Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2019-11-27
Abstract： In sentence production, syntactic priming, syntactic priming effectrefers to a phenomenon that speakers or writers tend to reuse syntactic structures that they have recently processed, and the repeated syntactic structures elicit shorter sentence production latencies than the novel ones. Different theories have been proposed to account for the syntactic priming effect. Among them, both the Residual Activation Theory and the Implicit Learning Theory aim to address speakers’ syntactic choices ratio, but with different theoretical bases on memory and learning, respectively. In addition, the Two-stage Competition Model attempts to explain the syntactic priming in syntactic choices ratio as well as production latencies. Experimental works have demonstrated that syntactic priming stably exists even after excluding the semantic and lexical relevance between the prime sentence and the target sentence, which suggests that syntactic priming actually reflects syntactic processing in sentence production. In the present study, we explored the cognitive mechanism of syntactic processing in Mandarin spoken sentence production using a syntactic priming paradigm. In this paradigm, participants were firstly instructed to read the prime sentence aloud and then judge whether the sentence’s description matched the prime picture. Then, participants were instructed to describe the target picture using the verb at the bottom. The dependent variables included not only the syntactic choices ratio but also the sentence production latencies. In experiment 1, we manipulated syntax structure of the prime sentence (double object dative vs. prepositional object dative) and verb overlap between the prime sentence and the target sentence (no verb overlap vs. verb overlap). In experiment 2, we added a within-subjects factor of lag by manipulating whether the target picture was presented immediately after the prime sentence, or after two or six intervening descriptions (Lag 0 vs. Lag 2 vs. Lag 6). For the syntactic choices ratio, results indicated that participants produced significantly more double-object sentences following double-object primes than following prepositional-object primes, and the syntactic priming was much stronger in the verb overlapping condition than in the verb non-overlapping condition. Furthermore, we found that the syntactic priming effect persisted when the prime sentence and the target sentence did not share the verb, whereas the lexical boost effect (i.e. a stronger syntactic priming effect caused by the verb overlap between the prime sentence and the target sentence) disappeared after six intervening descriptions. For the sentence production latencies, results indicated that the repetition of syntactic structures significantly speeded up target sentence production. Besides, we found that verb overlap slowed down the sentence production as the lag between primes and targets increased (also known as the lexical suppression effect) only when the syntactic structure was repeated. Unifying the different findings in the syntactic choices ratio and the production latencies, we suggest that, apart from the stage where a sentence is planned specifically, sentence production comprises a syntactic construction stage in which speakers map the thematic roles to one structural alternative. These findings are consistent with the Two-stage Competition Model. In methodology, we also suggest that syntactic choices ratio is sensitive to sentence generation process. "
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Physiological Psychology submitted time 2019-11-22
Abstract： Infra-slow oscillation (ISO) is a kind of brain rhythm between 0.01 and 0.1 Hz. ISO is widely distributed in multiple brain regions. As an important brain activity, the ISO interacts with high-frequency neural rhythm via cross-frequency coupling while has different activity patterns from high-frequency neural activity. ISO may be generated by the dynamic activity of thalamus, glia and ions, regulating the overall excitability of the brain and thereby affecting the efficiency of cognitive activities. The frequency, amplitude, and phase of ISO could all regulate the overall efficiency of cognitive activity. Future researches should investigate the relationship between various physiological mechanisms of ISO and diverse cognitive activities, and explore the rules of the interaction between ISO and mental activities, further promoting the construction of rhythmic theory of brain function. "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Clinical and Counseling Psychology submitted time 2019-11-21
Abstract： Empathy refers to the traits, or tendencies, of a person to affectively experience emotions of concern at the suffering of others and to cognitively adopt another person’s perspective. Possession of empathy has been assumed to encourage prosocial behavior. The mechanisms by which empathy affects prosocial behavior for adolescent survivors of disaster, however, are unclear. Posttraumatic growth (PTG) was considered a common positive change following trauma events and was identified as having a high prevalence rate in various trauma types. After experiencing natural disasters, individuals with high empathy are more vulnerable to their adverse environment and the traumatic situations of others. This results in more psychological pressure and fear, and these pressures and negative emotions force individuals to think about the meaning of trauma, thus promoting the generation of PTG. The emergence of PTG brings positive behavioral change among survivors after the disaster. Therefore, it was suggested that empathy may exert indirect effects on prosocial behavior through PTG. According to current theories, empathy has different emotional and cognitive components. When individuals empathize with others, these components are activated, which may lead to gratitude and, in turn, result in prosocial behavior. As a moral barometer, gratitude informs the beneficiary that a benefactor has bestowed a gift. The prosocial behavior of a benefactor toward a beneficiary is thought to produce gratitude within the beneficiary. This then stimulates the beneficiary’s prosocial behavior, further strengthening the benefactor’s own prosocial behavior. Furthermore, traumatized survivors with greater empathy may improve