Subjects: Other Disciplines >> Synthetic discipline submitted time 2023-10-09 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Eudaimonic well-being occurs when people's life activities align with deeply held values, and they positively engage in activities to realize their potential. Eudaimonic well-being is characterized by a sense of purpose and meaning. It has become a flourishing arena of scientific inquiry and clinical practice. However, eudaimonic enhancement remains neglected in positive psychology. The self-determination theory (SDT) proposes that mindfulness is possibly the most centrally discussed intrapersonal factor influencing the pathway to enhance eudaimonic well-being. This review aims to explore the mechanisms by which mindfulness positively affects eudaimonic well-being. Investigating this question not only provides an essential extension of self-determination theory but also adds to our understanding of the value and generative manifestations of mindfulness. In addition, it may provide a theoretical foundation for developing mindfulness interventions focusing solely on eudaimonic enhancement. Recent research has found that mindfulness can be effective in improving well-being. Mindfulness traits were particularly strong in relation to eudaimonic well-being; meditators reported significantly higher levels of eudaimonic well-being orientation than non-meditators; and mindfulness traits moderated the negative relationship between stressful events and eudaimonic well-being. Attention awareness and acceptance can influence eudaimonic well-being by promoting positive qualities and experiencing fewer negative emotions in response to stress. Mindfulness-based training has been shown to improve eudaimonic well-being in clinical groups with psychological and physical symptoms, and non-clinical groups of middle school students, workers, and athletes. However, it is noteworthy that mindfulness training improved eudaimonic well-being only when practiced over a long period. The low intensity and short duration of this training may not have produced changes in eudaimonic well-being. Based on the S-ART model, self-determination theory, mindfulness-to-meaning theory, and empirical literature, this review proposed a model of mindfulness-self-regulation-eudaimonic well-being. Attention awareness and acceptance together explain how mindfulness positively affects eudaimonic well-being by improving cognitive regulation. Cognitive regulation processes include meta-awareness, Which reduces experiential fusion; cognitive reappraisal and perspective taking, which changes maladaptive self-schemas; and self-inquiry, which reduces cognitive reification. Moreover, mindfulness also positively affects eudaimonic well-being by improving emotional regulation. Emotional regulation processes include cognitive reappraisal, which reduces negative semantic narrative patterns and emotions during stressful events; savoring increasing positive emotions. Finally, mindfulness had a positive effect on eudaimonic well-being by improving behavioral regulation. Behavioral regulation processes include changing behavioral goals, such as increasing internal behavioral goals and decreasing external behavioral goals; and it also includes improving autonomous behavior, which involves reducing cognitive distortion and negative emotion-driven behavior, reducing automatic behavior, and transforming forced behavioral regulation. Furthermore, mindfulness positively affects eudaimonic well-being by promoting cognitive regulation, improving emotional regulation, and further improving behavioral regulation. Future research could focus on many aspects. First, different effects of the basic components of mindfulness could be analyzed, to further resolve the paradox between single-component and two-component views. Further analyzing of the role of attention awareness and acceptance is required when considering whether individuals experience stressful events and whether such events cause negative emotions. The single-component view of mindfulness requires an additional explanation of the differential roles of attention and awareness. Second, the mechanisms through which mindfulness benefits eudaimonic well-being can be explored. Mindfulness-to-meaning theory needs to be further validated using a variety of research methods, such as ecological momentary assessment, as the savoring and reappraisal hypotheses remain controversial. Besides improving autonomous behavior consistent with values in behavioral regulation, mindfulness may also improve behavioral abilities, like problem-focused thinking and coping competence. Third, researchers should develop targeted mindfulness-based training programs to improve eudaimonic well-being and identify the boundary conditions of the main effect from four aspects: practitioner, practice, relationship, and culture.
Subjects: Other Disciplines >> Synthetic discipline submitted time 2023-10-09 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Children who are assessed to be more likely to develop dyslexia before school are called children at risk of developmental dyslexia. At-risk children have not received reading teaching, and the neurological abnormalities related to reading ability before learning to read will not be the result of reading experience. Therefore, investigating the neurological abnormalities of at-risk children is helpful to find the early neural markers of dyslexia, which is great important for early prediction and intervention.Research based on horizontal comparison shows that the brain function and structure of at-risk children are abnormal. In view of brain function, the electrophysiological mechanism of language and non-language processing in children at risk is abnormal. Perceived speech and non-speech induced mismatch response waves are smaller in amplitude and longer in latency. Children at risk have abnormalities in brain areas for verbal and nonverbal processing. Under-activation of regions such as bilateral temporoparietal, bilateral inferior frontal, and bilateral middle frontal gyrus during phonological tasks. Under-activation of bilateral temporoparietal and occipitotemporal regions during a word processing task. Under-activation of auditory processing areas such as the left hemisphere prefrontal and left temporal lobes