Modality-repetition and attentional effects on reflex blinking in infants and adults

The ability of a brief prepulse to inhibit reflexively elicited startle is a robust phenomenon in adults of several species but is weak or absent in infants. The possibility that afferent processing of the prepulse is inadequate in infants was tested by assessing the integrity of two other types of reflex modulation that occur in modality-specific paths, that is, attenuation by repetition of same-modality stimuli and enhancement by modality-selective attention. The reflex, measured by electromyographic activity of the muscle controlling blink, was elicited by intense light flashes or noise bursts preceded by brief acoustic or visual prepulses and delivered during attention-directing acoustic or visual foregrounds that evoked cardiac deceleration. Modality-repetition effects were evidenced by smaller peak blink magnitude and longer latency of blinking to same than to different modality pairs and did not differ as a function of age (4-month-old infants or college students). Attention effects were also seen in both infants and adults and, in accord with previous findings, were evident in magnitude for infants and latency for adults. Thus, immaturity in paths mediating these effects could not explain delayed development of prepulse inhibition. Other possibilities include delayed maturation of extrinsic inhibition or of transient-processing systems.     

自控速度的平滑滚动引导式和RSVP的文本阅读

考察了在自控速度条件下 ,显示窗口、起始速度和文本显示方式等因素对视频显示终端 (videodisplayter minals,VDT)汉语文本阅读工效的影响。结果发现 :(1)在阅读正确率上 ,VDT文本的平滑滚动引导式优于快速系列视觉呈现 (rapidserialvisualpresentation ,RSVP)方式 ;(2 )阅读速度和阅读理解成绩相互代偿 ,若注重理解正确率 ,宜采用 15 0字 /分的起始速度 ;若兼顾阅读速度 ,宜采用 75 0字 /分的起始速度 ;(3)起始速度、显示窗口和文本显示方式三者共同影响了阅读绩效 ;(4 )机控速度方式的阅读效率优于自控速度方式。     

贝叶斯推理研究综述

Kahneman 和Tversky在70年代初期发现人们在概率推理中并不遵循数学上的贝叶斯定理,常常由于忽略问题中的基础概率而对稀少事件的条件概率作出夸大的反应。此后心理学家采用文本范式和经验范式对此问题进行了大量的研究,并涌现了一些不同的理论观点,主要有启发法策略论(代表性启发法和可得性启发法)、自然抽样空间假说、频率效应论和抽样加工理论。     

The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Mourning of American Catholic Innocence

The passionate response of many American Catholics to the clergy sex abuse crisis is an expression not only of legitimate anger over the sexual abuse of children and young people by Roman Catholic priests but also of resistance to mourning the significant losses post-immigrant American Catholics sustained in the last third of the twentieth century.

Accuracy of discrimination,rate of responding,and resistance to change

Pigeons were trained on multiple schedules in which responding on a center key produced matching-to-sample trials according to the same variable-interval 30-s schedules in both components. Matching trials consisted of a vertical or tilted line sample on the center key followed by vertical and tilted comparisons on the side keys. Correct responses to comparison stimuli were reinforced with probability .80 in the rich component and .20 in the lean component. Baseline response rates and matching accuracies generally were higher in the rich component, consistent with previous research. When performance was disrupted by prefeeding, response-independent food during intercomponent intervals, intrusion of a delay between sample and comparison stimuli, or extinction, both response rates and matching accuracies generally decreased. Proportions of baseline response rate were greater in the rich component for all disrupters except delay, which had relatively small and inconsistent effects on response rate. By contrast, delay had large and consistent effects on matching accuracy, and proportions of baseline matching accuracy were greater in the rich component for all four disrupters. The dissociation of response rate and accuracy with delay reflects the localized impact of delay on matching performance. The similarity of the data for response rate and accuracy with prefeeding, response-independent food, and extinction shows that matching performance, like response rate, is more resistant to change in a rich than in a lean component. This result extends resistance to change analyses from the frequency of response emission to the degree of stimulus control, and suggests that the strength of discriminating, like the strength of responding, is positively related to rate of reinforcement.     

Thinking about the body as subject

The notion of immunity to error through misidentification (IEM) has played a central role in discussions of first-person thought. It seems like a way of making precise the idea of thinking about oneself ‘as subject’. Asking whether bodily first-person judgments (e.g. ‘My legs are crossed’) can be IEM is a way of asking whether one can think about oneself simultaneously as a subject and as a bodily thing. The majority view is that one cannot. I rebut that view, arguing that on all the notions of IEM that have so far been successfully defined, bodily first-person judgments can be IEM.     

Transient cardiac responses to witnessing horrible events in young adult female exercisers and non-exercisers

ObjectivesIt has been proposed that regular exercisers may be less vulnerable to the effects of stress and better able to cope with aversive events than people who are sedentary, but findings have not been consistent. In the present study, physiological variables indicating specific relevant psychological processes were used to objectively assess women's responses to stressful events.Design and MethodNon-exercising (n = 56) and regularly exercising women (up to 4 h, n = 62, and more than 4 h per week, n = 50) were viewing an aversive film consisting of scenes of real injury and death, and their transient cardiac responses to sudden horrifying events happening to persons in the film were obtained, as well as changes of prefrontal-posterior coupling, measured by EEG.ResultsCompared to regularly exercising women, non-exercising women showed a clearly more pronounced second accelerative component of the transient heart rate response to the terrifying events, indicating greater sensitivity of the avoidance (defensive) motivational system and heightened sensitivity to aversive stimuli. Moreover, non-exercising women did not show the expected characteristic initial heart rate acceleration when the scene approached its fatal end, that is, more rigid responding, and EEG data indicated less susceptibility to affect-laden information at the perceptual level.ConclusionsThe findings support the notion of less adaptive coping with adverse events in sedentary compared to exercising women and add to the growing evidence suggesting a stress-buffering effect of regular exercise, therefore promoting resilience and resistance to the negative impact of stressor and trauma exposure.     

Response rate on the Adjusted Rorschach Comprehensive System (ARCS) by isiXhosa learners: a replication and extension

This study describes the response profiles of a sample of isiXhosa learners regarding to the Adjusted Rorschach Comprehensive System (ARCS) and related influences to explain the response latencies. This was a multiple case study in which six test naive high school learners (females = 3; males = 3; aged 14 years) attempted to respond to the ARCS. Both test protocol and process data were gathered. Data were thematically analysed. Responses were adequate in 83% of the instances. Process factors that appeared to impact response rate and quality included language of administration, seating arrangement, and option to use drawing for the responses.     

Introducing counselling in secondary schools: A case study with reference to frame issues

Abstract

I am a deputy headteacher in a comprehensive school. I believe that the widespread re-introduction of counselling into secondary schools offers possibilities for great benefit, both in terms of the personal well-being and emotional health of students, and also in terms of academic results and other educational indicators. It is my view that, currently, this may particularly be true for boys.

This paper is a double case study: first, of the failure of a student to cope with ordinary schooling because of his emotional difficulties; and, second, of the establishment of a counselling service which resulted from his permanent exclusion from the school.

I allude to some of the theoretical issues which meshed with the practical details of establishing the counselling service, and offer some tentative conclusions about the rationale for counselling in secondary schools and the kind of model which seems most likely to be beneficial.