communication with others, increase the sense of intimacy, and perceive more support from others—meaning that empathy may lead individuals to have more social support. Social support refers to an individual’s perception of the support provided by others. That perception can be influenced by gratitude. Adolescents with low social support are more likely to interpret other people’s ambiguous actions as aggressive. Thus, stable social relationships seem to promote PTG and prosocial behavior. Taken together, it is possible that empathy can promote prosocial behavior through gratitude, social support, and PTG in post-disaster contexts. The utility of these predictions, however, was unclear. To examine the relation between empathy, gratitude, social support, PTG and prosocial behavior, this study used an interpersonal reactivity index scale, gratitude questionnaire, social support questionnaire, posttraumatic growth inventory and prosocial behavior questionnaire to assess 542 adolescents following Ya’an earthquake. The results indicated that after controlling the trauma exposure, empathy have a positive association with prosocial behavior through the following routes: three one-mediator paths of gratitude, social support and PTG, respectively; three two-mediator paths of gratitude via PTG, social support via PTG and gratitude via social support, and one three-mediator path from gratitude to PTG via social support. These findings suggested that following a natural disaster, adolescent survivors’ empathy may have an indirect and positive relation with prosocial behavior by gratitude, social support and PTG.
Subjects: Psychology >> Experimental Psychology submitted time 2019-11-20
Abstract： Stimuli presented with interference of the nature of targets detection are later recognized more accurately than that of distracted rejection, an unusual effect labeled the attentional boost effect (ABE). Spataro, Mulligan, Gabrielli and Rossi-Arnaud (2016) proposed the item-specific account, arguing that target detection mainly facilitates the processing of item-specific information rather than relational information. The item-specific account seems to have a larger scope of application. However, Spataro et al. (2016) proposed this account mainly based on the different degrees to which test tasks depended on item-specific and relational information. As a result, we propose a question: if target detection mainly promotes the item-specific information of the background stimulus, when the background stimulus mainly depends on the processing of relational information, will the promoting effect of target detection be reduced or even disappear? The discussion of this issue could provide more direct evidence for the item-specific account of the ABE. In the present study, mixed learning and classified learning methods were used to process the item-specific information and relational information of background stimuli. In general, pictures and words contain different perceptual information; the memory of picture preferentially utilizes image representations, while the memory of word preferentially utilizes semantic representations. Additionally, do the processing differences seen between words and pictures change the effects of classified and mixed learning on the ABE? To answer these questions, the current study performed two experiments to test whether the ABE is affected by the different types of processing needed for words and pictures used as background information. The experiment was a 2 (presentation mode: classified learning, mixed learning) × 3 (stimulus type: target, distraction, baseline) mixed design. The presentation mode is the between-subjects variable, and the stimulus type is the within-subjects variable. In experiment 1, in classified learning, category words and words unrelated to the category were presented in sequential groups, and the words in each group were presented randomly. To enhance the effect of classification, a 3000 ms "blink" cue and a 1000 ms "continue" cue were inserted between every two groups of words. In mixed learning, category words and words unrelated to the category were presented randomly through a mixed display, and there were no extra intervals between groups. Sixty students participated in experiment 1, and 78 students participated in experiment 2. Participants were told to read each word aloud while simultaneously monitoring a small indicator above the word. Participants were then instructed to press the space bar as quickly as possible when they saw that the indicator was a “+” (a target) and to withhold a response when they saw that the indicator was a “–” (a distractor) or when they did not see an indicator at all (no indicator). In experiment 2, pictures (brief strokes) were used as background stimuli, and the other task and procedure were similar to those in experiment 1. The main results were as follows. In Experiment 1, the ABE is robust only in mixed learning; that is, the recognition rate of target-paired words is obviously better than that of distractor-paired words (p = 0.004) and even reaches the level of full attention (baseline words)(p = 0.95). The recognition rate of distractor-paired words is obviously lower than that of baseline words(p = 0.044), showing a typical distraction inhibitory effect. Moreover, there was no significant difference between target-paired words (p = 0.636) and baseline words (p = 0.697) in the two presentation modes, but the recognition rate of distractor-paired words during classified learning was significantly higher than that of mixed learning (p = 0.008). In experiment 2, the ABE was found in both classified and mixed learning modes, but the ABE during classified learning (10%) was lower than that during mixed learning (16%). The recognition rate of target-paired pictures was even better than that of baseline pictures, showing an absolute attention boosting effect. Moreover, there was no significant difference between the recognition rate for the two kinds of target-paired pictures (p = 0.614). However, the recognition rates of distractor-paired pictures (p = 0.043) and baseline pictures (p = 0.036) show differences in the presentation mode. During classified learning, the recognition rates of distractor-paired pictures and baseline pictures are slightly higher than those during mixed learning. The results suggest that compared with the mixed learning condition, the ABE in the classified learning condition is reduced. Compared with pictures, the ABE for words is more vulnerable to classified learning, which can even makes the ABE disappear. This effect may occur because participants tend to encode relational information in classified learning, which may reduce the inhibitory effect of distraction rejection, thus reducing the difference between target-pair stimuli and distractor-pair stimuli. Therefore, the current study provides more direct evidence for the item-specific account of the ABE. "
