Acta Psychologica Sinica

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, Volume 47 Issue 11

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The Impact of Supra- and Sub-liminal Facial Expressions on the Gaze-cueing Effect

ZHANG Meichen; WEI Ping; ZHANG Qin

Acta Psychologica Sinica. 2015, 47 (11): 1309-1317. DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2015.01309

Abstract

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Studies have shown that attention tends to shift to locations gazed by others. The gaze-cuing effect (GCE) means that targets presented at periphery are detected faster when the eyes in a central face are gazing at the same direction of the target than when the eyes are gazing at the opposite side. In the present study, we investigated the impact of consciously or unconsciously presented emotional faces on the gaze-cuing effect.

A positive, neutral, or negative cue face with its eyes gazing at left or right side was presented supraliminally or subliminally in the center of the screen, followed by a target letter presented at the gazed (cued) location or the opposite (un-cued) location. Participants were asked to make localization responses to the target as accurately and quickly as possible.

Results showed that, the GCE, in terms of RTs in the un-cued condition minus RTs in the cued condition, was significant and was not affected by facial expression when the face was presented supraliminally. However, when the cue was presented subliminally, the GCE effect was also significant and was modulated by the emotionality of the central face. Specifically, in the un-cued condition, RTs were significantly longer in the positive and negative conditions than that in the neutral condition. In other words, GCE was larger in the positive and negative conditions than in the neutral condition.

These results indicated that GCE can be modulated by faces with biological importance. The emotional information conveyed through supraliminally presented face might be suppressed by the top-down control setting, whereas the subliminally presented gazing cue was processed automatically and was escaped from top-down suppression.

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Cross-linguistic Phonological Interference in L2 Visual Word Reading: #br# Evidence from the Semantic Relatedness Decision Task

WU Shiyu; MA Zheng

Acta Psychologica Sinica. 2015, 47 (11): 1318-1327. DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2015.01318

Abstract

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According to the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM) by Best (1995) and Best & Tyler (2007), learners of L2 phonology will assimilate two non-native sound categories to one native sound category if there is only one native sound category close to two non-native categories. It follows that L2 speakers will encounter difficulties in perceiving and producing the difference between sounds in a second language (L2) that are not contrastive in their native language (L1). As a result, L2 speakers exhibit indeterminacy between L2 words that differ by a nonnative contrast. Previous studies have shown that native Japanese speakers tend not to resolve the difference between English words such as rocket and locker until the second half of the word is heard. Similar effects have been observed in native Dutch speakers using auditory lexical decision task. These speakers, when hearing an English word including /?/ or /æ/ (e.g., cattle), are faster in responding to its minimal-pairs counterpart (e.g., kettle).

In order to investigate whether such cross-lexical effects exist in visual word recognition, we devised a semantic relatedness decision task that builds on findings from visual word recognition research. 35 Chinese-speaking English learners, all pursuing their MAs in English, participated in this experiment. In order to provide a baseline for comparison, 35 English native speakers were also recruited. The critical stimuli were constructed from 20 homophone pairs (e.g., hear-here) and 20 /i-I/ minimal pairs (e.g., heal-hill). A minimally different spelling control was coupled to each pair (e.g., real or bill for heal-hill), with the constraints that the control differed in only a single grapheme from either member of the pair.

Results indicated that similar to native English speakers, Chinese English learners produced more errors and responded more slowly to the homophone pairs in the critical condition than in the corresponding spelling control condition. This provided direct evidence that viewing a visual word automatically activates its phonological representation, which in turn activates its homophone and causes the semantic interference.

More importantly, results showed that Chinese English learners produced more errors and responded more slowly to the /i-I/ items in the critical condition than in their spelling control condition. No such effect was observed for the English native speakers. This lent support to the conclusion that cross-linguistic phonological interference occurs in L2 visual word recognition (L2 word reading). It can be seen that the transfer of L1 phonology can occur not only in the perception and articulation of L2 sounds, but also in the phonological coding of L2 lexical entries.

