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The role of storage time of working memory on time judgment 2016, 39(4): 801-806.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Time perception has been shown to be influenced by the attentional guidance from working memory (WM)，with that the stimulus matching the working memory content was judged to last longer than mismatching stimulus. However, the guidance effect might be flexible and modulated by other factors. In this study, we combined change detection task paradigm and time comparison task to exam the influence of ISI (the stimulusinterval between the offset of WM content and the onset of target duration) and target duration on time judgment. Participants were asked to memorize an abstract object (both the color and shape) for a subsequent memory test in which they indicated whether a test object changed. During the delay period, participants had to judge which one of two successive objects was presented longer (or shorter), with one object matched the WM item while the other did not. Mere observation without WM demand was taken as control task to exclude the contribution of repetition. The results showed that when the ISI was short (Experiment 1), time judgment accuracy was greater on memory-matching trials relative to memory-mismatching trials, suggesting the memory-matching stimuli facilitated time perception. However, when the ISI was longer (Experiment 2), the guidance effect declined. On the other hand, irrelevant of short ISI or long ISI, WM task or mere repetition, when the duration to be perceived was longer, matching stimuli inversely decreased perceived time. This study suggests that the effect of visual working memory on time judgment is flexible, and is modulated by the interstimulus interval as well as the target duration to be perceived. The variability of object working memory on timing task might be related to the focus and allocation of attention. Related Articles | Metrics

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Four Controversial Issues in the Development of Construal Level Theory Jun HUANG 2016, 39(4): 887-892.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Construal level is the level of abstract representation of objects or events, and the level of abstract representation varies from low to high. High construal level is abstract, core, goal related, simple, while low construal level is concrete, contextual, complicated, secondary, subordinate etc. The construal level will affect people’s judgement, negotiation, decision, cognition etc. Over the decade, the theory and research of construal level turn to mature. However, there are still controversies existing through the development and improvement of construal level theory. The below four issues are worth looking into by researchers. The first issue is the controversy of the psychological mechanism of the construal level. Several researches show that some factors which are beyond the “traditional four dimensions of psychological distance” also can change the construal level. Therefore, there are two possibilities—these factors maybe beyond the mechanism of the psychological distance, or maybe the psychological distance but not belong to the traditional four dimensions. Secondly, which is the reason and which is the result, construal level or psychological distance? Most researchers support the opinion that “the change of psychological distance” affects “the change of construal level”. Individuals with far psychological distance result in more abstract representation, whilst closer psychological distance causes more concrete representation. However, some researchers point out, there is two-way relationship between psychological distances and construal level. The construal level also impact on the psychological distance. So, which one is the dependent variable and which one is independent variable need further discussion. Thirdly, is the construal level of an individual trait variable or a contextual variable? Most researchers regard construal level as the contextual variable which could be changed with psychological distance, while some researchers believe that construal level has stable differences among individuals. There are also researchers consider the construal level has both characters. Therefore, in the contextual research, if the individual difference is obvious, it is necessary to consider this aspect of construal level. On the other hand, when studying the individual difference of contextual level, one should control the possible disturbance from situation. Fourth, which way is more effective to initiate construal level, direct manipulation or indirect manipulation? Most studies use two ways to induce the construal level—direct or indirect manipulation: direct manipulation is manipulating psychological distance, and the indirect manipulation is manipulating affairs or tasks which related construal level. But whether or not these affairs or tasks refer to the change of abstract representation level still depends on further research. Besides, research has found the consequence of direct manipulation and indirect manipulation is completely opposite. Hence, future research should compare the consequence of direct manipulation and indirect manipulation, explore and improve the method and paradigm which can effectively induce individual’s abstract representation level. The above mentioned four issues are all related mechanisms or conceptions of construal level. The further discussion is helpful to improve and develop the Construal Level Theory. Related Articles | Metrics

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Attentional Boost Effect Dependent on Item-Background Centriod Distance 2016, 39(4): 807-813.  Abstract ( )   PDF   The attentional boost effect (ABE), also called fast task-irrelevant perceptual learning, refers to a phenomenon that transient increasing in attention to one task enhances performance in a second task. The previous studies mainly investigated the temporal characteristics of ABE. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the spatial distribution of it. Specifically speaking, whether the centriod distance between the items and background images will influence the phenomenon or not. RSVP paradigm is employed and Participants are required to remember a series of scene images (500 ms/ image) while they performed a simple detection task (detect a white square, 100 ms/square) that was irrelevant to the scene images memory task. For the detection task, participants pressed a spacebar whenever the fixation point was a white square (target) rather than a black square (distractors). There are two conditions in this study: in one condition, squares overlap on scene images, and in other condition, squares are presented on the left or right side of the images (2.0°gap). After completing the dual-task encoding phase, participants performed a four-alternative-forced-choice (4AFC) recognition test on the scenes. Twenty undergraduates participated in the overlap condition and eighteen undergraduates participated in the gap condition. The stimuli were presented on a 19'' monitor (1024×768 pixels, 75 Hz) with a Lenovo computer (Pentium (R) Dual-Core CPU E5700, 3.00 GHz) using E-Prime. The main results were as following: (a) in the overlap condition, the likelihood that a scene was correctly recognized depended on the scene’s serial position during encoding (F(2, 62) = 4.36, p = .017), that is, scene identity memory was more accurate for scenes encoded at the target position than at the pre- and post- target positions (p = .040, p = .024), consistent with Swallow & Jiang (2010) 's results. (b) in the gap condition, the likelihood that a scene was correctly recognized depended on the scene’s serial position during encoding (F(2, 62) = 6.68, p = .002), scene identity memory was less accurate for scenes encoded at the target position than at the pre- and post- target positions (p = .041, p = .041), showing contrary to ABE. Two possible explanation for these results are purposed: reduced encoding account and attentional shift account. It was concluded that the centriod distance between items and background scene images has an impact on the ABE. When items (squares in this study) overlap on the background scene images (centriod distance equal zero), the observers have more accurate for scene encoded at the target position than at the pre- and post- target positions, showing ABE. And when items are presented on the left or right side of the images (2.0°gap), the observers have less accurate for scene encode at the target position than at the pre- and post- target positions. Related Articles | Metrics

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A Review on the Mechanism of Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution and It’s Influential Factors 2016, 39(4): 881-886.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Syntactic ambiguity resolution lies at the center of much research on grammatical representation and sentence processing, which refers to the phenomenon that the parser selects the correct syntactic analysis while facing more syntactic analyses by inhibiting the wrong syntactic analysis. Knowing how readers respond when sentences can be structured temporarily helps to constrain accounts of how readers use grammatical and other information to develop interpretations of sentences in real time. Studies showed that syntactic ambiguity resolution was affected by many factors, such as working memory, cognitive inhibition, language frequency, context and prosodic cues. Illustration of how and when these various factors affect the difficulty that readers have in processing sentences can lead to deeper insight into the workings of the human sentence parsing mechanism. To illustrate how people deal with syntactic ambiguity, some models were constructed. Of all the models, the garden path model and the constraint satisfactory model are the two classical accounts. The former argued that sentences were processed with serial stages, in which readers primarily constructed sentence structure based on syntactic factors, and then reanalyzed the sentence structure based on semantic factors. On the contrary, the latter insisted that readers process sentences with parallel stages, in which syntactic factors and semantic factors coincidently worked in sentence processing. In addition, other models, such as the weakly interactive parallel model, and the language frequency model attempt to give more subtle explanations about the ambiguity resolution in others view points. Cognitive neuroscience studies on syntactic ambiguity resolution have revealed the neural mechanisms. Some studies using fMRI showed that syntactic ambiguity resolution produced more activation in the left inferior frontal cortex, the left posterior temporal cortex, the left medial temporal cortex and the left anterior temporal cortex compared with sentences without syntactic ambiguity. These findings showed that there may be common neural mechanisms for language processing, especially for ambiguity resolution, between general cognition. Because there were significant activations in general cognitive activities, such as conflict resolution, cognitive control at the mentioned above brain areas. Future research directions on syntactic ambiguity resolution were pointed out in this paper. Specifically, (1) How to separate the semantic effect in syntactic ambiguity resolution? As some studies had pointed out that semantic ambiguity were often coincident with syntactic ambiguity, thus, some effects in syntactic ambiguity resolution were from semantic ambiguity. (2) Are there qualitative differences between syntactic ambiguity resolution and lexical ambiguity resolution? Strict lexicalism argued that lexical ambiguity and syntactic ambiguity shared common knowledge representation, so they had the same ambiguity resolution mechanism. On the contrary, some scholars hold that syntactic ambiguity and lexical ambiguity have different ambiguity resolution. Lexical ambiguity resolution mainly relied on the activation of the lexicon item, which worked automatically. While syntactic ambiguity resolution mainly relied on the outer grammar principles. Related Articles | Metrics

