Lin Chong-de

American and Chinese children's understanding of distance, time, and speed interrelations

Abstract American and Chinese childrens (1st, 3rd, and 5th grade) understanding of the interrelations among distance, time, and speed was investigated across three tasks. In each task, information from two dimensions was presented simultaneously and children were asked to predict the third dimension. To control for the load on short-term memory, all information was visually present at the time of judgment. Clinical interviews were conducted to validate childrens competence. Results showed that all children mastered the distance concept before the concepts of time and speed, both of which evolved at about the same time. Across cultures, Chinese children showed mastery of the interrelationships among concepts at an earlier age (3rd grade) than American children (5th grade). Also, Chinese 1st graders used more sophisticated strategies more consistently than American 1st graders. Results are discussed in light of cultural differences in curricula, teaching, and learning styles.

Theory and Practice on Teacher Performance Evaluation

Teacher performance evaluation plays a key role in educational personnel reform, so it has been an important yet difficult issue in educational reform. Previous evaluations on teachers failed to make strict distinction among the three dominant types of evaluation, namely, capability, achievement, and effectiveness. Moreover, teacher performance evaluation was usually restricted to task performance, neglecting contextual performance. Most researches done in teachers’ evaluation were only about college teachers. This paper suggests that teacher performance evaluation should find its theoretical foundation in teacher performance constructs. After making literature review, critical case study, critical interview, and qualitative research, the authors propose a new construct of teacher performance and make necessary analysis for the construct of reliability and validity in empirical approaches.

False belief reasoning in the brain: An ERP study

Understanding others mind and interpersonal interaction are the cognitive basis of successful social interactions. People’s mental states and behaviors rely on their holding beliefs for self and others. To investigate the neural substrates of false belief reasoning, the 32 channels event-related potentials (ERP) of 14 normal adults were measured while they understood false-belief and true belief used deceptive appearance task. After onset of the false-belief or true-belief questions, N100, P200 and late negative component (LNC) were elicited at centro-frontal sites. Compared with true belief, false belief reasoning elicited significant declined LNC in the time window from 400 to 800 ms. The source analysis of difference wave (False minus True) showed a dipole located in the middle cingulated cortex. These findings show that false belief reasoning probably included inhibitive process.

Modulation of Conscientiousness on Medial Frontal Negativity in Negative Emotions: an ERP Study on Ultimatum Game

The event-related potential technique was used to explore whether the medial frontal negativity (MFN) was impacted by conscientiousness in different emotional states. We found that compared to negative emotions and fair offers, larger MFN amplitudes were found in positive emotions and unfair offers; in negative emotions and unfair offers, conscientiousness and the amplitude of MFN had a positive relationship, related to positive emotions and fair offers. The results reveal that the MFN reflected the cognitive evaluate process of decision-making situations and positive emotions benefited the cognition of different situations; conscientiousness enhanced the economic incomes by weakening the MFN in negative emotions and unfair situation. This study provides psychophysiological evidence which has high ecological validity of the difference of MFN in real-life interaction task.

Moral Development in a Changing World A Chinese Perspective

A perspective on moral development is presented which suggests a stage model involving prerequisites and critical periods. The relationship between childrens intellectual structures; knowledge, skills, and experiences; personality traits; physical maturity; and emotional state, interactively function with existing moral structures to influence moral development.