Unfounded beliefs among teachers: The interactive role of rationality priming and cognitive ability

Previous research suggests that unfounded beliefs (UB)—such as conspiracist beliefs and beliefs in the supernatural—stem from similar cognitive and motivational mechanisms. More specifically, it has been demonstrated that cognitive ability is negatively associated with UB but only among individuals who value epistemic rationality. The present study goes beyond previous correlational studies by examining whether the negative association between cognitive ability and UB can be strengthened through a subtle rationality prime. In a large scale online experiment (N = 762 French teachers), we demonstrate that priming rationality (vs. control) does enhance the negative relationship between cognitive ability and adherence to supernatural beliefs, as well as conspiracy mentality (d = 0.2). This effect was not obtained for illusory pattern perception. This study's usefulness as a “proof of concept” for future interventions aimed at reducing UB prevalence among the general public is discussed.     

More expertise for a better perspective: Task and strategy-driven adaptive neurofunctional reorganization for word production in high-performing older adults

The suggestion that neurofunctional reorganization may contribute to preserved language abilities is still emerging in aging studies. Some of these abilities, such as verbal fluency (VF), are not unitary but instead rely on different strategic processes that are differentially changed with age. Younger (n = 13) and older adults (n = 13) carried out an overt self-paced semantic and orthographic VF tasks within mixed fMRI design. Our results suggest that patterns of brain activation sustaining equivalent performances could be underpinned by different strategies facing brain changes during healthy aging. These main findings suggest that temporally mediated semantic clustering and frontally mediated orthographic switching were driven by evolutive neurofunctional resources in high-performing older adults. These age-related activation changes can appear to be compatible with the idea that unique neural patterns expressing distinctive cognitive strategies are necessary to support older adults’ performance on VF tasks.     

产品空间位置、价格音节长度对消费者价格感知的影响

本研究采用实验法考察了视听单通道及双通道下产品空间位置与价格音节长度对消费者价格感知的潜在影响。结果发现,呈现在空间右侧以及以较长音节播放的产品使得被试的价格感知升高;短音节条件下,个体对空间右侧产品的价格感知显著高于空间左侧,长音节条件下两侧则无显著差异;相对于单通道刺激呈现,视听通道呈现信息一致时出现信息冗余效应,个体判断的速度更快,验证了共激活模型假设,视听不一致条件下的速度降低则支持了预测编码模型。     

语言加工过程中的视听跨通道整合

日常生活中, 语言的使用往往出现在某个视觉情境里。大量认知科学研究表明, 视觉信息与语言信息加工模块并不是独立工作, 而是存在复杂的交互作用。本文以视觉信息对语言加工的影响为主线, 首先对视觉信息影响言语理解, 言语产生以及言语交流的相关研究进展进行了综述。其次, 重点对视觉信息影响语言加工的机制进行了探讨。最后介绍了关于视觉信息影响语言加工的计算模型, 并对未来的研究方向提出了展望。     

Effect of fine motor skills training on arithmetical ability in children

Previous researches have shown that there was a strong relationship between fine motor skills and arithmetical abilities in children. However, the majority of previous studies examined only the correlations between fine motor skills and arithmetical abilities, but did not attempt to determine their causal relationship. Thus, the aim of the present study was to examine the effect of motor skills training on arithmetical abilities among 80 first graders. One of the results showed that the intervention group, which received training in fine motor skills for 10 min, showed greater improvements in performance on an arithmetic task and a pegboard than did the active control group, which read their favourite book for 10 min. These findings have suggested that training in this study is an appropriate program for improving fine motor skills and further fine motor skills had a significant influence on arithmetical abilities in children, with a medium effect size. The present study has, for the first time, provided evidence that there will be a causal relationship between these factors.     

Executive dysfunction affects word list recall performance: Evidence from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases

The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) is widely used in clinical practice to evaluate verbal episodic memory. While there is evidence that RAVLT performance can be influenced by executive dysfunction, the way executive disorders affect the serial position curve (SPC) has not been yet explored. To this aim, we analysed immediate and delayed recall performances of 13 non‐demented amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients with a specific mild executive dysfunction (ALSci) and compared their performances to those of 48 healthy controls (HC) and 13 cognitively normal patients with ALS. Moreover, to control for the impact of a severe dysexecutive syndrome and a genuine episodic memory deficit on the SPC, we enrolled 15 patients with a diagnosis of behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and 18 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD). Results documented that, compared to cognitively normal subjects, ALSci patients had a selective mid‐list impairment for immediate recall scores. The bvFTD group obtained low performances with a selectively increased forgetting rate for terminal items, whereas the AD group showed a disproportionately large memory loss on the primary and middle part of the SPC for immediate recall scores and were severely impaired in the delayed recall trial. These results suggested that subtle executive dysfunctions might influence the recall of mid‐list items, possibly reflecting deficiency in control strategies at retrieval of word lists, whereas severer dysexecutive syndrome might also affect the recall of terminal items possibly due to attention deficit or retroactive interference.