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Pilots’ Computing Representation for VSSP in Static and Dynamic Localization Tasks 2016, 39(4): 814-819.  Abstract ( )   PDF   The visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSSP) is a temporary storage system for generating and manipulating visuo-spatial images. Preserving and manipulating limited on-line visual information is an important function of the visual processing system. Some recent findings have confirmed that the VSSP may be divided into two sub-components processing static or dynamic visual information. This study adopted spatial localization tasks, as more typical spatial working memory tasks, to explore the representation construction characteristics of the static and dynamic VSSP as well as its individual differences. Pilot group and non-pilot group were recruited to make a compare of their processing properties in the static and dynamic spatial localization tasks. Experiment 1a set up two single-target localization tasks in static spatial version, namely distance reference spatial localization tasks and no-distance reference spatial localization tasks. Experiment 1b was a variant of Experiment 1a with double-target localization tasks under each conditions. Experiment 2a developed two dynamic spatial single-target localization tasks, as trajectory reference spatial localization tasks and no-trajectory reference spatial localization tasks，respectively. Experiment 2b extended two double-target localization tasks on the basis of Experiment 2a. The experimental design focused on effects of the reference condition, the target amount and the spatial nature on the spatial localization. The results showed that in static display the distance reference spatial localization tasks were easier tasks and the no-distance reference localization tasks were more difficult. There was no significant difference in the distance reference localization tasks between pilot group and non-pilot group. However, pilot group performed better in the no-distance reference localization tasks. In dynamic tasks, the trajectory reference localization tasks were easier tasks and the no-trajectory reference localization tasks, which required immediate construction of trajectory representation, belonged to more difficult tasks. Pilot group had higher accuracy in both dynamic tasks. Compared to the condition of trajectory reference, the condition of no-trajectory reference caused non-pilot group score significantly lower. The difference between two groups in the double-target localization tasks was much more greater than which in the single-target tasks. Compared to the control group, pilot group exhibited double target synergies in the double-target tasks. This study has found that pilots’ VSSP had better performance on processing visual-spatial information, involving supervisory attentional system engaged in computation and reconstruction spatial representation. Pilot could complete clear distance representation more precisely in static spatial display while their computational advantage in dynamic tasks was reflected in constructing on-line trajectory representation and then forming a stationary configuration. These findings raise questions about the hypothesis that the VSSP can manipulate complex visual-spatial information. The innovations of this study are as follows. First, dynamic spatial localization tasks were developed according to Gordon’s static tasks(1986). Second, double-target localization tasks were set up under the static and the dynamic spatial conditions, and the synergistic effect of the double targets was found better in pilot group. Third, two kinds of control tasks were adopted to comparatively explore the representation construction of VSSP in static and dynamic localization tasks. Finally, experience advantage of pilot found in this study provides empirical reference for the future selection and training of pilot. Related Articles | Metrics

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the Accessing Mechanism of the Proficient Chinese-Korean Bilingual's Lexical Representation to Homograph Qi GAO Xiping Liu 2016, 39(4): 820-826.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Chinese and Korean are paronym, and there are three kinds of type of Chinese-Korean homograph: the full synonym homographs,the partial synonym homographs and the homograph homographs. In order to investigate how the homograph of the high proficient Chinese-Korean bilinguals second language accesses its lexical representation, the masked translation primed lexical decision task was used. The experiment takes the translation direction and the word type as the independent variable. The reaction time and the correct rate are the dependent variables. Subjects are 30 senior students in a Normal University, who major in Korean and have passed Korean TOPIC6 Exam and are all high proficient Chinese-Korean bilinguals. The materials in the questionnaire are chosen from the studies of Lianzheng Kim(2009) and Zhixuan Wu(2011).180 homographs, 60 to each type, were appraised its degree of familiarity by other 30 high proficient Chinese-Korean bilinguals. Those words whose degree of familiarity are less than 4 were deleted. Finally, 99 homographs were chosen as experimental materials.Other 99 translation independent words and 99 fillers were also chosen. Filler words formed by the change of one word of the true double character words to a paralog, and for balancing the experiment, half of the fillers were changed the first word and the else were the second. Subjects should make the decision as soon and accurate as possible,half of the subjects do the direction of Chinese-Korean firstly and the other do the opposite direction firstly. The program runs by eprime 1.0 on IBM computer, and the data processing uses SPSS 19.0.Screen resolution is 1360×768. The results shows a significant masked translation priming effect for both directions, which is affected by the type of the homograph. The main effect of word type was significant ,F(3,87)=15.66, p＜.0001.The translation priming effect from Chinese to Korean of the full synonym homographs and partial synonym homographs was significant,which means both of these two type of homographs sharing lexical representation;The significant effect of full homograph homographs was only in Korean to Chinese translation direction,which means separate lexical representation for this homographs. Contrasting the full homograph and the translation independent words,there is only one difference—the full homograph homographs have similar pronunciation while the translation independent words have not,so in a way the priming effect may be attributed to the reliance of phonology in Korean reading. Concept and phonology both facilitated the translation prime, with a greater priming effect of the former. It appeared that the bilingual interactive activation model best accommodates the data on bilingual word recognition in Chinese-Korean homographs. The analysis of data shows that both of the direction, from Chinese to Korean and the reverse, has significantly translation priming effect of the full synonym homographs and the partial synonym homographs，while the effect is asymmetric,the direction of Chinese to Korean is significantly stronger than the other direction, for t(29)=6.21,p＜.01 to the full synonym homograph and t(29)=6.55,p＜.01 to the partial synonym homograph,which means that connection exists between both direction only with the difference of strength. The results supports the the hierarchical model by Korll(1992). The experiment researches the lexical representation of high proficient Chinese-Korean bilinguals, using masked translation primed task.Chinese and Korean are two special languages in the world, as only two countries use them,and have the same development history.In addition,Chinese and Korean have many same and different points,such as pronunciation and morphology,but until now there is no related research for these two languages,in China,researches of bilinguals memory organization model are mostly about Chinese and western languages or Chinese and minority languages, so the experiment for Chinese and Korean is the first time and can fill in some blanks in this field. Related Articles | Metrics

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Is Conflict Control Domain-general or Domain-specific? 2016, 39(4): 827-834.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Proportion congruent effect (PCE) and Sequential congruent effect (SCE) are two well-known effects associated with conflict control. On the framework of dual model of cognitive control, the SCE is believed to reflect the Reactive control and PCE is believed to reflect the Proactive control. An important issue when studying cognitive controls is whether the two cognitive controls are domain-general or domain-specific. The results related to the topic are quite diverse. One importan factor influencing the results is how to combine the two types of conflict. The present study used factorial task-crossing designs to combine the color Stroop task and Simon task by presenting the color word at peripheral location, such that each stimulus can be congurent or incongruent with respect to both Stroop and Simon conflict conflicts at the same time. The design can avoid any task switching effects. The different types of conflict are manipulated simultaneously in the design enable one to determine there could be a single control resource or there could be separate conflict-specific control resources. Meanwihle we introduced a proportion congruency manipulation for Stroop conflict task whereas the Simon conflict were displayed with the same incongruent-to-congruent ratio. Specifically, in the mostly congruent (MC) context, 80% of Stroop task were congruent, while 20% were incongruent; in the mostly congruent (MI) context, 20% of Stroop task were congruent, while 80% were incongruent. However, for Simon task, there were equal proportions of congruent and incongruent trials for both the MC context and MI context. For SC effect, we analyzed trial to trial conflict adaptation with 2 previous trial congruent (congurent, incongruent) × 2 current trial congruent (congurent, incongruent) two factors repeated ANOVON on the Stroop-Stroop dimension and Stroop-Simon dimension.The analysis showed that there was a significant previous×current trial interaction on Stroop-Stroop dimension, indicating that stimulus-based conflict on previous trial enhanced conflict resolution in the subsequent stimulus-based conflict. However, there was no interaction between previous trial congurency and current trial congruency on Stroop-Simon dimension, indicating that stimulus-based conflict on previous trial can not results in superior conflict resolution of response-based conflict on the current trial. Therefore there was no evidenc of conflict resolution generalizing across sources of conflict, suggesting that the reactive control reflected by SC effect is domain-specific. For the PC effect, we carried out 2 proportion congruency (MC, MI)×2 current Stroop congruency (congruent, incongruen) ×2 current Simon congruency (congruent, incongruen) three factors repeated measure ANOVA. The proportion congruency by current Stroop congruency was significant. The analysis also revealed a significant interaction between proportion congruency and current Simon congruency. The two interactions were maily mediated by faster responses to incongruent trial in MI context compared to MC context. PC effect on the two tasks showed that proactive cognitive control reflected by PCE is domain general. The present data provide evidenc to support the dual model of control, one reactive and one proactive. The results have important implication to understanding the mechnisem of cognitive control. Related Articles | Metrics

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Effect of Local Luminance Change and Semantic Relation on Real-World Scene Recognition 2016, 39(4): 835-841.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Human lived in a variety of real situations, and they were influenced by all kinds of information from real-world scenes. However, the real-world scene included not only physical information, such as color, luminance etc., but also semantic information closely related to individual knowledge. So people's recognition for real-world scenes was the result of the interaction between top-down processing and bottom-up processing. The purpose of the present study was to explore the influence of scene physical features and the semantic properties on scene recognition. Two experiments were conducted to explore how scene information processing influenced recognition for real-world scene. In experiment 1 compared the recognition RT of the scene images with semantic relation or not under different rendering time conditions, and analyzed the effect of local luminance change on the scene recognition. The results showed that the recognition RT of the scene images with semantic connection was faster than the RT of the images without semantic connection, F(1, 87) = 328.82, p < .05, η2 = .23; the main effect of rendering time was found, F(1, 87) = 7.58, p < .05, η2 = .07, and the RT under 120ms rendering time condition was faster than under 60ms rendering time condition. Analysis of correct rate and RT of the measure pictures showed that the recognition rate of the mosaic pattern was higher, F(2, 29) = 80.44, p < .05, η2 = .105, and the reaction time was faster, F(2, 29) = 90.99, p < .05, η2 = .106, but the recognition rate of inverted image was lower and the reaction time was slower. In experiment 2, the researchers tried to explore the effects of local luminance change and rendering time on obtaining of scene background cues or semantic relation. The results showed that the rendering time(F(1, 87) = 6.90, p < .05， η2 = .01) or local luminance change (F(2, 87) = 5.04, p < .05，η2 = .02) has the main effect on the scene semantic getting, and the interaction between the rendering time and local luminance change was not significant, F(2, 87) = .33, p ＞ .05, η2 = .001. Subjects could obtain harder scene semantic relation when scenes were presented quickly, or the luminance of scene was 60%. On the other hand, the background cues obtaining time was influenced by the main effect of local luminance change (F(2, 87) = 26.59, p < .05, η2 = .10), and the interaction of two different factors(F(2, 87) = 10.79, p < .05, η2 = .05). Scene background cues were obtained under 40% luminance conditions more easy than under 60%, 80% luminance conditions. The above-mentioned results indicated that scene recognition influenced by scene semantic relation, and the effect of local luminance change on scene recognition was inhibited by scene semantic getting. During the scene recognition process, the obtaining of background cues or scene semantic relation was influenced by the rendering time and local luminance change. The slower the render time, the smaller the local luminance change, the background information or scene semantic relation was easier to get. Related Articles | Metrics

