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    20 September 2013, Volume 36 Issue 5 Previous Issue    Next Issue

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    The Pendulum Tilted to the “Truth”: Empathizing-Systemizing Theory in Autism
    Xing-Liang Qi CHEN Wei
    2013, 36(5): 1261-1266. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (388KB) ( )  
    Empathizing-Systemizing (E-S) theory in Autism is a newly emerging theory in the field of autism research. It defined empathizing as both the drive and the ability to identify another person's mental state and to respond with appropriate emotions, and defined systemizing as the drive to analyze or construct systems. The two-factor theory proposed that people with autism had below average empathy, but average or even above average systemizing. This could explain the social features (the social and communication dif?culties) with below average empathy, as well as the nonsocial features (the narrow interests, rigid behavior and island of abilities) in autism spectrum conditions with average or even above average systemizing. The theory used the notion "truth" to integrate empathizing and systemizing into one dimension. Empathizing was put on the low-end of the dimension and the systemizing high-end of the dimension. That is, the theory considered there trade-off between empathizing and systemizing. This paper firstly reviewed the major concepts of the E-S theory and the relationship between them, and then compared the E-S theory with other major theories, such as the mind-blindness theory, the executive dysfunction (ED) theory, and weak central coherence (WCC) theory. The E-S theory added the defect of emotional component of empathy and intact or even superior skill in systemizing to the mind-blindness theory, so that it could describe the non-social feature of autism. On non-social feature description, the ED theory considered people with autism as perseveration that make the individual to can't shift attention, the WCC theory regarded people with autism drawn to detailed information for negative reasons, but the E-S theory considered the behaviors as being highly purposeful: it exists in order to understand a system. The E-S theory has several strengths, the most important of which is the two-factor theory that could explain both the social and nonsocial features of the condition. Secondly, this theory could help to characterize the unique profile of autism spectrum conditions, especially their intact or even superior systemizing drive. The article also discussed some problems about the E-S theory. First, the empathizing was considered to be comprised of cognitive component and affective component, but the systemizing only has cognitive component. So systemizing may only be associated with cognitive component of the empathizing, and affective empathy deficits may be a comorbidity in autism. Second, studies had shown that when empathizing, women are affected emotionally more than men. Another study found that empathizing and systemizing traits were independent in women, but largely dependent in men. These results suggested men were more in line with the model of cognitive component of empathizing and systemizing opposing to each other, and women' affective empathy would disturb the function of the model. If the sex differences exist in the mechanism of E-S, the pathogenesis of autism would have gender difference. Finally, the paper pointed out that the E-S theory is lack of evidences on the physical level, and that the physiological mechanism needs to be explored.
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    Review on the Decade Research of the Western Psychology of Women
    2013, 36(5): 1237-1241. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (320KB) ( )  
    Abstract Purpose: to explore the characteristics and rules of the western psychology of women, providing the theoretical reference and experience for our native research. Method: literature analysis, we systematically analyzed the decade research literatures on the western psychology of women from 2000. Results: the characteristics and rules of the research in western psychology of women are: the research topics from gender differences were changed to the special psychological and behavior phenomenon of women; the research subjects from the mainstream groups were changed to the diverse groups; the research methods from the previous single form were changed to integration form, especially pay attention to the qualitative research and longitudinal study. We expect the trends of the future research are: the reseach subjects and the method will be broaden and be deepened; be balanced between science and value;. there will be theoretical updating in the psychology of women following the change of social culture. Conclusions: the characteristics and rules of western women psychology can provide guidance for the localization research of feminist psychology in our country. Innovation: this research is the first systematic analysis and summarization for the decade research literatures in western psychology of women, with the creative suggestions for out native research. Key words: psychology of women, Review, prospect, localization
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    A Comparative Study on Psychological Empiricism and Rationalism and Hermeneutical Epistemology
    2013, 36(5): 1273-1277. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (361KB) ( )  
    Though the modern psychology has been trying to break away from the confinement of philosophy, its development, yet, tends spontaneously towards the epistemological orientation. And in fact empiricism and rationalism as well as hermeneutics have brought about vital impact on psychology development and each of the three, in terms of psychological study, holds fast to its own views in the aspects of the comprehension of natural property, the approach of knowledge acquisition and the manifestation of research findings as well as the selection of researching methods, from which, therefore, they are displaying three different features in the arena of the present psychology. In fact, empirical epistemology focuses on the characteristic description of various objects and empirical material collection, and it advocates that the presentational rules should be disclosed in the way of natural science study. Rationalism, however, concerns more about the intrinsic nature of objects and prefers to acquire a full understanding of definite phenomena through the ways of information processing, memory retrieval, schematic structure and perceptual input, and argues that the research findings can be revealed by formal schemata. But hermeneutics stresses the study of human activities and is very interested in the mutual effects between human beings and the environment. It tries to interpret all research findings semantically. Nevertheless, as for the psychology in the future, it is still required to perfect the theoretic foundation to confirm the researching methods that really fit for the study of human society and can fully illustrate the human nature.
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    Summary of Comorbidities of ADHD Based on Time Sequence
    Xu CHEN
    2013, 36(5): 1249-1254. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (344KB) ( )  
    ADHD is a common behavioral disorder characterized by the symptoms of inattention , hyperactivity and behavior impulse. While ADHD is a group of diseases which often occur in combination with one or more mental or non-mental disorders. Previous studies on comorbidities of ADHD mostly confine to symptoms of one or several comorbities, so we don’t have a system understanding of this issue. Comorbidities of ADHD can be divided into three parts according to the temporal order of occurrence. That’s pre-comorbidity ,simultaneous comorbidity and post-comorbidity. Pre-comorbidities present before the appearance of core symptoms of ADHD. For example, disturbance of sleep and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may precede first clinically relevant ADHD symptoms. Simultaneous comorbidities coincide with the time when ADHD symptoms reach a clinically significant level. Researchers find that some people with ADHD are diagnosed with non-organic enuresis and encopresis when ADHD symptoms reach a clinically significant level. What’s more, develop-mental dyslexia which is characterized by difficulties with reading comprehension, reading decoding, reading fluency and spelling, may manifest as simultaneous comorbidity with ADHD. Post-comorbidity is an important part of these comorbidities. These disorders in people with ADHD often occur several years after the appearance of core symptoms. For example, some people with ADHD have related symptoms of depression later on in the course of ADHD. As depression, researchers find that people with ADHD may also show symptom of anxiety disorders, OCD, CD, ODD and substance use disorder later on in the course of ADHD. On the basis of this classification, researchers will have a relatively systematic understanding of this issue. They will also have a more specific aim in the future studies. In this way , future studies will provide researchers with more effective material for the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD. To understand the development of comorbidity and do better in the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD, longitudinal study in patients with ADHD should be strengthened in the future.
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    The Neural Mechanisms of Prospective Memory: The Evidence from Clinical Research
    2013, 36(5): 1267-1272. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (359KB) ( )  
    Prospective memory means that remembering to execute planned events or acts at a time in the future. Prospective memory processing involves complex cognitive processes. Although 一n recent years, we obtain a lot of achievements in prospective memory, its neural mechanism is still a mystery. Clinical researches on prospective memory provides a lot of important empirical evidences, and thus becomes one of the important ways to study the neural mechanisms of prospective memory. This paper summarized the related literatures of prospective memory brain mechanisms and introduced the role of the prefrontal cortex, thalamus, medial temporal lobe and other brain regions in prospective memory. From clinical point of view, we analyzed the neural mechanisms of prospective memory through researching on the studies of the prospective memory of the Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder children, patients with Alzheimer's disease, Alcohol Dependency Syndrome and Medial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy patients. The evidences showed that the prefrontal cortex is mainly responsible for encoding, retrieving and monitoring processes in prospective memory, also has a close relationship with the intentions maintaining. The hypothalamus is related with the intentions implementation, and its interactions with the prefrontal cortex plays an important role in prospective memory monitoring. The medial temporal lobe is involved into the retrieval of the encoding source. There is a close relationship between the medial temporal lobe and the intentions activating. Researches displayed that the four stages of prospective memory processing are damaged for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder children, and the intention formation stage was damaged heavily. Patients with Alzheimer's disease, whose prefrontal and medial temporal lobe was damaged, and they are difficult in identifying clues and maintaining intentions. The prefrontal cortex and thalamus of Alcohol Dependency Syndrome patients was injured. These patients can be aware of their prospective memory impairment, but it seems that they can’t adore some internal or external strategies to address these deficiencies. The ability of intentions activating of the patients of Medial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy was impaired, and the link between the cues and the intentions has been violated. This study suggests that the prefrontal cortex may be involved in all the stages of prospective memory process and it may play a central role in the prospective memory processing. Studies also show that the prefrontal cortex as well as the interaction among some brain regions: prefrontal cortex, thalamus and medial temporal lobe maybe the neural basis of prospective memory encoding, maintaining, retrieving and implementation.
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    The discovery of mirror neurons and its beyond over mind-body dualism
    Hao-sheng YE
    2013, 36(5): 1230-1236. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (521KB) ( )  
    It was discovered originally by neuroscientist Rizzolatti and his group in university of Parma, Italy, in the early 1990s, mirror neuron represent a special class of brain cells that can fire both when the macaque executes a goal-directed motor act and when it observes another agent performing the same or a similar goal-directed motor act. They were called mirror neurons just because they seemed to directly reflect another individual’s act in observer’s brain. Functional neuroimaging studies demonstrate that there is also a mirror neuron system in human being. This kind of mirror mechanism allows us to directly understand the meaning of the actions of others by internally simulating them without any conscious efforts. Mirror neurons appear to form a cortical system that may match act execution and act observation, and connect cognition with body’s sensor-motor systems. Therefore, it seems that mirror neurons bridge the gap between mind and body, and open a new vision for reconsidering the mind-body relationship.
