| 释义 |
retroactive, a.|riːtrəʊ-, rɛtrəʊˈæktɪv|
[Cf. prec. and active. So F. rétroactif, -ive, Sp. and Pg. retroactivo, It. retroattivo.]
1. a. Of enactments, etc.: Extending in scope or effect to matters which have occurred in the past; retrospective; also with to. Also transf.
1611Cotgr., Retroactif, retroactiue; casting, driuing, relating, backward. 1668Persec. Ref. Ch. in France 11 They have given it a Retroactive Power (as they call it) by putting it in Execution against persons who returned to us a long time before the Declaration was in being. a1751Bolingbroke Fragm. Ess. xxxviii, As the death of Christ had a retroactive effect on those that lived and died before they were redeemed. 1794Earl Malmesbury Diaries & Corr. III. 60, I objected to the date to be fixed to the Treaty, particularly if in addition to the giving it this retro⁓active force, an advance..was to be required. 1811W. R. Spencer Poems 131 Must I, for follies past assess'd By retro-active laws be fin'd? 1847R. W. Hamilton Rewards & Punishm. v. (1853) 215 The resurrection of Christ..is represented as possessing a retroactive influence. 1897Times 22 Apr. 6/1 The retroactive clause in the Dingley Bill will be either cancelled or amended. 1952Sun (Baltimore) 22 Mar. 6/4 A handsome wage increase..allows 12.5 cents an hour immediately and retro⁓active to January 1. 1978J. Paxton Dict. Europ. Econ. Community (rev. ed.) 49 The United Kingdom..informed the Council of Ministers on 27 March that a subsidy would be granted on sugar and made retroactive to 1 Feb. 1979Arizona Daily Star 5 Aug. c8/4 Placed Paul Hartzell, pitcher, on the 21-day disabled list, retroactive to last Thursday.
b. Directed backwards in time.
1822Blackw. Mag. II. 165 We may say century, without stretching our retroactive foresight to any extraordinary degree.
c. retroactive infinitive (Gram.), an active infinitive that has a preceding noun as its object.
1946O. Jespersen Mod. Eng. Gram. V. xv. 233 Retro⁓active infinitives are found in connexion with the adverbs yet and still:..Rome and Naples—even Florence are yet to see (= we have not yet seen; are yet to be seen would mean ‘can still be seen’).
2. Operating in a backward direction. rare.
1611[see above]. 1706Phillips (ed. Kersey), Retroactive (Lat. in Philos.), driving back; as A retroactive Motion. 1797Monthly Mag. III. 383 In the centre of the axle is placed a retroactive fulcrum, to which chains are made fast.
†3. Reactive. Obs. rare.
1799Mrs. J. West Tale of Times II. 264 The odium with which you bespatter a neighbour's reputation has a retro⁓active effect in furbishing your own. 1802Beddoes Hygeia ii. 68 The total abstraction of the mind from all regard to the retroactive tendency of conduct.
4. Psychol. That affects the remembering of what has been previously learned; esp. as retroactive inhibition, the inhibiting effect on recall that can be produced by attention given to new material after the original learning. Cf. inhibition 4, proactive1 a.
1909C. S. Myers Exper. Psychol. xiii. 163 This ‘retro⁓active inhibition’ is yet another cause of the greater difficulty in learning longer than shorter studies. Ibid. 166 Similar experiments have been conducted with the object of proving retro-active, i.e. backward association. 1909Psychol. Monogr. X. iv. 138 With G. retroactive inhibition was obvious. Each series was remembered fairly well until the next was given. 1915Ibid. XIX. iv. (title) A study of retro⁓active inhibition. 1938Brit. Jrnl. Psychol. Jan. 244 It could be argued that retroactive inhibition might influence the result by preventing the possibility of such recall. 1948E. R. Hilgard Theories of Learning vi. 162 The natural conjecture on the assumption of continuous variation is that the amount of retroactive inhibition would increase gradually as dissimilarity was increased. 1963Cofer & Musgrave Verbal Behav. & Learning 7 Many facts of acquisition are consistent with either formulation, but..others, especially the facts of proactive and retroactive interference, are not. 1965J. M. Stephens Psychol. of Classroom Learning viii. 203 Your experience with the second task would work back to strengthen the rather tentative earlier association. This backward-working process is called retroactive facilitation. 1966J. M. Brown et al. Appl. Psychol. 36 A common explanation for this loss of retention is that newly learned material inhibits that previously learned. A technical term for this is retroactive inhibition. 1975G. H. Bower in W. K. Estes Handbk. Learning & Cognitive Processes I. ii. 75 An inherent restriction on retrieval times would then produce the observable phenomena of retroactive interference.
Hence retroˈactively adv.
1828–32in Webster (citing Wheaton). 1879Daily News 5 Nov. 5/6 That the amnesty did not retroactively affect the material fact of six months' residence in Paris required by the law. 1887Contemp. Rev. May 703 Unfortunately for the public, the laws do not apply retroactively. |