《易数钩隐图》作者等问题辨

自南宋时起,《易数钩隐图》一书的作者就有二字与二籍贯的争议。本文就有关问题进行了考辨。得出北宋有二刘牧、前刘牧著《易数钩隐图》、黄黎献为之续补等结论。最后指出,彭城刘牧的道学思想应当在宋明理学中占有一席之地。     

Racism en Route

This article argues that in Africa, the nature and advent of racism has to be traced back to the earliest encounters between Africans and Europeans, including the first seven centuries but especially during the slavery and colonial eras. Religion (notably Islam and Christianity), trade, education, culture, and “science” were important incubators and justifiers of racism, in earlier as well as recent times. The paper concludes by proposing some ways in which African theology can stay agile and keep pace with the resilient and adaptive forms of racism in contemporary Africa.     

Rare Constructions Are More Often Sentence‐Initial

Main clause phenomena (MCPs) are syntactic constructions that occur predominantly or exclusively in main clauses. I propose a processing explanation for MCPs. Sentence processing is easiest at the beginning of the sentence (requiring less search); this follows naturally from widely held assumptions about sentence processing. Because of this, a wider variety of constructions can be allowed at the beginning of the sentence without overwhelming the sentence‐processing mechanism. Unlike pragmatic and grammatical accounts of MCPs, the processing account predicts avoidance of MCPs in non‐initial main clauses (non‐initial coordinate clauses and premodified clauses). A corpus study supports these predictions, but it is somewhat inconclusive. A further corpus study examines another type of syntactic construction, premodifying adjunct phrases (“openers”); the prediction here is that less common types of opener will be especially avoided in non‐initial contexts. The prediction is confirmed, supporting the processing view of rare constructions.     

简帛《周易·夬卦》"丧"字补说

上博三《周易·夬卦》中的“丧”并非误字,马王堆汉墓帛书本与此相应的“牵”实为“桑”字,当读为“丧”,而今本中的“牵”可能系“桑”之形讹。     

THE GOLEM LEGEND AND THE ENIGMA OF FACEBOOK

We are easily misguided as to the true nature of Facebook, and tend to treat it simply as a powerful technological instrument in the service of human intentions. We can, however, gain a better picture of it through recourse to the Jewish tradition of the golem, an image of human beings, created by them in a re-enactment of their own creation by God. It turns into a magic servant in modernity with an inherent dynamic running between its human and its subhuman characteristics. This dynamic is the main cause behind its becoming uncontrollable. In like manner, what is subhuman in Facebook serves its masters and functions under their total control, but also empowers Facebook's increasingly human operation, an algorithm-based capability which raises growing doubts about what counts as human. Facebook implies the crisis of humanity which coincides with the “death of God,” that is, the obsolescence of the idea of a divine creator.     

Kindergarten self-control mediates the gender reading achievement gap: A population-based cohort study

Could superior self-control explain the gender difference in reading achievement favoring girls? To test this idea, we drew on a unique population-based sample (N = 11,336) where self-control was measured in kindergarten using a multimethod battery of assessments. Girls showed substantially higher levels of self-control in kindergarten (β = 0.47) and outperformed boys on standardized tests of reading achievement in third/fourth grade (β = 0.20). Further, kindergarten self-control prospectively predicted reading achievement throughout elementary school (β = 0.37). Connecting these findings, our mediation analyses revealed that the female self-control advantage in kindergarten could account for subsequent gender differences in reading achievement. Our results suggest that early gender differences in self-control may represent a key pathway through which gender disparities in reading skills, vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension occur.     

Molecular contingencies in schedules of intermittent punishment

In two experiments, key pecking of pigeons was maintained by a variable-interval 180-s schedule of food presentation. Conjointly, a second schedule delivered response-dependent electric shock. In the first experiment, shocks were presented according to either a variable-interval or a nondifferential interval-percentile schedule. The variable-interval shock schedule differentially delivered shocks following long interresponse times. Although the nondifferential shock schedules delivered shocks less differentially with respect to interresponse times, the two shock schedules equally reduced the relative frequency of long interresponse times. The second experiment differentially shocked long or short interresponse times in different conditions, with resulting decreases in the relative frequency of the targeted interresponse times. These experiments highlight the importance of selecting the appropriate level of analysis for the interaction of behavior and environment. Orderly relations present at one level of analysis (e.g., interresponse times) may not be revealed at other levels of analysis (e.g., overall response rate).     

影响频度记忆的几个因素

本研究通过两个实验探讨了刺激呈现频度、刺激的形式及其性质、加工深度、操作难度、意向性诸因素对频度记忆的影响,结果表明频度编码并不是一个独立、自动的加工系统,对其它识记过程有影响的因素同时也能改变被试的频度估计水平;意向的作用主要体现在当识记任务有一定难度且又缺乏有效的回忆线索时,能够在有限的范围内提高频度估计的水平;记忆痕迹的深度和广度对于频度信息的提取来说是两个彼此关联的线索。此外,本文还就频度记忆领域几个主要理论观点作了简要评述。