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Effect of Tongue Twisters on Chinese Reading: Evidence from Eye Movements Guo-Li Yan Zi-Ming SONG Zhu MENG 2017, 40(2): 290-295.  Abstract ( )   PDF (739KB) ( )   There are more characters than the syllables in Chinese. That means there will be a lot of homophonic characters and phonologically similar characters. It is an interesting question that how the phonologically similar or homophonic characters influence the Chinese reading. Tongue twisters are sentences that contain a number of words with the same initial consonants and/or the same vowels. Previous studies have found the tongue twister effect (TTE). The tongue twisters took more time than the normal sentences both in silent reading and oral reading. Few studies used eye tracking technique to explore the TTE. The current study employed two experiments to investigate the TTE in Chinese reading and effect of the tongue twister on the perceptual span in Chinese reading. In Experiment 1, the experiment design was one-way (sentence types: tongue twister, normal sentence) within-subjects design. There are 56 tongue twisters and 56 normal sentences. Normal sentences were matched with tongue twisters in terms of the syntax structure, number of character strokes and character frequency. A total of 20 undergraduate students (they did not participate the following experiment) rated the materials on difficulty, naturalness and plausibility. There is a significant difference between the tongue twister and the normal sentence in terms of the sentence difficulty while there are no difference between the tongue twister and the normal sentence in terms of the naturalness and plausibility. 19 undergraduate students participated in the experiment. Their eye movements were recorded with SR Research Eyelink 2000 eye tracker. The results showed an effect of tongue twister，that is there were longer reading time, slower reading rate, more fixations and shorter mean saccade length for tongue twisters than for normal sentences. In Experiment 2, the experiment design was 2 (sentence types: tongue twisters, normal sentences) × 6 (window size: 1characters, 3characters, 5characters, 7characters, 9characters and full line) mixed design. The sentence type was the between-subjects factor, and the window size was the within-subjects factor. The sentences used in the experiment 2 are the same as the Experiment 1 and they were rotated in Latin square. A total of 50 undergraduate students participated in the experiment. Their eye movements were recorded with SR Research Eyelink2000 eye tracker. The result shows that the perceptual span was one to two characters to the right of the fixated word the tongue twister and the perceptual span was two-three character to the right of the fixated word for the normal sentence. The overall results show that the perceptual span of tongue twisters became smaller compared to the normal sentences. In conclusion, the present study provides further evidence to demonstrate the TTE in Chinese reading and this effect influences the perceptual span in reading. Why do the tongue twisters decrease the reading rate and perceptual span? This is related to the inner speech. Due to the overlap of the phonemic representations automatically activated during reading, tongue twisters slow down the reading speed and interfere with comprehension and memory (Rayner et al., 2012). The tongue twister effect increases the difficulty of sentence reading, so the perceptual span was smaller. Related Articles | Metrics

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Influence of Self-threat Stimuli on Inhibition of Return 2017, 40(2): 296-302.  Abstract ( )   PDF (605KB) ( )   Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate the inhibition of return (IOR) on self-twist face, which might further look into the processing on self-threat stimuli. Cue-target tasks were conducted in both two experiments. In Experiment 1, 28 college students are presented self-twist face, other’s twist or neutral face as the cue each time. In Experiment 2, 22 college students were presented self-twist face, other’s twist or neutral face as the target each time. The participants were asked to react to the target (a black square in Experiment 1 and a face in Experiment 2) via pressing the related keys followed by the different cue (a face in Experiment 1 and a black square in Experiment 2) as quickly and precisely as possible. At the end of the experiment, the participants were asked if the presenting twist faces or neutral faces were their own or not. ANOVAs were conducted on reaction time for each experiment. In Experiment 1, the results revealed significant main effect on cue location [F(1,27)=50.629，p<.000，η2=.652] and the reaction time on uncued location (393.637±6.692) is significantly lower than cued location (406.687±6.789), which indicates significant IOR effect. The main effect on SOA [F(2,54)=127.434, p<.001, η2=.825] was significant and with the increase of SOA the reaction time decreased significantly. There was significant main effect on face configurations [F(2,54)=3.884，p=.027，η2=.126] either and the paired comparison showed that the reaction time on self-twist face ((366.2008±8.868)) was marginally faster than others’ neutral face (370.028±9.446), which means that attentional bias occurred on self-twist face. Furthermore, the reaction time on self-twist face was the fastest on cued location and the slowest on uncued location, which indicates the facilitated attention to self-twist face. As for the tests on the amounts of IOR among three face configurations, there was significant main effect on face configuration [F(2,54)=5.742，p=.005,η2=.175] and the paired comparison showed that the effect of IOR on self-twist was the most least among the three kinds of faces which means that self-twist may seize the resource of attention dramatically. In Experiment 2, there were also significant IOR main effect [F(1,21)=27.321，p<.000， η2=.565] and significant SOA main effect [F(2,42)=109.072,p<.000,η2=.839] on the whole. There was significant face configuration main effect [F(2,42)=14.493,p<.000,η2=.408] and the reaction time on self-twist face was also the fastest. There was significant interact effect between face configuration and cue location [F(2,42)=11.317,p<.000,η2=.350]. Simple effect test showed that the reaction time for self-twist target on cued location was significantly faster than uncued location which indicates that the IOR disappeared when the self-twist face was on target location. As for the tests on the amounts of IOR, there was no significant effect between other’s twist and neutral face. The results about this research indicate that self-twist face is different form other’s twist face and the former means the self-threat stimuli. Compared to the face cues, there comes stable attention control when the face is arranged as the target. The face configuration has significant effect on IOR both as cue and as target, which means that IOR is ascribed evolutionary signi?cance and should not reduce our chances of noticing event information that could be relevant for our well-being or survival, and in particular, human faces or threatening events. According to the two experiments in this study, it could be speculated that the self-threat stimuli activates the threat to self-concept (i.e. the negative attributes on self-concept) and therefore arouses the motive to self-protect which result in attention bias. No matter the button-up unconscious activation or the top-down active processing, the threatening self-concept always narrows the attentional space and the visual searching field which caused the boundary of self to be narrowed. This study has revealed that the threat to self-concept could be activated easily and even is impossible to defend effectively. The susceptibility on self-threat is probably the potential mechanism on self-cognition, which causes the human relationship issues and other social adaption problems. Future study is going to be focused on the self-threat environment to see the effect on social cognitive processing. Related Articles | Metrics

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Image Concretizing Effect in Number Representation: Evidence from Number-line Estimation Task Lin-Cheng HU 2017, 40(2): 303-309.  Abstract ( )   PDF (795KB) ( )   Numbers can be divided into pure numbers and concretized numbers. Concretized numbers are numbers with measurement units. As for the pure numbers, previous findings indicated that smaller children's number-line estimation results conform to Fechner's law (S=KlgR), which means estimation results increase logarithmically with the increase of the actual number for smaller children, while the estimation increases linearly for older children in the same number range. However, the representation of concretized numbers was rarely discussed in previous studies. As for the generation and propagation of the concept of number, there have been two different views. One is invention-spread hypothesis, the other is module hypothesis. Based on invention-spread hypothesis，concretized numbers are more inclined to be represented linearly in number-line estimation task. In other words, concretized numbers can facilitate the logarithmic-to-linear shift. However, module theory maintains that pure numbers are more suitable to be processed by number module, and easier to be represented linearly than concretized numbers. Hence, compared with pure numbers, concretization might put off the logarithmic-to-linear shift. Three classes of children （47 Second graders，40fourth graders，31sixth graders）attended the experiment. Numbers and number-line estimation task were duplicated those of Siegler and Opfer (2003). Pure number estimation was the same with that of previous studies, while the concretized numbers were numbers that were concretized with concrete meaning. Concretized numbers were divided into two levels, i.e. big image (elephant) concretization and small image (ant) concretization. Specifically, concretizing a number was to paste a small printed picture (elephant or ant) closely behind the number that was 2 cm above the center of the number line. In concretized number-line estimation task, 0 labeled at the left end of each line represented 0 elephant or ant, 1000 on the right end meant 1000 elephants or ants. Based on number line estimation task, we found there exists concretizing effect in number line estimation when numbers are concretized with image. All of the data in three grades showed that within the scale of 0-1000, children’ logarithmic-to-linear representational shift occurred at third grade which was consistent with previous studies, and when the numbers were concretized with images, explanatory power of logarithmic model was increased and that of linear model decreased correspondingly in all of three grades. The regression analysis of estimation median indicated concretizing effect in each grade. For second graders, both R2and β of logarithmic model under concretizing condition are higher than that of unconcretizing condition. For fourth and sixth graders, although the explanatory power of linear had outperformed logarithmic model, the data still indicated obvious concretizing effect--under concretizing condition explanatory power of logarithmic model was increased, meanwhile the explanatory power of linear model decreased. Not only concretizing effect was found in current study but also the image effect emerged. Image effect means the concretizing image size could influence number estimation. We found that the effect of big image was significant but the small image was weak. Elephant and ant are the animals with which most of children familiar, and the former is famous for its big size and the latter small. The current study made use of the characteristics of these two kinds of animals to concretize numbers and found that when concretized with elephant the logarithmic explanatory power for the estimation results increased comparing to non-image concretized number (pure number), and when concretized with ant there was only weak effect. The effect that big image concretizing decreases explanatory power of linear model but enhances that of logarithmic model can be named image effect. In fact, concretizing effect comes mainly from image effect because the data analysis indicated that it was the big image but not concretizing itself that facilitated the change of explanatory power for different models. Related Articles | Metrics

