Archive

20 March 2015, Volume Issue 2 Previous Issue    Next Issue

---

For Selected:

Download Citations EndNote Ris BibTeX

Toggle Thumbnails

Select

The Prospect of SNARC Effect Based on Augmented Reality and ERPs Zhao Xiaojun 2015, (2): 258-262.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5063KB) ( )   The SNARC effect is an important feature of human spatial cognition. However, most existing theories and experimental studies of SNARC effect have been based on small-scale space environment, leading to low ecological validity. Previous study conclusions of the SNARC effect are derived from the experimental environment itself or spatial cognitive strategies. Therefore, it is important to make the experimental environment close to the real-world environment. Augmented reality (AR) is a virtual reality technology widely used in psychology, engineering and computer technology. AR overlaid virtual information into a real psychological world. This technology synchronises the real psychological environment and the virtual environment in real-time at the same spatial relationships (Zhao Xiaojun, You Xuqun, & ZhangWei, 2014). AR is superior to the virtual reality technology and more idealization than reality. It makes virtual scene generated by computer to overlay in real scene. This makes good fusion between individual and current situation too. AR technology with strict control of additional variables can have the advantages of large scale space, thus it can improve the ecological validity of the experiment and realize the integration of human - machine - environment system. AR provides an indispensable condition for large-scale spatial cognition. ERPs can record and compare the brain electrical activities at difference periods when participants conduct digital processing. ERPs provide an approach to obtain neural physiological mechanism of spatial cognition. In a relatively real and operating situation, both technologies make the participants to focus on the real emotional experience. The combination of these two technologies can result in higher ecological validity of biological neural information feedback and improve the theoretical framework. The purpose of this study is to explore the prospect of SNARC effect from three issues, including spatial cognition psychology for large scale space in combination with embodied cognition, spatial cognition study based on AR, SNARC effect based on AR and ERPs. The SNARC comprehensive experiment system of this study included editor system of AR and wireless event related potential system connected by (1) synchronization signal based on Bluetooth, and (2) Python software and Access SDK software. Based on augmented reality and cognitive neuroscience paradigm, this study established a SNARC processing model based on large scale space environment from two aspects of core processing system and the processing characteristic through interactive situation generated from augmented reality. The core processing system of SNARC effect is divided into static space SNARC, dynamic space SNARC and static - dynamic SNARC. Processing characteristics mainly analyzed plasticity, development and individual difference. The study provided a more complete knowledge for psychological research of human space cognition. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Different Effects of Valence and Arousal on Familiarity and Recollection 2015, (2): 263-269.  Abstract ( )   PDF (6603KB) ( )   Memory retrieval involves two processes: familiarity (indexed by low self-confidence recognition) and recollection (indexed by high self-confidence recognition). It is unclear which memory process is impacted by emotion that leads to widespread emotional memory enhancement phenomenon. Previous studies have found that negative or positive stimuli can call cognitive resources involved in encoding to improve memory, and arousal stimuli can activate the connection between amygdala and sensory brain area, which leads to recollection of more details. Therefore, we speculated that valence and arousal of emotion may have different impact on different memory process. Valence may impact familiarity and recollection by calling sufficient cognitive resources in encoding, but this effect would be adjusted by the amount of cognitive resources; whereas, arousal may affect recollection automatically, not restricted by the amount of cognitive resources. Therefore, in experiment 1, we manipulated valence and arousal separately though orthogonal design to examine their effects on different memory processes under sufficient cognitive resources condition, and, in experiment2, we added a secondary task in encoding stage to manipulate the amount of cognitive resources for encoding to examine the cognitive mechanisms underlie the emotional effect on memory process. A total of 86 subjects participated in the experiments, with 56 in experiment one and 30 in experiment two. 432 emotional pictures were selected from IAPS and were divided into five categories: negative low arousal, negative high arousal, positive low arousal, positive high arousal and neutral. There were 144 neutral images and 72 pictures in each other subsets. Half pictures of each emotional subset were old item and half were new, balanced across subjects. In order to meet the requirements of orthogonal design, only the data of emotional pictures were analyzed to ensure that no difference in arousal values between positive and negative pictures and no difference in valence values between low arousal and high arousal pictures. Both the experiments were divided into an encoding stage and a retrieval stage. In Experiment 1, participants assessed the valence and arousal values of images in a 9-points scale in the encoding stage, and made high and low confidence recognition judgment to old and new pictures at the retrieval stage. In Experiment 2, in order to restrict the encoding cognitive resources, a distraction task was used in the encoding stage in which subjects were asked to count numbers while assessing value of valence and arousal of images. The rest of the programs were same in both experiments. The independent variables of present study were valence (negative, positive) and arousal (low arousal, high arousal), the dependent variables were memory performances on high and low confidence recognition judgments, including hit rate, correct rejection rate and discrimination accuracy (Pr). In Experiment 1,the results showed that compared to negative images, the discrimination accuracies (Pr) of high and low confidence recognition were significantly higher for the positive images. The hit rate of high confidence recognition was significantly higher for low arousal pictures than high arousal pictures. In Experiment 2, the results showed that the concurrent task reduced the enhancement effect of positive pictures, Discrimination accuracy (Pr) of high confidence recognition of high arousal pictures was significantly higher than those of low arousal pictures, which implicated that the effect of arousal was not affect by the secondary task. These results suggest that positive emotions can call sufficient cognitive resources for encoding, thereby improve the memory accuracies based on familiarity and recollection process. High arousal emotions can enhance the memory performance based on recollection process even when the encoding resources is diverted to the secondary task, so the enhancement memory performance of high arousal stimuli is caused by automatically encoding details of the stimuli. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Effects of Emotional Stimuli on False Memory: Evidence from both ERP and Eye Movement 2015, (2): 270-278.  Abstract ( )   PDF (7689KB) ( )   Emotional stimuli have two opposite effects on memory. On one hand, emotional stimuli improve memory; on the other hand, they induce false memories as well. Much research examined the effects of emotional valence and arousal on false memory, but no consensus has been reached yet. Some researchers found that emotional arousal impacted false memory to a larger degree while others preferred emotional valence. The present study seeks to address this conflict and look into different influences that emotional stimuli would cause on false memory compared to true memory. To the authors' knowledge, the controversy of emotional arousal and valence might result from a previous neglect in analyzing temporal components of false memory. The present study hypothesized that emotional stimuli would have different impacts on false memory at different points along its time course. Meanwhile, to understand false memory thoroughly, it's necessary to compare it with true memory from both behavioral and neuroscience perspectives. The present study used a within-subjects design and altogether 19 undergraduate students were recruited to participate. The study selected pictures from the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS) as emotional stimuli and used the DRM paradigm. There were 4 kinds of pictures, they were positive-high arousal, positive-low arousal, negative-high arousal and negative-low arousal. Each kind composed 150 pictures and they were divided into 3 groups, such as repeated(both show in study and recall stage), similar lures(only show in study stage) and new ones(only show in recall stage). Similar lures were left/right mirror reversals of studied pictures. Another 50 pictures were showed only in study stage. All participants first study pictures ,then do 20 addition tasks, after that recall pictures to decide whether each picture showed in study stage or not. To provide a comprehensive analysis, the present study collected behavioral data, eye movement data and ERP data. ERP data were recorded by ESI-64 system of Neuro Scan and analysised by Scan 4.3.1. Eye movement data were recorded by Tobii 1750, sampling rate were setted as 50 Hz. Results revealed that false memory, as expected, indeed changed across its whole time course. The present study involved altogether four kinds of false memory (i.e., negative-low, negative-high, positive-low, positive-high) and ERP data showed that although with similar starts, they ended up with different patterns, which were distributed mainly over the anterior regions of the brain. In addition, the differences between false memory and true memory proved salient. Regarding behavioral data and eye movement data, participants took longer to respond to false memory compared to true memory, and also displayed a larger amount of both fixation duration and count. In conclusion, it was found that both emotional arousal and valence could promote false memory but arousal took effect at an earlier time. Moreover, the differences between false memory and true memory were illustrated at the neural level. More specific, false memory was processed more deeply than true memory at earlier time points, showing that false memory required deeper processing to recognize stimuli; this indicated the “unfamiliar” effect of false memory in eye movement. In addition, false memory was processed to a greater degree than true memory at later points, impling that false memory took a larger amount of mental processing(e.g., information searching and comparing) to complete a final decision-making. Logically, false memory and true memory proved distinct temporally: false memory compared to true memory took longer to finish its formation at earlier time points and then its recall at later points. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Time Perspective Predicts Delay Discounting 2015, (2): 279-283.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4362KB) ( )   Intertemporal choice is the individual balances costs and benefits of decision-making process which occurred at different times. An important finding in intertemporal choice is time discounting which is that compared to gains (or losses) in the present, people always give less weight on gains (or losses) in the future. That is to say, future rewards are discounted such that they are worth subjectively less as a result of the delay. In intertemporal choices, participants often make choices between rewards which are smaller but sooner versus larger but longer ones. Then, the consequent problem is, to gain the maximum utility should one choose the long-term interests or the short-term interests? According to the perceived-time-based model, diminishing sensitivity to longer time horizons and the level of time contraction overall contribute to the degree of hyperbolic discounting. Therefore, the cognition and evaluation of time dimension is of high importance. This is called time perspective (TP). TP refers to the ways in which an individual views his/her past, present and future. It reflects personality difference in the dimension of time, and it is the relatively steady personality trait and behavioral characteristic expressed in an individual’s cognition, experience and actions (or action tendencies) for time. However, people lay diversely emphasis on the TP framework of past, present and future. With time perspective as the special characteristic of an individual, this paper is going to explore if there is difference in preference for intertemporal choice between different groups divided by TP and what it is. Hence, this study hypothesizes that the time perspective may have an important effect on intertemporal choice. With a classic paradigm of the DDT (delay-discounting-task), we tested the preferences for intertemporal choice between different groups divided by time perspective. A total of 40 persons (M age=21.6, SD=1.91), comprising 47.5% men and 52.5% women completed Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI-25; Zimbardo & Bond, 2011) before they went to DDT. Only “Present hedonistic” (PH, enjoyment and pleasure seeking in the present), “Positive past” (PP, a warm and affectionate concept of past) and “Future” (F, planning and achievement of future goals) subscales were used. Based on the result of TP test, subjects were divided into two parts: future-time-oriented group and present hedonistic-oriented group。Then, all participants completed DDT, in which each one made a series of monetary choices between ￥d today or ￥d’ in 7 day (or 15day, 30day). They were asked to circle either ￥d today or ￥d’ in delayed day, where the percent difference in money amounts between the two rewards ((￥d’-￥d)/ ￥d) was selected from the set {5%, 10%, 15%, 25%, 35%, 50%, 70%, 95%}. Directly in line with our hypothesis, the results showed that compared to subjects of future time oriented, those of present hedonistic oriented preferred immediate but smaller rewards to delayed but larger rewards. In the contrary, those future-time-oriented subjects had relatively more incline for delay gratification. The specific findings were two aspects: 1) the delayed discounting rate of present hedonistic-oriented group was higher than that of future-time-oriented group; 2) the “Future” scores that future-time-oriented group had gained from the TP subscale were in negative correlation with their delayed discounting rate. In conclusion, the findings indicate that time perspective is an important individual trait that should be considered into affecting factors of intertemporal choice. Time perspective could influence individual preference for choices by changing the sensitivity of time horizons. As a stable personality characteristic, time perspective is able to predict well individual preference for intertemporal choice. The findings not only enrich the intertemporal choice theories, it also helps us further understand time perspective and perception, and suggests that we should weigh the time factor to make rational decisions. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Cognitive Control Reverse Inhibition of Return in Target-Target Task Ting-Ting LV Dun Niu 2015, (2): 284-289.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5186KB) ( )   Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to slowed responses to targets presented at the same location as a preceding stimulus. IOR is typically investigated using a cue-target (CT) task, but the measurement of ‘true’ IOR may be confounded by the effect of non-ocular response inhibition. This confound may be eliminated using a target-target (TT) task, in which responses are made to both stimuli (Coward et al., 2004; Poliakoff et al., 2002). On the other hand, a remarkable feature of the human cognitive system is its ability to configure itself for the performance of specific tasks through appropriate adjustments in perceptual selection, response biasing, and the on-line maintenance of contextual information. The processes behind such adaptability, referred to collectively as cognitive control, have been the focus of a growing research program within cognitive psychology(Botvinick et al., 2001). Inconsistent color words, e.g. the word ‘red’ in green color, are ideal materials to induce cognitive control. Thus, in order to investigate the effects of cognitive control to IOR, we employ the inconsistent color words as exogenous cues in the TT task initiatively. 　　In experiment 1, 20 right-handed participants with a age range from 19-22 years were tested in either the CT task or the TT task randomly. The nature and timing of the stimuli were identical in both tasks, with the two tasks differing only in terms of response instructions. Inhibition of return was obtained in both tasks, but the IOR magnitude was significantly greater in CT (32ms) task than in TT (12ms) task. In experiment 2, 20 participants were all instructed to complete the task of judging the second stimulus (S2), the color of targets, but they were divided into three groups to response to the first stimulus (S1) respectively, which were judging the color of cues, the word of cues or pressing space key when discovering the cues. A repeated ANOVA was applied to the data analysis, and we calculated each group’s IOR effect size by a One-Way ANOVA. Interestingly, we found that IOR magnitude in pressing space key group (11.85ms) was markedly higher than judging the color group (-18.5ms) and the word group (-25.65ms). 　　These results imply that inconsistent color words as exogenous cues are able to achieve typical IOR in CT task effectively. To move forward a step, we demonstrate for the first time that it can extend into the TT task. Moreover, IOR magnitude is significantly smaller in TT task compared to CT task, thereby providing new ideas to explore the effects of cognitive control to inhibition of return. Consistent with our hypothesis, detecting and controlling cognitive conflict lead to the reversal of IOR magnitude. Thus, the reversal of IOR observed in TT task can be attributed to cognitive control, which supporting the unblinded mechanisms of attention. We expect that more behavioral and neurophysiological experiments can refer to this new idea, which would make a greater contribution to exploring the common mechanism of attention. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

