Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Machine learning is a promising approach for mental disorders. In recent years, machine learning based on T1 weighted imaging and Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) data has been used to investigate the psychopathology and underlying mechanisms of schizophrenia patients and high-risk population. The findings from the previous literature suggest that structural features of frontal lobe and temporal lobe can improve classification performance. In addition, the combination of behavioural performances and the features of brain structure is superior to the single-modality structural images on classification accuracy. However, the existing empirical studies classifying schizophrenia patients or high-risk population from controls are limited in sample size and generalization ability.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Body size perception refers to how an individual perceives the size, weight and proportions of his/her body. Distorted body size perception can be a mental health problems, and is associated with psychiatric disorders such as eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorder, depression, and certain psychotic disorders. This is an often-ignored research area, with largely inconsistent evidence. The extant literature concerning body size perception in patients with eating disorders generally supports four notions. First, anorexia nervosa (AN) patients and bulimia nervosa (BN) patients both overestimate their body size, but the magnitude of such distorted perception varies with different methods estimating one’s body size. Two commonly-used methods for body size estimation are the ‘depictive method’ and the ‘metric method’. The latter method usually generated a higher degree of overestimation in body size than the former method in patients with eating disorders. Second, the distorted body size perception in AN patients may be confounded by their extremely low body mass index (BMI). Yet, this previous finding is inconsistent due to the ecological validity of the ‘depictive’ and ‘metric’ methods. Third, AN and BN patients have different estimates of body size perception for ＂self＂ versus ＂others＂, and such discrepancy may be related to attitudes towards themselves. However, attitudinal factors and its effect on body size perception are seldom studied and thus remain unclear. Lastly, distorted body size perception in patients with eating disorder is correlated with symptom severity and could indicate prognosis of the illness. Body size perception is also one of the intervention targets for treating eating disorders. The literature remains inconclusive regarding whether healthy people have accurate body size perception, because previous findings vary with different designs in measuring body size perception, sample characteristics (demographics and geographical-cultural aspects). Yet in general, healthy people tend to perceive others’ body size consistently, with overestimation for others with low BMIs, and underestimation for others with high BMIs. Three cognitive mechanisms underlying distorted body size perception have been proposed, namely contraction bias, adaptive after-effect and serial dependence. These putative mechanisms operate in health people and patients with eating disorders. In view of the above-mentioned review of the literature, we recommended three useful approaches for research in body size perception. First, it is necessary to distinguish two different methods for estimating body size perception, namely the ‘recognition technique’ (which involves the use of a visual analogue as reference in measurements) and the ‘recall technique” (which does not involve any visual analogue). It is likely that the two methods will yield different estimates from subjects, and may partly account for the inconsistent finding in the literature. Second, the problems of unclear definition of “overestimation” in previous studies should be addressed, by developing operational criteria and a standardized definition across different paradigms. Third, male subjects should be included in future study, because this gender has been under-represented in previous research. Lastly, in view of the growing incidence of eating disorders, body size perception is a worthy topic for research in China.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The microbiota-gut-brain axis hypothesis has attracted more and more attention in the research of the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. This hypothesis stated that gut microbiota can cause inflammation in the brain of patients with schizophrenia and cause abnormalities of brain function through the intestinal immune system, and that early colonization of gut microbiota will affect the development of the central nervous system in patients with schizophrenia and thus cause abnormalities of brain structure. Previous research has preliminarily investigated the relationship between the composition of gut microbiota and the brain imaging and clinical manifestation of patients with schizophrenia, but the specific action path is still unclear. In the current research, we have summarized the latest research progress and found that the gut microbiota diversity of patients with schizophrenia is significantly lower than that of the normal control, and the relative abundance of gut microbiota is also significantly different from that of the normal control at different biological levels, which is mainly manifested as the increase in the relative abundance of Actinomycetes and Proteus as well as the decrease in the relative abundance of Bacteroides and Sclerotinia. Based on the brain imaging results of patients with schizophrenia, we found that there was a significant correlation between the diversity of gut microbiota and the relative abundance of certain microbiota and the gray volume of specific areas of the patient's brain, including the right middle frontal gyrus, the right postcentral gyrus and insula, as well as the Amplitude of Low Frequency Fluctuation index (ALFF) and Regional Homogeneity index (ReHo) in certain brain functional areas, which were mainly reflected in the functional signals of the frontal and temporal lobes. Further combined with the clinical