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    SNARC effect: Current Research, Theories and Suggestions
    2013, 36(5): 1242-1248. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (461KB) ( )  
    In the processes of magnitude comparisons or parity judgments, the left (right) hand responds to small (large) numbers faster than the right (left) hand. Such association is known as the Spatial–Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect. This study first introduces the origin and theoretical explanations of the SNARC effect. These explanations arise mainly from visuo-spatial coding and verbal-spatial coding aspects. The SNARC effect stems largely from visuo-spatial coding of magnitude (e.g., the mental number line hypothesis). Dehaene et al. (1993) indicates that the numerical representation appears to be a line from left to right. Small numbers are represented on the left whereas large numbers on the right. The spatial position of a number is activated automatically when you see this number. The spatial position of numerical representation corresponds to the position of the left–right coordinates of external space in the visuo-spatial frame. The number on the left responds faster when pressing the left button. Meanwhile, the number on the right responds faster when pressing the right button. Recently, many works began to challenge the visual spatial coding theory (Fias, Dijck, & Gevers, 2011; Gevers, Verguts, Reynvoet, Caessens, & Fias, 2006; Proctor & Cho, 2006). They suggested that with respect to the verbal-spatial frame, the SNARC effect results from a congruency between verbally coding numbers as small or large and verbally coding responses as left or right. Indeed, it is exactly this categorization of external space through verbal concepts such as “left,” “right,” “above,” or “below” that defines our conceptual coding of space. Such explanation is entitled verbal-space interpretation. These models include polarity coding theory and dual route coding model. The fundamental difference between visuo-spatial and verbal-spatial coding arises from different views on whether the numerical mental representation is characterized by spatial nature. To solve the theoretical debate, scientists have attempted to examine the brain mechanisms of the SNARC effect to provide the neural basis over the last decade. Cutini et al. (2012) reported a hemodynamic feature of the SNARC effect in the bilateral intraparietal sulcus (i.e., a key region for numerical magnitude representation) and left angular gyrus (ANG) (i.e., a region responsible for processing verbal number). They therefore rejected the point that the SNARC effect is fully restrained to the stage in response selection. Moreover, they disagreed with the basic theories that overlook the numerical spatial representation. Further research is thus required from the perspective of neuropsychology. Second, this paper introduces the summarization of the character of this effect – popularity and flexibility. The popularity of the SNARC effect arises from the fact that the SNARC effect is completely determined by the numerical spatial nature, and is not influenced by experimental materials and response methods. This study discusses the relationship between the SNARC effect and the Simon effect, and between the SNARC effect and the MARC effect. The SNARC effect is a consistent and stable effect because it never alters in the range of response time. In contrast, the Simon effect weakens and even reverses in the range of response time. Furthermore, the brain mechanism of the SNARC effect is beneficial to solving the theoretical debate and on the stage response problems. Finally, three problems are proposed for further examination: (1) the processing mechanisms of the SNARC effect; (2) the theoretical exploration of the SNARC effect; (3) the nature of the SNARC effect.
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    Comparing Life Regrets of Chinese and Americans: On the Opportunity and Importance of Life Domains
    2013, 36(5): 1223-1229. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (455KB) ( )  
    The content of regrets lies outside the mainstream of regret research for decades due to lack of theoretical summary. It was not until 2005 that Roese and Summerville proposed an opportunity principle to explain the rankings of people’s biggest life regrets. They first developed a 12-category framework of life domains, and then did a meta-analysis of eleven previous regret ranking studies with this framework. The results revealed that Americans’ six biggest regrets fell into the following life domains (in descending order): education, career, romance, parenting, self-improvement, and leisure. Their laboratory evidences further showed that greater perceived opportunity within twelve life domains would evoke more intense regret. On basis of these findings, Roese and Summerville (2005) developed an anti-intuitive opportunity principle, which claimed that opportunity bred regret. However Beike, Markman and Karadogan (2009) showed that feelings of regret were more likely elicited by perceptions of lost opportunity but those of future opportunity. Using the framework of life domains, we did a simple meta-analysis with two Chinese biggest regrets research, including one big-sample survey. The Chinese results showed remarkable agreement with American’s on one hand, that is, Chinese five biggest regrets centered on (in descending order) education, career, self-improvement, romance and parenting. On the other hand, there were some differences between the two countries: 1) regrets in a unique life domain of guangxi in Chinese sample ranked sixth, and 2) there were no regrets in the domains of spirituality and community for the Chinese participants. The finding suggests that besides (lost) opportunity, the importance of life domain would play a vital role in regret as well.
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    Peace Psychology:History,Theoretical Models and Directions
    2013, 36(5): 1255-1260. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (390KB) ( )  
    Peace psychology for a peaceful world is a new trend in the latest twenty years in psychology field. It went through incubation period, initiation period and foundation period. Nowadays there are three most influential theoretical models:Three-dimensional Peace Theory Model, Peaceful Selfhood Model, and Positive Peace Processes Multilevel Model. Peace psychology has restored the peace value in psychology field and enlarged research vision. For further development, peace psychology needs a theoretical breakthrough from capitalist system improvement to the Marxism perspective. It needs more integration with positive psychology and social psychology. It also needs to conduct more empirical studies into social life. There will be a brighter future for peace psychology based on a wide framework under a cross-cultural context in a multi methodological perspective. Based on the analysis of Chinese current situation of diplomacy, military and domestic development, it will be highly practical to implement further research on peaceful diplomacy psychology, peaceful societal building at the transforming age in Chinese context.
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    The Relationship between Internet use and children’s loneliness——The Moderating Effect of Personality
    2013, 36(5): 1140-1145. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (331KB) ( )  
    With its rapid diffusion, the Internet is playing a more and more important role in the daily lives of Chinese children. Literature shows the Internet is inconsistently associated with loneliness. The impacts of the Internet on children’s loneliness may lie in how children use the Internet. And personality could be an important moderating variable. The present study aimed to examine the impacts of types of Internet use (such as information seeking, online entertainment and online communication) on children’s loneliness and the moderating effect of children’s personality. Internet Use Questionnaire, Illinois Loneliness Questionnaire, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), and Family Affluence Scale (FAS) were administered to 637 Grade 3?6 children to examine the relationship between Internet use and children’s loneliness and the moderating effect of personality. The surveys were conducted in the participants’ classrooms and trained research assistants were present during all testing. All the completed questionnaires were collected by research assistants on the spot. No teacher was present during all testing to avoid response bias. Multiple regression analyses were employed to examine the impacts of Internet activities on children’s loneliness and the moderating effect of personality. Age and family income were entered as controlled variables. The results showed that: (1) children used the Internet more for information seeking and entertainment than communication. The most popular Internet activities for children were seeking information related to learning and life, online gaming, online video, and online music. Online communication was less prevalent in children. (2) High frequency of online information seeking significantly predicted children’s low loneliness(β= ?.20, p<.001). (3) Personality moderated the relationship between some types of Internet use and children’s loneliness. First, social compensation effects were found in the relationship between online communication and loneliness. High frequency of online communication significantly predicted low loneliness only for those high neurotic children(β=?.20,p<.05). While for those low neurotic children, the association was insignificant. Second, poor-get-poorer effects were found the relationship between online entertainment and loneliness. High frequency of online entertainment significantly predicted high loneliness for those introverted children(β=.24,p<0.05). While for those extroverted children, the association was insignificant. Personality did not moderate the relationship between online information seeking and loneliness. The present study extends our understanding of the impacts of the Internet on loneliness. The results suggest that personality moderates the relationship between some Internet activities and children’s loneliness. The study has some practical implications for parents and teachers to help children use the Internet appropriately. Furthermore, almost all previous studies are concerned with adolescents and adults, leaving children’s Internet use unexplored. The present study bridges these gaps by focusing on children’s Internet use.
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    The Developmental Levels and Process of Number Concept in Preschoolers: From the View of Knower Levels Account
    2013, 36(5): 1133-1139. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (464KB) ( )  
    Study on children’s number concept have occupied important position in the research on children’s cognitive development. However there are conflicts in this field. Susan Carey(2006, 2007, 2008)and colleagues have proposed a “knower-levels account” to describe the development of children’s number concept from a new aspect and also categorized children into different knower levels. Moreover, they proposed that successor function was the very basic reason that can be used to explain the difference between “subset-knowers” and “cardinal-principle knowers”. The present study was to explore the development of number concepts and examine whether the successor function were acquired step by step or all-or-none. 100 preschoolers of 2- to 5-year-olds, from two kindergartens in Hangzhou city, Zhejiang Province, participated in the study. The Give-N task was used to separate 2- to 5-year-olds into children who could give the right number of items for only a subset of the numerals in their count list (“subset-knowers”) and children who could give the right number for all numerals tested (“cardinal-principle knowers”). The results of the study showed: 1) The developmental pattern of preschoolers’ number concept was as follows: the cardinal number concept of 2- to 5-year-olds was developing continually. 3- to 4-year-old was the critical period of cardinal number concept. 2) From the view of “knower-levels account”, most 4-year-olds have already achieved the very high level of cardinal principle knower, while 2- to 3-year-olds were still on the pre-number level to the third level. Children of 2- to 3-year-old were the subset knowers. Chinese preschoolers could also be categorized into Carey’s knower levels and the result somehow supported Carey’s account. 3) From the view of “successor function”, performance on a series of novel numerical tasks supported the hypothesis that not only the cardinal-principle-knowers understood how counting implemented the successor function, but also subset-knowers understood the successor function in the condition of small sets. The successor function was acquired step by step, not all-or-none.