during the perception of non-verbal stimuli.In view of the brain structure, the gray matter in the temporal parietal region and occipital-temporal region of at-risk children is small. And its sulcal pattern also has atypical manifestations. At the same time, at-risk children did not show the trend of left temporal plane. On the white matter connection, the FA values of the left arcuate tract and the left inferior frontal occipital tract are smaller than those of typical developing children.Children at risk may not necessarily develop dyslexia, and their brain abnormalities may only be the effect of risk factors. Only by longitudinal tracking to determine whether at-risk children will develop dyslexia can we find the neural changes related to reading development and reveal the early neural markers of dyslexia. Longitudinal research shows that MMR induced by speech processing, abnormal function of left temporal parietal region, visual word-shaped region and abnormal structure of left arcuate tract can distinguish whether at-risk children develop dyslexia, which is an early biological marker of dyslexia.Although some conclusions have been drawn from the current longitudinal research, the longitudinal research on the brains of at-risk children is relatively rare. And the limited sample size will amplify the influence of individual differences and lead to the decline of the reliability of the results. In the future, a longitudinal study based on a large sample is needed to examine the neural development track of reading and verify the current conclusions. A feasible solution is to combine data from different laboratories to improve the statistical power and reliability of the results. Secondly, a large number of researchers have paid attention to the group of children at risk, but the current research mainly focuses on alphabetic language, lacking evidence from children at risk of Chinese dyslexia. In the future, we can also compare the patterns of neurological abnormalities between children at risk of Chinese and alphabetic language. And exploring the particularity and universality of cognitive neurological risk factors for developmental dyslexia in Chinese. Children's early language skills are highly plastic. If neural indicators can be used for early screening of dyslexia, early prediction and intervention can be made to help at-risk children improve their reading ability and reduce the occurrence of overt dyslexia. Key words
Subjects: Other Disciplines >> Synthetic discipline submitted time 2023-10-09 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract：4~6岁是幼儿句法习得的关键期, 此阶段的句法表征是否受到词汇信息的影响尚存理论争议。采用句法启动范式中的句子重复-图片描述任务, 以句法选择比率为指标, 借助汉语及物结构(主动句、把字句和被动句), 分析了幼儿在句子产生时句法结构和动词重复的作用。结果显示三种句法结构都诱发了抽象启动效应, 证实幼儿在习得汉语句法知识时不依赖词汇信息。同时, 动词重复只有在大龄幼儿(5~6岁)主动句的启动中才能提升启动量, 表明动词增强效应与幼儿年龄以及句法结构偏好有关。此外, 因句法结构偏好差异, 三种结构间产生了逆偏好效应。以上结果可以从内隐学习理论的角度进行解释。
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： There is a great difference between the recognition process of handwritten words and printed words. Compared with the printed words, the recognition of handwritten characters is more influenced by text material. The factors related to the text material include physical structural characteristics of the text, the character characteristics, and the writing style. Research on the neural mechanisms found that the brain regions under recognizing handwritten character is different from those under recognizing printed words. The activation brain area of recognizing handwritten words include the occipital lobe and lateral frontal and parietal lobes, which is the same as those of recognizing the printed words; and also include the left posterior motor cortex, the lateral prefrontal cortex and the posterior parietal cortex, which is different from those of recognizing the printed words. Handwritten word processing involves both holistic processing and feature processing. The future research should further explore around two aspects. The first is how the brain extracts the target words from the noisy visual information when we recognize the handwritten words. The second is to consider building a theoretical model of handwritten character recognition to explain the recognition process of the handwritten characters more efficiently.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Autism Spectrum Disorder is one of the most complex developmental disorders with a strong genetic impact. In recent years, researchers have increasingly linked effects of central cholinergic system dysfunction to autism-related cognitive and behavioral abnormalities at the molecular pathological level. Results from autopsy studies, clinical cases and animal experiments revealed that aberrant muscarinic acetylcholine receptors have a strong relationship with autism. In behavioral studies using mouse models, the variations of CHRM3 gene, which encodes the muscarinic acetylcholine receptor subtype III receptor, can cause autistic phenotypes such as cognitive impairment and stereotypic behavior. Accordingly, in-depth functional understanding of CHRM3 gene may have important implications to further explain the characteristics and mechanisms of autistic behavior and may potentially provide new ideas and methods for the development of educational programs for autistic children.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Pupils were found to exhibit consistent changing patterns in the same processing stage of different memory tasks, and the changes in pupil size reflect the activation state of the nervous system during information processing. During the pre-coding phase before the stimulus is presented, pupils contract as the individual's endogenous attention level increases. In the information encoding stage, the degree of pupil dilation is used as a bio-marker of the subsequent memory effect, which can predict the memory performance of the future information retrieval stage. In the retrieval phase, when the free recall task is used, pupils contract rapidly with the release of memory load, but the report of each item will cause a small pupil dilation; In the recognition task, pupil dilation is more pronounced when old stimulus is presented than that with new stimulus, producing pupil old/ new effect. Pupil size is a sensitive and stable bio-marker in memory processing. Pupil tracking measurement is an effective approach to explore the physiological mechanism of memory processing. In the future research, pupil tracking along with multiple research methods should be used to further explore the physiological mechanism of memory.