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Interaction of Visual and Auditory Emotional Information during Their Relationship Evaluation 2016, 39(4): 842-848.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Auditory information can transfer emotional message through rhythm and semantic meaning. In some cases, the emotional implication from the rhythm and the semantic might even be inconsistent. If such a complicated auditory information simultaneously presented with visual information like faces, what kind of interaction among them would happen when people process them? To investigate this question is the aim of our present study. The sound materials were produced by two professional speakers, a male and a female. In Experiment 1, speakers read neutral word in a happy or angry rhythm respectively, and the participants’ task was to judge whether the emotion of the rhythm of speech was consistent with the facial expression which was presented at the same time or not. In Experiment 2, speakers read positive word in an angry rhythm or read negative word in a happy rhythm respectively, and the participants’ task was to judge either the emotion of the rhythm of speech or the semantics of speech was consistent with the facial expression which was presented at the same time. There were 43 participants (21 females) taking part in Experiment 1 and 40 participants (20 females) taking part in Experiment 2. Each experiment included 120 trails. In Experiment 1, half were consistent and the other were inconsistent. In Experiment 2, half were consistent with the semantic information and the other were consistent with the rhythm information. The key-response mapping was counterbalanced across participants. Repeated measures ANOVA with facial expression and rhythm-emotion consistency as the within-subjects factors in Experiment 1 and with facial expression and judgment cue as the within-subjects factors in Experiment 2 were performed on the participant’s mean reaction time and accuracy. The results revealed that (1) when the facial expression was positive, participants were more accurate to judge the relationship of information between the visual and auditory channels[Experiment 1:F(1，42)=15.414，p<0.001，partial?2=0.268;Experiment 2:F(1，39)=6.824，p<0.05，partial?2=0.149]. (2) In Experiment 1,when the valence of the rhythm was consistent with the facial expression, the judgment of the relationship of information between the visual and auditory channels was faster [F(1，42)=37.631，p<0.001，partial?2=0.473] and more accurate[F(1，42)=21.800，p<0.001，partial?2=0.342]. (3) In Experiment 2, when the facial expression was negative, compared with the rhythm clues of words, the semantic clues could facilitate participants’ response in judging the relationship of visual and auditory stimuli [F(1，39)=15.78，p<0.001, partial?2=0.405]. The results suggested that when the visual and auditory stimuli are presented at the same time, the visual information may be processed in advance and then affected the auditory information processing. No matter the emotional valence of visual and auditory stimulus was conflicting or not, positive facial expression promoted the cognitive judgment about the relationship between the visual and auditory information. When the emotional valence of visual and auditory stimulus was congruent, it brought out an Easy processing phenomenon. When the emotional valence of visual and auditory stimulus was conflicting, negative facial expression and the semantic information in the auditory channel could promote each other’s processing. Present study innovatively explored the separated role of the semantic emotional information and the rhythm emotional information of a word on the judgment about the relationship between the visual and auditory. It initially revealed that the semantic information had speed advantage while the rhythm information had accuracy advantage when the visual stimulus was negative facial expression. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Representation of Chinese Two-character Words in Mental Lexicon:Evidence from an fNIRS Study 2016, 39(4): 849-855.  Abstract ( )   PDF   The Representation of Chinese Two-character Words in Mental Lexicon:Evidence from an fNIRS Study Abstract: The representation and processing of compound words in mental lexicon is an important topic of cognitive psychology.By studying on processing of compound words words,it can answer the question that a representation term of compound words in the mental is word or polymorphemic. At present,there are three models about the representation and processing of compound words, including morpheme representation model,word representation model,mixed representation model.According to Morpheme representation model, a representation term is a polymorphemic;Word representation model suggests a representation term is a word; According to mixed representation model,for familiar words, a representation term is a word,while for pseudowords which no representation words in mental lexicon , a representation term only is a polymorphemic. These years,brain imaging provides a critical tool for investigating the role of polymorphemic processing and its neural basis.By functional neuroimaging studies on processing of comound words and pseudowords to test different cognitive models of reading words. However, sevearl studies comparing words and pseudowords have produced inconsistent results. The inconsistencies could reflect confounds from non lexical aspects of the stimuli.Alternatively, they may reflect true effects that are inconsistent across subjects, different subjects may use different reading strategies; dependent on experimental design such as block or slow event-related design; or not replicated across studies because of insufficient statistical power. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has become increasingly established as a promising technique for monitoring functional brain activity.With the use of the general linear model (GLM) for fNIRS data analysis, rapid event-related designs have been incorporated in fNIRS studies. This method is a reliable tool to investigate visual word recognition. The present study examined cortical oxygenation changes while twenty-two right-handed healthy native Chinese speaking college students pefermed visual lexical decision on 96 words and 96 pseudwords using functional Near-Infrared Spectrosopy (fNIRS). Sources (n = 11) and detectors (n = 10) were placed left frontal, left temporal associated with language-related processes regions.The behavioral results shows there was a signifcant lexically effect in RTs, pseudowords were significantly slower than real words.However,non signifcant for the mean average error. And fNIRS data shows that the processing real words and pseudowords activated the same set of regions relative to fixation, and this system including superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyurs,superior temporal gyrus, middle temporal gyurs.However, superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyurs, was significantly more activated in real word processing than in pseudowords processing.The result indicated that a highly comparable neural network were involved with word processing;frontal temporal work network were involved during visual lexical decision on words and pseudwords which may in relation to semantic processing,left frontal lobe in lexical decision may executive the selection of semantic, is real time to get the semantic information. All the findings supported that the mixed representation model could account for the structure of the access representation of Chinese Two-character words in mental lexicon.The present research provide a neuroimaging evidence for the mixed representation model. Related Articles | Metrics

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Research on the Consciousness of Information Processing in Focus-based Reading 2016, 39(4): 856-861.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Long et al. (2006) found that the construction of situation model is conscious while the construction of text base is unconscious through the two paradigms（IRK and PDP） in text reading. This is inconsistent with the processing theory of Bi-mechanism in text-reading which states that the construction of situation model is unconscious in coherence-based reading while is conscious in focus-based reading. We think that the inconsistence is caused by the nature of experiment material. In this study, two experiments were designed to explore the consciousness of text representation in focus-based reading with both Independence-Remember-Know (IRK) and Process-Dissociation-Procedure (PDP) paradigms. A self-paced, line-by-line reading paradigm was used in this study. In experiment 1, 40 University students were asked to read 12 narrative passages. According to the relationship between the elaboration on a characteristic of the protagonist and the subsequent target action carried out by the protagonist, the independent variable had two levels: consistent version and qualified version. The dependent variable was the rate of “remember” or “know” judgment. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two material sets. After reading all of the texts, participants received the recognition test. They were instructed to press a key labeled new if they believed the sentence did not appear in one of the texts they had read. Otherwise, the participants were instructed to press a key labeled old if they believed the sentence appeared in one of the texts they had read, then they were asked to decide whether they had a vivid, clear consciousness of the sentence; if so, they were asked to press a key labeled R (for remember). If they did not have a vivid, clear consciousness of the sentence but still believed the sentence had appeared in one of the texts, they were asked to press a key labeled K (for know). In experiment 2, 48 University students were asked to read 12 groups narrative passages. The independent variable was as same as that in experiment 1. The dependent variable was the hit rate of “Old” judgment and the false alarm rate of “New” judgment. Participants were randomly assigned to a material set. Each participant read twelve blocks of texts, and then they received a recognition test after each block. After reading one block, they were given one instruction (inclusion instruction or exclusion instruction). In inclusion test, participants were asked to respond old if the sentence appeared in either Story A or Story B and were asked to respond new to any new item. In exclusion test, participants were asked to respond old only if the sentence appeared in Story B and were asked to respond new if the sentence was from Story A or if the item was new. In these two experiments, there was remarkable difference between the consistent version and qualified version in the rate of consciousness and unconsciousness. The results showed that both the construction of situation model and textbase were conscious in focus-based reading. This research extended and deepened the processing theory of Bi-mechanism in text-reading. Related Articles | Metrics