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    The Development of Primary School Children’s Ability of Shame Emotional Understanding
    2013, 36(5): 1163-1167. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (320KB) ( )  
    Virtue of shame has been highly esteemed within Chinese traditional culture, especially as for “face”. Conscious of shame is one of the most important criteria of one’s moral level. Individual would feel shame when one offended social rules or internal moral principles, thus the conscious of shame would act as a main restrain mechanism which maintained individual fulfillment as well as social stabilization and development. As a senior emotion,shame closely related to moral development and it’s mechanism of occurrence and development were great significant to the individual’s development. A lot of achievements have been made in the field of shame research. But current studies about shame mostly focus on (1) the difference between shame and guilt; (2) the methods of dealing with shame; (3) the relationship of shame and mental health; (4) sensibility of shame and its influential factors. Besides, instead of whole range of 6 grades of primary school children, most subjects are within the confines of undergraduates, high school students, high grades pupils and young children. Former research has indicated that affection on one hand understanding underlies emotional communication and social relationship, on the other hand plays a favorable index reflecting individual development and social adaption. The present study was designed to explore (1) how did the ability of understanding of shame developing going with age increase among 1-6 grades pupils; (2) was there gender difference. Two studies were present. In study 1, we collected and verified the shame scenario stories for study 2 from two groups which were randomly selected from 1-6 grades (120 in group 1,180 in group 2,evenly divided between boys and girls) as the measure material for developmental characteristics of the ability of shame emotional understanding. The material includes four scenario stories; each story was set after three settled questions to find out the understanding of feeling of shame, reason of shame of primary school children, and their following behavior. In study 2, we used the measure material made in study 1 to measure the developmental characteristics of 300 primary school children’s ability of shame emotional understanding from 1-6 grades (50 per grade, evenly divided between boys and girls). The results were as follows: (1) Primary school children’s ability of shame emotional understanding had an overall development trend, and in grade 2-3 there was a stage of rapid development. (2) The ability of shame emotional understanding in different scenario stories generally conformed to the whole line development trend of shame emotional understanding. However, there were differences between different grades. There were significant differences on ability of shame emotional understanding among the four scenarios, and children had the highest ability of shame emotional understanding in morality scenarios, followed by being fools in public situation, cheating situation and learning situation. (3) There was no general difference on primary school children’s ability of shame emotional understanding, and there was no significant gender difference in the four scenarios except morality. The conclusions are derived from this study: (1) Primary school children’s ability of shame emotional understanding has an overall development trend with their age, and there was no significant gender difference. (2) In the four scenarios, primary school children had the highest ability of shame emotional understanding in morality scenarios, and boys’ scores were higher than girls’.
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    Accuracy and Bias of Children's Perceptions of Peer Acceptance in Middle Childhood and Prospective Associations with Social Withdrawal
    you zhiqi Zong-Kui ZHOU
    2013, 36(5): 1153-1158. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (376KB) ( )  
    Children begin to continually improve their self-evaluation ability through social comparison during middle childhood. Previous studies indicated that there is no agreement on whether perception of peer acceptance differs when children are rating a same-gender or opposite-gender peer group. Furthermore, some studies indicated that children develop more accurate and positive bias perceptions of themselves with increase grade in middle childhood. This issue is important in part because there might be an association between children’s perception of peer acceptance and their social withdraw behaviors. Therefore, the main goals of the present study were to investigate gender and grade differences in peer acceptance perception accuracy in middle childhood, and to explore associations between these perceptions and two types of social withdrawal (active isolation and passive withdrawal). The study sample was selected by a random cluster sampling method, comprised of students from 3rd grade to 6th grade in an elementary school in Wuhan City, China. A total of 498 students (276 boys and 222 girls) completed the questionnaires. The children in the current study were asked to rate how much they liked their classmates and how much they would be liked by each classmate, and children also were asked to complete the Self-Perceived Social Competence (SPSC) measure and the Revised Class Play questionnaire. Accuracy of peer acceptance was indexed by the mean difference (absolute values) between pairs of predicted and received ratings, and bias of peer acceptance was measured by standardized residuals derived by regressing children’s responses to the Social Acceptance Subscale of the SPSC onto peer acceptance ratings. F-test was performed to examine sex or grade differences on the variables, and multilevel regression analyses were conducted for explored the association among variables. The results showed that: (1) Higher grade children displayed more accurate peer acceptance perception (including perceptions towards both genders) of peer acceptance than that of lower grade children. (2) There was no gender difference in the accuracy of perceptions of peer acceptance by same-gender groups, but girls in fourth grade, compared to boys in fourth grade, displayed more accurate perceptions of peer acceptance by the opposite-gender group. (3) Same-gender and opposite-gender accuracy of peer acceptance significantly positively predicted both active isolation and passive withdrawal behaviors; peer acceptance perception bias significantly negatively predicted passive withdrawal, but not active isolation behaviors. In terms of the study’s unique contribution to the literature on the first time to used Chinese sample to investigate accuracy and bias of children's perceptions of peer acceptance, and the first time to explore the association between two types of social withdrawal and them.
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    Study on the Construction and Characteristics of Friendship Network in Low-grade Deaf School——a Two- year Longitudinal Study
    huizhong he
    2013, 36(5): 1159-1162. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (230KB) ( )  
    Class is the main place for peer interaction. The goals of this study were to explore the characteristics and the construction of friendship network of children with hearing impairment in class and its dynamic development, and we also researched on the relationship between status in friendship network and personal feature (appearance、intelligence、academic achievement). In this study, we used peer nomination to define the friendship network, and peer nomination rank and assignment for the scores of appearance, Raven intelligence test for intelligence. Our sample consisted of 13 students with hearing impairment, from an oral class and a sign language class of a Deaf school in Shanghai. It is a 2-year longitudinal study, which was tested once a term. In the first test, there were 3 girls and 10 boys, with the average age 10.8(SD=2.45). The result shows that in the early third grade, the individual network center degree of student with hearing impairment has highly significant relevance with appearance(r=.684, p<0.01), academic achievement(r=.593, p<0.01) and age(r=.671, p<0.05). But this relevance fades with the grade rise. Until the fourth grade friendship network centrality are not significantly related with the factors. There is a stable small group in friendship network of student with hearing impairment, whose members are in the center of the friendship network. The mutual choose friendship of students with hearing impairment in the class has medium degree stability, among which the four times and three times mutual choice account for 45.2% of the total number.
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    Maternal-fetal relationship: concept, measurement, and predictor
    2013, 36(5): 1146-1152. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (468KB) ( )  
    maternal-fetal relationship refers to mother’s cognitive representation, emotion and interaction to unborn fetus. Substantial studies used the term maternal-fetal attachment, prenatal attachment to describe this relationship. However, there are some issues when using this term. According to attachment theory, the attachment behavioral system is shaped by cognition, affect, and experiences of interactions with the caregiver and infant could explore the world in safety and be consoled by their attachment figure. Meanwhile, it is also different from adult attachment because there is no reciprocal interaction between mother and unborn fetus. Moreover, mother cannot seek care from their unborn children. Therefore, the present study used a more appropriate term maternal-fetal relationship. There are three tools which were mostly used in measuring maternal-fetal relationship: Maternal-Fetal Attachment Scale, Maternal Antenatal Attachment Scale, and Prenatal Attachment Inventory. The Maternal Fetal Attachment Scale was developed by Cranley (1981) to measure the extent to which pregnant women engage in behaviors that represent an affiliation and interaction with their unborn child. It includes 24 items and 5 factors: differentiation of self from the fetus, interaction with the fetus, attributing characteristics and intentions to the fetus, giving of self, and role-taking. The Maternal Antenatal Attachment Scale was constructed by Condon (1993), which containing 19 items, all focusing upon feelings, behaviors and attitudes towards the fetus. It includes two dimensions: quality and intensity. The Prenatal Attachment Inventory, which was the preferable tool, was developed by M?ller (1993). It includes 21 items which measuring pregnancy adaptation and attachment literature and describe the affiliation with the fetus.
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    The Crowding Motives: the Role of PSM and Extrinsic Motivation in Public Investment
    Li Ming
    2013, 36(5): 1181-1186. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (363KB) ( )  
    Public Service Motivation (PSM) is one of the most popular concepts in modern public management. Employing high PSM persons so becomes an important issue in public sector, because higher PSM is hypothesised to be associated with higher performance, however, how to motivate individuals with high PSM is a pending question. The core of this question is the interaction of PSM and extrinsic motivators in predicting performance. There are different findings according to the role of extrinsic motivators in PSM- performance relation. Frey’s (1997, 2001) Motivation Crowding Theory was use to integrate these finding. The main purpose of this study is to test hypothesis derived from former studies on extrinsic-PSM-performance relation with a public investment game experiment paradgim. This study used a 12-item scale for measuring PSM and a 2 (extrinsic motivator types: monetary vs honor)×2 (sex: male vs female)×3 (PSM level: Low, Medium, and High) repeated measure design, with the amount of public investments in 3 stages as the repeated dependent variables. This game adapted from Chen’s (2009) public investment dilema, and ask participants to donate for a public project with 20 initial capital. The donation will bring public good and capital increament, and also will bring individual profits or losts. There are three stages: the first for free donation, the second for rewarding donation, the third for free donation after the reward was canceled. Each stage has six trial for participants to donate. Results of this study are as follows: 1) PSM significantly predicted the public investment amount of the third stage and the total amount of public investment; 2) variables such as the extrinsic motivator types, the setup or cancel of these motivators, the sex of participants, and the PSM level infuluence the public investment sigificantly; 3) the setup of moneytary reward could not enhance public donation in this game for most participants, exept for low-level females; while it could bring very negtive conseqence, i.e., bring motivation crowding-out effect; 4) the setup of honor rewards in this game could enhance the investment for male participants in this game, fortunately, the removal of such reward didn’t bring negative effect for male participants, but unfortunately, crowed out PSM for most female participants. In general, crowding-in effect existed only in honor rewards condition for all male participant, not matter high or low the PSM he has, and crowding-out effect existed in both motivating condition for all PSM female participants, no matter high or low PSM she has. The result support those study finding that females are sensitive to social context in public domains, however, only in a kind of negetive way in this study. This study use an experimental paradigm to explore the relation between extrinsic motivation, PSM, sex, and setup or cancel of motivation in predicting performance in public donation game, and the result partly support former findings. These results provided reference for employing newcomers or motivating employees for Chinese human resource managers, especially in public sectors. However, some issues may limit the applying of the results, such as sampling, cultural adaptation, social desiability in measuring, and task designing, etc. Future study should consider this issue to enhance the external validity.
