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The Executive Function of Temporal Distribution: Evidence from the Dual Valence Association Task 2014, 37(2): 258-264.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4599KB) ( )   Time personality, which focuses on the personality characteristics and individual differences under the temporal context, was defined as a consistent adapting tendency and character of capabilities of individuals in time-related situations. It is a multi-level hierarchical structure of personality which was composed of four second-order factors as temporal obedience, temporal programming, temporal distribution and temporal tension. In the present study, using the technique of event-related potentials (ERPs), we applied the dual valence association task to investigate the impact of temporal distribution on executive function, and explored the temporal patterns of the brain activity when polychronic and monochronic individuals were performing the conflict task. Dual valence association task measures the interference effects presented in a double associative categorization valence task, that is, congruency /incongruence between emotional information presented in facial expressions and semantic information presented in words. Participants used two emotional valence evaluative tasks and were asked to categorize the emotional valence of positive /negative words or the emotional valence of positive/negative faces. The two-way repeated-measures analyses of variances (ANOVAs) on the accuracy (ACC) showed a significant main effect of Task type, that is compatible blocks produced higher ACC than incompatible ones. On the reaction times (RTs) however, the two-way repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed a significant main effect of Task type and Group. Compatible blocks showed shorter RTs than incompatible ones and polychronics responded faster than monochronics. The EEG was recorded from 64 scalp sites using tin electrodes mounted in an elastic cap (Brain Products), with the references on the left and right mastoids. The vertical electrooculograms (EOGs) were recorded with electrode placed above and below the right eye. Horizontal EOG was recorded from the right orbital rim. EEG and EOG activity was amplified using a DC~100Hz bandpass and continuously sampled at 500Hz/channel. The EEG was band-pass filtered from 0.01 to 16 Hz. All electrode impedances were maintained below 5kΩ. ERP averages were computed off-line. Trials with EOG artifacts (mean EOG voltage exceeding ±80μV) and those contaminated with artifacts due to amplifier clipping, or peak-to-peak deflection exceeding ±80μV were excluded from averaging. ERP waveforms were time-locked to the onset of stimuli and the average epoch was 1000ms, including a 200ms pre-stimulus baseline. EEG activity only for correct responses in each condition was analyzed. The early N170 component was measured and analyzed at 130~190ms using three-way repeated measures ANOVAs on average amplitudes, with Groups (polychronicity, monochronicity) as a between-subjects factor, and Task type (congruent, incongruent) and eletrodes (P7, PO7, P8, PO8) as the within-subjects factors. The late LPP component around 500~700ms was conducted the same analysis at 5 electrode sites (F1, Fz, FCz, Cz, F2). The repeated-measures ANOVAs on mean amplitude of N170 showed a marginal interaction effect between Group and Task type [F(1,34) = 3.27, p = .08]. More specifically, a larger N170 was elicited in the incongruent condition than that in the congruent condition among the monochronics, suggesting that monochronics need to devote more attentional resources in face of the conflict task. As for the LPP component, monochronics showed higher positive amplitudes compared to polychronics, indicating the enhanced cognitive control processes of monochronics. Related Articles | Metrics

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Interaction between scene context and target template in visual search Yanju Ren 2014, 37(2): 265-271.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4662KB) ( )   In the present study, visual search in the real world images task was used to explore how visual system integrated scene context and target template to guide eye movement and improve search efficiency. Whether the visual system used scene context and target template simultaneously or not. If scene context and target template were used simultaneously, how did they influence the scanning epoch and the verification epoch; if not, which one was the first to be used by visual system, scene context or target template. In the task, two fixations were displayed in sequence. Between the fixations, a cue (picture or words) identifying the search target was presented. After that, a scene picture was displayed, and the participants’ task was to find the target, look at it and press the space bar on the keyboard. In experiment, participants’ eye movements were monitored by the SMI eye tracking when they were performing the task. For the experiment, the trial event was as follows. Each trial began with a central fixation cross for 200ms, followed by a cue identifying the search target for 800 ms. The cue was either a word identifying the target or an exactly matching picture of the target. The cue was followed by a central fixation point lasting 200ms. Once the fixation was over, the real-world scene appeared. There were three types of test scene: the target in a high probability region (consistency), the target in a low probability region (inconsistency), and the background of scene was segmented into 48 pieces and arranged randomly (random). The experiment was thus a 2 × 3 design with cue type (word vs. picture) as the within-subject variable and scene context (consistency, inconsistency and random) as the between-subject variable. Participants were asked to locate the target as quickly and as accurately as possible, to look at it, and to press Space key as soon as the target was found. Participants were given twelve practice trials prior to the experiment. Results of accuracy and reaction time showed that no speed accuracy trade-off existed, the objects were detected more rapidly and accurately in the consistent scenes context than in the inconsistent and random scenes, the objects were detected more rapidly and accurately when the cue was picture than those when the cue was word, and the interaction between scene context and target template reached the significant level. Eye movement analysis found that the main reasons for improving search performance were the reduction of the duration of scanning phase and verification phase. Futhermore, in the initiation epoch, only scene context influence the initiation time, in the scanning epoch, scene context and target template could simultaneously influence the most eye movement indices, such as, scanning time, average fixation duration, fixation number, and in the verification epoch, scene context and target template also could simultaneously influence the most eye movement indices, such as, verification time and saccade number. These finding suggested that the visual system could use scene context and target template to guide eye movement and improve search performance simultaneously and the time loci of scene context and target template influencing visual search process were different. Specifically, in the initial epoch, only scene context played a guiding role and next these two factors played a role in the scanning epoch and verification epoch. Based on these findings, the authors proposed the interactive model between scene context and target template in the visual search. Related Articles | Metrics

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Implicit Stigma against Mental Illness: Evidence from Single Category Implicit Association Test 2014, 37(2): 272-276.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3276KB) ( )   A series of studies have revealed that automatically cognitive and emotional aspects of mental illness stigma, as assessed by Implicit Association Test (IAT) or Brief Implicit Association Test (BIAT). But there is no concept about implicit stigma toward mental illness in the past research. On the basis of previous stigma studies, and combing the Affect-Behavior-Cognition of Attitudes, the present study conceptualize the implicit stigma toward mental illness is the introspectively (or inaccurately) unidentified traces about mental illness, which unconsciously regulate the individual’s belief and reaction of people with mental illness; these traces include automatically negative cognition, passive emotion and discrimination tendency. However, because most of researches have been conducted with the negative cognitive and emotional aspects of implicit stigma, very little has been done to discover the behavioral tendency of implicit stigma. Otherwise, because it needs complementary pares of concepts and attributes, both IAT and BIAT are limits to measuring the strength of evaluative association with a single attitude objects, while mental illness is no natural complementary pairs. The purpose of this study was to examine the component of implicit stigma toward mental illness and implicit stigma among Chinese students, using standard attributes stimuli and Single Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT). A sample of 61 college students was recruited in the present study. According to the concept of implicit stigma toward mental illness, three independent SC-IATs, including cognitive evaluation SC-IAT, emotional ration SC-IAT and behavioral reaction SC-IAT, were used to measure implicit stigma toward mental illness. The results showed that: (1) In the three independent and total SC-IATs, the automatic association between mental illness and negative words was closer relative to positive words; (2) Implicit effect of all the SC-IATs were significant; (3) 65.57% of respondents had significant implicit stigma, indicating negative implicit attitudes against people with mental illness; (4) The results provided initial evidence for the reliability and validity of the SC-IATs as measure of implicit stigma against mental illness. Finding indicates that respondents have significant implicit effect, inclining to mental illness in contact with the negative words; that the developed SC-IAT measuring the implicit stigma is reliable and valid; that the components of ISMI include automatically negative cognition, emotion and discrimination tendency. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Age of Acquisition effect in Auditory Words 2014, 37(2): 277-282.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3805KB) ( )   The previous study has found that early-acquired words processed more quickly or accurately than late-acquired words, which was defined as Age of Acquisition (AOA). So far, four major theories focused on the processing mechanism of AOA: ⑴ Phonological Completeness Hypothesis believed that the phonology of early-acquired word was stored as a whole, while the phonology of late-acquired word was assumed to be represented in a more fragmented form. In this case, a processing cost was produced because the later-acquired word was more difficult to assemble for pronunciation; ⑵ Semantic Hypothesis supposed that the late acquired word was learned on the basis of the early acquired word, and because of the repeatedly processing of early-acquired word meaning, then they were processed faster and more accurately than late-acquired words;⑶Arbitrary Mapping Hypothesis assumed that AOA effect reflected the arbitrary nature of the mapping between input (e.g. orthographic) and output (e.g. phonological or semantic) representation form during the development of lexical network. When the mapping between input and output is inconsistent, or arbitrary, AOA effect would be increased. While the mapping between input and output is highly consistent, AOA effects would be reduced; ⑷ Cumulative Frequency Hypothesis. If the frequency of a word’s application was higher, then the word would be processed more quickly. And because we used the early-acquired word more frequently, then our processing speed was faster for early-acquired word than for late-acquired word. Recently, there were growing evidences showed that AOA effect was found in the processes of orthography, phonology and semantic, which supported Arbitrary Mapping Hypothesis. In factual life experience, words are learned by hearing more than by reading, and the age of acquisition might be earlier. In order to test the Arbitrary Mapping Hypothesis of AOA effects in auditory words, three experiments were conducted to examine the locus of the age of acquisition effects in the processing of Chinese words. In Experiment 1, auditory words were divided into early group and late group, participants were required to judge whether the later presented visual character pronounced the same as the earlier presented auditory word. The result showed that words acquired early were processed more accurately than words acquired late. In Experiment 2 and 3, the participants were asked to judge whether the later presented visual character possessed similar orthography or relevant meaning with the earlier presented auditory word. In both of the two experiments, the reaction time of early acquired Chinese character turned out to be faster than that of late acquired, which indicated AOA effects. The study results supported Arbitrary Mapping Hypothesis. On one hand, the AOA effects produced in the processes of orthography, phonology and semantic. On the other hand, the mapping level was one of factors which determined AOA. Related Articles | Metrics

