The neural correlates of statistical learning in a word segmentation task: An fMRI study

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to assess neural activation as participants learned to segment continuous streams of speech containing syllable sequences varying in their transitional probabilities. Speech streams were presented in four runs, each followed by a behavioral test to measure the extent of learning over time. Behavioral performance indicated that participants could discriminate statistically coherent sequences (words) from less coherent sequences (partwords). Individual rates of learning, defined as the difference in ratings for words and partwords, were used as predictors of neural activation to ask which brain areas showed activity associated with these measures. Results showed significant activity in the pars opercularis and pars triangularis regions of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG). The relationship between these findings and prior work on the neural basis of statistical learning is discussed, and parallels to the frontal/subcortical network involved in other forms of implicit sequence learning are considered.     

“亚当·斯密问题”的逻辑张力

“亚当·斯密问题”是指斯密的《国富论》与《道德情操论》之间存在着对立或不一致的问题,最初由十九世纪中叶的德国历史学派所提出。此后,随着现实与理论的发展,出现了不同的看法。学者们普遍认为,斯密的两大著作之间、经济学与伦理学之间存在着对立或者不存在对立,而是相互一致的。这些看法都具有各自的积极合理的内容,但缺乏辩证的观点,而没有看到“斯密问题”自身的逻辑张力,也就是说,“斯密问题”所指涉的是现实的经济与伦理之间及作为其理论表现的经济学与伦理学之间的关系。“斯密问题”所含的这些关系呈现出了一个动态的、由肯定到否定再到否定之否定的辩证过程。     

Presence and television.

Film and a number of emerging entertainment technologies offer media consumers an illusion of nonmediation known as presence. To investigate the possibility that television can evoke presence, 65 undergraduate students were shown brief examples of rapid point‐of‐view movement from commercially available videotapes on a television with either a small screen (12 inches [30.5 cm], measured diagonally) or a large screen (46 inches [116.8 cm]). Participants' responses were measured via a questionnaire and a computer‐based recording of arousal (electrodermal activity). Viewers of both televisions reported an enjoyable sense of physical movement, excitement, involvement, and a sense of participation. Furthermore, as predicted, participants who watched the large screen television thought the movement in the scenes was faster, experienced a greater sense of physical movement, enjoyed the movement to a greater extent, found the viewing experience more exciting, and were more physiologically aroused. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Age,Emotion Regulation Strategies,Temperament, Creative Drama,and Preschoolers' Creativity

Based on Yeh's (2004) Ecological Systems Model of Creativity Development, this study investigated the effects that age, the use of emotion regulation strategies, temperament, and exposure to creative drama instruction have on the development of creativity among preschool children. Participants were 1164‐ to 6‐year‐old preschool children. This study categorized the emotion regulation strategies used by preschool children and developed a creativity test which includes the measurement of usefulness, an indicator of creativity that has, until now, been ignored. The main findings are that (a) 6‐year‐olds outperform 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds in terms of creativity; (b) emotion regulation strategies as well as a positive temperament have positive effects on children's creativity; (c) creative drama instruction contributes to children's creativity; and (d) age group, emotion regulation strategies, temperament, and creative drama instruction can collectively predict children's creativity.     

Functional connectivity in an fMRI study of semantic and phonological processes and the effect of L-Dopa

We describe an fMRI experiment examining the functional connectivity (FC) between regions of the brain associated with semantic and phonological processing. We wished to explore whether L-Dopa administration affects the interaction between language network components in semantic and phonological categorization tasks, as revealed by FC. We hypothesized that L-Dopa would decrease FC due to restriction of the semantic network. During two test sessions (placebo and L-Dopa) each participant performed two fMRI runs, involving phonological and semantic processing. A number of brain regions commonly activated by the two tasks were chosen as regions if interest: left inferior frontal, left posterior temporal and left fusiform gyri, and left parietal cortex. FC was calculated and further analyzed for effects of either the drug or task. No main effect for drug was found. A significant main effect for task was found, with a greater average correlation for the phonological task than for the semantic task. These findings suggest that language areas are activated in a more synchronous manner for phonological than for semantic tasks. This may relate to the fact that phonological processes are mediated to a greater extent within language areas, whereas semantic tasks likely require greater interaction outside of the language areas. Alternatively, this may be due to differences in the attentional requirements of the two tasks.     

Homotopic language reorganization in the right hemisphere after early left hemisphere injury

Speech production is inextricably linked to speech perception, yet they are usually investigated in isolation. In this study, we employed a verbal-repetition task to identify the neural substrates of speech processing with two ends active simultaneously using functional MRI. Subjects verbally repeated auditory stimuli containing an ambiguous vowel sound that could be perceived as either a word or a pseudoword depending on the interpretation of the vowel. We found verbal repetition commonly activated the audition-articulation interface bilaterally at Sylvian fissures and superior temporal sulci. Contrasting word-versus-pseudoword trials revealed neural activities unique to word repetition in the left posterior middle temporal areas and activities unique to pseudoword repetition in the left inferior frontal gyrus. These findings imply that the tasks are carried out using different speech codes: an articulation-based code of pseudowords and an acoustic-phonetic code of words. It also supports the dual-stream model and imitative learning of vocabulary.