金钱竞拍任务上的风险偏好:自尊水平和性别的作用

基于金钱-自尊交换理论,针对以往研究遗留的问题,本研究采用改编自著名的1美元竞拍游戏的实验任务,通过两个实验探索了自尊水平、竞拍者性别和竞拍对手性别对金钱竞拍中风险偏好的影响。结果表明:(1)自尊水平对金钱竞拍中的风险偏好有显著影响,中等水平自尊者表现出较高的风险偏好;(2)竞拍者性别的主效应及其与自尊水平的交互作用均不显著;(3)竞拍对手性别的主效应不显著,而与自尊水平及竞拍者性别之间的交互作用显著。依据相关的文献对上述发现进行了分析和讨论。     

Verbal cues flexibly transform spatial representations in human memory

ABSTRACT

Humans possess a unique ability to communicate spatially-relevant information, yet the intersection between language and navigation remains largely unexplored. One possibility is that verbal cues accentuate heuristics useful for coding spatial layouts, yet this idea remains largely untested. We test the idea that verbal cues flexibly accentuate the coding of heuristics to remember spatial layouts via spatial boundaries or landmarks. The alternative hypothesis instead conceives of encoding during navigation as a step-wise process involving binding lower-level features, and thus subsequently formed spatial representations should not be modified by verbal cues. Across three experiments, we found that verbal cues significantly affected pointing error patterns at axes that were aligned with the verbally cued heuristic, suggesting that verbal cues influenced the heuristics employed to remember object positions. Further analyses suggested evidence for a hybrid model, in which boundaries were encoded more obligatorily than landmarks, but both were accessed flexibly with verbal instruction. These findings could not be accounted for by a tendency to spend more time facing the instructed component during navigation, ruling out an attentional-encoding mechanism. Our findings argue that verbal cues influence the heuristics employed to code environments, suggesting a mechanism for how humans use language to communicate navigationally-relevant information.     

Illegitimate tasks as assessed by incumbents and supervisors: converging only modestly but predicting strain as assessed by incumbents,supervisors, and partners

ABSTRACT

Illegitimate tasks are tasks that violate norms about what an employee can reasonably be expected to do. Representing a relatively recent stressor concept, illegitimate tasks have been linked to strain, but so far have been assessed only by self-report. The current multisource study investigates to what extent supervisors’ assessments of illegitimate tasks converge with incumbents’ self-reports of illegitimate tasks and predict three kinds of strain, namely psychological strain (incumbent report of exhaustion), behavioural strain (supervisors report of incivility), and family strain (partner report of work-family conflict). Low convergence between assessments was expected due to idiosyncratic appraisals but also to differing perspectives of supervisors and incumbents due to their roles, as described by the newly developed roles-as-perspectives theory proposed in this paper. Data from 166 triads were analysed by structural equation modelling and Relative Weight Analysis. Results showed that convergence between incumbent and supervisor reports of illegitimate tasks was rather low; it was higher when the supervisor had a limited span of control. Illegitimate tasks were associated with all three types of strain for both self- and supervisor reports of illegitimate tasks, indicating that the detrimental effects of illegitimate tasks cannot be explained by common method biases alone and that incumbents and supervisors have overlapping but not identical concepts of illegitimate tasks.     

Novel associative processing and aging: effect on creative production

ABSTRACT

Creative production has been reported to decline with age. This study investigated age-related differences in creative verbal production. Participants were 30 younger and 30 older adults. Study testing included language and cognitive assessments and the experimental task wherein participants created short stories incorporating words that are not commonly related, semantically or associatively. The resulting stories were rated by independent blinded judges for originality, cohesion, appropriateness, and organization. Younger adults' stories were rated as being significantly more original and more appropriate. Integrating unrelated words to create original stories requires activating widely distributed lexical-semantic networks to develop novel associations. Potential decreased neural network connectivity due to white matter degradation, commonly seen in normal aging, as well as decrements in front-executive disengagement may have affected older adults' performance on this story creation task. Future research using neuroimaging may elucidate possible neuroanatomic correlates of age-related changes in associative creative production..     