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Effects of visual salience and reward value on saccadic eye movements Hu-Qing SHI 2016, 39(4): 862-868.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Objective: Visual attention is influenced by stimulus-driven and goal-driven processes, which could both cause different types of attentional capture and predict saccadic eye movements. Previous work has mostly focused on a trade-off between these two processes or their respective, separate influences on the time-course of eye movements by using visual search paradigm or spatial orientation tasks. Recent studies have examined how these two processes may interact with each other by using decision-making tasks. However, the results of these studies were inconsistent. It remained unclear that whether visual salience and reward value showed additive, subtractive or synergistic effects. Therefore, this study investigated how visual salience and reward value affect saccadic eye movements under cooperating and competing conditions. Methods: 60 young adults were instructed to view Gabor patch pairs with different levels of visual salience and reward value. 20 Gabor patches that varied in 4 orientations and 5 luminance contrasts were generated. Reward value was manipulated to vary with orientation. Varying the contrast of the stimuli provided a manipulation of visual salience. Gabor patch were presented in pairs, resulting in 380 possible combinations from the above-mentioned 20 Gabor patches. Participants were instructed to view the Gabor patch pairs in a natural manner or they were asked to choose the patch with higher reward value. Eye movements were recorded for both tasks using a desktop eye tracking system-EyeLink 1000. Cooperating conditions showed one of the patches having both higher value (associated with more vertical orientation) and higher visual salience (higher contrast). Competing conditions showed one patch having higher value and lower visual salience than the other patch or vice versa lower value and higher physical salience. Saccade latency and saccade capture rate were gathered and analyzed to see how fast and how likely the participants direct their saccades to the side with higher reward value under different conditions. Results: For free viewing task, visual salience showed significant effect on saccadic eye movements (p<.001). For binary choice task, repeated measure ANOVA with congruencies, reward value and visual salience as factors revealed significant main effects of congruency and reward value on saccade capture rate and saccade latency (p<.05). Results also showed significant interaction effect of congruency and visual salience on saccade capture rate and saccade latency. This revealed that reward value showed overriding effect on saccadic capture rate and saccade latency under both conditions, while the effect of visual salience showed distinct patterns under different conditions. When visual salience and reward value cooperate, visual salience had additive effect on saccadic latency (p<.05). Saccades were directed more often and faster to the Gabor patch with higher reward. When they compete, visual salience played a significant role on misleading the saccades more often and faster to the side with lower reward but higher salience (p<.05). Conclusions: This is the first study to investigate how visual salience and reward value affect saccadic eye movements under cooperating and competing conditions in humans. These findings suggest that distinct patterns of eye movements exist under cooperating and competing conditions of stimulus-driven and goal-driven processes. Related Articles | Metrics

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Effects of the Background Color of Learning Materials on Cognitive Load and Learning Performance Chong-Yong SUN Dian-Zhi LIU 2016, 39(4): 869-874.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Choi et al.(2014) introduced a new model of cognition load in which added factors of the physical learning environment except for task characteristics and learner characteristics. The physical learning environment referred to the whole range of physical properties of a place where teaching and learning took place, including physical characteristics of learning materials, tools, or natural spaces, etc. However, until now, researchers had paid very little attention to the effects of the physical learning environment on cognitive load and learning. Color, a basic of human perception and an important part of the physical learning environment, had intrigued many researchers to study its impact on cognition and behavior. Conflicting results had been found as to whether warm versus cool colors enhance cognitive task performance. The main purpose of the study was to explore the influence of the background color of learning materials and type of task on cognition load and learning performance for their importance to instruction design. The study used a 2×2 mixed design with between-subjects factor being type of background color (red verse blue) and within-subjects factor being type of task ( the memory test task verse the creative task). A sample of 80 participants who was randomly selected from 612 students of 10 parallel classes in a middle school volunteered to participate in the study. Their ages ranged from 15 to 17 years and all were right-handed. No participants were reported to have got color blindness or color weakness. The memory test task was asked to recall as many words as they could within 90 sec after they had studied a list of 40 neutral Chinese words for 2 min. The creative task was asked to generate as many creative uses for a piece of newspaper as they could think within 90 sec. They were both presented on Lenovo computers with red or blue background. The experimental program was designed by E-prime 2.0 psychology software so as to control the presentation time of experiment materials and measure the time of task completion. The participants were required to assess their cognitive load with the Paas Scale after they had completed a type of task. The entire experiment lasted about 25 min. The hypotheses were testified on the whole. Though the main effect of background color of learning materials on cognition load was not remarkable, there existed an interaction effect of background color and type of task on it. In solving creative problems, background color had significant effects on cognition load, and cognition load induced by warm colors (e.g., red) was higher than that induced by cool colors (e.g., blue). On the other hand, background color had also a significant impact on learning performance. Compared with cool colors (e.g., blue), warm colors (e.g., red) enhanced learning performance on memory test tasks. Simultaneously, cool colors (e.g., blue) facilitated learning performance on creative problems. On some extent, the study verified the revised model of cognition load proposed by Choi et al. (2014) by taking the background color of learning materials, one of physical leaning environment, as an example. Related Articles | Metrics

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A Review on Career Capital 2016, 39(4): 998-1004.  Abstract ( )   PDF   With the development of globalization, the external environment of organization has been changed rapidly. Accordingly, the organization requires competent and flexible employees to adequate the organization development. According to a survey made by Accenture，89% employees consider career capital as the key to career success in the world. 84% employees express that they are trying to accumulate career capital. The research of career capital begins in 1990s. The purpose of this paper is to introduce career capital concept into Chinese career research, expand the research field and develop new direction for career management in China. This paper begins with the introduction of career capital. This concept is put forward by Defillippi and Arthur(1994) and is named as career competencies initially. Each arena of firm competency suggests a matching arena of career competency, which is introduced as know-why, know-how, and know-whom respectively. Many scholars define career capital from different points of view. This paper reviews career capital from the perspective of investment, capital composition and resource embedment. Based on the definitions of career capital, this paper reviews career capital models from the field of career management and human resource management practice. In career management field, career capital model named as intelligent career framework is composed of know-why, know-how and know-who, which is the most popular model in career capital research. In human resource management practice field, career capital contains must have capital and nice to have capital. The former is necessary for career development and the latter is the key to career success. career capital model in human resource management field shows the operation mechanism of career capital components. According to the literatures, the dimensions of career capital are based on three theories. They are intelligent career framework, social theory and resource embedded view. Based on intelligent career framework, the core of career capital is know-how, know-why and know-who, though scholars construct different dimensions of career capital. Based on social theory, researchers put forward that career capital is composed of economic capital, social capital and education capital. Based on embedded resource view, some scholars develop embedded and embodied career capital. As a new concept, career capital has been widely used in career management research. In cross-cultural research, research findings show that expatriation has positive effect on career capital. However, scholars have different findings about the accumulation effect of know-who. Some researches show that expatriation is beneficial to know-who capital; while some others find that it has negative effect on career capital. As for the importance of three dimensions of career capital, the contradiction is more complicated. Some researchers finds know-why is the most important, some finds know-who is, and some finds know-how is. In the literatures of antecedents and results of career capital, this paper categories the antecedents into job, individual and environmental factors, and the results into career success, entrepreneurship and career satisfaction. Finally, this paper shows the limitation of presents researches and directions of the future researches. At the same time, this paper illustrates how to use career capital in human resource management practice. Hopefully, it will provide new thoughts for career management research. Related Articles | Metrics

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Being-towards-Death and Unwinding-through-Wealth? Impact of Existential Insecurity on Materialism Yu-Ling WANG 2016, 39(4): 921-926.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Nothing is more important than one's life and death. Research on Terror management theory (TMT) has suggested that three strategies, namely, supporting cultural worldviews, seeking for self-esteem, and defense of interpersonal belonging, would be taken to buffer existential insecurity when made aware of people's own inevitable death. In western, some researchers in the field of materialism have done lots of theoretical work as well as some empirical studies based on TMT. They found that existential insecurity is one of the chief causes of materialism. However, few researches examined this relationship in China. Considering the reality of modern China that materialism has gradually prevailed since the period of social transformation and death message has been exposed to us a lot in the New Media Era, the current research tried to use undergraduates' sample to fill this blank. The present study designed a situational experiment to inspect the relationship between existential insecurity and materialism in Chinese culture, and explore the mediating role of seeking perceived control as well. The current study recruited volunteers from a normal university in Wuhan, getting a convenience sample of 75 valid subjects (20 males and 55 females; Mage = 19.64, SD = 1.66). The experiment used a slightly revised version of mortality salience paradigm, to activate high existential insecurity (N = 38) by mortality salience material and low existential insecurity (N = 37) by Taoism nature material. Then, sense of control was measured in line with the previous study (Liu, Wang, & He, 2014) and emotion was measured by a revision of the PANAS (Qiu, Zheng, & Wang, 2008). Next, Classical delay manipulation (Guo, 2003) was also used to keep death anxiety in the unconscious level. After that, explicit materialism tendency was measured by a forest-management game (Kasser & Sheldon, 2000) and a bonus allocation situation. Finally, implicit materialism attitude was measured by the single category implicit association test (SC-IAT). The results of the experiments indicated that: (1) subjects in the mortality salience condition(M = -.09，SD = .33), compared with subjects in the Taoism nature material (M = -.23, SD = .24), had more positive attitudes toward materialism at the implicit level, t(73) = 2.21, p < .05, d = .51. However, this materialism difference was not significant at the explicit level. (2) Bias corrected Bootstrap-test showed that the mediating effect of perceived control between existential insecurity and implicit materialism attitude was significant (LLCI = .0003, ULCI = .1080; indirect effect of X on Y = .03; ab/c = 20.29%). The inconsistencies of the results between implicit and explicit could be interpreted from three main aspects: (1) experimental procedure; (2) individual difference; (3) culture difference. All in all, the current study not only concluded that for Chinese college students, existential insecurity was one of the chief cause of materialism, but also indicated that seeking for sense of control was a motivational mechanism. And there were two main contributions in the present study: (1) To some degree, we provided new empirical evidence for the motivational mechanism of TMT. (2) To the best of our knowledge, it was the first time that SC-IAT had been used to measure materialism, which might solve the social desirability issue effectively. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Influence of Temporal Leadership on Employee’s Helping Behavior: The Effect of Passion and Proactive Personality 2016, 39(4): 927-933.  Abstract ( )   PDF   As the cooperation in multiple tasks between employees is increasingly necessary for companies in today's dynamic business environment, facilitating helping behaviors among employees becomes a critical issue for managers. However, employees might have no time to help their colleagues other than striving to meet the deadlines themselves. To address this problem, we introduced temporal leadership--which could effectively allocate and utilize the time resources of employees--as an antecedent of employee's helping behavior. Then we developed a theoretical model based on the effective event theory and the person-situation interaction perspective to explain the impact mechanism of temporal leadership on helping behavior. After that, we examined our hypotheses by using a sample of 260 employees from three provinces in South China. By implementing path analysis via a procedure of boostrapping with Mplus 6.10, our analyses indicated that: (1) temporal leadership positively predicted employee's helping behavior; (2) both harmonious passion and obsessive passion simultaneously played the role of mediator in the relationship between temporal leadership and helping behavior in our multiple mediation model, and the specific mediating effect of harmonious passion was relatively stronger; (3) proactive personality moderated the relationship between temporal leadership and helping behavior, so that the direct and total effect of temporal leadership on helping behavior were both stronger for the employees with lower level of proactive personality. This study contributed to extant literature in three ways. Firstly, by introducing temporal leadership, it could not only justify the theoretical value of this construct, but also broaden our understanding on the antecedents of helping behavior. Secondly, this study could give more details about why as well as how temporal leadership was able to facilitate helping behavior by integrating the multiple mediations of two types of passion and the moderation of proactive personality simultaneously, and it could also push forward the researches on temporal leadership in a sophisticated way. Finally, our analyses might also shed light on the theoretical applicability and revision of effective event theory as well as person-situation interaction perspective. In terms of practical implications, leaders should learn how to manage employees' time effectively, such as appropriately reminding members of deadlines, planning the schedules for employees, coordinating the pacing of tasks were implemented, etc. In this way, it might be easier for employees to make time to help others. Secondly, while managing the time of their subordinates, managers should show their care about employees' time-related well-being, rather than the accomplishment of work. This might be helpful in motivating the harmonious passion for employees, which in turn will facilitate the helping behaviors among employees. In addition, managers should pay more attentions to the employees with lower level of proactive personality, because these employees need someone else to remind them of time, pace, and schedule, so that they are able to complete their jobs effectively and make time to help their colleagues. Related Articles | Metrics