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Bilingual advantage in Stroop under the condition of different languages 2017, 40(2): 315-320.  Abstract ( )   PDF (468KB) ( )   Purposes: "Bilingual advantage effect" refers to the positive impact on cognitive abilities obtained from the bilingual learning or experience.Some researches believed that the most important mechanism of "Bilingual advantage effect" is inhibitory control,But the cognitive mechanism of this effect is still debate in recent studies. This research adopted the stroop paradigm to examine the mechanism of "bilingual advantage effect" under the condition of language1, language2 and combination of these two languages. Subjects were skilled bilingual and unskilled one whose language1 is Uyghur and language2 is Chinese.Then discussed the difference of bilingual’s inhibitory control and facilitate effect under the different languages in the stroop task. Procedures: The research included three experiments, all used Stroop task. These experiments were all designed by 2 type (subjects) x3 (color word conditions) . Experiment one for L1 condition, experiment two for L2 condition,experiment three was a mixture of L1 and L2 condition designed. There were 43 subjects participated in the experiment.Used E - Prime 2.0 software programming, the participant’s task was to react to the color of the word and then makes the corresponding button, the program automatically record the subjects reaction time and error rate. Results: Three subjects was eliminated because of high errors,then reaction time and error rate of 40 subjects were analyzed by repetitive measure analysis of variance, the Results showed that: (1) Under the condition of L1 there is a significant difference between these two type of subjects, namely skilled bilingual Stroop effect size (18 ms) was less than the unskilled bilingual (33 ms), t (33) 6 1 = 3.56, p < 0.05, Cohen 's d = 0.32. There was no significant difference under the condition of L2 and mixed language.(2) In all three experiments the average reaction time of skilled bilinguals were less than the unskilled bilinguals. Especially under the condition of L2 skilled bilinguals’ facilitation effect quantity is significantly greater than the unskilled bilinguals, t (1, 20) = 3.07, p < 0.05, Cohen 's d = 0.43. There was no significant main effects and interaction in the analysis of error rate.Conclusions: (1) In the paradigm of stroop task skilled bilingual is better than unskilled bilingual about the inhibitory control ability, it embodies the "bilingual advantage effect";under the condition of L2 and mixed language there were no difference. (2) In the stroop task skilled bilingual has better ability of information monitoring than unskilled bilingual. This study found that better "bilingual advantage effect" occurs under the condition of L1, and skilled bilinguals besides better inhibitory control ability, in the facilitation effect also has a "bilingual advantage effect", this is likely to be skilled bilinguals have better information monitoring ability, then interpreted these results combined Green "inhibitory control model" and language monitoring system . Related Articles | Metrics

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The study of the characteristic of duration cognition segmentation in 1 second 2017, 40(2): 321-328.  Abstract ( )   PDF (618KB) ( )   Abstract: It is well known that human beings do not have the organs to feel time, but they often use the time information to adapt to the environment in daily life, which may mean that human beings have a certain time processing mechanism. Human beings, in life, can be a wide range of time, from tens of milliseconds to several decades. In the context of this time, the range of the duration cognitive mechanisms in milliseconds that are closely related to the life of the people is one of the focus of the researchers, such as playing basketball, playing music, etc.. Since the beginning of the eighty or ninety's in twentieth Century, researchers have gradually shifted the interest in the study of "duration" to "segmentation", and the emergence of two kinds of hypotheses: the non - segmental hypothesis and the hypothesis of segmentation. In the former, it is argued that there is no segmentation of time cognition, and the scalar timing model can be used to explain the different duration mechanism (Church, 1984). Second, time cognition exists segmentation, and the critical segmentation point may be involved in the 2~3s, 1setc. (Lewis, 2003; P?ppel, 1997). In recent years, there are many researches in the difference between the processing mechanism in 1 second and that more than 1 second (Cellini, Fabbri, Rammsayer, 2014.,et.al), but there is little researches in the duration cognition segmentation in 1 second ( Rammsayer & Lima, Rammsayer, 1991; &Ulrich, 2005). Based on this, this study continues to explore the segmentation of time in one second, which, the important theoretical significance is, not only helps to reveal the processing mechanism of time, but also provides important practical guidance for the practical activities of human, the practical significance is, using time information to adapt to the objective world. The time duration cognition segmentation means that the difference between the different processing mechanism and the representation is different. In the past, there were still differences in characteristic of the time cognition segmentation in 1 second in the past researches, so the study designed the experiment 1 and experiment 2. And in Experiment 1, dual task paradigm was used to investigate the selective interference between 100ms and 1000ms listening interval in mental arithmetic task. The results show that, mental arithmetic task affect the difference threshold of 1000ms listening interval, and the larger mental load is, the greater difference threshold is, but there is no influence on the listening interval difference threshold in 100ms. To verify the results of Experiment 1, experiment 2 used dual task paradigm to investigate the selective interference between 100ms and 1000ms viewing interval in mental arithmetic task. The results show that, mental arithmetic task affect the difference threshold of 1000ms viewing interval, and the larger mental load is, the greater difference threshold is, but there is no influence on the viewing interval difference threshold in 100ms. Two experiments show that the audio and visual interval cognition exist segmentation in 1 second. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Research of Unconscious Thought in Sport Decision-making 2017, 40(2): 329-334.  Abstract ( )   PDF (377KB) ( )   Many?studies?have?shown that unconscious thought can improve the effectiveness of decision making than conscious thought. To combine with unconscious thought theory and research paradigms, the present study tries to explore the effect of unconscious thought on decision-making in sport, especially focus on the weight of information available for decisions. Video clips from basketball competitions were edited to produce the decision-making tasks, which were divided into analytical and intuitive decision-making situations. Participants were 81 basketball players from one sport university. Experiment 1 tries to examine the effect of unconscious thought on sport decision under two kinds of information available conditions. The research adopts 2 (mode of thought: conscious vs. unconscious thought) ×2 (type of information: intuitive vs analytical decision-making information) mixed-design. Thirty-six basketball players were equally assigned into two groups: conscious thought group (thinking carefully for 2 minutes) and unconscious thought group (performing 0-back distraction task for 2 minutes). Repeated measurement analysis of variance indicates that the interaction between mode of thought and type of decision information in basketball decision making is significant, F(1, 34) = 13.01, p < .05, η2 = .28. Participants from unconscious thought group performed better (2.33.97) than those from conscious thought group (1.33.84, p < .05) 撕破如同exists in decision-making performance between unconscious thought group (3.06.99) and conscious thought group (3.441.09, p > .05) when analytical decision-making information was available. The results of experiment 1 generally show that the effect of unconscious thought on sport decision exists when intuitive decision-making information is available, but the accuracy of decision-making is nearly at a random level (7*1/3=2.31) and the reason might be that the processing of intuitive decision information is more difficult and has to occupy more cognitive resources so as to restrict the performance in decisions. The previous studies have indicated that the information processing in decision-making is inclined to be holistic and it can be inferred that the holistic processing intention was elicited before participants think unconsciously, the cognitive load would be reduced so as to improve the performance of decision-making. Experiment 2 adopt one factor (processing style: global, local vs control conditions) between-subject design to investigate the influence of processing style on the effect of unconscious thought in decision making. Global Navon task, Local Navon task and 0-back task were designed as distraction tasks and the basketball decision-making performance under intuitive information condition was examined. Fifty-five participants were assigned into three groups. The results from one factor analysis of variance indicate that the main effect of the processing style is significant, F(2, 44) = 18.55, p < .001, η2 = .47. The decision-making performance under unconscious thought condition coupled with global processing style (3.53.96) is better than that coupled with local processing style (1.47.99, p < .001) and in control condition (2.07.96, p < .001). But no significant difference exists in decision-making performance between participants who thought unconsciously in control condition (2.07.96) or coupled with local processing style (1.47.99, p > .005). Conclusions are drawn as the followings: the effect of unconscious thought on sport decision-making is modulated by processing style when intuitive decision-making information is available and the global processing style can improve the decision-making performance under unconscious thought conditions. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Role of Primary Visual Cortex in Studying the Representations of Mental Imagery 2017, 40(2): 335-340.  Abstract ( )   PDF (285KB) ( )   There has been a long-lasting debate about the essence of mental imagery. Some argues that the representations of mental imagery is language-like while others assumes it is depictive and perception-like. The availability of neuroimaging techniques, such as PET and fMRI, provides an opportunity to press this issue forward. With the development of analytical methods, decoding model and encoding model based on multivariate pattern analysis were used in exploring the neural mechanisms underlying mental imagery. Most of the neuroimaging studies involved in imagery debate were mainly focused on the activity of primary visual cortex (V1) in mental imagery. Here, we reviewed related neuroimaging studies and summarized three core questions in imagery debate. First, whether V1 could be activated during mental imagery? Some studies found the activation in V1 during mental imagery while some other studies failed finding V1 activation in the same process. Researchers have found several factors that could account for the discrepancy, including differences in baseline, tasks, and variation in the vividness of mental imagery across individuals. Therefore, despite the mixed results, it is safe to say that the activation of V1 is involved in mental imagery, even though it is weak. Second, could the activation in V1 organize in a topographically manner during mental imagery? Some researchers argued that in order to support the depictive view of imagery, it was important not only finding activation in V1 during mental imagery, but also these activation should be in a topographically organized manner. There was evidence revealed a retinotopic mapping of imagery, even when rule out the effect of attention. Their results suggest that visual imagery not only activated the V1 but also in a retinotopic manner comparable to perception. Third, what kinds of information are encoded in V1 during mental imagery? According to the predictive coding theory, when driven by top-down feedback, activity at any one location in V1 indicates the depicted visual features in the receptive fields. Previous studies found that the activated patterns between perception and imagery were similar, suggesting low-level features might be represented in imagery. More recently, a study using a voxel-wise encoding model and decoding approach found that low-level visual features were encoded during mental imagery. These results thus provided strong evidence for the depictive view of mental imagery, and facilitated the ending of imagery debate. Given the recent evidence, we can reasonably conclude that the imagery debate has been resolved. This opens the door to some perhaps more interesting questions. First, the vividness of mental imagery varies across individuals, however the neural mechanisms underlying the individual difference remain unclear. It is up to future research to probe the relationship between the brain mechanisms and the imagery ability. Second, does V1 play functional role in mental imagery? Researchers have not got consensus yet. Some argues that the activation of V1 during mental imagery is epiphenomenal, with no actual role. Others assume that V1 plays a functional role in generating images in mind, and the lesion of V1 would impair the performance in visual mental imagery. Third, how to reconstruct images in the mind from the neural activity pattern in the brain? Researchers have been able to reconstruct visual images of the stimuli from the neural activity pattern in the brain based on the established relationship between the stimuli properties and the neural activity patterns. Given low-level visual features also encoded in V1 in mental imagery, it is possible that we can find the corresponding relationship between imagery properties and activities in the brain, thus visualizing mental images. Related Articles | Metrics

