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30 January 2003, Volume 35 Issue 01 Previous Issue    Next Issue

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The Inhibition Mechanism for Resolving Lexical Ambiguity of Two-Syllabe Homophones in Chinese Zhou Zhijin,Chen Yongming,Yang Lixia 2003, 35 (01):  1-8.  Abstract ( 2582 )   Two experiments were conducted to investigate the processes of meaning access and the effect of inhibition of two-syllable homophones in Chinese. Cross-model semantic priming paradigm and lexical decision task were employed in the experiments. The homophones were presented after a word which was used as context in Experiment 1 and in sentences in Experiment 2. The results showed: First, in the -150ms ISI condition, the homophones’ inappropriate meanings which were inconsistent with context semantics were inhibited. Second, in the 50ms condition, priming effects were found for the homophones’ appropriate meanings which were consistent with context semantics. Third, the processes of meaning access of homophones was influenced by meaning frequency. Related Articles | Metrics

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THE ROLE OF PARTIAL INFORMATION A PHONETIC PROVIDES IN LEARNING AND MEMORIZING NEW CHARACTERS Shu Hua,Bi Xuemei,Wu Ningning 2003, 35 (01):  9-16.  Abstract ( 2518 )   Phonetic awareness has been reported to be important in acquisition of Chinese characters. Using a learning-testing task, which is almost the same as the task a teacher uses in the classroom, the present study examined the role of partial information a phonetic provided for pronunciation of character in learning and memorizing new characters. The basic method is, in a serials of experiments, children are asked to learn and memorize three types of characters: (1) Characters in which the phonetic provides full information (onset, rime and tone) for pronunciation of the whole character, that is regular character. (2) Characters in which the phonetic provides partial information for pronunciation of the whole character, like tone-different character (onset and rime) and onset-different character (rime). (3) Characters in which the phonetic provides no information for pronunciation of the whole character, like phonetic-unknown character. The results showed: (a) Characters in which the phonetic provides full information were better learned than characters in which the phonetic provides partial information, and characters in which the phonetic provides partial information were learned better than characters in which the phonetic provides no information. (b) Children got higher score on tone-different semi-regular characters than on onset-different characters. All these suggested that children can make use of partial information and they are sensitive to different degrees of partial information. So partial information is helpful for children in learning and memorizing new Chinese characters Related Articles | Metrics

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EFFECTS OF THE WHOLE CHINESE CHARACTER AND THE FREQUENCIES OF THE STROKES ON THE COGNITION OF THE STROKES Wang Huiping, Zhang Jijia,Zhang Houcan 2003, 35 (01):  17-22.  Abstract ( 2014 )   he experiment was conducted to inspect the effects of the whole Chinese character and the frequencies of the strokes on the cognition of the strokes. The results indicated that there was character-inferior effect in the cognition of the strokes, the time of spotting isolated strokes was shorter than that of spotting the strokes which existed in Chinese characters, and the rate of errors of spotting isolated strokes was longer than that of spotting the strokes which existed in Chinese characters. The cognition of the strokes also was affected by the number of the strokes of contextual Chinese characters. The subjects recognized the strokes of Chinese characters which had small number of strokes faster than the strokes of Chinese characters which had large number of strokes. The frequencies of the strokes played an important role in the cognition of strokes, high- frequency strokes were recognized faster than low-frequency strokes. The whole results supported the hypothesis that the strokes of Chinese characters are basic units in the processing of Chinese characters and showed that the strokes are processed automatically in the processing of Chinese characters in general Related Articles | Metrics

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THE ACCESSING MECHANISM OF THE LESS PROFICIENT CHINESE-ENGLISH BILINGUAL’S CONCEPTUAL REPRESENTATION Guo Taomei,Peng Danlin 2003, 35 (01):  23-28.  Abstract ( 2232 )   In order to explore how the lexical representation of the less proficient Chinese-English Bilinguals’ second language accesses its conceptual representation, the cross-language primed lexical decision task was used. Subjects were 63 university students in Beijing Normal University, China. In the first experiment, the Chinese target words were primed by their English translations. Significant priming effects were obtained. In the second experiment, the relation between the Chinese targets and the English primes was semantic association. No significant effect was found. In the third experiment, the targets were the similar graphic characters of the primes’ Chinese translations. The results showed a significant inhibitory effect. In the fourth experiment, the targets were the homophones of the primes’ translations. The results showed a significant priming effect. The results suggested that the lexical representation of the second language could only access the conceptual representation via the corresponding lexical representation of its first language. Our result supported the hierarchical model by Kroll(1994) Related Articles | Metrics