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Psychological Capital, Openness to Change and Change-Supportive Behavior: The Moderate Effect of Work Autonomy 2016, 39(4): 934-941.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Given the intense competition and the unpredictable change in business world, increasing number of organizations realize that it is important to encourage employees to take active part in the process of enterprise reform. Extant studies have recognized that some systematic level reasons can promote or inhibit employees' change-supportive behavior, but few of these studies have considered the effects and mechanisms by which individual factors may influence employees' change-supportive behavior. In this paper, we first reviewed the preliminary literatures and identified relative theories about psychological capital and change-supportive behavior. Secondly we proposed and tested a moderated model based on the analysis of planned behavior theory and conservation of resource theory to examine the effect of psychological capital on employee's change-supportive behavior, and the mediation role of openness to change as well as the moderating role of work autonomy. Thirdly, we examined our hypotheses by using a sample from 302 employees of companies located in Guangdong Province through two stages in order to reduce the effect of common method bias. In the first stage employees responded to survey questions about psychological capital and work autonomy, after 6 mouths they answered questions about openness to change and change-supportive behaviors. Correlation analysis and hierarchical regression modeling were used to test the hypotheses proposed. In line with our hypotheses, regression results revealed that: (1) psychological capital has significant positive effects on change-supportive behavior(β=.324, p<.01); (2) openness to change partly mediates the influence of psychological capital on change-supportive behavior(β=.214, p<.001); (3) work autonomy moderates the influence of openness to change on change-supportive behavior(β=.132, p<.01). After this we follow Dearing and Hamilton’s method to draw interaction picture further confirm the moderate effect of work autonomy on the relationship between openness to change and change-supportive behavior. Our findings contribute to change-supportive behaviors literature. First, most studies have focused on the systematic factors for the employees’ change-supportive behaviors, which may have obscured some individual factors that can explain exactly why employees engage in organization change. In addition, this study combine cross-sectional design and longitudinal design, fully consider the longitudinal effect on change-supportive behaviors. Finally, this study specify the boundary conditions of this model and reveal that employees perceived high work autonomy are more likely to engage in organization change. As such, this finding opens a new window on the issue of change-supportive behaviors. This study also bears some straightforward implications for managers and practitioners. On a general level, our findings demonstrate that if managers want to enhance the change-supportive behaviors of their employees, they need to pay attention on employees’ psychological capital. Further, our findings suggest that organizations should place high value on cultivate employees’ openness to change, which also contributes to the increase of change-supportive behaviors of employees. Finally, managers should engage in enhancing employees’ work autonomy. This study also exist some limitations. One limitation was that our data only collected from single source, this may cause some bias, future studies are necessary to collect subordinate-supervisor dyads datas. Another limitation was that we collected the data from organizations in South of China; the generalization of the findings to other areas or cultures may be problematic. Related Articles | Metrics

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Parental Support and College Students’ Interpersonal Adaptation： The Mediating Role of Emotional Intelligence 2016, 39(4): 964-969.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Abstract Adolescents’ interpersonal adaptability is concerned when they are required to deal with all kinds of relationships. How to improve their interpersonal adaptation ability becomes one of the foci of the research contents in areas of adolescent development. Although a number of researchers have provided empirical evidence to support the idea that adolescents’ parental support could positively predict their social adaptation. Interpersonal adaptation is an important dimension of social adaptation. But until now, little is known about how college students’ parental support influences their interpersonal adaptability. In addition, drawing from the definition of emotional intelligence, emotional intelligence is also closely related to the individual social adaptation. Hence, in the current study, we further hypothesize that parents’ support promotes interpersonal adaptation is mediated by emotional intelligence. The present study aimed at exploring the influence mechanism of the college students’ parental support on the development of their interpersonal adaptation. Otherwise, another goal was to demonstrate the characteristics of college students’ interpersonal adaptation. Using the random sampling method, 223 college students who grade from freshman year to postgraduate period were selected to fill questionnaires of emotional intelligence scale (EIS), parental support scale and interpersonal adaptability scale for college students. All scales were well-established in the literature. SPSS 21.0 and LISERL 8.7 were adopted to perform a series of statistical analyses. The results indicated that: (1) Correlation results indicated there was a significant correlation between parental support and interpersonal adaptation. Canonical correlation results indicated significant relationships among parental enhancement of worth and interpersonal interaction. (2) The correlation between college students' and college students' emotional intelligence and their interpersonal adaptation was moderate，especially the correlation between their apperceive sentiment and interpersonal recognition ability. (3) Regression analysis indicated that college students’ parental support could positively predicted their interpersonal adaptation (β=.383, t=6.161, p<.001), and students’ parental support could positively predicted their emotional intelligence (β=.365, t=17.083, p<.001). College students' emotional intelligence partly mediated the relationship between their parental support and interpersonal adaptation．Effect size index supported the mediation effect (effect size = 51.30%). Therefore, we concluded that college students' emotional intelligence has a significant mediating effect on their parental support and interpersonal adaptation. To our knowledge, this study expands upon the growing body of research related to the relationship between college students’ parental support and interpersonal adaptation by understanding the mechanisms. The results could contribute the interpersonal adaptation cultivation for college students. However, the limitation of the current study could not be ignored. First, peer support which also influences college students’ interpersonal adaptability is an important dimension of social support. It should be considered in the future study. Second, interpersonal adaptation is complicated. Interpersonal recognition ability and interpersonal interaction could not fully explain it. These issues should be taken good care of in the future studies. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of Rational vs. Experiential Processing Style on the Emotional and Behavioral Reactions towards Injustice：The Moderating Role of Justice Sensitivity 2016, 39(4): 942-948.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Perceived justice strongly influenced people’s behaviors, attitudes, and feelings in organizations, friendships and other daily life situations. Specifically, it has been shown that experiencing unfair outcome allocations or unfair procedures leads people to feel much more sad and angry about the events happened to them. Despite the researchers have paid more attention to fairness reactions, there is still relatively little known about what psychological processes exactly drive people’s reactions to justice judgments. In the present article, we explored the role of processing style in people’s reactions to injustice. The study was based on the cognitive-experiential self-theory, one of dual processing theories, which specified two information processing styles, and through which justice/injustice reactions can occur: experiential and rational. Whereas experiential processing occurs relatively subconsciously and effortlessly, rational processing entails deliberate thinking and weighing of the evidence. And experiential processing often involves the use of emotion and other heuristics as information, whereas rational processing involves more evidence-based and logic decisions. Consequently, we speculated that when people got in different situations they maybe have different reactions to injustice depending on whether they view the transgression through an experiential or a rational processing frame. We designed two specific studies to support our hypothesis. Study 1 used a laboratory method, and a 2 (processing style: experiential vs. rational) × 2 (procedure: accuracy vs. inaccuracy) between-group experiment was conducted. Results from a sample of 91 college students showed that both the procedure and processing style had main significant effects on positive emotion, negative emotion and cooperation intention. And the interaction effect between procedure and processing style on positive and negative emotion, cooperation intention was also significant. In other words, processing style moderated both emotional and behavioral reactions to procedural justice. Study 2 used scenario method and a 2 (processing style: experiential vs. rational) × 2 (interpersonal treatment: fair vs. unfair) factorial design. In order to explore how victim justice sensitivity influences the relationship between processing style and the reactions to justice, we also measured participants’ victim justice sensitivity by the Justice Sensitivity Scale. Compared with college students in the previous experiment, 143 employees participated in this study. Results showed that all independent variables and the interaction had non-significant effect on positive emotion, while the main effects of interpersonal justice, processing style, and the interaction effect between them on negative emotion and cooperation intention were significant. That is, processing style also moderated the reactions towards fair treatment in the interpersonal situation, and victim justice sensitivity moderated the relationship between processing style and cooperation intention. But the hypothesis that victim justice sensitivity could moderate the relationship between processing style and emotional reactions to injustice didn’t be verified. To sum up, people who use experiential processing system to deal with injustice information have much stronger negative emotional reaction and less cooperation intention to justice violator than ones who use rational processing system. In addition, for persons with high victim justice sensitivity, processing style has no effect on the reactions to injustice. Related Articles | Metrics