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A preliminary study on pain empathy of journalists 2014, 37(2): 283-288.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3754KB) ( )   Many lines of evidence have shown that the empathy abilities of medical students to negative events gradually decreased throughout the medical school, which indicates that medical training could affect the medical students’ empathy. Empathy has also been showed to play an important role during journalists communicates with the respondents. However, no study has so far explored empathy on journalists. In our present study, we investigated the empathy for pain of journalists compared to non-journalists. We recruited 30 journalists (13 males Vs 17 females) and 30 non-journalists with no experience of journalist (15 males and 15 females) as controls. 20 pain-related visual pictures and 10 non-pain pictures which were selected through pretest before our formal experiment were used as the stimuli. After presentation of one of these stimuli, subjects were asked to rate the pain intensity of themselves induced by the stimulus by the 10-point Likert-type scale(0- not painful and 10-most painful). We compared the pain index(PI) which are the sum of scores of all pain pictures for each subject between journalists and non-journalists. We found that the PIs of journalists was much higher than that of non-journalists, moreover, the PI were positively related to the career time of journalists. However, the scores to non-pain stimulus did not differ significantly between journalists and non-journalists. These results indicate that journalists display much higher pain empathy compared to non-journalists. Further analysis showed that the PIs did not show significant difference when they engaged in different television programs, which means that journalist types have no significant effect on pain empathy. But journalists did report higher level of care about others during social life compared to non-journalist, which suggests that more care about others due to career training could be one of factor influencing empathy on journalists. As we know so far, we provided the first experimental evidence for the higher empathy of journalists and also explored the potential factors which affect empathy ability of journalists. Therefore, our research is helpful to enrich the achievements in this research field and make a good understanding how the career training affects the human’s empathy. In our present study, we investigated the empathy for pain of journalists compared to non-journalists. We recruited 30 journalists (13 males Vs 17 females) and 30 non-journalists with no experience of journalist (15 males and 15 females) as controls. 20 pain-related visual pictures and 10 non-pain pictures which were selected through pretest before our formal experiment were used as the stimuli. After presentation of one of these stimuli, subjects were asked to rate the pain intensity of themselves induced by the stimulus by the 10-point Likert-type scale(0- not painful and 10-most painful). We compared the pain index(PI) which are the sum of scores of all pain pictures for each subject between journalists and non-journalists. We found that the PIs of journalists was much higher than that of non-journalists, moreover, the PI were positively related to the career time of journalists. However, the scores to non-pain stimulus did not differ significantly between journalists and non-journalists. These results indicate that journalists display much higher pain empathy compared to non-journalists. Further analysis showed that the PIs did not show significant difference when they engaged in different television programs, which means that journalist types have no significant effect on pain empathy. But journalists did report higher level of care about others during social life compared to non-journalist, which suggests that more care about others due to career training could be one of factor influencing empathy on journalists. As we know so far, we provided the first experimental evidence for the higher empathy of journalists and also explored the potential factors which affect empathy ability of journalists. Therefore, our research is helpful to enrich the achievements in this research field and make a good understanding how the career training affects the human’s empathy. Related Articles | Metrics

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The impact of length of duration and change in velocity on duration perception of progress bars without a concurrent task in human-computer interfaces 2014, 37(2): 289-293.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3594KB) ( )   Progress bars are prevalent in modern user interfaces. Prospective paradigm, verbal estimation method and single task program are used in this research to explore the impact of change in velocity and length of duration on user duration perception of progress bars. The results are used to suggest several design considerations for intelligent progress bars that can cache progress when the operation first starts to mitigate negative progress behaviors (e.g., slow-down). Thus it makes progress bars appear faster and ultimately improves user computing experience which fully reflects the user-centered design concept of user interfaces. The Experiment 1was conducted with a 2（duration : short duration，long duration ）×4 (progress bar type : constant, decreasing, accelerating, accelerating in the beginning and decreasing towards the end) within-subject design . In order to reduce the effect of integer reaction tendency of verbal estimation, the experiment adjusted the length of duration slightly which changed among 5 adjacent durations. Short duration was about 10s and the range was respectively 9 s, 9.5 s, 10 s, 10.5 s and 11 s, while long duration was about 30s and the range was respectively 29 s, 29.5 s, 30 s, 30.5 s and 31 s. On the basis of Experiment 1, Experiment 2 chose the duration consistent of previous studies and explored the reason for the discrepency between our results and the ones of previous studies. The dependent variable was the ratio scores of duration judgments and the ratio = estimated duration / physical duration. The progress bars as experimental materials were 28 cm × 2.1 cm in size. As the trial began, participants were presented with a grey progress bar which was filled with blue gradually. They were asked to focus on the progress bar and repeat “the, the, the” quickly to avoid some duration estimation strategy (i.e., counting silently). Meanwhile the progress indicator (e.g., 21%) above the bar moved with the blue progress bar from left to right (Figure 2). As soon as the progress bar was filled with blue completely, participants input their duration estimation in a text box at the bottom and pressed “submit”. Then the text box was emptied to avoid the tendency of attainability of verbal estimation method (i.e., submitting the former result). Afterwards another trial began. Presentation order was randomized. The results are as follows: (1) users tend to underestimate long duration and overestimate short duration under on concurrent task condition ; (2) significant length effects are documented. The length of duration is in inverse proportion to the ratio scores of duration judgments. The duration judgments ration scores decreases as the duration length increases; (3) the main effect of progress bar type is significant. The scores of constant progress bars are maximum and those of accelerating progress bars are minimum. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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The Continuity of Feature Change Affects the Maintenance of Persisting Object Representation 2014, 37(2): 294-297.  Abstract ( )   PDF (2965KB) ( )   Abstract Background: Whether feature or spatial-temporal information is critical for maintenance of persisting object representation is still debated. The similarity theory emphasizes the role of feature information. However, object file theory proposes the spatial-temporal continuity of object position help maintain the persisting object representation. Previous studies based on the object file framework revealed that feature information alone could not support persisting object representation. However, those studies neglected the difference between the static feature and the feature change. The present study tested the hypothesis that the continuity of feature change may be a necessary condition for maintenance of persisting object representation. Method: The object reviewing paradigm was adopted. In each trial, two characters flashed briefly in two circles. Then the circles moved smoothly to vertical positions. One probe character appeared in one of circles at the end of moving. Participants made a rapid judgment on whether the character was one of the two characters appeared at the beginning of moving. If the probe was one of two characters presented before, it might appear in the congruent circle (congruent condition) or in the incongruent circle (incongruent condition). Object Specific Preview Benefits (OSPB), the difference between reaction times of the incongruent condition and the congruent condition, was taken as an index of how well the persisting object representation was preserved. The continuity of feature change was manipulated as a between subject factor within each experiment. There were 3 levels of continuity: No-change, Gradual-change and Abrupt-change (or Random-change). Experiment 1 tested whether shape change continuity affected object persistence. In the No-Change condition (n = 10), the object shape did not change during the moving. In the Gradual-Change condition (n = 17), the object shape changed gradually from a circle to an oval shape during moving. In the Abrupt-Change condition (n = 11), the object shape transformed between a circle and an oval shape during moving. Experiment 2 tested whether brightness change continuity affected object persistence. In the No-Change condition (n = 9), the object brightness was constant during moving. In the Gradual-Change condition (n = 12), the object brightness changed gradually during moving. In the Random-Change condition (n = 6), the object brightness changed randomly during moving. Results: In Experiment 1, significant OSPB was found in the no-change condition (OSPB = 28.32ms, p = .006) and the gradual-change condition (OSPB = 29.31ms, p = .004), but not in the abrupt-change condition (OSPB = -2.57ms, p = .82). Similar results pattern was also found in Experiment 2. Significant OSPB was found when brightness did not change (OSPB = 78.26ms, p = .001) and when brightness changed gradually (OSPB = 26.74ms, p = .015), but was not found when brightness change randomly (OSPB = 1.88ms, p = .934). Conclusion: These results indicate that the continuity of feature change is also necessary for the maintenance of persisting object representations. The present study implies that object file theory may need to include both the continuity of feature change and the continuity of position change to define the spatial temporal continuity. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Perceptual Spans for the Normal Reading and Proofreading Guo-Li Yan 2014, 37(2): 298-302.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3364KB) ( )   The reading task has different effects on the eye movements during reading. There are few studies to compare the perceptual spans of the normal reading and proofreading. The present study is to investigate the perceptual spans for the normal reading and proofreading in Chinese. The perceptual span is the effective vision field from which a reader can obtain useful information during a fixation in reading. There are studies which investigated the perceptual span of different languages, but few have studied the perceptual span of proofreading in Chinese language. In the present study, gaze-contingent moving-window technique was used to explore the perceptual span in normal Chinese reading and proofreading. 37 college students participated in the experiment. The experiment design was 2 (task: normal reading, proofreading) × 6 (window size: R0, L1R1, L2R2, L3R3, L4R4 and whole line) mixed design. The reading task was the between-participant factor, and the window size was the within-participant factor. The eye movements were recorded with a SR Research EyeLink 2K eye tracker. The sampling rate was 1000Hz. The refresh rate of the subject monitor is 150Hz. The distance between the subject and the screen was 69.6cm. Each Chinese character was 28×28 pixels and subtended 0.9°. There were 60 experimental sentences and 60 filler sentences. The stimuli were rotated in Latin square. There were one or two errors in the filler sentences in proofreading condition. The results were as followings: (1) There were slower reading rate and shorter mean saccade length in proofreading task than that in normal reading. (2)For the normal reading the perceptual was two to three characters to the right of the fixed word, for the proofreading the perceptual span was one character space. Reading rate implies temporal aspect of eye movements, and mean saccade length implies spatial aspects of eye movements. Reading task had influences on both temporal and spatial aspects of readers’ eye movement measures. These results indicated that the perceptual span was modulated by reading tasks. The results also suggested that readers adopted different reading strategies in the proofreading and normal reading. Compared to normal reading task, proofreading reading task required readers not only to comprehend the sentences, but also to look for errors. To do the task well, readers must scrutinize the sentences character by character. Furthermore, according to Kahneman (1973), who claimed cognitive resources were capacity-limited, the more complex the task was, the more capacity it would occupied. The cognitive load of proofreading task is heavier than that of normal reading, so in proofreading task, reading rate is slower, and mean saccade length is shorter, therefore, the perceptual span is smaller. Related Articles | Metrics

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Adaptive Memory: Enhanced Orientation Memory after Survival Processing 2014, 37(2): 303-310.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5682KB) ( )   Processing information according to its survival value increases its later retention, named as survival advantage of memory. Memory should be geared toward retaining information which is relevant to specific adaptive problems faced in hunting-and-gathering environments. In the meantime, division of labor typically found in hunter-gatherer tasks may have led to unique foraging-related cognitive specializations of the sexes. Such specializations might be apparent in memory for stems rated for relevance to these activities. Extrapolating from extant researches, we hypothesis that survival advantage of memory should also be manifested in a new domain (orientation memory), and this survival memory should display gender difference. The present study included three experiments conducted with an indirect study-to-test paradigm. Participants were shown pictures of foods or animals oriented towards 4 orientations on a computer screen one by one. Food pictures was 28 pieces and animal pictures was 28 pieces. All pictures are 80×80 pixels, and they were 280 pixel away from the center of screen. The task was to rate the ease of collecting the foods or capturing the animals relative to a central fixation point in different scenarios. After a distraction task, unexpected recall tests to orientation memory of pictures followed. In Experiment 1, we employed a 2(scenario: survival hunt vs. contest hunt) ×2(gender: males vs. females) between-subjects design. Participants rated the ease of capturing the animals in different scenarios. We investigated whether survival processing enhances memory for animals’ orientation. In Experiment 2, we employed a 2(scenario: survival gather vs. contest gather) ×2(gender: males vs. females) between-subjects design. Participants rated the ease of collecting foods and completed the same procedure as Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, we applied 2(survival scenario: gather vs. hunt) ×2(gender: males vs. females) mixed experiment design. Participants completed tasks in both survival gathering and hunting scenarios. We checked whether performances of both males and females subjects would show difference in different survival tasks. Recall accuracy and ratings of ease acquired through computer were used as behavioral measures. In Experiment 1, participants were more likely to remember the orientations of animals in survival hunt scenario, F (1, 52) = 12.43, p < .001. But neither the main effect of sex nor the interactions approached significance. Compared with males, females thought hunt was more difficult, F (1, 52) = 12.52, p < .001. In Experiment 2, Participants remembered the orientations of foods better in survival gather scenario, F (1, 52) = 8.81, p < .05. But neither the main effect of sex nor the interactions approached significance. There is no significant difference in rating data. In Experiment 3, neither the main effect of scenario nor main effect of gender approached significance in recall tests. There was a significant interaction between gender and scenario, F (1, 22) = 6.72, p < .05. Males remembered orientations of pictures significant better in survival hunt scenario than survival gather scenario, F (1, 22) = 5.28, p < .05. Participants all felt hunting animals was more difficult than gathering foods, F (1, 22) = 19.28, p < .001. The results extend the generalizability of survival processing advantages to a new domain (orientation memory), and revealed gender difference in survival memory. Related Articles | Metrics