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Mental Contrasting: An Overview of Concepts, Effects and Related Research 2017, 40(2): 341-346.  Abstract ( )   PDF (288KB) ( )   Unlike animals, human beings spend a lot of time on fantasies of the future. So, what could be done to turn these fantasies into strong goal pursuits? Fantasy Realization Theory has specified four kinds of self-regulative strategies of thinking about the future including mental contrasting, indulging, dwelling, and reverse contrasting. The present paper provides an overview of the concepts, the effects and the related research of mental contrasting. Mental contrasting is a self-regulatory strategy for goal setting, which specifies how people can turn their wishes into binding goals and plans, and eventually goal attainment. When people engage in mental contrasting, they first imagine a desired future outcome and then mentally elaborate on the present reality that stands in the way of attaining the desired future outcome. By imagining the future and thereafter imagining obstacles of reality, the future and the reality become simultaneously accessible, and the expectations of success are activated. The higher expectations of success, the more likely people commit to and strive for attaining the desired future out; in contrast, the lower expectations of success, the more likely people let go or disengage from goal pursuit. To explain the effects of mental contrasting on behavior change, research has identified three sets of mechanisms: cognitive changes, motivational changes, and responses to set-backs. Regarding cognitive mechanisms, research has shown that mental contrasting strengthens the association between future and reality, between obstacles in reality and the actions to be taken to overcome obstacles, and also changes individuals’ cognition of reality. Importantly, all these changes mediate the effects of mental contrasting on behavior changes. With respect to motivational changes, energization is considered a fundamental motivation variable linking mental contrasting and behavioral changes. Energization can be measured by subjective feelings as well as by objective measures like systolic blood pressure. This means when expectations are high, individuals feel more energized and systolic blood pressure increases, and when expectations are low, individuals feel less energized and blood pressure decreases. Importantly, changes in energization mediate the effects of mental contrasting on behavior change. In addition, the motivational changes may transfer efforts on one task to other tasks. A third mechanism underlying mental contrasting is that it may change the ways individuals react to negative feedback. Research has shown that mental contrasting promotes the processing of useful information embedded in negative feedback, which in turn helps individuals to form plans for implementing behavior changes. Mental contrasting also protects the self-view of competence against negative feedback and facilitates optimistic attributions for negative feedback. Research using MEG show that the process of mental contrasting is connected with brain areas related to intention formation, working memory, episodic memory, vividly imagining events and holding intentions as well as with action preparation. More recent studies have tried to combine mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII). Results of these studies indicate that the effects of MCII on goal pursuits are stronger than its two components by itself. Mental contrasting can be taught as a meta-cognitive, cost- and time-effective strategy to produce behavior changes ranging from interpersonal relationship, study and work to health domain. The effects of mental contrasting are cross-domain, cross-culture, cross-age and cross-time. Four recommendations for future researches are presented. First, future research should further explore the concept of mental contrasting and distinguish it from the other time-based concepts. Second, future research should examine the factors which have effects on the use and the results of mental contrasting. Third, research should be conducted in more specific fields. Fourth and finally, future research should consider how cultural background might influence the outcomes of mental contrasting. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Property, Structure, and Mechanism of Insight Experience 2017, 40(2): 347-352.  Abstract ( )   PDF (325KB) ( )   Insight, a type of creative cognition in psychology, is pervasive in almost all kinds of domains ranging from technical innovations, artistic creations to scientific discoveries, which is a special way approaching a problem solution through a sequential reasoning by applying previous concepts or methods. In daily life, most people might have a peculiar and unexpected experience when the solution to a problem they struggled with was suddenly achieved. This phenomenological experience has been defined as insight experience and considered as definitive of an insightful solution or as the clearest defining characteristic of insight problem solving. As the best availably behavioral indicator of insight, insight experience has been widely used as a subjective criterion for distinguishing insightful from non-insightful solutions. A variety of examples concerning insight experience were documented in anecdotes of scientists and inventors, little is known about the processing properties, conceptual structure, and functional mechanisms of such experience itself. This work mainly focused on the above issues and attempted to categorize insight experience into two classes, one is the experience accompanying the occurrence of insight solutions or the so-called aha experience, and the other is the impasse-related subjective experience before successful restructuring during insight problem solving. Through the present review, we could find that the insight experience is both cognitive and emotional in processing characteristics, which has been widely validated by the emotion-like effect of such experience on subsequent cognitive task such as long-term memory and supported by the impasse-related facilitation on its following memory performance that is highly similar as the effect of deep-processing observed in previous literatures. Moreover, this work showed that the two-staged insight experience is not the one-dimensional construct but the multidimensional construct encompassed by more than two cognitive and emotional elements in meso-structure, such as happiness, exciting, surprise, easiness and certainty for the solution-related insight experience, and frustration, depression and disfluency for the impasse-related insight experience. In terms of psychological and neural mechanisms underlying the two-staged insight experience, evidence indicated that such experience could partly be explained by processing fluency and relates with neural circuits that are individually responsible for processing reward and emotion, such as the emotion-related amygdala or insula, and reward-related orbitofrontal cortex or striatum. This work has systematically reviewed empirical studies on insight experience and originally proposed the two-staged view of this experience. Future researches should further examine insight experience using more complementary methods from the perspective of “the transition from the old to the new”. Related Articles | Metrics

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Shyness and Adaptation in Freshmen：A Cross-Lagged Analysis 2017, 40(2): 353-359.  Abstract ( )   PDF (583KB) ( )   Shyness refers to a state that the individuals feel uncomfortable in social situations, a kind of fear based on other people's negative assessment of them, together with emotional depression and behavioral inhibition, and more seriously, it will have effect on their behavior preventing them to participate their desired activity or the pursuit of personal and professional goals. Previous studies showed that college freshmen students have the poor Adaptation, as we all know, a good Adaptation to university life not only benefit to their university study, but also have an important effect on their adult life and work in the future. Previous studies have indicated that shyness may affect Adaptation, but these studies were limited to the relevant studies, and did not explore the causal relationship between them. In order to explore the causal relationship between shyness and Adaptation in college freshmen, the present study uses a cross-lagged path model design method, put forward four theoretical models, and have the assumption that shyness as a kind of personality trait will impact Adaptation in college freshmen. Through the comparison (χ2(df), NFI, RFI, IFI, TLI, CFT, RMSEA) among the models, an optimal model is determined. The scale used in the present study is: The College Students' Shyness Scale revised by Wang qianqian et al., the Chinese college students’ Adaptation scale revised by Fang xiaoyi et al., the participants come from two universities of Shandong Province, and the first measuring time is when the military training over, Total measuring time is two months and effected at one month interval. After measuring for three times, a total of 359 valid subjects were obtained after remove the extreme values and those who are not serious in the questionnaire. Final, the data analysis using SPSS22.0 and AMOS17.0. Analysis of shyness and Adaptation with repeated measures ANOVA analysis; correlation analysis for the lateral and vertical correlation relationship between shyness and Adaptation; the cross lagged relationship between shyness and Adaptation is analyzed by AMOS17.0. In this way, it is very clear to see the development and change between shyness and Adaptation in college freshmen. And it is also can find the causal relationship between shyness and Adaptation. So the present study is significant for the researchers to understand the status of shyness in Chinese college freshmen and the effect for their life, so as to cause everybody’s attention, and further to explore the relationship between shyness and Adaptation deeply, thus to improve the psychological health of College Students. According to analyze the factors that influence the Adaptation of college freshmen, and then to discuss shyness’ effect on Adaptation, to determine how to implement intervention so as to improve the school Adaptation level of college freshmen. The results showed that: (1) the freshmen's shyness and school Adaptation remained stable for a period of time, the correlation coefficients between shyness and Adaptation at the three measurement time points were between 0.6 and 0.8. (2) shyness and school Adaptation was negatively correlated. (3) At the beginning of college life, shyness can predict Adaptation; Adaptation can also significantly predict shyness. The cross lagged path standardized regression coefficient showed that the shyness of T1 time were significantly negatively to predict the Adaptation of T2 time; the Adaptation of T1 time were also significantly negatively to predict the shyness of T2 time; however, the shyness of T2/T3 time can’t predict the Adaptation of T2/T3 time each other. Finally, we draw to the conclusion: the relationship between shyness and Adaptation in college freshmen is reciprocal causation at the beginning of the college life. So we can intervene the shyness and Adaptation of freshmen at this stage. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Relationship between Maternal Rejection-punishment and Adolescent’s Victimization and Social competences:the Moderating Role of Gender-role 2017, 40(2): 360-366.  Abstract ( )   PDF (843KB) ( )   According to Bem’s theory (1975) , androgynous (characterized as possessing both high masculinity and high feminine traits)would better cope with social life than other gender-role orientation. The early adolescence is an important stage of gender-role development. There is little research on maternal negative parenting behavior such as rejection- punishment associated with social competences, and on the relationship how different gender-role orientation have worked. An undifferentiated adolescent may be more susceptible to the effects of maternal rejection-punishment parenting than differentiated (androgynous and sex-typed) ones. The purpose of the current study were to explore that the distribution of early adolescents’ gender roles, and to explore that differential and undifferentiated gender-role in adolescents may differ in the degree to which maternal rejection-punishment affect aspects of child development. 897 junior middle school students(boys=446,girls=412) from grade 6 to grade 9 were recruited from two suburban middle schools in Shanghai. Students were asked to complete questionnaires concerning their gender-role orientation edited by Rui(2008), and to provide peer nominations for victimization. Their mother reported rejection-punishment parenting behaviors using the Child Rearing Practices Report(1981); and teachers were asked to rate the school-related social competence including sociable, prosocial and assertive behaviors for each participant using the teacher–child rating scale (adapted from Hightower et al., 1986). The Results showed that the proportion of undifferentiated adolescents（38.10%）was the highest among all gender-roles adolescents (Χ2=26.27，P<.001), then the androgynous（32.30%）and the sex-typed in turn（29.6%). The sex-typed role adolescents were less than the androgynous ones（p<.01）and undifferentiated ones（p<.001), the androgynous ones were less than undifferentiated ones（p<.05）.Gender and gender-role orientation played inconsistent roles on victimization and social competence. Boys were more likely to be bullied and had less social competences than girls. Undifferentiated adolescents showed less social competence than androgynous ones. Gender-role orientation significantly moderated the relation of maternal rejection-punishment and early adolescents’ victimization and social competence. Maternal rejection-punishment was positively associated with adolescents’ victimization for undifferentiated students, but not for androgynous students and sex-typed students; Maternal rejection-punishment was negatively associated with child social competence for undifferentiated students, but not for androgynous students and sex-typed students. Differentiated gender-roles including sex-typed and androgynous may be a buffering factor that serves to protect children from maternal rejection-punishment parenting. These findings highlight the important role of differentiated gender-roles orientation both in the school bullying as well as in the social competence. Related Articles | Metrics