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Self-face recognition reflects the process whereby someone can recognize their own face by distinguishing it from the other. Generally, people recognize self-faces faster than they do other faces, and self-face recognition can elicit enhanced brain activity compared with that of other face recognitions. Researching self-face recognition is valuable because of its close relationship with self-awareness. Recently, many studies used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural basis of self-face recognition. However, there are no consistent results regarding the key brain regions involved in self-face recognition. Therefore, in the current study, a quantitative meta-analysis of fMRI studies, using activation likelihood estimation (ALE), was performed to localize the neural structures engaged in recognizing self-face. Twenty-seven studies involving 635 participants met the inclusion criteria. The meta-analysis was conducted in the standard Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) space, and we translated results reported using Talairach coordinates into MNI coordinates. The statistical analysis of the transformed foci was validated using the Monte Carlo Simulation (1,000 permutations) with a cluster-forming voxel-level threshold at uncorrected p < 0.001 combined with cluster-size correction using family-wise error at p < 0.05. We used Mango software to project the activation coordinates onto a brain template to provide a visual representation of activation distributions. Results showed that the contrast of self-face versus other-face displayed increased activations of the right superior parietal lobule/precuneus/middle occipital gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, fusiform gyrus, postcentral gyrus, insula, and left precuneus. There was no active region in the contrast of other-face versus self-face. Based on the meta-analysis results and on previous event-related potential (ERP) studies, self-face recognition may involve two levels of processing, perceptual integration processing and the accompanying process of evaluation and emotional response. In the process of recognizing self-face, the occipital gyrus, fusiform gyrus, and precuneus are involved in the perceptual integration process. The occipital cortices may be involved in the processing of self-related facial features in the early stages of face recognition. The fusiform gyrus is involved in low-level sensory processing, and it is also sensitive to the categorization of faces in terms of self versus nonself. The precuneus is recruited in the perceptual integration of self-related information. The superior parietal lobule, middle frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and insula are mainly recruited in the evaluation and the emotional response at the middle and late stages of recognizing self-face. The superior parietal lobule and middle frontal gyrus have been shown to play an important role in the processing of evaluating self-face. Moreover, their activations reflect the influence of social and cultural factors on self-face recognition. The inferior frontal gyrus and insula are also involved in the processing of evaluating self-face. Furthermore, they play a direct role in the subjective emotional experience of viewing or evaluating self-face. In sum, the current meta-analysis reveals the neural basis of self-face recognition and suggests two levels of processing of self-face recognition (perceptual integration processing and the accompanying process of evaluation and emotional response). The current study provides support for investigating the neural mechanism of self-face recognition and, based on the limitations of previous studies, makes suggestions for future research. Future studies could use magnetoencephalography (MEG) or simultaneous EEG-fMRI to combine brain location and time course, thereby revealing the cognitive and neural mechanisms of self-face recognition. Close attention should be paid to the structural and functional connectivity of brain areas and brain networks and to the neural correlates of interoception and self-face recognition. Clinical studies should investigate abnormal neural activity in patients with self-processing impairment and explore the influence of threatening information on self-face recognition.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Studies regarding the multicomponent model of working memory mainly focus on the storage of featural properties, spatiotemporal properties and verbal information of objects, as well as the binding of these information (e.g., Allen et al., 2015; Fellman et al., 2017; Logie, 1995; Son et al., 2020; Zhao et al., 2019). The storage of limb movement information has not been explored. Limb movements are one of the important ways individuals interact with their environment. Exploring the storage of limb movement information is helpful to deeply clarify the storage modes of various types of information, as well as understand how different types of information transcoded and interacted with each other. Smyth et al. (1988) proposed two types of limb movements, i.e., movement pattern (including a gesture or movement to be imitated, such as an arabesque in ballet) and movement to positions in space (such as picking up a pen) according to the different goals of movements. The goal of movement pattern is the body pattern, whereas achieving a spatial target is the goal of movement to positions in space. In other words, movement pattern refers to kinesthetic or motor coding in imitation; movement to positions in space refers to the use of movement in visuo-spatial processing. In the field of perception and working memory for limb movement, previous studies did not regard the two types of limb movements as a whole. On the contrary, they usually explored the storage of information of movement to positions in space and body movement patterns information respectively or even compared them in one study. Based on this, the current study reviewed and compared the storage mechanism