The Effect of Attention, Learning Styles and Age on Collaborative Inhibition 2015, (2): 290-295.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5303KB) ( )   Collaborative inhibition (CI) refers to a phenomenon that at the retrieval phase, learners recall less when working collaboratively in a group than working by themselves. Research on the mechanism of the phenomenon of CI is one of the most popular topics in psychology in recent years. However, previous studies took more attention on the influential factors from the retrieval phase, while studies explored the CI effect from the encoding phase were insufficient. On the basis of previous studies, we tried to explore the factors from the encoding phase that might have an effect on CI. From this point of view, it would provide evidence for the exploration of the mechanism of collective memory. Two experiments were used in our study. Experiment 1 asked participants to learn word lists under full or divided attention conditions, results of group performances would show whether the involvement of attention in the encoding phase have an influence on CI or not. Experiment 2 controlled the learning styles, with 8, 11, 14, 17, 20 years old of students as the participants, and explored the effect of learning styles on the phenomenon of CI among different ages of students. Results showed that: a) under the full attention condition, the phenomenon of CI showed up, while under the condition of divided attention did not, which indicated the involvement of attention in the encoding phase had an effect on CI. b) both under self-controlled and other-controlled conditions of learning styles, the participants of different ages showed a CI effect. For the age of 8, 11, 17, 20 students, CI effects were similarly between self-controlled and other-controlled conditions; while for the age of 14 students, the CI effect under self-controlled learning style was significantly higher than that of other-controlled learning style. The results of Experiment 2 indicated that the effect of learning styles on the phenomenon of CI was different among different ages of students. Results of our study supported the explanation of retrieval strategy disruption hypothesis of CI. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Repetition Blindness Effect on Processing Chinese Character Radical 2015, (2): 296-302.  Abstract ( )   PDF (6501KB) ( )   Repetition Blindness（RB）refers to the phenomenon that in a rapid serial visual presentation ,if there are two identical stimuli, the second repeated stimulus is difficult to be detected. There have been many studies about RB have been involved，such as the influential factors RB , The reason of occurring RB, and so on. Many hypothesis and theory about the cause of repetition blindness were put forward: Token individuation hypothesis, Type refractoriness hypothesis, Memory failure, ‘Construction / attribution’ framework and Competition hypothesis. Token individuation hypothesis, Type refractoriness and Competition hypothesis insisted that RB was a perceptual failure phenomenon in on-line processing, but Memory failure hypothesis suggested that RB was a phenomenon of off-line failure of memory, while the ‘construction / attribution’ framework thought that RB effect can happen during either perceptual processing or memory processing. RB can be found in many experimental materials, but the most common materials used in RB research were words. Some researchers have explored RB based on the characteristic of Chinese characters in China in resent years. The present study examined repetition blindness effect on the level of Chinese character radical. Chinese characters selected Chinese characters radicals with left-right structures or containing relationship were used as the experimental material in two experiments. Experiment 1 explored whether the position effect could affect RB effect if two key stimuli R1 and R2 shared the same radical. There were four experimental conditions: R1 and R2 were identical; R1 and R2 were different; the same radicals of R1 and R2 both were in same positions; the same radicals of R1 and R2 were in different positions. The result of experiment 1 showed that the repeated blind effect of the different conditions existed significantly differences, F（3，34）=19.78，p=0<0.01,η2 =0.64,but there is no significant difference between RB of identical position condition and different position condition, RB strength values of them, however, were significantly smaller than the identical conditions, and greater than the different conditions. Experiment 2 explored how robust RB effect was in the condition of two key stimuli R1 and R2 had a containment relationship. That one key stimulus, a single character, was the radical of the other, a compound character were used as the experimental materials in Experiment 2. The result of experiment 2 showed that the repeated blind effect of the different conditions existed significantly differences as same as Experiment 1, F(3,38)=53.02, p=0<0.01,η2 =0.81, and there was significantly more robust RB effect in the condition which R2 were the single characters, the radical of R1, than one which R2 was the compound character. But same as Experiment 1, RB strength values of R2, whether the single characters, or the compound characters, both were smaller than ones of the identical conditions, and greater than ones of the different conditions. The research conclusion was that the repetition blindness effect is affected by the different characteristics of the Chinese character radicals. It suggested that repetition blindness phenomenon is likely to occur in online perceptual processing. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Semantic Integration in the Early Time Window: an ERPs Study 2015, (2): 303-308.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4375KB) ( )   Language comprehension not only refers to lexical access of an individual word, but also involves semantic integration processing, which builds up a coherent mental representation of isolated words. Previous studies using eye tracking or ERPs methods have investigated the time course of semantic integration, but their results remained controversial. Evidence from eye tracking showed that the earliest semantic integration occurred before 250ms. But in most ERPs studies, semantic integration is reflected by classic N400 effect between 300 and 500 ms, which is later than 250ms. A potential account of the controversy is that compared to late components, the early ones are typically focal and short in duration. Therefore, they are more likely to be affected by large stimulus variance on relevant linguistic parameters. Though important physical and psycholinguistic parameters were matched in most previous studies, attention paid to the range of relevant parameters of stimuli was not enough. By limiting the frequency variance of critical words to a very small range, the present ERPs experiment was conducted to examine whether early ERPs components were linked to semantic integration during Chinese reading comprehension. A hundred Chinese sentences were constructed for the present study. Each critical word at the end of the sentence was counterbalanced between semantically congruent and incongruent conditions. Especially, the frequency variance of critical words was minimized as small as possible. Then sentences were presented word by word at the centre of the screen, and each word has a duration of 400 ms with an inter-stimuli interval (ISI) of 200 ms. After each sentence, participants were asked to decide whether the sentence was plausible or not. We recorded 18 participants' ERPs with 32 electrodes of Neuroscan system. Epochs of interest were time-locked to the onset of critical words with a 200 ms pre-onset baseline window and an 800 ms post-onset window. P2 and N400 were computed in the time windows of 150~300 ms and 300~500 ms. A more positive P2 and a less negative N400 component were found when the sentence context was congruent than they were in incongruent condition, though P2 effect was smaller than N400 effect obviously. In conclusion, the present study supports that by minimizing the relevant variance of critical words to a small range, semantic integration can be detected before 250 ms in ERPs studies. Though P2 effect reflecting semantic integration is transient and influenced by lexical information easily. In contrast, semantic violation condition evokes stronger N400 component, which is enduring and stable. This finding may help to resolve the conflict between eye tracking and ERPs results. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

