The Flynn Effect and U.S. Policies: The Impact of Rising IQ Scores on American Society Via Mental Retardation Diagnoses.

Over the last century, IQ scores have been steadily rising, a phenomenon dubbed the Flynn effect. Because of the Flynn effect, IQ tests are periodically renormed, making them harder. Given that eligibility for mental retardation (MR) services relies heavily on IQ scores, renormed tests could have a significant impact on MR placements. In longitudinal IQ records from 9 sites around the country, students in the borderline and mild MR range lost an average of 5.6 points when retested on a renormed test and were more likely to be classified MR compared with peers retested on the same test. The magnitude of the effect is large and affects national policies on education, social security, the death penalty, and the military. This paper reports the perceptions of professionals as they relate to IQ score fluctuations in normal, borderline, and/or MR populations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in self-assessed health: An information-processing investigation of health and illness cognition.

In 2 studies, the relation between measures of self-assessed health (SAH) and automatic processing of health-relevant information was investigated. In Study 1, 84 male and 86 female undergraduate students completed a modified Stroop task. Results indicated that participants with poorer SAH showed enhanced interference effects for illness versus non-illness words. In Study 2, 27 male and 30 female undergraduate students completed a self-referent encoding task. Results offered a conceptual replication and extension of Study 1 by confirming the specificity of the relation between SAH measures and automatic processing of health (vs negative or positive general trait) information. These studies provide evidence that individual differences in SAH are reflected in schematic processing of health-relevant information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

生活中的慢性杀手--石化合成洗剂

文章回顾了石化合成洗剂的发展历史，从经历的五代产品的发展过程中可以看出它经历了一个环保到不环保再到环保的曲折过程分析了石化合成洗剂的主要成分及其清洗去污的作用原理着重指出目前使用的石化合成洗剂虽然给生活带来便利，但同时也给人体健康和生态环境都造成严重的危害；倡导使用新型环保型的第五代洗剂已成为新世纪中清洗剂发展的必然趋势。     

Reasoning, Integration, Inference Alteration, and Text Comprehension.

This paper reports how the study of formal logical reasoning provides insight into more everyday types of reasoning, such as that involved in language comprehension. Both of these types of cognition are thought to involve the use of mental models, and so it is reasonable to think that the cognitive operations needed for formal logical reasoning would be involved in everyday reasoning as well. We focused on three aspects of formal reasoning: (a) the integration of information into a common mental model, (b) the drawing of inferences, and (c) the coordination of alternative possibilities. We were able to show that the integration and inference components were related to narrative comprehension processes, but the coordination of alternative models was not. Thus, there is evidence for some overlap in the mental processes used in formal and everyday reasoning. This further justifies the study of formal logical reasoning as a window into certain types of everyday reasoning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differentiating visual and kinesthetic imagery in mental practice.

Through two experiments, the study sought to emphasize the usefulness of the visual and kinesthetic imagery in mental practice. In Experiment 1, it was hypothesized that when the task to be learned through mental practice necessitates the reproduction of a form by drawing, the visual image, which provides a wide span of apprehension, is more suitable than the kinesthetic image. On the other hand, the kinesthetic image that supplies inputs from the muscles' positions and movements should be more appropriate for the acquisition of the duration of the drawing. In Experiment 2, it was hypothesized that the task, transformed into a motor task necessitating minute coordination of the two hands, would benefit more from kinesthetic imagery. To have optimal control over what was actually experienced during mental practice, the participants' imagery skills were measured. The participants also benefited from prior imagery training. The results demonstrate that when using mental practice to initially acquire a task, visual imagery is better for tasks that emphasize form while kinesthetic imagery is better for those tasks that emphasize timing or minute coordination of the two hands. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward the reduction of population obesity: Macrolevel environmental approaches to the problems of food, eating, and obesity.

The authors reviewed the evidential basis of three environmental approaches to reducing population obesity: What are the effects of (a) taxing or subsidizing foods, (b) manipulating the ease of food access, and (c) restricting access to certain foods? A narrative review evaluated evidence using National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute criteria. There was strong evidence that subsidization influences food purchases, but not necessarily food consumption or body weight. Ease of food access may influence food purchases, and possibly food intake and body weight. Data on restriction were lacking. More studies are needed to justify that altering these macro-environmental variables will necessarily reduce population obesity. A proposed conceptual model posits that the steps through environmental interventions may exert intended and unintended influences on body weight and obesity prevalence. Contemplated policy changes should weigh scientific evidence with social judgments and values concerning changes to the environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The mechanisms of suppression and enhancement in comprehension.

The goal of comprehension is to build coherent mental representations or structures. These structures represent clauses, sentences, paragraphs, passages, and other meaningful units. Thus, comprehending a clause requires building a mental structure to represent what that clause is about; comprehending a sentence requires building a mental structure to represent what that sentence is about; comprehending a passage requires building a mental structure to represent what that passage is about. In Gernsbacher (1990), I described a simple framework for understanding how comprehenders build mental structures during comprehension. I call this framework, the Structure Building Framework. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

西安绿色康居小区规划设计剖析

通过对西安绿色康居小区规划设计的实例分析，阐明了小康型住宅区的标准和要求，在旧城住宅区改造中的落实和运用，试图探索下一世纪旧城住宅区的改造之路．     

The development and maturation of humanitarian psychology.

Humanitarian psychological support as an organized field is relatively young. Pioneers in the field were involved primarily in providing psychological support to refugees and internally displaced persons in conflict and nonconflict situations. This article describes basic principles for the design of psychological support programs and interventions. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) began a psychological support program in 1991. The IFRC chose psychological first aid as its model for implementation in developing countries. Psychological first aid fits all the principles for psychological support program design and is adapted to individual communities. The first generation of psychological support programs differed dramatically depending on the countries in which they were developed. A second generation of psychological support programs evolved in response to the earthquake/tsunami of December 26, 2004. The Inter-Agency Standing Committee international guidelines consolidated the advances of second-generation programs and provided a clear indication of the wide acceptance of the importance of psychological support. A glimpse is provided of the third generation of psychological support programs, and an admonition is made for a more empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reply to Silverman.

Responds to commentary by I. Silverman (see record 2007-08963-001) entitled "Review of Pure types are rare": Comment on book review. I do not think that either one of us will change his position, and therefore it is up to the interested (yet disinterested) reader to adjudicate our dispute by checking Professor Silverman's book and his references. In the process, the reader will be forced to consider the thought-provoking implications for our mental health system of some of the incidents which the author describes so vividly, and that will not be a bad thing. There is one point, however, which is worth pursuing further here, for Professor Silverman persists in an elementary statistical fallacy. Let us take the situation which he cites, where the base rate for diagnosing schizophrenia is 50%. Suppose with the same base rate the degree of agreement is in fact 53%; this is far above chance level. It must be emphasized, however, that the 53% agreement under discussion came not from a study where the base rate for diagnosing schizophrenia was 50%, but from one where the conditions were far more stringent since the base rate for diagnosing schizophrenia was around 20%. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)