Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Curiosity has a long history of research and rich definitions and classifications as a common mental state and personality trait. The division and coordination of multiple brain regions enable individuals to form a cognitive process of generating and evaluating prediction error, triggering and mediating curiosity, and producing surprise and new prediction error, so as to reduce the prediction error and information gap between internal states and external environment, and eliminate uncertainty. Curiosity has a significant role in improving cognitive function and maintaining mental and physical health during development. Future research can be further considered from a cross-species, interdisciplinary, and multi-domain perspective to promote the deepening of research topics, the development of research methods, and the application of research results in curiosity.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Developmental dyslexia (hereafter referred as "dyslexia") will not only affect the lifelong development of individuals but also impose an additional financial burden on society. Digging into the relevant neural mechanisms contributes to the early prediction and intervention of dyslexia. Established models of the neural bases of dyslexia primarily focused on the cerebrum. In recent years, extensive studies have shown that dyslexia is also associated with cerebellar abnormalities. However, it remains unclear about the relationships between the two. By summarizing recent findings, we found that the cerebellum could play multiple roles in reading. First, it could influence reading in different ways. Cerebellar dysfunctions could impair reading by affecting motor or motor-related skills (such as oculomotor control, automatization, or articulation), or by disturbing linguistic-related processes (such as phonological or semantic processing). Second, different subtypes of dyslexia are associated with abnormalities in distinct cerebellar regions. For example, dyslexic readers with automatization deficits showed abnormal neural activities in the anterior parts of the cerebellum, which were responsible for motor processing, whereas dyslexic readers suffering from visual and phonological deficits were associated with the abnormalities in the gray matter volume of the posterolateral areas of the cerebellum, which were mainly responsible for high-level cognitive processing. These results indicate that the relationship between dyslexia and the cerebellum is not unitary. There may exist multiple cerebellar areas being targeted by dyslexia, which also contribute differently to reading. The causal relationships between cerebellar abnormalities and dyslexia might be bi-directional. Previous literature found that structural deficits in the posterolateral parts of the cerebellum were only associated with dyslexia compared to other development disorders (i.e., ADHD, autism) that may coexist with dyslexia. This result suggests that neural abnormalities in these areas were due to deficits in reading abilities rather than other comorbidities. Additionally, these regions vary in their causal relationships with dyslexia. For example, activation in the anterior parts of the right lobule VI, responsible for motor processing, showed greater activation or functional connectivity with the cerebrum in dyslexic readers compared to normal readers. These increased neural activities may be the compensatory mechanisms of dyslexia and a by-product of reading difficulties. In contrast, neural activities of the cerebellar areas responsible for linguistic processing (i.e., the right lobule VII) could predict future reading abilities, indicating that the functional state of the cerebellum in early developmental stages may influence reading development. Moreover, functional deactivations in the cerebellar linguistic areas have been observed in preschool readers with a high risk of dyslexia, suggesting that cerebellar abnormalities have occurred before formal reading instruction. These results jointly support that cerebellar abnormalities may be the cause of dyslexia. The results mentioned above illustrate that the cerebellum is more than a reading-related hub. There could be multiple cerebellar regions that are engaged in reading, with different regions supporting different cognitive processes and having distinct causal relationships with dyslexia. Accordingly, we introduced the "cerebro-cerebellar mapping hypothesis of word reading", which proposed that reading-related regions in the cerebellum map to their functional correspondence areas in the cerebrum. Regions with the same functions across the cerebrum and cerebellum synchronized in neural activities and collaborated during reading. Dysfunctions of this collaboration may lead to dyslexia. This new framework aims to reveal the relationship between reading, the cerebellum, and the cerebrum from a new perspective, and offers important insights into the neural mechanism of dyslexia and the role of the cerebellum in high-level cognitive processing.