Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： How the childhood poverty influences cognitive aging remains controversial. Some studies have shown that childhood poverty can accelerate individual cognitive aging, but other studies have found that childhood poverty can delay individual cognitive aging, which is related to the moderation of social mobility. For poor individuals in childhood, low stability or the downward mobility of socioeconomic status will make the negative effects of adversity accumulate continuously, thus accelerating the cognitive aging of individuals. However, poor childhood individuals with high psychological resilience may promote upward socioeconomic mobility, which will increase the individual's cognitive reserve and enhance specific cognitive abilities, thus delaying cognitive aging. Future research in this field should explore the relationship between childhood subjective poverty and cognitive aging and the influence of childhood poverty on the aging of different cognitive abilities. It should also focus on the survivor bias effect in studies on the relationship between childhood poverty and cognitive aging in later life.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Deficiency in inter-temporal decision making of substance addicts has been consistently confirmed by a vast array of studies using monetary Delay Discounting Task. Substance addicts showed a myopia tendency towards the immediate reward during the process of inter-temporal decision making. This myopia tendency corresponds well with the substance-use behavior in their real life. However, the recently emerging evidence from new variants of the monetary Delay Discounting Task (the addictive substance Delay Discounting Task, the Sexual Delay Discounting Task, and the Cross-Commodity Delay Discounting Task) highlighted some limitations in the single use of this paradigm in the delay discounting study of substance addiction, which need to be considered in terms of external validity. First of all, the results from monetary Delay Discounting Task may not fully reflect and represent the overall patterns of delay discounting in substance addictive population, the delay discounting level of addictive substance as cigarette, alcohol and heroin, of sex and of other natural rewards were significantly different from the delay discounting level of money. This further confirmed the hypothesis that delay discounting has domain specificity. That is to say, there may not be a general level of delay discounting despite different types of rewards. We need to be cautious when explain the results from monetary Delay Discounting Task in the study of substance addiction, and the additional employing of addictive substance Delay Discounting Task may improve the external validity of studies in this area. Secondly, by employing Single Delay Discounting task alone may over simplify the intertemporal decision-making process of substance addicts. The intertemporal decision-making process faced by this group in real life may be more complex than the one simulated by Single Delay Discounting Task. In real life, substance addicts often face intertemporal choices between different types of rewards including but not limited to money, for example, choice between immediate drug using VS. delayed financial benefits in future. According to the specific position of reward in intertemporal decision-making (the immediate one or the delayed one), the relative value between different types of rewards may change. It is of great significance for the purpose of description, explanation, prediction and intervention in the study of intertemporal decision-making in substance addicts to employ the Cross-Commodity Delay Discounting Task more frequently in future studies. Finally, compared with its variants, the monetary Delay Discounting Task was not sensitive to the withdrawal status, addiction severity and clinical characteristics related to risky sexual behaviors of substance addicts, hence the monetary Delay Discounting Task showed poor ecological validity compared with Cross-Commodity Delay Discounting Task and Sexual Delay Discounting Task. Whether the monetary Delay Discounting Task is the most ideal task to capture the dynamic changes of intertemporal decision-making in substance addicts after withdrawal and intervention remains to be determined. And here is reason to suspect the results from monetary Delay Discounting Task in the perspective of external validity. Considering the external validity of studies on intertemporal decision-making of substance addicts, future research should further enrich and expand the research which employs the Cross-Commodity Delay Discounting Task in the field of substance addiction. Besides, there emerged some evidence which have showed that the authenticity of waiting time between immediate choice and delayed choice would also affect the process of intertemporal decision-making, and the subjective time perception of the waiting duration may also play a nonnegligible role in intertemporal decision-making of substance addicts. So it may be valuable to further elucidate the time factors that may affect intertemporal decision-making. At the same time, researchers also need to consider the question of how to equate non-material rewards with money. The development of effective quantitative methods for non-material rewards such as health, sex and freedom is necessary. In addition, questionnaires and interviews can be introduced to future studies of delay discounting to explore the real motivation of substance addicts to obtain money reward in Delay Discounting Tasks.