The Cognitive Neural Mechanism of Fairness 2015, (2): 309-314.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5746KB) ( )   Given that we live in highly complex social environments, many of important decisions are made in the context of social interactions. A lot of studies have found that people are willing to sacrifice their own interests to maintain fair, which is called inequity aversion tendency. Simple but sophisticated tasks kown as UG（Ultimatum Game）have been used to study fairness in the laboratory setting , UG is a useful experimental tool for examining both decisions about, and responses to, fairness and equity . The Ultimatum Game (UG) is often used to examine responses to fairness. In the UG, two players must divide a sum of money, with the proposer specifying the division. The responder then has the option of accepting or rejecting this offer. If the offer is accepted, the sum is divided as proposed. If it is rejected, neither player receives anything. The UG therefore models decisions about resource allocation on the part of the proposer, as well as responses to fairness and inequity in the responder. The proposer’s decision is based on the degree of activation of VMPFC. VMPFC patients show “negative generosity” by offering less than they themselves demand，VMPFC is thought to be responsible for emotional processing and empathy，VMPFC patients can not understand unfair allocation will be rejected by responders. Moreover, unfair offers that were subsequently rejected were associated with a stronger insula response than those that were subsequently accepted, suggesting that the magnitude of anterior insula activation in?uences the decision to accept or reject. For different roles, the fairness behavior have different mechanism. For example, testosterone have different effects on different roles .It may have an similar effect on VMPFC function for proposers, Testosterone can increase individuals’ "negative generosity” behavior. On the other side, it also contributes to the individual refusal behavior for unfair distribution. In addition, a variety of neuroscience methods have been used to probe the underlying neural systems of fairness. This review highlights neural mechanisms of fairness, and describes existing theoretical models in detail. Although differences have been found in proposer and responder’s behavior, the fairness have some common basis. Brain imaging studies have found that the fairness was associated with activation in a network of regions including the insula which is responsible for the emotional processing and the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex which is responsible for cognitive control. As kind of neuromodulators, Oxytocin plays a catalytic role in social altruism behaviors such as fairness. It has been verified by many previous studies. This review point out some problems and the future research direction for the neural mechanisms of fairness. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Memory Advantage of Threatening Information 2015, (2): 315-320.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5714KB) ( )   The aim of the present study is to examine whether individuals have the memory advantage for threatening information in the natural environment. To further explore the psychological mechanism of this memory advantage effect by adding threatening and non-threatening scenarios and analyzing whether the memory advantage for threatening information still exists. Threatening information (snake) and non-threatening information (turtle) in the natural environment were selected to be the research materials, which included words and pictures respectively. Specifically, 36 subordinate classification vocabulary of snakes and turtles with middle-level memory difficulties were selected respectively. Because of the fear emotion aroused by real snake pictures may directly exert effect on the memory, 36 cartoon images of snakes and turtles were selected respectively with the medium degree of fear and novelty. Different Scenarios were added in experiment 2 with different instructions. Threatening scenario instruction was like this: “please imagine you are trapped in a prairie in ancient times, and there are all kinds of animal inhabited, with beasts howling and fighting voices in the distance. Some fierce animals are likely to appear around you at any time.” The instruction of non-threatening scenario was: “please imagine you are walking in the zoo now, you can see animals in cages friendly greeting to you , beasts are not as aggressive as those in wild areas, and some well-trained fierce animals are showing skill performance comically.” The results demonstrate that: (1) the recognition memory of snakes which representing threatening information is significantly superior to that of the turtles which representing non-threatening information, no matter the experimental material presenting in vocabulary or image. The result suggests that there is a significant memory advantage for both the threatening vocabulary and image information in the natural environment.; (2) there is a significant difference in recognition accuracy between threatening vocabulary and threatening images information, suggesting that memory of image information is performed better than that of the vocabulary information; (3) when in threatening scenario and non-threatening scenario in experiment 2, the recognition accuracy of threatening information is significantly higher than that of the non-threatening information as what’s found experiment 1. But the recognition accuracy is no significantly different between the threatening scenario and the non-threatening scenario in the natural environment; (4) specifically, when in threatening scenario, the recognition accuracy of threatening words and pictures are both significantly higher than that of the non-threatening turtle words and pictures. When in non-threatening scenario, the recognition accuracy of threatening pictures is significantly higher than that of the non-threatening turtle pictures. However, the recognition accuracy is not significantly different for threatening snake words and the non-threatening turtle words. The conclusions are as follows: (1) the memory recognition advantage exists in the vocabulary and pictures threatening information in the natural environment. And the memory of the pictures is better than that of the vocabulary; (2) memory advantage of threatening pictorial information still exists in the threatening and non-threatening scenario. When in non-threatening scenario, memory difference between the threatening and non-threatening vocabulary information is not significant. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Effects of retention interval on False Memory In story Contexts 2015, (2): 321-328.  Abstract ( )   PDF (6944KB) ( )   Abstract Bartlett (1932) using qualitative research methods have demonstrated that memory is a process of construction, and the content of the memory become more reasonable with time. His research is considered to be the beginning of the false memory. DRM paradigm (Deese,1959; Roediger&McDermott,1995) ,a qualitantive research methods, is a classic research paradigm which is widely uesd to induce false memories under laboratory condition. Nonetheless,most of these behavioral memory studies are limited in making such distinctions the component memory processes driving interval-associated memory failures and successes. For example, McDermott (1996) reporter 48h interval between study and test procduced probabilities of false memory that exceeded those of true memory. Alternative neural and cognitive mechanisms may underlie this performance, which could be indexed with functional techniques. The current study investigated the cognitive and neural electrophysiological processes underlying the retrieval phase after imme- diately and 48h delay by means of ERP techniques to further explored the electrophysiological processes of the retention interval effect on false memory. The experiment was conducted with 20 healthy right-handed undergraduates as the subjects and five story contexts as the material during study phase. There were three types of target words during the test phase including higher associated words, critical words and lower associated words. The higher associated words were choose form story contexts; Critical words were new and highly associated with the story contexts, in addition lower associated words were lowly associated with the contexts. The participants studied 5 blocks (one story context in each block and 60 associated target words in each list) and did an old/new recognition test both after short and long delay. Recognition judgment was divided into high confidence level judgment and low confidence level judgment. The results of high confidence level judgment was adopted for statistical analysis. Before long delay test, participants must recall the story context as much as possible for 120s according to story cue. Four subjects were rejected because of the lack of the number of artifact-free trials. The instrument for the statistical analysis used in the experiment is SPSS18.0. The results showed that (1) There was no significant difference on behavior predictions of false recognition between two intervals. False recognition demanded more RT than true recognition on both two intervals. (2) The spatial and temporal distributions of LPC associated with false memory was more positive after long delay relative to short delay.(3) The FN400 elicited by Correct-Rejection recognition was more negative than false memory after both delays. However, both LPC and LSW which were elicited by false memory were more positive than Correct-Rejection recognition.(4) Attenuation of the LPC occurred for false memory relative to true memory after short delay, but there were not different after long delay. （5）The amplitude of LSW elicited by false recognition was greater than true recognition and Correct-Rejection recognition after both delays. In conclusion, the results demonstrated that false memory had showed the different informat- ion processing models between short and long delay. Meanwhile, the different Processing stages between false memory and true recognition were influenced by the time delay. The diversities were recollection-based process and post-retrieval process after short delay, but the diversity only focused on the post-retrieval process after long delay. Key words False Memory, Retention Interval, Story Contexts, LPC, LSW Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Anticipatory mental imagery could alter the perception of the gender of biological motion 2015, (2): 329-334.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4965KB) ( )   Human beings are remarkably sensitive to recognizing the motion of biological entities in complex visual scenes, even when it is depicted with a handful of point-lights attached to the head and major joints. A number of studies demonstrated that biological motion contains not only form and motion information, but also include many sorts of socially relevant information about an agent such as identity, gender, emotions, intentions and so on. The ability of human observers to identify gender is a well-known and often cited result in the perception of biological motion. But till today, the topic of the researches about the gender perception of biological motion is the influence factors of the perception process. And there are two approaches have been advanced to explain the ability of observers to recognize gender from point-light displays. The first of these emphasized the role of gender differences in the shape of male and female bodies as indicated by hip and shoulder dimensions. The second of these emphasized the role of gender differences in the motion of male and female bodies as indicated by he lateral sway of the hip and shoulder. But recently, researchers have found that there exists obvious adaptation aftereffects in the gender perception, and the auditory also could effect gender perception. These results suggest that not only the bottom-top information may influence the gender perception, but also there exists top-down processing that regulate the gender perception. However, how the top-down information influence the gender perception is unknown. Many researches have found that anticipatory mental imagery has the power the anticipate and fill up the detail information when the input information is absent or lack detail information to identify. Evidence from brain imaging studies suggests that expectations have the power to alter perceptual judgment, affective responses and neural processing in various stimulus modalities, including gustatory processing, olfaction , vision, kinesthesia, and pain. In this article we investigated how top-down information influence gender perception of biological motion with two experiments: one is group with anticipatory mental imagery and the other not. In the imagery experiment, the observers are asked to imagine the person who is with obvious gender feature follow the name. There are three names here,female name, gender neutral name and male name , the names are all well known to the participants. The non-imagery group only received the general instructions (i.e., information about the meaningless characters, the trial structure and the general purpose of the study) and then carrying out mathematical calculations following the names. There are also three meaningless characters here. The results found that the anticipatory mental imagery of man according the name could speed up the response of the perception of male biological motion. The results indicate that the anticipatory mental imagery could alter gender perception of biological motion, and there may exist the man bias which influence gender perception of gender neutral biological motion.This study is helpful to reveal how the anticipatory mental imagery alter the psychological mechanism of gender perception of biological motion. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Grammatical Gender Effects and Mechanisms on Cognition 2015, (2): 335-340.  Abstract ( )   PDF (6022KB) ( )   Grammatical genders are a common phenomenon in many languages. As a syntactic phenomenon, it is independent from meaning, but its relationship with semantic information is very intricate. In some gendered languages, the link between grammatical gender and word meaning appears to be completely unpredictable. It appears to be functionally independent from conceptual structure and is assumed to be stored at a representational level that is different from that specifying semantic information. Nevertheless, in several cases, gender classification systems seem to be based on relevant semantic properties of the nouns’referents, for example, bio- logical sex or animacy. Moreover, grammatical gender can influence cognition. First, it has an effect on object categorization and perceptual similarity. People are more likely to judge two objects whose grammatical gender are consistent belong to the same category than they are inconsistent. Pictures and objects which share the same grammatical gender are perceived more similarity. Second, grammatical genders can facilitate and inhibit cognitive processing. Which role it plays depends on whether tasks require the information of grammatical gender. For example, in the task of naming noun phrases, which requirements the determiners’ grammatical gender is consistent with nouns’ one on the syntactic, the consistency effect of the grammatical gender of the distractor word that is written on the target picture is observed. Namely, shorter naming latencies for pictures with gramatically consistent distractor words than for consistent ones. Otherwise, in the task of naming picture with word , the grammatical gender interference effect of the distractor word is observed. That is to say naming times are slower to picture-word noun pairs s haring the same gender. Third, it may also affect the second language learning and memory. The impact of grammatical gender on cognition is mediated by multiple factors including language, task, the morphological transparency for gender and so on. 　　In addition, to explore the mechanisms by which grammatical gender might affect cognition has important significance. In the level of conceptual representation, the similarity and gender hypothesis and the sex and gender hypothesis interpret the mechanisms by grammatical gender affecting cognition from the perspective of language development. The basic idea of the similarity and gender hypothesis is that words that have similar syntactic and morphophonological properties also tend to have similar meanings. Nouns that share the same gender are used in the same linguistic contexts, which differ from those contexts in which nouns of a different gender are used. the sex and gender hypothesis is based on establishing associations between gender of nouns and sex. It assumes there is a core correspondence between genders of nouns and sex of their referents for humans, and people can extend this principle to encompass other nouns for which there is no direct correspondence but which still refer to sexuated entities. Another alternative mechanisms is the double selection (DS) model. It proposes that the locus where meaning and gender interact can be located at the level of the lexical representation that specifies syntactic information: Nouns sharing the same grammatical gender activate each other, thus facilitating their processing and speeding up responses, either to semantically related pairs or to semantically unrelated pairs.These explanation can provide an in-depth theoretical basis for us to better understand the relationship between language and cognitive. Finally, recommendations for future research were discussed, based on this literature review. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