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    Workplace Ostracism and Employees’ In-Role Behaviors and Extra-Role Behaviors: The Mediating Effect of Belonging Need
    2013, 36(5): 1176-1180. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (311KB) ( )  
    Researches on ostracism became popular in the 70s of last century, with the development of theories of belonging needs and self-esteem. It is typically defined as being ignored and excluded, and often occurs without excessive explanation or explicit negative attention. Workplace ostracism, which is usually conducted by supervisors or colleagues in the organizations, is one special example. After being ostracized, individuals’ fundamental needs (especially the belonging need) will be threatened, and then victims have to search for various ways, including behavioral changes, to compensate these thwarted needs. In other words, workplace ostracism is likely to influence organizational behaviors. The current study was to explore the relationships among workplace ostracism (both from supervisors and coworkers), employees’ in-role behaviors and extra-role behaviors (i.e., organizational citizenship behavior), and the mediating role of belonging need in aforesaid relationships, based on the William’s temporal need-threat model. In total, 247 employees collected from different organizations were sampled. To avoid the common method variance two waves of survey were administrated, using time-lagged design with one week in between. In the first wave, employees were asked to provide ratings of workplace ostracism (both from supervisors and coworkers) and some demographic information. In the second wave, the satisfaction of belonging needs and the level of both in-role and extra-role behaviors were asked. After investigated, the data collected in two waves were matched, input into computer and analyzed by software of SPSS 16.0 Hierarchical Regression Modeling (HRM) was employed to analyze the data. Results indicated that: workplace ostracism (both from supervisors and coworkers) could negatively predict employees’ in-role behaviors and extra-role behaviors, but these relationships would be mediated by belonging need, namely, workplace ostracism could affect employees’ belonging need, then their behavioral performance would be impaired at last. Workplace ostracism is a negative phenomenon that can not be ignored. These findings not only examined the relationships among workplace ostracism, belonging needs, in-role and extra-role behaviors, but also attracted attentions of domestic scholars to workplace ostracism which is a hot area of occupational health psychology. Future researchers can explore the influence of ostracism on employees’ attitude, behavior and health integratedly, and the mediating effect of other fundamental needs, i.e., self-esteem, meaningful existence, and control need. It is also interesting to understand the response of victims after being ostracized for a long timefrom dynamic perspective.Besides theoretical contributions, the present findings hada lot of important practical implications. For example, they offered some suggestions of preventing workplace ostracismfor organization managers and how to reduce its influence for victims through satisfying their belonging need.
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    Organizational Innovative Culture,the Strength of Culture and Employee Innovative Behavior:A Multilevel Analysis
    Wei-Qi CHEN
    2013, 36(5): 1187-1193. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (440KB) ( )  
    Numerous studies have been done to explore the direct relationships between organizational culture and individual innovative behavior, but little attention has been paid to the role of the cultural strength. We attempt to fill these voids by examining the joint effects of organizational innovative culture (content), and the strength of organizational culture, as well as their interactive effects, on employee innovative behavior. The main theses of the study are that (a) all these organizational cultural attributions are related to employee innovative behavior in their own unique way, and (b) the strength of organizational culture moderates the effect of organizational innovative culture. 10,856 employees from 156 operating divisions of a large state-owned power grid company were surveyed. The sample size of each division is no less than 15 subjects, with a mean of 69.6. The subjects reported their perceptions of the organizational supportiveness to innovation and their own innovative behavior on Likert-5 scales. Indexes of the profile similarity between employees’ values and organizational values (PSIs) were calculated to represent the value congruence between person and organization, and then averaged within each operating division to represent the cultural strength. The employees' perceptions of innovative culture were also aggregated to the organization (division) level for multi-level analyses purpose. ICC(1), ICC(2), and RWG had been calculated to justify the aggregation. Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM) analyses indicate that organizational innovative culture fosters and facilitates employee innovative behavior, while the strength of organizational culture hinders employee innovation. Results also indicate that strong culture can strengthen the positive effects of organizational innovative culture. The results of the present study suggest that not only the content but also the strength of the organizational culture are crucial for employee innovation. We argue that a more sophisticated model should be adopted to understand the roles of organizational culture. Regarding the strength of the culture can elaborate the understanding of the relationship between organizational culture and individual innovative behavior. More attentions should be paid to the direct, linear effect, as well as the moderating effect of organizational culture on employees’ outcomes.
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    “differential justice” and “differential concern”: on the collective prejudices of Chinese moral orientation
    2013, 36(5): 1168-1175. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (545KB) ( )  
    The problem of moral orientation is a fundamental problem in the study of moral psychology, and also a core issue in the moral value judgment. Many moral events that occurred in China in recent years are closely related to moral orientation in a deep way. There are two views about moral orientation in modern Western psychology: One is the orientation of “moral justice”, which is represented by Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg; and the other is the orientation of “moral concern”, represented by Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings. Although “moral justice” is the main part of moral judgment, as the supplement of moral justice, the effect of “moral concern” in moral judgment cannot be ignored. Because of the long influence of history, geography, mode of production as well as traditional culture, especially the Confucian culture, the pattern of traditional Chinese society was differential. The concept of “differential pattern” was proposed by Mr. Fei Xiaotong in his book “Local China”, and he believes that the rural society in China is a society of acquaintances. In this kind of society, kinship and geographic region are unified; it’s clear and overlapped natural geographic and social life boundaries make the society a closed social space. The differential pattern of networks is based on Clan group, and the relationship between people is arranged by kinship. In this pattern, being the center, everyone has his own network. It is just like throwing a stone into the lake, there will be a circle of ripples around the stone, and the distance of ripples can represent the closeness of social relations. Therefore, the Chinese people, especially those who are affected by the Confucian culture, show moral features of “differential pattern”. We can say with certainty, both view of moral orientation in Western psychology also exist in traditional Chinese moral system, i.e., we can find the concepts “moral justice” and “moral concern” in our traditional moral system. However, the difference is that moral justice and moral concern operate in the manner of “differential pattern” in Chinese traditional society, and so can be called “differential justice” and “differential concern”. We believe that the use of “differential justice” and “differential concern” is the most accurate way to describe the moral orientation of Chinese traditional society. This is not only the characteristic of the traditional Chinese moral orientation, but also a moral collective prejudice that flowing in the veins of Chinese people. We believe that with the deepening of the reform, the perfection of various social systems, and the improvement of the modernization level of Chinese people, the traditional moral collective prejudices can be overcome.
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    Intersession Experiences and Treatment Outcome in Psychotherapy: Evidence from Longitudinal Data
    2013, 36(5): 1216-1222. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (430KB) ( )  
    Psychotherapy process includes insession process and intersession process, occurring in and outside the counseling room respectively, and the latter has been neglected for a long time in psychotherapy research history. Intersession process refers to the thoughts, memories, and feelings about therapists or therapy sessions that clients experience during the intervals between sessions. Intersession process is a joint product of actual in-session therapeutic interaction and the client’s prior personality, in particular, the client’s conscious and unconscious transference potentials. It connects the therapeutic process and client’s actual life, and has repaired functions for clients in therapy. The present study aimed to identify the effects of intersession processes on treatment outcome over successive sessions in short-term therapy. 12 male and 24 female student visitors of a college counseling center, with a mean age of 22.47(SD=2.60) and without personality disorder or other psychiatric symptoms, participated in the study. Intersession process was measured by Chinese version Intersession Experience Questionnaire (IEQ), which consisted of eight factors of four dimensions. Treatment Outcome was measured by Outcome Questionnaire-45 (OQ-45) and higher scores meant more severe symptoms. Participants were asked to complete IEQ and OQ before each session from session 2 to 9. Finally 151 sessions/36 cases were collected, and the mean measures of each case was 4.19 (SD=1.26). A two-level hierarchical linear model was built to investigate the effects of time and time-depended predictor IEQ on OQ. Results indicated that, generally, in the short-term psychotherapy the symptoms of clients significantly declined in linear tendency, while OQ decreased by 1.27 point after each session. The proportion of total variance between the cases of the regression equation was 79.76%, which meant the necessity to use multilevel analysis. The initial symptoms and the change rates of OQ over time differed significantly among different cases. The different change rates could be well predicted by the positive and negative factors of emotion dimensions of IEQ, with contributions of 40.79% to total rate variance. When IEQ positive or negative emotion factors increased by 1 point, the OQ scores decreased by 7.398 or increased by 6.433, respectively. However, other three dimensions of IEQ had no significant effects on outcome. The results suggested that the intersession processes could well predict the different change rates of symptoms among individuals in short-term therapy, and intersession emotions may reflects the client’s transference potentials to therapist, which can be acknowledged and used to facilitate treatment.
