Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Pre-attentive processing refers to the early and automatic cognitive processes which are independent of consciousness and do not demand attention. Auditory mismatch negativity (MMN) is the most commonly used indicator of pre-attentive processing. MMN deficits have been found in a various of mental disorders, but little is known about the neurobiological mechanisms of MMN deficits. Combined with highly developed neurobiological and pharmacological techniques, animal models can provide valuable insights into the underlying mechanisms of MMN. Future animal studies of MMN should give more thoughts to the biological characteristics of different species and compare MMN across species in combination with human and animal research advantages. Hopefully, this comparative approach will lead to a better understanding of pre-attentive processing at both the macro and the micro levels.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Ostracism (i.e., the phenomenon of being rejected or neglected by an individual or a group) brings suffering to individuals. Mindfulness is conducive to emotional regulation and coping with stress, which may play a beneficial role in alleviating ostracism. From three perspectives (target, source, and observer) and three time points (before, during, and after the occurrence of ostracism), a series of questions about whether, when, and how mindfulness can play a role in ostracism were analyzed in detail and summarized as a model relating mindfulness and ostracism. This model demonstrates that before ostracism occurs, from the perspective of the source, awareness of the present may help to reduce the ostracism caused by the neglect of an individual. Some ostracism is aimed to express aggression towards the relationship. The effective emotional management and good communication brought about by mindfulness may help to deal with interpersonal relationships in a less exclusive way. From the perspective of the target, mindfulness may alleviate anxiety and overreaction to potential rejection. After ostracism occurs, mindfulness may not only reduce the rumination of ostracism but also may promote positive reappraisal, which help to alleviate the pain due to being ostracized. From the perspective of the observer, paying attention to the present may help the individual to identify the occurrence of ostracism and to provide helpful behaviors. Increasing the level of empathy and positive emotions may also be the mechanism by which mindfulness promotes prosocial behaviors. During the occurrence of ostracism, mindful targets are more likely to have high-quality communication with the source, which may reduce the possibility of exacerbation. Although the current research was rich in content, there were still some limitations. First of all, relatively few studies from the perspective of the target were identified. Future research needs to consider creating new paradigms or measurement methods to record ostracism behaviors objectively and to examine whether trait mindfulness and mindfulness intervention can reduce ostracism behaviors, which will reduce the negative impact of ostracism from the root cause. In addition, relevant research on the dynamic interactions between the target and the source during ostracism is scarce. Second, from the perspective of research quality, the current research methods mainly involve cross-sectional questionnaires, which lack objectivity and can only make relevant inferences. At the same time, there are relatively few randomized controlled intervention studies, and it is difficult to clarify the magnitude of the benefits of mindfulness on ostracism. Third, the boundary conditions for the benefits of mindfulness on ostracism need to be further clarified. Research on individual differences and negative outcome categories is an entry point for future studies related to mindfulness and ostracism. In summary, many studies have explored the role of mindfulness in stressful situations, but its role in ostracism has only just begun to be investigated. More research in the future is needed to help understand the relationship between mindfulness and ostracism more comprehensively.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The watching eyes effect refers to a phenomenon that people change behavior while being exposed to images of watching eyes. However, the robustness of the watching eyes effect remains controversial. There are four main views related to the watching eyes effect: 1) promoting pro-social behavior; 2) promoting compliance with social norms; 3) reducing anti-social behavior; and 4) having no effect. Although each of the four main views has theoretical support, it should be noted that they all have limitations. From a viewpoint of perceived norms, the present review incorporates the diffusion of innovations theory with the normative misperception theory and integrates the existing four views into a synthesized one called "the watching eyes effect under different perceived norms".First, we review the evaluation and classification approaches of perceived norms. According to the normative misperception theory, we divided the magnitude of normative misperception into two categories (i.e., large vs. small). When normative misperception is small, taking participation of 50% and 16% as the dividing lines, the