Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The dual system model of behavior learning recognizes two distinct systems: goal-directed system and habitual system. The goal-directed system, encoding the action-outcome behavior, is associated with caudate, ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). The habitual system, concerning stimulus-response behaviors, is associated with the putamen and supplementary motor area (SMA). Research paradigms for these two behavioral learning systems mainly include outcome devaluation and contingency degradation paradigms. A large number of studies have found a dynamic defect of goal-direct learning system and habitual learning system in obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism, addiction and other mental disorders.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Visual mental imagery is defined as the representation of visual information in human brain without external sensory stimuli, which plays an essential role in most of human’s mental activities. In this paper, we reviewed a theoretical computational model of visual mental imagery and summarized the essential components of visual imagery generation system with its corresponding neural basis. This paper highlights that the great importance of primary visual cortex in visual imagery process as it works as a “visual buffer” for generating visual information mentally. Factors that affect the production of visual mental imagery were also outlined. By offering a comprehensive understanding model of the processing of visual mental imagery, this paper may facilitate the further researches on visual mental imagery.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Moral elevation refers to a positive moral emotion response to a situation that, when witnessing other’s moral behavior, people appreciates other’s virtue and feels moral sentiment elevated. Moral elevation has affective, physical, cognitive, and behavioral aspects. Moral elevation can be induced by materials and situations, and be measured by identifier words and scales. The formation of moral elevation needs two key mechanisms, including positive inner attribution and positive upward social comparison, and these mechanisms can be affected by the characteristics of other’s moral behavior and the observer’s characteristics. Moral elevation triggers activation of the cranial and autonomic nerve as well as endocrine reactivity. Psychological effects of moral elevation include promoting pro-social behavior and positive social cognition, and enhancing positive impact to oneself. Future researches of moral elevation should investigate its physiological mechanisms, explore its broaden-and-build effects, examine diverse cultural and indigenous populations, and consider applications to moral education.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Besides affecting vision, light exerts powerful non-visual effects on a wide range of biological functions and behaviors, such as modulating circadian rhythm, melatonin suppression, and acute alertness. Comprehensive studies on the effect of light on human circadian rhythm now lead more researchers to pay attention to the effects of light on acute alertness. Here, we summarized (1) different measures of alertness, (2) factors that may influence the effect of light on alertness like illuminance, exposure, timing, wavelength and color temperature, (3) promising applications of the alerting effect of light in some affective disorders, circadian rhythm, and office lighting, and (4) future directions focusing on investigation of neural mechanisms, optimal lighting characteristics, and potential confounds.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Visual mental imagery is an important way of information representation for human being. Compared with working memory and attention, visual mental imagery sheds more light on the subjective contents which are different strikingly among individuals. With the perspective of individual differences, we review the various individual performances and the underlying neural basis of visual mental imagery. We also explore some potential applications and future directions of visual mental imagery. This review will lead to a better understanding of the nature of individual differences in visual mental imagery and accelerate the development in the research field.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Meta-regression is the most frequently used technique for identifying moderators in meta-analysis. In this study, main principles and basic models of meta-analysis and meta-regression were briefly introduced first. Then a Monte Carlo simulation was conducted to investigate the minimum number of the effect size required in meta-regression based on statistical power and estimation precision. The results showed that (1) the Wald-type z test was prone to type I error in meta-regression; (2) at least 20 effect sizes were needed to meet parameter estimation requirements; (3) and inclusion of proper moderators could reduce the number of effect size required. Therefore, it is suggested that (1) meta-analysts should be careful when using the CMA software and the Wald-type z test; (2) at least 20 or more effect sizes are generally needed based on different situations; (3) exploration of moderators is necessary; (4) reviewers can value a meta-analysis research according to the minimum number of effect size required.