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Helping behaviors are critically important for human social development. However, most moral neuroscience studies have concentrated on immoral and negative behaviors such as killing, murder and harm. The neural mechanism of helpful intention processing in moral judgment is still unclear. Functional MRI studies have demonstrated the involvement of the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ) in the attribution of mental states. Previous studies have found that the role of intention processing in harmful moral judgment can be modulated by changing the cortical excitability of RTPJ with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Will the RTPJ play a critical role in the intention processing during moral judgment of helpful behavior? In order to explore the potential causal role of RTPJ in helpful moral judgement, the present study manipulates the cortical excitability of RTPJ with cathodal tDCS. We hypothesize that inhibiting the neural activity of RTPJ with cathodal tDCS could influence the role of intention processing in helpful moral judgment. To test the hypothesis, 18 healthy right-handed adults participated in this study. All participants underwent both cathodal and sham tDCS sessions in random order. Participants were counter-balanced in 2 separate days with a 1 week interval between both stimulations. To assure the target cortex to be activated completely, a relatively weak current (1.5 mA) was constantly delivered over the RTPJ for 20 min. For the sham tDCS, the stimulation only lasted for 15 sec. After stimulation, participants read stories in a 2 (intention: positive vs. neutral) × 2 (outcome: positive vs. neutral) design and were asked to make moral judgment about how much praise the actor deserves. We analyzed the praise score and reaction time by a 2 (intention) × 2 (outcome) × 2 (tDCS: cathodal, sham) repeated measures ANOVA. Results showed that actors with positive intentions were judged more praiseworthy than those with neutral intentions, and actors producing positive outcomes were judged more praiseworthy than those causing neutral outcomes. However, there was no significant interaction between intention and outcome. For the reaction time, judgments of positive intentions were faster than that of neutral intentions. The responses to positive outcomes were faster than neutral outcomes. Most importantly, the moral judgments were faster under cathodal tDCS than sham tDCS stimulation, especially under the positive intention condition rather than the neutral intention condition. The present study assessed the potential effect of the tDCS on helpful intention processing in moral judgment. Our findings indicate that the response times of moral judgment in the positive intention condition were shorten after receiving the cathodal stimulation, suggesting that altering the cortical excitability in the RTPJ could influence human’s socio-cognitive ability. These results demonstrate the critical role of RTPJ in intention processing during helpful moral judgment, which provides us a better understanding about the role of RTPJ in moral judgment and helping behaviors.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： The approximate number system (ANS) underlies the ability to approximately represent numerical magnitude or to estimate the number of a quantity without counting. ANS acuity is a reliable predictive factor of mathematical achievements and is most likely not influenced by educational or cultural factors of general cognitive processing. It is well established that individuals with mathematics anxiety (MA) perform normally in general cognitive tasks but significantly below-average in mathematical tasks such as numerical magnitude processing, computation and mathematical problem solving. Previous behavioral study reported significant negative correlations between MA level and ANS acuity but it remained unclear whether MA individuals are deficient in their ANS functioning. The current study explored the approximate number processing in individuals with mathematics anxiety at a neural level and gathered electrophysiological evidences for ANS deficiency in MA individuals. We selected 31 individuals with high math anxiety and 29 individuals with low math anxiety who were matched for mean general intelligence, rapid visual perception ability, visual searching ability and mean general anxiety level. The participants completed a dot array task both actively and passively as their electroencephalogram (EEG) data were recorded. In the active dot array task, the participants were required to make judgements on the relative quantities of blue and yellow dots while the ratio of the dots were manipulated to be high or low. In the passive viewing task, the participants were required to complete an irrelevant task to ensure that proper attention was paid to the stimuli while the ratio was also manipulated. We found that the behavioral performances of the two groups were comparable in both active and passive viewing tasks. However, event-related potential (ERP) analysis revealed that the high anxiety group had larger P2p amplitudes at the occipital electrodes than the low anxiety group in both active and passive viewing tasks. Furthermore, time-frequency analysis was performed and significant ratio effects were found in the low anxiety group in δ band (1~5 Hz) event-related synchronization (ERS) and β band (29~34 Hz) event-related desynchronization (ERD) while no ratios effects were found in the low anxiety group. The current study provided electrophysiological evidences for ANS deficiencies in individuals with MA. The findings of this study have important theoretical implications for the causes of the impaired mathematical abilities in MA individuals as well as for effective interventions for MA.