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    Review of the Application of Hierarchical Linear Modeling in Psychological Researches Since 2002 to 2011 in China
    2013, 36(5): 1194-1200. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (453KB) ( )  
    In order to explore the present situation and problems of using hierarchical linear modeling in psychological researches in china, this article reviewed and analyzed 50 literatures of China psychological journals from 2002 to 2011 included in CNKI database. A checklist, derived from the methodological literature on hierarchical linear modeling and focusing on the issues of model development and specification, data preparation, estimation method and hypothesis testing, was used to analyze those 50 articles using hierarchical linear modeling in psychological researches in china. The results of sample description are as follows: (1) HLM method has been widely used in our psychological researches, for example, Management, development and education psychology. (2) The most common applications were two-level models where individuals were nested within contexts. In addition, it deserve to be mentioned that the sample size of level 2 is significant larger than the sample size of level 1. Although HLM method in our psychological researches has been widely used, there are a number of problems in its application: (1) In model development and specification, one could not determine how many models were estimated in five articles, what type of centering if any was used in most of the articles, Whether the null model was tested in half articles. (2) In data preparation, no article reports the test whether the data were consistent with assumptions, for example, distributional assumptions; no article implements the prior power analysis; In many articles, one could not determine whether the data were complete, if they were not complete, the treatment method of missing value has not been described. (3) In estimation method and hypothesis testing, except six articles, one could not determine how the models were estimated; many articles have not report enough information for a reader to critique the reported analyses, for example, standard errors for the parameters of interest and proportion of explained variance. Four guidelines for researchers reporting hierarchical linear analyses are provided.
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    The Influence of Psychological Distance on Spontaneous Trait Inference
    2013, 36(5): 1031-1036. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (400KB) ( )  
    The present study adopted a false recognition paradigm to explore the impact of psychological distance on spontaneous trait inferences (STI). Experiment 1 use 2 (pair type: picture-can be inferred trait words, picture-can’t be inferred trait words) × 2 (spatial distance: near, distant) mixed design. Then they were asked to decide whether they had seen the trait words in the previous sentence about this person to explore the formation of spontaneous trait inference. The results showed that, perceivers form more STI about spatially distal actors vs. spatially proximal actors. Experiment 2 use 2 (pair type: picture-can be inferred trait words, picture-can’t be inferred trait words) × 2 (temporal distance: near, distant) mixed design, participants’ response was the same as Experiment 1. The results showed that, perceivers form more STI about temporally distal (vs. proximal) actors. In sum, distant psychological distance facilitates STI formation compared with proximal psychological distance, results were discussed within the framework of construal level theory(CLT).
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    The Eye-movement Characteristics in External-anchor Decision Making Tasks Backed by Positive and Negative Information
    Xiao-Zhuang WANG Guo-Li Yan Zhi-Fang LIU
    2013, 36(5): 1026-1030. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (325KB) ( )  
    Anchoring effect was refer to the phenomena of estimation bias that the judgment and decision making result or target value approached excessively to the initial information or value. It was a heuristic bias found in exploring decision making behavior and process in the descriptive paradigm of decision making research. The study of anchoring effects was of great significant to understand the negative influence of the heuristic strategy in decision making and seeking effective ways to reduce the decision making bias. The present study examined how anchor value affects the decision making process and target value in external-anchor decision making tasks with eye tracker. Simple random design was used in the experiment with material of general knowledge backed by positive and negative information. The independent variable was anchor value with high and low levels. Dependent variables were judgment ratio of anchor value comparing questions, index of anchoring effect, frequencies of choices and eye movement index (IA_FSA_COUNT and IA_FSA_DURATION etc.). Participants were 64 university students, with 31 males and 33 females. Subject’s task was making anchor question judgments after reading the background information, and then estimating the target value. The background information and the decision making tasks were presented in four steps overlaying. The statistics indicated that Anchoring Effect Index was above 0.76, and there were no differences between anchor groups. IA-FSA-COUNT and IA-FSA-DURATION measures indicated: (1) At the stage of answering anchor comparing questions, IA-FSA counts from “anchor value IA” to “negative information IA” were more than that to “positive information IA”, and IA-FSA duration from “anchor value IA” to “negative information IA” was longer than that to “positive information IA”. (2) At the stage of answering target value estimate questions, IA-FSA counts from “estimate question IA” to “anchor value IA” were more than that to “positive and negative information IA”, and IA-FSA duration from “estimate question IA” to “anchor value IA” was longer than that to “positive and negative information IA”. The results suggested that external-anchor of dual background information aroused high level anchoring effect, and there were no differences between anchor value types. Participants paid more attention to the negative information. The negative information weighed more heavily in understanding the context. Anchoring effect was aroused at the stage of answering anchor comparing questions. The anchoring effect was generated by the primary processing to the anchor value. The results supported the explaining of selective-accessibility mechanism and the negativity bias in information processing.
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    The Mechanism of Non-inversion in Similarity judgment and Difference Judgment
    2013, 36(5): 1128-1132. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (308KB) ( )  
    Similarity serves as a central construct in theoretical accounts of many cognitive processes, such as perception, classification, learning, memory, problem-solving and reasoning. Previous research has suggested that similarity judgment and difference judgment are inverses of one another. The philosopher James Mill said: “distinguishing differences and similarities is the same thing; a similarity being nothing but a slight difference”. That is, similarity and difference judgments are logical opposites; as similarity increases, difference will decrease to the same extent. For instance, if wolves and dogs have a similarity rating of 4 on a 1-to-5 scale, they ought to have a difference rating of 2. Furthermore, in the words of William James, “To abstract the ground of either difference or likeness (where it is not ultimate) demands an analysis of the given objects into their parts”. In other words, the underlying basis for similarity is shared attributes or constituents. For example, a sparrow and a crow are perceived to be similar because of their many common features (e.g. beak, wings). However, studies have found that similarity and difference judgments are not necessarily logical opposites. At least in certain cases, the perception of similarity is not inversely related to the perception of difference. At first, in addition to shared features or attributes, the relations among features also influence on similarity judgments, and features and relations may have different roles in similarity judgments and difference judgments, which induce no-inversion especially when both relational similarity and attributional similarity are considered. Secondly, like structural relations and attributes, thematic relations also have effect on similarity, and the thematic relations are more salient for similarity than for difference. In this case, the similarity judgment and difference judgment are also not logical opposites. Behavior studies suggested that the mechanism of this non-inversion can be explained by the contrast model, structural alignment model and the dual process model to some extent. Event related potential (ERP) studies suggested that the effect of pictures and words information on similarity judgment may be different. Furthermore, the similarity could be divided to perceptual similarity and conceptual similarity based on the dual-coding model of the picture-word information, which may be considered complementary as they were viewed in the earlier literature, rather than mutually exclusive, which reflect the essence of this cognitive process. What’s more, based on previous studies, the time course of similarity should be consist of three stages at least, that is, selective attention (N1), perceptual processing (P2) or semantic processing and integration (N400 or P600), and comparison and judgment (P3). Comparison and judgment is the core process of similarity judgment, while the former two processes are the basis of comparison and judgment. Furthermore, the dual-processes of similarity judgment can be used to inertpret some phenomenon in cognitive psychology, such as induvtive reasoning. In conclusion, previous results suggested that two complementary processes, namely, perceptual similarity and conceptual similarity, should be differentiated while exploring similarity. Future studies should further explore this question from the views of developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
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    Phenomenal experiencing characteristics of female adults’ autobiographical memory: Impact of age and time
    2013, 36(5): 1101-1105. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (304KB) ( )  
    Objective: To investigate whether the phenomenal experiencing characteristics of female adults’ episodic autobiographical memory (EAM) are influenced by age × time interaction. Methods: There were 95 participants in total, including 33 young (18-33 years old), 30 middle-aged (38-55 years old) and 32 older women (60-76 years old). Each of the participants was instructed to recollect one recent (during the last year) and one remote (in childhood) episodic event in a semi-structured interview, and was required to complete the Autobiographical Memory Questionnaire (AMQ) following the recollection of each event. Results: The scores of most phenomenal experiencing features of recent memories were obviously higher than that of the remote memories, while age effect and age × life period interaction showed no significance. Middle-aged and older women experienced more positive emotion, and less negative emotion than young people in recent EAM. However no significant differences on childhood EAM were found among the three groups of participants. Conclusions: Compared to the young, the middle-aged and the old show no obvious disadvantages on autobiographical memories when focusing on phenomenal experiencing. Life period, rather than age, appears to evidently affect phenomenal experiencing characteristics of EAM, registering as stronger phenomenal feeling of recent EAM than that of childhood EAM. The middle-aged and the older women showed positive emotion bias compared with the young , but only on recent memories. This suggests that positive bias is affected by age × time (or life period).