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THE RELATIONSHIP OF TODDLER’S NONCOMPLIANCE WITH MOTHER-CHILD INTERACTION 2017, 40(2): 367-372.  Abstract ( )   PDF (639KB) ( )   Compliance is a major goal of early socialization in childhood. It is initially imposed and maintained by external demands, such as parental request and directives, but is increasingly mediated by internal factors as children mature. When children transit from infancy to toddlerhood, their abilities develop quickly. They are increasingly gaining independence and ability to assert their own will in social interactions including noncompliant behaviors such as resistance and defiance to adults’ requests. Many researches have found that noncompliance is very common and the rates of between 20% and 40% have been reported in different studies. Some researchers proposed that early noncompliance places children at risk for a chain of events including poor peer relationships, poor academic performance, delinquency, and problems later in life. In our opinion, noncompliance occurs too frequently to be conceptuallized exclusively in terms of childhood dysfunction. In the present study, we attempted to investigate the relationship between noncompliance behavior of 2-year-old children and mother-child interaction. All together 138 2-year-old children and their mothers took part in the research. Mothers and children were invited to visit the university laboratory within three months of each child’s second birthday. During the visit, each toddler-mother dyad entered a room comprising one large chair and one small chair, a low table, and an assortment of attractive toys. One pair of mother-child was participate in the structured lab observation and was videoed each time. In this study, child noncompliance was coded based on mother-child interaction during the clean-up session. The free-play session (10minutes) started immediately after the child and the mother entered the room. The mother sat in the large chair and filled out a questionnaire. The clean-up session (approximately 3 minutes) followed the free-play session. Children were asked by the mother to place the toys into the basket. Child noncompliant responses to the mother’s requests and demands were coded using a timesampling approach. Noncompliance coded in the study included passive noncompliance (e.g., ignoring maternal directives) and direct defiance and rufusal/negotiation (reactions without negative affect, e.g., “I don’t want to,” “I’ll do it later”). At the same time, maternal strategy and response was coded. There was two parts of maternal strategy including maternal verbal component and maternal physical component. The data was coded by two Chinese graduate students in psychology. After statistic analysis, this research has got the following results: (1) Maternal verbal strategy was more than physical strategy. (2) Maternal ambiguous verbal guidance positively predicted children’s defiance, maternal distant physical guidance positively predicted children’s passive noncompliance. (3) Maternal responsiveness had positive correlation with direct verbal guidance, ambiguous verbal guidance, positive physical guidance and distant physical guidance; had negative correlation with reprimand verbal guidance and negative physical guidance. (4) Children’s responsiveness negatively predicted passive noncompliance and refulsal/negotiation. These results indicate that noncompliance in toddlerhood has a close relation with the pattern of mother-child interaction and mothers should pay more attention on their strategies to cope with children’s noncompliance. Related Articles | Metrics