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Experience with Proactive Interference Diminishes Its Memory #br# Monitoring and Control

LIU Xiping; CHEN Liqing; TANG Weihai; BAI Xuejun

Acta Psychologica Sinica. 2015, 47 (11): 1328-1340. DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2015.01328

Abstract

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Proactive interference refers to the phenomena that learning and memory for previous items interfere with those for subsequent items. Previous studies have shown that there was a bias in participants’ proactive interference monitoring, but it is still unclear whether proactive interference can be reduced or overcome and how to eliminate the deviation of proactive interference monitoring.

The present study used three experiments to investigate whether learning- testing experience could improve the monitoring and control of proactive interference. 102 undergraduates with normal vision participated in this study. The sample sizes of Experiment 1, 2, and 3 were 40, 31, and 31 respectively. Experiment 1 examined whether the participants were able to realize proactive interference effect. The learning materials were divided into the control condition (A–B, C–D) and the interference condition (A–B, A–D). During the study phase, participants were asked to estimate their recall performances either immediately or after a delay. Experiment 2 examined whether the participants with learning- testing experience were aware of proactive interference. Participants were only asked to estimate their recall performances after a delay (delay-JoL condition only). Experiment 3 used a self-pace allocation study time procedure and showed that participants must have learning- testing experience with proactive interference to become aware of and reduce the effects of proactive interference.

In Experiment 1 and 2, memory accuracy and JoLs were recorded by E-prime, and in Experiment 3, the allocated time for each type of items and memory performance were recorded. Data was analyzed with SPSS 18.0. The results showed that: (1) The monitoring of proactive interference had a bias, which was greater in the delay judgment condition. (2) Learning- testing experience could reduce the monitoring bias in the delay judgment condition. (3) The participants with learning- testing experience allocated more attention to interference items during the second study round than the first one. (4) The participants spending more time in the second study round allocated more attention to interference items and thus overcome the proactive interference effect completely.

In conclusion, these results indicated that the learning- testing experience with proactive interference could enhance the awareness of its effects and allow individuals to adjust their learning and retrieval strategies in order to reduce the effects in a appropriate way.

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Equity Sensitivity of 2~3 Years Old Children in Distribution Condition

LIU Wen; ZHU Lin; ZHANG Xue; ZHANG Yu; LIU Ying

Acta Psychologica Sinica. 2015, 47 (11): 1341-1348. DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2015.01341

Abstract

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Equity sensitivity refers to individual’s response to perceived equity or inequity, which is stable and personalized. It is observed as an individualized bias to equity. Recently studies showed that 3-year-old, 2-year-old, even 15-month-old human infants were sensitive to equity. However, there were very few literature on age difference of equity sensitivity in the young child development. The purpose of the first experiment is to explore the development of 2 to 3 years old children's equity sensitivity in allocation condition, and the second experiment aims at exploring impact factors of equity sensitivity based on the results of the first developmental study.

One hundred and thirty 2 to 3 years old children participated in the first experiment. This experiment employed VOE paradigm and the third-party task. Children’s stare duration to equitable distribution and inequitable distribution situations were recorded as the testing measure. The result showed that there was a significant interaction between age and distribution outcomes. The stare duration in the inequitable distribution condition was much longer than in the equity distribution condition, which suggested that 2 to 3 years old children had equity sensitivity. Children's stare duration on different distribution outcomes also had a significant age effect. Compared with other age groups, 3 years to 3 years and 3 months old children showed the strongest equity sensitivity.

The second experiment explored three impact factors on equity sensitivity, including distribution situation, quantity of distribution resources, and distribution outcomes. Sixty 3 years old children were examined under the distribution situation. The results were analyzed using repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVA), which showed that there was a significant interaction between distribution situation and distribution outcomes. In the context of the recipient, stare duration to inequitable distribution was longer than it to equitable distribution. Compared to the none-recipients situation, children showed more equity sensitivity when they were in recipients situation. There was no significant interaction between quantity distribution resources and distribution outcomes. But children's stare duration on distribution situation with 2 sweetmeats was longer than those with 4 sweetmeats.

