortuitously resulting in their professional identities shifting and evolving. They have become curious about the interface between and the integration of personal and professional facets of the therapist's self. A resulting discovery has been that the very mechanisms which disconnect the therapist out there may serve to promote connection in the support group.     

Reinventing the Self in the Face of Received Transgenerational Hatred in the African American Community

There are many clinical methods for understanding and transforming the impact of historical trauma, and reinventing the self in the clinical process. However, the approach advocated here requires that regardless of what clinical method of intervention is chosen, a particular strand must run through the process of treatment to produce durable and meaningful change. This strand must run through psychoanalysis, creative and expressive arts therapies, as well as many forms of intervention in aggrieved communities. The strand includes understanding human suffering, the way that particular suffering is mentalized by the victimized group and subsequently reenacted by generations to come. In technical terms there must first be many profiles of understanding of the historical injury. Then there must be an understanding of how the aggrieved community has stored in their communal memory those psychological hurts—those feelings of humiliation and changing historical accounts of the actual injuries. Subsequently those sendimentations of historical grievances are enacted within the transference in the clinical situation where the grievances are not only staged, but re-staged, distorted or extended. Then comes the most decisive obligation the clinician has towards the analysand, patient, client or community that is attempting to transform itself. That decisive obligation is to extract the errand or ambush towards extinction and to undergo the unpleasant drudgery of constantly engaging the mandate to die or destroy oneself in order to find new and more flexible forms of adaptation.