• 抑郁症起源的三类理论视角 *

    Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》

    Abstract: Biomedical approaches to study depression focus on the explanation and intervention of the proximate cause of depression by exploring specific pathogenic genes and neuropathological mechanisms, while the theoretical medical studies of the origin of depression discuss the ultimate historical cause of depression, mainly through theoretical reasoning based on empirical results. Those theories can be classified into three perspectives. First is the evolutionary adaptation perspective, which suggested that depression originates from the adaptive mechanisms coping with evolutionary pressure, represented by the social adaptation hypothesis and the individual adaptation hypothesis. Second is the functional disorder perspective, which assumes that depression originates from the dysfunction of normal moods and emotions, represented by the mismatch explanation and gene distribution explanation. Third is the social culture perspective, which believed that depression originates from social-cultural constructed concepts, represented by the social-cultural construction viewpoint and knowledge development viewpoint. There are different tendencies of the meaning and essence of depression under three perspectives, either of essentialism or constructivism. Theoretical integration and evidence base are needed for developing more comprehensive interpretation frameworks.

  • 从“理性人”到“行为人”:公共政策研究的行为科学转向

    Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》

    Abstract: With the criticism by behavioral economics on the rational man assumption and the accumulation of empirical evidences in the field of judgement and decision making, public policy researchers increasingly paying closer attention to the exploration of psychological and behavioral mechanism of human being in real life. These studies tend to use psychological measures, such as satisfaction and trust indicators that embody public interests and subjective feelings, to assess the performance of public policy. Besides, relevant psychological effects and technologies are employed to improve quality and efficiency of public administration and foster social fairness and justice. It is recommended that studies of public policy in China should learn the experience of two matured organizations, which are Behavioral Insights Team in UK and Social and Behavioral Sciences Team in US, clarify the connotations of this discipline, establish think tanks, and conduct researches based on China’s actual conditions.

  • 信任的认知神经网络模型

    Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》

    Abstract: Trust encompasses one’s willingness to take certain risks based on the expectation of the other's behavior in order to obtain positive results in the future. Previous studies focused on specific brain regions, rather than the overall activity of large-scale brain networks in trust behavior. Trust behavior is associated with the activation of multiple regions of the brain that involves the cognitive neural network. In the Cognitive Neural Network Model, trust behavior is a representation of the interaction between the motivation system, affective system and cognition system, corresponding to the activation of the reward network, salience network, central-executive network and default-mode network. The model clarifies the correspondence between psychological systems and neural networks, and explains the psychological and neural mechanisms of trust from the perspective of neuroscience. In addition, the model also emphasizes the feedback mechanism of trust behavior, yielding a complete Cognitive Neural Network Model.

  • 跨期决策中的维度差异偏好:眼动证据

    Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》

    Abstract: Intertemporal choice is an important and ubiquitous concept that refers to decisions involving tradeoffs among outcomes at different points of time. It is not only a unique feature of human behavior but also relevant to policymaking and national welfare. Dimension-based models, such as tradeoff model, equate-to-differentiate theory, and similarity model, assume that individuals tend to compare the difference between dimensions of delay and outcome before deciding on a single dimension when choosing between a smaller-sooner option and a larger-later one. Considerable empirical evidence from behavioral and process data supports the use of dimension-based models. The existing dimension-based models provide qualitative explanations for an individual’s intertemporal choice and focus on “which dimension is the greater difference dimension”, but ignore the preference of dimension-based difference (i.e., “how much different of the difference between the two dimensions”). In the present study, we used eye-tracking technology to examine the relationship between the preference of dimension-based difference, which is estimated by the tradeoff model, and the information searching process, which is reflected by eye-tracking measures.Two experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. A total of 75 college students (61 females; mean age = 20.9 ± 2.4 years) participated in Experiment 1. Participants were told to complete two tasks. In the intertemporal choice task, participants chose their preferred option between the two intertemporal options, and their eye movements were recorded in the task. In the analogue scale task, participants were asked to indicate their subjective dimension-based difference judgment by using numbers 1~7. In Experiment 2, we recruited 59 college students (33 females; mean age = 21.9 ± 2.1 years) to participate in the experiment. The tasks and procedures were similar to Experiment 1 except that the participants were asked to repeat the intertemporal choice task twice. The results indicated that preference of dimension-based difference (PDD), which is estimated by the tradeoff model, correlated with the subjective dimension-based difference judgment measured by the analogue scale task (Experiment 1) and could negatively predict the choice reversals (Experiment 2). These findings proved the validity of the estimation of PDD. The results in the two experiments consistently revealed that decision time, gaze transition entropy (a measure of visual scanning efficiency), and stationary gaze entropy (a measure of the level of even distribution across different areas of interest) could negatively predict the PDD, indicating that the information searching process during intertemporal choice could reflect the preference of dimension-based difference. We also found that the outcome gaze proportion (a measure of attention allocation) could predict the dimension-based difference judgment, which is consistent with previous research. Our findings proved the validity of the estimation method of PDD, which could quantitatively estimate the PDD when making an intertemporal choice based on their choices without extra inquiry. The current research highlighted the correlation between the preference of dimension-based difference and the information searching process, providing further process evidence for dimension-based intertemporal models. Future studies that focus on developing intertemporal models involving eye movements should consider replicating the pattern between PDD and eye-tracking measures as revealed in the present study when running data simulations. Our findings also suggest that compared to the determinant models, the probabilistic models can better describe an individual’s intertemporal choice, thereby highlighting the direction of the development of intertemporal models.

