Journal of Psychological Science

The Influence of Preview on Contextual Predictability Effects during Reading

Zhao Sainan, Li Lin, Zhang Lijuan, Wang Jingxin

2023, 46(4): 770-778. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230401

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Most previous research have found contextual predictability effects eliminated in invalid preview which indicates contextual predictability effects depend on valid preview (like normal reading). The researchers manipulated invalid preview conditions by presenting various kinds of words or nonwords that were different from target words in parafoveal vision. It has been well established that invalid preview can cause various costs that may overwrite the contextual predictability effects. However, it is still hard to tell which is the cause of the elimination of contextual predictability effects in invalid preview conditions: the cost caused by invalid preview, or the absence of valid preview. Solving this problem is crucial to understand how the top-bottom predictability is influenced by bottom-top preview information. The present research investigated this effect with incremental paradigm by manipulating parafovea without preview information.
EyeLink 1000 Plus eye-tracker recorded participants' (40 participants in experiment 1 and 44 participants in experiment 2) right-eye gaze when they read the sentences that contained target words. Sentences were displayed in Song font in black-on-gray text on a 24-inch ASUS LCD monitor (1920×1080 pixels) with each character subtended approximately 0.9 degrees of visual angle. Experiment 1 was a 2(contextual predictability: high, low)×2(preview type: normal, none)within subjects design. Stimuli were 164 sets of Chinese sentences containing two interchangeable target words that were of either high or low contextual predictability. There was no preview information before directly fixed word in none preview condition, which was different from normal reading pattern and may influence the results. The aim of experiment 2 was to further verify and extend the findings from experiment 1 in a more normal reading form. In order to create a normal reading pattern with minimal interference for vocabulary processing, experiment 2 used meaningless and simple ※ as invalid preview. It was a 2 (contextual predictability: high, low) × 2(preview type: normal, ※) within subjects design.
The results showed clear effects of preview type in both experiments with shorter reading times and word skipping rate for normal preview condition, in line with findings from previous studies. It also replicated robust and reliable contextual predictability effects on eye movement time measures (first fixation duration, gaze duration, total reading time) in both experiment 1 and experiment 2, which were contributed to longer fixation durations for high predictability words than low predictability words. More importantly, the current results showed no interaction between contextual predictability and preview types on any measures in both experiment 1 and experiment 2. It suggested that the contextual predictability effects with none preview and ※ preview were similar to normal preview. The results of Bayes analyses also provided strong evidence for the additive models.
The key point of present study is the interaction between contextual predictability and preview type. The robust addictive effects suggest the elimination of contextual predictability effects in invalid previews is not due to the lack of valid preview but the overwrite of the invalid preview costs. Therefore, this research indicates contextual predictability influences word processing independently rather than depending on the valid preview information.

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Aging Enhances the Effect of Word Segmentation Cues in Chinese Reading: Evidences from an Eye Movement Study

Yi Jiaqi, Liu Zhifang, Tong Wen, Chen Chaoyang

2023, 46(4): 779-786. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230402

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Words identification is essential for both the comprehension of reading of alphabetic and logographic Chinese scripts. Although there are no interword spaces to mark word boundaries in Chinese scripts, native Chinese readers have no difficulty in reading Chinese characters. A growing number of evidence have shown that word segmentation is necessary to word and text processing in Chinese reading (Bai et al., 2008, 2013; Blythe et al., 2012; Li et al., 2009; Ma et al., 2019; Shen et al., 2012). It is also well known that age has an impact on word processing in reading (Liu et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2018; Zhao et al., 2019). As far as we know, the literature on whether or how aging impacts word segmentation in Chinese reading is scant. Therefore, to examine this, we conducted this study—we carried out two eye-tracking experiments, manipulating age groups and word segmentation cues.
56 young and 40 old (aged over 60) native Chinese speakers participated in the experiments. There was no group difference in vision. Participants in the experimental group were asked to read a sentence having three boundary markings (e.g. red colour, gray highlighting, and spacing), and those in the control group were asked to read a sentence with no marking. Conditions with boundary markings provided correct word boundary cues in experiment 1 and incorrect word boundary cues in experiment 2. We hypothesized that if aging impacts word segmentation in Chinese reading, then the effect of word segmentation cues would be larger in the older adults than that in their younger counterparts. The eye movement measures of local two-character-word, namely total fixation time, gaze duration, and probability of skip and regression, were used to check the aforementioned hypothesis.
The results of experiment 1 showed that the sentences with correct boundary signs on words produced less total fixation time of the old group than that of young group on word areas, and there were also different patterns of word segmentation cues effects on the probability measures of skip and regression. In contrast, the results of experiment 2 showed that the conditions providing incorrect word boundary cues with gray highlighting and spacing resulted in more negative effects on the older group's total fixation time and gaze duration than those of the younger group, while the condition providing incorrect cues with red colour led to equal effects on those eye-movement measures of both groups.
In summary, we found that the older adults were more susceptible to word boundary cues. Findings suggest that boundary markings on words facilitate local word processing in older readers more than that in younger ones, which confirmed our hypothesis that aging impacts word segmentation in Chinese reading. It should be pointed out that the condition providing incorrect cues with red colour led to equal effects on those eye-movement measures of both groups, which suggests that some mechanisms of word segmentation in Chinese reading are immune to aging impacts. In this article, we present our study on how visual cues facilitate word processing in older readers, and discuss the mechanisms of word segmentation.

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Inhibition of Return Spreads at Different Depths in Three-Dimensional Space

Pan Xinting, Li Yitong, Xiong Jiani, Zhang Jiaqi, Liu Yanyan, Li Jie, Zhang Yu

2023, 46(4): 787-794. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230403

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Inhibition of return (IOR), typically explored in cueing paradigms, is a performance cost associated with previously attended locations. It has been suggested as a crucial attentional mechanism that biases orientation towards novelty. Our living environment turns out to be a complex three-dimensional space which entails ecological functioning of visual search. In Wang et al.'s (2015) three-dimensional experiment, participants' attention was (re)oriented in a straight line along the depth plane to induce location-based IOR. However, their operation could have an inconsistent depth distance, contaminating the IOR effect. Our study thus aimed to explore the range of IOR spreading in the depth of three-dimensional space.
Two depth distances were manipulated in the study: short distance for Experiment 1 and short distance for Experiment 2. The types of cue-target were divided into Valid (the target appeared in both the same depth plane and hemispace of the vision as the cue), X-Invalid (the target appeared in the same depth plane, but different hemispace of the vision as the cue), Z-Invalid (the target appeared in the same hemispace of the vision, but in different depth plane as the cue), and X-Z-Invalid (the target appeared in the different depth plane and hemispace of the vision). The cue-target in depth of target (closer depth plane vs. farther depth plane) was crossed with the cue-target types, forming a 2 × 4 factorial design in the two experiments. At the beginning of each trial, either of the four locations in the near or far space was cued for 300ms, and was followed by an interval of 200ms inter-stimulus. Then the spatial location of the central fixation cross was cued for 200ms to divert attention away from the previously by cued location. After another period of 150 or 250ms, the target was presented for 250ms at one of four locations, either cued or un-cued, with equal probability for four cue types. The validity of clues was 25% in the two experiments.
Our results revealed a main effect of cue types in both the short, F (3, 28) = 13.914, p < .001, and long-distance conditions, F (2, 60) = 7.691, p = .001. The reaction time of Z-invalid cues was significantly longer than that of X-invalid cues in short distance, p < .001, while in the long-distance condition there was no significant difference. The amount of IOR, which was obtained by subtracting the mean response time of invalid cues from that of valid ones, was used as the indicator of the IOR effect. The amount of IOR in Z-invalid condition in short distance was significantly smaller than that in long distance condition. Regardless in the near (p = .017) or far (p = .011) space conditions, the amount of IOR of Z-invalid cues in short distance was significantly smaller than that in long distance. The main findings were replicated in the Experiment 3, in which the objects at the close plane were subtending the same visual angle as those at the far plane.
In conclusion, the effect of IOR has a spread range in depth in three-dimensional space, such that IOR spreads from the cued position as depth distance extends.

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The Influence of Reward Motivation on Automatic Reaction Inhibition

Gao Bin, Jia Yingfang, Jiang Yunpeng, Wu Jie

2023, 46(4): 795-801. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230404

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Response inhibition includes auto-inhibition and control inhibition. However, many studies have not distinguished response inhibition. Reward motivation can affect the ability of reaction inhibition, but the influence of reward motivation on goal-oriented automatic reaction inhibition is not clear. This research combines reward cues and goal-oriented auto-response inhibition paradigm to investigate the influence of reward motivation on auto-response inhibition.
This research included the baseline phase and the reward phase. No rewards were included in the baseline phase to examine whether the flanking letters with nogo color would trigger automatic reaction suppression. In addition, in the baseline phase, the reward standard of the reward phase was adjustable based on the performance of the subjects, and the overall effect of reward motivation can be investigated in the joint reward phase. In the reward stage, reward clues were added to examine the influence of reward motivation on automatic response inhibition. In the reward stage, in order to ensure the validity of the clues and prevent the subjects from taking negative reaction measures (by extending the reaction time to increase the correct response rate to obtain bonuses), the experiment set two reward conditions. If the reaction time was faster than the 30th percentile reaction time of the correct response in the baseline phase, the participant could receive a high bonus of 0.1 yuan. Otherwise, the participant would receive a low bonus of .02 yuan. Participants would be informed of the amounts of current and cumulative reward after each trial.
The baseline phase was a two-factor within-subject design of 2 (compatibility: compatible, incompatible) *3(flanking letter colors: red-go, green-nogo, blue-neutral). We used the automatic response suppression paradigm and used E-prime 2.0 software to present visual stimuli. The results showed that the main effect of the color of the flanking letters was significant, and the response time under the conditions of the red flanking letters was significantly lower than that under the conditions of the green flanking letters and the blue flanking letters. The interaction between compatibility and the color of the flanking letters was significant. Only when the color of the flanking letters was green (nogo), the reaction time in compatible conditions was significantly higher than that in incompatible conditions, which may trigger a backward compatibility effect. This indicates that the nogo-colored flanking letters could trigger automatic reaction suppression.
The reward stage was a three-factor in-subject design of 2 (reward condition: reward, non-reward) *2 (compatibility: compatible, incompatible) *3 (flanking letter colors: red-go, green-nogo, blue-neutral). The results showed that the interaction between reward conditions and the color of the flanking letters was significant. Under the condition of reward cues, there was no significant difference in the reaction time under the condition of the flanking letter of the color attributes of go and nogo. However, in contrast to our expectation, the reverse compatibility effect disappeared in nogo color flanking conditions for both reward and non-reward cues. In the other two reward conditions, the neutral-colored wings produced a higher interference effect. The results proved that reward motivation only acts on the stimulus with the target color attribute.
This study demonstrated that reward motivation had a significant impact on automatic response inhibition, and could flexibly change the coding method of flanking letters with target attributes.