of these two types of limb movement information. Studies on movement to positions in space have revealed that the working memory task of movement to positions affects the encoding of spatial working memory, but it is separated from visual working memory and verbal working memory. In addition, information of movement to positions in space shared brain area (the superior parietal lobule) with spatial information of the object rather than with verbal information and information of the object’s featural properties; information of movement to positions in space activates unique brain areas (the contralateral motor cortex, the primary motor cortex, the ventral supplementary motor area, the left supramotor cortical areas and the primary motor cortex, etc.) that are independent of the other three kinds of information. Researches on body movement patterns have revealed that working memory for body movement patterns and verbal working memory are separated. In addition, the storage of body movement patterns only activates the brain regions that store spatial information of the object, rather than the brain regions that store information of the object’s featural properties and verbal information. More importantly, only the storage of body movement patterns activates the movement-related cortex (the middle temporal). Therefore, the storage of two kinds of limb movement information is independent of the phonological loop and the visual subsystem in the visuospatial sketchpad and needs the participation of the spatial subsystem in the visuospatial sketchpad; movement to positions in space and body movement patterns activate different movement-related cortexes that are independent of the phonological loop, the visual subsystem and the spatial subsystem in the visuospatial sketchpad. These results show that the existing multicomponent model of working memory cannot fully explain the storage of limb movement information. It is implied that there is a “limb movement system” in the working memory system that is specific to limb movement information, belongs to visuospatial sketchpad and coexists with the visual subsystem and spatial subsystem. The brain areas activated in the “limb movement system” vary with different kinds of limb movements.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： One grouping principle of visual perception is to integrate spatially separated and partially occluded local parts into whole object representations. For example, in the processing of Kanizsa-type illusory contours (ICs), a subjective shape contour is perceived despite the inducers being isolated. The shape discrimination of the Kanizsa illusory contours depends on feedback signals in the brain. Thus, investigations of the adaptation to Kanizsa illusory contours can help us understand the temporal properties of top-down signals in the visual system. In the present study, four experiments were conducted to explore the adaptation to Kanizsa illusory contours. Participants adapted to +5° and −5° illusory contours in experiments 1a and 1b. In experiments 2a and 2b, in order to eliminate the possibility that the adaptation effect could be explained by the lines on the inducers, the inducer lines (experiment 2a) or the whole shape (experiment 2b) was used as the adapting images. For all of the experiments, illusory contours of varied degrees were used as test images. Subjects were instructed to respond as accurately and quickly as possible to the test images to judge whether they were fat or thin. When adapting to fat illusory contours, the participants tended to perceive the following tests as thin; on the contrary, when adapting to thin contours, they tended to perceive the test images as fat. These results showed significant adaption effect of Kanizsa contours. Further control experiments (2a and 2b) indicated that the adaptation effect was mainly caused by the illusory contour itself, rather than by the lines on the Pac-Man. These results revealed that adaptation effect existed in voluntary construction processes, indicating that the strength of feedback signals from higher-level visual cortex could become weak over time.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Increasing evidence has indicated that emotional information, and particularly threatening visual input, elicits faster behavioral responses than non-threatening stimuli. This superior processing of threatening information is also found under conditions where consciousness is absent. However, recent studies found that faster unconscious detection of emotion-associated stimuli than neutral stimuli may be due to their unmatched physical characteristics, rather than by their emotional content. Thus, it is necessary to test whether emotional stimuli still have the processing advantage over neutral ones in unconscious conditions when low-level visual properties are matched. In order to investigate whether unconsciously prioritized processing still occurs with emotion-associated stimuli which are physically identical, we used the conditioning paradigm to manipulate the affective significance of Gabor patches. Participants performed two challenging visual detection tasks under the breaking Continuous Flash Suppression (b-CFS) paradigm. In experiment 1, differently oriented Gabor patches (45° and 135°) were used as material. During an initial learning phase, one oriented Gabor patch (e.g., 45°) was paired with an alarm sound (CS+), whereas the other was never paired with the alarm sound (CS–). The emotional rating indicated that negative emotion could be elicited by the alarm sound in the participants. The orientation of CS+ Gabor patches was counterbalanced across participants. In the subsequent testing phase, participants were required to discriminate the location of the Gabor patch relative to the central fixation as quickly and accurately as possible. In this phase, Gabor patches were suppressed by dynamic noise using b-CFS. The procedure in experiment 2 was the same with that in experiment 1, except that the color of the Gabor patches was also varied, between red and green. In experiment 1, there was no difference in the accuracy rates between CS+ stimuli and CS– stimuli (99% vs. 99%). Suppression time results showed that CS+ stimuli emerged from suppression faster than CS– ones. In experiment 2, there was no difference in the accuracy rates for different learning condition. For the analysis of suppression time, the “learning effect” was computed to represent difference between experimental conditions and control condition. Integrated learning showed a significant learning effect, while there was no remarkable learning effect in orientation learning or in color learning condition. These findings revealed an unconscious processing advantage for aversive conditioned stimuli. Furthermore, the learning effect was specific to the conditioned stimuli and could not generalize to other similar objects. Taken together, this study provided further evidence for the optimized processing of affectively significant visual stimuli in unconscious conditions.