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The effect of social media on executive functions remain controversial. Some studies have shown that the use of social media promotes an individual’s executive functions, and some studies have found that social media use has a negative impact on executive functions. Recent studies have shown that, there may be an inverted U-shaped relationship between social media use and individual's executive function, and that social media use does not necessarily impair or promote executive function, but there is an optimal tipping point between the two. Moderate-intensity use of social media is the best level to promote executive functions. This is related to the moderating role played by the intensity of use. The paper first introduces the behavioral evidence that the effect of social media on executive functions, including three parts: positive effects, negative effects, and inverted U-shaped relationships. Secondly, it analyzes the moderating effect of intensity of use in the inverted U-shaped relationship between social media use and executive functions, and attempt to reveal the debate over the pros and cons of social media use on executive functions. Moderate-intensity use of social media will produce a social media flow experience, allowing individuals to filter out various distracting information when faced with various complex information stimuli in social media, focusing on useful information, and target information is constantly being affected. With storage and update, the individual's executive functions (especially the shifting function) get long-term and repeated exercise under such requirements, and finally improve. In addition, the flow experience generated by the use of social media can be used as an intrinsic motivation to increase the interaction of social networks to make positive changes in interpersonal relationships. This provides individuals with continuous social rewards and emotional support. To a certain extent, it buffers the negative impact of excessive use of social media on cognitive function, and slows down the decline of age-related executive functions. However, high-intensity use of social media causes individuals to worry about their performance in the task, which tends to maintain a wider range of attention and is more susceptible to interference from irrelevant information, while low-intensity use of social media causes individuals to be in a state of lack of proactiveness, the psychological effort process of information processing is reduced or even disappeared, which has a negative impact on executive functions. Future research in this area should examine the dose-effect of social media use affecting executive functions. The positive impact of social media use on the executive function may require a relatively long and continuous process of using social media. Whether an optimal social media can be determined the level of media usage maximizes individual's executive functions? In addition, previous research mainly focuses on the impact of social media usage frequency on individual's executive functions in daily life, but lacks a single sub-component of the type of social media usage on the executive function investigation of development and changes. In the future, the relationship between different types of social media usage and sub-components of executive function should be further clarified. Finally, the lifting effect of social media may be more significant in groups whose brain structure is in a period of change. Most previous studies only show that the use of social media can change individual's neural pathways or brain response patterns (and little is known about whether changes in the physiological structure of executive function have an impact on the cognitive level of social media users. Future research should combine behavioral and cognitive neurological methods to examine the brain regions of social media users with different cognitive levels in performing specific tasks. The difference in activation makes the neural mechanism of social media use affecting executive function more precise and comprehensive.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) is an important predictor of reading. However, why and how RAN predicts reading remains controversial. Some researchers believe that the essence of reading is to recognize individual words in text in rapid succession, Individual word recognition rate can predict the fluency of sequential text reading through phonological awareness, orthography and processing speed. Therefore, individual word processing efficiency dominated the effect of RAN on reading. Other studies have found that Single word reading efficiency cannot fully explain individual differences in the process of serial reading. readers process multiple words during fluent reading in a "cascade" of processing, which is why RAN predicts reading. Therefore, There is no consensus on the mechanism by which RAN predicts reading. This paper analyzes existing studies and finds that they have not focused on the moderating effect of Visual Attention Span (VAS) on lexical processing, which may lead to inconsistent conclusions on the underlying mechanism of RAN in predicting reading. Readers with low VAS level recognized a limited number of orthographic units and read individual words one by one in discrete form during reading, so the relationship between RAN and reading was dominated by individual word processing efficiency; Readers with high VAS regard words as a whole unit and carry out parallel processing among multiple words in sequence. This "cascade" processing dominates the relationship between RAN and reading. However, due to the stable correlation between RAN and reading, many researchers extend the efficiency of single word processing to continuous text reading, believing that reading is the rapid and automatic reading of single words in succession. The researchers did not notice that in early reading, the reader's discrete RAN was closely correlated with the serial RAN, and that in serial reading, the reader was also engaged in rapid single-word reading. In adulthood, the reader's discrete RAN is independent of the serial RAN, and discrete and serial reading are not the same. Although some researchers noticed this later, but they still did not further pay attention to the fact that the lexical processing modes of readers at different stages correspond to different levels of VAS. With the potential changes of readers' VAS, their continuous reading modes are also changing. In addition, the selected subjects in previous studies were screened for basic reading ability, They all have basic reading skills. RAN materials were all high-frequency words or words with short characters, The VAS of the subjects was sufficient to support the “sight word reading” of these high-frequency short words. Therefore, although the subjects had different levels of VAS, they were similar in reading performance. By analyzing existing studies, we found that the level of readers' VAS seemed to explain the discrepancy in the conclusions on the relationship between RAN and reading. Future studies should focus on individual differences in VAS during reading, organically integrate different theories, and further explore the relationship between RAN and reading as well as the influence of VAS at different levels on it. To improve the reasons for RAN prediction of reading and related theories, Enriching the theory of nonverbal interventions for developmental dyslexia.