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How much memory is implicit? And evaluate Jacoby’s PDP 2014, 37(2): 311-315.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3434KB) ( )   Since Jacoby(1991) proposed a process-dissociation framework(PDP) designed to tease out and measure the effects of conscious and unconscious process. Jacoby’s process dissociation framework has been welcomed as a tool for differentiating controlled and automatic cognitive processes. Although original PDP was successively modified into several extension models, it is always considered as an ingenious methodology to obtain separate estimates of familiarity and intentional recollection with a single paradigm. PDP is based on the difference of mental phenomena in inclusion and exclusion conditions. The model that posits two independent retrieval processes: a familiarity process, and a recollection process, are dissociated in facilitation task and an interference task. Therefore, mental phenomena of PDP is the foundation on which mathematic model is conceived of. But present mathematic model of PDP do not reflect its mental phenomena, and its result is divorcing mathematic model from real mental phenomena. Jacoby made three blunders in describing PDP mental process, construction of mathematic model, applying PDP into practice. The article questioned Jacoby’s blunders in three aspects mentioned above. Firstly, PDP do not fully describe memory-recollection mental phenomena in inclusion and exclusion conditions. For example, Jacoby’ math model can not explain some phenomena in exclusion condition such as reversing between old and new, interference in two kind of memory, decision which sheet the old word belongs to, etc. these mistakes directly led to Jacoby’ equations incorrect. A simple example was employed to verify incorrectness of Jacoby’s mathematic equation in the article. Secondly, Jacoby neglected situationism of memory and complication of recollection, these resulting in Jacoby’s simple train of thought in construction of PDP math model, and improperly explanation of R and F. In PDP model, R represents the unconditional probability of recollection, FR+ and FR- represent the conditional probabilities of familiarity (conditional on recollection and no recollection, respectively.). but Jacoby’s independence model assumed FR+=FR-, so it is difficult to understand what F refers to. Because FR+ and FR- represent different kind of memory. Thirdly, participants had two kinds of tactics in reaction in exclusion condition, one instruction-oriented method, the other sheet2–excluded method. A participant will not be interfered in exclusion condition if he uses the latter method, so the exclusion task will be out of action. We constructed a new PDP application model on the basis of PDP mental phenomena, and tested the new model with experiments, regulated application condition and result interpretation, verified strategic experimental dissociation in exclusion condition, i.e. there existed significant differences in terms of reaction time (t=2.44, p<.05) and error probability (t=2.73, p<.01) between participants who took different tactic in reaction, corrected Jacoby’s three blunders in theory and application. To sum up, these results indicate that mathematical relations between variables can explain the mental phenomena in PDP experiment and coincide with experimental results. There suggest that the new PDP model can be tested by practice. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Relationship between Creative Thinking and Cognitive Inhibition 2014, 37(2): 316-321.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4520KB) ( )   Cognitive inhibition is a kind of important processing mechanism in creative thinking. Cognitive inhibition is a processing that inhibits cognitive process or cognitive content. At present, there exists three arguments about the relationship between creative thinking and cognitive inhibition: cognitive disinhibition hypothesis, cognitive inhibition hypothesis, and adaptive cognitive inhibition hypothesis. Cognitive disinhibiton hypothesis claims that cognitive inhibition ability of creative individuals is lower than those of less creative individuals, creative individuals have a characteristic of defocused attention, pay more attention to irrelevant informations, and have the similar biological basis with schizophrenia patients; cognitive inhibition hypothesis believes that creative individuals have higher ability of cognitive inhibition; and adaptive cognitive inhibition hypothesis considers that creative individuals have flexible cognitive inhibition ability, they may regulate their attention when they face different cognitive tasks and different stages in problem solving, this adjustment is automatic or reactive, and does not contain self control. In addition, creative individuals have different attention mode in creative problem solving. In the earlier stage, the problem is relatively poor defined, creative individuals tend to focus attention, and are vulnerable to the affects of irrelevant information; In the later stage, creative individuals adopt developmental views, and benefit from inhibiting irrelevant informations and focused attention. 　　This paper reviewed the researches about the relationship between creative thinking and cognitive inhibition in recent 10 years from following three aspects. Firstly, different theory explanations, such as the causal theory of creativity, attentional-associative model in creativity, and the attention intermediary model in creativity, were introduced here. Secondly, some studies that supported hypotheses above were reviewed respectively. Thirdly, neural mechanism of creative thinking studies had shown that prefrontal cortex (PC) and Anterior Cingulated Cortex (ACC) might be the key brain areas for cognitive disinhibition or cognitive inhibition in creative thinking，and investigated the role of alpha activity in explaining the process of creative thinking. It found that alpha activity was contributed to the tasks with higher inner processing demands in creative thinking. Previous studies had many inconsistent conclusions, and many studies need to improve. Many studies using unconscious cognitive inhibition paradigms also existed many contradictions, and researches using conscious cognitive inhibition paradigm to explore the relationship between creative thinking and cognitive inhibition were lacking. Further research is needed to develop and integrate some theories, investigate some factors which influence the relationship between creative thinking and cognitive inhibition by using behavioral experiments, and studies need find brain areas when individuals are inhibiting by using neuroscience methods, and analyze different stages in the process of creative thinking in order to investigate the mechanism of cognitive inhibition. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Difference of English Inflected and Derived Morphology Processing Between Native and Non-native Speakers 2014, 37(2): 322-328.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5320KB) ( )   Morpheme refers to the study of the internal structure of words as well as the smallest functional component of a morphological complex word. Morphological processing, which is always unconscious, proposes that complex words are decomposed into their constituents that are based on symbolic rules. In recent years, the pattern of morphological processing of the second language learners has gained its popularity among researchers. In the domain of English morphological processing, researchers discovered that there are significant differences between English native and non-native speakers as well as between inflectional and derived morphology, though the amount of research for L2 studies is relatively small. The dual-mechanism model is consisted of two distinct representational systems and the corresponding processing mechanisms for morphologically complex words; the whole word pattern and the rule-based structured pattern. The native speakers tend to use a rather stable and efficient rule-based pattern, whereas the non-native speakers tend to face more problems and depend mainly on the whole word system. This article introduces a series of latest studies in respect to the pattern of morphological processing as well as the differences between L1 and L2 speakers in detail, provided that the possible causes underlie the L1 and L2 disparity and the possible factors involved that may influence the process in question. On the other hand, the inflected and derived words are the most important constituents of the English word system. Furthermore, researchers proved that the native and non-native speakers used the derived and inflected words in a significantly different way. As a result, this article compares the disparity of the morphological processing patterns between native and non-native speakers from two different perspectives, and identifies and exposes the critical debated questions. However, due to the dearth of L2 research, there are still many questions that remain unclear and require further research and thorough investigation. Related Articles | Metrics

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Latent class analysis of the characteristics of Left-Behind Children's emotional and behavioral problems：Person-centered Perspectives 2014, 37(2): 329-334.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4233KB) ( )   It is reported that there are over 60 million left-behind children in rural China. As a lot of reports showed, most research focused on the mental problems of left-behind children, and the main method adopted by the researchers was factor-analysis . The analysis object of factor analysis are indexes or variables, and it analyzes samples according relevant indexes, assuming that the research variables are all continuous. But not every variable is continuous, there may be qualitative differences as well as quantitative differences between individuals' psychological characteristics. From person-centered perspective, this study aims to explore the characteristics of left-behind children's emotional and behavioral problems, and to figure out if there are qualitative differences between left-behind children groups. On the other hand, due to the urgent demand of intervention and compensation for left-behind children, this study aims to analyze group differences heterogeneity of left-behind children’s emotional and behavioral symptoms, to find out the intervention group which need help most and to carry out more effective intervention. The Children's Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) were administered to 2288 children and exploring laten class analysis was adopted. Obvious grouping features appeared and the model of three latent classes were supported. The three classes were defined as “maladjustment group” “behavior impulse group” and “basically adapted group” respectively , their proportion of all the samples were 32%, 41% and 27%. To explore the impact of gender and grade level on latent classes of left-behind children’s emotional and behavioral problems characteristics , we built a model of multivariate logistic regression, which took the three latent classes extracted in the first step as the dependent variable, took gender and different grade level as independent variables. Further analysis find that compared with basically adapted group, maladjustment group and behavior impulse group have significant gender and grade effects, male students have more big proportion in the two groups,and the primary school children’s proportion in the two groups are higher. This study is the practical implications research in the field of the Left-Behind Children's emotional and the behavioral problems. This study has important practical significance, teachers and psychologists can give more targeted education and counseling according to children's different problem characteristics. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Impact of Childhood Psychological Maltreatment on Attentional Bias for Facial Expressions LIU AiShu 2014, 37(2): 335-341.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4803KB) ( )   Purposes: Psychological maltreatment is one of the most common yet often underrecognized forms of child abuse. It has a negative impact on the development of children’s body and mind, but the mechanisms of psychological abuse and the development of children are unknown. So the main object of this study was to explore the attentional bias for facial expression of the adults with childhood history of psychological maltreatment. Methods: Cluster sampling was applied in this study while 390 college students were chosen from Harbin Normal University. The Child Psychological Maltreatment Scale was tested in this investigation and 376 valid questionnaires were received. Then 18 students (8 male and 10 female) with psychological maltreatment and 19 students (8 male and 11 female) without psychological maltreatment were selected to take part in the dot-probe task experiment. The stimuli in the dot-probe task were 40 paired facial expressions (negative-neural, positive-neural) which were presented in random order. In this experiment, the presentation duration of the paired stimuli was 800ms, then a dot was showed and the participants reacted to it, press F while the dot was at the left and press J while the dot was at the right. The experiment used 2 (groups: maltreated and controlled) ×2 (facial types: positive and negative) ×2 (consistency: consistent and inconsistent) mixed design on the index of reaction time and used 2 (groups: maltreated and controlled) ×2 (facial types: positive and negative)) mixed design on the index of attention bias score. All stimuli were presented through E-prime program in order to obtain participants’ reaction time. The statistical analyses were performed with SPSS 18.0. Results：The reaction time were analyzed with Repeated Measurement ANOVA and the results showed that the main effects in facial types (F=17.362, p<.001, power=0.982), consistency (F=55.829, p<.001, power=1.000) and the interaction effect among group, facial types and consistency (F=9.624，p<.001, power=0.855) were found. Further analysis showed that psychological abused individuals reacted more slowly when position of the dot wasn’t in consistent with neglect facial expresses (468.094±37.012) than when the position of the dot wasn’t in consistent with positive facial expresses (409.144±44.896); the attention bias scores were analyzed with Repeated Measurement ANOVA and the results showed that the main effects in groups (F=31.098, p<.001, power=1.000) and facial types (F=32.361, p<.001, power=1.000) , and the interaction effect among group and facial types (F=9.624, p<.001, power=.855) were found, that is, there was significant difference between groups and between facial types, respectively. Further analysis showed attention bias scores of psychological abused group to negative facial expression was significantly higher than that of the controlled group. Conclusions: College students who experienced psychological maltreatment in childhood had attentional bias to negative facial expression. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect Mechanism of Perceived Social Support, Coping Efficacy and Stressful Life Events on Adolescents’ Academic Achievement Xiao-Yu HU 2014, 37(2): 342-348.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4938KB) ( )   Adolescents’ perceived social support was positively associated with their academic achievement in western culture (e. g., Bahar, 2010; Domagala-Zysk, 2006; Rueger, Malecki, & Demaray, 2010). A few studies have examined the relationship between perceived social support and academic achievement in Chinese culture. The narrowness of the sample upon which most psychological researches have been conducted raises important questions about the generalizability of this research (Arnett, 2008). Few studies have examined the mediating processes between perceived social support and academic achievement. And there is few research, if any, examining whether the mediating effect depend on other factors. This present study aimed to explore the moderated mediation among perceived social support, coping efficacy, stressful life events, and academic achievement after controlling for demographic variables. A sample of 1687 adolescents of 6 schools (835 boys and 852 girls, Mage=14.91±1.56) was recruited in the study to complete self-report questionnaires. The self-report questionnaires used in this study included the perceived social support questionnaire, coping efficacy questionnaire, stressful life events scale, and academic achievement questionnaire. The results indicated that: (1) perceived social support was positively associated with adolescents’ academic achievement; (2) coping efficacy played completely mediating effect between perceived social support and adolescents’ academic achievement. Perceived social support had indirectly influenced academic achievement; (3) stressful life events moderated this mediation effect of coping efficacy. In the context of low stressful life events, with the increase of coping efficacy, adolescents’ academic achievement had obviously ascending trend (b =0.29, t = 7.62, p < 0.001). In the context of high stressful life events, with the increase of coping efficacy, adolescents’ academic achievement had ascending trend (b =0.13, t = 4.23, p < 0.001). In other words, with the increase of stressful life events, the effect of coping efficacy on academic achievement decreased. The theoretical and practical implications of the results were further discussed. Firstly, we should attach importance to the effect of perceived social support on adolescents’ academic achievement. Secondly, we should help adolescents to improve the level of coping efficacy, and adequately reduce adolescents’ stress. Related Articles | Metrics