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： The plasticity of executive function (EF) has been discussed as a core topic in the recent cognitive development research. However, inhibition training research remains inadequate. According to dimensional overlap theory, inhibition has two types: interference and response. The neural networks of the brain that respond to conflicts do not mature until early adulthood. By conducting a comparison of the plasticity of response inhibition between adolescents and adults, the applicable age group for response inhibition training is explored. Introducing online feedback as reinforcement improves the training effects and helps individuals to balance further accuracy and speed. Therefore, we added online feedback in the training groups but used the original Stop Signal task in the active control groups to investigate the training and transfer effects of this task with online feedback.This study included 194 participants (134 adults and 60 adolescents) that were divided into five groups: adult training group (N = 47), adult active control group (N = 45), adolescent training group (N = 30), adolescent active control group (N = 30), and passive control group (N = 42). The response inhibition training consisted of nine sessions, and it was held three times a week. In each training session of the adult and adolescent training groups, participants were guided to finish eight blocks (100 trials in each block) of the Stop Signal task with online feedback. In the adult and adolescent active control groups, participants completed the same amount of the Stop Signal task without online feedback. The passive control group received no training. The participants’ inhibition, working memory, and fluid intelligence were measured before and after training through six tasks (e.g., Inhibition: Stop Signal Task, Go/No-go Task, and Stroop Task; Working memory: 2-back Task and 3-back Task; and Fluid intelligence: Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices).A 9 (all training sessions) × 2 (training group, active control group) × 2 (adult, adolescent) repeated measure ANOVA was used to test the training effects. Both age groups exhibited improved performances with the continuation of the training sessions. However, the adults performed significantly faster and more accurate than the adolescents. Next, four 2 (pretest, posttest) × 5 (all five groups) repeated measure ANOVA were conducted to test the transfer effects. The transfer effect results revealed that (1) on the Go/No-go task, both training groups showed significant improvement; (2) on the Stroop task, only the adolescent training group showed significant improvement; (3) on the 2-back task, both training groups and the adult active control group improved significantly; (4) on the 3-back task, only the adolescent training group gained significant transfer effects; and (5) on the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices, no group showed significant improvement.To sum up, the results suggest that the Stop Signal training task with online feedback has produced training effects on both age groups, and the transfer effects are influenced by the age difference of cognitive plasticity and the nature of the task. Thus, adding online feedback to computerized training can effectively improve the training and the transfer effects. Finally, inhibition training has a more formative effect on the pre-adult age.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Judgments of learning (JOLs) are characterised as metacognitive judgments regarding the likelihood that studied items can be successfully retrieved in a future memory test. Previous studies found that people employ different types of cues to inform their online JOLs. Some of these cues can guide JOLs to accurately reflect memory status but others cannot (and are even misleading in some situations). A widely studied cue for JOL formation is subjective processing experience (e.g., perceptual fluency) while completing a given task, which often confers metacognitive illusions. It has been found that people give higher JOLs to large than to small words, despite the fact that font size has minimal influence on retention, a phenomenon termed the font size effect on JOLs. A potential mechanism underlying the effect is perceptual fluency: Large words are perceived more fluently than small ones, and fluent processing experience of large words induces a feeling of knowing, which drives people to offer higher JOLs. The font size effect is important because it spotlights a dissociation between metacognitive judgments and memory itself. The current study aims to explore the influences of encoding strength on the font size effect, and to explore practical techniques to calibrate metacognitive illusions induced by perceptual fluency. Experiment 1 aimed to delineate the role of perceptual fluency in the font size effect. Twenty-six participants first completed a continuous identification (CID) task to measure the difference in perceptual fluency (indexed by response times; RTs) between large (70-pt) and small (9-pt) words, after which they attended a classic learning task. In the learning task, participants studied large and small words one-by-one, for 2 s each, and made item-by-item JOLs. Immediately following the learning task, they completed a distractor task, followed by a free recall test. The results showed that, in the CID task, participants responded much faster to large than to small words, indicating the natural difference in perceptual fluency between large and