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Psychological Measurement submitted time 2019-11-15
Abstract： Social dilemma is a multi-disciplinary topic widely discussed in Ethics, Psychology, Sociology and Economics, among which moral dilemma is the typical paradigm and has a long history of research. Present article reviewed three existed empirical approaches in dilemma research, traditional dilemma paradigm, process dissociation method and Consequences-Norms-generalized Inaction/action (CNI) model. Based on analyzing the contributions and limitations of the above three approaches, we developed a Consequences-general Action/inaction preference-Norms sensitivity estimation (CAN) algorithm. With the development of the four approaches, moral dilemma research has no longer limited in the contradicted dilemma situations. CNI model and CAN algorithm have extended to consider the four combinations between proscriptive/prescriptive norms and benefits greater/smaller than costs. With CNI model and CAN algorithm, Controversies in moral theories and empirical inconsistences can be further clarified. The four approaches provided methodological references for the similar topics with potential contradictions in many other domains. Therefore, the approaches can be used in multi-disciplines."
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> History of Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2019-11-14
Abstract： Embodied cognition reveals the impacts of body and environment on cognition. Put the implications of all the embodied theories together, the relationship between effect size and effect stability of embodiment effect was different before and after mind maturity. Before mind maturity, the effect size is big but unstable; after mind maturity, the effect size is small but stable. The implications of all the theories shed light on the dual processes underlying embodiment effect. Recently, several empirical evidences also suggest the dual processes underlying embodiment effect. To summarize, continuity of being unconsciously processed, cognitive resources accessibility and potential psychological conflict are the three key boundary conditions for embodiment effect. Combining theoretical and empirical evidences, Embodied Dual Process Perspective was suggested. The basic boundary conditions and the dual process property should be addressed in light of new found embodiment effects and the replications of identified embodiment effects. The Embodied Dual Process Perspective offers a notable extension for precisely localizing the embodiment effects and advancing the therotical consideration of the replication crisis.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Applied Psychology submitted time 2019-11-11
Abstract： Users being able to transit between social context and consumption context is a critical feature of social commerce. However, these transitions have been largely overlooked in the current research on social commerce adoption. In order to fill this research gap, a new concept called social-to-consumption transition which refers to transitions from social context to consumption context in social commerce networks or communities is proposed. Based on the boundary theory to explore antecedents and promotion mechanism of social-to-consumption transition will contribute to a broader and more comprehensive understanding of social commerce adoption, facilitate theory development in research on social commerce, and have important practical implications for promoting social-to-consumption transition. Specifically, there are four aspects of contents to explore: (1) the connotation and extension of social-to-consumption transition; (2) the potential influence of community integration supplies on consumers’ integrated social boundary creation and social-to-consumption transition; (3) the potential influence of boundary segmentation preference on integrated social boundary creation and social-to-consumption transition; (4) the moderating effect of community boundary customized climate on the relationship between integrated social boundary creation and social-to-consumption transition. "
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2019-11-11
Abstract： "
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2019-11-11
Abstract： " Due to the characteristics of internal fertilization, human fertilization, to a certain extent, is concealed. Meanwhile, adultery existed in early human society. Therefore, males suffer from the uncertainty that their putative children may not be their biological offspring, which is paternal uncertainty. To cope with this uncertainty, males are unconsciously looking for cues that might indicate a genetic similarity between them and their offspring. Among these cues, the facial resemblance is one of the indirect ways that males could infer if there is a biological connection in terms of fatherhood. Three methods are there to measure facial resemblance, including morph software synthesis, third–party rating, and self-rating. Previous studies have shown that the more similar the facial characteristics between a father and his offspring are, the more paternal resources the father would be willing to invest during parenthood. The less anxious and healthier a father is during parenthood, the higher sexual aversion a father would experience in the relationship with their children. The present research suggested three directions for future studies. First, it is valuable to look at the cultural differences in the impacts of father-child facial resemblance. Second, in order to enhance its internal and external validity, future work can adopt new methods to assess the father-child facial resemblance. Last, it would be an exciting direction to explore the relationship between the subjective assessments and the objective assessments of father-child facial resemblance.