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Human perception to near-threshold visual stimuli is not always reliable. To investigate variability of visual perception and its neural mechanism, some researchers focus on the influences of prestimulus ongoing alpha oscillations (8~13 Hz) on visual perception. Recently, studies found that decrease of prestimulus alpha power associated with improvement of observers’ detection rate, but no such effect on perception accuracy was found. In addition, phase of prestimulus alpha was reported to predict whether an observer can detect the following visual stimulus or not. Thus, power of prestimulus alpha is considered to reflect the excitability of visual cortex; decrease of alpha power indicates increase of cortical excitability, which results in higher detection rate of near-threshold stimuli. Nevertheless, phase of prestimulus alpha might play a role in regulating the time of excitation and inhibition of the cortex, and the different brain states (excitation or inhibition) at stimulus onset would lead to different perceptions of the stimulus.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Behavioral oscillations are periodic changes of behavioral performance which result from rhythmic mental processes. Through behavioral methods that have high temporal resolutions, prior studies have provided a unique perspective to investigate the temporal dynamics of visual attention. Phenomena of behavioral oscillations were observed in many types of attentional tasks. There was much evidence supporting that attentional sampling showed periodic changes mainly at two different rhythms: α (8~13 Hz) band which reflects attentional suppression and θ (4~8 Hz) band which reflects attentional shift. These results help revealing the temporal dynamics of attention and provide a new approach for the controversy between serial- and parallel-search theories of attention. Some potential factors, including task difficulty and cue validity, were found to be able to influence the rhythmic characteristics of behavioral oscillations. Behavioral oscillations showed consistent rhythms with neural oscillations in some attentional tasks, suggesting that they might involve similar mental processes. To systematically reveal the temporal dynamics of attention, future studies are needed to investigate the specific patterns of behavioral oscillations under various attentional control processes, as well as in multimodal attentional tasks.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Selective attention modulates multiple stages of visual processing, and nearly all the attentional modulations are affected by normal aging. Studies about the influence of aging on early stages of attentional processing can greatly help to understand the mechanism of cognitive aging. However, the related studies are insufficient and sometimes exhibit inconsistent results. Till now, there is still lack of reviews focusing the aging mechanism of early visual attention from the perspective of time course.This paper systematically reviews the ERP (event-related potential) studies investigating the aging effect on both pre-stimulus anticipatory attention and sensory stages of attentional processing (less than 200ms post-stimulus). Current evidence shows that: (1) early attentional effects reflected by many ERP components (e.g., ADAN and EDAN reflecting anticipatory attention, N1 reflecting early spatial attention, SP and SN reflecting early feature attention) are delayed in older adults compared to young adults; (2) the amplitudes of early attentional effects showed diverse age-related patterns in different ERP components : while some components (e.g., ADAN, EDAN, and P1 reflecting early spatial attention) appear to be resistant to aging, some other components (e.g., alpha power lateralization reflecting anticipatory attention, N1 reflecting early spatial attention, and SN reflecting early feature attention) seem to be influenced easily by aging, albeit some inconsistent results (e.g., the age-related spatial attention effect on N1 amplitudes is found to be enhanced, preserved, or declined in different studies); (3) while target facilitation reflected by some ERP components (e.g., SP reflecting early feature attention, P1 and N1 reflecting early object attention) is retained in healthy older adults, there is an age-related decline in distractor suppression. Regarding to the diverse and inconsistent findings about how normal aging affects early attentional effects in ERP amplitudes, there might be multiple reasons. On one hand, it might be due to different task demands and/or different attentional processes (distractor suppression vs. target facilitation) engaged in different studies: (1) different task demands will confuse the observation of, even exert distinct influences on different stages of early attention in healthy older adults; (2) target facilitation and distractor suppression might be two distinguished age-related attentional processes, with distractor suppression more sensitive to normal aging. On the other hand, it might be ascribable to some confounding factors, such as signal-to-noise ratio and individual differences of the elderly across studies: (1) the low signal-to-noise ratio in s aging-related ERP studies might lead to unstable and unconvincing results; (2) the range of age and cognitive function of the elderly samples are different across studies, which might also leads to inconsistent results. Future research should control the confounding factors to obtain stable and comparable results, such as ensuring sufficient trials and/or matching the task demands between the elderly and young. To further understand the aging mechanism, future research can also manipulate these factors to explore their specific effects on early stages of attention, such as providing a neutral condition to separate target facilitation and distractor suppression processes.