In summary, these two experiments investigated the development of children's equity sensitivity in distribution condition and influence factors of equality sensitivity. Equity sensitivity of young children was found: 2 to 3 years old children had already possessed equity sensitivity. The stare duration showed an increasing trend with the growth of age from 2 to 3 years and a decreasing tendency after age of 3. It suggests that 3 years to 3 years and 3 months children were obviously sensitive to equity. Children's stare duration to inequitable distribution was longer than in equitable distribution remarkably in distribution situation. Children showed equity sensitivity under both distribution situations which had either 2 or 4 sweetmeats. These results provided converging evidence that young children in the second year of life have already possessed equity sensitivity. Equity sensitivity of 3 years to 3 years and 3 months old children were relatively obvious. Distribution situation, the quantity of distribution resources, and distribution outcomes all have strong impact on the children's equity sensitivity.

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Meta-Stereotype Threat Effects on Working Memory Among Migrant Children: Mediating Effects of Intergroup Anxiety

SUN Yawen; HE Wen; LUO Junlong

Acta Psychologica Sinica. 2015, 47 (11): 1349-1359. DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2015.01349

Abstract

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Meta-stereotype refers to a person’s beliefs regarding the stereotype that out-group members hold about their own group. The model of intergroup anxiety argues that negative meta-stereotype generates threat by creating negative expectations on the behavior of out-group members. Previous research has demonstrated that intergroup anxiety following stereotype threat contribute to the depletion of working memory and then impairs the performance in the related domain, but the mechanism of the meta-stereotype threat effects on cognition remains unclear. Accordingly, it was common that migrant children have the negative meta-stereotype, however, the influence of negative meta-stereotype on migrant children’s cognition has not been thoroughly investigated. The current study aimed to explore, firstly, the negative meta-stereotype effects on working memory among migrant children, secondly, the mediated role of the intergroup anxiety between meta-stereotype and working memory, thirdly, the moderated role of difficulty of working memory task on negative meta-stereotype effects.

A total of 90 migrant children participated in the present study. Participants were instructed to write descriptive adjectives to evoke negative meta-stereotype or not according to different instructions. Then, participants were assigned to either the meta-stereotype threat (MST) condition (25 males, 24 females, aged 11~13 years, M = 12.05, SD = 0.83) or the non-MST condition (21 males, 20 females, aged 11~13 years, M = 12.24, SD = 0.79). This study was organized into a 2×3 design. The first factor was the type of meta-stereotype, consisting of 2 levels, MST condition and non-MST condition. The second factor was the type of working memory, including 3 levels, 0-, 1-, and 2-back working memory tasks. The participants also completed the intergroup-anxiety scale. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and mediation analysis were used to analyze the data.

The following results were observed: (1) The intergroup anxiety under the MST condition was higher than the case of non-MST condition. (2) The accuracy of the MST condition was significantly lower than that of the non-MST condition across the 0-, 1-, 2-back working memory tasks. Moreover, the accuracy in the MST and the non-MST condition both decreased significantly with the task difficulty growing. (3) In the 0-, 1-, 2-back working memory tasks, the reaction time of participants in the MST condition was significantly higher than those in the non-MST condition, and in the MST condition, the reaction time significantly increased with the increase of difficulty, the interaction between the group and the type of working memory was significant. (4) The relationship between the meta-stereotype and the accuracy of working memory (medium difficulty) was entirely mediated by the intergroup anxiety. The relationship between the meta-stereotype and the reaction time of working memory (medium difficulty) was partially mediated by the intergroup anxiety.

Overall, it was suggested that the deleterious effects of negative meta-stereotype on working memory and the intergroup anxiety among migrant children contributed to the explanation of the decline of working memory at medium level of difficulty. Further study still needs to precisely assess other factors (i.e., prejudice, social identity, and so on) that are involved in the threat effects of the meta-stereotype.