manifestation analysis of patients with schizophrenia, the results showed that there was a significant correlation between the composition of gut microbiota and the cognitive function scores as well as the clinical symptom score (PANSS). The α diversity of gut microbiota was related to visual hallucination, and the relative abundance of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum was significantly and positively correlated with the negative symptom score. These evidences indicate that the potential role of gut microbiota in schizophrenia is related to the changes of brain structure and function. Based on the ability of gut microbiota to identify and produce chemicals and the evidence of severe neurotransmitter imbalance in patients with schizophrenia, we proposed the mechanism hypothesis of gut microbiota affecting the brain structure and function of patients with schizophrenia, believing that gut microbiota may affect the brain structure and function of patients with schizophrenia through immune mediated pathway, short-chain fatty acid pathway, kynurenine pathway and brain-derived neurotrophic factor pathway. The related contents will provide new insights for further elucidation of the pathological mechanism of schizophrenia, clarify how gut microbiota affect the potential pathophysiological process of schizophrenia through the microbiota-gut-brain axis, and provide a theoretical basis for the inclusion of gut microbiota in the diagnosis, evaluation and intervention of schizophrenia.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Empathy refers to understanding, inferring and sharing others’ emotional states, which can be divided into affective and cognitive components. Although empathy contributes to prosocial behaviors and harmonious interpersonal relationships, it also increases an individual’s negative emotional experiences and affect distress. Emotion regulation, the psychological process of managing one’s own emotions, has been found to be closely associated with empathy. Cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression are two commonly used strategies to regulate emotions, of which cognitive reappraisal is effective in reducing negative emotional experiences while expressive suppression is usually correlated with more affective distress. However, the roles of emotion regulation strategies in the empathic response are still unclear. We conducted two studies to investigate the roles of emotion regulation on the negative affect related to empathy using self-report questionnaires and experimental task respectively. Study 1 administered the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21) to 442 college students. The moderating effects of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression on the association between empathy and negative affect were examined separately. Study 2 adopted the Chinese version of the Empathic Accuracy Task (EAT) to further examine the effect of emotion regulation (i.e. cognitive reappraisal) on cognitive empathy and affective responses. The EAT requires participants to continuously rate targets’ emotional valence in video clips as a second person and rate emotional valence and arousal of both targets and themselves after each video. Seventy-five participants (33 for experiment 1 and 42 for experiment 2) were recruited to perform the EAT under two conditions, i.e., naturally viewing without any instructions and applying cognitive reappraisal while viewing the scenarios. Paired sample t tests and repeated-measure ANOVA were performed to examine the effect of cognitive reappraisal on task performance. Findings from Study 1 showed that affective empathy was significantly correlated with higher levels of anxiety and stress, while empathic concern was correlated with less anxiety, stress and depression. However, when participants endorsed cognitive reappraisal more frequently, such positive association between affective empathy and stress was reduced, while the negative association between empathic concern and anxiety was strengthened. Cognitive empathy was significantly correlated with reduced depression. Expressive suppression strengthened the negative association between cognitive empathy and depression. Moreover, negative correlations between cognitive empathy and anxiety as well as stress emerged for participants endorsing cognitive reappraisal more frequently. Findings from Study 2 showed that task performances of the EAT were significantly improved when participants endorsed cognitive reappraisal strategy compared to the condition of naturally viewing. Specifically, under the cognitive reappraisal condition participants scored higher empathic accuracy, experienced less negative affect in reaction to others’ affect distress, and experienced more positive affect in reaction to others’ positive emotions. Taken together, the findings from these two studies suggested that both cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression play a protective role in the associations between empathy and negative affect, and the endorsement of cognitive reappraisal would improve task performance on both cognitive and affective empathy. Our findings shed light on the psychological mechanisms of empathy and provide new approach for improving individuals’ social cognitive ability, especially for early intervention in clinical and subclinical populations.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2022-12-03
Abstract：
Empathy refers to understanding, inferring and sharing others’ emotional states, which can be divided into affective and cognitive components. Although empathy contributes to prosocial behaviors and harmonious interpersonal relationships, it also increases an individual’s negative emotional experiences and affect distress. Emotion regulation, the psychological process of managing one’s own emotions, has been found to be closely associated with empathy. Cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression are two commonly used strategies to regulate emotions, of which cognitive reappraisal is effective in reducing negative emotional experiences while expressive suppression is usually correlated with more affective distress. However, the roles of emotion regulation strategies in the empathic response are still unclear.