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The error-driven learning theory believes that the reinforcement brought by the stimulus must be surprising or unpredictable for the individual to form learning. The mismatch between the expected consequence of behavior and the actual result, known as prediction error (PE), is the driving factor of learning, according to this theory. The Rescorla & Wagner model, the Pearce-Hall model, and the temporal difference (TD) model are the three most common models for calculating prediction error. The RW model and the TD model, in particular, have had a significant impact on the research of prediction error-driven learning and memory. Under different learning models, prediction error is classified as reward or punishment prediction error (RPE or PPE); positive or negative prediction error; and singed or unsigned prediction error (SPE or UPE). As a type of salience, PE is different from other types of saliences. Salience includes stimulus novelty, valence evaluation, stimulus rareness and other salience. Physical salience, surprise (unexpected novelty), and expected novelty are all types of novelty, but only unexpected novelty can promote dopamine release; physical salience with no direct rewards can only cause a short spike in dopamine. Prediction error, on the other hand, are mostly related to the recognition, result perception, and valence evaluation processes. A large body of work investigated the role of prediction error in the formation and updating of fear memory. Firstly, prediction error is considered to be a necessary factor in the process of fear acquisition. Negative PE is the source of successful fear extinction. Secondly, under the framework of Reconsolidation Interference of conditioned fear memory, prediction error is demonstrated as a necessary condition of memory destabilization. Prediction error plays a key role in fear memory reconsolidation: (1) PE during memory reactivation is an important boundary condition for memory destabilization; (2) PE is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the triggering of reconsolidation. The degree of prediction error determines whether or not the memory can become unstable. PE's role in memory updating has progressed from a qualitative to a quantitative examination, which has become an important measure of such research development; (3) The size of PE required for memory destabilization is proportional to the memory’s original strength. Thus, it is critical to take both sides into account when evaluating a retrieval manipulation. We propose an integrated model of retrieval boundary conditions and memory features for the reconsolidation of fear memories based on these studies and previous models. However, until recently, the neural mechanism underlying the involvement of prediction error in fear memory update has remained largely elusive. Recent work has revealed the brain areas involved mainly include the amygdala, ventrolateral peri-aqueduct gray matter (vlPAG), hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex (PFC). The PFC, in particular, is a distinct area that may distinguish the fear extinguish with or without reconsolidation. While a range of neurotransmitters are linked to the role of PE in memory destabilization in terms of neuromodulation in brain circuits, the most significant of which is dopaminergic. However, glutamate’s participation in the same process is also worth mentioning. We propose that in the future direction of the research on fear memory updating, further exploration should be made on quantitative research based on the PE calculation model, integrating the interaction between PE and other boundary conditions, and investigating the role of different types of saliences in memory reconsolidation. Importantly, multidisciplinary methods are urgently need to be used to investigate the neural and molecular mechanisms of PE's role in fear memory renewal. Individual differences in the effects of PE, on the other hand, must be investigated in order to facilitate the translation of studies from bench to bedside.