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Mathematical ability is an important component of children's academic achievement and critical to individual development. Executive function, as an essential cognitive ability, is a core cognitive element that supports children's mathematical processing. However, there have only been a few studies focusing on the effects of each component of executive function on different mathematical abilities (mathematical operation, spatial imagination, and logical thinking). Primary school is the key period during which children acquire basic mathematical ability. However, limited studies have examined the developmental relationships between the various components of executive function and the different mathematical abilities of children at different grade levels. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to examine the role of each component of executive function in the different mathematical abilities of children at different grade levels.A total of 812 children in grades 3, 4, 5, and 6 completed tests covering mathematical operations, spatial imagination, and logical thinking to measure their basic mathematical ability. The Stroop task and the GO/NOGO task were used to measure interference inhibition and response inhibition. Children's working memory span was assessed using forward and backward digit span tasks. Children's working memory updating was investigated using simple and difficult digital updating tasks. Children's cognitive flexibility was examined using digit shifting tasks. Finally, a correlation analysis and a structural equation model (SEM) were used to investigate the impact of each component of executive function on children's mathematical abilities at different grade levels.The results revealed that working memory was the most important factor affecting children's mathematical skills, over inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. Specifically, working memory span was the most statistically significant predictor of ability with respect to mathematical operations, while working memory updating was a stronger predictor of spatial imagination and logical thinking ability from grade 3 to grade 6. In a further analysis of the data, we divided the four grades into two stages, with grades 3 and 4 set as the younger group and grades 5 and 6 set as the older group. The results showed working memory span to be the most important predictor of mathematical operation ability, spatial imagination ability, and logical thinking ability in the junior grades. In the older students, the predictive effect of working memory span on basic math ability dropped, and the effects of working memory updating and cognitive flexibility on basic math ability increased.These results indicate that different components of executive function play various roles in different mathematical abilities in school-age children, and that this pattern of influence appears to change as children progress through the grades. Specifically, the lower-order components of executive function components, specifically working memory span, were found to play an important role in the development of three mathematical abilities in younger students, while the higher-order executive function components, specifically working memory updating and cognitive flexibility, were found to play a more important role in processing mathematical tasks in older students.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2021-10-18
Abstract： The effect of social media on executive functions remain controversial. Some studies have shown that the use of social media promotes an individual’s executive functions, and some studies have found that social media use has a negative impact on executive functions. Recent studies have shown that, there may be an inverted U-shaped relationship between social media use and individual's executive function, and that social media use does not necessarily impair or promote executive function, but there is an optimal tipping point between the two. Moderate-intensity use of social media is the best level to promote executive functions. This is related to the moderating role played by the intensity of use. The paper first introduces the behavioral evidence that the effect of social media on executive functions, including three parts: positive effects, negative effects, and inverted U-shaped relationships. Secondly, it analyzes the moderating effect of intensity of use in the inverted U-shaped relationship between social media use and executive functions, and attempt to reveal the debate over the pros and cons of social media use on executive functions. Moderate-intensity use of social media will produce a social media flow experience, allowing individuals to filter out various distracting information when faced with various complex information stimuli in social media, focusing on useful information, and target information is constantly being affected. With storage and update, the individual's executive functions (especially the shifting function) get long-term and repeated exercise under such requirements, and finally improve. In addition, the flow experience generated by the use of social media can be used as an intrinsic motivation to increase the interaction of social networks to make positive changes in interpersonal relationships. This provides individuals with continuous social rewards and emotional support. To a certain extent, it buffers the negative impact of excessive use of social media on cognitive function, and slows down the decline of age-related executive