We conducted two studies to investigate the roles of emotion regulation on the negative affect related to empathy using self-report questionnaires and experimental task respectively. Study 1 administered the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21) to 442 college students. The moderating effects of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression on the association between empathy and negative affect were examined separately. Study 2 adopted the Chinese version of the Empathic Accuracy Task (EAT) to further examine the effect of emotion regulation (i.e. cognitive reappraisal) on cognitive empathy and affective responses. The EAT requires participants to continuously rate targets’ emotional valence in video clips as a second person and rate emotional valence and arousal of both targets and themselves after each video. Seventy-five participants (33 for experiment 1 and 42 for experiment 2) were recruited to perform the EAT under two conditions, i.e., naturally viewing without any instructions and applying cognitive reappraisal while viewing the scenarios. Paired sample t tests and repeated-measure ANOVA were performed to examine the effect of cognitive reappraisal on task performance.
Findings from Study 1 showed that affective empathy was significantly correlated with higher levels of anxiety and stress, while empathic concern was correlated with less anxiety, stress and depression. However, when participants endorsed cognitive reappraisal more frequently, such positive association between affective empathy and stress was reduced, while the negative association between empathic concern and anxiety was strengthened. Cognitive empathy was significantly correlated with reduced depression. Expressive suppression strengthened the negative association between cognitive empathy and depression. Moreover, a negative correlation between cognitive empathy and anxiety as well as stress emerged for participants endorsing cognitive reappraisal more frequently. Findings from Study 2 showed that task performances of the EAT were significantly improved when participants endorsed cognitive reappraisal strategy compared to the condition of naturally viewing. Specifically, under the cognitive reappraisal condition participants scored higher empathic accuracy, experienced less negative affect in reaction to others’ affect distress, and experienced more positive affect in reaction to others’ positive emotions.
Taken together, the findings from these two studies suggested that both cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression play a protective role in the associations between empathy and negative affect, and the endorsement of cognitive reappraisal would improve task performance on both cognitive and affective empathy. Our findings shed light on the psychological mechanisms of empathy and provide new approach for improving individuals’ social cognitive ability, especially for early intervention in clinical and subclinical populations.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Personality Psychology submitted time 2022-03-25
Abstract： <p>The accuracies of body size perception have been fount to be associated with level of mental health in the general population as well as the understanding, prevention and treatment of eating disorders. However, number of empirical studies in this field is limited and the findings are largely heterogeneous. First of all, patients with eating disorders overestimated their own body. The accuracies might be influenced by personal BMI as well as severity and prognosis of the disorders. Second, by comparing the estimation of one’s own body size with others among individuals with eating disorders, it was also found that the overestimation of one’s own body size was partly influenced by their attitudes towards own body. Third, studies on body size perception in the general population have not yet reached consistent conclusions, which may be influenced by the assessment methods. Finally, Three cognitive mechanisms underlying distorted body size perception have been proposed, namely contraction bias, adaptive aftereffect and serial dependence.</p>
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Other Disciplines of Psychology submitted time 2022-01-27
Abstract：
The microbiota-gut-brain axis hypothesis has attracted more and more attention in the research of the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Previous research has preliminarily investigated the relationship between the composition of gut microbiota and the brain imaging and clinical manifestation of patients with schizophrenia, but the specific action path is still unclear. This research summarized the latest research progress, and on this basis, proposed the mechanism hypothesis of gut microbiota affecting the brain structure and function of patients with schizophrenia. The related contents will provide a theoretical basis for further elucidation of the pathological mechanism of schizophrenia and for incorporating gut microbiota into the assessment and intervention of schizophrenia.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Medical Psychology Subjects: Computer Science >> Other Disciplines of Computer Science submitted time 2019-09-28
Abstract： Machine learning is a promising approach for mental disorders. In recent years, machine learning based on T1 weighted imaging and Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) data has been used to investigate the psychopathology and underlying mechanisms of schizophrenia patients and high-risk population. The findings from the previous literature suggest that structural features of frontal lobe and temporal lobe can improve classification performance. In addition, the combination of behavioural performances and the features of brain structure is superior to the single-modality structural images on classification accuracy. However, the existing empirical studies classifying schizophrenia patients or high-risk population from controls are limited in sample size and generalization ability. " "
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