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Are Pregnant Women More Foresighted? #br# The Effect of Pregnancy on Intertemporal Choice

LI Aimei; PENG Yuan; XIONG Guanxing

Acta Psychologica Sinica. 2015, 47 (11): 1360-1370. DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2015.01360

Abstract

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People often have to consider and compare the importance of different things that occur at different time points and then make decisions. When making intertemporal choices, individuals have to choose between a smaller and sooner reward (SS) and a larger and later reward (LL). Pregnancy as a critical life event inevitably comes with a series of physiological and psychological changes. We hypothesized that such changes would make the pregnant women more future oriented and hence would reduce their delay discounting.

We tested our hypotheses by using a quasi-experiment design (Study 1) and an experiment design (Study 2). Pregnant women were recruited in Study 1, and non-pregnant women were primed with maternal mind set in Study 2. In both studies, control groups were non-pregnant women without any manipulation. All the participants in both studies completed the Consideration of Future Consequences Scale (Strathman, Gleicher, Boninger, & Edwards, 1994; α = 0.71) and Intertemporal Decision-making Tasks (Wang & Dvorak, 2010). In Study 3, we manipulated future orientation to determine whether it was causally related to intertemporal decision. The manipulations in Study 2 and Study 3 were both successful. They showed that pregnant women were more future-oriented than their peer control groups. Pregnant women had a much lower delay discounting rate in intertemporal decision-making. Furthermore, it was found that the level of future orientation mediated this effect.

This research explored the differences in intertemporal choice between pregnant women and their peer group. Our results revealed that pregnant women had a ‘maternal mind’ which focuses more on future events. This mindset promotes future-orientation and a greater preference for LL options in intertemporal choice.

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The Influence of Power State on the Consumers’ Preference for Consumption Boundaries

TONG Luqiong

Acta Psychologica Sinica. 2015, 47 (11): 1371-1378. DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2015.01371

Abstract

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Different degrees of power exist in consumers’ everyday life. It can arise from structural factors (e.g., hierarchical roles), cognitive factors (e.g., episodic recall), and physical factors (e.g., physical position). Despite the long-recognized value and experimental investigation of power in social science, until recently, scholars start to pay attention to the influence of power state on consumer behavior. However, the current research paid special attention to the effect of power state on a common but novel aspect in consumer behavior – the preference for consumption boundaries (that is, visual borders that separate and contain a focal object).

Prior literature suggests that state of relatively high power fosters an agentic orientation, which tends to express dominant acts and increases the desire for control. Moreover, one way that people gain personal control is by seeking order and structure in their consumption environment and choices, for example, seeking boundaries in their consumption environment. Thus we argue that as relatively high (vs. low) power state fosters desire for control, consumers in high (vs. low) power state prefer objects that are bounded over those that are unbounded.

The author conducted three experiments to examine whether and how power states affect consumers’ preference for consumption boundaries. In Study 1A and 1B, we manipulated participants’ power state by asking them to recall a particular incident in which they had power over another individual or individuals (or in which some else had power over them), and then asked them to indicate their preferred option from bounded and unbounded pairs. The results illustrated that feeling powerful (vs. powerless) led the consumers to prefer options (e.g., product display, picture display and brand logo) that were bounded (vs. unbounded). In Study 2, we further manipulated participants’ power state by role playing task (boss vs. employee), and then measured their desire for control, mood, arousal, attentional overload, as well as their preference for boundaries. The findings proved that the desire for control (especially the desire for control of one’s own life) mediated the influence of power state on boundary preference, and ruled out mood, arousal as well as attentional overload as alternative explanations.

In summary, the results of three studies reported in the present research demonstrated that one way high−power (vs. low−power) individuals express power is by seeking structured consumption, in other words, consumption boundaries in various forms. The findings theoretically enrich and advance our understanding of the impact of power state on consumer behavior from a novel perspective, and provide further knowledge about the role of control in the influence of power. Given the findings of this research, marketers should be more aware of the match between consumers’ power state and consumption boundary settings.