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Inhibitory Control of Preschool Children：Developmental Tendency and the Predictive Effects on Verbal Comprehension and Mathematical Cognition 2017, 40(2): 373-379.  Abstract ( )   PDF (917KB) ( )   As one of the core executive functions, inhibitory control is very important to other executive function skills and academic achievement. The most impressive change in inhibitory control occurs during the preschool period. Some studies found that 3~3.75 years was the period in which rapid change would occur. But the tasks of inhibitory control in those studies did not apply to elder preschool children. It was too easy for elder preschool children to reflect their real level. In order to avoid a false conclusion, this study aided a more complex task to explore the developmental tendency of inhibitory control in preschoolers from 3 to 6 years old. And this study also explored the predictive effects of inhibitory control with different levels of complexity on verbal comprehension and mathematical cognition. The experimental design included three factors, which was 2(test time: Time 1, Time 2, the interval of 9 months) ×2(types of task: the day-night task without nested rules, the day-night task with nested rules) ×4(age groups: 3.00~3.75, 3.76~4.50, 4.51~5.25, 5.26~6.00). The first two factors were within-subjects factors, and the third factor was between-subjects factor. One hundred and twenty-two preschoolers aged 3~6 participated in this study and finished all the tests. There were 9-month follow-up tests of inhibitory control and work memory. And the task of work memory was self-ordered pointing task. In the second test time, preschoolers also finished the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Fourth Edition) and Mathematical Cognition Test. The results were as the follows: Firstly, the scores of the day-night task with nested rules were lower than the scores of the day-night task without nested rules in the preschoolers aged 3~6. The inhibitory control based on the day-night task with nested rules was more complex than the inhibitory control based on the day-night task without nested rules. Secondly, in the preschool stage from 3 to 6 years, the less complex inhibitory control increased fast at the beginning and then slowed down, but the more complex inhibitory control kept up a steady increase. There were different developmental tendency for inhibitory control with different levels of complexity. Thirdly, the more complex inhibitory control could independently predict children’s verbal comprehension and mathematical cognition after they got 9 months, but the less complex inhibitory control could not. So, the difficulty of tasks was very important for the study of developmental tendency. The inhibitory control tasks with moderate difficulty could prominently predict preschoolers’ verbal comprehension and mathematical cognition. Implications of these findings for selecting the tests of early developmental studies were discussed. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Impact of Leisure Activities on Chinese Elderly’s Cognitive Function 2017, 40(2): 380-387.  Abstract ( )   PDF (645KB) ( )   Abstract: Through analyzing data from the 2011 wave of Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), the present study examines the impact of leisure activities on Chinese elderly’s cognitive function. The CLHLS data were collected by Peking University’s Center for Healthy Aging and Family Studies and the China National Research Center on Aging, with support from the U.S. National Institute on Aging. The 2011-2012 CLHLS wave was undertaken in more than 800 randomly selected counties and cities of the 23 provinces in China. The survey covers about 50% of the counties and cities of those provinces. The sample areas represent 85% of the total population of China. In the 2011-2012 survey, 4,603 males and 5,585 females were included in the survey. In our analyses, we excluded those under 65 years of age, which yields a total number of 9,679 elderly, aged 65 to 114. The cognitive function variable is the dependent variable, which is defined as a dichotomous variable (1=no cognitive function impairment, 0=otherwise). Eight variables are used to measure leisure activities and a number of control variables are applied in the regression analyses. The eight variables are: outdoor activities, gardening, reading books and newspaper, playing cards or Mahjong, watching television and listening to radio, participating in social activities, number of times traveling in the past 2 years, and exercising. Except for the travel variable, all other seven variables are coded as continuous variables (1=never, 5=every day). The descriptive results show that 71% of the elderly aged 65 and over had no sign of cognitive function decline. Also, the elderly who participate more in leisure activities (including outdoor activities, watching television, listening to radio et al.) tended to have a lower likelihood of cognitive function decline. As to the control variables, the descriptive results show the majority of the respondents claimed themselves as Han, married and living with others. There were more rural and females respondents being studied in this research. The overall socioeconomic status of the elderly is relatively low. And 26.4% of the seniors had ADL disabilities. The logistic regression results demonstrate that after controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, health condition and lifestyle factors, a higher level of participation in leisure activities has significant impacts on preventing the elderly’s cognitive function decline. Specifically, with everything else being controlled, for every one level increase in participating in outdoor activities, the likelihood of the elderly who has no cognitive function impairment increases by 7%. Similarly, for every one level increase in reading newspapers/books, playing cards, playing Mahjong, watching TV, listening to the radio, participating in organized social activities prevents the elderly to have cognitive function decline by 16%, 20%,16% and 15%, respectively. According to the nature of the leisure activities studied in this research, three types of leisure activities (social activities, intelligence activities and fieldwork activities) are shown to have significant effects on preventing the elderly’s cognitive function decline. The article discusses why these three types of leisure activities have significantly positive impacts on maintaining the Chinese elderly’s cognitive function. In the end, the research highlights policy implications in terms of preventing cognitive function decline among the Chinese elderly. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Relationship between Perceived Life Stress, Loneliness and General Well-Being among the Left-behind Rural Children: Psychological Capital as a Mediator and Moderator 2017, 40(2): 388-394.  Abstract ( )   PDF (599KB) ( )   With the increasing pace of urbanization in China, millions of peasants migrate to cities to seek employment and leave their children behind in the rural area, who are called left-behind children. Presently, over 61 million left-behind children live in China, meaning that one in five child experience separation form parental migration. Without the help of migrating parents in chronic lives, left-behind children may encounter various difficulties and have considerable social and emotional costs, such as perceiving more life stress, enjoyment of less general well-being (GWB) and suffering from more loneliness than counterparts whose parents are available. In actual lives, many left-behind-children have little influenced by their parents, migration and grow up with full of positive strength (i.e. psychological capital). This study is to investigate the effect of psychological capital on the relationship between perceived life stress on loneliness and GWB among the left-behind rural children. Data used in this study was from a survey recently conducted in 98 rural villages of China’s Hunan Province. A snowball sampling was used to recruit subjects in grades 4 to 9 rural students receiving compulsory education. Once permission was granted by the subjects, caregivers to participate in this research, the research team approached the rural children and adolescents. After a qualified subject filled in a self-reported questionnaire in their own family, he or she was asked to introduce other qualified respondents to be potential participants. A total of 971 rural children and adolescents from two-parent family completed the survey, including 702 left-behind rural children (330 boys and 372 girls) and 269 non-left-behind rural children (113 boys and 156 girls). Of the total sample, 500 cases (51.5%) were from primary school and 471 (49.5%) subjects were from junior high school. The mean age of the participants was 12.00 (SD = 1.73; Range: 8～17 years). Our cross-sectional study shows that: (1) Compared to non-left-behind children, the left-behind-children report higher level of life stress and loneliness and lower level of psychological capital and general well-being. (2) After controlling for the demographic variables of gender, grade and family socioeconomic status, life stress is positively correlated to loneliness and negatively associated to GWB in left-behind-children and non-left-behind children. (3) The effect of life stress on loneliness and GWB is partially mediated by psychological capital for both left-behind-children and their counterparts, with the mediation effect being from 44.7% to 54.1%. (4) Psychological capital moderates the impacts of perceived life stress on loneliness and GWB only for left-behind-children, which prove that with the level of psychological capital increasing, the adverse effect of life stress on GWB and loneliness decrease. In conclusion, psychological capital not only mediates but also moderates the impacts of life stress on loneliness and GWB for left-behind-children. These findings suggest that the theoretical perspectives of stress-process model, conservation of resources theory (COR) and stress-buffering hypothesis can be supported in our sample. Furthermore, the results implicate that psychological capital is an important psychological resource for left-behind children to cope with life stress, and intervention aimed to improve their psychological capital can promote their mental health. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Development of Compounding Morphological Structural Awareness in Chinese Children XIAO Rong 2017, 40(2): 395-400.  Abstract ( )   PDF (501KB) ( )   Morphological structural awareness is a kind of meta-linguistic awareness which reflects explicit representation of language structure. It can be manifested as the ability of understanding the relationship of morphemes in a poly-morphemic word, and constructing new words with the given morphemes on the basis of morphological rules. The functional category of internal components may influence understanding and manipulation of compound words. The current research controlled this factor in order to detect children’s understanding of different compound structures. However, only three structures (i.e. modified, verb-object, subject-predicate) can be composed by a verb and a noun. Therefore the current study only referred to these three structures. The participants were consisted of four subgroups, 5-, 6-, 7-, and 8-years old. 30 children were recruited in each group. They were required to perform a morphology decision task. The participants were provided orally with a description of a new entity or event, then were required to select a proper name between two alternative choices for it. We performed repeated measures ANOVAs. Main effects of age and types of morphological structure are significant, and these two factors have interactive effects. Simple effect analysis results showed that: (1) The difference between these three morphological awareness of 5-year-old children wasn’t significant. For 6- and 7-year-old children, modified and verb-object awareness were both better than subject-predicate awareness. For 8-year-old children, modified awareness were better than verb-object awareness, and verb-object awareness was better than subject-predicate awareness. (2) Only modified awareness increased with the development of age. According to the account of independency, linguistic separateness of an expression corresponded to the conceptual independence of the object or event which it represents. Some structures were suitable for denoting objects and could be easily applied to form words, while others were suitable for denoting events and could be easily applied to form sentences. For example, modified compounding structure was suitable for denoting objects, but verb-object and subject-predicate compounding structure belonged to the latter one. So when the participants were required to form a new word, they preferred modified compounding structure. What’s more, compared to the verb-object structure, the subject-predicate structure could denote a complete event, so it was more difficult to be applied to form a word. Under the account of headedness difference, the head of modified compounding words could be determined the most easily, and then verb-object compounding words, subject-predicate words was the most difficult one. In conclusion, the present study indicated that (1) Morphological awareness began to differentiate when children grown up to 6-year-old, and showed the imbalance of development; (2) The types of morphology would influence children’s performance. The best of these three was modified-compound-awareness followed by verb-object awareness, and subject- predicate awareness was the weakest one. It might result from morphological independency and headedness, and strong morphology independence along with explicit headedness were the critical factors that improved the development of compounding morphological structural awareness in Chinese children. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Growth Trend and the Rumination Effect of Interpersonal Forgiveness of Undergraduates 2017, 40(2): 401-407.  Abstract ( )   PDF (649KB) ( )   Forgiveness is defined by prosocial changes for people’s transgression-related interpersonal motivations toward a transgressor. When people forgive a transgressor, they become less motivated by revenge and avoidance and more motivated by benevolence toward the transgressor. Previous studies have found that forgiveness process needs time to achieve motivation change, however, the intra-individual changes of forgiveness is not conformity with the linear or curve until now. McCullough et al. (2003) showed that a linear trend fit on the development of forgiveness, whereas Pronk et al. (2010) indicated that the forgiveness curve showed a curvilinear trend. Therefore, the growth model of forgiveness needs further studies to resolve this paradox. Meanwhile, the available evidences have shown that forgiveness are negatively associated with rumination, however, the evidence does not yield clear conclusions regarding the effects of rumination that as a personal characteristics on forgiveness process. Hence, the second objective was to study the effects of rumination on the intercepts and slopes change of interpersonal forgiveness. The Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM) was used to assess the forgiveness. There were eighteen items to measure Revenge subscale, Avoidance subscale, and Benevolence subscale. Rumination was assessed with the Chinese version of Ruminative Response Scale (RRS). Participants were 116 undergraduates (M=21.61, SD=1.35), and 41.6% were male. We recruited undergraduates who had experienced a serious transgression within the past 7 days through undergraduate psychology courses. Qualified participants received preliminary questionnaires including TRIM and RRS. After returning these questionnaires, they were scheduled to complete up to five follow-up TRIM in the online every 1 weeks. We used HLM to test our hypotheses. We first examined how interpersonal forgiveness unfolded over time. The results showed that a linear model best fit our data on the development of revenge motivation and avoidance motivation. That indicates the avoidance and revenge motivations toward their transgressors are linearly drop down. However, a curvilinear model best fit the dimension of benevolence motivation. That means the level of benevolence motivation increases faster in the first few weeks after the offence, but do not increase substantially after a certain point. Second, we investigated the impact of rumination on the process of interpersonal forgiveness. Model analyses demonstrated that rumination had significant impact on the intercepts and slopes change of avoidance, revenge and benevolence motivations. Results of the current research contribute to the studies examining the temporal nature of forgiveness. We provided some evidence for the linear trend for the negative dimension of forgiveness, but the nonlinear trend for the positive dimension of forgiveness. These results support the importance point of view to distinguish the dimensions of forgiveness. On the other hand, this study constituted the effort to explore the effects of rumination on forgiveness. Analysis results supported the rumination is the influence factor of forgiveness process. This study allows us to better understand the forgiveness mechanism through improving the levels of rumination. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Psychological Benefits of Green Exercise: Combination of Physical Exercise and Natural Environment 2017, 40(2): 408-414.  Abstract ( )   PDF (596KB) ( )   Green exercise refers to doing physical exercises involved in nature, which appears to have synergistic benefits. Green exercise emphasizes the importance of natural environment, which would enhance the psychological benefits of exercise. Currently, researchers in western countries have discussed the psychological benefits of natural environment on physical exercise. However, few studies have found in China. Therefore, the present study reviewed the green exercise literatures from the perspective of combination of physical exercise and natural environment, aiming to promote psychological studies of green exercise in China, and provide support for the realization of scientific exercise and exercise psychological benefit maximization. Most studies in green exercise area adopted pre- and post-test experimental design to investigate the psychological benefits of green exercise, meanwhile environmental, individual and (or) exercise variables were often operated accordingly. Environmental variables operation was as follows: (a) psychological effects in natural and non-natural environment were compared to examine the possibility of green exercise benefits (Frühauf et al., 2016; Gidlow et al., 2016; Marselle et al., 2013); (b) different types of natural environment were compared to discuss the effect of environment on psychological benefits of green exercise (Barton, & J. Pretty, 2010; Rogerson et al., 2015); (c) simulated natural and non-natural indoor environments were compared to discuss the possibility of simulated green exercise environment (Duncan et al., 2014; J. Pretty et al., 2005; Rogerson, & Barton, 2015; Plante et al., 2003; Wood et al., 2012; White et al., 2015). In addition, the characteristics of exercise (exercise intensity, duration, frequency) and individual (gender, age, health level) were often operated between groups, in order to probe into the relationship between exercise and natural environment (Barton, & J. Pretty, 2010; J. Pretty et al., 2007), or discuss the psychological effects of green exercise on different person (Barton, & J. Pretty, 2010; Taylor, & Kuo, 2009). And the measurement of psychological benefits of green exercise includes mood, self-esteem, affective state, well-being, attention, stress, anxiety and RPE. There are two models for explaining the benefit of green exercise, i.e. Psychoevolutionary Model and Attention Restoration Theory (R. Kaplan, & S. Kaplan, 1989; Ulrich, 1991). And other study attempted to explore the mechanism of green exercise by separating key factors in natural environments, showed that the benefits might be due to the green color. However, the perception of individuals is holistic, that is, the shape and color are synthetically reconciled when placing one in the natural environments. The mechanism of green exercise benefits is not clear and it is necessary to explore further studies. Recently, green exercise is a new topic in physical exercise, while it is lack of enough attention in China. And the potential mechanism of green exercise still needs further researches. So, we suggest that, in the future, researchers should be concerned to the following questions in green exercise: (a) demonstrate more about the psychological benefits of green exercise; (b) focus on the mechanism of green exercise, especially the roles of cognitive processing and evaluation; (c) the interaction of physical exercise and natural environment need more concerned; (d) how to simulate the natural environments indoors to maximize the psychological benefits of scientific exercise; (e) be caution to control the environment variables in physical exercise researches, in which independent variables are often exercise characters. Related Articles | Metrics