The Neural Mechanism of Risky Decision Making Based on Prospect Theory 2015, (2): 341-348.  Abstract ( )   PDF (8218KB) ( )   Based on the criticism and development of expected utility theory, value function and weight function were proposed by prospect theory, giving a good prediction and explanation to the phenomena found in previous studies of risky decision-making. First of all, prospect theory proposes a value function over gains and losses relative to a reference point. According to prospect theory, the status quo generally serves as the reference point distinguishing losses from gains, so that the function is concave for gains and convex for losses. Secondly, value function of prospect theory is steeper for losses than for gains, which is a property known as loss aversion. People typically require more compensation to give up a possession than the amount that they would have been willing to pay to obtain it in the first place. At last, in prospect theory, the value of an outcome is weighted not by its probability, but instead by a decision weight which exhibit that moderate to high probabilities are underweighted and low probabilities are overweighed. Besides, some decision-making biases phenomena, such as framing effect, endowment effect and default bias also help to reveal the neural basis of prospect theory. The field of neuroeconomics is providing a rapidly increasing amount of data regarding the phenomena that lie at the heart of prospect theory. Recently, studies on neuroimaging, especially functional magnetic resonance imaging showed that prefrontal cortex, striatum, insula and amygdala are four main brain regions that relate to prospect theory. Specifically, studies on reference-dependence showed that prefrontal cortex (PFC), including orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and ventral striatum (vStr) may be involved in reference-dependent processing. Some argues that reference-dependence might be a general concept that includes many factors, including choice history, and may thus be dynamic. Therefore, PFC and vStr may represent different types of reference-dependence. Studies on loss aversion found striatum, ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and amygdala play key roles in enlarging losses. Researchers even found striatum and vmPFC exhibited a pattern of “neural loss aversion”, that these regions’ slope of the decrease in activity for increasing losses was greater than the slope of the increase in activity for increasing gains in a majority of participants. A study on individuals with focal bilateral amygdala lesions found that they showed a dramatic reduction in loss aversion compared to matched controls, suggesting that the amygdala plays a key role in generating loss aversion by inhibiting actions with potentially deleterious outcomes. Therefore, the neural basis under loss aversion may be a neural system consists of regions like striatum and amygdala. Amygdala first processed the information, and then transferred to the striatum, eventually led to the loss aversion. Finally, researchers found that weight function may be partly caused by anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and dorsal striatum (dStr). But it still remained to be clarified whether these regions contribute to the pattern of weight function. In order to get full understanding of decisions under risk, with what have been already found, studies in the future may further explore prospect theory from different angles, like how prospect theory originates from evolutionary perspective and how genes play a part in it. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Gratitude among Undergraduates: A Cross-Lagged Regression Analysis 2015, (2): 349-354.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5104KB) ( )   There are two important factors that have impact on the social development and personality of undergraduates，emotional intelligence and gratitude．Several Studies have found that emotional intelligence and gratitude was significantly positive correlation, however, researchers have not investigated the causal relationship between the two factors so far. That is to say，is the emotional intelligence the cause of the gratitude or the gratitude the cause of the emotional intelligence? To find out the causal relationship，we need some longitudinal data．This kind of data can present the temporal form．In this research，we examined the development of undergraduates emotional intelligence and gratitude，as well as the correlation and causality between emotional intelligence and gratitude．406 undergraduates in grades 1-3 from a college twice (five months in between) were selected to fill out Emotional Intelligence Scale and Adolescent Gratitude Scale. The results indicated as follows: (1) According to the results repeated measures analysis of variance, emotional intelligence among undergraduates existed stability to some extent（F(1，404)=.765，p=.382＞.05），and gratitude manifested developmental changes（F(1，404)= 3.273，p=.071＜.1）; (2) Correlation analysis results indicated that the emotional intelligence was significantly positively related with gratitude(r=.57, r=.56, p＜.001); (3)cross-lagged regression analysis indicated that Time 1 emotional intelligence could predict Time 2 gratitude with Time 1 gratitude controlled（β=.094，p<.05）, but Time 1 gratitude could not predict Time 2 emotional intelligence with Time 1 emotional intelligence controlled（β=.052，p﹥.05）.The results of this study support the proposal that there exists not only correlation but also causal relationship between the emotional intelligence and gratitude, there is a close relationship between emotional intelligence and gratitude, the emotional intelligence is the cause of the gratitude. Causality research results suggested, in order to train and enhance the level of undergraduates' gratitude, researchers and practitioners can improve college students' emotional intelligence. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Leave or Stay: The Effect of Risk Perception and Place Identity 2015, (2): 355-360.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4925KB) ( )   Normally grown and free people will choose the places where they can survive or have a good fit with the environment, and usually avoid the situation which will get them into risk, even the perceived risk. To achieve the purpose of stability and development of the western frontier requires efforts and consistence of the people, especially the college students, who will soon step out to the society and become the mainstay in the nearly future. The directions that college students orient upon graduation will influence the future of a place. It’s important for the college and the local government to know the social attitude of college students. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of risk perception on students’ leave or stay intention, which was directed or mediated by other psychological variables, such as place identity. 557 college students, 297 from minority classes (Min Class), and 260 from majority classes (Han Class) of the southern Xinjiang were sampled and administered with three measures, namely Risk Perception Scale, Leave or Stay Intention Scale, and Place Identity Scale. The mean differences between the Min and Han Class on the three variables were tested by three independent t tests. The results indicated that students from Min Class had significantly lower risk perception, higher place identity, and higher stay intention than that of the students from Han Class, and the effect sizes of the differences measured by Cohen’s d were 0.90, 1.13, and 0.74 respectively, reached median to high level. The inter-correlations among these three variables on Min and Han samples ranged between 0.46 and 0.78, and there were no differences between Min Class and Han Class when analyzed on separated samples. Hierarchical regression analyses on two separated samples were conducted to examine the mediation effect of place identity. Results showed that risk perception and place identity explained about 60% variance of the leave or stay intention, about 70~80% effect of risk perception on leave or stay intention was mediated by place identity. Another model that the effect of place identity on leave or stay intention was mediated by risk perception was tested and was not supported by data. Then, multi-group path analysis was conducted to check if the mediation effects were the same in two samples. The equivalences of the three path coefficients were found, and 77% effect of risk perception on leave or stay intention was mediated by place identity. The implication of this study is that it’s necessary to grasp the social-psychological condition of the young students to develop related strategies, especially for the west frontier. The central and local governments should try the best to build a safe city, to enhance the place identity of the population through software and hardware constructing, then more and more talents would be attracted into the city and more college students would stay at the district, living and working together for a better future. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

The Relationships among Parenting Styles, Adult Attachment, and Psychological Distress of Mongolian and Han College Students 2015, (2): 361-365.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4261KB) ( )   The attachment perspective has been widely used as a framework in understanding individual differences in psychosocial functioning. Although the influence of adult attachment on one’s mental health has been well documented in literature with support mostly based on Western samples, researchers have cautioned that empirical validation is needed before applying the theory to people with different cultural backgrounds. This study examined the relationships among parenting styles, adult attachment variables, and psychological distress using a college student sample that included both Mongolian and Han descendants. It was hypothesized that there would be significant ethnic group differences in parenting styles, adult attachment variables, and psychological distress. Both attachment avoidance and anxiety would be negatively associated with perceived parental care and autonomy. Both attachment avoidance and anxiety would be positively associated with depression, stress, and anxiety. Adult attachment would mediate the relationship between parenting style and mental health variables. In addition, a mediation model simultaneously considering the effects of parenting styles and adult attachment (the hypothesized mediator) on psychological adjustment would be supported by the data. Participants included 576 college students recruited from four Inner Mongolian universities who volunteered to complete a research questionnaire. Among them, there were 244 males (42.4%) and 332 females (57.6%) with a mean age of 20.58 (SD = 1.48). Regarding race/ethnicity, 299 (51.9%) were Mongolian（growing up in native Mongolian families and speak both Chinese and Mongolian）, and 254 (44.1%) were Han. The instruments used in this study include The Experience in Close Relationship Scale, which measured adult attachment (including attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety), Parental Bonding Inventory, which assessed parenting style and yields separate scores for father and mother, and The Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS), which measured psychological distress. The findings from this study revealed that parental care and autonomy of Mongolian students is significant higher than those of Han students. The SEM analyses were used to examine the proposed mediation model in which adult attachment was hypothesized to mediate the relations between parent-child relationship quality and psychological distress (i.e., depression, anxiety, & stress). The findings revealed adequate model fit indexes for the Han sub-sample (CFI=.99, GFI=.98, RMSEA=.02, SRMR=.007). The results suggest that for Han young adults, parental over-control may be a useful framework in understanding individual differences in their psychological distress and that adult attachment may play a critical role in the link between parenting style and experienced distress. For the Mongolian young adults, the results have also shown that mother’s indifference/rejection and over-control had significantly predictive power for adult children’s attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety and that parental indifference/rejection and over-control significantly predicted their psychological distress. However, the fit indexes of the SEM model were not as good as those for the Han sample. Implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

The Research of Aesthetic Cognitive Difference in Chinese and Western Paintings between Art and Ordinary Undergraduates 2015, (2): 366-372.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5423KB) ( )   At present, the art aesthetic is becoming indispensable Spiritual need and cognitive behavioral for human being. The professionals in arts field as a typical representative of the aesthetic subject, it is generally agreed that there was significant difference in the aesthetic between them and ordinary people. But so far, there were no researchers have cared the aesthetic cognition, beauty experiences and emotional responses of the two types people in the art aesthetic activities. Aesthetic is one of the most advanced and complex mental activities in human being.The sense of beauty is based on the needs of beauty, in accordance with the standard of beauty in society by individual, it is an emotional experience during the process of the evaluation on an objective objects. From the humanistic perspective, there were some researches about the aesthetic differences between Chinese and Western artists in painting. But from the Psychology, At present there was no research to explore the significant differences exist or not between masses of Chinese and West paintings’ aesthetic. Therefore, this study will discuss this problem by the research methods of psychology, and also will provide a new research perspective for the art aesthetic, at the same time, it will be a great significance and value to make people aware of importance of aesthetic education. In this study, Chinese paintings,Western paintings and photographic works will be the main aesthetic object, art and ordinary students will be the aesthetic subjuct, By comparing their emotional response in aesthetic experience process of the paintings, this study will explore the professional students and ordinary students’ beauty differences and characteristics between Chinese paintings and Western paintings. In the experiment, By organizing professional subject and ordinary subject and put the group into practical testing, showing the art works of different style and potency randomly, we asked the subjects that made a judgement based on their true emotional response for stimulus pictures. The results show that: (1)There is significant difference between professional students and non-professional students in their Western paintings’aesthetic，and the beauty sense of professional art-educated students which received in Western paintings is significant higher than that of ordinary students. (2)The difference between the two groups in their Chinese paintings’aesthetic is not significant. (3)Both the two groups have their aesthetic preference,and their preference are the same,they both have more beauty sense in Chinese paintings’aesthetic than the others. (4)In the process of aesthetic, The difference of two groups’ cognitive reaction time is significantly clear,the professionals’ mental activities are longer time than non-professionals in general, and more complicated activities. The study systematically explored the characteristics of Chinese and Western paintings’ aesthetic between art students and ordinary students, and confirmed that there are significant differences in Western paintings’ aesthetic between art students and ordinary students, but the differences between the two groups in Chinese paintings’ aesthetic are not significant.These findings will provide a theoretical basis for aesthetic education in university,and provide theory reference and basis for the study of psychology of aesthetic differences between Chinese paintings and Western Paintings.Morever, it will provide a theoretical reference for the construction and perfection of theoretical system and practice system of aesthetic psychology, aesthetics, aesthetic education. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

The Influence of Organizational Characteristics on the Transformation of Teaching Methods: Organizational Identification as a Mediator 2015, (2): 373-378.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4847KB) ( )   Many scholars have paid widespread attention to the field of organizational characteristics. Studies have shown that there is a close relationship between organizational characteristics, organizational identification and the transformation of teaching methods. Although Han Xuesong (2007) found that organizational identification mediated the relationship between organizational characteristics and organizational performance, so far, no study explores relationship among the three variables systematically in a whole frame . Hence, in this study, we try to deep excavate the relationships among the three variables, and to further explore whether organizational identification plays a mediating role between organizational characteristics and the transformation of teaching methods. The 3 scales used in this study were as follows: ( a) Organizational Characteristics Scale. (b) Transformation of Teaching Methods Scale． (c) The Revision of Mael’s Organization Identification Questionnaire． The Cronbach α of the three questionnaires were .924, .862 and. 776 in this study.736 questionnaires were distributed in primary and middle school in Guangdong，627 of those were useful, and the usage rate was 85.2% ． Males took up 31.5% .Teachers in primary school took up 44.4% . The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the above measures were from . 776 to . 924，indicating satisfactory measurement reliabilities. Structural equation modeling ( SEM) and mediation analysis were employed to test the hypotheses. Correlation analyses among organizational characteristics and its dimensions，organizational identification , teaching methods revealed that there were significant positive correlations between all the variables． The multivariate stepwise regression analysis suggested that organization reputation and organization culture were significant factors in predicting organization identification and teaching methods． Based on correlation and multivariate stepwise regression analysis，we established a relational model of organizational characteristics ,organizational identification and teaching methods . The results revealed that: ( 1) Organizational characteristics had a salient positive relationship with organizational identification( β =0. 46，p ＜ 0. 001) and teaching methods ( β =0. 24，p ＜ 0. 001).Organizational identification had a salient positive relationship with teaching methods ( β =0. 46，p ＜ 0. 001); ( 2) Organizational identification fully mediated the relationship between organizational characteristics and teaching methods and the mediating effect is significant（ Z=5.80，p ＜0.001）．Based on the results ,maybe we can promote the transformation of teaching methods effectively through increasing the level of teachers' organizational identification attached to their schools. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