functions. However, high-intensity use of social media causes individuals to worry about their performance in the task, which tends to maintain a wider range of attention and is more susceptible to interference from irrelevant information, while low-intensity use of social media causes individuals to be in a state of lack of proactiveness, the psychological effort process of information processing is reduced or even disappeared, which has a negative impact on executive functions. Future research in this area should examine the dose-effect of social media use affecting executive functions. The positive impact of social media use on the executive function may require a relatively long and continuous process of using social media. Whether an optimal social media can be determined the level of media usage maximizes individual's executive functions? In addition, previous research mainly focuses on the impact of social media usage frequency on individual's executive functions in daily life, but lacks a single sub-component of the type of social media usage on the executive function investigation of development and changes. In the future, the relationship between different types of social media usage and sub-components of executive function should be further clarified. Finally, the lifting effect of social media may be more significant in groups whose brain structure is in a period of change. Most previous studies only show that the use of social media can change individual's neural pathways or brain response patterns (and little is known about whether changes in the physiological structure of executive function have an impact on the cognitive level of social media users. Future research should combine behavioral and cognitive neurological methods to examine the brain regions of social media users with different cognitive levels in performing specific tasks. The difference in activation makes the neural mechanism of social media use affecting executive function more precise and comprehensive. "
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2020-10-14
Abstract： " How the childhood poverty influences cognitive aging remains controversial. Some studies have shown that childhood poverty can accelerate individual cognitive aging, but other studies have found that childhood poverty can delay individual cognitive aging, which is related to the moderation of social mobility. For poor individuals in childhood, low stability or the downward mobility of socioeconomic status will make the negative effects of adversity accumulate continuously, thus accelerating the cognitive aging of individuals. However, poor childhood individuals with high psychological resilience may promote upward socioeconomic mobility, which will increase the individual's cognitive reserve and enhance specific cognitive abilities, thus delaying cognitive aging. Future research in this field should explore the relationship between childhood subjective poverty and cognitive aging and the influence of childhood poverty on the aging of different cognitive abilities. It should also focus on the survivor bias effect in studies on the relationship between childhood poverty and cognitive aging in later life.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2020-03-27
Abstract： In December 2019, an outbreak of a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) occurred in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. COVID-19 is characterised by fever and severe acute respiratory symptoms in early stages, which can rapidly progress to acute respiratory distress syndrome that is associated with high mortality. As of 10 February 2020, 37.626 cases have been confirmed and COVID-19 has directly caused 1.016 deaths in China. The wide and rapid spread of COVID-19 has intensely captured public attention, leading to increased mental health stress. Timely mental health care and intervention during the outbreak of COVID-19 is urgently needed not only for confirmed or suspected patients and frontline medical workers, but also for the general public. Previous studies showed that affirmation of personal values can buffer psychological stress responses in various threat situations. The goal of the present study was to investigate whether an intervention involving reflection on personal values was capable of buffering psychological stress responses during the outbreak. We recruited 220 participants who completed a questionnaire on their personal values. Those in the self-affirmation group were asked to choose and write their thoughts and feelings of a personal value that made them feel important to themselves while those in the control condition were asked to do the same for a personal value that they thought was important to others. Both groups completed a Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) prior to and 7 days after intervention. We used two-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) to evaluate the buffer effect of value affirmation on stress responses with time of assessment as a within-subjects factor and intervention group as a between-subjects factor for anxiety and depression. Our results revealed a significant relationship between time and intervention for the reduction of anxiety. Further simple effect analysis demonstrated that the control group showed heightened levels of anxiety 7 days after intervention compared with before, whereas participants who affirmed their values did not show any increase. This effect remained significant after controlling for sex, age, educational level, and annual family income. However, no significant differences were found for depression. The present study demonstrates for the first time that an experimental intervention involving the affirmation of personal values can buffer psychological stress response during the COVID-19 epidemic. Specifically, participants who affirmed their values did not show increased levels of anxiety compared with control participants. Self-affirmation is easy to accomplish since it does not require professional guidance or a distinct environment and occupies little time, it would be a convenient strategy for the public to cope with psychological stress during the outbreak.
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