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A Review of the Research on Depression in Adolescence and Its Automatic Emotion Regulation 2017, 40(2): 415-420.  Abstract ( )   PDF (301KB) ( )   Adolescence is the critical period of individual development and is also the most sensitive period of depression. Suicides, especially the girls, rise significantly after puberty. By late adolescence, prevalence rate is increased to 4% a year. It is important practical significance for early treatment and intervention of adolescent depression, especially the prevention of adolescent suicide malignant events, to strengthen the neural mechanism research on adolescent depression. Major depression disorder is a disorder characterized by impaired emotion regulation．It is embodied as sustained negative affect and a persistent reduction in positive affect. Automatic emotion regulation ，driven by automatic goals, is a process in which people regulate their emotion without the control of consciousness. Automatic emotion regulation is common in our daily life, and is one of the key mechanisms of social and pathopsychological development of the individuals. Emotional dyregulation is the core characteristic of adolescent depression, and voluntary emotion regulation depends on automatic emotion regulation function, so the first place is to restore automatic emotion regulation function for the intervention of adolescent depression. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the neural mechanism of automatic emotion regulation in adolescent depression. Over the past few decades, neuroimaging studies have begun to suggest that ongoing structural and functional brain development during adolescence may contribute to adolescent-specific behaviors. They also show that structural development does not always occur linearly over time within brain areas, with quadratic and cubic trajectories often evident, nor does it occur uniformly across multiple brain regions. Depressed mood is probably the most easily recognized and familiar of the two key criteria for MDD. Anhedonia is less well-known than depressed mood in the general community, and is the second of the two key symptoms required for a diagnosis of MDD. At present, there are three theoretical models about depression in adolescence. The fractal triadic model is a neural systems approach developed to provide an understanding of the neural underpinnings of patterns of motivated behavior and of their changes across development or psychopathology. This model comprises three nodes that each presents a functional dominance over approach (striatum), avoidance (amygdala) and behavioral regulation (prefrontal cortex). The Social Information Processing Network (SIPN) offers a neural systems model similar in conception to the triadic model. It comprises three discrete nodes with specific, although overlapping, functions, that collaboratively integrate social information to influence behavior. Currently, the research mainly adopts automatic emotion regulation of implicit emotional paradigm. Experiments present emotional stimuli, but ones required subjects have nothing to do with the emotional cognitive tasks. By comparing the emotions and neutral condition, they can infer the relevant components of automatic emotion regulation. Neural model of emotion regulation indicates automatic emotion regulation depends on the ventral brain pathways, including the amygdala and insula, the ventral striatum, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), etc. This model is mainly based on animal and human brain imaging studies, for brain damage, clinical pathological study providing an important framework. With the development of neuroimaging techniques, functional connectivity, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation(rTMS), provide direct method for the prevention of the adolescent depression in the future. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Roles of Reward Sensitivity in Impulsive Eating Behavior Su-Hong XIONG 2017, 40(2): 429-435.  Abstract ( )   PDF (297KB) ( )   Impulsive eating behavior is defined as experiencing a sudden and unplanned urge to eat when facing hedonic food that is immediately gratifying and then acting on the impulse without careful deliberation on subsequent negative consequences. In fact, impulsive behavior contains two counteracting processes: desire producing and self-control exerting as many researchers point out. Impulsive eating is one of the most important reasons of obesity, and obesity can cause cancer, heart attack and diabetes etc., therefore, studying the impulsive eating behavior is very important to fight against obesity. Reward sensitivity, a stable ‘psychobiological’ personality trait, is a source of impulsiveness and demonstrated by many studies to be related to food taking and overweight/obesity. Exploring the roles of reward sensitivity in impulsive eating behavior contributes to the deep understanding of impulsive eating behavior and providing ideas for solving obesity problem. The authors reviewed the dispersive relevant literatures about impulsive eating behavior and reward sensitivity, trying to provide a comprehensive understanding of the roles of reward sensitivity in impulsive eating behavior from the complicated, even inconsistent results of studies by organizing the literatures according to the processes of impulsive eating behavior: noticing hedonic food, producing urge to consume, exerting self-control. Firstly, the authors introduced the concept of reward sensitivity, the major research fields reward sensitivity involved in, and the biological basis of reward sensitivity. The authors also introduced the measuring methods of reward sensitivity including measurement of fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and ERP (event-related potential), as well as scale measurement; secondly, the authors analyzed the relevant literatures about the effects of reward sensitivity on impulsive eating behavior and proposed that there are three paths that reward sensitivity affects impulsive eating behavior probably: 1) a higher reward sensitivity could cause a more attention bias toward hedonic food cues, which implies that an individual with higher reward sensitivity could notice/see more hedonic food; 2) a higher reward sensitivity could lead to a stronger desire when facing a hedonic food; 3) a higher reward sensitivity could make self-control more effective. As shown from above, the mechanism is complicated underlying the effects of reward sensitivity on impulsive eating behavior, and an individual with higher reward sensitivity does not always behave more impulsively considering both the stronger desire and more effective self-control when facing hedonic food. Lastly, the authors pointed out that the further research directions of impulsive eating behavior from the perspective of reward sensitivity: firstly, to further explore the effects of reward sensitivity on impulsive behavior through attention bias, including: 1) to further confirm the attention bias from reward sensitivity using laboratory experiments considering the existing conflicting results about attention bias; 2) to test the influence of reward sensitivity on impulsive eating through attention bias in natural setting. Secondly, further studies are needed to explore the possible reasons that reward sensitivity affects self-control positively. According to the extant literatures, we proposed that individuals with high reward sensitivity may use different coping style to resist desire compared to those with low reward sensitivity, or maybe they have different level of goal-driving motivation. Related Articles | Metrics

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, 2017, 40(2): 436-441.  Abstract ( )   PDF (285KB) ( )   , References | Related Articles | Metrics

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The Influence of High Performance Work Systems on Employee’s Psychological Contract Breach：A Moderated Mediation of Cross Level 2017, 40(2): 442-447.  Abstract ( )   PDF (714KB) ( )   Abstract Over the past two decades, a large body of research investigated the effect of high performance work system (HPWS) on firm performance, employee attitude and behavior. At the same time, however, the prior research primarily focused on managerial reports of the implementation of HPWS at organizational level (here after called O-HPWS), ignored the role of experienced HPWS by employee (here after called E-HPWS). Given the fact that employees were the actual receiver and practitioners of HR practices, only when HPWS had been understood accurately by employees, would it operate to elicit higher affective commitment and greater discretionary effort of employees, which in turn led to high firm performance. However, the role of E-HPWS has seldom been examined explicitly as a mediator between HPWS and psychological contract breach of employees; further relevant empirical research is of paucity. Consequently, research need for multilevel research to examine simultaneously the impact and influence of HPWS on employee’s psychological contract breach from the perspectives of employee and organization, it is particularly important if we want to accurately understand how and why HPWS does influence the employee’s psychological contract breach, and then provide managers with actionable knowledge about how to use HR practices effectively to create and sustain high quality of employment relations. Additionally, according to the social information processing theory, employees use information collected from others in the work environment to guide their perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. This research showed that the interactional justice climate played an important role between the O-HPWS and E-HPWS and it adjusted to the relations between them. In this research, on the basis of social information processing theory, the researchers examined the influence and mechanism of HPWS on employee’s psychological contract breach at both individual and organizational levels, and tested the proposed theoretical framework using data of 39 enterprises from the following municipalities directly under the central government or Provinces: Beijing, Shanghai, Shandong and Liaoning. In order to reduce the homologous error, the researchers collected information from two sources. 52 managers from human resource management department and 253 employees participated in the matched questionnaire survey. In each enterprise, an average of one managers reported O-HPWS and an average of six employees reported E-HPWS, interactional justice climate and psychological contract breach. Hierarchical analysis was finished with the software aid of AMOS 7.0, SPSS 21.0 and HLM 7.0. Results of Hierarchical linear modeling showed that the O-HPWS was significantly negative correlated with employee’s psychological contract breach and E-HPWS took part in full mediating role between the O-HPWS and employee’s psychological contract breach. Additionally, the climate of interactional justice moderated the relationship between O-HPWS and E-HPWS. Furthermore, the climate of interactional justice moderated the indirect effect of O-HPWS on employee’s psychological contract breach through E-HPWS. These results revealed that the managers should emphasize on building better climate of interactional justice during the process of implementing HPWS, and pay attention to the employee’s experience of human resource management practices, in order to reduce the influence of employee’s psychological contract breach effectively and achieve the desired firm performance. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Influence of Procedural Justice and Uncertainty on Acceptance of Public Policy: The Mediating Effect of Affective Trust and Cognitive Trust 2017, 40(2): 448-454.  Abstract ( )   PDF (568KB) ( )   China is in a period of social transformation and social change, and social risk is increasing. One important characterization is that group events frequently occur. It hints that people do not accept public policy. If formulation and implementation of public policy does not fully consider public acceptability, it is likely to constitute a new social risk, threatening social stability. Therefore, how to effectively improve public acceptance of public policy has become a major problem that should be solved in our country. Studies have found that procedural justice, uncertainty, trust all affect acceptance of public policy, but previous studies are more qualitative analysis, exactly how these variables influence acceptance of public policy, and what is the internal mechanism are lack of further empirical research. The present research integrated social exchange theory, fairness heuristic theory and system justification theory,establishing a hypothesis model of acceptance of public policy with the impact of procedural justice and uncertainty, as well as the mediating effect of cognitive trust and affective trust. Since Thibaut and Walker (1975) introduced the concept of procedural justice from the legal field, procedural justice has become the research focus in organizational justice field. Procedural justice affects people’s attitudes and behaviors, and trust is an important mediating variable in the procedural justice effect.With the deepening of the research,scholars start to explore affective trust and cognitive trust’s mediating role respectively. In addition, according to system justification theory, when faced with uncertainty, people will lack a sense of control. To compensate people's basic needs - a sense of control, people will tend to think that the system can control things, reducing uncertainty. People will regard the system as increasingly legitimate, and thus increase confidence in the authority. We randomly selected 510 Beijing residents, and used the questionnaire survey research method to explore the hypothetical model. All the data was analyzed with the software AMOS 17.0. Bootstrap method was used to analyze the mediating roles of affective trust and cognitive trust. The results indicated that procedural justice was positively related to the acceptance of public policy, uncertainty was negatively related to the acceptance of public policy. Affective trust mediated the relationship between procedural justice and acceptance of public policy, and the influence of affective trust between uncertainty and acceptance of public policy was suppressing effect. There was no significant mediating effect of cognitive trust. These findings suggest that when the public policy formulation process is fair, people will have high affective trust in government, and as a result they are willing to accept the public policy. The influence of affective trust between uncertainty and acceptance of public policy was suppressing effect. It indicates that the study fails to take into account all of the mechanism. There may be other mediating effect between uncertainty and acceptance of public policy. Anxiety is likely to be an important mediating variable, future research can further explore the other specific mechanisms. Related Articles | Metrics

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Effect of Psychological Capital on Voice Behavior: The Mediating Role of Openness to Change and the Moderating Role of Perceived Organizational Support Yan-fei WANG 2017, 40(2): 455-462.  Abstract ( )   PDF (827KB) ( )   In the context of the drastic changes in the organizational competition, how to motivate employees to participate and exhibit voice behavior in organizational change is the key to successful change. In consideration of driving forces of voice behavior, most of the existing researches discuss the function of individual psychology and perceived organizational support separately, rather than their complementary or alternative role. In addition, under the background of change, the differences of mechanism of voice behavior are still unknown. In view of this, drawing on the theories of conservation of resource theory and perceived organizational support, the study develop a moderated mediation model to investigate the roles of openness to change and perceived organizational support that play in the relationship between psychological capital and voice behavior. We conduct a two-phrase survey on employees of companies located in Guangdong province and collect 292 useful data: psychological capital, perceived organizational support and openness to change in the first survey, and voice behavior in the second survey. Regression analysis and bootstrap methods are used to test the proposed model. The result of data analysis shows that: (1) psychological capital significantly and positively affects openness to change (β = .17, p < .01) and voice behavior (β = .39, p < .001); (2) openness to change partially mediates the relationship of psychological capital and voice behavior (β = .43, p < .001); (3) perceived organizational support positively moderates the psychological capital - openness to change relationship (β = .25, p < .001), that is, the higher level of perceived organizational support, the stronger positive relationship of psychological capital and openness to change, on the contrary, the relationship is weaker. Further, we draw an interaction picture to confirm the moderating effect of perceived organizational support on the relationship between psychological capital and openness to change. The mediating effect of openness to change is moderated by perceived organizational support as well. Overall, in order to better understand voice behavior in organizational change, this study develops a moderated mediation model to examine the complementary relationship of psychological capital and perceived organizational support and the mediation mechanism of openness to change. Theoretical contributions in this study may be included several aspects: (a) by investigating the driving factors of voice behavior in organizational change, our research fills the research gap of employee involvement in organizational change, but also expands the direction of research on voice behavior; (b) by identifying the mediating role of openness to change, our research uncovers the influencing path of psychological capital on voice behavior, and broadens the research of openness to change in China, given little focus on openness to change in China; (c) by examining the moderating role of perceived organizational support, our research offers a more comprehensive view of under what conditions that employees with high psychological capital are more likely to exhibit voice behavior. Inevitably, this study still has some limitations, such as defects caused by questionnaire and the slightly small sample size and so on. Scholars should try to overcome these problems as much as possible in future studies. Related Articles | Metrics