Subjects: Psychology >> Statistics in Psychology submitted time 2019-11-08
Abstract： Problem-solving competence is defined as the capacity to engage in cognitive processing to understand and resolve problem scenarios where a solution is not obvious. Computer-based assessments usually provide an interactive environment in which students can solve a problem by choosing among a set of available actions and taking one or more steps to complete a task. All students’ actions are automatically recorded in system logs as coded and time-stamped strings. These strings are called process data. The process data have multi-level structures in which the actions are nested within a single individual and therefore they are logically interconnected. Recently, researches have focused on characterizing process data and analyzing the response strategies to solve the problem. This study proposed an extended MMixIRT model which incorporated the multilevel structure into a mixture IRT model. It can classify latent groups at process level that have different problem solving strategies, and estimate the students’ abilities at the student level simultaneously. This model takes the accumulated response information as the specific steps at the process level and defines a more free matrix to determine the weight information used for ability estimation at the student level. Specifically, in the standard MMixIRT model, the student-level latent variables are generally obtained from the measurement results made by the process-level response variables, while students’ final responses are used to estimate their problem-solving abilities in the extended MMixIRT model. This research applied process data recorded in one of the items (Traffic CP007Q02) of problem solving in PISA 2012. The samples were 3196 students from Canada, Hongkong-China, Shanghai-China, Singapore, and America. Based on the log file of the process record, there were 139,990 records in the final data file. It was found that (1) The model can capture different problem-solving strategies used by students at the process level, as well as provide ability estimates at the student level. (2) The model can also analyze the typical characteristics of students’ strategy in problem-solving across different countries for targeted instructional interventions. It is concluded that the extended MMixIRT model can analyze response data at process and student levels. These analyses not only play an important role in the scoring, but also provide valuable information to psychometricians and test developers, help them to better understand what distinguishes well performing students from the ones that are not, and eventually lead to better test design. "
Subjects: Psychology >> Physiological Psychology submitted time 2019-11-08
Abstract： Persons who are addicted are known to show cue-induced responses (such as psychological craving) to drug-related cues. Previous research showed that both tool-related (e.g., syringe) and action-related (e.g., use of the syringe) drug cues can elicit craving. However, whether the two types of drug related cues can elicit the same brain reactivity and similar degree of disinhibition is still unclear, especially because of the scarcity of ERP studies on this topic. Using a behavioral task and the ERP technique, the present study investigated the behavior reactivity and EEG characteristics shown by men addicted to heroin and healthy controls in response to tool-related and action-related drug cues. Participants were 36 men, 19 of whom were addicted to heroin and 17 of whom were healthy non-drug users, matched on age and years of education. Participants engaged in the two-choice Oddball task, which included two conditions: A. the tool condition, with a picture of a “cup” serving as the standard stimulus and pictures of drug-use tools serving as deviant stimuli; B. the action condition, with a picture of “drinking water” serving as the standard stimulus and pictures of drug-use actions serving as deviant stimuli. In this experiment, the probabilities of standard stimuli and deviant stimuli were 70% and 30%. Participants were asked to press different keys on the keyboard in response to standard stimuli and deviant stimuli as rapidly and accurately as possible. Behavioral results indicated that in men who were addicted to heroin, greater disinhibition was seen in a longer reaction time in response to action cues than tool cues. Between-group analyses of the ERP data showed that compared to the healthy controls, men who were addicted to heroin demonstrated a smaller N2 and larger P3 amplitude in response to drug related cues. Moreover, action cues elicited a smaller N2 amplitude in the heroin addicted group than the control group, especially in the frontal, central and central-parietal areas of the brain, and a larger P3 amplitude, especially in the central and parietal areas of the brain. Within-group analyses in just the heroin addicted group showed that the N2 was smaller in response to action cues versus tool cues. Meanwhile, the action cues elicited a larger amplitude of P3 than the tool cues, especially in the central, central-parietal and parietal regions of the brain. These findings provide behavioral and ERP evidence for the hypothesis that different types of drug-related cues produce different cue-induced reactivity. More specifically, drug use action stimuli, which appear to trigger greater disinhibition and greater ERP reactivity in the brain areas associated with motor resonance, should be considered in the treatment of addiction and in relapse prevention.
