Categories influence predictions about individual consistency

Predicting how people will behave in the future is a critical social-cognitive task. In four studies (N = 150, ages preschool to adult), young children (ages 4-5) used category information to guide their expectations about individual consistency. They predicted that psychological properties (preferences and fears) would remain consistent over time after hearing one example in which properties followed a category-linked distribution (e.g., children of different genders had different properties) but not when properties varied within a category (e.g., children of the same gender had different properties). The developmental course of these findings is examined. Results suggest the importance of considering how children's emerging theories of behavior and of social groups operate together to inform their expectations about the social world.     

Children's Causal Explanations of Animate and Inanimate Motion

Adults frequently refer to nonobvious, internal, or immanent causal mechanisms when explaining certain kinds of movement— such as the movement of animals (e.g., a rabbit hops because of its brain and muscles) and the self-sustained movement of artifacts (e.g., a toy moves on its own because of batteries or gears). This series of studies examined whether and when preschool children are willing to attribute internal and immanent causes to motion. In 3 studies, preschool children and adults viewed animals and artifacts (wind-up toys and transparent objects) either moving independently or being transported by a person. Children explained animal and artifact events differently, even with the kind of movement controlled: They were more likely to attribute immanent cause to animals than to artifacts and more likely to attribute human cause to artifacts than animals. Internal causes were less frequently endorsed overall; however, when asked to describe the insides of artifacts, children who saw them moving alone more often described internal mechanisms (e.g., batteries, electricity) than children who did not see them moving alone. Altogether, the studies suggest that children as young as 3 or 4 years of age honor two principles: For animals more than for artifacts, movement is caused by an immanent source, and across domains, movements without an observable agent have an internal or immanent source.     

网络辅助自主学习环境下的英语学习策略

大学英语教学改革后网络辅助自主学习模式逐渐取代了传统的以教师讲授为主的教学模式,教师以指导者的角色启发式地开发学生的学习策略。本文探讨了学习策略在网络辅助自主学习环境下的特征,提出了进一步完善现代教学模式的相关建议。     

The effects of object orientation and object type on children's interpretation of the word big

Previous research indicates that preschool children have persistent difficulty interpreting big: 4-5-year-olds typically interpret big to mean tall, and 3-year-olds fail to use any consistent interpretation. We propose that children's interpretation may vary depending on 2 contextual factors: type of object and orientation of object. 40 children (ages 3 and 5) each saw 35 pairs of items and, for each pair, were asked to point to "the big one." Type of object was varied by showing each child 3 kinds of objects: "people," "brownies," and rectangles. Orientation of object was varied by presenting objects either standing perpendicular to the tabletop (vertical condition) or lying flat on the tabletop (horizontal condition). Older children relied on height more consistently than younger children, all subjects relied on area more often in the horizontal condition than in the vertical condition, and 3-year-olds relied on height more when judging the bigness of people than of rectangles matched for size. Taken together, these results demonstrate that contextual factors clearly influence children's responses. These results demonstrate the interplay of cognitive and semantic factors in the process of semantic development.     

机器翻译中设计的两个算法

在机器翻译的研究中,混合式方法是一种好方法。本文的工作主要有两部分：第一部分讨论直接散列检索算法;第二部分讨论近似机器翻译算法。     

Traditional and Evaluative Aspects of Flexibility in Gender Roles, Social Conventions, Moral Rules, and Physical Laws

Traditional and evaluative aspects of flexibility regarding transgressions across several domains (masculine and feminine gender roles, moral rules, social etiquette, and physical law) were assessed in 24 4-year-olds, 40 8-year-olds, and 46 college undergraduates. Traditional and evaluative aspects of flexibility yielded distinctly different patterns of response. Data indicated an age-related increase in flexibility on traditional measures (i.e., traditional rule flexibility, cultural relativity) for transgressions in all domains, except physical laws. In contrast, subjects in all age groups were consistently negative in their evaluations of transgressions in moral rules, etiquette, and masculine gender roles. Female subjects viewed masculine gender role transgressions with greater flexibility and less negativity than did male subjects. Results demonstrate the multidimensional character of flexibility development in different social and physical domains. Results suggest that masculine and feminine gender roles and social etiquette may not fall within a common domain of social convention.     

图形创意设计在艺术设计教学中的运用

图形创意设计作为艺术设计专业课程体系中的基础内容,是艺术设计的教学思想核心。在立求创新的艺术设计教学中,图形创意设计是承接基础造型到设计制图的过渡、创新思维能力的培养和图形创意设计实践的推广。文章着重探讨图形创意设计在视觉化社会背景下艺术设计中的教学和运用。     

The Use of Trait Labels in Making Psychological Inferences

Three studies investigated children's capacity to use trait labels as tools for making inferences about mental states. For example, knowledge that a story character is "nice" as opposed to "mean" could lead to predictions that the character would respond with greater negative affect upon discovering that his or her action had made someone upset. Study 1 (N = 48) examined whether participants (kindergartners, second graders, fifth graders, and adults) would make different psychological inferences based on whether a character was labeled as "nice" versus "mean." Study 2 (N = 30) examined the same issue with 4-year-olds using a simpler methodology. Study 3 (N = 30) extended the results of Study 2, by examining whether describing characters as "shy" versus "not shy" would lead 4-year-olds to make different mental state inferences. Taken together, these findings suggest that even for young children, trait labels can serve as a basis for making nonobvious inferences. Developmental differences are discussed.     

Children's Use of Context in Interpreting "Big" and "Little"

In order to use the words "big" and "little" appropriately, adults use 3 kinds of contexts: normative (the size of the object is compared to a stored mental representation), perceptual (the object is compared to another physically present object of the same kind), and functional (the object is judged with regard to its intended use). In 3 experiments, we examined how flexibly children switch from one context to another. 2–4-year-olds judged a series of everyday objects as "big" or "little." To answer correctly, children had to judge each object twice, once in a normative context and once in a perceptual or functional context. Results showed that switching from one context to another was not inherently difficult, even for 2-year-olds. However, the direction of switch was important: children throughout the age range tested switched easily from a normative context but made errors when asked to switch to a normative context. We suggest that the normative context differs from the perceptual and functional contexts in that it is unmarked, and that unmarked contexts are accessible only when no other context has been recently experienced. When context is marked more explicitly, children shift flexibly among different meanings.     

基于虚拟现实的天体系统模型设计与应用

提出用3Ds max软件设计天体系统三维模型、用Cult 3D软件为模型添加旋转和移动等交互功能、在Flash软件中完成二维动态光影效果、在网页中通过JavaScript语言实现其交互的三维虚拟系统设计思想;以演示日食、月食的成因及天体运行的相关知识为例,设计创作太阳系三维虚拟场景,其中三维虚拟模型可与Flash对象交互,相关动态光影效果可同步显示;同时,介绍该实例可实现的各项教学功能与特点,探究虚拟现实技术引入教学的应用前景。