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The Cognitive Mechanism of Socially Shared Retrieval-Induced Forgetting: Inhibition or Non-Inhibition?

Zhang Huan, Zuo Tianran, Liu Yibei, Liu Xiping, Yang Haibo

2023, 46(4): 802-808. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230405

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People often share their past events and experiences together in a social context. When speakers selectively retrieve certain parts of information from experienced events, it causes listeners to forget some relevant but non-retrieved information. This phenomenon is called socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting (SS-RIF). Based on the theory of correlated costs and benefits (CCB), this study explored the effect of response inhibition ability on SS-RIF, in order to clarify listeners' cognitive mechanism of SS-RIF.
In the experiment, a mixed design of 3 (response inhibition ability: high, medium, low) × 2 (interactive role: speaker, listener) × 4 (item type: Rp+, Nrp+, Rp-, Nrp-) was adopted, in which response inhibition ability was a between-group variable, while interactive role and item type were within-participants variables. The dependent variable was the proportion of correct recall in the final recall test. At the beginning of the formal experiment, 72 participants completed the stop signal task. According to the length of the stop signal reaction time, they were divided into three groups: high, medium and low level of response inhibition ability groups. The participants in each group were paired according to their gender requirements. Afterwards, they were instructed to perform a retrieval practice paradigm, including three phases. First, the subjects independently learned wordlists. Then, they conducted retrieval practice for certain examples from certain categories, with one participant being the speaker and the other being the listener. At last, the final recall test was administered according to the category clues individually.
The results showed that participants with high levels of response inhibition ability presented a significant RIF effect, while those with low levels of inhibition ability appeared no RIF effect. However, participants with low levels of inhibition ability showed a significant SS-RIF effect, while those with high levels of inhibition ability did not. With the decrease of response inhibition ability, the effect of SS-RIF gradually increased.
According to the viewpoint of CCB, the inhibition mechanism and the non-inhibition mechanism are interdependent and mutually restricted in the cost effect and benefit effect. The inhibition of processing leads to the reduction of non-inhibition, and vice versa. This result supports a non-inhibitory explanation. Listeners with low levels of response inhibition ability enhance the association between the target item and the category cue during retrieval practice. In the final recall test, the listeners show non-inhibitory forgetting of the other competing items. In other words, the non-inhibition mechanism has a stronger effect on SS-RIF, especially in those with low levels of response inhibition ability. However, studies have shown that RIF is more influenced by the inhibition mechanism, which indicates differences between the cognitive mechanism under RIF and SS-RIF. This study further reveals the cognitive mechanism of SS-RIF and attaches importance to the correlated costs and benefits problem on the SS-RIF effect, which is of great significance to the study of SS-RIF and provides some valuable references for future studies.

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Implicit Learning Hypothesis among Children with Autism:Evidence from Artificial Grammar Learning

Li Feifei, Fang Haiyan, Chen He, Liu Baogen

2023, 46(4): 809-816. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230406

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Implicit learning hypothesis holds that the symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may be due to implicit learning. However, empirical studies have not yet reached a consistent conclusion on this hypothesis. In the literature of language acquisition, two studies investigated implicit learning of autistic children by Artificial Grammar Learning (AGL) paradigm (Brown et al., 2010; Klinger et al., 2007). Nevertheless, they did not balance the chunks of the test materials, possibly resulting in participants acquiring only surface features like chunks rather than the underlying grammar. Moreover, they only examined high-functioning ASD children and the results could not be extended to autistic children with more severe symptoms. Therefore, the current study aims to investigate the implicit learning of artificial grammar of autistic children by controlling the test strings' chunk strength and choosing children with a wider range of autism as participants.
Twenty-six children with ASD, 26 chronological age-matched typically developing (TD) children and 20 chronological age-and IQ-matched children with Intelligence Disorder (ID) participated in the experiment. Twelve grammatical Chinese character strings were used for training. Another 12 grammatical strings and 12 ungrammatical strings constituted 12 pairs of strings for test. Furthermore, the global associative chunk strength (GACS) was counterbalanced between grammatical and ungrammatical test strings. During the training phase, grammatical strings were randomly presented one at a time. On each trial, participant was asked to read the string 3 times and to recall it when it disappeared. During the test phase, pairs of test strings were randomly presented by one pair at a time. Participant was asked to read the pair one time, then judged which one he preferred. After the test phase, participant was asked to report his reason for liking judgment.
For the participants whose verbal report indicated unconscious knowledge of the grammar, the accuracy of liking judgment were .53 ± .12, .57 ± .11 and .56 ± .11 for ASD, TD and ID group, respectively. For ASD group, the performance wasn't significantly different with the chance level .50 ( t(20) = 1.272, n.s.); while for TD and ID groups, the performances were both significantly higher than the chance (TD: t(19) = 3.109, p < .01, d = .64; ID: t(17) = 2.221, p < .05, d = .55). It was also showed that, the performance of ASD group was not significantly different from TD and ID groups (with TD: t(39) = -1.122, n.s.; with ID: t(37) = -.589, n.s.). Taken together, these results showed that children with ASD retain part of the implicit learning ability, but this ability is not enough to enable them to reach the level of significantly exceeding the chance level as the TD and ID children do.
To conclude, the findings of this study tentatively indicated that the implicit learning of grammatical rules of autistic children has both defects and reservations, and provided supporting evidence for the implicit learning hypothesis for autistic children.

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Effect of Unsigned Reward Prediction Error on Mnemonic Discrimination: Evidence from Behavioral and Eye-Tracking

Yue Yang, Jiang Yingjie, Long Yiting, Wang Kaiyu

2023, 46(4): 817-824. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230407

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Mnemonic discrimination was defined as a behavioral index of pattern separation to reflect the ability to discriminate memory representations of similar features. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of reward conditioning on mnemonic discrimination. In this research, participants underwent Pavlovian reward conditioning, in which objects from one category were paired with a reward, and objects from a different category were unpaired. Participants were given a subsequent surprise memory test 24 hours later, in which they saw another series of stimuli, some of which were seen once before in the conditioning phase (targets), some were the same stimuli but displayed in different positions and angles (lures), and some were new (foils). They were given instructions that they should identify each item as “old”, “similar”, or “new”. We calculated the lure discrimination index, which operationalized as people correctly identify similar lures as similar relative to misidentifying new foils as similar.
The pre-experiment showed that, from the category level, items highly similar to those from the object category previously paired with reward were recognized as similar for lure items more often than items from the reward-unpaired category (p < .05). The result supported reward conditioning learning enhances discrimination. To further test the effects of signed and unsigned prediction errors on discrimination, we changed the reward feedback rate from 50% in the high reward category to 80%. The result supported that unsigned reward prediction error, rather than signed reward prediction error, promotes mnemonic discrimination (p < .01).
In Experiment 2, we collected pupil dilation, which can reflect the brain arousal state caused by reward prediction error, to explore further the impact of unsigned reward prediction error on discrimination. The behavioral result repeated the result in Exp 1, which showed that unsigned reward prediction error enhances discrimination (p < .05). Eye movement results showed that the greater the unsigned reward prediction error, the greater the pupil dilated (p < .001). Besides, for the lure hit items, the pupil dilation of high URPE was significantly higher than low URPE (p < .001). However, the pupil dilation difference between high and low URPE is insignificant for the lure false alarm items. Pupil dilation is the positive predictor of mnemonic discrimination (β = 4.95, SE = 2.14, z = 2.31, p < .05). The results suggested that unsigned reward prediction error positively influences mnemonic discrimination, probably by enhancing the salience or arousal during post-encoding consolidation.
To sum up, we conclude that reward conditioning can promote episodic memory discrimination. Further, the unsigned reward prediction error could promote memory discrimination by enhancing the brain arousal state, helping the memory of the verbatim traces of items, and supporting the lure correct rejection. Future work could consider using a broader continuous range of unsigned prediction errors and collecting information that can more directly reflect the activity of locus coeruleus, such as α- salivary amylase, to test the effect of the unsigned reward prediction error on mnemonic discrimination and investigate its cognitive and physiological mechanisms.

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Fear and Disgust from the Perspective of Conditioning Learning

Shen Siyi, Mei Ying, Wang Jinxia, Dai Yuqian, Wu Qi, Lei Yi

2023, 46(4): 825-832. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230408

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As basic emotions, fear and disgust are negative emotions that are related to threats and make people feel strongly unpleasant. They are of great importance to human survival and adaptation. Moderate fear and disgust are conducive to the individual's awareness of danger and rapid defensive responses, but excessive fear and disgust will affect the individual's daily functioning and may even develop into post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobia, and other anxiety disorders. Previous studies have shown that excessive fear is the core mechanism of anxiety disorders, ignoring the role of disgust in it. In recent years, with the emergence of the ineffectiveness of exposure therapy for certain anxiety disorders and the disclosure of the close relationship between disgust and anxiety disorders, researchers began to explore the mechanisms underlying anxiety disorders from a new perspective. That is, disgust is also an important pathogenic factor of anxiety disorder, and fear and disgust should be combined to explain the pathogenesis of anxiety disorder.
Fear and disgust are the main emotions of anxiety disorders, and analyzing the characteristics of fear and disgust from the perspective of conditioned learning is expected to provide an important basis for related clinical treatment. Pavlovian conditioning is a classic paradigm for fear and disgust learning. A differential conditioning paradigm is often used in fear learning and disgust learning: a neutral stimulus(CS+) is repeatedly paired with an unconditional stimulus (US) that can cause aversion, and another neutral stimulus (CS-) never paired with unconditioned stimulus(US), as a result, only presenting a neutral stimulus (CS+) will cause aversive responses. Fear and disgust conditioning not only simulates the acquisition and extinction of fear and disgust, improving our theoretical understanding of the functional properties of fear and disgust, but also has implications for the prevention and targeted treatment of fear and disgust diseases.
Therefore, this article analyzes the characteristics of fear and disgust from the perspective of conditional learning, and summarizes the differences between fear learning and disgust learning. This article has three aims. First, the article discusses the relations among fear, disgust, and related anxiety disorders, and distinguishes the dominance of the two emotions. Secondly, from the perspective of conditioned learning, it compares the behavioral and neural mechanisms of fear and disgust. An in-depth analysis of extinction differences was carried out. Finally, from the insufficiency of research on disgust conditioning learning, we discussed directions for future studies. That is, future research can continue to explore the mechanisms underlying the disgust learning from generalization, extinction intervention, etc., and try to use adolescents and clinical patients as target groups. In sum, the emotional dominance of several different subtypes of anxiety disorder is distinguished and summarized, which provides an important theoretical basis for the screening of clinical anxiety disorder treatment targets; The differences between fear and disgust conditioning in subjective feelings, physiological response and functional brain areas indicate that exposure therapy is indeed an effective treatment for fear-led anxiety disorders, but cognitive intervention may be preferred for disgust-led disorders.