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An Eye Movements Study on the Perception of Threat through the Environment-picture Task among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders LIN YunQiang 2014, 37(2): 349-356.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4973KB) ( )   To study the perception of threat through enironment-picture task, 30 children with autism spectrum disorders(ASD) participated in the exprimental research, and their eye movements were recorded with a Tobii X120 eyetracher. The results indicated that (1)children with ASD showed a perceptive advantage for threating targets, which was affected by the types of stimulating sources and the size of matrix in a certain degree, especially in the small size matrix of environment-picture task. (2)Children with ASD showed a fixed-attention to picture displaying an all-threating negative environment. Compared to other environmental picture, children with ASD were took more fixation duration time in the all-threating negative enviroment picture in the small size matirix task. (3)Eye-tracker technology can be effectively applied to the study of perception of threat in children with ASD, which could be provided more important reference material to the further research. Related Articles | Metrics

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Development of Visual Word Form Recognition in Chinese Children of 3 to 6 Years 2014, 37(2): 357-362.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4122KB) ( )   The present study aimed to examine the early development of visual word form recognition in Chinese children aged 3 to 6. The four types of stimuli were employed: Chinese characters, stroke combinations, character-like line drawings and line drawings. Each stimulus type consisted of 8 items. Chinese characters were simple or left-right structure with low and high frequency. Stroke combinations were constructed by randomly recombining the strokes of a Chinese character. Character-like line drawings were formed by transforming the strokes of a Chinese character into vertical and horizontal straight lines. Line drawings were constructed by recombining the lines of a character-like line drawing randomly. Participants were instructed to decide whether an item was a real Chinese character or not. To exclude potential confounding of subjective judgments, we analyzed the discriminative ability (d’) according to signal detection theory. Results showed that the main effect of age was significant (F（4，149）=61.99, p<.001, η2=.63). Results of the post-hoc test showed that children’s discriminative ability was increased with age (p<.01). For hit rate, the main effect of age was not significant (F（4，149）=2.25, p>.05, η2=.06), whereas for false alarm rate the main effect of age was significant (F（4，149）=85.42, p<.001, η2=.70). Results showed that the false alarm rate was increased with age (p<.001), suggesting that children’s ability to reject the non-character stimuli was enhanced with age. Further, we analyzed the accuracy of judging the three types of non-character stimuli. Results showed that for 3-year-olds, there was no difference between any two types of non-character stimuli (ps>.05). For 4- and 5- year-olds, the accuracy of judging the two types of line drawings was higher than that of the stroke combinations (ps<.001). In addition, the accuracy of judging the two types of line drawings in 5-year-olds was higher than that in 4-year-olds (ps<.001). For 6-year-olds, the accuracy of judging the line drawings was higher than that of the character-like line drawings and the stroke combinations (p<.05), while no difference was found between the character-like line drawings and the stroke combinations (ps>.05). Additionally, there was no difference in the accuracy of judging the two types of line drawings between 5-year-olds and 6-year-olds (ps>.05). However, the accuracy of judging the stroke combinations in 6-year-olds was higher than that in 5-year-olds (p<.001). In conclusion, the present study provides new evidence that Chinese children develop the awareness of different aspects of visual word form at an early age even before receiving formal reading training. The discriminative ability is increased with age, and its development is mainly due to the increasing ability to reject non-character stimuli. Age 5 and age 6 are crucial periods of early development of visual word form recognition. Related Articles | Metrics

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Values, Perceived Environmental Quality and Environmental Attitudes among Undergraduate Students 2014, 37(2): 363-367.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3436KB) ( )   Although the environmental issues have been raised more and more concerns in recent years, the reason of the raising is still not clear in China. According to the “objective problems and subjective values” hypotheses proposed by Inglehart, which were employed to explain the raising of environmental concern throughout the world, the individuals with "Post-materialist" values emphasizing self-expression and the quality of life were much more apt to give high priority to protecting the environment, than those with "Materialist" values emphasizing economic and physical security above all. And the people in the countries that had relatively severe objective environmental problems tended to have greater environmental concern. Thus the results of former studies suggested that objective problems and subjective values were both involved and about equally important. This study focused on the relationships of values, perceived environmental quality and environmental attitudes and examined the Inglehart’s hypotheses in a large group of college students. In this study, the environmental attitudes were measured by the scale of New Environmental Paradigm of Dunlap in version of 2010 with 15 items, and the values were measured by the simplified version of Post-materialist Scale established by Inglehart. Additionally, the perceived environmental quality was measured by the perception to hometown’s and national environmental issues. Based on the social network of a junior class in the department of Sociology and Social Work of Soochow University, the survey was conducted in November 2010. With the principle of the same sample proportional distribution between male and female and between inside and outside the campus, each student sent 20 copies of questionnaires to his or her current schoolmates and friends in college by Email. 677 undergraduate students from different grades and majors took part in the survey and 630 valid questionnaires were collected. The data collected was analyzed by STATA 12.0 and Lisrel 8.7. The results showed that, (1) the students with post-materialism values expressed greater environmental concern than those with materialism, and the students perceiving worse local or national environmental quality tended to have greater environmental concern; (2) perceived environmental quality had a greater impact on environmental attitudes than on environmental values; and (3) perceived environmental quality of country had a stronger effect on environmental attitudes than that of hometown did. These results supported the Inglehart’s hypotheses, and provided a new approach to explain the mechanism of individual environmental attitudes. To sum up, the raising of undergraduate students' environmental attitudes are mainly driven by the perception to environmental degradation, especially by the perception to the national environmental issues. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Relationship Among Academic Achievements,Academic Ability Self-concept and Academic Emotions of Junior Middle School Students in Mathematics Jing-Jun CHEN Wu Peng 2014, 37(2): 368-372.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3019KB) ( )   The present study is conducted to explore the relationship among academic achievements, academic emotions and academic ability self-concept of junior middle school students in Mathematics, as well as to provide empirical evidences for a hypothesis of Control-Value Theory of Achievement Emotions proposed by Pekrun（2006）who suggested that academic achievements can produce a reaction on academic emotions through control-related appraisals. A sample of 342 students from a junior middle school ( 49.42% girls; 31.87% grade 7, 30.70% grade 8, 37.43% grade 9) in Hunan Province of China completed Mathematics self-concept questionnaire and Adolescence academic emotions questionnaire. The mathematics achievement indicators were the students’ mathematics test scores in mid-term exam before this investigation. The survey was conducted with the help of the class advisers at the end of April, 2012. The data were used for MANOVA , and Post Hoc Test（LSD）by SPSS, and for SEM by AMOS. The results (See Table 1) of MANOVA and LSD show that in junior middle school: (1) No significant differences exist between positive-high arousal emotions of male students and those of female (p>.05); (2) Positive-low arousal emotions of male students are significantly higher than those of female students((p<.05); (3) Negative-low and negative-high arousal emotions of male students are significantly lower than those of female students (p≦.01); (4) Both positive-high and positive-low arousal emotions of grade 7 students are significantly higher than those of grade 8 and 9 students (p<.01); (5) There are significant variances among negative-low arousal emotions of three different grade students(p<.01) with grade 9 the highest, grade 8 the second and grade 7 the lowest; (6) There are not significant variances among negative-high arousal emotions of three different grade students(p>.05). Taking the influence of gender and grade into control, the results (See Figures 1, 2, 3, 4) of SEM show that: (1) Through academic ability self-concept, mathematic achievements indirectly predict academic emotions with positive predictions on positive emotions and negative predictions on negative emotions; (2) Mathematic achievements have no significant direct effect on academic emotions; (3) All paths are significant at p <.001. The conclusions of this study are: (1) In junior middle school, male students have higher mathematics positive emotions and lower mathematics negative emotions than those of female students; Positive emotions decrease and negative emotions increase with grade. (2) Mathematics academic ability self-concept is the full mediator factor between mathematics academic achievements and mathematics academic emotions. Based on research of Goetz, Frenzel, Hall, & Pekrun in 2008, this article discussed the characteristics of 4 types including 13 mathematics academic emotions and their relationships with mathematics academic achievements and mathematics academic ability self-concept so as to verify the correctness of Pekrun’s assumptions about the relationship between academic achievements and academic emotions. Related Articles | Metrics

