Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2024-05-09
Abstract： This paper presented three experiments investigating how individuals from Eastern cultural perceive their true selves through either intuitive or deliberate choices. Experiment 1 replicated the study conducted by Maglio and Reich (2019), employing a product selection task and utilizing instructions to initiate the decision-making process. Experiments 2 and 3 expanded the findings to tasks including partner selection and travel destination choice, manipulating the decision-making process through time pressure. The results contradicted established Western findings, suggesting that individuals from Eastern cultural believe that choices made through deliberation more accurately reflect their true selves, with choice confidence serving a mediating role. These findings shed light on the cultural variances in understanding the true self through intuition or deliberation.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
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： As an important cognitive bias, the framing effect shows that individuals' decision preferences are sensitive to the verbal description (i.e., frame) of options. The social framing effect could be distinguished from the non-social one according to whether the decision would influence others. The psychological mechanisms of the non-social framing effect (e.g., Gain/Loss framing effect) and that of the social one are essentially different. When making non-social decisions, frames affect people’s judgment of which option is more beneficial or less risky. When making social decisions, frames affect people’s preferences through the influence of other-regarding concerns and social norms.In the present study, a new paradigm was developed to induce the social framing effect. We asked participants to make a tradeoff between economic benefits and the feelings of others; when participants showed a stronger preference for income maximization, the probability for their partners to receive a painful electrical shock would increase proportionally. This decision was described as either a “harm” to, or simply “not helping” other persons in two frame conditions. 30 participants (age: 20.58 ± 1.91 years old) were enrolled in the experiment and 24 of them were included in the final analysis. The resting-state functional magnetic resonance (rs-fMRI) data was acquired using the Echo Planar Imaging (EPI) sequence from a 3-T Siemens scanner. This scanning acquired 180 volumes with TR = 2 s (lasting 6 min). Rs-fMRI data were processed and analyzed using the DPABI and RESTplus toolbox to calculate the amplitude of low-Frequency Fluctuation (ALFF) and Functional Connectivity (FC). On the behavioral level, we found that participants made more prosocial decisions in the Harm frame compared to the Help frame condition, resulting in a significant social framing effect. For the resting fMRI analysis, we first run a whole-brain correlation analysis between ALFF and the behavioral index and found the ALFF of the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) could significantly predict the behavioral index of the social framing effect. Considering the observed social framing effect would result from different levels of moral conflict between Harm and Help frames, we predicted that it would be closely related to the moral network. Therefore, we further localized 12 seeds from a new, meta-analysis of functional MRI studies for moral processing. Seed-based FC analysis showed that the functional connectivity between the medial prefrontal cortex and the caudate was significantly associated with the behavioral index of the social framing effect. Multivariate machine learning-based regression analysis further confirmed these results, suggesting the importance of rTPJ and moral network for the observed social framing effect.The present study is based on a novel experimental paradigm, using resting functional imaging techniques to explore the brain mechanism of the social framing effect. We found that the ALFF value of the right TPJ and the strength of the functional connectivity value between the medial prefrontal lobe and the caudate within a moral network can effectively predict the social framing effect. This study is the very first one to explore the extent to which individual social decision-making can be influenced by verbal description and its underlying neural mechanisms, which shed light on the further exploration of individual differences in social decision-making.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Math, the basic tool for technology and engineering, is fundamental to professionals in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields. Math anxiety is a negative emotional response that is characterized by avoidance and feelings of stress and anxiety in situations involving mathematical reasoning. Math anxiety in students has been suggested to dampening learning and mastering of mathematics. Among various math skills, the ability to do conceptual knowledge of math has been confirmed to be significantly and negatively correlated with math anxiety. As an essential type of knowledge in mathematics, conceptual understanding is defined as an implicit or explicit understanding of the principles that govern a domain and of the relationships between units of knowledge in a domain. Neuroimaging studies have shown that the regions of the brain needed for processing mathematical conceptual knowledge might differ from those needed for other types of math such as calculation or basic numerical processing. Doing conceptual knowledge of math reportedly activated brain regions that are related to numerical processing, such as the bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS), as well as brain regions associated with general conceptual knowledge processing, such as the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left middle temporal gyrus (MTG). Although the correlation between conceptual math skill and math anxiety has been confirmed at the behavioral level, the neural mechanism remains unknown. Previous studies found that in people with high math anxiety, brain regions related to negative emotions were found to be more active during the numerical tasks, while regions related to emotion regulation and the processing of numbers and calculations were less active. In addition to hyper-activation of the emotional network, brain regions that govern mathematical tasks, showed reduced activation in people with high math anxiety. To address the neural mechanism that allows math anxiety to impede the processing of conceptual math, we used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine how brain