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The Psychological Mechanisms of Pilots'Plan Continuation Errors

Xu Quan, Liu Bo, Li Shu, Ji Ming, You Xuqun

2023, 46(4): 833-840. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230409

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Plan Continuation Errors (PCEs) is defined as the “failure to revise a flight plan despite emerging evidence that it is no longer safe”. In this paper, we reviewed the scientific literature on PCEs. PCEs usually occur in weather-related decision-making situations, manifested by pilots unintentionally or intentionally using Visual Flight Rules (VFR) to manipulate the aircraft into Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC). In this case, the pilot loses the mental model and cognitive skills necessary to maintain control of the aircraft due to the lack of visual reference information to the horizon, causing catastrophic consequences. Therefore, how to identify and analyze the psychological characteristics and mechanisms of pilot PCEs is not only a frontier subject in aviation psychology research, but also a major practical problem that needs to be resolved in the current aviation safety management practice.
The underlying mechanisms of the PCEs were summarized as follows: (1)Situation assessment. This mechanism believes that PCEs is caused by pilots who are completely unaware of severe weather conditions or fail to accurately diagnose weather changes and their severity. (2) Decision-making framework. This mechanism explains PCEs on the basis of the prospect theory and the sunk cost effect, which suggests that PCEs are caused by pilots' strong expectation of reaching their destination, which changed their decision-making framework, which in turn led to their underestimation of the severity of the weather. (3) Cognitive heuristics. This mechanism believes that pilots adopt cognitive shortcuts or cognitive heuristics to solve problems for easy cognitive workload, which can easily lead to cognitive bias in pilots' weather-related decision-making process, resulting in decision error and PCEs. In addition, researchers have conducted many empirical studies to understand factors that may affect pilot PCEs. To sum up, the results mainly focus on six aspects, including flight experience, personality characteristics, emotional state, weather radar display system, flight environment, organization, and social pressure.
On the basis of the review of existing research, three future directions for this line of research were also discussed. First, previous studies have mainly explored the psychological mechanisms of pilot PCEs from three aspects: situation assessment, decision-making framework and cognitive heuristics. However, these mechanisms have not revealed the whole picture of pilot PCEs, and most of them remain in the theoretical level. Future research can try to further explore the mechanisms of PCEs from a new perspective, such as perseveration behaviors. Second, previous PCEs research mainly focused on the information processing mechanism at the perceptual level, which belongs to the low-level cognitive processing process and is unable to reveal the psychological mechanism of PCEs more deeply. Therefore, future research should explore the higher cognitive neural mechanism of PCEs and try to reveal the cause and brain mechanism of PCEs more comprehensively. Third, current PCEs intervention studies are mostly from the perspective of human-computer interaction and cockpit human factor design, and there is a lack of intervention studies on the pilots themselves. Future research can be based on the psychological mechanisms of PCEs, and further expand the prevention research of PCEs for the pilots, such as carrying out weather cue recognition training based on the situation assessment mechanism of PCEs. Furthermore, future studies are expected to explore how to prevent PCEs from motivational, emotional, and heuristic strategies based on the framing effect and cognitive heuristic mechanisms.

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Implementation of Strategy on the Transfer Effect of Working Memory Training

Yang Ting, Zhao Xin, He Xiangchun, Li Kaiyue, Cao Wenjing

2023, 46(4): 841-847. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230410

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Working memory is a system with limited capacity, which is responsible for the storage and processing of information when individuals perform complex and highly demanding tasks. Research has proved that working memory is not only an important structure of advanced cognitive abilities, but also a significant predictor of a wide range of cognitive abilities. Therefore, researchers try to explore the transfer effect of working memory training. However, the conclusions are not consistent. Studies have found that age, fluid intelligence, and training dose all affect the results. More importantly, a large number of recent studies have proved that strategy implementation plays an important role in working memory tasks. In the course of working memory training, individuals will always use certain strategy to reduce the cognitive load of the task. As a result, researchers have developed a new method of working memory training: Giving strategic guidance in the course of working memory training. Some studies have shown that extensive transfer has occurred, but some studies have also found that strategy instruction in working memory training produces limited transfer. This may be related to the extent of strategic familiarity. If one has developed and is familiar with the strategy before the working memory training, the use of the strategy in the working memory training process becomes a kind of automatic processing. At this time, the task's demand for cognitive resources is reduced or the task does not produce enough cognitive load, which reduces the individual's attention, and thus fails to truly improve the individual's working memory ability, thus resulting in limited transfer. This conclusion is also verified in the different training effects of verbal working memory tasks and visuospatial working memory tasks. Some researchers believe that the basic cognitive rules of the verbal short-term memory system have been established. The sequential coding of verbal stimuli and the use of rehearsal strategy are very common in our daily life, such as remembering new words and passwords, and remembering instantly sent mobile phone verification codes, etc. Since the skills required to perform these tasks have been acquired, such as rehearsal, chunking, etc., there is no need to develop new cognitive rules. Therefore, this kind of skills that have already reached to the automation stage have little impact on other tasks. However, unlike verbal stimulation, the order of recalling visual space items is rarely needed in daily life, which may indicate that the individual has not established the cognitive rule system in the past experience. In order to reduce the consumption of cognitive resources and reduce the difficulty of the task, participants must develop a new cognitive skills. To develop this cognitive skill, individuals are required to act a large number of cognitive resources. Future research should focus on the neural mechanisms that explain how the familiarity of strategy affects the transfer effect of working memory training, verify this problem in special groups, and establish a comprehensive model that affects the transfer effect of working memory training.

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Aging Effect of Audiovisual Integration under Different Stimuli Conditions

Yang Weiping, Yang Xiangfu, Li Shengnan

2023, 46(4): 848-856. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230411

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The process of combining visual and auditory signals into a unified and stable perception is called audiovisual integration. Compared to single sensory information, audiovisual information could improve the probability and speed of correct recognition of stimuli. However, it remains unclear whether audiovisual integration is greater in older adults than in younger adults. Moreover, the stimulus types have an effect on the audiovisual integration. Considering the decreases in perceptual ability and processing speed associated with aging, the underlying mechanisms may be different in the conditions of various stimuli. Therefore, it is needed to further investigate the audiovisual integration of older people across different stimuli conditions.
The present study examined the audiovisual integration in older and younger adults under three different conditions. Experiment 1 used static simple stimuli, Experiment 2 used dynamic hand-held tools, and Experiment 3 used dynamic speech stimuli. Each experiment contained target and standard stimuli and 300 trials, with 60 target stimuli and 240 standard stimuli. The stimuli presentation contained visual, auditory, and audiovisual modalities and were presented randomly to the subjects. Subjects were required to respond both quickly and accurately to the target stimuli with a keystroke (left mouse button) and the standard stimuli without a keystroke. The experiment used a mixed design of 2 (age: younger adults, older adults) × 3 (modality: visual, auditory, audiovisual), where age was a between-subject variable and modality was a within-subject variable. A mixed-measures ANOVA was applied to the response times and hit rates of Experiments 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The audiovisual integration was further calculated using the race model inequality (RMI). Subsequently, a longitudinal comparison of different stimulus conditions was conducted to verify the stimulus dependence of audiovisual integration in older adults.
It was found that in the static simple stimulus condition (Experiment 1), there was no significant difference between the audiovisual integration of older and younger adults. In the dynamic hand-held tool (Experiment 2) and dynamic speech stimulus conditions (Experiment 3), the audiovisual integration of older adults was greater than that of younger adults, and the time window of audiovisual integration in older adults was later than that in younger adults. The comparison of stimulus conditions revealed that dynamic handheld tools of audiovisual integration were greatest in younger and older adults. Furthermore, the integration time window in older adults changed with different stimulus conditions.
In summary, the processing of audiovisual integration in older adults in the static simple stimulus condition was similar to that of younger adults. However, in the dynamic hand-held tool and dynamic speech stimulus conditions, older adults preferred to use cross-modality information, indicating a strong stimulus dependence of audiovisual integration in older adults.

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The Association between Parenting Stress and Parental Involvement: Do Partner's Coparenting Behaviors Matter?

Liu Sihan, Wu Xinchun, Wang Xinyi, Ying Jiefeng

2023, 46(4): 857-864. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304012

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Coparenting, a multi-dimensional construct where parents raise their children as a parenting alliance, commonly includes supportive (positive) and undermining (negative) coparenting behaviors. The former is defined as the agreement and supportiveness in parenting goals and behaviors, whereas the latter is referred to the disagreement, conflict, and disparagement in parenting. The ecological context of the coparenting framework emphasizes coparenting as an important moderator in family interaction. The fathering vulnerability hypothesis suggests that paternal parenting behaviors are more vulnerable to risk factors than maternal behaviors. However, prior studies have been largely focused on negative factors and rated fathers' and mothers' coparenting relationships as a whole, or averaged their coparenting behaviors to provide a single overall index. Given that fathers and mothers have unique roles in the family, this study compares the moderating effect of the partner's positive and negative coparenting behaviors on the link between parenting stress and parental involvement between fathers and mothers.
Families (N = 1554) from different regions of China participated in the study, including both fathers (M_age = 44.21 ± 4.76 years old) and mothers (M_age = 42.17 ± 4.37 years old). Each family had at least one adolescent child aged between 10 and 19 years old (M_age = 14.15 ± 2.45 years old, 52.1% males). Fathers and mothers separately reported their parenting stress via the Chinese Version of Parenting Stress Index-Short Form, coparenting behaviors via the Chinese Version of Co-Parenting Scale, and parental involvement via the Father/Mother Involvement Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using correlation analysis in SPSS 21.0 and moderation analysis in Mplus 7.4. A simple-slope analysis was used to determine the moderating effects of coparenting behaviors on the association between parenting stress and parental involvement.
Results showed that fathers' subjective socioeconomic status was significantly related to their involvement, and mothers' education level was significantly related to their involvement. After controlling parental education level and subjective socioeconomic status, fathers' parenting stress was negatively associated with their own involvement (β_father = -.18, p < .001) but not with mothers' involvement. Similarly, mothers' parenting stress was negatively associated with their own involvement (β_mother = -.20, p < .001) but not with fathers' involvement. Additionally, the relation between fathers' parenting stress and involvement was moderated by mothers' negative but not positive coparenting behaviors (β = .10, p < .001; β = -.04, p = .076). By contrast, the relation between mothers' parenting stress and involvement was moderated by fathers' positive but not negative coparenting behaviors (β = -.05, p < .05; β = -.01, p > .05). Specifically, compared with mothers' high-level negative coparenting behaviors, their low-level negative coparenting behaviors accelerated fathers' involvement; compared with fathers' low-level positive coparenting behaviors, their high-level positive coparenting behaviors accelerated mothers' involvement.
This study found that mothering was susceptible to paternal positive parenting behaviors, whereas fathering was susceptible to maternal negative parenting behaviors. These results extend the fathering vulnerability hypothesis to the parenting susceptibility model. Parenting susceptibility suggests an integrative model to include fathers and mothers, as well as their positive and negative factors to better understand the differences between fathering and mothering. Moreover, the differences and interactions between fathers and mothers indicate the importance of rating their parenting behaviors separately and investigating them in the same model. Furthermore, this study provides significant implications for intervention programs on enhancing parenting behaviors. Programs on improving paternal involvement should particularly consider maternal negative coparenting behaviors, and that on improving maternal involvement should particularly consider paternal positive coparenting behaviors.