prevalence of prosocial norms can be categorized into three types (high, medium, and low). In contrast, when normative misperception is large, individuals’ behavior can be categorized into two types: with intervention and without intervention, and when there is no intervention, sensitivity is used to classify the magnitude of the watching eyes effect on different groups of individuals.Second, we analyze the association between the robustness of the watching eyes effect and the perceived norms. According to the diffusion of innovations theory, individuals with behavioral changes can be categorized into five groups, including innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Taking into account the characteristics of potential adopters in different groups, we argue that: (1) When normative misperception is small with a high level of perceived pro-social norm, the potential adopters are late majority and laggards, who are influenced by social norms easily. In this case, the watching eyes effect can lead people to be more pro-social. (2) When normative misperception is small with a medium level of perceived pro-social norm, the potential adopters are early majority, late majority, and laggards. Since the level of prevalence is less than 50%, social norms may not affect behaviors effectively, and thus the watching eyes effect is unstable. (3) When normative misperception is small with a low level of perceived pro-social norm, the potential adopters are early adopters, who are more concerned about the injunctive norm. Therefore, the watching eyes effect can promote the pro-social behavior stably when the injunctive norm intervention is provided. (4) When normative misperception is large without intervention, it is difficult for individuals to catch clear perceived prosocial norms, which may be difficult for the watching eyes effect to take place in increasing pro-social behavior. (5) When normative misperception is large with intervention, the watching eyes effect will be stable because individuals have caught clear perceived prosocial norms. (6) Individuals who are sensitive to social norms may be more prone to the watching eyes effects, and thus they are more likely to follow the perceived prosocial norms.To summarize, we demonstrate that the robustness of the watching eyes effect depends on the strength of perceived norms. Specifically, when the prevalence of perceived prosocial norms is high, the watching eyes effect can not only “promote prosocial behavior” or “promote more compliance with social norms”, but also “reduce anti-social behavior”. However, when the prevalence of perceived prosocial norms is low, the watching eyes effect will not take place on some anti-social behaviors. When normative misperception is high without normative intervention, the watching eyes effect will also disappear on some anti-social behaviors. The present work sheds light on decoding the mechanism of the robustness of the watching eyes effect and provides theoretical supports for empirical research and practical application in the future.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The body ownership illusion (BOI) is associated with multisensory integration, including visuo-tactile, visuo- proprioceptive, tactile-proprioceptive, visual-interoceptive integration and so forth. A series of studies have demonstrated that BOI may be able to reduce acute and chronic pain. There are several key factors that influence the induction of subjective feeling of ownership over the fake body parts, such as synchronicity of multisensory integration, space between the real and fake body parts, the physical appearance of the fake body parts, a first-person perspective. These factors have also been proved to be critical in the effect of analgesia of BOI. In addition, BOI can be modulated by the perceived body/limb size, transparency of the body/limb and so on. The influence of these factors on pain is complex, which differs between healthy subjects and patients with chronic pain, various chronic pain states and the relevant body perception disturbances. Altered body representation represents one of the mechanisms associated with the analgesic impact of BOI. The neural mechanism of BOI on pain, however, still remains unknown, we propose that it is associated with cross-modal mirror therapy and visual analgesia. Thus based on the neural mechanisms of these two phenomenon, we suggest that the “body matrix” and the “pain matrix” might be involved. The concept of “body matrix” was proposed to interpret the induction of the sense of ownership and the complex relationship between representation of the body in the brain and the integrity of the body itself, which includes the insula and posterior parietal cortex. It processes and further integrates the sensory stimuli like visual, tactile, proprioceptive, interoceptive signals from the environment. To be specific, the induction of the sense of ownership could first activate the body matrix and then suppress the pain matrix in acute pain. In chronic pain, the analgesic effect may be related with the reversal of the cortical representation and functional disturbances. Moreover, the posterior parietal cortex may play a key role in these integrations, which needs to be further validated in fine-designed protocols. In summary, most of the researches support a link between embodied