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How Important Are Facial Appearance to Leadership? A Literature Review of Leaders’ Facial Appearance 璐 高 Jian PENG Yu-Shuai CHEN 2016, 39(4): 992-997.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Over the years, research on leadership are dominated by trait approach and behavioral approach. Suprisingly, recent studies have found that visual cues, such as facial appearance, are increasingly playing an important role in affecting a variety of human psychological and behavior processes. Therefore, research on facial appearance has gradually extended to the domain of leadership, and revealed that leaders’ facial appearance could influence organizational performance and employees’ attitude and behavior towards leaders. Firstly, this paper introduces leaders’ facial appearance, including facial ages, facial Width–to–Height Ratio (fWHR) and facial traits. Facial ages means how old are these faces based on the perception of perceiver. fWHR represents whether the face is wide or narrow. Then, we provide an overview of research in this field and account for its theoretical basis. For example, studies found that age can influence follower’s perception of leadership style, younger-looking leaders were endorsed for exploratory change and older-looking leaders for stable exploitation. fWHR can influence negotiation performance in man. Men with greater fWHR are less cooperative negotiators compared to men with smaller facial ratios. The lack of cooperation allows men with greater fWHR to claim more value when negotiating with other men, but inhibits their ability to create agreements that benefit all negotiating parties. Also, researchers found that compared with men who had narrower faces, men who had wider faces showed more self-sacrificing cooperation to help their group members under circumstances of competition with another group. Moreover, research showed that fWHR of CEOs are related to the performance of their companies. Facial traits can affect election results, organizational performance and employees’ attitude towards leaders. Specifically, attractiveness, competence and maturity can affect election results. Also, leaders may be chosen depend on particular situations. During time of war, a dominant-appearing leader may inspire confidence and intimidate enemies, while during peace-time, negotiation and diplomacy are needed, interpersonal skills may outweigh the value of a dominant leader. In line with these ideas, masculine-faced leaders are favored in war-time scenarios while feminine-faced leaders are favored in peace-time scenarios. As for organizational performance there are some research indicated that, not only agentic traits(control,powerful), but also communal traits (sympathy,support,warmth) can influence organizational performance. Research about employees’ attitude toward leaders showed that managers of higher perceived likeability were less preferred than candidates of lower perceived likeability. In addition, research has found that competent-looking political candidates do better in U.S. elections while babyfaced individuals are generally perceived to be less competent than maturefaced individuals. This suggests that babyfaced political candidates are perceived as less competent and therefore do worse in elections. It’s called “Babyface effect”. There are two main theoretical perspectives--cognitive psychology and evolutionary psychology to explain why leaders’ face can influence organizational performance and the employees’ perception, attitude and behavior towards leaders. Finally, future research can further explore the babyface effect of Chinese leaders, and the moderating role of contingency factors ,such as environment (within organization-outside organization). Related Articles | Metrics

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The Energy Effect of Food Processing Among Successful and Unsuccessful Restrained Eaters: An Eye Movement Study about Attention Bias 2016, 39(4): 956-963.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Base on the incentive sensitization model, reward-related cues in the environment, acquire motivational properties, or incentive salience, through classical conditioning (i.e., repeated association between the cue and intake of the rewarding substance). Consequently, these cues come to be perceived as attractive and “wanted.” As a result, reward-related cues automatically capture (i.e., bias) attention, stimulate craving, and guide behavior toward substance acquisition and consumption. For the success or failure of restrained eating is caused by the attention bias toward food. The goal of the present study was to investigate components of the attention bias toward food among successful restrained eaters（S-REs）, unsuccessful restrained eaters(US-REs), and unrestrained eaters(UREs). We hypothesized that when high or low calorie food pictures match with non-food, S-REs and US-REs would show vigilance-avoid pattern to follow the diet goal. While high and low calorie food pictures match, due to increased food temptation, US-REs would show vigilance-maintenance pattern, but S-REs have enhanced inhibition ability also show vigilance-avoid pattern. The research use eye movement (EM) tracking assessed biases in specific component processes of visual attention (i.e., orientation, detection, and maintenance of gaze) in relation to high and low calorie food pictures. Through The Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire, we were studied 30 women with S-REs, 30 women with US-REs and 30 women with UREs. What’s more the eye movements were recorded while participants completed a task that freedom to browse pictures pairs for 2000 ms. We use the high or low calorie food with non-food matching, besides we also use the high and low calorie food matching. When high or low calorie food pictures match with non-food, S-REs show vigilance-avoid pattern that is speed detection, early and total avoid bias toward high calorie food. US-REs show avoid - maintenance pattern that they were less likely to direct their initial gaze toward high calorie food, but once noticed appears to maintenance bias. UREs only showed early avoid bias toward low calorie food. Specifically, S-REs had a shorter first fixation duration on high calorie food pictures compared to US-REs. While high and low calorie food pictures match, S-REs show vigilance- maintenance pattern that they have early orienting and maintenance bias toward high calorie food. US-REs show vigilance- maintenance pattern that is early orienting and maintenance even total maintenance bias toward high calorie food. UREs also show vigilance- maintenance pattern that who have early orienting and speed detection even total maintenance bias toward high calorie food. Specifically, compared to US-REs, S-REs had a shorter total gaze duration on high calorie food pictures. In sum, we found the energy effect of food information processing among S-REs and US-REs. The results showed S-REs and US-REs had different attention bias pattern toward high calorie food pictures. Eye movement evidence indicated that all participant showed more attention to high calorie food rather than low calorie food, it means restrained eater(REs) prefer high calorie food. Besides compare with S-REs, US-REs showed more attention to high calorie food, but less attention to low calorie food. In the future study, we should intervening participant’s attention bias toward high calorie food to promote the success of the restrained eating. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Moderate Effect of Empathy on the Relationship between Altruism and Egocentrism in Female University Students 2016, 39(4): 977-984.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Altruistic behaviors are voluntary acts intended to bene?t or help others, which can be predicted by many psychological traits. The most prominent ones are egocentrism, an individual’s propensity to be privy to one’s own but not to others, and empathy, a set of constructs which all concern responsivity to others but are also clearly discriminable from each other. These two variables, however, have opposing effects on altruism. Egocentrism tends to decrease altruistic behaviors/tendency, while empathy tends to increase it. It is not entirely clear as to how these two traits interactively influence altruistic behaviors/tendency. Two studies were carried out to examine the moderating effect that trait (Study 1) and state (Study 2) empathy exerted on the relationship between egocentrism and altruistic tendency (Study 1)/behavior (Study 2) in female university students. In Study 1, a questionnaire survey was conducted exploring the relationships among trait empathy, egocentrism, and the tendency to perform altruistic behavior. 336 female college students filled out a battery of questionnaires, including the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI, as a measure of trait empathy), the Egocentrism Scale, the Altruistic Behavior Scale of Philosophies of Human Nature (as a measure of altruistic tendency) and a Social Desirability Scale. A multiple regression was carried out with egocentrism as independent variable, altruistic tendency as dependent variable, and trait empathy as moderator . The results showed that trait empathy moderated the relationship between altruistic tendency and egocentrism when social desirability was controlled. Specifically, for participants with high level of trait empathy, their egocentrism scores negatively correlated with altruistic tendency; no significant relationship was found between egocentrism and altruistic tendency for participants with low level of trait empathy. In Study 2, we primed the participants into either high or low state empathy and examined whether this experimental manipulation of empathy could influence the relationship between egocentrism and actual altruistic behaviors. 48 participants were randomly assigned into two equal-sized groups according to their egocentrism scores in Study 1. Participants received 30 RMB rewards immediately when then come into the lab. Then they were left alone for the rest of the experiment using computerized program. Participants first completed an irrelevant attention task to cover the main purpose of the study. Then the expiriment group read a story which could prime state empathy based on a pilot study, while the control group read a control article about the same length. After that, participants was informed that the Psychology Department was fundraising for a welfare institution. They could voluntarily donate some of the rewards to the donation box, the amount of which was used as a measure of altruistic behavior. Primed empathy significantly invoked altruistic behaviors. The significant interaction between state-empathy and egocentrism indicated that primed state empathy provoked more donations on participants with lower level of egocentrism than those with higher level, while in the control group the amount of donations did not differ between participants with different levels of egocentrism. Related Articles | Metrics