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Media Multitasking Affects Cognitive Control: Evidences for Scattered Attention Hypothesis

Kong Fanchang, Xia Yujuan, Liu Zhaojun, Wang Meiru, Li Xiaoyao

2023, 46(4): 865-872. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304013

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Media multitasking is prevalent for young adults, and can significantly affect one's cognitive control. Cognitive control refers to a series of top-down mental processes in which individuals have to pay attention to a specific task, which consists of three central components: inhibition control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory. To date, there are two contrasting hypotheses with regard to the relation between media multitasking and cognitive control: the scattered attention hypothesis and the trained attention hypothesis. The former argues that adolescents who use frequently several media simultaneously tend to have more attention problems, further leading to impaired cognitive control, while the latter suggests that media multitasking is a training process in which individuals shift their attention frequently from one stream of information to another, and thus exerting a positive effect on cognitive control. Existing studies have not reached a consistent conclusion. According to the comprehensive comparison, the discrepancy in previous studies may be due to the different levels of cognitive control measured by the questionnaire and standardized performance-based tasks. Moreover, little research has examined whether media multitasking affects cognitive control under Chinese cultural background. Thus, This study investigated the relation between media multitasking and cognitive control in real-life and laboratory situations in a sample of Chinese adolescents. Three central components of cognitive control were measured using the questionnaire and standardized performance-based tasks (Change detection task, Number-letter switching task, 2/3-back task for inhibition control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory, respectively).
In study 1, we surveyed 403 undergraduates (300 girls; M_age = 20.37 years, SD_age = 2.25 years) with the media use questionnaire and adolescents' executive function scale. The statistical analyses consisted of descriptive statistical analysis, correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis. The results showed that media multitasking negatively predicted self-reported inhibition control (β = .23, p < .001), cognitive flexibility (β = .14, p < .01), and working memory (β = .24, p < .001). In study 2, we recruited 66 participants (33 HMMs (heavy media multitaskers), 25 girls, M_MMI= 5.17, SD_MMI = .51, M_age= 19.61 years, SD_age= 1.86 years; 33 LMMs (light media multitaskers), 27 girls, M_MMI= 2.06, SD_MMI= .34, M_age = 19.55 years, SD_age= 1.31 years) from study 1 to complete the change detection task, the number-letter switching task, and the 2/3-back task. Descriptive statistical analysis, repeated-measures ANOVA, and independent-samples T tests were conducted. The results showed that: (1) In Change detection task, the group had the main effect on ACC, F(1, 61) = 5.08, p < .05, η_p² = .08. The ACC of HMMs ( .79 ± .02) was significantly lower than that of LMMs ( .85 ± .02). (2) In the number-letter switching task, there were no significant differences in switching cost between HMMs and LMMs, t = .23, p > .05. (3) In the 2/3-back task, there were no significant differences in performance between HMMs and LMMs.
These findings support the scattered attention hypothesis, revealing a negative association between frequent media multitasking and cognitive ability in real-life and laboratory situations in Chinese cultural background.

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Parent-Adolescent Discrepancies in Family Intimacy and Adolescent Loneliness and Aggression: A Response Surface Analysis

Chen Fumei, ZhaoYunyan, Luo Rui, He Ran, Luo Yuhan

2023, 46(4): 873-880. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304014

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During the stressful adolescent period, family intimacy is a particularly critical factor that is worth investigaing. To strengthen the cogency and validity cross studies, researchers tend to collect data from both parents and adolescents. However, informants often differ in their reports, either in family environments or adolescents' developmental outcomes, which are traditionally regarded as measurement errors. However, recent research has suggested that such informant discrepancy is meaningful in adolescent development, as it is a valuable indicator of family relationship, and reveals potential differences in world views and communication problems.
From this perspective, some studies have dug into informant discrepancies in family intimacy, yet the literature is insufficient and results were inconsistent. Moreover, researchers often adopted the difference-score method, predicting developmental outcomes with the absolute difference between parental and adolescents' assessments. However, this method is statistically redundant, and does not take into consideration the direction of difference. To overcome these issues, researchers recommend the use of polynomial regression, which provides a more detailed analysis of the effect of informant discrepancies. Further, response surface analysis could help to visualize the relations among parental report, adolescent report, and outcome variables, giving a vivid illustration on the linearity and direction of their relationship. Thus, this study examined the informant discrepancy between parents and adolescents, and further explored the link between such discrepancy and adolescent problem behaviors.
The current study aimed to examine the existence of informant (in)congruence in family intimacy under Chinese Culture, and further investigate the relationship between parental-adolescent (in)congruence in family intimacy and adolescent loneliness and aggression. We recruited 1136 intact Chinese families with children attending elementary school or middle high school, who answered questionnaires, including the family functioning scale, the trait aggression scale, and the loneliness scale. Then polynomial regression and response surface analysis were conducted to detect (in)congruence in reports of family intimacy between parents and adolescents, and its linkage to adolescents' loneliness and aggression. Besides, we separated male and female subsamples in our analysis to explore potential gender differences in the relations among family intimacy and loneliness and aggression.
The results indicated that: (1) Parents and adolescents differed in their reports of family intimacy, and parents tended to have higher levels of family intimacy. (2) Parent-adolescent congruence in family intimacy was negatively linked to adolescent loneliness and aggression, both for girls and boys. (3) Parent-adolescent incongruence in family intimacy was linked to adolescent loneliness and aggression, and the relations differed in adolescent girls and boys. With incongruence between adolescents and parents, adolescents' report was more strongly related to aggression, especially for boys. Specifically, higher levels of family intimacy were associated with boys' low levels of aggression only when reported by boys(rather than parents). But when reported by parents or girls, higher family intimacy had a protective value.
This study reveals the existence of parent-adolescent (in)congruence in family intimacy and its relation to adolescent development in mainland Chinese families. It implies the significance of adolescents' views and feelings to their development, which sometimes are even more influential than parents' perceptions. Thus, practically speaking, interventions should pay more attention to adolescents themselves. Also, as research on parent-child (in)congruence has profound meanings on adolescents' clinical and developmental research, further investigation is needed.

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The Influence of Construal Levels on the Judgment of Unfair Event: The Moderating Effect of Fairness Sensitivity

Niu Bingyu, Huang Jun, Li Ye, Zhou Bingping, Gong Jian, Hai Man

2023, 46(4): 881-888. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304015

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Although fairness has been widely accepted, individuals' judgments about the fairness of events are not set in stone. Based on the construal-level theory, we examined individuals' judgments of unfair events under different social, temporal, and spatial distance contexts. Since previous work has found inconsistent results on the effect of construal levels on judgments, we proposed two possible hypotheses: “higher-level construals derived strict judgment hypothesis”, and “lower-level construals derived strict judgment hypothesis”. Given the important influence of individual fairness sensitivity on fairness judgments, we also examined the moderating role of fairness sensitivity in the relation between construal levels and unfair event judgments.
Three studies were conducted, which manipulated the construal levels by social distance (e.g., the distance between the actor who made the unfair event and the participants themselves), temporal distance (e.g., the distance between the unfair event and present time), and spatial distance (e.g., the distance between the unfair event and present space), respectively. Each study included 2 sub-experiments. To improve external validity and attenuate the interference of material familiarity, experiments a and b in each study used two typical unfairness events, respectively. That is, a teacher giving one student sympathy scores for his grades which was familiarity with student participants, and the phenomenon of hiring nepotism which was relatively unfamiliar with student participants.
Six experiments in 3 studies consistently supported the “higher-level construals derived strict judgment hypothesis”. That is, individuals judged the unfair event more unfair when they adopted higher-level construals compared to lower-level construals. These consistent findings from social distance, temporal distance, and spatial distance studies indicated our results were robust, which addressed the first purpose of our study. Additionally, 6 experiments also found the moderating effect of fairness sensitivity between construal levels and unfair event judgments. With the exception of Experiment 2b, 5 experiments consistently showed that the higher the fairness sensitivity, the smaller the effect of construal levels on unfair event judgments. In other words, for individuals with high fairness sensitivity, there was no difference in the effect of the two types of construal levels on unfair event judgments. In contrast, for individuals with low fairness sensitivity, higher-level construals led to unfair event judgments as more unfair; lower-level construals on unfair event judgments instead were not as strict. The moderation pattern of Experiment 2b was opposite to the other 5 experiments. This opposite pattern may be due to the manipulation methods of time distance, since we manipulated the time as “toady” and “three years later”, respectively, which was different from the methods in previous study as “tomorrow” and “three years later”. However, there was more evidence to support our hypothesis that there were few differences for individuals with high fairness sensitivity when they used different construal levels to judge the unfair events, which solved our second research question.
In conclusion, our study provides the first evidence that how construal levels influence unfair event judgments. This contributes to revealing the underlying psychological mechanisms of unfair judgments, and the role of individuals' level of mental constructs (abstract or concrete representations of events), thus clarifying the controversial results in the existing research. Findings also contribute to deepening our understanding of the dual processing involving rational cognition and perceptual emotion in unfairness judgments.

