一生追索和求实——访吴阶平院士

吴阶平,著名科学家、教育家、社会活动家,中国泌尿外科的奠基人和中国性教育的开创者。1917年1月出生于江苏常州,1942年毕业于北平协和医学院。1947年,吴阶平经著名泌尿科专家、归国华侨谢元甫教授推荐,赴美国芝加哥大学进     

The Body in Religion: The Spatial Mapping of Valence in Tibetan Practitioners of Bön

According to the Body‐Specificity Hypothesis (BSH), people implicitly associate positive ideas with the side of space on which they are able to act more fluently with their dominant hand. Though this hypothesis has been rigorously tested across a variety of populations and tasks, the studies thus far have only been conducted in linguistic and cultural communities which favor the right over the left. Here, we tested the effect of handedness on implicit space‐valence mappings in Tibetan practitioners of Bön who show a strong religious preference for the left, in comparison to an English group. Results showed that Bön right‐handers tended to implicitly associate positive valence more strongly with their dominant side of space despite strong explicit associations between the left and goodness in their religion. This pattern of results found in Bön participants was indistinguishable from that found in English speakers. The findings of the present study support the BSH, demonstrating that space‐valence mappings in people's minds are shaped by their bodily experience, which appears to be independent of space‐valence mappings enshrined in cultural conventions.     

上海城隍庙着力打造学习型、文化型庙观

六年前,上海城隍庙组织全体教职人员参加了华东师范大学宗教班的学习。经过这几年国民学历教育大专阶段和本科阶段的修学,其中部分教职人员已经或将于年内本科毕业。面对这样的好形势,庙管会拓展思路,创新学习机制,以文化学习为基础,全面提高教职人员     

《文赋》的文艺心理学思想试探

陆机《文赋》的贡献是将我国古代文论侧重对美的本质及其社会意义的探讨引向对创作过程中个体心理活动、主观体验的研究。它对创作的心理活动及其主观体验的描写相当精致,也揭示出一些规律性东西,因而颇具心理学意义。     

Consistency,mechanicalness, and the logic of the mind

G. Priest's anti-consistency argument (Priest 1979, 1984, 1987) and J. R. Lucas's anti-mechanist argument (Lucas 1961, 1968, 1970, 1984) both appeal to Gödel incompleteness. By way of refuting them, this paper defends the thesis of quartet compatibility, viz., that the logic of the mind can simultaneously be Gödel incomplete, consistent, mechanical, and recursion complete (capable of all means of recursion). A representational approach is pursued, which owes its origin to works by, among others, J. Myhill (1964), P. Benacerraf (1967), J. Webb (1980, 1983) and M. Arbib (1987). It is shown that the fallacy shared by the two arguments under discussion lies in misidentifying two systems, the one for which the Gödel sentence is constructable and to be proved, and the other in which the Gödel sentence in question is indeed provable. It follows that the logic of the mind can surpass its own Gödelian limitation not by being inconsistent or non-mechanistic, but by being capable of representing stronger systems in itself; and so can a proper machine. The concepts of representational provability, representational maximality, formal system capacity, etc., are discussed.     

Do recognizable figures enjoy an advantage in binocular rivalry?

Five experiments examined whether recognizable stimuli predominate in binocular rivalry. It was found that a face predominated more than did a pattern equated for spatial frequency, luminance, and contrast; an objective reaction time procedure confirmed predominance of the face. The face was still liable to fragmentation as stimulus size increased. Observers tracked exclusive dominance of a picture of a camouflaged figure (a Dalmatian dog) prior to and then following discovery of the figure's presence; control observers received the same protocol with a scrambled version of the dog stimulus. Compared with control results, predominance of the dog picture was higher even before observers knew of the camouflaged figure. Inversion of the dog figure reduced its predominance. Binocular rivalry is sensitive to object-related, configural properties of a stimulus.     