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Double-content Example Learning and Its Significant Enlightenment ZHANG Qi 2014, 37(2): 373-376.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3257KB) ( )   In recent years, with the development of study on worked-example learning, various taxonomies of worked-examples have appeared. The distinction of single-content examples and double-content examples was one of these classifications. This paper presents an overview of recent researches on double-content example learning. The review introduces the comparisons between single-content examples and double-content examples and the relationship between two levels of double-content examples, which indicates the essential features of double-content examples. In addition, this paper also summaries the empirical researches on double-content example learning during these years. Researchers have conducted a series of studies in different fields, including knowledge learning, skill acquisition and strategy acquisition, which demonstrated the positive effects of double-content example learning. Firstly, many researchers did researches on the effect of double-content examples in knowledge learning, especially, the impact of completion of examples, feedback and cooperative learning in double-content examples learning effect. Secondly, double-content examples were also applied in skill acquisition, such as negotiation skill, spreadsheet applications in learning mathematics, cooperative learning skill, argumentation skills, and selection and design worked-out examples for high school students. Lastly, researchers explored the effects of double-content examples in learning strategy acquisition, involving concept mapping, learning journal, and so on. Based on the literature of different researches, this paper provides five important implications. The first one is the distinction between single-content examples and double-content examples. In double-content examples, both the learning domain and exemplifying domain should be new knowledge to learners. Therefore, future researches should aim to explore the learning effect of different double-content examples based on the combination of familiarity in learning domain and exemplifying domain. Secondly, double-content examples extended the presenting format and learning function of worked-out examples. Different from traditional worked examples, new formats like video, image and written composition were employed in double-content examples. This change further expands the traditional applied fields of mathematics and physics to fields like medical care, psychological diagnosis and treatment, instructional design, learning strategy, communication skills, cooperative learning skill, and argumentation skills. Thirdly, researchers need to pay more attention to the comparison of the learning effect of single-content example and double-content example. According to Cognitive Load Theory, single-content examples are obviously better than double-content examples in learning effect, because the latter ones involve cognitive processes in two levels. However, double-content examples are superior to single-content examples in the application effects. Hence, researchers should take full advantage of the two different example types through optimal combination. Fourthly, the evaluation of the learning effect of double-content examples is a problem to be considered. Currently, researchers haven’t come to an agreement on the evaluation criterion of double-content example learning. This paper suggested that researchers should examine the interaction of both level, that is, learning domain and exemplifying domain, as well as the measurement of cognitive load. Lastly, three cognitive processing models of double-content example learning are proposed in theory to describe and explain the cognitive process of double-content example learning, which are sequential processing-integrated model, parallel processing-integrated model and interactive processing-integrated model. However, more empirical researches still need to be done in this field to testify which model is correct. Related Articles | Metrics

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Relationship between Self-enhancing Humor and Life Satisfaction: A Chain Mediation Model through Emotional Well-being and Social Support Shi-Min Chen Fang Jie Shu-Ling GAO SUN PeiZhen 2014, 37(2): 377-382.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4073KB) ( )   The Chinese economy has grown rapidly and the urban scale has expanded greatly since reformation and openness. People pervasively feel under great pressure in the cities. Self-enhancing humor has been widely used in daily life to cope with the great pressure with the development of media and network. Previous studies have shown that self-enhancing humor was positively associated with optimism, self-efficacy, perception of control and life satisfaction. These studies only used simple correlation research method. Structural equation modeling and multiple mediation analysis are used in this study to further explore their relationship. This study proposed the hypothesis that self-enhancing humor promoted life satisfaction through two chain mediators, i. e., emotional well-being and social support. Participants were 884 college students from four universities in China, with 42.9% boy students and the average age of 20.5 (SD = 1.96). The questionnaires were Self-enhancing Dimension from Humor Style Questionnaire, Positive Emotion and Negative Emotion Dimensions from Subjective Well-being Scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support and Life Satisfaction Scale. The principles of confidentiality, voluntary, anonymity and the answer without the difference of right or wrong were explained in the instruction one by one so that the error could be reduced as much as possible. Controlling for the effects of a single unmeasured latent method factor was used and showed no serious common method bias. Structural Equation Modeling was built. The model fit indexes and model modification test indicated that the model was acceptable. Joint significance test and Bias-corrected Nonparametric Percentile Bootstrap test showed that the chain mediational effect was significant. There were three mediational paths in the mediational model: (1)the mediational path through emotional well-being, with the effect size of 47.3%; (2)the mediational path through social support with the effect size of 9.1%; (3)the mediational path through emotional well-being and social support, with the effect size of 7.2%. The total mediational effect size was 63.6%. The effect size through emotional well-being was the strongest among the three meditational paths. Based on the Release Theory of Humor, the Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotion and the predictors of life satisfaction in collectivistic culture, this study constructed chain mediation model that self-enhancing humor promoted life satisfaction through two chain mediators of emotional well-being and social support, which presented a better explanation for the relationship between self-enhancing humor and life satisfaction. Future study can explore the different multiple mediation model in individualistic context. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of Previous Emotion and Overconfidence on Risk Decision-Making following Disaster Event 2014, 37(2): 383-387.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3446KB) ( )   Cognitive neuroeconomic model put forward that emotion and cognition were the important factors affecting risk decision-making following disaster event. Previous emotion and overconfidence were emotion and cognition factors influencing risk decision-making following disaster event respectively. Shall do previous mood and overconfidence affect risk decision-making following disaster event separately, or influence risk decision-making following disaster event commonly? The answer was still found in former studies. Purposes: The study explored the effect of previous emotion and overconfidence on risk decision-making following the disaster event. Procedures & Methods: Firstly, 200 undergraduates were measured by using overconfidence questionnaire. 40 undergraduates were chosen as high overconfidence individuals because their overconfidence score was more than or equal to 35 points, and 40 undergraduates were chosen as low overconfidence individuals because their overconfidence score was less than or equal to 20 points. Thus, 80 subjects were obtained in the formal experiment. In the formal experiment, 20 high overconfidence and 20 low overconfident subjects were selected randomly to participate in the experiment of positive emotional group, while the remaining 20 high overconfidence individuals and 20 low overconfidence subjects took part in negative emotional group experiment. All formal experiment subjects had to complete the emotion self-rating scale and risk decision-making questionnaire following disaster. Results & Conclusions: The results showed that (1) Positive and negative emotions video induced the emotions experiment required. (2)The main effect of previous emotion was significant and risk decision-making of individuals under positive emotion more tend to risk seeking than that under negative emotion. The research outcome further supported the affective generalization hypothesis (Johnson & Tversky, 1983). Positive emotion led individual reduce perceptions of risk events frequency significantly, which made the prediction and estimation of decision makers more optimistic. However, Negative emotion enhanced the perceived frequency of risk events, which made individual to have more pessimistic risk estimate; The main effect of overconfidence was significant and risk decision-making of individuals under high overconfidence more tend to risk seeking than that under low overconfidence. Positive emotions made overconfident individuals to overestimated the ability of self decision or self-control results, and had the the error of predictive validity of different information sources, which led subjects underestimate the probability of risk events and tend to risk seeking. The above result conformed to the self improvement theory hypothesis, which meant the risk value depends on the service the inner depths of the self improvement expectations. And for individual of low overconfident level, positive emotions could not enhance their confidence level, but they hoped to avoid risks and maintained the status and tended to risk aversion following the disaster event. (3) Previous emotion and overconfidence had interaction effect. Individual of high overconfidence in a positive emotional state more tend to risk seeking than that in the negative emotional state; There was no significant difference on overconfident level of individual in the different negative emotional state. Innovation: The study expands the risk decision making theory, which also supports the cognitive neuroeconomic theory. Furthermore, both emotion and overconfidence affected risk decision making following the disaster event commonly. The study provides new evidence for neural mechanism of risk decision-making following the disaster event. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Influence of Vertical Metaphor of Power on Power Judgment 2014, 37(2): 388-393.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4093KB) ( )   According to Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) put forward by Lackoff and Johnson, people understand abstract concepts by concrete concepts. Vertical position is such concrete thing for people to elucidate many abstract concepts like time, affection, power and so forth. Many studies addressed the influence of vertical metaphor on time and affection judgment. However, fewer studies focus on the vertical metaphor of power, especially among Chinese participants. In addition, even though many researchers referred a concept of “metaphor congruency effect”, no study investigated this effect directly. Therefore, it is not clear whether such effect comes from the promotion of metaphor congruency or the interference of metaphor incongruence. In present study, reaction time tasks were used in two experiments to investigate the influence of vertical position on people’s judgment of power among Chinese undergraduate students and the mechanism underlying this effect, say metaphor congruency effect. Both experiments were programmed in E-prime. In Experiment 1, pairs of words with one high power word and one low power word appeared on the screen. It was a mixed design. There were two within-group conditions: metaphor congruence condition and metaphor incongruence condition. For metaphor congruence condition, a high power word was presented above a low power word in each trial at the same time. For metaphor incongruence condition, the low power word was presented above the high power word. Participants were grouped into high power group and low power group. They should point out whether the high/low power word was up or down both as quickly and as accurately as possible. Repeated-measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) for mean reaction time showed the existence of metaphor congruency effect. Participants have better performance on reaction time in metaphor congruence condition than in metaphor incongruence condition (p < .001). The result is same with what Schubert got in his study. In Experiment 2, baseline condition was added in the task. Another thing that changed was that only one word appeared on the computer in each trial. There were 3 vertical positions (up, middle, down) for words to show. It was a within-subject design. The task for participants was to judge whether the word appearing on the screen is a high power word or a low power word. As result, participants responded faster to high power words among the words showing at the up-position (p < .05). However, there was a significant main effect for position, which distorted the interpretation of interaction effect. Therefore residual means were used to analysis the interaction effect. After removing main effect, the interaction was crossover. It supports the assumption that the metaphor congruent condition improves the performance of participants while the metaphor incongruent condition impedes the performance of participants comparing to control condition (words in the middle of the screen). The current study supports the hypothesis that the vertical position affects people’s judgment of power in China. Moreover, metaphor congruency effect includes both promotion result from metaphor congruent condition and interference result from metaphor incongruent condition. In conclusion, up-down is one kind of metaphor of power. Related Articles | Metrics