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Materialism and the Attitudes to Cosmetic Surgery: The Mediating Roles of Body Surveillance and Social Appearance Anxiety

Zhu Yanli, Sun Jingru

2023, 46(4): 889-896. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304016

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The objectification theory proposes that women's experiences of having their bodies sexually objectified could lead to self-objectify by internalizing the observer's perspective on their bodies. Although the objectification theory was originally proposed to explain the effect of self-objectification on women's mental health, recent studies have shown that self-objectification has a negative effect on men as well, including body dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety and so on. According to the consumer culture impact model, materialism can increase the tendency to link appearance to self-worth, and people with high levels of materialism often view body as a commodity that can be exchanged for other things, such as money and social status. They believe that the pursuit of these extrinsic goals could lead to the success rigidly defined by the society. However, aesthetic standards change with sociocultural changes, and frequent body surveillance may lead to social appearance anxiety, which in turn may facilitate individuals to adopt positive attitudes toward cosmetic surgery.
This study attempted to establish the bidirectional mediating model of body surveillance and social appearance anxiety between materialism and attitudes to cosmetic surgery. To test this model, a total of 856 college students (69.63% female), aged 17~22 (M_age ± SD = 19.04± 1.01 years) , were recruited from three universities in Henan province by using cluster sampling, and were asked to complete a questionnaire including Material Value Scale, Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale, The Objectified Body Consciousness Scale and Social Appearance Anxiety Scale.
Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis were utilized to describe means, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients among materialism, body surveillance, social appearance anxiety and attitude to cosmetic surgery. The Mplus 8.3 was used to test the mediation effects. The results indicated that: (1) Materialistic values were significantly positively correlated with individual attitudes to cosmetic surgery; (2) Both body surveillance and social appearance anxiety mediated the association between materialistic values and cosmetic surgery attitudes; (3) Materialistic values could predict cosmetic surgery attitudes both by the path from body surveillance to social appearance anxiety and the path from social appearance anxiety to body surveillance, which indicated a bidirectional mediation effect between materialistic values and cosmetic surgery through the mediating effect of body surveillance and social appearance anxiety.
The study explored the relationship between materialistic values and cosmetic surgery attitudes and the mechanism, which supported and deepened the consumer culture impact model and objectification theory. The results suggested that individuals who may be influenced by their values, may use cosmetic surgery as a means of enhancing their physical attractiveness. Cosmetic surgery advertisements, emphasizing the simplicity and convenience of cosmetic surgery and the benefits of successful cosmetic surgery, tend to underestimate the risks of cosmetic surgery. Actually, the core characteristics of social appearance anxiety include both dissatisfaction with appearance and the gap between the actual self and the ideal self. Social appearance anxiety that results from frequent body surveillance is not reduced but increased by cosmetic surgery. In practice, body surveillance can be taken as the target of the intervention to reduce the influence of materialism on the attitude toward plastic surgery. Additionally, college students should be guided to develop correct and positive values.

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Altruistic Punishment Favors the Power Attainment for Punishers: An Evolutionary Perspective

Chen Sijing, Wang Hao, Yang Shasha, Zhu Yue

2023, 46(4): 897-904. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304017

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Existing literature suggests that altruistic punishment is an important mechanism for maintaining extensive cooperation among genetically unrelated individuals, but it also raises a long-standing evolutionary riddle: since altruistic punishment reduces the fitness of punishers, how are altruistic punishers selected in evolution? One explanation is that altruistic punishment brings a positive reputation for punishers. However, how a positive reputation can improve the fitness of punishers remains an unanswered question. By introducing the two-dimensional structure of reputation, this study further explores how altruistic punishment can improve punishers' fitness through positive reputation from a power perspective.
Experiment 1 was a within-participant design involving 120 undergraduates. Participants randomly formed 30 groups of 4 to play 5 rounds of public goods games. After each round, participants could punish defectors who chose to keep the tokens. Then, the experimenter presented to participants the number of punishments made by the three members. Participants rated them in terms of warmth and competence on a 7-point Likert scale and allocated the 10 power points among them. Experiment 2 was a 2 (warmth: low/high) × 2 (competence: low/high) between-participant design involving 240 undergraduates. Participants read a piece of material describing the performance of an individual in terms of warmth and competence in past similar situations, and then participants chose a number from 0 to 10 to represent the number of power points that they were willing to allocate to that individual. Experiment 3 was a 3 (punishment: no/low/high) × 2 (between-group competition: without/with) mixed design, where punishment was within-participant variable and between-group competition was the between-participant variable. Participants played 5 rounds of public goods games in group of 4, and allocated power points among the members according to the number of punishments. In the between-group competition condition, before allocating power points, the experimenter told the participants that they would be ranked according to their group's performance in a new investment task, and that the higher the ranking, the higher the final reward; in non-competitive condition, the participants were told that their final remuneration was only related to their own performance in the investment task.
The results of Experiment 1 showed that altruistic punishment was conducive to punishers' power attainment, and the competence evaluation mediated the above relation, while the mediating effect of warmth evaluation was not significant. Experiment 2 manipulated the mediating variables (warmth and competence) in Experiment 1 and confirmed the causal relation between the competence evaluation and the dependent variable, power attainment. Experiment 3 showed that between-group competition further strengthened the participants' tendency to allocate power to altruistic punishers.
In conclusion, by examining the moderating variables and mediating mechanisms that affect the relation between altruistic punishment and power attainment, this study contributes, to some extent, the mechanism through which altruistic punishment affects punishers' power attainment. Altruistic punishment improves people's evaluation of punishers in terms of competence. This positive evaluation finally translates into punishers' power attainment, and the between-group competition strengthens the tendency of the occurrence of the above phenomenon. These findings shed some light on the understanding of the evolutionary mechanism of altruistic punishment.

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The Influence of Ambient Temperature on Consumer Creativity

Tong Luqiong, Zhu Rui

2023, 46(4): 905-912. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304018

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The importance of consumer creativity is gaining recognition, but simple strategies to enhance creativity are not well understood. Although extensive research has examined the effects of temperature on cognitive performance, the relation between ambient temperature and creativity is less often studied. Existing literature suffered from several limitations. We addressed these limitations by examining rigorously the effects of ambient temperature on consumer creativity. We examined the influence of commonly experienced warm and cool temperatures (within a comfortable range) on creative performance and attempted to shed light on the underlying mechanism. According to our hypothesis, as cold temperatures tend to deplete consumers' cognitive resources and induce primarily experiential processing, warm temperatures can enhance creativity performance. However, higher temperatures are not always beneficial; due to the negative mood that such temperatures induce, increasing temperature beyond a comfortable range may no longer enhance consumer creativity.
We conducted three experiments to test these hypotheses. In Experiment 1, we measured consumer creativity under the conditions of warm and cold temperature. Results showed that people exhibit greater creativity in warmer (vs. cooler) environment. In Experiment 2, we used a product-package design task to assess consumer creativity under warm and cold temperature conditions, and tested the boundary condition for the beneficial effect of warm temperatures on creativity. Results revealed that a relatively warm (vs. cool) temperature is more beneficial for creative thinking. However, mood, arousal, and involvement did not appear to drive the effect. As temperatures exceeded the comfortable range, participants reported more negative feelings, and the beneficial effect of warm temperature on creativity disappeared. In Experiment 3, by manipulating available cognitive resources, we examined our hypothesis regarding the mechanism underlying the influence of temperature on creativity. The findings of Experiment 3 confirmed our hypothesis that experiential processing prompted by resource depletion in warm temperature conditions underlies the beneficial effect of warm temperatures on creativity. Specifically, we found that when participants in a cooler environment were primed with a lack of cognitive resources to engage in experiential processing, they performed just as well in the creativity task as participants in the warmer environment.
This research adds to the existing literature in several ways. First, it contributes to the literature on environmental psychology and consumer creativity by empirically demonstrating that different temperatures within a comfortable range can have significantly different effects on people's creativity. Second, the inverted U-shaped relation between temperature and consumer creativity demonstrated in the current research sheds light on the complex influence of ambient temperature. Finally, because no rigorous empirical account of the mechanism of temperature influence has been provided in the literature to date, we filled this gap in the research on consumer creativity by illustrating both the basic effect of temperature on consumer creativity and the underlying mechanism of the temperature-creativity relation. The findings of this research have practical implications in terms of optimizing temperature conditions to increase consumer creativity. Organizations and companies that aim to improve consumer creativity should take the influence of ambient temperature into consideration. Setting an appropriate ambient temperature may enhance consumers' creative input, which in turn leads to more creative outcomes and greater satisfaction.

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The Effect and Its Mechanism of Regulatory Mode and Decisional Role on Choice Deferral: From the Perspective of Process Tracking

Wang Huaiyong, Xing Xiaoxue, Yue Siyi

2023, 46(4): 913-920. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304019

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Prior studies have shown that there were differences between locomotion and assessment mode in target selection, behavior pattern, and goal realization. However, whether individuals with different regulatory modes have different preferences on choice deferral? This was the first question needed to be answered. Although some studies have indirectly discussed the differences in the process of choice deferral based on the perspective of outcome-orientated, there was little direct research on this problem from the perspective of process tracking. Therefore, the current study used information board to directly trace and reveal the information processing of decision makers with different regulatory modes on choice deferral, and tried to answer the second question. Moreover, people often make decisions not only for themselves, but also for others. Based on the trait-situation interaction theory, whether the effect of regulatory mode on choice deferral and its mechanism vary in different decisional roles? This was the third question needed to be answered.
Three experiments were conducted to explore the impact of regulatory mode on choice deferral, and the mediating role of information processing (processing time, processing depth, processing mode) and the moderating role of decisional roles. The results showed that:(1) Regulatory mode had a significant effect on choice deferral, and the assessors were more inclined to delay choice than the locomotors. (2) Processing time mediated the relation between regulatory mode and choice deferral. (3) Decisional role moderated the relations between regulatory mode, processing time and choice deferral. That is, participants with the assessment mode had longer processing time and were more inclined to delay choice when making decisions for themselves than those with the locomotion mode, but there was no significant difference in preferences when making decisions for others. (4) Decisional role moderated the mediating effect of processing time in the relation between regulatory mode and choice deferral. Specifically, when making decisions for oneself, the processing time of assessors was longer than that of locomotors, indicating that they were more inclined to delay the choice. However, when making decisions for others, the mediating effect of processing time was not significant.
In sum, the regulatory mode could affect people's choice deferral through the mediating effect of processing time, and this effect was restricted by the boundary condition of decisional role. The findings of this study have some implications for further understanding the differences in choice deferral among individuals with different regulatory modes and its mechanism, as well as how to formulate effective marketing strategies according to the differences of consumers with different regulatory modes.