activity is related to the effects that math anxiety has on the performance of problems that test conceptual math knowledge. (1) we selected four regions of interest (ROIs) that were considered as important neural substrates for processing arithmetic principles in a previous fMRI study. We performed correlation analysis between the seed-based FC maps and the performance of math conceptual knowledge to construct neural pathways that process math conceptual knowledge. (2) we utilized mediation analysis to investigate the relationships between math anxiety, the performance of math conceptual knowledge, and the possible neural pathways. To avoid numerical formats that would likely induce confounding math anxiety, we used a verbalized arithmetic principles task. After excluding trait anxiety and state anxiety abnormalities, as well as participants who exceed the criterion of head motion during scanning, 92 healthy adult university students (43 females), aged 18-23 years (M = 20.91, SD = 2.33) were left for the data analysis. After controlling for the extraneous factors such as language and intelligence, the partial correlation results showed a significant negative correlation between mathematical anxiety and performance on conceptual knowledge of mathematics (r = -0.26, p = 0.008), which replicated the findings of previous studies and confirmed that mathematical anxiety did inhibit individuals' learning and acquisition of conceptual knowledge of mathematics. The functional connectivity in the resting brain of individuals was correlated with different levels of mathematical anxiety in the functional connectivity between the horizontal segment of the right intraparietal sulcus and the right insula. Furthermore, this functional connectivity fully mediated the correlation between the level of mathematical anxiety and the performance of mathematical conceptual knowledge. These results suggest that the interaction between mathematical/computation-related brain regions (e.g. the horizontal segment of the intraparietal sulcus) and anxiety circuits (e.g. the insula) may be the neural basis for the negative effect of mathematical anxiety on the performance of mathematical conceptual knowledge.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2023-01-27
Abstract：
Math, the basic tool for technology and engineering, is fundamental to professionals in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields. Math anxiety is a negative emotional response that is characterized by avoidance and feelings of stress and anxiety in situations involving mathematical reasoning. Math anxiety in students has been suggested to dampening learning and mastering of mathematics.
Among various math skills, the ability to do conceptual knowledge of math has been confirmed to be significantly and negatively correlated with math anxiety. As an essential type of knowledge in mathematics, conceptual understanding is defined as an implicit or explicit understanding of the principles that govern a domain and of the relationships between units of knowledge in a domain. Neuroimaging studies have shown that the regions of the brain needed for processing mathematical conceptual knowledge might differ from those needed for other types of math such as calculation or basic numerical processing. Doing conceptual knowledge of math reportedly activated brain regions that are related to numerical processing, such as the bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS), as well as brain regions associated with general conceptual knowledge processing, such as the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left middle temporal gyrus (MTG).
Although the correlation between conceptual math skill and math anxiety has been confirmed at the behavioral level, the neural mechanism remains unknown. Previous studies found that in people with high math anxiety, brain regions related to negative emotions were found to be more active during the numerical tasks, while regions related to emotion regulation and the processing of numbers and calculations were less active. In addition to hyper-activation of the emotional network, brain regions that govern mathematical tasks, showed reduced activation in people with high math anxiety.
To address the neural mechanism that allows math anxiety to impede the processing of conceptual math, we used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine how brain activity is related to the effects that math anxiety has on the performance of problems that test conceptual math knowledge. (1) we selected four regions of interest (ROIs) that were considered as important neural substrates for processing arithmetic principles in a previous fMRI study. We performed correlation analysis between the seed-based FC maps and the performance of math conceptual knowledge to construct neural pathways that process math conceptual knowledge. (2) we utilized mediation analysis to investigate the relationships between math anxiety, the performance of math conceptual knowledge, and the possible neural pathways. To avoid numerical formats that would likely induce confounding math anxiety, we used a verbalized arithmetic principles task.
After excluding trait anxiety and state anxiety abnormalities, as well as participants who exceed the criterion of head motion during scanning, 92 healthy adult university students (43 females), aged 18-23 years (M = 20.91, SD = 2.33) were left for the data analysis. After controlling for the extraneous factors such as language and intelligence, the partial correlation results showed a significant negative correlation between mathematical anxiety and performance on conceptual knowledge of mathematics (r = -0.26, p = 0.008), which replicated the findings of previous studies and confirmed that mathematical anxiety did inhibit individuals' learning and acquisition of conceptual knowledge of mathematics. The functional connectivity in the resting brain of individuals was correlated with different levels of mathematical anxiety in the functional connectivity between the horizontal segment of the right intraparietal sulcus and the right insula. Furthermore, this functional connectivity fully mediated the correlation between the level of mathematical anxiety and the performance of mathematical conceptual knowledge. These results suggest that the interaction between mathematical/computation-related brain regions (e.g. the horizontal segment of the intraparietal sulcus) and anxiety circuits (e.g. the insula) may be the neural basis for the negative effect of mathematical anxiety on the performance of mathematical conceptual knowledge.
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
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