  • 记忆对话及身份标识对集体记忆的影响

    Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》

    Abstract: Collective memory often appears in everyday conversations. Communicating with others about what happened to the past inevitably affects our collective memory by social context. In recent years, several studies have believed that the formation of collective memory depends on a dynamic system of communication, but few research has started from dialogue and interaction backgrounds and used empirical methods to explore factors that may affect collective memory at the group level. On the basis of existing studies, this research thus explores factors that may influence collective memory in an interactive way (i.e., memory conversation). It investigates how memory outcomes under this framework are affected by the interaction social context, which includes memory conversation, information matching, and group identity. First, the effect of conversation on collective memory was investigated. Specifically, Experiment 1 explored the effect of activating information content through memory conversation and adopted a single factor (activation mode: conversation vs. individual) pretest-posttest experimental design. Second, the effect of information matching on collective memory was determined. Experiment 2 adopted a single factor (information matching: matching vs. mismatching) pretest-posttest experimental design. Third, the effect of group identity on collective memory in memory conversation was investigated. Experiment 3 adopted a single factor (group identity: in-group vs. out-group) pretest-posttest experimental design. The results of the three experiments are as follows: (1) Conversation improved participants’ free recall scores at the individual level, whereas the nominal group did not. At the collective level, the conversation did not affect the group’s collective memory convergence. However, the conversation reduced the number of items forgotten by participants in common. (2) Given matching information on memory conversation, individuals can perform better in free recall. Information matching does not affect collective memory convergence, but information matching can increase the number of items remembered in common among participants. (3) When inconsistent information comes from the outgroup, individuals’ free recall performance is better. Only if the inconsistent information comes from the outgroup can make the collective memory among participants have more parts to remember in common. Meanwhile, inconsistent information from the ingroup and outgroup did not affect the number of items forgotten by participants in common. In conclusion, these findings have important implications for understanding the mechanism underlying the effects of memory conversation and group identity on collective memory. Moreover, the function of communication is not to make the memory content close to facts, but to abstract our memories and remember things effectively. Our findings confirm that collective memory is not only recognized as an individual psychological phenomenon but also likely involves a kind of social property. Therefore, given the significant role of communication with collective remembering, placing people in a conversational background is a direct way to investigate collective memory.