small words. In addition, perceptual fluency (i.e., RTs in the CID task) significantly correlated with JOLs, reflecting the fluency effect on JOLs. More importantly, perceptual fluency significantly mediated the font size effect on JOLs, supporting the claim that perceptual fluency is responsible for the font size effect.Experiment 2 manipulated study durations to investigate the influence of enhancing encoding strength (through prolonging study duration) on the font size effect. Specifically, three groups of participants studied each word for 2 s, 4 s, and 8 s, respectively, and made item-by-item JOLs. The results demonstrated that prolonging study duration correspondingly decreased the font size effect on JOLs. It is, however, worth highlighting that expanding study time cannot fully eliminate the font size effect because the results still showed a significant font size effect even when the study time was increased to 8 s.Experiment 3 was conducted to further investigate the effectiveness of enhancing encoding strength for calibration of the font size effect. A sentence-making group was instructed to encode each word by generating a sentence to deepen the level of processing (i.e., encoding strength). By contrast, there were no explicit requirements of encoding strategies in the control group (i.e., participants in the control group could use any strategies they liked). In the control group, the classic font size effect on JOLs was successfully replicated; of critical interest, the effect disappeared in the sentence-making group. Such results reflect the power of improving encoding strength to calibrate metacognitive illusions induced by perceptual features.In summary, the current study establishes that perceptual fluency is at least one of the mechanisms underlying the font size effect on JOLs; prolonging study duration reduces but fails to eliminate the font size effect on JOLs; more importantly, directly deepening the level of processing through sentence-making is a valid strategy to calibrate metacognitive illusions induced by perceptual features. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in the main text.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Executive function refers to advanced cognitive processes that control and regulate other cognitive processes, including working memory, inhibition control, and cognitive flexibility. This function is a high-level cognitive ability when completing complex cognitive tasks. Executive function is an important predictor of a child’s physical and mental health, quality of life, school success, marital happiness, and public safety. Studies have shown that physical activities, such as mindfulness yoga, coordinated exercises, martial arts, and exergame, can improve children’s executive function. Exergame is also a type of physical activity, as a synthetic word, which is a combination of exercise and game and can be seen as a physical activity for stimulating an active whole-body gaming experience. This study aims to investigate the effects of physical intensity and cognitive engagement in exergame on promoting children’s executive function immediately and long-term training.This study conducted a 2 (high/low physical intensity) × 2(high/low cognitive engagement) × 3(measurement time: before/immediately/after training) mixed experimental design, wherein 122 children age 4~6 years old were trained for six weeks. Among the within-subject variables were exercise physical and cognitive engagement, and the between-subject variable was the measurement time. The dependent variables were working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility.Results showed that physical intensity, rather than cognitive engagement in exergame, significantly improved children’s executive function, especially the working memory after training immediately. In the long-term intervention, physical intensity and cognitive engagement in exergame significantly promoted children’s executive function, and the promoting effect of cognitive engagement was greater than that of physical intensity. This study demonstrates the benefits of long-term exergame training on children’s executive function and the types of exergame that can improve such function in children in the short or long term.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Episodic memory consists of item memory and associative memory. Individual cognitive resources are typically allocated to more valuable information during encoding through metamemory, leading to competitive processing of item and associative information. Reward prediction error (RPE), defined as the difference between reward results and reward expectations, has two properties: valence (positive or negative) and salience (degree of difference). To examine the impact of reward prediction error valence and salience on item and associative memory, and how reward prediction error influences memory based on metamemory, three experiments were conducted. In the learning stage, participants were presented with indoor and outdoor scene pictures. They were asked to predict the score of each picture and then received feedback on the actual score. Through this reinforcement learning process, participants had to find out which type of pictures is more valuable, and 30% of the scores were accumulated into the total score. To induce the effect of reward motivation on memory, participants were introduced to the opportunity to choose between two pictures and receive the value of the selected picture, although the actual program did not include a decision-making stage. After the learning stage, participants were tested on item and reward associative memory. The findings of the study showed that: (1) There were advantages in associative memory performance for positive reward prediction error valence and low salience, with higher accuracy of JOCs at positive valence. In contrast, there were advantages in item memory performance for negative valence and high salience. (2) In the eye-tracking results during the encoding process, positive valence and low salience of reward prediction error resulted in increased mean and peak pupil dilation after feedback presentation, as well as longer value fixation duration and shorter picture fixation duration at low salience. (3) When the reward prediction error level was increased to reduce overlap between reward results and reward prediction error effects, the separation effect of reward prediction error on item and associative memory performance remained stable. The results of the study suggest that the effects of reward prediction error on item and associative memory are distinct. During the encoding stage, individuals use the valence and salience of reward prediction error as cues to allocate cognitive resources differently in item and associative memory encoding through metamemory control. In the retrieval stage, positive valence of reward prediction error enhances the metamemory monitoring level of associative memory retrieval.