The Mediating Role of Depression between Core Self-Evaluation and Suicidal Ideation in Adolescences: An Empirical Examination under Bootstraping and Markov Chain Monte Carlo Methods 2015, (2): 379-382.  Abstract ( )   PDF (3690KB) ( )   The adolescent period is considered to be difficult and critical. Adolescents have to face a host of pressures, from changes of puberty to questions about who they are. Seriously depressed teenagers often think about death or suicide, which was associated with higher negative self-evaluation. Although suicidal ideation are relatively common among adolescents, many questions on their causes remain unsolved. Many studies have found that there was a close relationship between core self-evaluation, depression and suicidal ideation. For the majority of suicidal adolescents, depression plays a primary role. However, few studies focus on the mediating role of depression between core self-evaluation and suicidal ideation. Findings from this study are intended to provide empirical support for the strategies for the adolescents’ suicide prevention. To determine the specific effect of depression on relationship between core self-evaluation and suicidal ideation in adolescences, a total of 502 senior high school students were enrolled and measured on a series of questionnaires. Self-evaluation was assessed with Core Self-evaluation Scale, depression was measured by Self-rating Depression Scale, and suicidal thought was examined by Self-rating Idea of Suicide Scale. Two computer-intensive methods, Bootstrapping and Markov chain Monte Carlo methods were used to construct confidence intervals for the mediating effect. This was done using Mplus version 7.0, which involved repeated sampling from data set and estimating indirect effect in each resampled data set. Firstly, 5000 bootstrap samples were drawn with replacement from the original data, and the mediation model was re-estimated and the mediating effect was calculated within each bootstrapping sample. Secondly, the informative Markov chain Monte Carlo method was conducted, and two Markov chains and Gibbs sampler were used to sample from data set for 20,000 times. The 95% confidence intervals for the indirect effect were constructed through both Bootstrapping and MCMC methods. k2 and R2med were used to calculate the effect size of the mediation model. There were significant correlations between core self-evaluation, depression and suicidal ideation among adolescents. In addition, the bias-corrected Bootstrapping and Markov chain Monte Carlo with informative priors found that the 95% confidence intervals of the mediating effect were [-.030，-.011] and [-.024，-.014] respectively, which indicated that the mediating effect was significant. In addition, k2 = .124, and the 95% confidence interval of k2 constructed by bias corrected bootstrapping method was [.070, .178]. Moreover, R2med = .104 and the 95% confidence interval of R2med constructed by bias corrected bootstrapping method was [.063, .156]. Both the k2 and R2med indicated that the effect size of the mediating effect was medium. Results indicated that core self-evaluation was not directly associated with suicidal ideation. More accurately, its association with suicidal ideation was partially mediated by depression. Depression plays a vital role in mediating the relationship between core self-evaluation and suicidal ideation. To prevent adolescents’ suicidal attempts, it is a good way to improve their core self-evaluation. Then their depression level would decrease and suicidal ideations would diminish, thus adolescents may grow up in a healthy way. These data highlights the complexity of suicidal ideation and provides future direction for prevention and intervention of suicidal behaviors. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

The Judgment of Power Related Words : Size Effect and Controllability 2015, (2): 383-387.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4397KB) ( )   Power is an old phenomenon for human, but is a new research topic for social psychologist. As a part of social hierarchic relationship, power are constituted with reference to symbolic representations of spatial dimensions such as size and height, even if physical size of the ranked groups is not a determinant of the hierarchy. Stroop interference paradigm and Chinese labels of power group were used in this study to identify the Size Effect in the judgment of power related words, and determine whether the Size Effect can be controlled by some intervention strategies. There were three experiments in this study. Experiment 1 manipulated the font size of the power group labels to explore the influence on power judgments. Experiment 2 explored the controllability of Size Effect by informing participants distinctly about the possible influence of front size the group labels are written in . In addition, Experiment 3 studied the same topic as experiment 2 by not only informing participants but also changing the ratio of compatible and incompatible trials. The results of experiment 1 showed a significant main effect of trials’ type, faster responses occurred when the trials were compatible. Power judgments were slower when the font size did not fit the power of the groups. The results of experiment 2 displayed a margin marked interaction between trials’ type and instruction condition. Experiment 3 furthered this result showed that there was a significant interaction between these two variables, the variation on reaction between compatible and incompatible trials was not obvious when giving instructed information to the participants. Moreover, the results of experiment 3 showed a significant interaction between trials’ type and distribution, participants with a biased distribution reacted more quickly when trials were incompatible. The results suggested that there indeed has a Size Effect in the judgment of Chinese labels about power group. When the Chinese labels of power group were presented in pairs, judgments of the power of groups are influenced by the font size the group labels are written in. And this findings also confirmed the hypothesis that instructed the Size Effect can be controlled by instructed information to remind participants about the possible influence of the font size. Moreover, this effect even be reversed in the biased distribution condition. A high likelihood of incompatible trails helped to control and even reverse the default power of associating large with powerful and small with powerless. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Effect of Counterfactual Thinking on the Safe Behavior Intention of Pedestrians Xiao YUAN 2015, (2): 388-393.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4973KB) ( )   Counterfactual thinking refers to the mental representations of alternatives to past events. It plays an important role in changing behaviors and improving performance by converting information about past mistakes into plans for future action. As an important cognitive strategy, counterfactual thinking is used in behavioral intervention. The current study explores whether counterfactual thinking, which has a behavior-regulating function, improves the behavioral intention of pedestrians. Four frequent unsafe behaviors of pedestrians were chosen as the experimental materials. A one-factor between-subject study was designed. The participants were randomly divided into two groups, namely, experimental (counterfactual priming) and control (experience priming). To match the sample from the experimental and control groups, we excluded the effect of individual differences and measured the baseline of all participants based on factual thinking, that is, their intention to follow a traffic rule (rating on a 6-point Likert scale) and their reaction time in rating. Next, a modified sequential priming paradigm was applied to prime the counterfactual thinking (experimental condition) or past experience (control condition) of the participants. The participants were then asked about their intention to follow the traffic rule again. As dependent variables, both the behavioral intention and reaction time were recorded again. Results showed that the intention of all participants to follow traffic rules was positive. A paired-sample t-test was conducted to test the differences in intention and reaction times between the baseline and two treatments. The rating scores and reaction times in baseline and experimental conditions showed significant differences. Specifically, the behavioral intention of the experimental group was more positive and their reaction time in rating was faster than those in the baseline. However, the rating scores in the baseline and control conditions showed no significant differences, although the reaction time of the control group was faster than the baseline. Hence, the behavioral intention of the pedestrians generally relied on past experience, and counterfactual thinking had a positive effect on the behavioral intention of such pedestrians. To exclude the effects of individual differences, ANCOVA was used to explore the possible difference between the two groups, using the baseline rating score and reaction time as the covariates. After controlling for the rating score and reaction time of the baseline, post-test rating scores in these two groups were found to be insignificant. However, there existed obvious trend that the score of the counterfactual priming group was higher than that of the past experience group, and the reaction time of the former was significantly faster than that of the latter. Thus, counterfactual thinking enabled pedestrians to choose positive behavioral intention, and this facilitation effect was not only for the behavioral intention rating but also for the reaction time. In conclusion, the current study provides a better understanding of the improvement of behavioral intentions through counterfactual thinking. Furthermore, the behavioral intention of the pedestrians relies on past experience in daily life. However, it can be improved by priming through counterfactual thinking. In this way, counterfactual thinking can be an effective intervention strategy in traffic safety management. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Is Loss Aversion Due to the Routes of Loss more than gain or not? LI Xiao-Ping 2015, (2): 394-399.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4887KB) ( )   Liu H, Liang Zy & Li S(2009a) proposed a creative and original point of view that the loss aversion in decision making is due to the routes of loss more than gain. But their research which is designed to support their opinion is defective: (1) The decision tasks about lifespan and freedom both involve other factors and one single decision value only; (2) The “one-route of gain vs. three-route of gain” scenarios are not mentally equal. The tasks above lead replacing explanations of their results. According to these, the purpose of this paper is to retest their view on the loss aversion in an irrelevant variables strictly controlled research. Four studies were conducted and a total of 631 undergraduate students were recruited in this research. (1)In the first study, four tasks were designed and posed to participants. The scenarios of the four tasks were the same as the task designed by Liu H, Liang Zy & Li S(2009a).But the decision values of the three were different and involved 5 years, 10 years and 50 years respectively. (2)The second study consists of two parts. The first part of the study investigated the subjects’ involvement of two decision scenarios about lifespan. The second part of the study compared the subjects’ selection on the two decision scenarios in the first part. (3) The third study also consists of two parts. The first part of the study investigated whether the subjects saw freedom gained by nature or not; the second part of the study compared the selections on four kinds of decision scenarios whose valves of freedom were different among each other. (4) The forth study consists of four decision tasks. The two tasks about the “one-route of gain vs. three-route of gain” scenario that designed by Liu H, Liang Zy & Li S(2009a) were retained; the scenario of the new tasks both were designed as “three-route of gain, two-route of loss” scenario, but they differed in decision context. One of the new tasks involves the compensation scenario; the other involves the money gambling scenario. The result reveals that: (1) “one-route of gain vs. one-route of loss” scenario likes the decision about lifespan which does not lead the aversion disappeared; (2)The decision task which involves freedom gambling would not lead the aversion disappeared too; (3) All of the results show that, the perspective of uneven routes about loss aversion is not well supported. (4) The prospect theory and the perspective of affective forecasting error can not forecast the loss aversion too. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Competitive Trait Anxiety Interferes with Inhibition Function: Examination of Attentional Control Theory Li-Wei ZHANG 2015, (2): 400-407.  Abstract ( )   PDF (7656KB) ( )   Processing efficiency theory (PET, Eysenck & Calvo, 1992) and attentional control theory (ACT, Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007) adopt new perspectives of executive functions to explain the relationship between anxiety and performance. There are two main assumptions for PET: 1) Anxiety impairs processing efficiency but not performance effectiveness; 2) Anxiety impairs the central executive system of working memory. ACT was proposed on the base of PET. There are also two main assumptions for ACT: 1) Anxiety impairs goal-directed attention system; 2) Anxiety impairs efficiency of the inhibition and switching functions. The issue of anxiety-performance relationship is one of the most important issues in the competitive sport field. There are already several studies exploring the assumptions of ACT in competitive sport field, most of which focused on the first hypothesis of ACT: anxiety impairs goal-directed attention system. The present research aimed to examine the second assumptions of ACT, anxiety impairing efficiency of the inhibition function, to provide evidence for the application of ACT in the competitive sport field. The interference effect of competitive trait anxiety on inhibition measured by the antisaccade task was examined in two eye-tracking studies. Experiment 1 hypothesized that competitive trait anxiety would impair efficiency but not performance of inhibition function. Twenty five athletes were divided into competitive trait anxiety high-score group and low-score group. Three dependent variables, antisaccade latency and error rate of antisaccade indicating efficiency, and accuracy rate indicating performance effectiveness were recorded. No significant difference was found between the two groups on antisaccade latency, however, the error rate of antisaccade in the high-score group was significantly higher than that in the low-score group. No significant difference on accuracy rate was shown. In sum, the hypothesis of competitive trait anxiety impairing efficiency but not performance of inhibition function was partially supported. Experiment 2 was designed to examine the hypothesis that competitive trait anxiety would impair efficiency but not performance of inhibition function in stress condition. Twenty three athletes were divided into competitive trait anxiety high-score group and low-score group, and both groups performed the antisaccade task in the stress and non-stress situation. The results demonstrated that the high-score group exhibited significantly longer antisaccade latency and higher error rate of antisaccade than the low-score group in both the stress and non-stress situation. No significant difference on the accuracy rate was found between the two groups. All in all, it was the efficiency but not the performance of inhibition function that was interfered by competitive strait anxiety in experiment 2. The results not only supported the hypothesis proposed by Experiment 2 that competitive trait anxiety impaired efficiency but not performance of inhibition function in stress condition, but also supported the hypothesis set up in Experiment 1 for non-stress condition. To sum up, the present research demonstrated that: competitive trait anxiety impaired processing efficiency more than performance effectiveness, and competitive trait anxiety impaired processing efficiency of inhibition function. It is concluded that processing efficiency theory and attentional control theory are applicable for explaining the influence of anxiety on performance in the competitive sport field. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Compliance or Anomie：The Effect towards the Decision-making Behaviors from Social Norms as Reference Points 2015, (2): 408-413.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5764KB) ( )   The human self-conditions and the situations are the key factors to the compliance or anomie behaviors towards the social norms under the big uncertainties of the overall social environment. Therefore, it is essential to identify the reference point by which people take as the reference for decision making while facing the social norms. The reference point refers to the underlying reference standard that individuals use to judge and evaluate the decision options. Usually, it could be the individual habitus or social norms and customs or the level of personal expectations or aspirations. Because of the universality and stability as features of the reference point, it might explain why the bias and irrational decision-making behaviors occur. In addition to the reference point used by individuals, there is another kind of reference point which emerged from the agreement between an individual and the group. In this paper, the social norm as the reference point refers to the norms used by people as the standards for decision-making and judgment in order to realize the group goals and keep the consistency of the group activities. The research on decision-making behaviors has gone through a process from unbounded rationality to bounded rationality. This paper emphasized the explanation mechanism of social norms under bounded rationality, namely, prospect theory, regret theory, equate-to-differentiate model, route and tri-reference point theory (TRP). The descriptive decision theories listed above give a sound explanation to the phenomena of the social anomie such as tax avoidance, status quo bias, medical trouble relations and the over medicalization. It can offset the insufficient explanation to the anomie made by the normative decision theories under the unbounded rationality. For example, it could use the prospect theory to explain the behavior of tax avoidance, because people consider tax avoidance as a reference point. In other words, paying taxes is equal to a loss. To avoid the pain of loss, people tend to escape of taxation. According to the route, tax refund will encourage people to pay taxes，it is because the psychological feeling of tax refund is stronger than the psychological feeling of taxation. These theories also help us to guide the individual to comply with social norms. Hence the reference point plays an important role on solving the symptom of anomie. Besides, there are some other factors that cause the compliance and anomie behaviors of individual, namely, attention, need for cognitive closure, mood, cultural differences and behaviors of others. However, researches are rarely made on taking the social norm as reference point nowadays and future in-depth researches of reference point are expected to focus on the following aspects. First of all, it is the transformation between research ideas and paradigms. Secondly, in-depth exploration of the multiple reference points mechanism and influence factors. Thirdly, researchers will expand the scope and objects of study like the cross-culture and the internet anomie. It is expected these researches might provide much more scientific and rational explanations to the compliance and anomie behaviors towards social norms during the transformation period. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