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Reflected self-appraisals and Self-confidence: the Moderating Effects of Relational-interdependent Self-construal 2014, 37(2): 400-404.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3466KB) ( )   Self-confidence has been a most concerned issue in psychology field and for a long while researchers have tried to explore how people’s self-confidence forms and develops. One most agreed viewpoint is that through introspection and observing one’s own behavior people could get their self-concept. People also use reflected self-appraisals to know themselves, which means perceived evaluations by their close others. A large number of researches in the relevant area have confirmed that reflected self-appraisals play an essential role in the formation and development of self-concept. However, the relationship between reflected self-appraisals and self-confidence is still unknown. According to the work which found that describing one’s close others could change his self-confidence, we hypothesized reflected self-appraisals could affect self-confidence. In the process of reflected self-appraisals, one’s mind is on how his close others view him, thus it can activate his relational-interdependent self-construal, which means the tendency people hold to perceive and evaluate themselves through others. People with high relational-interdependent self-construal prefer to view themselves through relationships, while others with low relational-interdependent self-construal prefer an independent perspective for self-evaluation. From the above, we further hypothesized that relational-interdependent self-construal works as a moderating variable in the relationship between reflected self-appraisals and self-confidence. The current study included two experiments. In experiment 1, 119 undergraduates filled the Relational-interdependent Self-construal Scale (Chinese version) firstly, and then the participants were asked to answer to what extent 90 valence balanced trait words accorded with the appraisals from their closest friends so as to activate their reflected self-appraisals. Finally all the participants completed the questionnaire of state self-confidence. The procedure of experiment 2 was all the same with experiment 1 except the relational-interdependent self-construal task, 82 participants were asked to make sentences beginning with the word “I” or “we” in order to activate their low or high relational-interdependent self-construal. The results from experiment 1 showed that: reflected self-appraisals can well predict self-confidence, t =2.91, p <.01. For people with high relational-interdependent self-construal, the positive reflected self-appraisals could lead high self-confidence, В=2.39，t =3.76，p<.001. For people with low relational-interdependent self-construal, reflected self-appraisals could not lead significant changing to self-confidence, В=.36，t=.65，p>.05. Experiment 2 got the consistent results: reflected self-appraisals have a significant main effect, F（1,78）=16.62，p<.001. Positive reflected self-appraisals could bring higher self-confidence to those who have been activated high relational-interdependent self-construal. For people with low state relational-interdependent self-construal, neither positive nor negative reflected self-appraisals could influence their self-confidence, F（1,78）=.59，p>.05. These results indicate that holding high or low relational-interdependent self-construal is important to one’s self-confidence experienced at the very moment when one is thinking how others appraise himself. Thus appropriately activating one’s relational-interdependent self-construal will be a reasonable way to develop his self-confidence. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of Calling Orientations on Career Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Career Resilience and the Moderating Role of Job Resources Shi HU 2014, 37(2): 405-411.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4753KB) ( )   This study examines the mediating effect of career resilience and the moderating effect of job resources on the relationship between calling orientations and career satisfaction. A calling orientation is a view toward work in which one expects work to be both purposeful and inherently meaningful, while career resilience in this study refers to an individual's positive psychological states including flexibility, career initiative and achievement motivation. We argue that calling orientations contribute to employees' career resilience, which in turn, may improve ones' career satisfaction. Besides, based on theories and empirical studies of job demand-resources model, we hypothesize that job resources moderate the relationship between calling orientations and career resilience, and consequently may exert indirect influence on the relationship between calling orientations and career satisfaction via career resilience. Data were collected from several companies in China, which covered a great number of occupations like communication industry, wholesale, retail industry, manufacturing, and finance industry. Participants responded to an email that advertised the study by clicking on a link that directed them to an online questionnaire. A consent form was shown before they started the survey, which informed the participants that their responses would be kept private and confidential, and that data would only be reported in aggregate. A total of 410 employees from various education background participated in this survey. In our sample, males covered 37.8%, with an average age of 29.9. Structural equation model, hierarchical regression analysis and conditional indirect effect test were used in the data analysis. The results show that the relationship among career orientations, career resilience, job resources and career satisfaction were significant; employees' career resilience acted as a mediator between calling orientations and career satisfaction. Besides, hierarchical regression analysis and simple slope test results show that the relationship between calling orientations and career resilience became stronger with the increasing level of job resources. In addition, conditional indirect effect test shows that the mediating effect of career resilience on calling orientation-career satisfaction linkage was significant only among those employees who perceived higher level of job resources. 　　Our findings contributed to the literature and practice of human resources management. Firstly, this research offered a new perspective to examine the influence mechanism of calling orientations on subjective career success, which focused on the mediating role of positive psychological states rather than work attitude as shown in previous studies. As a result, our finding enriched the literature on calling orientations and career resilience. Secondly, our study supported the moderating role of job resources on the relationship between calling orientations and career resilience, which also contributed to the theories related to job resources. Additionally, our results implied that it would be important for managers to offer more resources for the employees by various ways to promote the process. Related Articles | Metrics

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Driving Effect of Group-Based Anger and Group Efficacy on Collective Action: Mediating Role of Inner Obligation Lijuan Cui 2014, 37(2): 412-419.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5402KB) ( )   Collective action means a unity of actions adopted by group members to chance the unfavorable situation of the group and support or promote group interests (Wright, Taylor & Moghaddam, 1990). In the past decades, social psychological mechanism of collective action has been a focused topic (Van Zomeren & Iyer, 2009). The dual path model of collective action (Van Zomeren et al., 2004) is composed of emotion-focused coping and problem-focused coping. This model suggests that group members’ emotional experience of collective problems and group efficacy are two independent causality paths which promote collective action (Van Zomeren et al., 2004; Van Zomeren, Spears & Leach, 2008; Van Zomeren, Leach & Spears, 2010; Van Zomeren, Spears & Leach, 2010; Van Zomeren, Leach & Spears, 2012), and together with subjective perspective (psychological) and social perspective (structural), they can explain the mechanism of collective action. Based on the dual path model of collective action, the research was conducted to explore the social psychological mechanism of collective action from the perspective of group-based anger, group efficacy and inner obligation. Two studies were concluded in the research. In Study 1, Using electricity restriction in winter as the background of collective action, the approach adopted in this research was questionnaires. According to the results, the valid samples are 165 undergraduate students. The influences of group-based anger, group efficacy on collective action intentions were investigated. In addition, the mediator effects of inner obligation on the links between group-based anger, group efficacy and collective action intentions were explored. In Study 2, Using food safety issue in universities as the background of group disadvantage, participants were undergraduate students (N=121). By manipulating group-based anger and group efficacy, multiple factor variance analysis was used to test validity of the manipulations, and it showed that the manipulations were successful. In addition, using structural equation modeling, this experiment investigated the causal relationship between group-based anger, group efficacy and collective action intentions, and the mediating effects of inner obligation. Finally, the experiment investigated the mediating effects of self efficacy between group efficacy and inner obligation, using the method of structural equation modeling. The results showed that: (1) Group-based anger and group efficacy had significant predictive effect on collective action intentions, i.e. Collective action can be driven by group-based anger and group efficacy independently. The both processes exerted additive effects rather than mutual inhibitive effects on willingness to participate. That is to say, in the situation of high group anger and high group efficacy, group members’ intensions to participate in collective action are most intensive, which was proved in our study. (2) The effects of group-based anger and group efficacy on willingness to participate in collective action were mediated by inner obligation. That is to say, inner obligation links group-based emotions and instrumental reasons together to drive collective action. (3) Group efficacy and inner obligation was mediated by self efficacy, i.e. self efficacy is a bridge linking group efficacy and internal sense of responsibility to cope with group disadvantages. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Relationship Among Customization, Character Attachment and Loyalty to Online Games 2014, 37(2): 420-424.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3486KB) ( )   In the context of the global economic turmoil, the online gaming industry shows a steady and rapid growth. There are many supporters of online games in China; the data of China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) shows that: by the end of 2012, the size of domestic online game users had reached 336 million. Although the rich profit, the online gaming industry faces fierce competition, so it’s particularly important to establish and maintain customer loyalty. The loyalty to online games comes from brand loyalty, and it’s defined that: the gamer has a strong preference for the games involved, even faced with some situational changes; it would not affect the gamers’ willingness and behavior to continuing playing games. So far, only few studies have investigated the factors influencing the loyalty to online games. Previous studies had shown that the human-computer interaction, social interaction, gamers’ interaction behavior, social norms, the cohesion perceived, trust, switching costs, the fun sense of euphoria perceived and customization would affect online game loyalty. In addition to this, customization is also an important factor influencing the loyalty to online games. Customization refers to the degree that one can create, select and change techniques, goods and services based on personal preferences. The studies about customization have covered many areas, including the food industry, electronics industry, large-scale engineering manufacturing industry and Mobile Phone industry. Although the positive correlation between the loyalty to online games and customization has been confirmed by few studies, the mechanism of customization’ impact on the loyalty to online games is not clear. The purpose of this study is to investigate the customization’ impact on the loyalty to online games and test the mediation role of character attachment between them. The present study used questionnaire research methodes to investigate the impact of customization in online games and character attachment on the loyalty to online games, and the participants were 459 male college students. Three questionnaires were used in this study: Online Game Customization Questionnaires includes four items using a 7-point Likert scoring; Game Character Attachment includes eighteen items using a 7-point Likert scoring; the Loyalty to Online Games Questionnaires includes five items using a 5-point Likert scoring. The results showed that: (1) Among these three variables, there existed positive correlation between each two variables; (2) Customization in online games had no direct impact on the loyalty to online games, but it could impact the loyalty to online games through the full mediation of character attachment. The results of this study suggest that, much attention should be paid to customization, especially to the customization of game character in the design process of online games. Diversification and differentiation is the basis for customization. Currently, there are few female online gamers, this is because that game character design and customization may simply reflect the preferences of male gamers and are unable to meet the psychological needs of female online gamers. So in the future, the online game developers should design as many different game characters as possible, and provide different featured game services. They should especially pay attention to female gamers’ features, design characters matching female gamers’ need, and meet females’ pursuit of unique of psychological through customization. Related Articles | Metrics