  • 基于期望值最大化的理论何时失效:风险决策中为自己-为所有人决策差异的眼动研究

    Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》

    Abstract: Mainstream theorists in risky decision-making have developed various expectation-maximization-based theories with the ambitious goal of capturing everyone’s choices. However, ample evidence has revealed that these theories could not capture every individual’s (“every one’s”) actual risky choice as descriptive theories. Substantial research has demonstrated that people do not follow the logical process suggested by expectation-maximization-based theories when making risky choices but rather rely on simplifying heuristics. From our perspective, the possible reason why mainstream decision theorists did not abandon the framework of expectation is that these theorists never doubted the validity of the expectation rule as a descriptive rule in describing decision-making under risk. We believe that expectation-maximization-based theories may capture risky choices when individuals make decisions for everyone. However, whether these theories could capture risky choices when individuals make decisions for themselves cannot be taken for granted. We thus used an eye-tracking technique to explore whether a theory for everyone would work well for every one. A total of 52 college students participated in the experiment. Three risky choice tasks were conducted in the present study: a D-everyone task, a D-multiple task, and a D-single task. In the D-everyone task, participants were asked to choose the more optimal option out of two options under the assumption that their selection would be the final decision for everyone who was facing the same choice—that is, everyone would be subject to the same choice but could receive different outcomes. In the D-multiple task, participants were asked to choose between the two options under the assumption that their selection would be applied a total of 100 times. In the D-single task, participants were asked to choose between the two options under the assumption that their selection would be applied only once to themselves. The participants’ eye movements were recorded while they performed the tasks. Behavioral results revealed that, compared with the D-single task, participants selected more choices correctly predicted by EV and EU theories, and took a longer time to make a decision in the D-everyone and D-multiple tasks. Furthermore, eye movement measurements revealed the following. (1) The scanpath patterns of the D-everyone task and D-multiple task were similar but different from those of the D-single task. (2) The depth of information acquisition and the level of complexity of information processing in the D-everyone task and D-multiple task was higher than that in the D-single task. (3) The direction of information search in the D-everyone task and D-multiple task was more alternative-based than that in the D-single task. (4) The eye-tracking measures mediated the relationship between the task and the EV-consistent choice. In summary, behavioral and eye movement results supported our hypotheses that participants were likely to follow an expectation strategy in the D-everyone and D-multiple tasks, whereas they were likely to follow a heuristic/non- expectation strategy in the D-single task. We found that expectation-maximization-based theories could capture the choice of an individual when making decisions for everyone and for self in a multiple-play condition but could not capture the choice of an individual when making decisions for self in a single-play condition. The evidence for the discrepancy between everyone and every one, which was first reported in our study, implied that the possible reason why expectation-maximization-based theories do not work is that a default compatibility between the full set (everyone) and the subset (every one) does not exist. Our findings contribute to an improved understanding of the boundaries of expectation-maximization-based theories and those of heuristic/non-expectation models. Our findings may also shed light on the general issue of the classification of risky decision-making theories.

  • 风险、跨期和空间决策的决策策略共享:眼动和主观判断的证据

    Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》

    Abstract: The fundamental issue regarding the difference between humans and animals has puzzled researchers in a broad range of academic fields and specializations. The ability to trade, which symbolizes the progress of human civilization, may be regarded as an important distinction between humans and animals. To sustain a trading activity, people need to deal with the possible issues of long-distance delivery (spatial choice), delayed delivery (intertemporal choice), and unfulfilled delivery (risky choice) in the exchange of goods. These choices of different domains were well represented by the tangible (outcome) and intangible (probability/time/space) dimensions. Normally, the family of compensatory rules assumes that choice should be reached by comparing options which have been converted into the same units of quantity (Overall Payoff A vs. Overall Payoff B) in a way of “translating intangible elements into tangible ones” algorithm. Whereas, the family of non-compensatory rules assumes that choice should be reached by directly comparing values measured using different units of quantity (∆OutcomeA,B vs. ∆ProbabilityA,B/∆DelayA,B/∆SpaceA,B) in a way of “pitting intangible elements against tangible ones” rule. To test whether human beings have the potential to deal with the intangible dimensions of the data, the present paper attempts to obtain evidence to support the “pitting intangible elements against tangible ones” rules from a variety of decision tasks, which were formed by combing both tangible and intangible dimensions. Study 1 aims to examine whether outcome difference between options and the probability/time/space difference between options were directly compared in three choice domains by using the eye-tracking technique. Our findings show that, from the group-level, decision makers perform a consistent dimension-based search pattern in the three domains, indicating that the decision processes are more dependent on a way of intra-dimensional comparison. From the individual-level, the vast majority of participants were classified as decision makers who using dimension-based strategy. Moreover, the two index we constructed, difference in gaze duration and difference in saccades frequency, could significantly predict the behavioral choice shift. Those results provide supporting evidence for dimensioned-based strategy in three choice domains. However, Study 1 is still unable to answer the further question of whether the final decisions are reached through a process of comparing the eye movement information of ∆OutcomeA,B with ∆ProbabilityA,B/∆DelayA,B/ ∆SpaceA,B. Study 2 therefore borrows a Visual Analog Scale to further examine whether the ∆OutcomeA,B and ∆ProbabilityA,B/∆DelayA,B/∆SpaceA,B were treated in an equate-to-differentiate way in reaching the final decisions in three domains. Our findings indicate that the decisions can be made by the way of “intra-dimensional difference evaluation” prescribed by equate-to-differentiate theory. The current paper provides supportive evidence for the comparison rule of “pitting intangible elements against tangible ones” and break a new ground different from the “translating intangible elements into tangible ones” algorithm. Future studies may consider the development of a general model to explain the choices of three different domains.