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The Double-Edge Sword Effects of Ambidextrous Leadership on Employee' s Work Engagement: The Moderating Role of Power Distance

Wang Miaomiao, Zhang Jie, Hu Wenan, Nie Qi

2023, 46(4): 921-928. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304020

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In a complex and competitive market environment, organizations are faced with a variety of contradictory demands. Enterprises often fall into the dilemma of exploration and exploitation or pursuing short-term interests and long-term goals. Leaders need to be flexible and adaptive, and to take ‘both-and' leader behaviors. Therefore, ambidextrous leadership, which is considered as effective leader behavior, has attracted increasing attention from scholars. Ambidextrous leadership refers to a leader's ability to foster exploitation and exploration in followers while flexibly switching between opening and closing leader behaviors. Ambidextrous leadership plays an important role in promoting individual ambidexterity and team innovation and helping organizations deal with contradictory goals.
Previous studies have documented the positive effect of ambidextrous leadership on subordinates, such as self-efficacy, work passion, task performance and innovation. However, recent research indicates the potentially detrimental effects of ambidextrous leadership. For example, subordinates experience cognitive strain when leaders display inconsistent behaviors. This research integrates the contradictory viewpoints and proposes a dual-process model based on the conservation of resource theory. Specifically, we deduce that, on the one hand, ambidextrous leadership elicits affective commitment to supervisor in followers, which promotes followers' work engagement; on the other hand, ambidextrous leadership increases followers' job stress, which in turn may weaken followers' work engagement. Moreover, as a personal characteristic, employee's power distance could moderate the dual process of ambidextrous leadership.
Based on a two-stage questionnaire survey of 218 employees, the results of path analysis supported our hypotheses. The results showed that ambidextrous leadership could improve employees' work engagement by enhancing affective commitment to supervisor while weakening employees' work engagement by increasing job stress. Moreover, employees' power distance moderated the positive or negative effect of ambidextrous leadership. In particular, the positive relationship between ambidextrous leadership and affective commitment to leaders is stronger when employees have a high level of power distance. Ambidextrous leadership is more likely to induce job stress for employees who are low in power distance.
Our study investigated both benefits and drawbacks of ambidextrous leadership, which could advance our understanding of the double-edged sword effect of ambidextrous leadership more comprehensively. Moreover, by revealing the mediating role of affective commitment to supervisor and job stress and the moderating role of power distance, this study reveals the underlying mechanism and boundary conditions of the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and employee work engagement. Furthermore, our findings also provide implications for managerial practice. Managers need to pay attention to subordinates' psychological reactions and attitudes and provide more resource support to relieve the tension or stress of employees when engaging in ambidextrous leadership. In addition, leaders should pay attention to the individual differences of employees. Leaders may strengthen ambidexterity for employees who are in high power distance to amplify the positive effects of ambidextrous leadership. In contrast, ambidextrous leadership leaders should convey clear goals and communicate with employees with low power distance to relieve the negative effects of ambidextrous leadership.

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Mutual Concealment between Relatives:A Test of the Differential Mode of Association in Moral Cognition

Xu Wentao, Zhang Lei, Wang Fengyan

2023, 46(4): 929-936. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304021

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Whether it is the theoretical contention in the ideological field or the legal practice in social life, the mutual concealment between relatives is a controversial moral case. The empirical study of its moral cognitive mechanism can help to understand the moral structure of Chinese people. Experimental ethics, which uses psychological experimental methods to study ethics, could provide more compelling reasons for moral judgment and behavior. Experimental ethics focuses on whether people hold the moral concept and behavioral tendency of concealing their relatives, and the psychological mechanism inside.
The first study directly verified the existence of kin concealment in moral decision-making. As interpersonal relationships become more distant, people have made more decisions to report relatives' illegal behaviors from the first and third social cognitive perspectives. Whether it's the first or the third perspective, subjects make more prosecution decisions than relatives and friends when neighbors make mistakes and there is no significant difference in decision making between relatives and friends who made mistakes. However, the results of chi-square test showed that the influence of social relation on moral judgment is not significant.
The second study further examined the differential effect of moral judgment and decision-making and the moderating effect of social value orientation. Compared with study 1, the main effect of social relation on moral decision-making is robust. The main effect of social relationship distance on moral judgment is significant. As the social relationship between the wrong situation actor and the subjects is getting closer, the subjects are increasingly disapproving of the legitimacy of the prosecution. The interaction between social value orientation and social relationship distance on moral decision-making is significant from both perspectives.
The third study explored the mediating effect of perceived moral obligation. The variance analysis results with perceived moral obligation as the dependent variable show that the main effect of social relation is significant, and the main effect of social value orientation is not significant. The interaction is significant. The mediating role of perceived moral obligation in the relationship between social relation and moral cognition is further investigated. The mediating model is established with moral judgment and decision-making as dependent variables, social relation as independent variable, and perceived moral obligation as mediating variable. Since moral judgment can positively predict moral decision-making, this path is added to the mediation model to form a chain mediation model, which is supported by data.
Collectively, findings showed that mutual concealment between relatives is implicitly rooted in the moral cognition of Chinese people at the two levels of “ought to be” and “to be” and the perceived difference in interpersonal moral obligations in the context of various social relations plays an important role. In the face of illegal violations by relatives and acquaintances, the activation of interpersonal moral obligations weakens the impact of social responsibility for safeguarding public interests on individual moral cognition, which leads to a decrease in individual recognition of the legitimacy of accusation in moral judgment and makes moral decisions with less accusation.

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Career Calling and Job Performance: The Multiple Mediating Effects of Emotional Regulation and Career Resilience

Ni Xudong, Yang Lulin, Zhu Xingkui

2023, 46(4): 937-943. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304022

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This study aims to explore the influence of career calling on employee job performance and its underlying mechanism. Career calling is a beneficial motive for people to deliver better work performance. In this sense, the research emphasizing work results (i.e. work performance) can well reflect the importance of career calling at work. With the rapid social and economic development, individuals begin to have diversified pursuits. Compared with material factors such as salary, individuals nowadays value the meaningfulness of work that is created for them and the society, and turn such senses of meaning into higher spiritual pursuits in career. In this context, research on career calling have been gradually rising, and this topic has become a primary issue in the field of positive psychology and organizational behavior. Introducing emotional regulation and career resilience as chain mediators, this study emphasized the significance of emotional coping and problem-solving in the relation between career calling and job performance.
The participants of this study consisted of 479 employees who completed questionnaires that measured career calling, emotional regulation, career resilience and job performance. Correlation analysis (using SPSS 22.0) and structural equation model analysis (using AMOS 22.0) were conducted to examine the chain mediating effects of emotion regulation and career resilience in the relation between career calling and job performance. The bootstrap method was adopted to analyze the chain mediating effects, and AMOS was employed to calculate the coefficients of the mediating effect.
Results of the current study showed that: (1) There were significant positive correlations between career calling, emotional regulation, career resilience, and job performance. (2) Career calling not only directly predicted job performance, but also indirectly affected job performance via the mediating effects of emotional regulation and career resilience and the chain mediating effect of emotional regulation and career resilience. The mediating effects of emotional regulation, career resilience, and the chain of emotion regulation and career resilience were 31.81%, 26.79% and 19.01%, respectively.
On the basis of the positive emotion expansion and construction theory, the current study proposed a mediation model with multiple mediators that translated the impact of career calling on job performance. In addition, the change from emotional coping to problem solving opens up a new path for interpretation and a novel perspective for studying the relationships among the four focal variables.
The findings of the current study suggested that to enhance job performance, the management and the employees should focus on the following aspects. Firstly, employees should be given suitable positions according to their strengths and interests. Secondly, the intrinsic motivation of employees could be heightened with the arrangement of suitable tasks, sufficient autonomy and other job designs to stimulate career calling. Thirdly, career promotion paths should be in place for employees as well as diversified learning and training opportunities to meet the different demands of employees and help them enhance career resilience. Finally, by learning different emotion regulation approaches, employees should strengthen their positive emotions so that they can maintain a positive work state which is conducive to future positive work behaviors.

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Sharing Economy and Prosocial Behavior: The Mediating Role of Trust

Guo Zhen, Bei Yansha, Zhao Jinzhe, Jiao Liying, Xu Yan

2023, 46(4): 944-951. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304023

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With the burgeoning development of information technology and the rapid spread of the mobile internet. The sharing economy, a new economic model, has increased dramatically and received great public attention. Sharing economy is a web of the market in which individuals mutualize access to products or services rather than having actual ownership. The sharing economy has profoundly influenced people's lifestyles. Previous research regarding sharing economy has predominately focused on the economic or legal field, yet limited attention has been devoted to exploring how sharing economy influences individuals' social behavior from the perspective of social psychology. The current study intended to investigate whether and how sharing economy would affect individuals' prosocial behavior.
Two studies were conducted to examine the relation between sharing economy and prosocial behavior and the mediating role of trust. In Study 1 (N = 160), we measured participants' attitudes to sharing economy, trust, prosocial behavior tendency, and other control variables in a questionnaire survey. The correlations between sharing economy, trust, and prosocial behavior were significant (ps < .001). Trust mediated the relationship between sharing economy and prosocial behavior (β = .17, 95%CI = [.08, .28]) while controlling for participants' age, gender, and objective socioeconomic status in the mediating model.
In Study 2 (N = 113), we manipulated participants' sharing economy using a behavioral recall paradigm. Participants were randomly assigned to sharing economy condition or the control condition. In the sharing economy condition, participants were asked to complete a recall task that wrote about a memorable experience of using a sharing economy product/service. In the control condition, we asked participants to recall an experience that they had engaged in online shopping. All participants were required to describe as much as they could about their feelings and the details of their experiences. Next, participants indicated their attitudes toward sharing economy, which was used as a manipulation check. Subsequently, we measured participants' trust, prosocial behavior tendency, and their decision in the adapted one-shot Dictator Game. Results showed that participants in sharing economy condition had a more positive attitude to sharing economy than those in the control condition (t(111) = 4.78, p < .001, d = .91). Moreover, participants in sharing economy condition reported higher level of trust (t (111) = 2.19, p < .05 , d = .41), exhibited more prosocial behavior tendency (t (111) = 4.34, p < .001, d = .82), and distributed more money in Dictator Game than those in control condition (t(111) = 2.03, p < .05, d =.39). Trust mediated the relationship between sharing economy and prosocial behavior tendency (β = .22, 95%CI = [.03, .43]) / the money distributed in Dictator Game (β = .10, 95%CI = [.01, .27]).
In general, evidence from two studies showed that both the attitude to sharing economy and the experience of sharing economy can promote people's prosocial behavior. Additionally, trust mediated the relation between sharing economy and prosocial behavior. The results provide new insights into how sharing economy influences people's social behavior by showing that sharing economy is associated with more adaptive social outcomes, in particular, more general trust and prosocial behavior. Moreover, the preliminary results of the current study suggest that sharing economy has the potential to increase inter personal interaction and benefit society.