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A Meta-Analysis on the Contingency Model of Team Diversity, Conflict and Performance Based on the Input-Process-Outcome Model 2014, 37(2): 425-432.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5986KB) ( )   The purpose of this article is to explore the relationship between team diversity, conflict, and performance with the meta-analytic method. This paper quantitatively describes the overall condition of relevant research on mechanism among team diversity, intragroup conflict and team performance in recent years, analyzes moderators between intragroup conflict and team performance and establishes a contingency model of team diversity-conflict-performance so that a clear mechanism is drawn. Nowadays, it is vital for organizations to understand the mechanism of team diversity and make full use of it. However, the relationship between team diversity and team performance is not consistent in relevant research. In recent years, several meta-analytic results indicate that team diversity is a potential predictor of intragroup conflict and conflict can predict team outcome such as team performance, team member satisfaction and cooperation to a certain degree. However, relevant meta-analyses mainly focus on surface–level team diversity such as informational diversity and background diversity and rarely consider deep-level diversity. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, the relationship between team diversity, conflict and performance is rarely explored with meta-analytic method. In addition, several important moderating variables and contextual factors need further analysis. Under such circumstance, based on input-process-outcome model, the present paper analyzed 112 empirical articles (n=9263 groups) both home and abroad using the meta-analytic method. The meta-analysis was used to aggregate results from studies examining the relationship between team diversity, conflict and team performance and also investigate a number of moderating variables. We searched thoroughly using relevant key words such as team diversity in combination with conflict in databases and engines both home and abroad(Google Scholar, EBSCO, ABI/Inform, Proquest, Elsevier, CNKI, etc.), top journals in this field and even unpublished articles and working paper between 1990 and 2012. After screening, 112 empirical articles based on the responses of 9236 groups met the inclusion criteria in the meta-analysis. We coded the studies and analyzed the data collected with the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis( CMA) Version 2 program. Results showed that: a) team deep-level diversity was an important factor leading to conflict in team, but surface diversity wouldn’t increase conflict much; b) unlike research in USA, research in China showed that task conflict reduced team performance significantly, and task conflict didn’t differentiate much from relationship conflict; c) subject type, response rate, team size and the asymmetric perception of conflict were five moderators moderating the relationship between team conflict and performance. Several conclusions are drawn: team diversity is an important predictor of intragroup conflict; contextual factors such as culture and asymmetric perception of conflict are able to moderate the relationship between conflict and team performance. We also describe the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for advancing relevant study. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Impact of Supervisor Career Support on Followers’ Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Role of Psychological Capital Ren-hao Ren Zhong-Lin WEN 2014, 37(2): 433-437.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3101KB) ( )   Today, most organizations, if not all, used team-based work structures to organize its employees. Researchers and entrepreneurs focused on the issue that how to cultivate organizational resources to build effective work teams to improve organizational performance. Recently, the value of a supportive organizational climate had been recognized. However, there were little researches about its relationship with employees’ attitudes and behavior in work team-based organizational context. The purpose of this article is to explore how supervisor career supports influence on their direct followers’ organizational citizenship behavior under work team-based organizational structure. Sixty-six work teams (totally 303 work team members) were sampled from a large State-owned enterprise in a province from eastern China. Work team members completed a questionnaire consisting of supervisor career support, psychological capital and organizational citizenship behavior scale. Hierarchical linear modes were applied to analyze the data. When demographic and human capital variables (i.e., gender, age, marriage, educational level and organizational tenure) were controlled, hierarchical linear modeling results revealed that work team members’ supervisor career support was positively related to their psychological capital and organizational citizenship behavior. In addition, work team members’ psychological capital was a mediator between supervisor career support and organizational citizenship behavior at both group level and individual level. Therefore, supervisor career support and psychological capital were valuable interpersonal and mental resource to build efficient work team. This study extended existing researches that focused solely employees’ variables from individual level to group level, developing multilevel theory in organizational psychology research. This study also suggested several practical implications that supervisor career support and psychological capital were key elements for building efficient work teams, especially work team members’ psychological capital. Entrepreneurs should construct supportive leader-member relations to improve team members’ psychological capital and positive work attitudes and behaviors. Related Articles | Metrics

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Dyadic Trust between Superior and Subordinates in Organizations：Implication and Mechanism 2014, 37(2): 438-445.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5260KB) ( )   The effect of organizational trust on work outcomes has already been indicated by numerous studies. However, the two directions of trust and its mechanism are not clear yet. This study used a new perspective of subordinates’ sense of being trusted instead of superiors’ trust in them. Subordinates’ sense of being trusted is a kind of trust that they perceived from their superiors, which may be a more critical aspect to their mental and behavioral changes. Moreover, Subordinates’ sense of being trusted and their trust in superiors are two types of trusts that may have different effects on work outcomes. This study focused the two directions of trust on every individual in organization. The paper explored the trust relationship between subordinates’ sense of being trusted by superiors and their trust in superiors in organization. The primary aim is to reveal the mechanism that how the dyadic trust affects subordinates’ mental and behavioral changes, and the possible mediating effects of psychological safety, gratitude and psychological empowerment. Data was obtained from 737 full-time employees in North China through questionnaire and analyzed by SEM. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the measurement had good reliability and validity. The statistical package of Amos 16.0 was used to examine the hypotheses. A hypotheses model was set accordingly. In the first stage of data analysis, the research tested the hypotheses the relationship between subordinates’ sense of being trusted and their trust in superiors. In order to provide a stringent examination of the hypotheses, an alternative model was established. By comparing the alternative model with the hypotheses model, the result indicated that subordinates’ sense of being trusted related positively to trust in superiors. In the second stage of data analysis, the study explored the mediating effect of psychological safety, gratitude and psychological empowerment between the dyadic trust and outcomes. It was revealed that effect of trust in superiors on subordinates’ job performance and satisfaction is mediated by psychological safety. Results also supported gratitude mediated the relationship between subordinates’ sense of being trusted and their performance and their satisfaction. In addition, the psychological empowerment also mediated the effect of subordinates’ sense of being trusted on their job performance and satisfaction. The present study contributes to our understanding of the relationship between the dyadic trust and employees’ outcomes. The theoretical implication of this research is that it starts a new perspective of investigating the trust between superiors and subordinates. As for the practical implication, the results of this study showed that the two directions of trust are an interactive system, which have different influence on employees’ psychology and behavior. It provided evidence for managers to give more trust to their employees, which will play a big role in individual and organizational development. Related Articles | Metrics

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The effect of power on cognition: Heuristic or Analytic? 2014, 37(2): 446-453.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5861KB) ( )   Abstract: Recently, many intriguing studies of power in the perspective of social cognition had been proposed. It was generally acknowledged that power induced a simplified processing orientation that focused on single sources of information and that high power individuals always adopted heuristic strategy for information processing because of cognitive laziness. However, this was inconsistent with the fact that high power individuals were always faced with a complex decision environment and made good decisions. Actually, the effect of power on heuristic versus analytic cognition depended on the primary factors that was triggered by the situation. This paper made a review of the studies about the effect of power on information processing style from the perspective of dual- system model. Then, we put forward that the relationship between power and information processing style was mediated by other factors. Finally, the future research tendencies, including the mechanism of the effect of power on cognition, the principles of assigning roles and the effect of dynamic changes of power on cognition were discussed. Related Articles | Metrics

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Review on the experiments research of imagination positive intergroup contact and improving intergroup relationships Guo-Li ZHANG 2014, 37(2): 454-459.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4622KB) ( )   Many studies have shown that imagining intergroup contact can improve attitudes toward a social groups.Imagined intergroup contact includes mentally stimulating a social interaction between an ingroup member and an outgroup member.The basic idea of imagined intergroup contact is that mentally simulating a positive contact experience will create a mental contact ‘script’, alongside more positive feelings about outgroups, that will result in more favorable outgroup perceptions and enhanced intentions to engage in future contact. The basic imagined contact experimental instruction is very simple, Participants in imagined contact condition received the instructions, are given exactly a few minutes to imagine the scene. The effectiveness of imagined contact is moderated by certain conditions，such as group status and the level of identification with one’s ingroup . The limitations of the existing study and prospect,The first, the real life intergroup contact is carried out in a more complicated social background, the psychological reaction to outgroup member not only includes the positive and positive things, and at the same time, includes more negative things, so the similarity between the simulation psychological environment of imagine contact and the actual intergroup contact is extremely low.The second,on the one hand, the same mental simulation scenarios for different social group results in different consequences, The effectiveness of imagined contact is moderated by group difference variable. So, before imagined contact, must consider benefit relationship between the groups, such as the officials and people conflict, resentment of the rich, still need to consider People's subjective attitude towards life, and the specific intergroup contact experience ,the original knowledge system, and even the personality difference, etc. On the other hand, The effectiveness of imagined contact is moderated by the difficulty of the task, vividness, concreteness, etc.The third,an important question is that the effectiveness of imagined contact can last for a long time, in the present, in terms of most imagined contact study, the measurement of the dependent variable in imagination contact situation immediately be implemented after the task, However, if the effectiveness of imagined contact has a powerful influence, so its effectiveness should be lasting. in a few days and a few weeks later, the effectiveness of imagined contact can still exist? It should pay more attention to improve the ecological validity, strengthen mechanism and direct behavior effect of Imagined intergroup contact.imagined intergroup contact theory provides an innovative framework for attempts to reduce prejudice and improve intergroup relations. In a word, The verification of the imagined intergroup contact theory to the practical application, not only need to improve the level of the research, there are a lot of specific operational problems to be solved. In the future, we should pay attention to the imagination intergroup contact theory and other disciplines, judge the value the theory in broader academic field of vision. At present, our country is positive for the construction of socialist harmonious society, but in China's social background, the development of imagining intergroup contact and the specific experimental research of imagining intergroup contact is very scarce, it will provide a broad space for imagined intergroup contact theory research. Related Articles | Metrics

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Whistle-blowing in Organizations: the Decision-Making Process and Multi-level Theoretical Framework 2014, 37(2): 460-467.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5611KB) ( )   In recent years, moral anomie in organizations has occurred frequently, making the issue of moral ethics a common concern for both managers and scholars. This issue includes not only the ethical or unethical behaviors in organizations, but also the design and implementation of management mechanism of ethics. Whistle－blowing is the report and disclosure of illegal, immoral or illegitimate practices by organization members to persons or parties that may be able to effect action. It is arguably playing a key role for timely correcting unethical behaviors in organizations and an effective mechanism for organizational ethics management. During China’s economic transition, unethical behaviors in organizations often happen, but the positive role played by whistle-blowing has not been given sufficient attention in management practices, and the related research on whistle-blowing is insufficient in academic field. This paper offers a review of Western scholars’ research on whistle-blowing over the past half a century. Firstly, we discuss the origin and concept of whistle-blowing, indicating that whistle-blowing is a type of organizational citizenship behavior that is characterized by being voluntary, prohibited, challenging and risky. Secondly, we compare the decision-making process models of whistle-blowing from different theoretical perspectives, and then integrate a model of four-stage whistle-blowing including observation of unethical behaviors, analysis and judgment, whistle-blowing intention and whistle-blowing. Thirdly, the results of empirical research on the antecedents of whistle-blowing are summarized, finding that power-related variables such as demographics, positions, role responsibilities, and organizationally-perceived variables such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, have each reached different conclusions, while inherent individual characteristics such as positive personality and emotions, as well as positive organizational context characteristics such as ethical leadership and peer support, ethical culture and climate all have positive effects on whistle-blowing. The influences of national laws and rules as well as organizational ethic plans on whistle-blowing needs further research. Fourthly, the double results of whistle-blowing are explained: positively speaking, effective whistle-blowing is beneficial not only to society as a whole in that it prevents the public from health and financial damage, but also to organizations because it strengthens the ethical culture of the organization and enhances the performance of the organization's human resource management. Negatively speaking, however, external whistle-blowing may damage an organization’s reputation and make it lose customers and suffer from falling stock prices and financial loss; internal whistle-blowing may challenge the hierarchy and the leadership authority, may result in atmospheres of suspicion, hostility and defense in groups, undermining the group identification, loyalty and morale of members, and thus hurt the organizational performance. As for individuals, retaliation to whistleblower is a rather common result, such as the termination of his career, the negative influence on his promotion and interpersonal relationships, and so on. Fifthly, we propose the possible future research directions: 1. to explore the influences of individual intrinsic characteristics variables on whistle-blowing from the perspectives of positive psychology and neuroscience; 2. to strengthen the research on whistle-blowing in such special industries as food, health care, finance, government service; 3. to investigate the effects of organizational ethics management system, human resource management practices on whistle-blowing; 4. to explore the "black box" of whistle-blowing formation mechanism, probing into the mediating mechanisms in whistle-blowing formation, as well as the interaction mechanisms to whistle-blowing, such as the role of moral identity, professional identity and organizational identity in mediating the relationship between organizational context and whistle-blowing of individuals - context interactions impacting to whistle-blowing. Finally, we analyze the contextual characteristics in China which might affect whistle-blowing, and propose to carry out the localized research on whistle-blowing. Related Articles | Metrics