The Influence of Breaking-up Mood and Breaking-up Emotion Priming to Risk-taking Behavior 2015, (2): 414-419.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5113KB) ( )   The breaking ups had a special experience about “LOVE”. They had a specific mood and lasted for a long time after the end of the romantic relationship. Also, they would have a priming emotion when they met something related “LOVE” immediately.The present paper would like to research two points about them: the breaking-up mood and the breaking-up priming emotion. The research materials contained two parts: emotion priming videos and the questionaire of risk choices in specific area.The video (1 min 55 sec, mandarin, sound) were chosen according to the standard method of Gross, and standardized by other 56 participants. The questionaire of risk choices in specific area used Likert-5 and contained four parts: entertainment risk, healthy risk, social risk and economy risk. In this present study, 52 participants (16 males, 36 females, mean age = 23) were enrolled. The current study used the design of 2(break-up group, control group) ×2(emotion priming, no emotion priming) to explore.There were two groups: the people who had experienced the end of the romantic relationship in 24 months were assigned to the breaking ups group; the people who had no romantic relationship and were single until now would be assigned to the control group. In the between-group design, these participants were divided into two experimental conditions at random: emotion priming condition, no emotion priming condition. The breaking ups were asked to finish a “self-rating emotion scale”,and then told that they would experience a test about the end of the relationship.The control group were also asked to complete the scale, but only told that they would see a test about love. The emotion priming group would see the movie first, and finish another “emotion scale”.Then, they would fill in the questionaire. The non-emotion priming group would fill in the questionaire without seeing the movie. The results of the experiment showed that: the group of emotion priming had significantly higher scores in every four domains’ risk-taking behaviour than that of no priming emotion. The difference of two groups in economical area was statistically significant, F（1,48）=0.17, p < .05. That of in healthy area was statistically significant, F（1,48）=0.21, p < .05. That of social area was statistically significant, F（1,48）=2.72, p < .05 .and that of recreational area was statistically significant, F（1,48）=2.12, p < .05. Meanwhile, the risk-taking behaviour of the break-up people was markedly lower in social (F（1,48）=8.48，p < .05)and recreational (F（1, 48）=4.06，p < .05)domains than the control group. There was no significantly difference between the breaking ups and the control group in economical area and the healthy area. There was no statistical different in interaction effect. This current paper studied the feature of risk choice which is influenced by one condition called emotion priming (incidental affect) and that by the other condition called lovelorn-self (integral affect).The present results suggested that the end of the romantic relationship could induce people’s negative emotion, and influence their risk-taking behaviour. The breaking ups without emotion priming would avoid the risk-taking behaviour. That may because of worrying about the hurts. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