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    Researches of the Relationship of Music and Language on Three Levels: Syntax, Semantics and Perception of Pitch and Rhythm
    2013, 36(5): 1078-1084. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (438KB) ( )  
    Since accumulated evidences have revealed that music and language do have some relationship, this field of study has attracted more and more interest. As scientists have addressed, music and language have many features in common. They are both structured sequences which are arranged according to some rules, which is syntax. Also, they can both express meanings and emotions, which can be called semantics. Thirdly, they both have elements like pitch and rhythm. And the last, music and language are both human-unique and universal involved. To unveil the relationship of music and language, a lot of researches have been conducted to investigate the neural basis of them. Whether shared neural basis is involved in music and language has become the focus of these researches. Based on the common features of music and language, studies in this field are of 3 levels, syntax, semantics and the perception of pitch and rhythm. On the level of syntax, shared syntactic integration resource hypothesis (SSIRH) was raised in 2003. It suggests that the brain regions for syntax processing can be divided into processing regions and representation regions, and music and language may share the processing regions. Comparative studies were done and most of them well supported SSIRH. In these studies, several distinctive ERP components were found such as ERAN and N500, which later became the standard indicator of music incongruousness and were applied to many comparative studies. However, SSIRH has not been proved yet. More evidences are needed to demonstrate the accurate regions and the processing mechanism in detail. On the level of semantics, researchers found that music, even single chord could elicit a very similar N400 effect to that of language in an ERP experiment. These findings suggest that music is able to convey conceptual information like language, and they probably share some semantic processing resources. Since the processing mechanism and its location in brain remain unknown, further studies are required to illuminate the relationship of music and language in semantic level. On the level of pitch and rhythm perception, available works are inferior to that of above two levels in both amount and quality. Studies on rhythm perception in music and language are especially rare due to lack of quantitative criteria with few ones implying that there’s some connection between music and language. On the other hand, studies on pitch perception are relatively more. However, most of them put emphasis on the correlation of pitch detect ability between music and language. The limited comparative studies on processing of pitch perception in music and language merely discovered the differences between them. If music and language indeed have relationship in pitch perception, more comparative studies should be undertaken to clarify not only their different but also their common neural basis. All together, this review has tried to inform the reader with researches on the relationship of music and language processing and help to establish a comprehensive map in this field.
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    The Effects of Multiple Object Tracking Difficulty on Nontargets Inhibition
    2013, 36(5): 1093-1100. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (537KB) ( )  
    Previous studies have proved that there is a highly localized object-based inhibition on nontargets in Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) task. And the mechanism of selective nontarget inhibition was closely related to the difficulty level of tracking task. When there’s a high demand for tracking task, more inhibition was obtained to the nontargets that were hard to distinguish from targets within the capacity of Visual Index. Using Multiple Object Tracking with Probe Dot Detection task, the present study further examined the effects of Multiple Object Tracking difficulty on the mechanism of nontargets inhibition. Two experiments were conducted and both were 3×2 within-subject design. The two independent variables were moving nontargets’ number (experiment 1: having 4, 5 or 6 moving nontargets while there were always 4 targets and 4 static nontargets) or static nontargets’ number (experiment 2: having 4, 5 or 6 static nontargets while there were always 4 targets and 4 moving nontargets) and probe dot locations (probe dot presented in static or moving nontargets). Participants in two experiments performed no-tracking task first and then the tracking task. In no-tracking task, participants only need to monitor if a probe dot were presented in the objects. In tracking task, participants must track the targets while monitoring the probe dot. Participants’ tracking accuracy and probe detection performance on static and moving nontargets were recorded. And the degree of inhibiton on static and moving nontargets was obtained through percentage of probe detection in no-tracking task subtracting that of tracking task. The results showed that in two experiments, when the number of moving nontargets (experiment 1) or static nontargets (experiment 2) was 6, the tracking task was significantly more difficult, and the degree of inhibition on static nontargets was significantly larger than that of 4 and 5 moving or static nontargets. However, the inhibition on moving nontargets kept constant among the three conditions. And in experiment 2, when the number of static nontargets was 6, the degree of inhibition on static nontargets was significantly larger than that of on moving nontargets. In general, the findings of the present study suggested that in Multiple Object Tracking task the inhibition on static nontargets was sensitive to the difficulty level of tracking task. The degree of inhibition on static nontargets increased with the increase of difficulty level of the tracking task. While the inhibition on moving nontargets kept constant among different difficulty levels. And when the number of visual objects exceeded the capacity of Visual Index, in order to complete the tracking task, participants would change the mechanism of selective nontarget inhibition, the inhibition on static nontargets would increased.
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    The Impacts of Automatic Expressive Suppression on the Sensitivity of Emotion Perception in Different Mood States
    rong tao
    2013, 36(5): 1085-1092. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (499KB) ( )  
    This study try to explore the impact of automatic expressive suppression on the sensitivity of emotion perception under positive or negative emotion. It uses signal detection theory to get the emotion perception sensitivity, and designs the sentence unscrambling task to manipulate automatic emotion regulation. We tested 103 college students in Formal Experiment. The experimental results show that participants who primed with automatic expressive suppression report less emotion experience than participants primed with emotion expression. In the socio-culture backgrounds of china, people tend to inhibit the expression of negative emotions, rather than control the positive feelings. Emotion sensitivity partially shows the effects of emotional coherence. In negative emotional state, people are more sensitive to negative emotional expression, it’s significant; although in positive emotional state, people are more sensitive to positive emotional expression, although. The prime of automatic expressive suppression will affect the effects of emotional coherence of emotion sensitivity. People who primed with automatic expressive suppression are not sensitive to positive or negative facial expression.
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    Psychological influence factors of short duration estimation
    Rui-Guang LIU
    2013, 36(5): 1054-1057. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (240KB) ( )  
    Based on previous theories and studies, we selected the prospective paradigm and creatively used the single-task program in this research. Experiments were conducted with geometric stimulus presented in visual mode, we aimed at exploring the effect of break position (waiting duration) , break duration, and the effect of expecting a break. At the same time, the relationship between duration production and the break position was further investigated. The results showed that the effect of break position (waiting duration) is significant. The cue factor nested in experimental conditions shows a significant effect. The effect of the break duration and the combined effect of the break duration and the break position are not discovered in this experiment. Two main conclusions are drawn from this study: (1) Attention is an important factor which influences subjects’ timing behavior. the break position may, at some extent, lengthen duration estimation. (2) Subjects' expecting of a break in duration estimation tasks influences their timing behavior. Subjects produce the shorter value of duration estimation in the cued conditions of trails without breaks than in the uncued conditions of trails without breaks.
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    The Effects of Temperament and Parenting Styles on Problematic Internet Use in Adolescence: Examining Unique and Interaction Effects
    Zhong-Lin WEN Ren-hao Ren
    2013, 36(5): 1066-1072. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (434KB) ( )  
    Nowadays, problematic internet use (PIU) in adolescence is serious. Understanding the antecedents of problematic internet use in adolescence is the precursor of effective prevention and intervention. A large body of literature shows that temperament (sensation seeking and effortful control) and parenting styles (authoritativeness, authoritarianism, and permissiveness) are closely related to PIU in adolescence. Nonetheless, our understanding of the association among these variables is limited in several ways. First, there is a paucity of research that examines the unique effects of temperament and parenting styles on PIU in adolescence. Second, few study examined the interaction effects among temperamental factors on PIU in adolescence. Third, the existing research is not clear whether there are interaction effects between temperamental factors and parenting styles. The purpose of the present study is to investigate: (1) the unique associations of temperament and parenting styles with PIU in adolescence; (2) the interaction effect among temperamental factors on PIU in adolescence; (3) the interaction effects between temperamental factors and parenting styles on PIU in adolescence. A sample of 1312 participants of 6 schools (659 boys and 653 girls, the average of age 13.43) was recruited in the study to complete self-report questionnaires. The self-report questionnaires used in this study included Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire (Revised Version, Short Form), Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire, and Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire. The results indicated that: (1) sensation seeking, effortful control and authoritarianism parenting were significantly associated with PIU in adolescence, while authoritative parenting and permissive parenting were not significantly associated with PIU in adolescence. (2) the risk effect of sensation seeking on PIU in adolescence was buffered by effortful control. (3) the risk effect of sensation seeking on PIU in adolescence was buffered by authoritative parenting, but enhanced by permissiveness parenting. No other interaction effects were found. These findings underscore the importance of unique effects and interaction effects in understanding the etiology of PIU in adolescence. The theoretical and practical implications of the results were further discussed. First, we should attach importance to the effect of temperament (sensation seeking and effortful control) on PIU in adolescence, and enhance the prevention of temperament. Second, parents should adopt authoritativeness parenting, and avoid adopting permissiveness parenting in order to reduce the effect of sensation seeking on PIU in adolescence. Third, adolescence with low effortful control and high sensation seeking characteristics, low authoritativeness parenting and high sensation seeking characteristics, or high permissiveness parenting and high sensation seeking characteristics are high risk crowd of PIU.
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    An Analysis on Implicit Knowledge in Artificial Grammar Paradigm
    2013, 36(5): 1123-1127. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (335KB) ( )  
    Artificial grammar learning (AGL) is one of the most commonly used paradigms for the study of implicit learning. A well known paradigm to assess learning is artificial grammar learning, originally designed by Reber (1967). In this task, participants are instructed to memorize letter strings. They are not informed that the strings are constructed according to certain rules. In a subsequent grammaticality classification test, the participant’s ability to discriminate between grammatical and nongrammatical items is assessed. Grammaticality judgments can be based on structural (“rule-based”) or superficial (“chunk-based”) aspects of the grammar, or on a combination of both. Artificial grammar paradigm is not only the widely used in implicit learning, but also one of the most important method for the research on the implicit knowledge. We analyze the component materials of the artificial grammar paradigm, for example, letter frequency, chunks, exemplar as well as abstract rules and other factors, and summarize the experiments which various kinds of implicit knowledge is separated in brain neural level in artificial grammar paradigm. We obtain more complete understanding on sequence learning of letter strings. It provides the reference for the further study on the specific problems of knowledge with brain neural mechanism and promotes the further study of unconscious knowledge in artificial grammar paradigm. What knowledge is learned in artificial grammar paradigm by participants depends on the experiment operation of artificial grammar materials. If the factors other than stimulus frequency in the letter strings are balanced, we can discuss the questions whether the participants obtain stimulus frequency knowledge; if the factors other than chunks are balanced, we can discuss the questions whether the participants obtain chunks knowledge; if the factors other than exemplar similarity are balanced, we can study the function of exemplar during implicit learning process. It is the most important for the researcher of implicit learning that they can verify the hypothesis of rule-based acquisition in implicit learning by balancing the factors other than rules. The researchers explore stimulus frequency, chunks etc, on the one hand it prompts us to have a more comprehensive understanding for implicit knowledge, but on the other hand it is beneficial to have a more definitive answer for this hypothesis of rule knowledge.
