生殖细胞基因增强技术的伦理争议与对策

分析生殖细胞基因增强的概念,论述支持和反对生殖细胞基因增强的理由,初步探讨伦理学对策.在人类理性的指引下,生殖细胞基因增强能够成为造福人类的有力武器.     

Newborns' preference for goal-directed actions

The central role of sensory-motor representations in cognitive functions is almost universally accepted. However, determining the link between motor execution and its sensory counterpart and when, during ontogenesis, this link originates are still under investigation. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether at birth this link is already present and 2-day-old newborns are able to discriminate between visual cues indicating goal-directed or non-goal-directed actions. Here, with a preferential looking technique, a hand grasping a ball was the observed movement and we orthogonally manipulated the three factors necessary to successfully reach the goal: (a) presence of the ball, (b) direction of the arm movement, and (c) hand shaping. Results indicated that newborns orient more frequently and look longer at a hand shape for whole hand prehension but only when the movement is directed away from the body and toward the external world. In addition, newborns prefer the away from the body movement only when the object is present. We argue that newborns prefer a movement directed toward the external world only when it may develop into a purposeful movement because of the presence of the to-be-grasped object. Overall, our results support the existence of primitive sensory-motor associations since the first days after birth.     

Preliminary evidence of diurnal rhythms in everyday behaviors associated with positive affect

The authors used the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) to track within-day variability in everyday behaviors associated with positive and negative affect across two samples. The EAR is a portable audio recorder that periodically samples snippets of ambient sounds from participants’ momentary environments. The recorded sounds are then coded for different behaviors. The study tested whether previous findings regarding diurnal patterns in self-reported mood extend to naturalistically observed behavior. Across both samples, behavior associated with positive affect (i.e., socializing, laughing, and singing) varied according to a sinusoidal 24-h rhythm centered around participants’ average waketime while behavior associated with negative affect (i.e., arguing and sighing) did not. Further, there was preliminary evidence that personality traits can moderate these rhythms (e.g., their amplitude).     

Developing elementary science skills: Instructional effectiveness and path independence

We explore the immediate and longer term consequences of different types of instruction about a central topic in middle school science: the “Control of Variables Strategy” (CVS). CVS represents the procedural and conceptual basis for designing simple, unconfounded experiments, such that unambiguous causal inferences can be made. CVS appears to be what has been called a “developmentally-secondary” process, because even though infants and pre-schoolers can make simple causal inferences from data, middle school children do poorly at CVS unless they receive instruction on this important topic in the science curriculum. In this study, 72 third, fourth, and fifth-grade students were taught CVS via two instructional methods located at extreme points on the direct-to-discovery spectrum with respect to the amount of guidance, information, support, teacher control, and feedback provided during training. Our design included near- and far-transfer measures (at 1 week, 3 months and 3 years). There were two primary outcomes, both of which replicated and partially extended earlier work by Klahr and Nigam (2004) [Klahr, D., & Nigam, M. (2004). The equivalence of learning paths in early science instruction: Effects of direct instruction and discovery learning. Psychological Science, 15, 661–667] First, at each of the three grade levels, many more children learned CVS in the explicit condition than in the exploration condition. Second, but equally important, what students learned was a better predictor of far transfer than the way that they learned.     

复杂陈述性知识学习过程中学习活动对学习成绩影响研究

研究以16名学习者为被试,采用言语数据分析的方法,研究了复杂陈述性知识的学习过程,得出(1)学生的学习成绩受学习过程中深层次建构活动的影响:深层次建构活动越多,学生的学习成绩越好.浅层次建构活动对学生的学习成绩影响不大;(2)学生的学习成绩受学习过程中自我监控活动的影响:自我监控活动越多,学生产生的深层次建构活动就越多.     

材料规则难度对内隐与外显协同学习的影响

选取两种规则难度的人工语法字母串.采用强分离的实验程序,探索了材料规则难度对内隐学习、内隐与外显的协同学习的影响.结果显示: (1)规则难度较大的限定状态人工语法学习中,内隐学习成绩显著好于外显学习;而在难度较小的双条件语法学习中,外显学习显著好于内隐学习. (2)在两种规则难度的材料学习中,内隐与外显的协同学习成绩均好于单独的内隐或者外显学习,具有优势效应. (3)内隐学习获得的规则知识具有可迁移性.     

文章结构因素对问题解决迁移影响的研究

探讨阅读过程中文章结构因素对问题解决迁移效果的影响。实验1是在两篇源文章问题解决原理相同条件下探讨其结构类似与否对目标文章的问题解决迁移的影响。结果表明,源文章间结构越不类似,越能促进目标作业问题解决的迁移。实验2是探讨实验1中时间顺序和地理位置两种文章结构在问题解决中是否存在偏性,从而考察实验1的结论是否得以成立。结果证明,时间顺序和地理位置两种文章的组织结构不存在偏性。因而结果可初步表明,文章信息的不同的组织结构方式能促进相同原理条件下的问题解决的迁移。     

聋人副中央凹字N+1预视效益的眼动研究

聋人听觉受损后,在低水平的视觉认知任务中,表现出副中央凹注意增强效应。这种增强效应是否也会发生在高水平的汉语认知加工任务中？本研究采用边界范式,探究副中央凹注意增强效应对聋人读者合体字N+1预视效益的影响。研究发现,高技能聋人读者,可以获得合体字N+1语音和语义预视效益。研究表明,副中央凹注意增强促进了高技能聋人读者N+1预视信息的获得。     

事与愿违？思维抑制中的立即增强效应和延迟反弹效应

思维抑制作为一种重要的自我调节策略,对维护个体的心理健康具有重要意义,但在思维抑制的过程中,会出现立即增强效应或延迟反弹效应。本文在介绍思维抑制研究范式发展脉络的基础上,分别从信息加工和动机视角对思维抑制的加工机制及其影响因素进行了梳理,并据此指出未来研究应改进研究范式,考察环境变量对思维抑制的影响,整合理论解释以及开发改善精神障碍患者思维抑制的训练方法。     

药物认知增强剂使用的伦理思辨

为提升专注力、记忆力等认知能力,健康人群以“超说明书用药”方式摄入延缓衰老或修复脑损伤造成的认知能力衰退的药品。该种认知增强技术的应用需要通过“伦理之前”的技术可行性审核和“技术之后”的生命伦理辨析才能初步确认其道德容许性。目前针对药物认知增强剂使用的担忧主要来自新药的疗效与风险尚不明确、市场主导下的药物获取渠道难以管控,以及亟待完善的社会规范。因此,当下药物认知增强技术的合理应用需强化政府对个体和商业力量的监管,重视经验数据的获取,以及科研机构对用药风险性的进一步研究与科学指导。