Subjects: Psychology >> Other Disciplines of Psychology submitted time 2024-01-04
Abstract： In the past decade, researchers in psychological science have introduced new research practices to address issues such as publication bias: pre-registration without peer-review, peer-reviewed registered reports, and registered replication reports. Many journals in the field have accepted registered reports as a new article type, and the numbers of platforms and templates for pre-registration increased significantly. However, criticisms of pre-registration and registered reports still exist, some stemming from misunderstandings, while other criticisms pointed out practical challenges in implementing pre-registration and registered reports. Findings from meta-research revealed that registered reports alleviated the publication bias and improved the quality of research, while pre-registration without peer review failed to achieve similar results. Promoting a wider adoption of pre-registration and registered reports will further improve the openness, reproducibility, and rigor of research, and it requires the concerted efforts of all stakeholders, including individual researchers, academic institutes, and publishers.
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: Medicine, Pharmacy >> Clinical Medicine submitted time 2022-11-23 Cooperative journals: 《中国全科医学》
Abstract：
This study outlines statistical methods and practical steps for the design and development of valid and reliable questionnaires within the primary health care domain. A series of studies on questionnaire development and scale design are reviewed and a standard process for scale design within the primary care domain is developed. The process addresses key practical steps in the scale design process as well as statistical methods, and is illustrated by examples from previous relevant studies within the field. We suggest the following seven-step approach to primary health care questionnaire development: (1) defining the conceptions to be measured; (2) generating the pool of items; (3) selecting the scoring system and response format; (4) pretesting (assessing content validity and face validity, etc.); (5) eliminating items by item analysis; (6) initial evaluation of the scale, including reliability evaluation of the scale, and factor analysis or Rasch analysis; (7) re-evaluation of the scale, which reexamines the nature of the scale, including retest reliability and construct validity. In general, scale design type of studies should strictly follow the standard steps of scale development, and the integrated use of Rasch model and factor analysis will make the results of measurement more objective.
Subjects: Psychology >> Statistics in Psychology submitted time 2022-07-09
Abstract：
Selective analysis and selective report are one of the main triggers of the replicability crisis in psychological science. In recent years, researchers have proposed a new method—multiverse-style analysis, which includes multiple data analytic decisions to reduce the subjective selectiveness and arbitrariness and performs robustness to increase the reliability of results. This manuscript introduces the multiverse-style analysis and related steps by using the example of exploring the relationship between smartphone use and smartphone stress. The multiverse-style analysis method has been applied in fields such as psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Future research should continue to develop and improve the statistic inference of multiverse-style analysis, so that it can be applied to more sorts of data and broader research fields.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Educational Psychology submitted time 2021-12-06
Abstract： A large number of studies have revealed the correlation between the approximate number system and arithmetical fluency, but systematic tests and arguments for the causes of the relationship are lacking. The hypothesis of visual form perception differs from the traditional domain-specific explanation of number, and it is believed that the fast perception of forms is a common cognitive mechanism of the approximate number system and arithmetical fluency, that is, the fast perceptual ability of visual forms can explain the correlation between the two. Both the approximate number system and arithmetical fluency rely on the fast perception of forms and involve fast processing of complex visual stimuli during processing. The hypothesis of visual form perception is supported by the results of a series of studies but is limited to the exploration of the relationship between visual form perception and the approximate number system and arithmetical fluency, where the processing mechanisms underlying the role of visual form perception in the relationship between the two remain unclear. Therefore, future research needs to combine multiple research methods and techniques to comprehensively explore from multiple perspectives the cognitive and brain mechanisms underlying the role of visual form perception in the relationship between the two and to apply the findings to mathematics classroom teaching and interventions for dyscalculia."
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2019-08-28
Abstract： Researchers have used the Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) task to study how people distribute visual attention in when they view dynamic scenes. Studies have used event-related potential (ERP) to investigate neural electrophysiological activity and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure functional localization in the human brain while people process dynamic visual information. Studies found that ERP amplitudes changed with tracking load. The difference between ERP amplitudes elicited by the probes on the targets versus distractors reflected how people were distributing attention between the targets and distractors. In other words, the ERP amplitudes reflected people's increased attention to the targets and inhibited attention to the distractors during tracking. The fMRI studies consistently found strong activation in the dorsolateral frontal cortex (DLFC) and the parietal lobe, including the anterior intraparietal sulcus (AIPS), posterior intraparietal sulcus (PostIPS), and superior parietal lobule (SPL). The IPS had a particularly strong relationship with attentional load. The level of activation in the IPS was directly related to observers’ attentional tracking performance. The evidence also suggests that the SPL might be responsible for attentional shifts and that the DLFC might be related to the sensorimotor prediction during tracking. "
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2018-06-12
Abstract： Background: Intonation and lexical tone both rely on F0 in tonal languages. While the former one can indicate the speaker’s intention (e.g., raise a question or state a fact), the latter helps determine the meaning of a word. These two interact with each other in sentence, but the access order of them by the brain is unknown. Besides, as a closely related domain with language, music might have some influence on the processing of intonation and tones. Whether the music disorder affects adults’ and children’s intonation and tone identification ability still remains unclear. Purpose: The current study aimed at investigating: (1) the access order of intonation and lexical tones in Mandarin Chinese; (2) whether people who are impaired in pitch perception and who have normal music ability perform differently in intonation identification and tone identification tasks. Method: Eleven adults and twenty-one children who have pitch disorder, thirteen adult controls and twenty-three children controls participated in this study. They were required to listen to Mandarin sentences containing both intonation and lexical tone in the same syllable, and judge the intonation (in the intonation task) and tone (in the tone task). In experiment 1, thirteen adults with normal music ability participated, and their behavioral reactions and mean amplitudes in ERP were recorded and analyzed. In experiment 2, the intonation and tone identification of adult and children amusics (as well as children controls) were investigated. Their behavioral performance was recorded and compared in data analysis. Results: In experiment 1, according to the ERP results, it was found that in the intonation task, the participants responded to intonation first and then the lexical tone. In the tone task, participants were sensitive to both intonation and tone in an early interaction beginning from 100ms. Participants were alert to intonation and would process it no matter in what tasks, which indicated the important role of intonation in human communication. In experiment 2, overall, music disorder impaired people in the identification of intonation, rather than lexical tones, in both adults and children. Besides, the perception of lexical tones has not been fully developed in 9-year-old children, while their ability to identify intonation was mature, which indicated that intonation identification ability might be mature earlier than tone identification in human beings.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
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