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The Career Plateau of Chinese Public Servants: Construct, #br# Measurement and Its Psychological and Behavioral Influence

WANG Zhongjun; LONG Lirong; LIU Lidan; HUANG Xiaohua; JIA Wenwen; LI Lu; MA Hongyu

Acta Psychologica Sinica. 2015, 47 (11): 1379-1394. DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2015.01379

Abstract

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The career plateau is a serious problem for Chinese public servants, especially for those who at the lower level of public organizations, which occurs when an individual has limited vertical and horizontal career mobility. Since career plateau is of great influence on individual career development as well as organizational efficiency, this study investigated the career plateau phenomenon of Chinese public servants. Firstly, the typical features of Chinese public servants’ career plateau were found with the content analysis of data collected from 16 public servants, using structured interviews and open-ended questionnaires for other 43 public servants from various public organizations. Meanwhile, the initial items for Public Servants Career Plateau Questionnaire (PSCPQ) were also established.

Secondly, data collected from a sample of 279 public servants of diverse organizations was used to explore the CSCPQ’s conceptual construct, reliability and validity by exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Thirdly, conducting Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) for data from another larger sample of 517 public servants, the validity and reliability of the PSCPQ was confirmed. Eventually, this study investigated the relationship between career plateau and civil servants’ occupational psychological and behavioral outcomes, such as organizational commitment, occupational burnout and withdrawal behavior in workplace by hierarchical multiple regression analysis for data of 520 public servants and another sample (n = 230) from three public organizations.

The research results indicated the career plateau of public servants was a two-dimension structure in Chinese public organizations context. The dimensions include the stagnation of promotion the marginalization of position, which are completely different from the constructs of employees’ career plateau of enterprises found in previous studies. The Cronbach α coefficients of the two dimensions are all above 0.80 and show a steady and acceptable status in different samples. The Cronbach α coefficients of the entire PSCPQ is also above 0.87 in different sample. and These results showed that PSCPQ developed in this study had good psychometric reliability and high validity.

Furthermore, the results showed that after controlling demographic variables,the stagnation of promotion of public servants was significantly positive related to emotional burnout and cynicism, and was not related to organizational commitment, professional efficiency as well as withdrawal behavior at work. After controlling demographic variables, the positional marginalization of public servants was significantly negative related to organizational affective commitment, normative commitment and professional efficiency, and was positive related to organizational continuance commitment, emotional burnout, cynicism as well as withdrawal behavior. These results would be of enlightenment to the management practices and career development for public servants in Chinese public organizations. Finally, implications and directions for future research are discussed.

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Faking in Job Applicants' Responses in Personality Tests: #br# Evidence from A Eye-Tracking Study of Job Desirability

XU Jianping; CHEN Jiyue; ZHANG Wei; LI Wenya; SHENG Yu

Acta Psychologica Sinica. 2015, 47 (11): 1395-1404. DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2015.01395

Abstract

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One of the important concerns in personnel selection process has been job applicants’ faking behaviors in Personality tests (or measurement or evaluation). Although many studies have been done on faking behaviors in personality tests, no consensus has yet reached regarding the response processes of faking behaviors in personality tests. At present, researchers have proposed three mutually incompatible social–desirability–based response process models of faking in personality tests: the Self–Schema Model, the Sematic–Exercise Model and the Adopted–Schema Model. In the Adopted–Schema Model, test items are classified as social desirable and social undesirable, but items unrelated to social desirability are neglected. Besides, more and more researchers are inclined to consider faking in personnel selection as a job desirable behavior instead of a social desirable one. Therefore, this study tried to explore job applicants’ faking response in personality tests from the perspective of job desirability with the help of eye–tracking techniques.

First, fifty participants rated the job desirability of 44 items in Big Five Inventory (BFI-44). Based on the rating scores, BFI-44 items were classified into three categories: job desirable items, job undesirable items and items unrelated to job desirability. Second, in a within–subject simulation experiment design, another fifty participants completed the BFI-44 in two conditions – honest vs. faking in an eye–tracking laboratory. To eliminate order effect, these 50 participants were randomly assigned to the two groups. The first group went through the honest condition and then the faking condition. The second group followed the reversed order. The participants were instructed to complete six items from Mensa IQ test as a filler task between the two sessions. Item responses, response latencies, and eye movement index were recorded using Tobii 120.