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Developmental Trajectories of Chinese Adolescents' Group-Oriented Values: The Effect of Unsociability and Shyness

Zheng Kejun, Li Yan, Liang Lichan, Chen Xinyin, Bian Yufang

2023, 46(4): 952-959. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304024

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Group-oriented cultures are more likely to define individual identity in terms of the relationship between group members, and to emphasize cooperation and interdependence rather than competition and independence. Self-oriented culture is more inclined to believe that individuals have relatively independent identities, to advocate competition and individual initiative, and to emphasize individual differences. Traditional China is a typical country with group-oriented culture. Chinese culture emphasizes group attachment and puts collective goals and interests above individual goals. Group-oriented values are the reflection of group-oriented culture in terms of values. It refers to the value orientation that attaches importance to group goals and achievements, emphasizeing the connection between individuals and groups. Most previous studies have focused on the regional difference, cross-generational change, and the overall changes in the national level during social changes. However, less is known about the developmental trajectories of cultural values of early adolescents in the changing Chinese society.
According to the theory of social change and human development, as a society changes from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft, the emphasis on cooperation and interdependence shifts correspondingly to that on autonomy and independence. From the perspective of life-span development, values are a dynamic process of change. When adolescents enter puberty, they are more likely to be in such environments as schools and work context, which emphasize individual independence and increase the demand for competition among individuals. However, to our knowledge, there is no empirical research on the development of Chinese adolescents' group-oriented values. Accordingly, a longitudinal study was conducted to examine the developmental trajectories of group-oriented values across Chinese early adolescents.
In the present study, participants were 1,039 Chinese adolescents (53.9% boys) between 11 and 15 years old (M_T1 = 12.37 years old, SD = .58 years old). Data were collected in three waves, each one year apart. Measures at all three time points included self-reports of group-oriented values, and peer nominations of social withdrawal (shyness, unsociability). Latent growth model was used to examine: (1) Initial levels and changes in group-oriented values over time; and (2) The prediction of both initial levels and changes in group-oriented values from gender, shyness and unsociability.
Results showed that (1) The group-oriented values of adolescents decreased linearly, and there was significant individual difference in the initial level, but no significant individual difference in the speed of change. There was no significant correlation between the initial level and the speed of change. (2) The initial level of group-oriented values of girls was significantly higher than that of boys, but there was no significant gender difference in the rate of change. (3) The higher level of unsociability promoted the decline of group-oriented values at a specific time point, while shyness had no significant predictive effect on the development of group-oriented values.
Our findings indicate that the developmental trajectories of group-oriented values are affected by unsociability at different developmental stages. A better understanding of the causes of change in group-oriented values across the puberty can shape good cultural values of early adolescents.

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Influence Factors of Cross-Test-Cycles Linking:A Modified Single Group Design

Chen Ping, Li Xiao, Ren He, Xin Tao

2023, 46(4): 960-970. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304025

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The implementation of the cross-test-cycles linking (CTCL) can achieve the longitudinal comparability of the test scores of each test cycle and then characterize the development trend of the examinee's ability. The safety and efficiency of linking design, an important part of CTCL, is the premise to ensure the scientificity of CTCL scheme. International large-scale assessments (ILSAs) such as PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS all employ the non-equivalent groups anchor test (NEAT) design for CTCL. However, the NEAT design may have exposure risks. Thus it is unsuitable for LSAs in China that require a high level of test security.
To this end, this study proposed a new CTCL design (i.e., a modified single-group design) that is in line with the national conditions in China. The new design collected linking data by organizing some anchor examinees to answer some anchor items, that is, randomly selecting a linking sample from the examinees who took the new form to anwer the anchor test composed of items selected from the old form. For the new design, the equating method, the size of the linking sample, the length and item type of the anchor test, and the heterogeneity of examinee's ability distribution across test cycles all will affect the equating precision of CTCL. Before applying it to practice, thus, this paper focused on delving into the five factors' influence on the equating precision of CTCL.
To achieve this, a series of simulation studies were conducted by manipulating five factors. Specifically, four equating methods (fixed-parameter calibration [FPC], separate calibration & scale transformation [SC&ST], FPC&ST, and concurrent calibration & ST [CC&ST]), three levels of the linking sample size (1500, 8000, and 18000), two levels of anchor test length (20 and 30), two item formats of the anchor test (mixed test consisting of multiple-choice and constructed-response items and only multiple-choice items), and two levels of mean difference of examinee's ability distribution between the new and old forms (0.01and 0.25) were considered.
The results showed that: (1) FPC&ST and CC&ST outperformed the other equating methods in that they yielded smaller equating errors and were able to provide accurate and stable equating results even when the sample size of the linking sample was relatively small (i.e., 1500); (2) either the length or the item format of anchor test affected the equating precision, but the direction and magnitude of the effect varied with the equating method; (3) the difference in examinee's ability distributions was inversely proportional to the equating precision; and (4) increasing the length of the mixed-format anchor test and the sample size of the linking sample could compensate for the equating error caused by the large difference in examinee's ability distribution.
Findings suggested that FPC&ST and CC&ST methods are preferred for the modified single group-design. As to the two equating methods, the longer the anchor test we set, the smaller the RMSEs and the better the performance. However, it is recommended that the anchor test length should be at least 50 percent of the old form. Moreover, using mixed-format anchor test may improve the performance of the two equating methods. Further research may devote to implementing empirical studies, applying other IRT models, and considering multiple linking scenarios.

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A Non-Parametric Multi-Strategy Cognitive Diagnosis Method

Wang Daxun, Xiao Qingwen, Tan Qingrong, Cai Yan, Tu Dongbo

2023, 46(4): 971-979. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304026

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A variety of cognitive diagnosis models has been proposed in the literature to achieve diagnostic functions in a wide range of practical settings, but most of them assume that all students use the same strategy to solve problems. However, it is universal that an item has multiple strategies in psychological and educational cognitive diagnostic tests. Ignoring multiple strategies and fitting data using single-strategy CDMs could result in model misspecifications and inadequate model-data fit, which, in turn, causes concerns as to the validity of inferences. Although a few multi-strategy cognitive diagnosis models have been proposed in recent years, they are all parameterized models requiring a sufficient sample size to ensure the accuracy of model estimation, which is difficult to satisfy in class-level cognitive diagnostic tests.
To further enrich and improve the research of multi-strategy cognitive diagnosis models and provide methodological support for small sample size conditions, methods from a non-parametric perspective may be feasible and promising. A nonparametric and efficient diagnostic classification method, called NCNPMSC method (Non-compensatory Nonparametric Multiple-strategy Classification), was proposed in this study based on a single-strategy nonparametric diagnostic classification method. The principal steps of this method are as follows: first, the ideal response pattern of each strategy was constructed for each potential attribute pattern( α ) depending on the Q-matrix and unobservable α; then, the ideal response pattern of α_ion item j is defined as the maximum ideal response pattern among all strategies of item j; finally, the Hamming distances between the ideal response patterns and the observed item response vector are calculated, and the attribute pattern α corresponding to the minimum Hamming distance is selected as the attribute pattern of the subject i. This method can be performed with any sample size, and only requires a matrix that associates items with attributes.
Simulation research and empirical data analysis were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the NCNPMSC method and to compare it with the MS-DINA model and GMS-DINA model. The results showed that the proposed NCNPMSC method had a higher diagnostic accuracy rate, which was higher than that of the MS-DINA model and the GMS-DINA model. The NCNPMSC method was efficient and not affected by the sample size, which has potential advantages over other parameterized models. When the number of attributes increased to 7 and the number of strategies increased to 4, the NCNPMSC model still had a robust classification accuracy. The results from real data analysis showed that the NCNPMSC model had the same classification accuracy under different sample conditions, while the classification accuracy of the MS-DINA model and GMS-DINA model decreased significantly as the sample size decreased.
This study innovatively developed a simple and high-precision multi-strategy cognitive diagnosis method from a non-parametric perspective, which provides a solution for multi-strategy cognitive diagnosis under small sample conditions. The rationality and feasibility of the NCNPMSC method were proved by simulation research and theoretical derivation, which not only enriched and deepened the research of multi-strategy cognitive diagnosis but also provided methodological support for multi-strategy cognitive diagnosis in practice.

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The Prediction of Reward Positive and Late Positive Potential to Depressive Tendency: An ERP Study

Liu Zhengjie, Zhou Xiaojuan, Li Qingxuan, Zeng Ziyang, Li Hong, Zhang Zhongming

2023, 46(4): 980-990. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304027

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Depression is one of the most prevalent mental diseases in the world, which is characterized by continuous downcast mood, slow thinking, and decreased energy. In recent years, predicting the risk of depression through physiological technology has become a hotspot in the field of neuroscience. In the current study, two event-related potential components, the reward positive (RewP) and late positive potential (LPP), were selected as predictors of depressive tendency. The amplitude differences of individuals with or without depressive tendencies were compared by artificial dichotomy, and the predictive effect of ERP components on individual depressive tendency after one year was investigated. Finally, the prediction effectiveness of the two indicators and their conjoint prediction effectiveness are compared through the analysis of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.
Study 1 referred to the classical "simple gambling task" paradigm and compared amplitude differences under the conditions of gain and loss between groups. The reward positive was indexed as the amplitudes of gain minus amplitudes of loss. Then, amplitudes of the reward positive was used as an indicator to predict the individual's depressive tendency after one year by logistic regression. The results indicated that individuals with depressive tendency had a reduced neural response to reward feedback. The amplitude of the reward positive were significantly negatively correlated with the score of depressive symptoms. The positive reward at baseline can negatively predict one's depressive tendency one year later.
In Study 2, the amplitude of late positive potential induced by positive affective pictures, neutral affective pictures and negative affective pictures was recorded and compared between groups. The amplitudes of late positive potential induced by these three valences of pictures were used as indicators to predict the individual's depressive tendency and depressive symptom score one year later by logistic regression. The results showed that the amplitude of late positive potential induced by positive affective pictures in individuals with depressive tendencies was significantly lower than that in individuals without depressive tendencies. The amplitude of late positive potential evoked by positive affective pictures was significantly negatively correlated with depression symptom scores. The late positive potential induced by positive affective pictures can significantly and negatively predict one's depressive tendency one year later. The late positive potential may be more suitable for the horizontal diagnosis of depressive tendency than the longitudinal prediction.
Study 3 examined the efficacy of the reward positive, late positive potential induced by positive affective pictures and the Beck depression inventory-II as independent indicators of depressive tendency. The analysis of receiver operating characteristic demonstrated that these three indicators can effectively predict individual depression tendency one year later, and there was no significant difference in the prediction effectiveness among them. When the reward positive and late positive potential induced by positive affective pictures were used as the conjoint indicators of depressive tendency, its Youden-index can exceed any single indicators.
The results of this study support that there are defects in the reward circuit of depressed individuals. This study verified the effectiveness and specificity of the reward positive and late positive potential as neural indicators of individual depression tendency. The current research provides a relatively novel perspective and reference for the diagnosis and prevention of depression.