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the Effect of Assortment Size on E-commerce Decision-making Attitude and Behavior 2017, 40(2): 463-470.  Abstract ( )   PDF (382KB) ( )   With the rapid development of e-commerce, online shopping behavior gets more and more attention. Consumers can justly stay at home to enjoy shopping online. Shopping online not only saves a lot of time and energy costs, but also improves the possibility of consumers finding products to meet their needs. Sometimes consumers get benefit from plentiful options, sometimes they spend a lot of time and effort but cannot find the satisfaction to meet their needs. Results of previous studies are inconsistent. A lot of studies shown that the more the better, however, some researchers found “choice overload effect”. Choice overload effect states that when the individual is faced with too many options, compared to a smaller set of options will lead to more negative results. For example, the lower degree of satisfaction, delaying selection, regret improved, or the decline in self-confidence, buying behavior reduction. A large number of studies in the past were discussed, but the majority were on traditional shopping. The empirical research about assortment size and choice overload effect of online shopping is few. The present study aims to explore the effect of assortment size, target certainty and product type on consumer decision-making attitude and behavior for online shopping. Three pretests and a main laboratory experiment were conducted. First, we ran pretest 1 and 2 to select the specific product materials to be used in the main experiment, which would be used to indicate main attributes for experience product and search product (beef jerky as experience product and USB flash disk as search product). Second, we ran pretest 3 to make sure the option number for big and small selection set (15 options as small selection set and 60 options as large one). 125 students (41 for pretest 1, 54 for pretest 2 and 30 for pretest 3) participated in the pretests. It used a 2(large, small) ×2(certainty, uncertainty) ×2(experience product, search product) between-subject design in our main experiment. The participants’ target certainty was manipulated by whether the participants needed to describe what they want. A total of 160 students (81 males and 79 females, mean age=21.89, SD=3.70) were randomly assigned to eight groups. They were first asked to read the instruction and imagine that they were in online shopping. Then they were manipulated of target certainty and scanned the webpages we designed for each group. Finally, they completed a series of questions measuring their satisfaction, confidence and choice deferral. The results showed the attitude-behavior separation, choice from large assortments were more likely to lead to higher satisfaction (M=5.16 vs. 4.55), higher confidence (M=5.11 vs. 4.73) but more choice deferral (78.8% vs. 58.8%). Target certainty moderated the effect of assortment size on choice deferral, target uncertainty individuals showed more choice deferral in the large assortments than in the small assortments (82.5% vs. 50.0%). While target certainty individuals had similar choice deferral between different assortment size. Product type didn’t moderate the effect of assortment size on choice deferral. Comparing with prior studies on assortment size, our results suggested that: in the online shopping environment, in terms of the attitude level, consumers still preferred large selection set, and the select-satisfaction and the self-confidence were higher than in the small selection set; however, in terms of the behavior level, in big choice set there were more negative buying behavior and consumers preferred to delay purchase. This study explored the choice overload effect and attitude-behavior separation on e-commerce, which had implications for webpage layout. Related Articles | Metrics

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Mediation Analysis of Categorical Variables Fang Jie Zhong-Lin WEN 2017, 40(2): 471-477.  Abstract ( )   PDF (583KB) ( )   In the research of psychology and other social science disciplines, researchers often do not know how to analyze mediation effect when the independent, mediator or/and dependent variable are categorical, even if they can skillfully conduct mediation analysis with continuous variables. The conventional mediation analysis, transforming multi-categorical variable into dichotomous or continuous variable or using analysis of variance (ANOVA), might be lack of efficiency when the independent variable is multi-categorical. A procedure is proposed and recommended to use the method integrating relative mediation with Omnibus mediation to analyze mediation effect when the independent variable is multi-categorical. The first step is to implement Omnibus mediation analysis. If Omnibus mediation effect is not significantly different from zero, the k-1 relative mediation effects are zero, where k is the number of the categories. Otherwise, go to the second step. In the second step, relative mediation analysis is used to find if each relative mediation effect is significant. If there is no relative mediation effect is significantly different from zero, the mediation analysis is end. Otherwise, go to the third step. In the third step, the results with relative direct effects are reported. An example is given to illustrate how to conduct the proposed procedure by using SPSS software. Then, the evolution of the mediation analysis method with categorical mediator or dependent variable is discussed, and the scale unified process is the focus. In early years, the product of coefficients (ab) obtained from the logistic regression was used to analyze mediation effect when mediator or dependent variable is categorical. Later, abstd was adopted to analyze the categorical mediation effect. Recently, was used to analyze the mediation effect. We suggest that is preferred to analyze mediation effect when mediator or dependent variable is categorical. In addition, we emphasize that asymmetric interval is used to test the significance of . We used an example to illustrate how to conduct the proposed procedure by using SPSS software. Directions for future study on categorical mediation are discussed at the end of the paper. In fact, in addition to dummy coding, sequential coding and contrast coding are alternative to code multi-categorical independent variable, and the result of mediation effect tests with these three coding methods are equivalent, but the coding method will influence the implication of the relative indirect, direct, and total effects. Furthermore, the method integrating relative mediation with Omnibus mediation to analyze mediation effect of multi-categorical independent variable could be expended to more complicated mediation models, such as single-step or parallel multiple mediator models in which there is more than one mediator. Finally, it is a promising direction to analyze mediation effect with binary dependent variable in Structural Equation Modeling. Related Articles | Metrics

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Expansion and application of CVLL in Cognitive Diagnosis 2017, 40(2): 478-484.  Abstract ( )   PDF (802KB) ( )   The validity in all applications of CDT (cognitive diagnosis theory) depends on the extent to which the selected model accurately reflects the real data. Only when the CDMs (cognitive diagnosis models) fit the data well, can the advantages and functions of CDT emerge. Selection of the wrong model would lead to relatively large error in parameter estimation, test equating, the analysis of differential item functioning and so on, which would result in adverse effect. Therefore, it is required to evaluate model-data fit before applying CDT. Common fit statistics in the field of CDT consist of test fit statistics and item fit statistics; the former evaluate fit from test angle, the latter evaluate fit from item angle, which can guide the selection of items. Test fit statistics usually are relative fit statistics and item fit statistics usually are absolute fit statistics. In fact, it is very tedious and blind to use item fit statistic to assess model-data fit for all items, and absolute fit assessment is quite difficult. Thus, many researchers only consider relative fit assessment, which can give a direction to model selection. Relative fit statistics can be expounded and compared from model misspecification and Q-matrix misspecification. Traditional relative fit statistics such as, -2LL, AIC, AICc, BIC and DIC4 have been used to test the validity of CD models. However, CVLL has never been applied in the real application. Given that CVLL is a reliable index in item response theory, it is worthy to investigate how well it performed in detecting the validity in CD models. The aim of this study is to evaluate these different statistics in terms of the proportion of times each fitted model was selected out of the 30 iterations. Four conditions were considered in the simulation study, including sample sizes, test lengths, numbers of attributes, and Q-matrix misspecifications. Three models were used to generate the data: the DINA model, the NIDA model, and R-RUM. An empirical example involving real data was used to illustrate how the different fit statistics can be employed to identify misspecifications. This research discovered that : a) CVLL performed best, b) AIC and BIC performed better than AICc, c) AICc and BIC tended to select the reduced model than the saturated model in small sample size and long test length, d) When the number of attributes became 9, the correct rates of these statistics decreased, meanwhile, CVLL performed best, e) If the true model was R-RUM, the selection rates of correct Q-matrix of these statistics decreased except CVLL, f) The empirical example proved that DINA, NIDA and R-RUM neither fit the fraction data adequately, but R-RUM is the best-fitting model among a set of competing models. Although the results of this work are encouraging, additional work is needed to further understand model-data fit evaluation under the CDM context and to broaden the generalizability of the current findings. First, this study only covered three models. Other types of CDMs – such as multiple-strategies models or high-order models – need to be investigated. Second, due to the important role the Q-matrix played in cognitive diagnosis modeling, future research should systematically examine the impact of not only the degree but also the type of Q-matrix misspecifications on the different fit statistics. Related Articles | Metrics