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Negative Discounting: The Self-Other Discrepancy in Intertemporal Choice Hong-Yue SUN Li-Ying CUI 2016, 39(4): 970-976.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Standard economic theory assumes that a temporal discounting process occurs when people choose between outcomes occurring at different times in an intertemporal choice. According to the temporal discounting process, people should prefer to lose or experience unpleasant experiences later rather than sooner, which shows a positive discounting. However, immediate negative events are generally preferred to delayed negative events, which is called negative discounting phenomenon. Loewenstein (1987) assume that the negative anticipated emotions of future events make people prefer the immediate negative events, which lead to the negative discounting phenomenon. In this paper, we tried to examine whether there is a self-other discrepancy in the negative discounting phenomenon. In Experiment 1, we investigated the effect of decision role on the negative discounting phenomenon through the time preference with respect to when the negative events happened. We constructed ten intertemporal choice situations based on six kinds of negative events in daily life and asked the participants to choose the time when they would like the negative events to happen. In the SELF-condition, the participants chose for themselves and in the OTHER-condition, the participants chose for a stranger. The results showed that the participants preferred the negative events happened earlier when deciding for self than for others in all the ten intertemporal choice situations (difference significant or marginal significant in seven situations). In Experiment 2, we investigated the effect of decision role on the negative discounting phenomenon through the discounting rate. In this experiment, we applied the choice-titration task in Hardisty, Appelt, & Weber (2013) to compute the discounting rate when the participants deciding for themselves versus others. The participants were asked to read a passage which informed them that they had to pay tax ￥100 to the government immediately and they were also be offered another option of paying a different amount one year from now. The participants then were offered a series of choices between a fixed immediate amount ￥100 and a varying later amount (￥20 to ￥180). The results showed that the average discounting rate in the SELF-condition was a negative value, whereas the average discounting rate in the OTHER-condition was a positive one. There was a significant difference in the discounting rates between these two decision conditions. The overall results suggest that people are more likely to exhibit the negative discounting phenomenon when deciding for themselves than deciding for others. We suspect that, people may be more likely to generate negative anticipated emotions towards the delayed negative events when deciding for themselves and thus, the negative discounting phenomenon is detected. In turn, the findings in this paper, in a way, support the negative anticipated emotions towards the delayed negative events as an explanation for the negative discounting phenomenon. This paper extended the theoretical researches of intertemporal choice and shed some light on the mechanism of intertemporal choice in the loss domain. Furthermore, the findings in this paper also add evidences to the self-other discrepancy in decision making. Future studies are required to explore the mechanism behind the self-other decision gap. Related Articles | Metrics

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Product Placement and Non-product Placement Effect: the Influence of Receiving Channels and Time Delay 2016, 39(4): 949-955.  Abstract ( )   PDF   The existing research on product placement focus on the influence of brand salience and receiving channels on brand impression and brand attitude. However, there is lack of research on the comparison between product placement and non-product placement, and lack of the influence of different receiving channels (especially the single visual channel) and time delay on the two sorts of advertisements. The present research takes brand memory and brand attitude as a function of advertisement’s effect by receiving channels and time delay. In experiment 1, we compiled product placements and non-product placements of fictional brands in visual, audition and visual-audition combination modes, and product placements were on standards of subtle placements(i.e., not related to the plot, and seen only briefly) (Cowley & Barron, 2008). ninety five college students were presented these clips then the brand recognition, self-evaluation of brand preference and relative brand preference judgment were measured. The results show that: (1)the combination of visual and auditory channels (video material) leads to better brand memory than single channel; (2)brand memory of non-product placement is better than that of product placement; (3)product placement of single channel of audition has a certain advantage in brand memory and brand preference. In experiment 2, We compiled two long videos which been inserted 16 product placements and non-product placements respectively. Product placements were on standards of subtle placements, the same as experiment 1. A total of 127 college students were presented product placement and non-product placement, then brand recognition, self-evaluation of brand preference and relative brand preference judgment were measured under the condition of instant and one week delay. The results confirmed previous findings of brand memory in that non-product placement is better than product placement during the processes of brand recognition. In addition, the results revealed that, (1)product placement has advantages in self-evaluation of brand preference under the condition of time delay; (2)either product placement and non-product placement made any difference on brand preference judgment under the condition of instant and time delay. Our results may provide implication on how receiving channel and time delay affect advertising effect. The non-product placement and visual-audition combination modes promotes the brand recognition through the advantage of image information, Under the condition of time delay, product placement produce higher preference level of self-evaluation resulting from the integration of backgrounds and advertisement. The plot integration and characteristics of auditory material increase memory recall performance and the level of preference in the product placement. Final, it was Mere Exposure Effect led non-product placement and visual-audition combination modes produce higher preference level of self-evaluation than product placement and visual or audition modes. In future research, the mechanism of the influence of receiving channels and time delay on product placement and non-product placement might be further confirmed by introducing variables of product placement type and brand familiarity. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Language Processing and Response Inhibition in Children with Reading Disability and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder ZHANG WEI Bing-Ping ZHOU 2016, 39(4): 893-899.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Reading Disability (RD) and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are two of the most common disorders of childhood, which are often co-morbid with a rate from 25% to 40% nationally. It is widely accepted that the proximal cognitive cause of RD is a phonological deficit whereas the predominant account of ADHD sees it as a result of an impairment in executive functions that affect both cognitive and motivational systems. The co-occurrence raises questions as to how the disorders interact and in which respect (also to what extent) they can be differentiated. However, studies of either disorder alone cannot test definitively whether RD and ADHD are separable at the cognitive level, because individuals with each disorder might also be significantly impaired on measures of the core deficit associated with the other diagnosis. In addition, an increase of homogeneity across groups and use of mutually exclusive definitions for group assignment are recommended, and the differences in the tasks of cognitive function that are utilized might account for heterogeneity of performance of children with RD or ADHD. Therefore, few studies have shown a fairly clear distinction between core deficits in this two disorders. This study tested a double dissociation between Chinese children with RD and ADHD on measures of basic language processing and inhibition in order to compare the core cognitive deficits in these two disorders. All of the disorder participants were recruited at a clinic and normal children were recruited from an elementary school. Four groups of children, carefully diagnosed by clinicians, aged between 7 and 12 years (15 RD-only, 17 ADHD-only, 19 RD + ADHD, 18 typically developing normal controls), were assessed on measures of basic language processing, response inhibition and higher-level language processing. Three tests, including phonological awareness test, rapid naming test and morphological awareness test were used to assess the ability of basic language processing among these groups. The classic Stop Signal task was used to assess the response inhibition of subjects in different groups. At last, the Sentence Span task was used to assess the higher-level language processing, namely the verbal working memory of subjects, which contains and synthesizes the phonological processing ability and interference suppression ability. The results indicated that both RD-only group and RD + ADHD group performed significantly worse than the ADHD-only group and NC (normal controls) group on the measures of phonological awareness, rapid naming and morphological awareness, but no significant differences had been detected between ADHD-only group and NC group. With regard to the response inhibition, the ADHD-only group and RD + ADHD group performed significantly worse than the RD-only group and NC group on the stop signal task, and there was no significant differences between the RD-only group and NC group. All the three disorder groups (RD-only, ADHD-only, RD + ADHD) performed significantly worse than the NC group on the Sentence Span task, and no significant differences were found among the three disorder groups. These findings suggest that RD is associated independently with weaknesses in the basic language processing, including the phonological awareness, rapid naming speed and morphological awareness, whereas ADHD was independently associated with a weakness in inhibitory control. That is, the core cognitive deficits of Reading Disability and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder are independent from each other. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of Family Functioning on Adolescents’ Moral Disengagement: Roles of Conscientiousness and Moral Identity 2016, 39(4): 907-913.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Moral disengagement is an important construct in moral psychology. It is more than just an influential predictor of various unethical behaviors; it is also an outcome of various psychological variables. Since moral disengagement exerts adverse influence on adolescents’ moral development, a thorough understanding of it followed by the proper counter measures becomes extremely important. Hence, it is necessary to explore factors that influence moral disengagement and the mechanism whereby such factors affect moral disengagement. According to social cognitive theory, family functioning may be associated with adolescents’ moral disengagement. However, scant attention has been given to the underlying mechanisms and processes through which this relationship occurs. Based on previous studies, we hypothesize that conscientiousness serves as a mediator of the relationship between family functioning and moral disengagement. Additionally, the relationship between them maybe not linear, which means there are moderating variables affect them. There is few research, if any, examining whether the mediating effect depends on other factors, for example, moral identity. The present study was to constitute a moderated mediation model in which conscientiousness mediated the link between family functioning and moral disengagement, and moral identity moderated this mediating process. A sample of 1013 adolescents of 5 schools (463 boys and 550 girls, Mage = 13.87 ± .72) was recruited in the study to complete the Chinese family assessment instrument, five-factor personality questionnaire for adolescents, moral identity scale, and moral disengagement scale. We also adopted Andrew Hayes’ PROCESS macro for SPSS to examine the moderated mediation model (Hayes, 2013). The results demonstrated that: (1) after controlling for gender and age, family functioning negatively predicted adolescents’ moral disengagement; (2) conscientiousness played a partial mediating effect between family functioning and moral disengagement. Family functioning not only exert a direct influence on moral disengagement, but also restrained moral disengagement indirectly by increasing conscientiousness; (3) moral identity moderated the mediated path through conscientiousness, such that this indirect effect was much stronger for adolescents with low moral identity relative to those with high moral identity. Consistent with the antagonistic interactions of the protective-protective model, high moral identity could actually protect adolescents with poor conscientiousness from high moral disengagement. This moderated mediation model significantly revealed the psychological mechanism of family functioning on adolescents’ moral disengagement. The current study extends existing literature by exploring factors that influence adolescents’ moral disengagement. The mediating role of conscientiousness helps explain why family functioning decreases moral disengagement, and the moderating role of moral identity helps illuminate the boundary condition of when family functioning are more or less likely to affect moral disengagement. In terms of practical implications, we should attach importance to the effect of family functioning on moral disengagement. Building a good family functioning is important to improve adolescents’ conscientiousness and discourage their moral disengagement. Further, our findings also suggest that parents should place high value on improving adolescents’ moral identity. Even when adolescents hold low conscientiousness, high levels of moral identity can act as a protector factor that mitigates somewhat the adverse effects of poor conscientiousness on moral disengagement. Related Articles | Metrics