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Background: P-value is the most widely used statistical index for inference in science. A p-value greater than 0.05, i.e., nonsignificant results, however, cannot distinguish the two following cases: the absence of evidence or the evidence of absence. Unfortunately, researchers in psychological science may not be able to interpret p-values correctly, resulting in wrong inference. For example, Aczel et al (2018), after surveying 412 empirical studies published in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Psychological Science, found that about 72% of nonsignificant results were misinterpreted as evidence in favor of the null hypothesis. Misinterpretations of nonsignificant results may lead to severe consequences. One such consequence is missing potentially meaningful effects. Also, in matched-group clinical trials, misinterpretations of nonsignificant results may lead to false “matched” groups, thus threatening the validity of interventions. So far, how nonsignificant results are interpreted in Chinese psychological literature is unknown. Here we surveyed 500 empirical papers published in five mainstream Chinese psychological journals, to address the following questions: (1) how often are nonsignificant results reported; (2) how do researchers interpret nonsignificant results in these published studies; (3) if researchers interpreted nonsignificant as “evidence for absence,” do empirical data provide enough evidence for null effects? Method: Based on our pre-registration (https://osf.io/czx6f), we first randomly selected 500 empirical papers from all papers published in 2017 and 2018 in five mainstream Chinese psychological journals (Acta Psychologica Sinica, Psychological Science, Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, Psychological Development and Education, Psychological and Behavioral Studies). Second, we screened abstracts of these selected articles to check whether they contain negative statements. For those studies which contain negative statements in their abstracts, we searched nonsignificant statistics in their results and checked whether the corresponding interpretations were correct. More specifically, all those statements were classified into four categories (Correct-frequentist, Incorrect-frequentist: whole population, Incorrect-frequentist: current sample, Difficult to judge). Finally, we calculated Bayes factors based on available t values and sample sizes associated with those nonsignificant results. The Bayes factors can help us to estimate to what extent those results provided evidence for the absence of effects (i.e., the way researchers incorrectly interpreted nonsignificant results). Results: Our survey revealed that: (1) out of 500 empirical papers, 36% of their abstracts (n = 180) contained negative statements; (2) there are 236 negative statements associated with nonsignificant statistics in those selected studies, and 41% of these 236 negative statements misinterpreted nonsignificant results, i.e., the authors inferred that the results provided evidence for the absence of effects; (3) Bayes factor analyses based on available t-values and sample sizes found that only 5.1% (n = 2) nonsignificant results could provide strong evidence for the absence of effects (BF01 > 10). Compared with the results from Aczel et al (2019), we found that empirical papers published in Chinese journals contain more negative statements (36% vs. 32%), and researchers made fewer misinterpretations of nonsignificant results (41% vs. 72%). It worth noting, however, that there exists a categorization of ambiguous interpretations of nonsignificant results in the Chinese context. More specifically, many statements corresponding to nonsignificant results were “there is no significant difference between condition A and condition B”. These statements can be understood either as “the difference is not statistically significant”, which is correct, or “there is no difference”, which is incorrect. The percentage of misinterpretations of nonsignificant results raised to 64% if we adopt the second way to understand these statements, in contrast to 41% if we used the first understanding. Conclusion: Our results suggest that Chinese researchers need to improve their understanding of nonsignificant results and use more appropriate statistical methods to extract information from nonsignificant results. Also, more precise wordings should be used in the Chinese context.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Women are more susceptible to disorders of fear and anxiety than men, with the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) two-to three-fold higher in women. Whereas normal fear responses are triggered by trauma-associated cues, in disorders such as PTSD, fear is also elicited in neutral or safe cues. Hence, fear over-generalization has been put forward as a potential etiological factor of PTSD and other anxiety disorders. Therefore, in this study, we examined whether women show stronger fear generalization than men, and are there any differences between women and man in the extinction of fear generalization. The answers to such questions could provide a new perspective on the severe prevalence of anxiety disorders in women. Forty-five college students participated in this study. Three participants’ data were deleted for technical failure, leaving forty-two participants’ (Female: 22, Male: 20) data in analysis finally. The experiment consisted of two phases: acquisition, and generalization. 