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Developing a group-level cognitive diagnosis model and its application 2014, 37(2): 468-472.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3468KB) ( )   Related Articles | Metrics

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Electrophysiological Evidence of Abnormal Executive Control Function in Heroin Treatment Patients 2014, 37(2): 473-477.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3262KB) ( )   Research Objectives Dysfunctional executive control is one of the core characters for the addiction, and it has important influence on the relapse and maintenance treatment for the heroin treatment patients(HTPs). The present study employs the event-related potentials (ERPs) technique to reveal the time course of information processing with high temporal resolution, and exam the altered function of conflict monitoring and conflict resolution processing among HTPs. Methods Seventeen HTPs (mean duration of heroin use(9.97±5.08)years with average abstinence (2.32±2.05)years) were chosen from Methadone Maintenance Treatment Clinic of No.2 People’s Hospital in Chongqing as HTPs group, and seventeen matched healthy adults were recruited from society as control group. All participants were conformed to the standards of the experiment, and performed a classic word-color Stroop task. The experimental materials contain two kinds of stimuli, the congruent stimuli were four color words whose meaning were congruent with the writing colors(eg, the word “red” written in red), and the incongruent stimuli were the same four color words whose meaning were incongruent with the writing colors(eg, the word “red” written in green). The experiment adopted mixed design of 2(condition types)×2(groups), and required the participants to response to the condition types by pressing the corresponding buttons. According to the experiment by the two response types of ERP average figures, the present study performed three factors of repeated measure of variance analysis (brain regions * condition types *groups) with nine electrode records sites, two within-subject factors were respectively brain regions [frontal areas(F3/Fz/F4), central areas(C3/Cz/C4) and parietal areas(P3/Pz/P4)], condition types (congruent/incongruent conditions), the between-subject factor was group types(HTPs /control). Results The results show that there are significant within-subjects Stroop interference effects, and find that ERP wave forms are more negative than the control group, and significant differences in N2 (270-320ms) and SP (650-800ms) for HTPs group. There are significant interaction effect between condition and group of frontal N2(p=.013) and central SP(p=.022), and N2 effect (p=.009) and SP effect(p=.045) are significant for the control rather than for HTPs group. Conclusions This study finds impaired conflict monitoring during the early stimulus conflict process and impaired conflict resolution during the late conflict response process for HTPs, and implies that the abnormal executive functions of HTPs may be resulted from the brain functional damage because of chronic heroin abuse. Related Articles | Metrics

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Autism spectrum disorder individuals' processing of own- and other-race faces in ethnic scene backgrounds Li Yi Enda TAN Yue-Bo FAN Yu-Bin LIU 2014, 37(2): 478-482.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3004KB) ( )   Face processing has been widely explored in the studies on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Atypical face processing is one of the serious social cognitive deficits among individuals with ASD. Numerous behavioral studies have found that ASD individuals have profound impairments in face recognition and discrimination. The existing studies using eye tracking techniques have consistently found that ASD children and adults showed reduced visual attention to faces (especially the eye region) than their typically developing (TD) counterparts. Previous studies on face processing in individuals with ASD mostly used human faces from the same racial group as participants. It is well established that individuals they recognize and discriminate own-race faces more accurately than faces from another racial group. Differential processing of own- and other-race faces has been consistently found in the typical population across ages and races. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether atypical face scanning patterns in individuals with ASD，if they indeed existed，would be generalized to faces of other races，and how backgrounds affect the processing of own- and other-race faces in individuals with ASD. Sixteen 16- to 25-year-old adolescents and young adults with ASD and 17 healthy controls (matched with their chronological ages) participated in the current study. The current study used the change-detection paradigm，which asked participants to judge whether a face (own- or other-race) was identical or different from the previous face (always the same race with the target face). Faces were presented in Chinese，Western or neutral backgrounds. Participants’ behavioral responses were recorded by the computer，and their eye movements were tracked by an eye tracker during the whole experiment. We conducted 2（Group）× 2（Face Race）× 3（Background）mixed-design ANOVA，with behavioral responses and various eye movement indices，including the fixation durations and saccade paths, as dependent variables. Results showed that: (a) for behavioral performance，d’ for ASD individuals was significantly poorer than controls；(b) for eye movements，ASD individuals scanned between upper and lower parts of the face more often than controls；(c) the saccade paths between the upper and lower parts was affected by the race consistency between faces and background；(d) ASD individuals’ d’ for own-race faces correlated with fixation durations at the background. In conclusion，individuals with ASD display specific processing patterns，in both behavioral performance and eye movements；ASD individuals showed greater interests toward other-race faces compared to own-race faces；the background influenced the face processing of both ASD and TD groups. Related Articles | Metrics

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Representational pluralism: A New Assumption on Conceptual Representation Mechanism Hao-sheng YE 2014, 37(2): 483-489.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5326KB) ( )   On the traditional view, conceptual representations are abstract symbols which don’t have any connections with perception systems. The embodied theories of conceptual representation hold that conceptual representation is grounded in the same neural systems that govern sensation, perception and action. Therefore the perceptual systems are central to concepts representations. However, perceptual representations are ill-suited for representing abstract concepts. This limitation implies that our conceptual system may employ multiple representation processing, one involve perceptual system which are suited for bearing perceptually derived contents and the another involve abstract symbols which are suited for bearing abstract contents. The evidence from pathology literature, cognitive neuroscience studies and behavior studies found different patterns of representation are associated with the processing of concrete and abstract concepts which support this representational pluralism. The interrelation between different representation mechanisms should be investigated in the future researches. Related Articles | Metrics

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Studies of the neural mechanism underlying perception representation in ventral visual path of human brain 2014, 37(2): 490-493.  Abstract ( )   PDF (2662KB) ( )   Over the past decade, neuroimaging studies have provided detailed picture of the functional organization of the ventral visual pathway on object representation in the human brain. This study focused on the fundamental issue that lay in the neural representation in the cortex of the ventral visual pathway. The models in this field were firstly introduced in this study including the core idea of each model and the limitations of the models based on the comparison with each other, which took important roles in understanding the essence of the neural event in mapping the sensory information to the cerebral cortex in the ventral object-pathway. In detail, the modular representation opinion was firstly developed in this filed, many experimental evidences have been found to support the hypothesis of this model. For example, many studies have found the existence of the category specific brain areas in human brain including the fusiform face area (FFA), and the parahippocampal place area (PPA). However, other studies delivered some experiment findings which were not well interpreted on the aspect of the module representation model. Consequently, another model - distributed and overlapping representation model -was developed, which proposed that the voxel information content should be shared or distributed as a function of the shared attributes of objects, so similar object categories would share more voxels than dissimilar categories on the fact that the objects in these categories share more attributes. Although, many study findings supported the hypothesis of the distributed and overlapping model, moreover, the decoding method was raised based on the distributed and overlapping method in term of the machine learning method, which significantly influence the studies of the functional brain in neuroimaging field, it is still an important question how to reconcile the opinions of the module representation and the distributed and overlapping representation. In fact, many researchers have considered this question and verified it in the researches, in which the partial distributed representation model is one of them which tried to compensate the limitation of the distributed and overlapping representation. The partial distributed and overlapping model proposed that understanding partially distributed code is the critical to linking neural responses with the physical world they represent. Of course, it should be further studied that how the basic properties of the object was represented in the brain cortex, and how the neural network of the basic properties to combine the neural network of the whole object. The exploration of this issue may finally provide some solutions behind the category specific in object representation observed in cerebral cortex. On the other aspect, there exist a hierarchical structure in ventral visual pathway, and that the high level areas will modulate the neural activity underlying the object representation of the low level cortex. We suggested that the research of the object representation in ventral visual pathway cortex should consider the top-down modulation mechanism of the human brain. Especially, the lateral occipital complex cortex may take an important role in the top-down modulation process. Based on the consideration above, this study indicated that further origin of the neural representation in ventral visual pathway. Related Articles | Metrics

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Psychological and Neural Mechanisms of Human Path Integration Xiaoang Wan 2014, 37(2): 494-498.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3689KB) ( )   Navigation be classified into two different types, piloting and path integration. Path integration refers to the process that navigators integrate information regarding self-motion to estimate their current position and orientation relative to the origin of their travel. Path integration is common to many species, such as insects, birds, and mammals. In particular, humans show path integration abilities in path completion tasks in which they travel along several segments and then attempt to directly return to the origin. In order to perform path integration, humans may rely on pure internal information, such as body senses from the vestibular, proprioceptive, and efferent systems。 Humans can also reply on pure external information, such as optic flow, or a mixture of both internal and external cues, to perform path integration. Many behavioral studies of human path integration have been focusing on the spatial representation and spatial updating. A pure egocentric representation is regarding the position of surroundings relative to the navigator, which means that the representation needs to be updated whenever the navigator moves. If human path integration is supported by egocentric representations, navigators need to continuously update the original relative to their own position and orientation without having a detailed representation of the outbound paths. In contrast, a pure allocentric representation is independent of the navigator and defined relative to the surroundings or the earth. Thus, when the navigator moves, the representation does not change. If human path integration is supported by allocentric representations, the navigators need to have a detailed representation of the outbound paths. The literature has shown that both egocentric and allocentric representations can support human path integration, but future research is needed to test whether humans can switch between these two types of spatial updating strategies. Recent neuroscience studies have shown that the medial temporal lobe structures and the parietal lobe structures might be relevant to human path integration. Although animal studies showed that the hippocampus and medial entorhinal cortex are essential for path completion performance, human lesion studies provided mixed evidence regarding the role of the medial temporal lobe in human path integration. That is, some studies have revealed that the medial temporal lobe is important to human path integration, but others suggested that human path integration might not rely on the medial temporal lobe. On the other hand, some studies have revealed that the interaction between human motion complex and regions is responsible for spatial cognition, such as hippocampus and medial prefrontal lobe, plays a role in human path integration based on optic flow. Furthermore, a neural model of spatial memory suggested that the parietal lobe is responsible for maintaining egocentric representations and therefore might be important to human path integration. Empirical evidence has also shown high correlations between the egocentric spatial updating and the activation in the precuneus and dorsal premotor cortex. Previous studies have revealed that humans show worse performance in the path completion task than nonhuman animals. Future research is needed to examine whether humans have limited path integration abilities or whether it is due to methodological difference in human and nonhuman path integration studies. On the other hand, previous studies have provided some preliminary evidence regarding the influence of non-sensory factors on human path integration, but more research is needed to further examine these effects, in particular, the effects of expectation, knowledge, and experience on human path integration. Recently, Virtual Reality is a powerful tool for human path integration studies because of two reasons. For one, it allows researchers to control the navigation environment by manipulating landmarks and surface texture of the roads. For another, it also allows researchers to conduct fMRI or ERP studies to further investigate the neural mechanisms of human path integration. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Theoretical Transition of Self-theory Research and the Reform of Group-Reference Effect Experimental Paradigm Chun-Na HOU Lin WU 2014, 37(2): 499-505.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5503KB) ( )   Related Articles | Metrics

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Review of Foreign Studies on the Spirituality 2014, 37(2): 506-511.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4591KB) ( )   Related Articles | Metrics