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    ERP Effects of Twirled Chinese Characters and Semantic Priming in Word Recognition
    2013, 36(5): 1037-1042. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (347KB) ( )  
    The mental representation and processing of Chinese words are important topics in cognitive psychology. Using ERP technique and priming paradigm, the present study adopted a delayed character-matching task to investigate character-twirling effects in Chinese characters of low frequency, and their interactions with semantic priming. Three characters were presented in succession in each trial of the character-matching task, representing prime, target and probe stimulus respectively. The primes were intact characters, while both the targets and probes were twirled ones. Two variables, priming and twirling, were manipulated with a 2×2 factorial within-subjects design in the experiment, and ended up with 4 treatment conditions, which were primed twirled, primed intact, unprimed twirled, and unprimed intact conditions. The subjects were asked to press a key on keyboard if the target and the probe, which followed the target, were a same character in identity, and press another one if not. Sixteen native Chinese undergraduates or graduates participated in the experiment during which they were instructed to make a yes/no distinction in the task. The behavioral data showed significant interactions between priming and twirled conditions. When the primes and targets were related, twirled targets were even responded to faster than were the intact. Moreover, the usual priming effect and twirled effect on accuracy was obtained, and there was significant interaction. Three-way repeated-measures ANOVAs with factors of Twirling (twirled, intact), Priming (primed, unprimed), and Electrode Site revealed significant main effects of twirling at the 150–300ms interval. The peaks of N170 elicited by the twirled targets were more negative compared with the intact targets. These findings support the notion that N170 reflects a perceptual analysis of visual character configuration. At the 300–500ms interval, similar ANOVAs but conducted on mean amplitude revealed significant main effects of both semantic priming and twirling, and revealed no significant interactions. The amplitude of N400 elicited by target characters was significantly larger in unprimed conditions than in primed trials. More importantly, the amplitude of N400 was significantly larger in twirled than in intact conditions. This N400-like (stimulus-) degradation effect provides an extension to Holcomb (1993), who did not found such effect with English words of similar frequency. This N400-like degradation effect is interpreted in terms of Kutas et al.’s (2006) N400 notion of semantic retrieval and perhaps of Deacon et al.’s (2004) N400 theory of lexical analysis, but it does not support the post-lexical processing theories. The difference in the style of meaning retrieval between Chinese characters and English words was discussed.
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    Effects of Different Level of Control on the Semantic Processing of Chinese Characters
    2013, 36(5): 1117-1122. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (397KB) ( )  
    The issue whether or not semantic processing can be controlled remains controversial. In recent years, the researchers mainly ask participants to complete the shallow-level processing tasks or unconsciously present the prime word to explore whether or not these processes and manipulations can control semantic processing. There are significant inconsistencies in these studies. For example, semantic priming effect has been found reduced or disappeared when attention is allocated to low-level features of the words. Whereas, some other studies has suggested that semantic processing can occur in low-level processing tasks and no-consciousness situations. However, some researchers pointed out that semantic priming effect in these previous studies might be overwritten by other processes so that it was not found. The compact and simple structure of Chinese characters other than alphabetic scripts used by most of the previous studies might be able to avoid this problem. Moreover, few studies have focused on whether or not the semantic processing of Chinese characters can be controlled. This present study manipulated different levels of control to explore whether the semantic processing of the Chinese characters can be controlled by them. Experiment 1 investigated whether semantics processes might be influenced by shallow level of processing and unconscious manipulation (the low-level control); and Experiment 2 presented the part in advance to investigate whether or not the enhanced level of control could prevent the processing of semantics. In Experiment 1 and 2, half of the participants were asked to indicate whether or not the part was a component of the prime word; and the other half were instructed to indicate whether the prime stimulus was an animate or inanimate word. Unconsciousness was achieved by presenting the prime words for a brief exposure (20 ms), then following masking stimuli. Negative priming effect was observed in part-search task irrespective of the masked or unmasked condition in Experiment 1. A reliable positive priming effect was found in the unmasked condition, and a significant negative priming effect was observed in the masked condition regardless of part-search or categorization task in Experiment 2. The present study demonstrated that the semantic processing of Chinese characters was independent of the strength of control. The occurrence of semantic negative priming indicated that the control mechanism could play a role on the semantic activation occurred to allow participants to fulfill the task-goals, instead of stopping the activation itself. The current study showed that semantic processing of Chinese characters can not be controlled.
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    Research of Optimal Parameters of Phone Screen Brightness under Different Environmental Illuminance—Take Samsung S5660 for Example
    2013, 36(5): 1110-1116. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (411KB) ( )  
    Previous studies have shown that ambient illumination, screen brightness and contrast of the computer could affect the user's visual task performance. In the era of mobile internet, mobile are more and more important in people's work and life. Domestic and foreign researchers have conducted extensive research in ergonomics factors which could affect the display performance. These factors included the display object, the environmental illuminance, the screen brightness and the contrast, etc. Early studies were mostly concerned about CRT or large LCD display. there has been no relevant research about the effect of environmental illuminance on visual performance of mobile phone and the optimal parameters of phone screen brightness under different environmental illuminance. In the present study, behavioral performance, subjective evaluation and eye fatigue indices were used to examine the impact of the environmental illumination on the visual search task performance on cell phone. There were totally 64 undergraduates participated in a visual search task with 16 subjects took part in the experiment 1and the other took part in the experiment 2.They were all college students with normal or corrected normal vision and all were right-handed. Experiments carried out in the quiet 3x5m2 laboratory. The light in the laboratory could be adjusted to control environment illumination with the maximum illumination value could achieve 500lx. Additionally, a touch screen mobile phone (Samsung S5660 with 3.2 inch TFT-LCD screen, resolution 480x320), PR880 luminance meter, YF2006 illuminometer, BD-II-118 type flash fusion frequency instrument were used in the study. In experiment1, when the phone screen brightness remained unchanged, the visual search performances under different levels of environmental illumination were investigated. Single-factor within-subjects designs were adopted with independent variable including ambient illumination in three levels: 0lx, 100lx, 500lx. After practice, participants were asked to search and count the number of target in different experiment conditions. The search time and accuracy, subjective evaluation and the fatigue of eyes were recorded. In experiment2, there were two independent variables including ambient illuminations: 0lx, 100lx, 500lx and mobile phone screen brightness degrees: 10%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100%. Two factors mix designs were adopted in experiment 2 and the procedure seemed like experiment 1. The results showed that when the phone screen brightness remained the same, the visual search performance, subjective evaluation and the degree of eye fatigue were significantly differenced in different ambient illumination and the performance in 100lx were better than 0lx and 500lx. Experiment2 results showed that when the ambient illumination was 0lx, the best screen brightness degree was 20% with the brightness value was 11cd/m2, when the ambient illumination was near 100lx, the recommended screen brightness degree was 40% with the brightness value was 68cd/m2 and when the ambient illumination was near 500lx, the recommended screen brightness degree was 60% with the brightness value was near 257cd/m2.
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    Motivation Model of Urban Residents’ Physical Exercise
    2013, 36(5): 1048-1053. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (369KB) ( )  
    Few Chinese people participating in physical exercise is an important issue. Statistics of the Ministry of Health in Healthy China 2020 Strategic Planning indicate that 83.8% Chinese residents over the age of 18 never participate in physical exercise in 2010, which consists of 73.2% of city residents. Scarce of interest in sports is a primary factor to influence people to participate in physical exercise. Therefore it is important to stimulate the exercise motivation. Self-determination theory (SDT) insists that there are various levels of sports motivation including controlled motivation (external regulation & introjected regulation) and autonomous motivation (identified regulation & integrated regulation). The sports motivation keeps higher level only when controlled motivation converts into autonomous motivation which underlies enduring sports behavior. Whether the external environment satisfies personal psychological needs (autonomy need, ability need, and relationship need) is another factor related to sports motivation. Few indigenous research has been conducted to promote physical exercise of urban residents based on SDT. In this study,we hypothesized the relationship between autonomy support of coach and physical exercise intentions of urban residents was mediated by basic need satisfaction and autonomous motivation. Data was collected from 350 urban residents of 18 to 56 years old. Eighteen percentage of the urban residents did not finish high school, 24.9 % of them finished high school, 21.1% of them had college degree, and 36% had bachelor degree or above. The 6-item Sport Climate Questionnaire, Basic Need Satisfaction Scale with 9-item, Exercise Self-Regulation Questionnaire with 17-item by Deci and Ryan(2011)and self-edited physical exercise scale with one item were used. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the structure of Sport Climate Questionnaire and Basic Need Satisfaction Scale. In this study, their internal reliabilty estimate α were .93 and .85 respectively. Exercise Self-Regulation Questionnaire was revised according to the modified index and standard load. Comfirmatory factor analysis supported a four-dimension structure with 13 items. We edited physical exercise scale according to an operational definition of sports population to ensure its reliability and validity. Structural equation fitting results supported the hypothesized nested intermediary model. The results suggested autonomy support, basic psychological need, autonomous motivation and exercise intentions were closely related with each other, which matched SDT well. And external regulation was negatively associated with Autonomy support, basic psychological need, autonomous motivation and exercise intentions. Introjected regulation was not significantly correlated with autonomy support, basic psychological need and exercise intentions, which might be affected by the Chinese traditional "frail" aesthetic concept. Namely autonomy support of coach could not only directly predict exercise intentions, but also indirectly predict exercise intentions through 3 mediating variables: basic psychological need, autonomous motivation, and the interaction between them. The intermediary effect of basic psychological need, autonomous motivation and the interaction accounts for 44%, 17% and 37% respectively. To sum up, this study aims at promoting urban residents’ exercise intentions. The results partially confirmed this hypothesis. To build motivation model of urban residents’ exercise intentions based on SDT is an effective method to promote urban residents to participate in physical exercise and Nationwide Fitness Campaign.