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Initial Stage Item Selection Methods of CD-CAT 2017, 40(2): 485-491.  Abstract ( )   PDF (775KB) ( )   Cognitive Diagnostic Computerized Adaptive Testing is a new testing mode which combines Computerized Adaptive Testing with Cognitive Diagnosis. It has the characteristics of adaptive and cognitive diagnosis, which can use less items and less time to evaluate knowledge state, it is applicable to classroom instruction because of timely and immediately evaluation. It is the basis of remedial teaching and students’ self-learning. It was presented by Thompson that CD-CAT had five important parts, they were parameter-calibrated and attribute-identified item bank, initial stage item selection methods, an item selection strategy, a knowledge stage estimation method and a stopping rules. Of which initial stage item selection methods can influence the pattern classification correct rate. It was only found through literature review that Tu, Cai, & Dai (2013) studied the initial stage item selection method, and presented “T matrix-method”, which selected initial items from R-matrix. The other initial stage item selection method was random method, which means that select first stage items from item bank randomly, this method does not consider item parameters and attributes. It is easy and fast. The research showed that T-matrix method had higher PCCR than random method. It is presented four initial stage item selection methods based on the discrimination of Cognitive Diagnosis, they are CTTID method, CDI method, CTTIDR* method and CDIR* method. 1) CTTID calculates discrimination based on identification index of Classical Test Theory, the fundamental question is “How well does this item help me to differentiate between respondents who have mastered “more” attributes and respondents who have mastered “fewer” attributes?” In DINA model, high discriminatory items are the items slipping and guessing parameters smaller. 2) CDI method is presented by Henson and Douglas (2005), which is a weighted average of the elements in D where the KLI values associated with attribute profiles that differ by one attribute have the highest weight and the KLI values associated with attribute profiles that differ by all A attributes have the smallest weight. 3) Reachability-matrix (R-matrix) was presented by Tasuoka (1995), it describes the direct, indirect and own relationships between attributes, and it is a matrix composed with K line * K column (K is the number of attributes). R* matrix is the necessary condition for testing to achieve diagnosing each attribute. Item parameter and R matrix are the important elements which can influence the efficiency of testing, so here we consider discrimination and R matrix simultaneously to select first stage items, CTTIDR* method is from this consideration. 4) A “good” item is one that discriminates well between respondents with different levels of ability, disposition, or another set of latent characteristics that are measured by a diagnostic assessment whose response data are modeled with a CDM. CDI is a good discrimination of CDM which can use in different models, CDIR* method is combined CDI with R* matrix. A simulation research was used to verify these methods of CD-CAT. CDM was DINA model, the number of examinee was 1000, item bank was 300, the number of attributes was 6. PCCR was the evaluation indices. The result showed that PCCR of CTTIDR* method was higher than existing T-matrix method with 0.2697 under fixed-length CD-CAT at the end of initial stage. When the testing finished, CTTIDR* method was also the best. The average testing length was also smallest under the variable-length CD-CAT. Related Articles | Metrics

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Content Analysis of Interaction on the Good- and Poor-Outcome Cases in Counseling 2017, 40(2): 492-498.  Abstract ( )   PDF (1210KB) ( )   Abstract□□Objective: Change is the predominant goal of psychotherapy for all the theoretical orientations. Many researchers discuss the conditions of promoting the change from the angle of the clients, the consultants, and the counseling relationship variables. Ribeiro et al put forward an integrated framework and the conception of “Therapeutic Zone of Proximal Development” to explain the change process of the client. This study was aimed at exploring the characteristics of interactions in counseling of the good- and poor-outcome cases use the conception of “Therapeutic Zone of Proximal Development”, with the hope to guide the clinical practice. Methods: Based on the conception of “Therapeutic Zone of Proximal Development”, a Content Analysis was conducted to analyze the interactions in counseling of 5 good-outcome cases and 3 poor-outcome cases, employ the “Therapeutic Collaboration Coding System”. Procedures were as follows: (1) Preparation of the data. The data of the 8 cases of the talks were summarized, according to the requirements of the 1.5 round of talks as an analysis unit to form a text information assessment. (2) Simplification of the data: encoding and classification. After familiar with the “Therapeutic Collaboration Coding System”, each group assessed the type of therapist intervention, the type of client response, and the type of therapeutic exchanges for each assessment unit. Within the group to discuss the inconsistent encoding, and formation of a consistent encoding. (3) Data analysis and results presentation. Results: Following findings is revealed: (1) There are significant differences in the therapist interventions between the good- and poor-outcome cases (χ2=9.360, P=.002＜.05). Good-outcome cases use more supporting interventions and less challenging interventions than the poor-outcome cases do. Furthermore, there are also significant differences in the supporting interventions between the good- and poor-outcome cases (χ2=5.217, P=.022＜.05). Good-outcome cases support the dominant voice less than the poor ones, and support the no-dominant voice more than the poor ones. (2) On the client response, there is no significant difference between the good- and poor-outcome cases (χ2=.988, P=.320＞.05). The majority are validation responses, among which many cover-up invalidation may be coded as the validation and thus the ratio of validation responses is increased. This situation is more likely to occur in the cases of poor-outcome. (3) On the types of therapeutic exchanges, there are significant differences in the zone of “validation-safety” and “validation-tolerable risk” between the good- and poor-outcome cases, while there are no significant differences in the other zones. In the zone of “validation-safety”, good-outcome cases are less than the poor ones (χ2=7.639, P=.006＜.05), while in the zone of “validation-tolerable risk” good-outcome cases are more than the poor ones (χ2=13.528, P=.000＜.001). Conclusions: There are differences between the good- and poor-outcome cases. Clinical implications: counselors should consider to using more supporting interventions with appropriate combination of challenging interventions, increase support on the no-dominant voice. It could be helpful for counselors to carefully distinguish the cover components of validation response and adjust the interventions accordingly. In addition, it is suggested that counselors should “gently push the client forward along the ‘Therapeutic Zone of Proximal Development’”, and help clients eventually assimilate the no-dominant voices. Related Articles | Metrics

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Reconsolidation of Human Memory: Recent Advances and Clinical Relevance 2017, 40(2): 499-504.  Abstract ( )   PDF (344KB) ( )   The processes of memory formation and storage are complex and highly dynamic. The retrieval (or reactivation) of consolidated memories returns memories to a labile state. These reactivated memories then need to undergo a process of restabilization, called reconsolidation. During reconsolidation, memories can be enhanced, impaired, or updated with new information, thus providing an opportunity to modify seemingly stable memories, even for memories that are decades old. Here, we review recent advances in our understanding of human memory reconsolidation. Memory enhancement and erasure by affecting reconsolidation have recently been shown, by use of pharmacological manipulations and behavioural means . The presumed function of pharmacological manipulation on memory is through adrenergic receptors coupled with the adenylyl cyclase-linked G-protein receptors governing the cAMP cascade that leads to protein synthesis dependent long-term memory formation. Reconsolidation of a conditioned stimulus memory could be disrupted by behavioural means, namely by extinction. Extinction is a process by which conditioned stimulus is diminished by repeated presentations of the conditioned stimulus without presentation of the unconditioned stimulus. The extinction protocol has the advantage that it is noninvasive and safe. Reconsolidation processes are typically studied with a threeday experimental design. Based on the findings in rodents demonstrating that conditioned fear memory can be changed when reactivated, researchers sought to target the reconsolidation of fear memory in humans. An alternative way of modifying fear memories during reconsolidation is the combination of fear reactivation and extinction learning. The role of reconsolidation processes in the modification of episodic long-term memory traces has been addressed only rather recently. There is by now striking evidence that episodic memories can be updated, strengthened, or weakened during reconsolidation. After a summary of findings on the reconsolidation of human fear and episodic memory, we focus particularly on recent neuroimaging data that provide first insights into how reconsolidation processes are implemented in the human brain. Although there are important differences between different studies, together these studies suggest, at a general level, that during reactivation more or less the same areas are recruited that are involved in initial memory formation, such as amygdala , hippocampus, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Because memories are susceptible to modifications again after retrieval, this may provide a second window of opportunity to alter trauma memories. In recent evidence, the ability to modify established emotional memories has important implications for the treatment of many mental disorders, including anxiety disorders, such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and addiction. Currently, researches demonstrate reconsolidation of human memory repeatedly and across different tasks. Several boundary conditions of reconsolidation were identified under which memories that would normally undergo reconsolidation do not.The mechanism of reconsolidation process and its boundary conditions represented in the human brain are ambiguous.Many additional studies are required to follow initial laboratorial studies to determine whether reconsolidation modifications will be a successful strategy to treat PTSD and addiction in humans. These and related questions need to be addressed to enhance our understanding of the reconsolidation phenomenon and, in particular, its value in the treatment of aberrant memory processes in mental disorders. Related Articles | Metrics

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Conspiracy Theory’s Psychological Inquiry 2017, 40(2): 505-511.  Abstract ( )   PDF (367KB) ( )   Conspiracy theory can be described as a subset of false beliefs in which the ultimate cause of an event believed to be due to a plot by multiple actors working together with a clear goal in mind, often unlawfully and in secret. A lot of conspiracy theories are widespread. For example, conspiracy theories relating September 11 terrorist attacks propose that the attack on the Twin Towers was not a terrorist action but a governmental conspiracy. Given these issues, understanding the psychological origins of conspiracy theories becomes an important task for scholars. Concurrently, a large body of research has focused on individual difference correlates of conspiracy theories. This perspective is based on the notion that it is possible to measure conspiracy theory as an individual difference trait. There have been a number of initial efforts to measure individual difference in conspiracy theory. The most prominent specific conspiracy theory scales are Swami and colleague’s Belief in Conspiracy Theories Inventory and Darwin Neave and Holmes’s Conspiracy Theory Questionnaire. However, scales measuring specific conspiracy theory has already shown some defects:(1) most studies have employed novel measurements, with little consideration of the psychometric properties of the measure beyond noting the value of Cronbach’s alpha. (2) items from different scales referring to the same conspiracy theories may not be directly comparable due to differences in wording. (3) Also these scales are closely bound to specific temporal and geographical contexts. There have been some attempts to overcome these shortcomings. First, Brotherton et al. have developed a 15-item Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale. Then, Imhoff and Bruder developed a 12-item Conspiracy Mentality Scale. Bruder et al propose the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire, a short measure of generic conspiracy theories. Several studies based on these scales have examined association between conspiracy theory and paranoia, the Big Five personality domains, but results have been equivocal with some studies reporting significant associations with openness to experience and agreeableness and other reporting different results. Another class of studies has focused on thinking dispositions, for example, having highlighted the importance of intuitive thinking and need for cognitive closure which will render individuals to less scrutiny of evidence and a desire to learn truth. Other study proposed that conspiracy theories could be explained in terms of the fundamental cognitive errors: conspiracy theorists are more likely to make a dispositional inference about personified actors and susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy. Other scholars noted that the motivation process under conspiracy theories are characterized by need for order and group justification. Yet conspiracy theories have detrimental consequences, both for the individual and for the wider community, including negative civic, health and environment-protecting outcomes. There are evidences that exposure to conspiracy theories reduces intention to engage in politics, to reduce one’s carbon footprint, to vaccinate, and to engage in positive health behaviors. Future research should carry out more experimental studies. More studies should be taken under the Chinese culture background so as to explore the features of Chinese people’s conspiracy theories. Besides, it’s necessary to develop more effective intervention methods which can enlighten the cultivation of citizens’ rational and calm social mentality. Related Articles | Metrics