The usefulness of the story recall test in patients with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease

ABSTRACT

Background: The story recall test (SRT) is one of the most reliable neuropsychological assessments for evaluating verbal memory function in order to distinguish between individuals with normal aging, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer's disease (AD). The SRT is analogous to the logical memory test in Wechsler Memory Scale-III, which has recently been developed and standardized to apply to older adults in Korea. The purpose of this study was to examine the usefulness of the SRT and its ability to discriminate between normal cognitive aging and patients with MCI or AD. Methods: One hundred and twelve patients with MCI, 97 patients with AD, and 53 healthy elderly adults participated in this study. The SRT was compared with the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR), Global Deterioration Scale (GDS), Korean version of the Mini Mental State Examination (K-MMSE), and the Korean version of the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (K-HVLT). Results: The SRT was well-correlated with the dementia rating scales and the K-HVLT. However, the sensitivity and specificity of the SRT was greatly influenced by the level of education of the subjects. Conclusions: The SRT is a sensitive measurement of verbal memory function that can be used in clinical settings to discriminate between normal memory functioning and the very early and moderate stages of AD in a Korean population. Moreover, it is important to recognize that the SRT is more appropriate for subjects with a high level of education rather than a low level of education to differentiate normal cognitive aging from MCI or AD.     

The Speech and Vocalization Patterns of Boys with ADHD Compared with Boys with Dyslexia and Boys Without Learning Disabilities

The domain-specific hypothesis of L. Cosmides (1989) and L. Cosmides and J. Tooby (1989, 1992) positing that conditional logic has its origin in the evolution of social exchange and in the detection of potential cheaters was tested against a more domain-general hypothesis positing that adult reasoning is logical and that errors in conditional reasoning arise from misunderstandings, not from a lack of logicality. The results of 5 experiments with undergraduate students (n = 682 for Experiments 1-4; n = 188 for Experiment 5), which involved a series of selection tasks that yielded specific predictions about participant performance, were not consistent with the cheater detection hypothesis. Findings supported the misunderstandings hypothesis and imply that adults possess general-purpose logical competence versus domain-specific modules.     

Attentional Demands Associated With Postural Control Depend on Task Difficulty and Visual Condition

The authors aimed to assess the effect of vision on variations in attentional resources allocated to postural control during tasks of various levels of difficulty. Test-retest reliability of postural and cognitive parameters was also evaluated. Twenty adults stood quietly on a force platform during 30-s trials (primary task). Twelve conditions involving combinations of three bases of support, two vision conditions, and the presence or absence of a simple reaction time task (secondary task) were tested. Baseline trials of the reaction time task were also performed with the participants seated. Reaction time and postural parameters demonstrated good to excellent test-retest reliability in most conditions. Postural control was altered by the reduction of the base of support and by the absence of vision. Maintaining an upright stance increased reaction time compared with a seated position, indicating that quiet standing tasks required some attention even in young adults. Changes in postural steadiness were correlated with changes in reaction time, showing a significant relationship between the difficulty of the postural task and the attentional resources allocated to postural control. However, reaction time increased with the reduction of the base of support only without vision. This dual task paradigm showed that vision can compensate for the increase in attentional demands during the most difficult postural tasks.     

言语工作记忆的保持对时间知觉的影响*

采用工作记忆和时间判断的双任务范式,探讨了言语工作记忆的保持过程对时间知觉的影响。研究中操作记忆负荷和任务之间的时间间隔(ISI:记忆刺激消失到时间判断任务开始之间的时间间隔)。结果发现,记忆负荷越大,知觉到的时间越短,韦伯比例越低,反应时间越长;ISI越短,知觉到的时间变短,反应时间越长,这表明知觉时间和反应决策是一致的,不存在累加时间和反应判断之间的trade-off。但是记忆负荷和ISI的交互作用不显著。结果表明记忆负荷和ISI以不同的方式影响时间判断,言语工作记忆的保持和时间加工共享工作记忆资源。