10 rings of gradually increasing size were served as conditioned stimuli (CS) and generalization stimuli (GS). The rings in the two extreme sizes were as the conditioned danger cue (CS+) and conditioned safety cue (CS−), respectively. The eight intermediately sized rings were served as four classes of generalization stimuli (i.e., GS1, GS2, GS3, and GS4), with GS4 being the most similar one to CS+ in size. A 500ms-electric stimulus served as unconditioned stimulus (US). CS+ was probably paired with US, while CS− and GS were unpaired with US. During the experiment, US online expectancy ratings and skin conductance responses (SCR) were recorded. The results showed that women had longer extinction duration of fear generalization than men, while there were no sex differences in generalization gradient. Such results were proved in the indexes of both online expectancy ratings and SCR. In the index of online expectancy ratings, both women and men generalized fear into GS3 and GS4. In the fear extinction of GS3, there were no sex difference and both genders extinguished generalized fear in Block3. As for GS4, women extinguished fear from Block5 while males were from Block3, which indicted that women need more time in generalization extinction. The conclusions above were also found in SCR. Both women and men transferred fear to GS4, but there had sex differences in the extinction of fear generalization. Men extinguished the fear of GS4 from Block3, while women were from Block4. The results of SCR also indicated that the women had longer extinction duration of fear generalization than men. The theory of behavioral inhibition was supported by this study, for the sex differences of fear generalization only occurring in generalization extinction but not generalization gradient. Given the role of fear generalization in anxiety disorders, our findings suggest that longer generalization extinction may contribute to the higher risk of anxiety disorders in women. Additionally, our findings also have potential value for treatments of anxiety disorders among women in clinical.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Academia has a long discussion of self-deception. Self-deception provides fertile ground for research in biology, philosophy, and psychology. Philosophers theoretically discuss the possibility and conditions of the existence of self-deception. Biologists study the applicability of the self-deception from the evolutionary perspective. Psychologists want to provide empirical evidence for the existence of self-deception. Nevertheless, the presentation of self-deception remains controversial. Therefore, an empirical study of self-deception with direct evidence is required to tackle the existence of self-deception. A large number of studies have investigated the existence of self-deception. The results showed that motivation, external or internal, and cognitive vagueness are the triggers of the existence of self-deception. However, it remains unknown whether self-deceived people believe in their own deception interacts with the effect of cognitive vagueness and motivation on self-deception. In this paper, we investigate whether self-deceived people believe in their own deception influences the self-deception and moderates the effect of cognitive vagueness and motivation on self-deception. We further propose two forms of self-deception: unconscious and conscious self-deception, where those unconscious self-deceived people believe in their own deception while those conscious self-deceived people do not. As cognitive vagueness and motivation have different effects on the two forms of self-deception, we further investigate whether the two forms of self-deception share the same processing mechanisms. Following the research paradigm of Chance et al. (2011), we investigated the above hypotheses in three experiments. In Experiment 1, we improved the research paradigm used by Chance et al. (2011), and we showed that self-deception could be categorized as conscious self-deception and unconscious self-deception. Experiment 2 showed that cognitive vagueness positively and negatively associated with unconscious and conscious self-deception respectively. Experiment 3 illustrated that motivation increased the conscious self-deception, but had no impact on unconscious self-deception. The diverse effects of motivation and cognitive vagueness on the unconscious and conscious self-deception suggest that two forms of self-deception are driven by different processing mechanisms.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Uyghur is a specific alphabetic language that differs from Chinese. Thus, mastering the Chinese ambiguity words, such as homonyms, homonyms, and heteronyms, is challenging for Uyghur students. To understand the correct meaning of ambiguity words, one has to suppress irrelevant meanings according to the context. Chinese is a high-context language, where as Uyghur is a low-context language. Thus, the present study investigates the effect of contextual facilitation for the Uyghur and Han nationalities and compares the differences in the inhibitory effect during lexical ambiguity resolution. This study conducted a semantic decision task to investigate lexical ambiguity resolution in 36 Uyghur and 32 Han college students. Twenty-five homonymous ambiguity words with dominant and subordinate meanings were selected as final materials. Eight sentences and two target words were formed in two conditions. In the contextual facilitation condition, four sentences were made and ended with the same ambiguity word. Half of the sentences were biased to the subordinate or ordinate meaning, but the others were unbiased to neither meaning. The target words were semantically related to the ordinary or subordinate