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From Die to Live: Protective Factors that Prevent the Progression of Suicidal Ideation to Suicide Attempt

Xu Shimei, Meng Yingfang

2023, 46(4): 991-998. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304028

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One of the reasons underlying the acute nature of suicide crisis is the limited understanding of the internal processes and the progression of suicidal ideation. Correspondingly, suicide interventions have limited efficacy. Most individuals with suicidal ideation do not attempt suicide, but the reasons are unknown. The present study adopted qualitative research methods to explore protective factors that prevent the progression of suicidal ideation to suicide attempt. This study aimed to elucidate the internal processes of suicide and to identify potential focuses of intervention efforts to prevent the progression of suicidal ideation.
In the current study, an intensive sampling method was adopted to recruit participants. The Suicidal Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R) and the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) were distributed at a university to identify people without a history of suicide attempts but with suicidal ideation within the past year. The final sample was composed of 19 subjects, including 6 males and 13 females. In-depth structured interviews were conducted. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and then coded and analyzed in NVivo 11.0 based on the grounded theory. This format included data reduction and theme generation using open coding, axial coding and core coding. In addition, participant inspection and expert evaluation were adopted to improve the validity of the research results. In this study, a total of 199,918 words of interview transcripts were obtained, and 285 reference points were generated. The encoding result included 4 core categories, 11 axial categories, and 40 open categories.
The protective factors against the progression of suicidal ideation to suicide attempt were divided into the following three aspects. (1) Connection: Connection mainly refers to relationships between people and the world, including the horizontal connections between an individual and their family and society as well as the vertical connections between the individual and the present and future. Connection, especially family connection, is highly effective. (2) Sanity: Sanity refers to a rational approach to coping with suicide and has four aspects: cognition, emotion, behavior, and personality. Sanity helps individuals cope with suicidal ideation. (3) Refusal of suicide: This refers to a negative attitude toward suicide. By refusing the consequences, behaviors and objective conditions of suicide, the possibility of a suicide attempt is prevented.
Furthermore, connection, sanity and refusal of suicide seem to have protective effects against suicidal ideation, suicidal impulses, and suicide attempts, respectively, forming three “lines of defense" that prevent the progression of suicidal ideation to suicide attempt. Connection is the first and most important line of defense in the entire prevention process. Its function is to reduce the intensity of suicidal ideation. If the first line of defense fails, suicidal ideation escalates, and sanity acts as the second line of defense. Its function is mainly to reduce suicidal impulses in the presence of strong suicidal ideation. If the second line of defense fails and the individual is susceptible to suicidal impulses, refusal of suicide acts as the third line of defense. Its function is to prevent the individual from attempting suicide even with a strong suicidal impulse.
The findings of this study could help to better understand the internal processes of suicide, especially the key factors that prevent the progression of suicide, and to provide theoretical support for the prevention of suicide attempts. The focus of suicide intervention should shift to blocking suicidal ideation in the early stage.

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Network of Symptoms for Internet Gaming Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression: Examining Gender Differences

Wang Zihao, Yang Haibo

2023, 46(4): 999-1007. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304029

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It is known that college students' Internet Gaming Disorder is closely related to their anxiety and depression. Previous studies showed that Internet Gaming Disorder has six symptoms, and anxiety and depression also have seven symptoms. However, it is not clear whether these symptoms are related to each other, and whether gender may impact the above relations. This study uses a self-reported questionnaire to investigate the relations among Internet Gaming Disorder, anxiety, and depression in college students.
In the form of the Internet, 916 college students (47.16%males; M_age=19.57 years old, SD = 1.07 years old) were recruited from four universities in Henan, Shandong, Tianjin, and Guangdong provinces. The instruments were the Chinese version of the 7-item game addiction scale (GAS) and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21). Participants reported their level of Internet Gaming Disorder, anxiety and depression. All measures were carried out anonymously and approved by school administrators. Data were analyzed in SPSS 21.0, Mplus 8.3, and JASP 0.14.1.0. The Latent class analysis was used to identify the risk groups of Internet Gaming Disorder, and the network analysis was used to explore the relations among symptoms.
We found that there is a significant positive correlation between Internet Gaming Disorder, anxiety, depression, and there is a complex symptom relationship. In the symptom network of Internet Gaming Disorder, the core symptom of addiction behavior is salience, and the correlation between salience and tolerance is the strongest. In the comparison of different genders, we found that the core symptom of male students was mood modification, and the correlation between salience and tolerance was the strongest, while that of females was salience, and the correlation between salience and withdrawal was the strongest. In the symptomatic comorbid network of Internet Gaming Disorder, anxiety and depression, the core symptom of both males and females is panic, and the correlation between salience and tolerance is the strongest.
This study explored the relation between College Students' Internet Gaming Disorde, anxiety, depression, and suggested the important role of salience and panic in these three mental disorders. These findings expand our understanding of the relations among Internet Gaming Disorder, anxiety, depression. Intervention on salience and panic may help to treat Internet Gaming Disorder, anxiety and depression.

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Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in College Students: Examining Network Structure and Gender Differences

Xu Zichun, Yilamujiang Abuduaini, Sun Rui, Zhou Xiao

2023, 46(4): 1008-1016. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304030

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Prior studies have suggested that college students always report multiple traumatic experiences, such as childhood traumatic experiences (e.g. abuse and neglect). Suffering from these experiences may lead to negative psychological outcomes, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorders, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). These outcomes, CPTSD in particular, may continue to exist for many years or lifetime for traumatized college students. The aim of this study was to examine college students' CPTSD and compare gender differences in its structure by using network analysis.
To be specific, CPTSD is expected to occur after exposure to prolonged and repeated interpersonal traumatic events. Its symptoms include not only the core symptoms of PTSD (e.g., re-experience, avoidance and sense of threat), but also three symptoms of disturbance in self-organization (DSO), including affective dysregulation, disturbances in relationships, and negative self-concept. The impact of gender on CPTSD is controversial, and relevant research is confined to the comparison of the incidence or severity of CPTSD, but few studies have focused on the differences in its inherent symptoms and their connectivity. To understand the structural characteristics of CPTSD among college students and potential gender differences, this study used the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ) to evaluate CPTSD among 813 college students, and used the method of network analysis.
First, the CPTSD symptom network of college students was constructed and the centrality of each symptom was estimated. It was found that internal reminders, being on guard and failure were the most strongly connected symptoms of the CPTSD network among college students. Second, the CPTSD symptom networks of male and female college students were constructed and the centrality of each symptom was estimated. It was found that being on guard and difficulty in staying close to others were the most strongly connected symptoms in males, whereas internal reminders, failure and difficulty in staying close to others were the most strongly connected symptoms in females. In addition, the network comparison test was conducted on the CPTSD symptom networks of male and female college students. The results found that there was no significant difference in the overall network connectivity between males and females, but there were significant differences in the local connectivity of individual symptoms, among which sense of worthlessness and failure were the most. These results, on the one hand, expand previous studies on gender differences in CPTSD, indicating that there are gender differences in the network structure of CPTSD. On the other hand, results also provide inspiration for clinical intervention. That is, the differences in CPTSD network structure between male and female students can prompt us to intervene in CPTSD. In college students, internal reminders and sense of failure are used as target symptoms for females to intervene; being on guard is used as target symptoms for males to intervene.

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Review of Phonological Processing in Sign Languages and Its Neural Mechanisms

Zhang Xiaohong, Li Hong

2023, 46(4): 1017-1023. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304031

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Phonological processing concerns access to and use of mental phonological representation, which is essential to language comprehension and production. However, most findings and theories on phonological processing are based on spoken or written languages, with relatively little evidence from sign languages. As natural human languages, sign languages can also be analyzed at a phonological level. But they are articulated in a visual-gestural modality and have some unique features different from spoken languages. For example, 1) the manual and largely simultaneous articulation of phonological units or parameters (e.g., location, handshape, and movement), and 2) a tight relation between phonology and semantics due to the prevalence of iconicity, i.e., sign forms visually resemble their meanings. These features may result in some phonological processing mechanisms different from those found in spoken languages, hence posing challenges to current language processing theories. To reveal what is fundamental and what is modality-specific about language processing, this article attempts to review recent works on phonological processing in sign languages, with a focus on its empirical evidence and neurological mechanisms.
On the one hand, studies from different paradigms and techniques show that parameter-based phonological information is activated and used for sign recognition. First, signs with higher phonological neighborhood density are recognized slower than those with low density, indicating that phonological competitors are activated and compete for identification. Priming studies have found that prime-target sign pairs with one- or two-parameter overlap are responded to at a different speed or elicit different amplitude N400s from those unrelated pairs. In addition, eye-tracking studies using the visual world paradigm show that, compared to unrelated pictures, participants spend more time looking at competing pictures whose corresponding signs share one or two parameters with the target signs. These findings indicate that phonological processing in sign languages is psychologically real, and that the processing units may involve both individual parameters and two-parameter combinations. However, results are mixed regarding the actual effects of the units, with some showing facilitative effects of location overlap, some showing inhibitory effects, while others showing no effects of location but facilitative effects of handshape and location-handshape overlap.
On the other hand, brain image studies using PET, fMRI and TMS have showed that sign languages share similar neurological mechanisms of phonological processing with spoken languages. In sign perception and comprehension tasks, signers tend to activate the superior temporal cortex bilaterally when viewing signs or sign-phonetic and syllabic units. In explicit phonological judgement tasks, a left-lateralised network is engaged, including the left inferior frontal cortex, superior marginal gyrus, and the superior parietal lobule. These processing regions have also been found in speech sound perception and word rhyme judgement, indicating that there are some similar phonological processing mechanisms in the two language modalities. Differences also exist, though, at the whole brain level, significant activation is found in the left occipital lobe in handshape judgement but not in the frontal-parietal network and the cerebellum bilaterally in speech rhyme judgement. Yet it is unclear whether these differences are related to modality-specific processing mechanisms or the sensory properties of phonological parameters.
To sum up, research available has provided some evidence for the psychological reality and neural mechanisms of phonological representation and processing in sign languages, but there is still a lack of consistency about the processing units and their roles as well as evidence on the modality-specific processing mechanisms. Thus some suggestions are given for future studies: (1)Future investigation may look at the roles of phonological parameters; (2) Further exploration of the neural mechanisms of sign phonology processing, especially on the brain activities in specific parameter perception and comparison of mechanisms may invoke in different tasks; (3)Enrichment of studies on various kinds of sign languages, as different languages may have their own unique phonological, grammatical or syntactical properties, which may result in cross-linguistic differences in processing mechanisms.

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