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Humans are a social species that are constantly involved in complex relationships, reacting to the actions of others, and intentionally or unintentionally changing our own behavior. Personality traits reflect the behavioral pattern of an individual's response to the environment, which also includes social behavior. In addition, the brain is also an important factor when discussing social networks. The brain provides biological mechanisms for human behavior, while social networks provide external triggers for these behaviors. Linking personality traits and brain activity to social networks can help us better understand the structure of group relationships, improve our understanding of individual human beings, and help us better predict individual social behaviors and find the rules of information transmission in interpersonal relationships. From the perspective of a network, we collected nine social networks from 94 undergraduate students in the same grade according to their different social needs. We used the graph theory and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore the influence of personality traits on social networks based on individual popularity and closeness between individuals and the relationship between the similarity of brain resting-state functional connectivity and social distance between individuals. Specifically, regression analysis was carried out, with personality traits as the independent variables and the different degrees of social networks as the dependent variables. Then, a correlation analysis was performed for the social distance and similarity of personality traits. Finally, the correlation between the similarity of the brain networks and social distance was calculated. The results showed that (1) individuals with high conscientiousness were more popular in social networks requiring "trust" traits, while individuals with high agreeableness were more popular in social networks requiring "fun" traits. These findings showed that in the same group, there are different social networks according to social needs, and the popularity of individuals in different social networks is not similar as it will be affected by the corresponding personality traits; (2) In the social networks requiring "shared interests & values, " personality similarity and social distance between individuals were significantly negatively correlated. Personality similarity promotes interpersonal communication between individuals, which may be realized through interpersonal attraction induced by the similarity of values and interests; (3) In the same social network, there is a significantly negative correlation between similarities in functional connections (FCs) and social distance among individuals, and these FCs are mainly concentrated in the fronto-parietal task control network and the dorsal attention network. The similarity of resting brain FCs among individuals may promote interpersonal communication, possibly due to the similarity of individuals in cognitive control and environmental processing bias, which increases the interpersonal attraction and shortening the social distance between individuals. The results revealed the influence of personality traits on the structure of different social networks, the relationship between personality trait similarity among individuals, and the similarity between resting brain networks and social distance, which has important implications for understanding the structure of social networks, the formation rules, and the information transmission rules among them. In addition, this study discussed the relationship between the similarity of resting-state FC and social distance, providing new evidence for studies on brain synchronization in interpersonal communication and brain imaging evidence for the study of the relationship between the similarity of personality traits and social distance.#social networks, personality traits, resting-state functional connectivity
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2021-07-27
Abstract： " "
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2020-12-08
Abstract： Curiosity has a long history of research and rich definitions and classifications as a common mental state and personality trait. The division and coordination of multiple brain regions enable individuals to form a cognitive process of generating and evaluating prediction error, triggering and mediating curiosity, and producing surprise and new prediction error, so as to reduce the prediction error and information gap between internal states and external environment, and eliminate uncertainty. Curiosity has a significant role in improving cognitive function and maintaining mental and physical health during development. Future research can be further considered from a cross-species, interdisciplinary, and multi-domain perspective to promote the deepening of research topics, the development of research methods, and the application of research results in curiosity." "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2020-03-16