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Sense of agency (SoA) is the feeling of having control over an external event through one’s own actions. SoA is a result of the connection between one's intentions, actions and outcomes. In addition, predictability of outcomes can also have an effect on SoA. Previous studies have found that threats can reduce agency, but these results are mostly limited to aggressive behavior. A pro-social outcome is often attributable to one's own action. However, it is unclear whether a person can change their perception of their actions and results. In this study, we used the Temporal Estimates method to examine the effects of voluntary action and the nature of outcomes on the sense of agency under predictable and unpredictable conditions. We used the temporal binding paradigm in order to measure the interval time in a card game task. The intensity of the sense of agency was linked with the estimated interval time. Self-interested and altruistic monetary rewards or neutral outcomes were presented to the participants. In both experiments, a neutral tone emerged by pressing buttons on their own initiative (voluntary action) or following instructions (involuntary action), respectively, under predictable conditions (Experiment 1) and unpredictable conditions (Experiment 2). Time interval from the action to the outcome was set to 200 ms, 500 ms, and 800 ms. Each interval was chosen randomly. In the experiments, participants were asked to estimate the time interval between the keys and the sound or picture, which was expressed as a number between 100 and 1000 ms. As the time interval increased, the sense of agency lessened. In Experiment 1, there was a significant main effect of actions. The time estimate for the voluntary action (self-initiative) was significantly shorter than the time estimate for the involuntary actions (following instruction). The main effect of outcome was not significant. The estimates for self-interest, altruism, and neutral outcomes were similar. However, there was a significant interaction between involuntary action and outcome. It was estimated that altruistic and neutral outcomes would take longer than self-interest outcomes, meaning self-interest outcomes would have a stronger SoA. In Experiment 2, there was a main effect of actions. The SoA was weaker in the involuntary action. The main effect of the outcome was significant. The time interval estimation of self-interest and altruistic outcomes was longer than that of neutral outcomes. There was less SoA in self-interest and altruistic outcomes, and there was no significant difference between the two outcomes. No significant interaction was found. The results of our study show that voluntary action plays a significant role in the process of SoA. Individual agency is primarily determined by voluntary action and the nature of outcomes. Involuntary action can reduce individual agency. Predictability can change the individual’s perception of the outcomes, especially when the self-interest outcome is more predictable than the altruistic outcome. The agency of self-interest and altruistic outcomes had no difference under unpredictable conditions and was weaker than the neutral outcome. The results show that outcome (self-interest and altruism) has a top-down effect on SoA and the effect is more prominent in voluntary action.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Metamemory monitoring is a process in which individuals subjectively evaluate or judge the memory process and state, and the common indicator is judgments of learning (JOLs). Metamemory control is the regulation and control of memory processes carried out on the basis of metamemory monitoring, and the study time allocation during self-paced learning is a central component of metamemory control. According to Agenda-Based Regulation Model (ABR), individuals in the learning process will comprehensively analyze various factors such as task objectives, task constraints to construct the learning agenda, which is used to prioritize the study items and the amount of time needed to study. However, the main concern of the previous studies is the value presented as a reward outcome (reward obtained after successfully memory), leading to a lack of valid examination of whether reward expectation (prediction of reward outcome) affects the agenda construction and memory performance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to supplement the reward expectation into the ABR model by verifying whether a sufficiently high reward expectation can replace difficulty with exerting a dominant influence on JOLs and time allocation in an agenda construction.Experiment 1 added a control group on the basis of Soderstrom and McCabe's (2011) to examine the effect of reward expectation and difficulty on JOLs and memory rates under a time limited learning condition by presenting the reward posteriorly. Experiment 2, which abolished the limited time learning to self-paced learning, was designed to examine the effect of reward expectation and difficulty on the study time allocation. To go a step further, Experiment 3 controlled reward expectation in the test by manipulating the value gradient, and was designed to examine the effect of the size of the gradient of reward expectation.The current study found that: (1) under the limited time learning condition in Experiment 1, reward outcomes facilitated the memory performance and JOLs of both easy and hard word pairs, and reward expectation only improved the memory performance of easy word pairs without significant effects on JOLs. (2) in self-paced learning in Experiment 