立体视觉的心理物理和VEP比较研究

心理物理试验是研究立体视觉的主要方法。70年代VEP开始用于体视研究,并取得许多结果。由于VEP信号复杂,这些结果不能令人满意。本文使用心理物理试验和VEP对比方法对体视加以研究。我们的结果是:VEP波形中第一个正峰与刺激图形的亮度有关;N_2峰和P_3峰的潜伏期对判断体视存在与否有重要价值;本试验确定N_2峰潜伏期在体视存在时约为240ms—280ms,无体视存在时约为290ms—310ms;P_3峰潜伏期在体视存在时约为280ms—310ms,无体视存在时约为340ms—360ms;体视存在时的VEP与无体视存在时的VEP的互相关系数小于0.1;有体视的VEP其功率谱密度在8Hz附近有一峰;心理物理试验中使用强制选择得到的结果从VEP波形比较中可以确认是可靠的;有体视的VEP其N_2和P_3的潜伏期随视差变化呈现规律性改变。     

235个图形的命名一致性、熟悉性、表象一致性和视觉复杂性评定

本研究使用命名法和量表评定法,分别对235个图形的命名一致性、熟悉性、表象一致性和视觉复杂性进行了测试。被试为142名大学生,集体施测。结果发现,除命名一致性指标相对较低外,其它三项指标与国外研究结果很接近,表明这套图形基本上是适合我国被试的。相关分析表明,四项指标是不同质的,它们的设置是必要的。其中,熟悉性和命名一致性两个指标是在各种图形实验设计中需要特别注意的。     

Timing multimodal events in pigeons

The peak procedure was used in two experiments to study pigeons' ability to time multimodal events. In the first experiment, birds were trained to time a single event consisting of a 9-s tone or light followed by a 21-s fixed interval associated with a signal of light or tone (signal of the other modality). On occasional empty trials, different lengths of the first signal were followed by a long period of the second signal. Peak response times as a function of the duration of the first signal were linear and had a slope of close to one in all birds. This indicates that the birds were timing only the second signal. In a second experiment, two complex events were used in training. One consisted of a 9-s tone or light followed by a 21-s fixed interval associated with a light or tone. The other consisted of a 21-s tone or light followed by a 9-s fixed interval associated with a light or tone. Different durations of the first signal were again used on empty trials. Peak response times as a function of the duration of the first signal were again linear in all birds. The slope of the function was less than one but greater than zero for 3 birds. This indicates that these birds were partly timing the entire complex event of 30-s duration and partly timing only the second signal of the event. A model is proposed in which the bird takes as a criterion for timing a weighted average of different target criteria. Comparisons with the performance of rats are made.     

A critique of Dennett

This essay is intended to be a systematic exposition and critique of Daniel Dennett's general views. It is divided into three main sections. In section 1 we raise the question of the nature of a plausible scientific psychology, and suggest that the question of whether folk psychology will serve as an adequate scientific psychology is of special relevance in a discussion of Dennett. We then characterize folk psychology briefly. We suggest that Dennett's views have undergone at least one major change, and proceed to discuss both his earlier and his later views.In section 2 we suggest that Dennett is correctly perceived as an instrumentalist in his earlier works. We think that Dennett later abandons this position because of general worries about instrumentalism and, more importantly, because Dennett became convinced that an instrumentalist conception of folk psychology will not enable us to vindicate the notions of personhood, moral agency, and responsibility. This left Dennett with a dilemma. On the one hand, he does not think that beliefs, etc., will turn out to be genuine scientific posits. On the other hand, he thinks that moral agency would be impossible if we could not treat beliefs, etc. as causally efficacious in some suitable sense.In section 3 we discuss Dennett's resolution of this dilemma. The key to his current view, we suggest, is the illata-abstracta distinction. Dennett holds that both illata and abstracta are real and have causal powers, even though only illata are genuine scientific posits. He suggests that beliefs etc. are abstracta, and are the subject matter of what he calls intentional system theory. The subject matter of another theory, what Dennett calls subpersonal cognitive psychology, are illata, which are subpersonal intentional states. The important point is that this distinction lets Dennett have it both ways: (i) Since beliefs are mere abstracta, we need not commit ourselves to the thesis that beliefs will turn out to be posits of an adequate scientific psychology. (ii) Since beliefs have causal power, we are assured of moral and rational agency. We shall argue that Dennett's current view is untenable. If we are right in our arguments, then Dennett's program to produce a scientifically plausible psychology, one that will turn out to vindicate folk psychology (in some suitable sense), is a failure. It fails in the following important ways: (i) What Dennett sketches — intentional system theory cum subpersonal cognitive psychology — is not a plausible scientific psychology. (ii) As a consequence, Dennett also fails to provide a satisfactory foundation for moral and rational agency.