How Ethical Leadership Infuence Employees’ Creativity: The Function of Psychological Safety and Supervisor–subordinate Guanxi 2015, (2): 420-425.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4858KB) ( )   Given the severe environment with intense competition and unpredictable technology changes, increasing number of organizations realize that employees should be encouraged and cultivated to be creative. To address this question, we built a mediated moderation model on employees’ creativity based on the analysis of Cognitive Evaluation Theory. Specifically, our study examined the interactive effects of ethical leadership, Supervisor–Subordinate guanxi on employee creativity. We also focused on the employees’ perception of psychological safety and predicted that it fully mediated the interactive effects of ethical leadership, and Supervisor–Subordinate guanxi on the employees’ creativity. Four hundred survey questionnaires were distributed to the 25 companies located in Zhejiang Provinces, covering manufacturing, high technology, real estate, etc. In the end, 380 employees returned the questionnaires (response rate was 95%). After screening out the problematic cases, the final sample consists of 328 employees. 47.9% were male, 52.1% were female; most of the participants ranged from 25-30 years old (39.6%); most of the participants had an organizational tenure under 5 years (55.4%). To examine the distinctiveness of the study’s variables, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis by using AMOS 7.0. We also employed multiple regression analysis to test the mediated moderation model by using SPSS 13.0. Based on the cognitive evaluation theory, this study proposed and tested a moderated mediation model in which ethical leadership influences employees’ creativity, with psychological safety as a mediator and supervisor-subordinate guanxi as a moderator. The results showed that 1) ethical leadership was positively related to the employees’ perception of psychological safety; 2) the employees’ perception of psychological safety totally mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and their own creativity; 3) the supervisor-subordinate guanxi moderated the relationship between ethical leadership and employee perception of psychological safety; 4) the supervisor-subordinate guanxi moderated the mediated relationship through the employees’ perception of psychological safety, that is, the higher supervisor-subordinate guanxi, the stronger the mediated relationship. Our findings contribute to employee creativity literature. Most studies have focused on the prediction of situational factors for the employees’ creativity, which may have obscured some individual factors that can explain exactly why employees engage in creativity. By drawing on cognitive evaluation theory, our study established a comprehensive model of the perception of psychological safety mediation in which ethical leadership and Supervisor–Subordinate guanxi predicted the psychological safety, and in turn, promote the employees’ creativity. Thus, our study provides a fresh window on predictions for employee creativity in organizations. In terms of practical implications, managers of organizations should engage in ethical leadership behaviors and act as role models in front of their followers. In so doing, managers of organizations are likely to encourage employees’ creative behavior by enhancing the level of employee psychological safety in their organizations. Further, our findings suggest that organizations’ leaders should place high value on building good Supervisor–Subordinate guanxi with their employees. They can also employ various socialization practices to increase the quality of relationships among leaders and followers, because of the high level of Supervisor–Subordinate guanxi encourages the followers’ creativity in the organization. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Servant Leadership and Employee Voice Behavior: The Role of Leader-Member Exchange and Learning Goal Orientation YUE ZHU 2015, (2): 426-432.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5209KB) ( )   Voice behavior has been widely recognized as beneficial to organization. Accordingly, the determinants of voice behavior, such as leadership and employee characteristics, have received much research attention over the past few decades. On the other hand, researchers in leadership area have taken interested in servant leadership; however, few of them have linked it to employee voice behavior. In light of this, this study aimed to examine the effect of servant leadership on follower voice behavior. Drawing on social exchange theory, we examined the mediation role of leader-member exchange (LMX) in this relationship to clarify the mechanism through which servant leaders may promote follower voice behavior. Moreover, we also examined the moderation role of learning goal orientation to specify the boundary conditions of servant leadership effectiveness. Survey questionnaires were distributed among employees of six companies located in Zhejiang Province. Separate questionnaires were distributed to followers and their supervisors. Followers responded to survey questions on servant leadership, LMX and learning goal orientation. Followers’ immediate supervisors evaluated their voice behavior. The final sample consists of 191 employees and 42 supervisors. Hierarchical Linear Modeling was employed to test mediation and moderation hypotheses. Results showed that servant leadership was positively related to follower voice behavior, and LMX fully mediated this relationship. In addition, learning goal orientation moderated the relationship between LMX and voice behavior, such that the relationship was stronger among employees with high level of learning goal orientation. Finally, moderated mediation analyses showed that LMX mediated the relationships between servant leadership and voice behavior only for employees with high level of learning goal orientation. This study contributes to literatures on both servant leadership and voice behavior in several ways. First, this study extends our understanding of servant leadership effectiveness by examining its effect on follower voice behaviors. Second, within a social exchange framework, this study examined the mediation role of LMX in the relationship between servant leadership and follower voice behavior. The finding provides empirical evidence that servant leaders may establish social exchange relationships with their followers, through which they promote follower voice behavior. Third, this study reinforces Detert and Edmondson’s (2011) suggestion that researchers should adopt the interactional approach to examine the effects of individual and contextual factors on voice behaviors jointly. Results showed that highly learning oriented employees were more likely to fulfill their obligation to reciprocate servant leaders by performing voice behavior. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Comparison of Methods addressing MNAR Missing Data When Fitting a Latent Growth Model: Selection Model and ML Nan Chen 2015, (2): 446-451.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4732KB) ( )   Longitudinal data analysis is a widely-used technique in psychological studies, however, since it is time consuming with a large number of repeated observations, missing data is a common problem and usually meets the missing not at random (MNAR) mechanism. Methods for handling missing data have developed for a long time; however, because MNAR mechanism itself cannot be tested and the same with the assumptions of different models under MNAR, it is still not an easy task for practitioners to select an appropriate method for handling MNAR missing data. Inappropriate methods may bias parameter estimates and even mislead the study results, due to the violation of model assumptions. The objective of the current study is to investigate the effects of method selection when fitting a latent growth curve model with longitudinal datasets. Two approaches under different assumptions were compared in handling MNAR missingness in a five-wave longitudinal dataset using the Monte Carlo simulation: one is the Diggle-Kenward selection model under MNAR mechanism, while the other is the Maximum Likelihood (ML) method under MAR mechanism. Three factors were simultaneously considered in this study: (i) the sample size (100, 300, 500, 1000), (ii) the percentage of MNAR missing data (5%, 10%, 20% 40%), and (iii) the percentage of MAR missing data (0%, 10%, 20%). So a total of 4×4×3=48 combination of conditions were generated, and 500 replicates were used in each of the conditions. The performances in estimating parameters (the means and variances of intercept and slope, i.e. μi, μs, σi2 and σs2) of these two approaches were then evaluated according to two criteria, namely, root mean square error (RMSE), and coverage rates of the 95% CIs. The estimations of standard errors (SEs) were also considered. Results indicated that: (i) higher precision of estimates were obtained from the Diggle-Kenward selection model, especially under conditions of high percentage of MNAR missing data. (ii) The level of the MNAR missingness was the major factor affecting the parameter estimation precision. With low MNAR missingness level (≤10%), parameter estimates by the Diggle-Kenward selection model had little difference from those of the ML approach. But with higher percentages of the MNAR missingness, the Diggle-Kenward selection model had obvious better performance. (iii) The precision of the parameter estimates enhanced as the quantity of the sample increased, no matter which method was applied. There existed significant interactions between MNAR missingness level and sample size in μi and μs estimation precisions. Moreover, the MAR missingness proportion made little difference in parameter estimation. (iv) ML approach produced lower SE estimates than Diggle-Kenward selection model, and the discrepancy between them became inflated as the percentage of MNAR missing data increased. (v) When fitting a growth curve model, compared to the variances of the latent variables (σi2 and σs2), the means (μi and μs) were influenced much more by MNAR missingness. In conclusion, when there exists MNAR missing data in a longitudinal dataset, applying an approach considering this MNAR mechanism is necessary for analysis. Only when there is a small sample size and sufficiently low percentage of MNAR missing data could the ML approach under MAR assumption be an acceptable alternative. Some suggestions are also provided for the selection of methods handling missing data. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Research Progress in Computerized Multistage Adaptive Testing 2015, (2): 452-456.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4239KB) ( )   Abstract Computerized multistage adaptive testing (MST) is a kind of test forms based on computerized technology, consists of sets of items scored and administered as a unit. These sets of items are called modules or testlets. They are a number of short linear tests, which provide with a certain percentage of test information to reduce the measurement errors. Items in a module may centre on one or several common stems, such as paragraph and diagram, or they may have no relevance with each other. In the MST, adaptations occur at the items sets level, based on the cumulative performance of previous items, then select the next module. MST has fewer adaptations than item level computerized adaptive test (CAT), but more adaptations than conventional paper-and-pencil (P&P) test. It combines the components of conventional P&P test with the adaptive character of CAT. And the advantage of these two test forms yet overcome the disadvantages of them. Thus there is no doubt that it is a compromise of the two tests forms How to build a MST? This is the first thing test developers should consider. The number of stages, modules in every stage, and items in every module, all these must have been decided before the test has been built. Target statistics, and qualitative specification also should be considered before the test has been built. The ways of score, adapt and assemble the test are all the components as vital as listed before. As the test has already been built before it has been taken, test developers could check the items for non-statistical properties, including content balance, ordering and the potential for context effects, cognitive level, item format, answer key position, word count, and any other characteristics of interest or concern in developing the modules. MST may assure the item response theory (IRT) assumptions of local independence and unidimensionality among modules. Items in one stem which violates local independence assumptions are treated as polytomous ones. Therefore all modules should be allocated optimally. When subjects take the test, they can preview and review items in a module, and modify the false. Then, the subjects may operate the modules optimally. Both the test developers and subjects could operate the module optimal, in order to obtain a better result in the exam. MST appeared to provide with the opportunity to improve the quality of examination. It has already been used in many large evaluation tests, such as Uniform CPA Examination and Graduate Record Examination (GRE). Along with the study of various tests, we can find that compared with conventional P&P test and CAT, MST is obviously of the superiority. Compared with conventional P&P test, it superiors in parameter invariance, time saving, feedback in time, estimating more accurately, and so on. Compared with CAT, it superiors in controlling of non-statistical properties, controlling of item exposure, having opportunity to check the items, etc. The direction of future research is how to minimize measurement errors, in order to make the application of MST more convenient and effective. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Behavioral Event Biodata as a Personnel Recruitment Approach in China 2015, (2): 457-462.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5458KB) ( )   Biodata is an important method used in primary selection of potential job candidates. It focuses on individual historical information, including the past behaviors and experiences, as individual’s past behaviors can serve as a critical predictor for the future working behaviors. In China, the most frequently used biodata questionnaire is the resume. However, without a systematic method to assess biodata, lots of errors may occur, such as subjective misjudgment. In order to make the best use of Biodata and to promote the accuracy of personal assessment and selection decision, this study standardized the scoring process of behavioral event Biodata according to CIT (critical incident technique) and BARs (behaviorally anchored rating scales), and verified the reliability and validity of behavioral event biodata. One provincial communication company supplied 178 jobs in the Campus Recruitment last year, and more than 6000 students applied. 1500 of them took the exam. The exam included the scales of GMA (General Mental Ability) and the semi-structured resume. 750 applicants took the 2 hours’ exam and 20 minutes’ semi-structured interview. The sample in this study consisted of 250 applicants among the 750. First, we interviewed 5 human resource administrators and defined 5 main selection criterions. After analyzing the applicants’ statements to the open question, 87 critical incidents were extracted. And then all the critical incidents were differentiatexd into 5 criterions by two rounds of rating containing 13 SMEs (Subject Matter Experts, people who have some basic familiarity with appraising work) to insure consistency. Second, we verified and modified the elementary scaling tool. Behaviorial event biodata scoring scale was developed from another round of rating by 6 SMEs. The reliability of the scale was tested. There is no significant differences among the ratings of the 6 raters. Third, we established the BARS scaling tool and rated the applicants’ behavarial event biodata. The relationships among behaviorial BioData and other assessment tools were tested. After the logarithmic transform of the scaling data and the reliability analysis, interactive validity was made among behaviorial event Biodata, GMA and single scored BioData. The result revealed that the relationship is accordant with others researches. Behavioral event Biodata is a reliable and effective seletion and assessment tool. In summary, examining behavioral events biodata, applying critical incident technique (CIT) and behavioral anchoring rating scale (BARS), this study assesses competency characteristics from integrated data of 250 job applicants for a Chinese state-owned enterprise. Through the criterion-related validity and incremental validity of ideas, a systematic analysis was preformed on the Biodata behavior, resume information, cognitive ability, and post-interview result data. The results show that behavioral event Biodata is a proper related-validity criterion and when applied with other tools can effectively increase validity measures for the data. The scaling tools developed and the methods used in this study can supply significant validity in assessment. The instruments are both cost effective and easy to operate. We verify the incremental validity based on empirical research using Chinese data which offers both theoretical and practical contributions. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Stereotype Misperception Task: A New Approach to Disentangle Stereotype Activation and Stereotype Application 2015, (2): 463-467.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4178KB) ( )   When forming impressions about other people, stereotypes about the individual’s social group often affect the resulting impression. There are 2 distinguishable processes underlie stereotypic impression formation: stereotype activation and stereotype application. Most previous research has used implicit measures to assess stereotype activation and explicit measures to assess stereotype application, which has several disadvantages. The authors introduce a measure of stereotypic impression formation, the stereotype misperception task (SMT), together with a multinomial model that quantitatively disentangles the contributions of stereotype activation and application to responses in the SMT. For the SMT, we introduce its procedure and assumptions. In the SMT, participants are asked to form impressions of people whose faces are shown in blurred drawings. Participants work through several trials and judge each person, one at a time, on a certain trait. For instance, if one wants to assess the extent to which African Americans are stereotyped as threatening, one would ask participants to judge the faces on threat. Immediately before the presentation of the target drawing, a non-blurred prime picture of a real face is presented. On some trials, the prime picture shows the face of a person belonging to the stereotyped group of interest (e.g., a Black face). On other trials, the prime picture shows the face of a person belonging to another social group (e.g., a Caucasian face) or a neutral stimulus, such as a facelike shape. For the purpose of the multinomial modeling, the SMT requires participants to make a dichotomous judgment of each drawing (i.e., whether the drawing is high or low on a particular trait) and the target drawings vary slightly in the extent to which they convey the respective trait. This allows us to estimate the extent to which participants are able to base their judgment on the target (instead of on the prime). The rationale behind the SMT is the following. When participants form an impression of the person shown in the blurred drawing, they may apply the activated stereotypes. Because the blurred drawings provide only ambiguous information, participants may use any accessible knowledge to make their judgment. As a consequence, stereotypes about the person shown in the prime picture may bias the impression of the person shown in the blurred drawing. At the same time, participants might be able to correct for any bias if they are motivated to do so. Because participants have as much time as they want to give their response, it should be possible to adjust the judgment on the basis of a theory about the direction of the bias. The SMT can be characterized as an indirect measure of stereotyping because participants are not asked to self assess the to-be-measured construct and the stereotypicality of participants’ impression of the primes is inferred from their responses to the target drawings as a function of the preceding primes. For SMT’s multinomial model, we introduce its parameters, structure and data analysis. There are 4 parameters in its multinomial model: SAC (stereotype activation), SAP (stereotype application), D (detection of target trait) and G (tendency to guess), each of which represent a particular process. The 4 process all together contribute to the final impression. Each of the 4 parameter values indicates the possibility of the process which may take place during the impression formation. The parameters are estimated from the observed frequencies of the two response options given a particular prime and target. Each branch of the process tree demonstrates a possible way to form impressions about other people and the sum of the parameter values of this branch is the possibility of this way among all the possible ways to form impressions. In the final section of this article, we review the differences and similarities between SMT, affect misattribution procedure (AMP) and the quad model. The SMT is modeled after AMP, and the most significant difference between them is the task. SMT asks participants to make trait judgments about the target people while AMP asks them to make evaluative judgments about the Chinese characters, which participants have no idea of their actual meaning. The multinomial model of SMT and the quad model may look the same at first glance, but when comparing them carefully, we will find that there are many differences between them. Despite the differences between their parameters, some of the parameters may have the same meaning under some particular circumstances. Finally, we provide some limitations of SMT and some future directions about the study of SMT. Many open questions in the realm of stereotyping might be solved by SMT, such as the extent to which stereotype activation and stereotype application are automatic processes and the extent to which stereotype activation versus application is moderated by motivational, emotional, and contextual factors. We hope that SMT could be a useful measurement tool that separates multiple processes underlying impression formation and with SMT, the researchers can advance research on stereotyping. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

The Effectiveness of Logotherapy Group Counseling in Alleviating the Relapse Tendency of Drug Abstainers 2015, (2): 468-473.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5594KB) ( )   Abstract Given the high rate of relapse among drug abuser, the effectiveness of current substance abuse treatment programs are in doubt. It’s crucial to clarify the cause of relapse and to improve the effectiveness of addiction treatment programs. Existential theory and previous qualitative research have suggested that a lack of life meaning causes drug addiction and relapse, so it’s essential to raise the meaning in life for Drug Abstainers. And Logotherapy is a meaning-centered approach to psychotherapy , developed by the Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. However, previous research rarely paid attention to improve the effectiveness of substance abuse treatment programs by enhancing the meaning in life. Especially, no quantitative evaluation of the Logotherapy group counseling has yet been undertaken. So the purpose of this article was to assess the effectiveness of Logotherapy group counseling in alleviating the relapse tendency for drug abstainers. According to Logotherapy, we can discover meaning in life in three different ways—through “creative values,” “experiential values,” and “attitudinal values”.The creative value consists of what we give to the world, such as accomplishing a task, creating a work, or doing a good deed. In the present study, we concluded self-valves, sense of achievement and self-efficacy as the creative values sources of meaning. The attitudinal value reflects the stand that we choose to take toward unchangeable situations or unavoidable suffering. So in the present Logotherapy group counseling program, we designed seven themes for enhancing the meaning in life through “creative values,” and “attitudinal values”. They were Understanding the Meaning in Life, Void and Substance Use, Adversity and Grow Up, Create and Valve, Ideal Self and Actual Self, Career and Achievement, Meaning in Life and Dream Commitment. There were five scales mentioned in the current study: Self-Esteem Scale, General Self-Efficacy Scale, Sense of Personal Accomplishment Sub-scale from Maslach Burnout Inventory, Purpose in Life Test, Re-addiction Tendency Questionnaire. 633 drug abstainers subjects completed the scales. 18 drug abstainers( 9 males and 9 females) with low level of the meaning in life were chosen to be the intervention group according to the result of the PIL on voluntary principle. And another 18 score-matching drug abstainers were chosen to be the control group. After the intervention, we performed an analysis of variance (ANOVA), comparing meaning in life, creative values sources of meaning (self-valves, sense of achievement and self-efficacy) and relapse tendency between the pretest score and the posttest scores of intervention group and controls group. The results revealed that (1) the posttest score in meaning in life, creative values sources of meaning (self-valves, sense of achievement and self-efficacy) was significantly higher than the pretest for the intervention group. No significant change was found in the control group after treatment (P > .05). (2) The posttest score in relapse tendency was significantly lower than the pretest for the intervention group. No significant change was found in the control group after treatment (P > .05). These findings suggested that Logotherapy group counseling could effectively alleviate the relapse tendency of drug abstainers by improving meaning in life and creative values sources of meaning(self-valves, sense of achievement and self-efficacy). “Creative values,” and “attitudinal values” were the effective way to enhance the level of meaning in life. So we suggested that addiction treatment programs should add the theme of meaning in life into it as the crucial parts. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMATION PROCESSING WAY TO STUDY IN THE DIFFERENT OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE TENDENCY INDIVIDUALS 2015, (2): 474-481.  Abstract ( )   PDF (6848KB) ( )   Abstract:The obsessive-compulsive disorder(OCD) is a common chronic mental disease, obsessive thoughts and compulsive behavior as the main characteristics, it has a lifetime prevalence of 2%-3%. In recent years, the research have do a lot of research for the pathogenesis of obsessive-compulsive disorder and so all, most of the research focuses on the cognitive defects of OCD patients, such as memory、decision making 、perception and so all. But the direct studies of the information processing way about the OCD direct is very few ,most studies are indirectly reflect the tendency of obsessive-compulsive disorder information processing, therefore it is necessary to increase the exploration in this area. Our research by used Flanker task, to research the differences in the way of the information processing in the Flanker task about the different obsessive-compulsive (OC) tendency individuals ,in order to fill in this respect. In our research, we through the questionnaire of padua screen out the 13 high OC tendency participants and 11 low OC tendency participants, through their differences in the Flanker task, to study the differences in the information processing way about the obsessive-compulsive tendency participants. In the Flanker task ,we asked the participants quickly and accurately to respond to the presented target letter (S or H) that was flanked by compatible (e.g., SSSSS) or incompatible (e.g., HHSHH) noise letters. In our study , we used the reaction time(RT), error rate and parallel processing index(parallel processing index defined as incompatible trials RT minus compatible trials RT) as the dependent variable. The results showed that, (1) high OC tendency participants had slower overall reaction time (RT) in the Flanker task, in mean that high tendency compared with low tendency to the individual, the individual's reaction time is higher. In other words, high OC tendency of individual shows more hesitant;(2) In the condition of low probability(20%),we haven’t found the significant differences in the parallel processing index between the high OC tendency participants and low OC tendency participants. But, in the condition of high probability (80%),we found that the parallel processing index in high OC participants was significantly lower than low OC tendency participants. In other word, compare with low OC tendency participants, the information processing way of high OC tendency participants was more given priority to with focused processing ,it more single and conservative;(3)While the probability of scene change ,the parallel processing index change of high OC tendency participants was not significant, but the parallel processing index change of low OC tendency participants was significant. It show that high OC tendency participants shortcomings on the flexibility of information processing, less sensitive to the change of scene. Based on the research of the obsessive-compulsive tendency to individuals information processing way, it can help to enrich and develop the theory of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and to provide basis for clinical treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Characteristics of drug addicts in emotional processing and coping style: Based on negative emotions 2015, (2): 482-489.  Abstract ( )   PDF (8500KB) ( )   Related Articles | Metrics