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Stability and Change: Review of Research on Development of the Big Five Personality Domains in Western Children and Adolescents 2016, 39(4): 914-920.  Abstract ( )   PDF   The personality of children and adolescents is related to many aspects of individuals’ later developments, including physical and psychological health, educational and occupational achievements, as well as social relationships. It can provide the basis and reference for the work of their personality development and cultivation to clarify the age differences in children and adolescents’ personality. However, the existing developmentally oriented research has not reached a consensus on the age differences in personality in western children and adolescents, and the debate on stability and change of personality development has always being existing. Based on the research about the Big Five personality development of western children and adolescents in the last three decades, this article distinguishes two main forms of personality development, and summarizes the age differences in the Big Five personality from childhood to adolescence, including the development of the Big Five personality structure, as well as the mean-level age differences in the Big Five personality domains. The Big Five, a hierarchical structure, is not only suitable for organizing the personality traits of children and adolescents in much the same way as it does to adults, but also relatively stable across childhood and adolescence. Although the number and the representativeness of low-order traits in some high-order domains may change, the five high-order domains remain stable from childhood to adolescence. The mean levels in the Big Five personality domains across childhood and adolescence vary with age, and the changes do not simply represent a monotonic trend toward greater and greater psychosocial adjustment. Extraversion gradually declines from childhood to adolescence. Agreeableness and Conscientiousness show the similar developmental trajectories: they both increase from early childhood to late childhood, decline during early adolescence, and increase again after entering middle adolescence. The development of Neuroticism during this period shows interaction effects of gender and age. From early childhood to middle childhood, the mean levels of Neuroticism for boys and girls rise slightly. From late childhood to middle adolescence, Neuroticism increases for girls, while declines for boys. After entering late adolescence, Neuroticism for boys and girls declines again. The mean-level change in Openness may be as follows: it increases gradually from early childhood to middle childhood, then declines from late childhood to middle adolescence, and at last increases gradually after the beginning of late adolescence. The mean-level age differences in the Big Five personality domains are associated with social culture, individuals’ life experiences at different stages and the corresponding biosocial changes and challenges which children and adolescents have to face. In the end, the paper proposes that future research should focus on cross-culture comparative studies about the personality development for children and adolescents in different cultures, and pay attention to the developmental characteristics of the low-order traits in the Big Five personality domains, and should also emphasize the developmental trajectories of personality extremity from childhood to adolescence. According to the current network era, the paper puts forward that future research should make full use of the computer-based personality judgments. To a certain extent, this article has integrated previous related studies and solved the long-standing debate on the stability and change of the personality development in children and adolescents. Related Articles | Metrics

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A Clinical Case of the Role Lettering Therapy Analysis and Enlightenment from Eye-Movement Data 2016, 39(4): 1011-1016.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Role lettering therapy (RLT) involves writing letters to someone toward whom one has negative feelings such as anger, hostility, or hatred, even though the letters will never be mailed. After you finish the first letter, the therapist would ask for you cognitive shifts - writing back from different perspectives. In the beginning, you are both "sender" and " addressee" and would experience the conflict with each other, but when you write more letters, the conflict will be reconciled or corrected and eventually reach a state of mutual understanding. Many Japanese researchers have conducted a lot of research by using clinical case, KJ method, and measuring the physiological index difference from the perspective of the brain science. RLT has little English literature, however, western scholars have rich study on expressive writing or written emotional expression, which demonstrates that writing will help people reappraise the situation, elicits meaning-making processes such as searching for causal explanations and interpretation of the events. So, we believe, RLT also help people change unreasonable cognition and reappraise the situation. In addition, according to the clinical practical cases in Japan and China, the novice consultant may have different perspectives with client. According to the discussion above, this paper will talk about these two ideas. Eye movement research is the commonly method to study language and reading comprehension. RLT also use writing and reading to self-treatment. It is feasible to use eye movement technology to understand RLT. Due to the confidential clinical research, the author takes the case study. “A” lady is a teacher of the administrative department in vocational colleges. Before a position adjustment, the leader of “A” lady made the commitment of promotion to her. But finally, “A” lady did not get promotion, and she is very angry. In the process of psychological counseling, researcher ask for write a letter to her leader (first letter), and then ask for standing on the position of the leader write a letter to herself (second letter). According to the length of the letters, we respectively cut them into seven pictures and five pictures. The picture resolution all is 1600 x 900. Then the author imports all the pictures into German SMI iView X RED Eye Tracking System and in the reading letter process, “A” lady's eye movements were tracked by it. And after “A” lady's consent, the researcher let a novice consultant read the letter who majors in the psychology, with poor clinical consulting experience. Fixation duration, fixation times and heat map are saved and analyzed. The study revealed that (1) when “A” lady reading the second letter, she responds to part of cognitive interpretation of the event in first letter. (2)The novice consultant’s fixation duration is significantly shorter than “A” lady, but the “A” lady has little fixation times. That may mean “A” lady has more cognitive activity to some words of the letters. The result of the study showed that PLT can help people change unreasonable cognition and help novice consultant understand client. Related Articles | Metrics

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Random Intercept Factor Analysis Model for Statistical Control of the Method Effect Associated with Item Wording 2016, 39(4): 1005-1010.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Balanced scale is designed to measure a bipolar underlying construct. The item content of balanced scale is positively or negatively polarized. The purpose of mixing two kinds of items in a scale is to control the method effect associated with item wording. Such method effect is thought of as a major resource of common method variance and potentially threatens to the construct validity of balanced scale. In the framework of confirmatory factor analysis , various of models have been proposed to make a psychometric explanation of underlying construct of balanced scale as a single psychological construct plus method effect associated with item wording. The common models are the correlated trait-correlated method model (CTCM), correlated trait-correlated method minus one model (CTC(m-1)), bi-factor model (BIF). When fitting data, the models that has excellent fit indices are always chosen as the optimal models by researchers. Besides the fit indices, the correlation coefficients of items measured same construct using different methods should be greater than items measured different constructs using same method to support the construct validity. Unfortunately, this criterion is always ignored by some previous researchers. In their studies, the optimal model, such as CTCM, BIF, the factor loadings showed that some of items were strongly influenced by method effect rather than trait. To remedy the limitations of the extant models, a new model named random intercept factor analysis model was proposed to control the method effect associated with item wording. In such model, item is loaded on two latent variables, one represented the latent target trait and the other represented the response bias that is irrelevant with the latent target trait. Taking the Chinese version of Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale-Revised (RSES-R) as an example, the current study aimed to test the applicability of the random intercept model in statistical control of the method effect associated with item wording. The results showed that the fit indices of random intercept model were only inferior to BIF. But given that (1) the ratio of the trait variance and method effect variance was reasonable; (2) the trait factor loading was significantly greater than the method factor loading; (3) extremely high correlation between the self-esteem factor score estimated by such model and the total score of the RSES-R; the random intercept model showed more reasonable and explicable than any other models. Additionally, based on the Over-Claiming Questionnaire, the indices of knowledge accuracy (d') and response bias (criterion location, c) were calculated. The correlation between the method factor score estimated by random intercept model and the d' was no-significant at 5% level, suggesting that such systematic error was not associated with a person's general cognitive ability. The correlation between the method factor score estimated by random intercept model and the c was positive, significant at 5% level, suggesting that the method effect associated with item wording shared common components with social desirability. In short, the evidences mentioned above support the validation of the random intercept facto analysis model for statistical control of the method effect associated with item wording. Related Articles | Metrics

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Common Factors theory and Its Historical Development in Psychotherapy 2016, 39(4): 1017-1022.  Abstract ( )   PDF   What is the contributing factors of therapeutic change, common factors or specific ingredients? This is a big problem for psychotherapists after they have solved the problem ‘whether psychotherapy is effective or not’. The paper discusses the problem from the perspective of common factor theory. The paper firstly elaborated the definition and historical development of common factor theory, then it summarized common factor theory’s current advances and its limitations. It discusses the brief history of common factor theory from two clues. First, Common factor theory becomes more and more systematic and thorough. From Saul Rosenzweig’s concept of ‘common factor’ to Carl Rogers, Jerome Frank, and Michael Lambert’s classifications, then to David Orlinsky’s generic model, Bruce Wampold’s contextual model and Lundh’s two theoretical models, the concept of common factor extends, its structure becomes clearer, and its theoretical explanatory power has greatly improved. Second, common factor theory becomes more and more evidence-based. From Saul Rosenzweig and Jerome Frank’s theoretical research, to Lester Luborsky and John Norcross’ meta-analysis, then to Michael Lambert and Bruce Wampold’s empirical research about some specific common factors (such as the alliance between therapist and client, the therapists’ ability, skill, attitudes, and personal characteristics, patient’s hope and expectancy, etc.), empirical research about common factors has become an indispensable part of contemporary psychotherapy research. However, there are still several limitations with the common factor theory. The first problem is that common factors are mostly descriptive factors coming from psychotherapy efficacy research, which only describes the ‘reasons’ but not the ‘causes’ of the problem ‘why psychotherapy is effective’. So we need to ‘reverse’ the way of thinking, and do more primary research to explain the ‘mechanism’ of therapeutic change. The second problem of the common factors theory is that it lacks enough empirical evidences to support the theory. What’s more, too much focus on common factors will result to conflict with the competent implementation of a particular treatment. The provision of independent common factors disconnected from the provision of actual treatment has deleterious consequences. Finally, although many common factors have been identified in the literature, they are not the only active ingredients of therapy. In fact, there is no conclusion on the number of common factors up until today. The common versus specific factors paradigm adopted in psychotherapy research has been considered a problematic solution to the study of complex therapeutic relationships and comparisons among different forms of treatments. Increasingly, psychotherapy theory and research of late has focused on how the common factors and the specific ingredients work together to produce the benefits of therapy. We believe both camps, which are not mutually exclusive, provide useful heuristics for testing the mechanisms of change in psychotherapy, and both are needed for the patients. Whether one is in the common factors camp or the specific ingredients camp, the goal of all mental health providers is to maximize the benefit that patients get from their treatment. To this end, a scientifically vigorous examination of the contribution of common factor theory above and beyond specific mechanisms of change is warranted. Related Articles | Metrics