meaning of the ambiguity word. In this condition, all target words were semantically consistent with the ambiguity word in each sentence. In the inhibitory condition, two sentences were ended with the ambiguity word; one was biased to the ordinary meaning, and the other was biased to the subordinate meaning. The other two sentences without ambiguity were only different from the former two sentences on the last ambiguity word. The target words were the same with the context facilitation condition but were not semantically consistent with the last words. The participants were asked to decide whether the target words were semantically consistent with the ambiguity words. Thus, the right answers in the facilitation condition were all “yes” and the right answers in the inhibitory condition were all “no”. The SOA of ambiguity and target words is 200 ms in Experiment 1 and 1000 ms in Experiment 2. Results indicated a contextual facilitation effect in Han and Uyghur students in two SOAs, and the size of the effect for the Han students was significantly bigger than that of the Uyghur students in 200 ms. The inhibitory reaction effect was found in two SOAs for the Han students but only found in 1000 ms for Uyghur students. In lexical ambiguity resolution, the ability to extract the accurate meaning and suppress the irrelevant meaning according to the context is important. According to the context, the Uyghur students could activate accurate and irrelevant meanings in the sentence but could not immediately reject the irrelative meaning. The Uyghur students took a long time to inhibit the improper meaning of the ambiguity words.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： A wealth of research shows that irrelevant background speech can interfere with reading behavior. This effect is often described as the irrelevant speech effect (ISE). Two key theories have been proposed to account for this effect; namely, the Phonological-Interference Hypothesis and the Semantic-Interference Hypothesis. Few studies have investigated the irrelevant speech effect in Chinese reading. Moreover, the underlying mechanisms for the effect also remain unclear. Accordingly, with the present research we examined the irrelevant speech effect in Chinese using eye movement measures. Three experiments were conducted to explore the effects of different kinds of background speech. Experiment 1 used simple sentences, Experiment 2 used complex sentence, and Experiment 3 used paragraphs. The participants in each experiment were skilled readers who were undergraduate recruited from the university, who read the sentence while their eye movements were recorded using an EyeLink 1000 eye-tracker (SR Research inc.). The three experiments used the same background speech conditions. In an unintelligible background speech condition, participants heard irrelevant speech in Spanish (which none of the participants could understand), while in an intelligible background speech condition, they heard irrelevant speech in Chinese. Finally, in third condition, the participants read in silence, with no background speech present. The results showed no significant difference in key eye movement measures (total reading time, average fixation duration, number of fixations, number of regressions, total fixation time, and regression path reading time) for the silent compared to the unintelligible background speech condition across all three experiments. In Experiment 1, which used simple sentences as stimuli, there was also no significant difference between the silent and intelligible background speech condition. However, in Experiment 2, which used more complex sentences, normal reading was disrupted in the intelligible background speech condition compared to silence, revealing an ISE for these more difficult sentences. Compared with the silent condition, the intelligible background speech produced longer reading times and average fixation duration, more numbers of fixations and regressions, longer regression path reading time and longer total fixation times. Finally, Experiment 3 also produced evidence for an ISE, with longer total reading times, more fixations, and longer regression path reading times and total reading times in the intelligible background speech condition compared with silence. To sum up, the results of the current three experiments suggest that: (1) unintelligible speech does not disrupt normal reading significantly, contrary to the Phonological-Interference Hypothesis; (2) intelligible background speech can disrupt the reading of complex (but not simpler) sentences and also paragraph reading, supporting the Semantic-Interference Hypothesis. Such findings suggest that irrelevant speech might disrupt later stages of lexical processing and semantic integration in reading, and that this effect is modulated by the difficulty of the reading task.