Select

The Faking of Tests in Personnel Selection Situations: the Exploration and Extension of the Research 2015, (2): 490-495.  Abstract ( )   PDF (6158KB) ( )   Faking behavior is likely appeared in psychological tests in occupational selection situations. This problem raises concerns that psychometrical and organizational management researchers try to explore whether candidates fake actions, why they do it, how they can make it, and how faking performance adversely affected the tests and so on. Now it is thought that faking is attributed to individual desire for job when applicants are in particular occupational selection situations, rather than social desirability or impression management. Other cases may also have impact on faking behavior----some objective factors, such as surrounding environment, tests’ forms and contents, and some subjective factors such as attitude, personality traits, ability, experiences, etc… Validity of personality tests would be affected as well as the enterprise employment decision since candidates do not express truly. Fortunately there are many methods and technologies helping people identify faking, like faking detection scale, IRT, forced-choice scales, warning, and so on. However, researchers start to realize that there’s still no theoretical framework to explain how these caus-es influence faking behavior. Frameworks of faking behavior and mental models have been built trying to explain how these factors lead to faking behavior, such as Snell’s faking motivation and faking ability interaction model, McFarland and Ryan’s faking plan behavior model, Muller-Hanson and his colleagues’ integration model of faking behavior, Goffin's general faking behavior model, as well as Ellingson and McFarland’s VIE theory model of applicants’ faking behavior. These models constructed to explore the psychological process of the faking behavior have provided many useful suggestions. Not only theoretical models of faking, the application field are also concerned. Today, the Internet is widely used for psychological research and other assessment domains. Many researches focus attention on the fakeability of psychological measures. Examination of the equivalence of pencil-and-paper and Internet-based versions of some psychological measures has been undertaken, with results suggesting the differences of faking behavior, faking intention in two kinds of tests. But the results cannot be seen as correct. To get more meaningful conclusions, further exploration should be done in the future. In the future researchers could pay attention to the accuracy of those faking behavior models and cognitive neural mechanism of one’s faking action, explore the various factors related to the faking behaviors, find new methods to make clear the entire process of faking behavior, and predict candidates’ faking performance through some factors related to faking that have been explored. Studies on faking theory and empirical research in online psychological tests would provide a new orientation in this field. Those potential environmental and individual effects on faking behavior in online tests may attract more attention, and need new methods to explore these unresolved issues, find more useful results. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

A Review of Studies on the Gender Difference of Color Preference 2015, (2): 496-499.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4095KB) ( )   Color preference is a favorite color which people mentally like or preferentially choose. When shown the same color, different people will show different preferences. People tend to choose their favorite color, and avoid colors they dislike. Color, as one of the most common visual features, provides important visual information. Color can be considered as the core of visual aesthetics, and it affects people's emotional state and activities. Color preference is a significant aspect of visual experience that influences a wide spectrum of human behaviors, such as buying clothes, choosing toys, decorating homes, and designing websites. Therefore, a study of color preferences has a practical value. Relevant research can be traced back to a paper written by Cohn in 1894, which is generally regarded as the first empirical approach to color preference. According to previous study, researchers could find the general tendency of color preference. A lot of research has been reported since that time, but little agreement has been reached on the order of human color preference. The causes of inconsistent results may be due to various factors, such as personality, culture, age, or gender, that could influence individual color preference. Gender is one of the important factors that affect a person’s color preference. In many traditional cultures, some colors, especially pink and blue, have long had gender stereotypic connotations. In general, most people believe that pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Parents commonly dress their baby girls in pink and their baby boys in blue. Although there is research showing that children prefer the color blue to other colors (regardless of gender), there is no evidence that girls actually have a special preference for the color pink. Former researchers at home and abroad have done plentiful studies about whether there is any gender difference in color preference. However, the evidence is mixed. This article reviewed previous studies on the gender difference of color preference from two respects: the preference for abstract colors and concrete object colors among general special populations. Many scientific studies of color preference have focused on psychophysical descriptions, also provided a few explanations of why people prefer some colors and dislike some others, and why they have color preference at all. Therefore, this paper also summarized various theoretical explanations on the cause of gender difference, such as the account of cone-opponent contrast component, ecological valence theory, the hunter-gatherer theory, social structure theory, and so on. These theoretical explanations account for gender difference of color preference from some physiological differences (such as physiological arousal and neurohormone) or psychological differences (such as mood, emotion, and recognition). Although previous research has achieved a lot, some deficiencies were still found in the methods, content, and theory. Future should use more diversified and objective methods, such as eye movements and fMRI to study the impact of color preference on other cognitive process like attention, memory, and imagination. It can help us to understand the nature of this phenomenon and to propose new highly integrated theories. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

Work-family Cross Domain Enrichment: The Main Logic Line and Model 2015, (2): 500-505.  Abstract ( )   PDF (5993KB) ( )   The previous researches in the work-family interface were mainly from the perspective of work-family conflict, while the most recent studies have started to explore the positive relationship between work and family. Indeed, researchers have increasingly examined positive relationships between work and family lives by developing some concepts such as work-family enhancement, work-family positive spillover, work-family facilitation and work-family enrichment. Work-family enrichment is defined as how work and family benefit from each other and emphasizes the spillover of resources between the work and family roles, in consequence to affect an individual’s performance and life quality in both roles. There has been much research on work-family enrichment, however, previous research on the impacts of role resource on work-family enrichment discussed less about individual perception and the change of psychological state and ignored that the enrichment level can also be affected by work-family boundary features. Based on that, this study emphasized on aspects below:①By integrating the exiting literature, this paper proposed the main logic line under the mechanism above, which was “role resource accumulation---psychological change--- cross-domain enrichment---role evaluation and engagement”, and also constructed the role resources cross-domain enrichment model. As the precondition of work-family enrichment, role resource accumulation is the foundation of the entire logical mainline. ②Role resources (work-related resources, organizational-related resources, and family-related resources) acquisition relies on the organization and family climate, this study discussed the direct relationship between role resources and work-family enrichment. The circular accumulation of resources serves as a safeguard to the work-family enrichment and cross-domain enrichment as well as is the guarantee for resource accumulation. ③Cross-domain enrichment is generated in the psychological process of individual perception and gain of role resources. This article also pointed out the indirect relationship between role resource accumulation and work-family enrichment, through change of psychological factors. The individuals have difference in perception and accumulation of role resources that can give rise to the individual role cognition and the change of the psychological state. Work and home resources increase personal resources. ④The enrichment level is affected by work-family boundary features, individual features and domain features. The degree of work-family boundary strength affected cross-domain enrichment, suggesting that different levels of boundary strength might moderate the relationship between psychological resources and work-family enrichment. Specifically speaking, the stronger the boundary between work and family is, the less enrichment happens cross domains. To sum up, we suggested few directions about work-family enrichment for the future studies in the end. ①The model showed that individuals’ perceptions and accumulation of role resources affect work family enrichment through psychological resources. Therefore, future studies could discuss the gain and loss cycles of role resources over time and explore dynamics of the relationships among work and family resource gain and loss, work-to-family enrichment over time.②Future studies could also try to explore the influencing mechanism, in which accumulation of role resources affect role evaluation and psychological factors, in turn influence work-family enrichment. ③In order to generalize the model in a broaden way, it is necessary to add moderation effects such as individual characteristics, domain features and work-family boundary features and so on. The culture factors should also be taken into account. It will be necessary for future studies to introduce the local cultural situation variables to enrich the comparative study on work-family enrichment. Related Articles | Metrics

Select

A Review of Intentional Binding Paradigm for Sense of Agency Research 2015, (2): 506-510.  Abstract ( )   PDF (4301KB) ( )   Human agency manifests itself as influencing the external world through its own actions. Measuring sense of agency (SoA) is a challenge for research of human agency. Haggard et al. (2002) found that there is a temporal attraction between voluntary action and its sensory consequence. This so-called “intentional binding” (IB) has served as an important tool for quantifying SoA. This paper reviews its research paradigms and cognitive mechanism. In studies of IB, there are two main experimental methods --- Libet’s clock method and interval estimation method. Libet’s clock method measures the timing perception of action and sensory consequence separately when participants report their timing judgment with the aid of viewing a fast-rotating clock. Interval estimation method directly records the subject-reported interval between action and sensory consequence. Some researchers proposed that to use cognitive process to account for IB, it has to answer how CNS establishes causality between voluntary action and sensory consequence. There were two different theories --- predictive inference theory and retrospective inference theory. Predictive inference theory assumes that the CNS predicts the sensory consequence of action and establishes causality if the prediction matches the actual consequence. Retrospective inference theory argues that CNS infers the causality after it receives the sensory feedback. Researchers found that both of them contributed to the timing perception of action in IB. However, there is no evidence for the timing perception of sensory consequence in IB and the details of their joint contribution are not clear. According to the cue integration theory, the timing shift is a result of integration of the action cue and the sensory consequence cue. Final readout of CNS is based on weighted integration of cues where the weight of each cue is inversely related to its reliability. The more reliable the cue is, the more weight it has. Thus, this theory can explain the timing shifts of both events. The paradigm of IB have extensively used in exploring SoA which plays an important role in self-consciousness and social interaction. Future research can use IB to explore the SoA in social condition, some diseases deficit in SoA and the culture difference of SoA. Though cue integration theory can explain IB better, the evidence is not strong enough, especially for the timing perception of sensory consequence. Future studies are warranted to test cue integration and build quantitative model. At present, neural mechanisms underlying IB are poorly understood. Available studies suggest that supplementary motor area is related to IB but a broad network of neural substrates subserve IB. In addition, it’s necessary to refine our understanding of the relation between IB and agency. Related Articles | Metrics