The results showed that test scores on all of the five dimensions of the Big Five Inventory under the faking condition were significantly higher than the scores under the honest condition.The response latencies on items in the categories of job desirable and job undesirable were significantly shorter in the faking condition than the response latencies in both categories in the honest condition. The number of eye fixations was significantly lower on the question stems than on the extreme options of the categories of items on job desirable and job undesirable in the faking condition, when compared with the honest condition. In the category of items unrelated to job desirability, the number of eye fixations was significantly more in the faking condition than in the honest condition. The same pattern of eye fixations was found on the options in the middle. In the faking condition, the participants’ eyes fixed on extreme options (i.e., strongly disagree and strongly agree) more directly after reading the questions.

These findings support the idea that faking leads to semantic–exercise interpretations on job desirable and job undesirable items, as well as self–schema interpretations on items unrelated to job desirability. The response process in the faking condition seemed to be simpler than the response process in the honest condition, when answering the items in the categories of job desirability and job undesirability. Based on the findings, the job–desirability–based Mixed–Exercise Model has been proposed, in an attempt to explain faking response in personality tests.

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The Development of CD-CAT with Polytomous Attributes

TU Dongbo; CAI Yan

Acta Psychologica Sinica. 2015, 47 (11): 1405-1414. DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2015.01405

Abstract

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Cognitive diagnostic computerized adaptive testing (CD-CAT) purports to combine the strengths of both CAT and cognitive diagnosis. The attributes in CD-CAT have been supposed to be dichotomous, “0” represents non-master for examinee and non-measurement for item while “1” represents master for examinee and measurement for item. But recently, polytomous attribute framework has been proposed by some studies (Karelitz, 2004; de la Torre, et al., 2010; Chen, et al., 2013). Based on the conventional computerized adaptive testing for cognitive diagnosis with dichotomous attributes, this study developed a new CD-CAT with polytomous attributes, called pCD-CAT, which is adaptive to polytomous or ordered category attributes framework.

During the procedure, two key parts were involved in the pCD-CAT. One was parameters estimation. Here the cognitive diagnosis model with polytomous attributes was employed to estimate the individual’s polytomous knowledge states with maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) algorithm. Another was the item selection strategy. In this paper, the PAKL and PAPWKL methods based on polytomous attributes were developed and implied to select items adaptively from item pool.

Three Monte Carlo simulation studies with different experimental conditions were conducted here, which mainly focused on the performance of the proposed pCD-CAT by this paper. These experimental conditions were the fixed test length CAT (15, 20 and 25 items respectively), the variable test length CAT (the post probability of knowledge state is 0.75,0.80 and 0.85 respectively) and the compare between pCD-CAT and the conventional dichotomous CD-CAT, respectively. There studies showed: The classification accuracy, test security and test efficiency under pCD-CAT were all acceptable and reasonable. The PA-KL item selection strategy had low classification, test security and test efficiency, which indicated that PA-KL was unfit to the pCD-CAT. However PA-PWKL and PA-HKL item selection strategies had high classification accuracy, test security and test efficiency. In addition, while using conventional CD-CAT to fit the pCD-CAT with polytomous attributes, the PMA (attribute pattern match ration) was less than 30% and the test security indexes (e.g. item exposure and test overlap) were poorer than the pCD-CAT. All above results indicated that the conventional CD-CAT should not be employed to fit the polytomous attributes, while the method proposed by this paper is a good choose.

All in all, the pCD-CAT overcame the shortcomings stemmed from dichotomous CD-CAT, thus they might expect a good prospect and application. And it provided a kind of new methods and techniques in cognitive diagnosis, which might extended the applicable area.

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Management regulations and Professional ethics of Psychological Test in China

Chinese Psychological Society

Acta Psychologica Sinica. 2015, 47 (11): 1415-1418.

Abstract

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