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    Interpretative biases for positive faces in high social anxiety individuals
    2013, 36(5): 1106-1109. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (249KB) ( )  
    Previous research suggested that high social anxiety individuals may form biased interpretations of positive facial stimuli. It was suggested that social anxiety individuals may discount the positive social information, or even interpret it in a negative fashion. This biased interpretation processing might tremendously influence social anxiety’s positive affect in a negative way, as well as their quality of life. So it’s important to learn more about social anxiety’s cognitive processing of positive social information. Recently, some researchers focused on how social anxiety individuals processed positive social information, however, most of these studies used self-report as their experimental method, and may suffer from several methodological limitations. The present study aimed to figure out whether social anxiety is characterized by an interpretative bias towards positive facial stimuli through a more objective and accurate method. The affective priming paradigm developed by Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powel, & Kardes (1986) was applied as a measure of socially anxious individuals’ biased interpretative pattern towards positive faces. And in the present study, the emotional faces were used as the primes, while the positive and negative words were used as targets. The current study consisted of a 2(prime valence: positive vs. scrambled faces) × 2(target valence: positive vs. negative words) × 2(group type: high vs. low social anxiety group) mixed factors design. Only the group type is a between-subjects factor. In each trial, a fixation was first presented for 500ms, followed by a positive or a scrambled face for 200ms. After the face disappeared, there was an interval of 50ms during which a grey screen appeared before a positive or a negative word was presented. This word remained on screen for 2000ms or until the participants pressed the reaction key. There was 1000ms interval between each trial. Participants were asked to evaluatively categorize the affectively polarized non-social word targets. And they were instructed to focus on the task, and try to respond to the target words as quickly and as accurately as possible. Their reaction time and correctness were recorded, while only the reaction time was analyzed with repeated measure ANOVA. After the prime task, participants were asked to evaluate the attractiveness of 10 neutral faces which were used to make the scrambled faces. Then, they were going to finish the Social Phobia Scale, and a questionnaire for personal information. After this, the participants were thanked and debriefed. The study found that the high social anxiety group and the control group exhibited different affective priming effects when primed by positive faces: In high social anxiety group, no affective priming was found; while the control group showed the typical congruency effect for positive facial primes. They reacted significantly more quickly to the positive targets than those negative words. In addition, the social anxiety group took significantly longer to respond to the positive target words than the controls. The results might suggest that social anxious individuals had an interpretation bias towards positive faces. They may make less positive interpretations on positive social information. At the same time, the study showed that the affective priming paradigm can be successfully applied to test the positive cognitive bias in social anxiety group.
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    The Influence of Context Position on Ambiguity Resolution for Individuals with Different Cognitive Styles
    Shouxin Li
    2013, 36(5): 1073-1077. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (309KB) ( )  
    In the process of cognition, inhibition is defined as a mechanism that either prevents the irrelevant information from entering the working memory or eliminates the irrelevant information after it has entered working memory. The function of the inhibition is preventing access, deletion and restraint. With the development of related studies in inhibition, more attention had been paid to the special groups. At present, researches on individual differences in inhibition mainly focused on different groups with different ages, different comprehension capacities and different working memory capacities. Many studies demonstrated that cognitive style (field-dependence/ independence) was associated with the cognitive reconstruction, the span of verbal working memory and the spatial selective attention. Shouxin Li et al (2010) found that field independence (FD) individuals have higher reading efficiency than the field dependence (FI) individuals. This difference takes place in the latter period of working memory process. The purpose of present study is to investigate the inhibition mechanism differences between FD and FI individuals in inhibitory processes using different position of context. The Embedded Figure Test (EFT) was adopted to select FI and FD individuals. Totally 120 undergraduates were tested by the EFT. 16 typical FD participants and 16 typical FI participants were selected in the experiment 1. The same numbers of FD and FI participants were selected in the experiment 2. The experimental materials are 24 ambiguous sentences, 24 unambiguous sentences and 6 practice sentences. 24 ambiguous sentences are designed for four conditions: 6 pre-context ambiguous sentences, 6 pre-context unambiguous sentences, 6 post-context ambiguous sentences and 6 post-context unambiguous sentences. E-prime 1.0 was used to write procedure, and the computer (1.7 GHz CPU Pentium4.0, 17 inch display, resolution 1024 x 768) was used to present stimulation in experiment 1. Eyelink 2000 eye tracking system produced by SR Research Company in Canadian was used, and the pupil + corneal model were designed for experiment 2. The fixed speed verbatim rendering paradigm was used in Experiment 1. The reaction time and accuracy rate were recorded and analyzed. In Experiment 2 participants controls the speed and the sentences were presented as a whole. The first run dwell time and the second run dwell time were recorded and analyzed. 2 (cognitive styles: FD, FI) × 2 (positions of context: pre-context, post-context) × 2 (types of sentence: ambiguous sentence, unambiguous sentence) mixed design was used, and cognitive style was between group variable, position of context and type of sentence were within group variable. The materials were presented visually to the subjects. Eye movements were recorded by using a video-based eye tracker. Reaction time, accurate rate, the first run dwell time and the second run dwell time were analyzed with a three-factor mixed design ANOVA. The results indicate that: (1) Inhibitory efficiency is affected by the position of context. The inhibitory effect of pre-context is superior to post-context. (2) Under natural reading conditions, FI individuals are better able to take advantage of the pre-context information to suppress the internal interference in the early stage of sentence processing, while there is no difference in the reading time on the condition of pre-context and post-context to FD individuals. In the latter stage of sentence processing, FD individuals require more time to complete the internal interference suppression than FI individuals do.
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    The role of familiarity in cognitive advantage for self-related information
    Hong-Sheng YANG
    2013, 36(5): 1058-1065. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (536KB) ( )  
    Cognitive advantage for self-related information has been well established in a number of studies using various stimuli. However, there is much debate about the effect of familiarity in this advantage. Given this, the current paper aimed to review previous findings in this field. In research on self-reference effect, the effect of familiarity is usually examined by comparing memory performance between self-referential processing and other-referential processing tasks. Participants usually demonstrate better memory for material processed in reference to self than those processed in reference to famous person. Nonetheless, when the control condition involves intimate persons, such as parents, partner, or close friends, the magnitude of self advantage is greatly reduced. Significant cultural difference has been confirmed in these studies with Westerners showing self advantage over even intimate persons and Western participants showing no difference in self/intimate person-referential processing. There are also findings that stimuli type may interact with reference target to influence memory performance. Studies with face stimuli have showed that own face is detected faster than others’ face, including familiar faces, even under unattended conditions. When used as distracters, it is more difficult to ignore and show stronger interfering power on target stimuli. In fact, own face is not necessarily more familiar than others’ face as one has more opportunity to see other’s face. As a result, the superior performance demonstrated by own face provide a convincing evidence that familiarity might not be the determining factor for self advantage. Following Moray (1959)’s famous study, cocktail party effect has been replicated in many studies. Surprisingly, however, little research has been done to address the issue of familiarity. The very few studies which have employed familiar names as control stimuli actually focused on the neural basis of self name recognition and still yielded inconsistent results. Taken together, the available evidence does not support the argument that self advantage results just from its inherent familiarity. However, a distinction between material familiarity and task familiarity proposed based on these above findings and real-life experience should be noted. The former means exposure experience to specific stimuli while the latter familiarity refers to whether participants have much experience of processing stimuli in some specific ways. The two kinds of familiarity is dissociable in that participants may be more familiar with one kind of stimuli related to him/herself than others but have no more experience of processing it in some specific way, and vice versa. For example, one usually has more experience to search for others’ face than own face despite its high familiarity. It was argued that future research may need to pay more attention to the effect of task familiarity.
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    The Habitual Responding in Self-paced Allocation:Evidence from Eye Movements
    2013, 36(5): 1043-1047. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (307KB) ( )  
    Study time allocation is an index to explore learners’ allocation of their attention and efforts. It contains item selection and self-paced allocation. According to the agenda-based regulation framework, learners’ study decisions are influenced by two qualitatively different kinds of processes: agenda based and habitual processes. Habitual process involves the task environment activating a prepotent or overlearned response. Previous researches only confirmed the influence of habitual process on learners’ item selection, but there was no influence on self-paced allocation. Since self-paced allocation was a dynamic process, therefore, This study used an eye tracking technique to investigate the effects of item position and difficulty on self-paced allocation. Forty students participated in the experiment. 3(Item difficult: easy, moderately difficult, difficult)×2(Item order: easy on the left [EMD] vs. difficult on the left [DME]) mixed factorial design was used, with item difficult as an within-subject factor. Participants were randomly assigned to either the EMD group (n=19) or the DME group (n=19). Participants were instructed that they were free to study any item in the study phase, We used an eye tracking technique to record the whole process of their self-paced allocation. After 16 study trials, participants completed an Arithmetic task and then received an cued recall test. The results showed that: (1) In the aspect of the whole study time, participants in both groups allocated the least time on easy items, and it was significantly difference than those of moderately difficult and the most difficult ones. (2) In the early of learning progress, There was significantly difference in the self-paced allocation to different levels of item difficult in the EMD group. People first allocated the most time to easy items, then to moderately difficult ones, but finally retried to the most difficult ones. The results were reversed for the DME group. Both item difficult and its position had effects on self-paced allocation. These results indicated that there was a habitual process in the early phase of self-paced allocation, which was in accordance with the agenda-based regulation model
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