2, reward outcome only affected the JOLs rather than memory performance, but reward expectation promoted both JOLs and study time allocation thus improving the memory performance, what’s more, JOLs and study time allocation of hard word pairs in condition with reward expectation are higher than with no reward. (3) in self-paced learning in Experiment 3, the influence of difficulty on study time not significant any more, reward expectation beyond difficulty becomes the main factor affecting the study time allocation. The above results proved that reward expectation is a contributing factor in ABR model. Individuals synthesize reward expectation, reward outcome and difficulty while constructing a learning agenda, and reward expectation overrides difficulty as the dominant factor in agenda construction when it is sufficiently large. However, the effects of reward expectation and reward outcome on memory performance, study time allocation, and JOLs were modulated by the learning conditions.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2020-02-20
Abstract： Reward-based learning plays an important role in selective attention. Recent studies have indicated that rewarded stimuli capture more attention after participants directly learned the association between the stimulus and reward, either presented as money or as social feedback. In addition to engaging in direct learning, people can acquire knowledge of stimuli by observing others, and how to interact with and respond to external stimuli. To adapt to our social world, it is critical to gain reputation information by observing whether people interact with each other positively or negatively. However, it remains unclear whether the valence of social actions influences the attentional priority of valence-associated stimuli. Therefore, the present study employed a widely used training-testing paradigm to investigate the influence of the valence of social actions on attentional capture. Three experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, the distractors in the actor’s color associated with positive (i.e., helping actions) or negative (i.e., hindering actions) valence of social actions were shown in a visual search task. We examined whether the attentional capture effect was influenced by the valence of social actions and whether the effects were different between positive and negative social actions. In Experiment 2, we investigated whether the attentional capture effect of the recipient’s color was influenced by the valence of social actions as well. To further examine the attentional priority between two individuals’ features involved in the negative social interaction, we directly compared the attentional capture effect between the actor’s color and the recipient’s color from the negative social interaction (i.e., hindering action) in Experiment 3. In the learning phase, participants were required to watch cartoonized videos adapted from Hamlin, Wynn, and Bloom (2007). In these videos, an actor interacted with a recipient in one of four different modes: valid helping (the actor helps the recipient successfully), invalid helping (the actor repeats the same action as helping but without effects on the recipient), valid hindering (the actor hinders the recipient successfully), and invalid hindering (the actor repeats the same action as hindering but without effects on the recipient). In this case, the valid helping action was more positive than invalid helping action in valence, but with the same action pattern, and the valid hindering action was more negative than invalid hindering action in valence, but with the same action pattern. During the testing phase, each trial started with the presentation of the fixation display (400~600ms), which was followed immediately by the search display (1500ms or until response). In the search display, the target was defined as the form singleton (e.g., one diamond among circles), while a distractor was a color singleton (additional-singleton) colored the same as the agent in the previously learned videos. Inside the target, a white line segment was oriented either vertically or horizontally, and inside each of the nontargets, a white line segment was tilted at 45° to the left or to the right. The search display was followed by a feedback display (1000ms), which informed participants whether their responses in the previous trial were correct. In the training phase, participants were able to successfully learn the association between agents’ color and their interaction information through observation, and the memory performance was not modulated by the interaction mode. However, in the test phase, the results showed that (1) In both Experiments 1 and 2, participants’ reaction time in the search display was longer when the additional-singleton distractors were shown than when none of the additional-singleton distractor were shown , which was referred to as a significant standard additional-singleton effect, suggesting that attention was captured by the additional-singleton distractor; (2) the attentional capture effect was significant when the additional-singleton distractor was associated with the valid hindering condition than when the additional-singleton distractor was associated with the invalid hindering condition, while no difference in the attentional capture effect was observed between valid and invalid helping conditions; (3) whether the additional-singleton distractor’s color was from the actor or the recipient involved in the negative social interaction, the attentional capture effect was present, but the additional-singleton distractor’s color associated with the actor showed a larger attentional capture effect than that associated with the recipient. Hence, our results demonstrate that the valence of social actions influences attentional capture, and this influence is shown as a negative bias for valence-associated stimuli. In addition, this association is established on all agents involved in the social action, instead of the actor alone, and the actor’s features in the negative social interaction are prioritized to be attended than the recipient. These findings highlight how attention is related to social actions, suggesting an adapted function of negative social actions.
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