Abstract：近似数量加工是对大数目物体数量在不依赖逐个数数前提下的估计。行为学研究提示高数学焦虑人群近似数量加工能力下降，但神经机制未明。本研究探讨高数学焦虑个体近似数量加工的神经机制，比较高低数学焦虑脑电活动的差异：(1)行为上无显著组间差异；(2)高数学焦虑组的P2p成分波幅增加；(3)δ频段ERS及β频段ERD无显著数量比例效应，而低数学焦虑组在上述指标的数量比例效应显著。本研究为高数学焦虑人群近似数量加工能力下降提供了电生理学的证据。
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Other Disciplines of Psychology submitted time 2018-09-13 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract：情绪记忆增强效应在负性情绪记忆研究中被反复证实。尽管厌恶和恐惧同属负性情绪, 提示威胁的存在, 但由于它们的进化意义和生理功能不同, 可能导致它们对记忆的编码、保持、提取三个阶段不同的调节方向或调节强度。本文采用延迟再认任务, 采用事件相关电位考察健康成年被试对唤醒度和效价相当的恐惧和厌恶面孔的记忆编码、保持和提取。结果显示, 1)在记忆编码的早期, 被试主要加强了对恐惧面孔的注意(P1)和结构编码(N170), 而厌恶信息的加工受到了抑制; 2)从记忆编码晚期到记忆保持的整个阶段, 被试对厌恶信息的精细评估(编码阶段P3)和复述保持(保持阶段的负走向慢波)均强于恐惧信息; 3)相比于恐惧面孔, 厌恶面孔可能在工作记忆系统形成了更强的表征, 从而使被试在记忆提取时可回忆起更多的细节, 对记忆提取的信心更足(提取阶段P3)。这后两条发现是导致行为层面上厌恶情绪记忆优于恐惧情绪记忆的原因。本研究为“厌恶比恐惧具有更强的记忆增强效应”提供了高时间分辨率的脑活动层面的证据, 从而进一步揭示了负性情绪增强记忆的认知机制。
Subjects: Psychology >> Physiological Psychology submitted time 2018-09-07 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： 急性应激反应使得个体在紧急情况下迅速调动心理生理资源, 从而更好地面对当前的挑战。本研究采用特里尔社会应激测试(Trier Social Stress Test, TSST), 以心率和唾液皮质醇为应激反应指标, 在控制了性别、年龄和受教育时间三个人口学变量的条件下, 探讨特质焦虑对急性心理性应激反应的预测作用。结果发现：(1) TSST成功地诱发了被试的应激反应, 表现为心率加快和唾液皮质醇含量升高; (2)分层回归结果显示, 特质焦虑对急性应激状态下的心率变化具有预测作用, 对唾液皮质醇变化的预测效应未达到显著水平。上述结果表明特质焦虑和急性应激反应的快反应指标——交感神经系统——密切相关, 特质焦虑水平越高, 急性应激状态下的交感神经系统反应越小。特质焦虑水平较高的个体可能由于长期的焦虑造成心肌细胞的过度消耗, 从而导致急性应激反应受限。
Subjects: Psychology >> Applied Psychology submitted time 2018-04-18 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： For humans, both face and body play important roles in conveying emotional information. Previous studies showed that body postures rather than faces could provide more valid information about valence in the recognition of victory and defeat. The present study aimed to compare the processing of the faces and the bodies of victory and defeat. The current study employed emotional expressions of Chinese professional players reacting to victory or defeat to compare the processing of emotional faces and body postures using behavioral and ERP recordings. 80 images (40 winners and 40 losers) were obtained through Google and Baidu image search, using the search keyword “reacting to winning a point” or “reacting to losing a point”, intersected with “tennis” or “table tennis” or “badminton”. In Experiment 1, the behavioral experiment asked participants to rate the valence and intensity of the faces and the body postures on a 9 point scale (valence: 1-the most negative and 9-the most positive; intensity: 1-the least intense and 9-the most intense). In Experiment 2, participants were asked to determine the type of emotion (neutral, happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust) expressed by the faces and the body postures. In the ERP study (Experiment 3), participants were instructed to indicate the valence (positive or negative) of the faces and the body postures. The behavioral results showed that body postures rather than faces facilitated the discrimination between victory and defeat. Compared to body postures, the faces were more complex and involved a variety of facial expressions. The behavioral result of the ERP study showed that body postures rather than faces could provide more valid information about valence. The ERP results showed that the emotional information of body postures could be detected earlier than faces, as reflected by larger N170 amplitudes for winning body postures than losing body postures. However, there was no significant N170 difference between winning faces and losing faces. The emotional effect of faces was reflected by the EPN component, and losing faces elicited larger negative EPN amplitudes than winning faces. On the contrary, winning body postures elicited larger negative EPN amplitudes than losing body postures. Moreover, victory elicited larger LPP amplitudes than defeat under both face and body conditions. These data suggest that the higher rate of discrimination between winning body postures and losing body postures is possibly due to the stimulus evaluation and categorization of body postures at multiple stages of processing. It is hoped that the current results regarding the emotional processing of facial and body expressions will help us understand the mechanisms of the emotional brain.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2018-03-22 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： For humans, both face and body play important roles in conveying emotional information. Previous studies showed that body postures rather than faces could provide more valid information about valence in the recognition of victory and defeat. The present study aimed to compare the processing of the faces and the bodies of victory and defeat.
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