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Lexical boost means that syntactic priming is enhanced by the lexical repetition between prime and target. It remains controversial whether the repetition of head words and that of non-head words induce similar boost effects. Two important theories in syntactic priming, the residual activation theory and the implicit learning theory, have quite different interpretations and predictions. The former holds that only the head word repetition can induce a lexical boost, while the latter holds that the non-head word repetition can induce a lexical boost of the same magnitude as the head word repetition does. There are conflicting experimental results on whether head and non-head word repetitions have similar lexical boost effects. We believe that one possible reason for the conflicting results in previous studies is that they lack sufficient power of the statistical test due to relatively small sample sizes. The present study explores the controversial issue by conducting three syntactic priming experiments of Mandarin double object (Experiments 1 and 3) and prepositional object (Experiment 2) structures, with a larger sample (115 participants each experiment) than that in previous research. To identify any possible difference in lexical boost effect, we manipulated the repetition of head constituents (i.e. verbs) and non-head constituents (i.e. argument nouns for agent, recipient, and theme) across prime and target. In all three experiments, we found that the lexical boost effect induced by the head word repetition was steady. The effect induced by the head word repetition was significantly stronger than that induced by the non-head word repetition. This indicates that the head constituent, rather than non-heads, plays a key role in the lexical boost. In addition, we found that the overlap of the direct object as a non-head induced a steady effect of lexical boost (although the effect is relatively weak). In Experiment 3, the subject repetition also induced a lexical boost effect. To some extent, these results seem to support the implicit learning theory since memory does play a certain role in lexical boost. The head word repetition and the non-head word repetition may reflect different cognitive mechanisms. We’d like to propose a new framework to interpret the lexical boost, which attempts to include both the residual activation theory and the implicit learning theory.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： How concepts are represented in the brain is an important topic in cognitive science. There are two different theories on this research question, i.e., propositional symbol theory and perceptual symbol theory. The difference between these two theories is how to treat the relationship between the internal symbol and the external archetype. The propositional symbol theory holds that the relationship between the two is arbitrary. Perceptual information does not participate in the processing of concepts. While perceptual symbols theory holds that the relationship between the two is similar. Perceptual information participates in the processing of concepts. People learn conceptual information in the vertical space. The spatial information is stored in long-term memory along with the representation of concepts. This hypothesis has been supported by many studies and is in line with the perceptual symbol theory. However, few studies have tested what factors influence sensorimotor simulation in conceptual processing. In this study, the semantic relevance judgment paradigm is used to test this question. The present study examined whether the sensorimotor simulation participates in conceptual processing in the first and second languages. Then, the present study examined how situational information modulates conceptual processing, by manipulating the intensity of spatial information and the level of semantic processing. In Experiment 1, the semantic relevance judgment paradigm is used to test whether sensorimotor simulation is involved in the second language processing and whether there is any difference between the first language and second language processing. The results of Experiment 1 show that the sensorimotor simulation has participated in the second language processing. However, there is an accuracy advantage in the sensorimotor simulation in the first language. In Experiment 2, two experiments are conducted to test the effect of the perceptual situation on sensorimotor simulation. Experiment 2a tests the influence of perceptual situation on sensorimotor simulation by changing the intensity of individual perceptual in vertical spatial axis. The results show that the sensorimotor simulation can be found in both strong and weak spatial perception. The effect of semantic processing level on perceptual motion simulation is tested in Experiment 2b. The experiment manipulates the level of semantic processing by using the semantic relevance judgment task and word judgment task. The results show that sensorimotor simulation participates in the processing of concepts, while semantic situational did not modulate this effect. The results of Experiment 2 suggest that sensorimotor stimulation may be automatic in conceptual processing. The present study conducted two experiments to test the role of sensorimotor simulation in conceptual processing. Results found that the sensorimotor simulation participates in conceptual representation, supporting the perceptual symbol theory. Furthermore, the sensorimotor simulation takes place in both Chinese and English. This finding extends the perceptual symbol theory. Finally, results found that sensorimotor stimulation may be automatic in conceptual representation and is not affected by spatial information and semantic processing.
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