illusion and pain disorders, yet several studies didn’t find the analgesic effect of BOI. It might result from the experimental procedure that the artificial/fake hand was covered to avoid visual feedback, or may due to differences in the experimental settings of the control group. Future research topics may include the following aspects. Firstly, future research might want to consider more about the role of interoception in multisensory integration paradigms as exteroceptive signals may not suitable in patients with allodynia who are extremely sensitive to tactile stimuli. The usage of interoception enables the induction of sense of ownership without any tactile stimuli. Thus taking into account of interoception allows a better understanding of the contribution of interoception in bodily illusion and in pain modulation. Secondly, future studies need to identify the cognitive mechanism and neural substrates underlying the effect of BOI on pain. For instance, whether BOI analgesic effect has shared neural mechanisms with mirror therapy and visual analgesia needs further interrogation. Thirdly, how BOI affects pain varies differently in acute pain and chronic pain, and in different chronic pain conditions. Future research needs to shed further light on the identification of this complex phenomenon. Finally, robust and new paradigms of body ownership illusion are needed to further explore the full potential of BOI to modulate pain and to be applied in pain management in clinical populations.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Healthy aging is generally associated with a decline in episodic memory. Usually, older adults show more significant declines in associative memory than in item memory. Most previous cognitive aging studies of episodic memory focus on mean changes in memory performance with age and thus assume that older adults are a homogenous group. However, older adults demonstrate notable individual differences in episodic memory. While most older adults show a normal or pathological decline in episodic memory, some indicate successful episodic memory aging. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the neural mechanisms of individual differences in episodic memory aging to demystify the determinants of successful memory aging. This helps reveal the neural basis of human cognitive function and is insightful for developing effective interventions to improve memory function in older adults and delay cognitive aging. To date, four critical theories have been proposed to explain why some older adults exhibit successful memory aging: brain maintenance, neural dedifferentiation, cognitive reserve, and neural compensation. The brain maintenance account claims that the ability of some older adults to demonstrate successful memory aging may be explained by individual differences in brain preservation. In line with this prediction, individuals who demonstrate a relative lack of senescent brain changes and more youth-like brain activation patterns show higher levels of memory performance. The neural dedifferentiation view states that individuals with higher functional specificity of brain regions and networks may have superior episodic memory. The concept of cognitive reserve states that individual differences in cognitive operations or processes shaped by lifetime exposures allow some individuals to maintain cognitive function in the face of brain aging or pathology. The above concepts may reflect the optimization process of the selective optimization with compensation (SOC) model. Specifically, brain maintenance may reflect the results of the optimization, whereas cognitive reserve may reflect the approach for conducting the optimization process. The neural compensation hypothesis, which reflects the compensation process of the SOC model, states that some older adults can compensate for age-related neural decline or pathology to preserve high levels of cognitive and behavioral output. Based on these theories and the SOC model, we speculate that some older adults display successful memory aging because they have higher cognitive reserve shaped by several lifestyle factors throughout their lifespans. These factors include education, occupation, physical activity, cognitively stimulating activities, and other lifestyle aspects. Older adults with higher cognitive reserve can optimize the function of the brain regions and networks related to episodic memory and more successfully compensate for age-related neural decline. Ultimately, the benefits of the optimization and compensation processes are reflected in maintaining a higher level of brain function (e.g., the fidelity of neural representation or functional segregation of brain networks). Nevertheless, there are still debates regarding how to define the concept of cognitive reserve operationally, how cognitive reserve and compensation relate to one another, and how lifestyle factors affect brain maintenance, cognitive reserve, and neural compensation in older adults. Future research should incorporate more longitudinal studies to investigate the relationship between these theories and their impact factors, which would be beneficial for understanding the neural mechanisms of successful memory aging and providing support for improving brain and cognitive health in older adults.
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