Subjects: Psychology >> Legality Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2019-11-05
Abstract： Behavioral and neuroscientific methods have uniquely contributed to our understanding of human mind and behavior. The advance in neuroscience and its potential implications (e.g., in legal systems) have attracted attention from both academia and society. However, researchers found that, when providing statements supported by either neuroscientific or behavioral/psychophysiological results, even if these neuroscientific results were logically irrelevant to the statements, participants still considered statements with neuroscientific results as more trustworthy. This phenomenon was termed as neuroscience bias. By systematically reviewing empirical studies on neuroscience bias, we revealed that: (1) the reproducibility of neuroscience bias was debated, but the effect exists; (2) neuroscience bias could be attributed to people’s preference for the reductionism and psychological essentialism. Neuroscience bias is one of many biases people may have when interpreting scientific results; future studies should further explore the psychological mechanisms of these biases and thereby provide guidelines for correctly interpreting and using scientific results." " " " " " "
Subjects: Psychology >> Medical Psychology submitted time 2019-11-05
Abstract： Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have a wide range of cognitive impairments. Mental time travel (MTT) is the ability to mentally re-experience past events and pre-experience possible future events. Studies have shown MTT impairments in individuals with ASD, however, these findings may be confounded by a number of factors including verbal ability to report MTT, factors related to MTT task and demographic factors of participants. The present study provided a meta-analysis on MTT deficits in individuals with ASD and examined the potential moderating variables for these impairments. Twenty-six studies were included, and the participants comprised 667 individuals with ASD and 671 healthy controls. Results showed significant overall MTT impairments (Cohen’s d = −0.95) in individuals with ASD. Moderator and meta-regression analyses revealed that verbal IQ was significantly related to MTT impairments; type of MTT, type of task, measurement indices of MTT, age of participants, gender ratio and full IQ did not explain the MTT impairments. These findings suggest that MTT is severely impaired in individuals with ASD, verbal IQ contributed to MTT impairments, and task characteristics did not affect the degree of impairments.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2019-11-04
Abstract： " Human beings often make gestures when talking or thinking. Gestures are generated automatically during cognitive processing or communication, and as representations, they in turn affect human cognitive processing. Although researchers have different emphasis on the concept of gestures, it is generally believed that gestures are different from direct actions and have internal and external cognitive functions. Seminal theoretical models include Lexical Index Model, Information Packing Hypothesis, Image Maintenance Theory, Semantic Specificity Hypothesis and Embodied/Extended Perspective. According to the main independent variables, the research paradigms fall into three categories, namely, allow-and-limit gestures, the change of gesture patterns, and changes of situation. In addition to in-depth study of the neural mechanism of cognitive functions of gestures and their intervention research, this paper proposes a theoretical model with more explanatory power - the "Spatializing" Gesture Hypothesis.
Subjects: Psychology >> Psychological Measurement submitted time 2019-11-03
Abstract： Based on moral foundation theories, the present research was to validate Graham and colleagues’ (2009) moral foundations dictionary in the Chinese context. According to virtue and vice of morality, the reliability and inter-dimension correlation of 10 dimensions and five moral foundations (i.e., care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity) were tested. The results show a good reliability of each dimension and a moderate correlation between them. Taken together, the current study provides a reliable method for the work on morality in Chinese populations, and the structure and the criterion validity of the 10 dimensions should be tested in future directions."
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
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