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RULE-BASED CATEGORIZATION STRATEGY AND EXAMPLE-BASED CATEGORIZATION STRATEGY IN CATEGORIZATION Mo Lei,Chen Zhansheng 2003, 35 (01):  29-36.  Abstract ( 1481 )   How do people use rules and examples in categorization? The authors studied this question by three experiments. Ss were 110 university students. After Ss learned the materials of categorization, they were asked to administer the transfer test in categorization. The categorizing strategy of Ss was investigated. In experiment 1，it was explored whether the subjects tended to use the rule-based categorization strategy after the category structure in Erickson and Kruchke’s experiment was changed so that the rule was more conspicuous. Contrary to experiment 1，it was examined whether the subjects would use the example-based categorization strategy mainly when they faced more complex category structure in experiment 2. In experiment 3，it was explored what kind of rule would be facilitated when more than one rule was suitable. The results showed that the subjects would use the rule-based categorization strategy when the rule was easy to grasp，and they would use the example-based categorization strategy when the task was harder. The subjects tended to choose the general rule than the concrete one，and the universal rule than the limitary one. These results suggested that the rule-based categorization strategy is chosen first in category learning，and that the example-based strategy would be used only when the rule is difficult to be extracted. The results also suggest that the general and the universal rules are more possible to be used when there are several rules available Related Articles | Metrics

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DIMENSIONAL TRANSFER EFFECT IN SAME-DIFFERENT JUDGMENTS Xuan Yuming, Fu Xiaolan 2003, 35 (01):  37-43.  Abstract ( 2602 )   Four experiments were conducted with colored geometrical figures in a “same”-“different” comparison task on physical matching criterion. Participants were 77 undergraduates from Beijing Agricultural Engineering University. “Different” stimulus pairs mismatched in one dimension only, i.e., either in color or in shape. The relation between successive “different” responses was studied. The results of three experiments revealed that “different” responses were slower when mismatched dimension shifted from one dimension to another. The authors claimed that dimensional transfer effect was due to on-line selective allocation of attention according to task requirement and stimuli presented Related Articles | Metrics

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SAMPLING ORDER FOR IRREGULAR GEOMETRIC FIGURE RECOGNITION Cao Liren，Li Yongmei 2003, 35 (01):  44-49.  Abstract ( 2276 )   A study on sampling order for irregular geometric figure recognition was conducted. Ss were 80 university students in Zhejiang University, China, half male and half female, aged from 18 to 22, with normal color vision and normal or correct-to-normal vision. The stimuli were 20 irregular geometric figures. The independent variables were: a) visual task, figure recognition and figure matching; b)visual condition, good and not good; c)display type, rotated and not rotated .The visual performance used as dependent variables was measured by 2 criteria: a) response time, b) wrong index mark. The experiment consisted of 2 tasks, judging the target figures displayed on CRT and doing a questionnaire about the sampling order. Friedman test and Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance test showed that the sampling order for irregular geometric figure recognition was generally stable, it was accorded with the degree of the difference among the sampled-features. The sampled- features with higher degree of such difference would arrange prior order to those with lower degree. The study suggested that stable sampling order, especially with global information traits prior to local information traits, is helpful in improving the performance of figure recognition Related Articles | Metrics

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THE MECHANISM OF OTHER RACE EFFECT BETWEEN EASTERN AND WESTERN FACES REVEALED BY ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY STUDY Peng Xiaohu,Luo Yuejia,Wei Xing,Wang Guofeng,Wei Jinghan 2003, 35 (01):  50-55.  Abstract ( 1978 )   The difference of memory encoding on eastern and western faces (DM effect) and the neural mechanisms of other race effect were studied by using event-related potential (ERP) experiments. The present results showed that the early components (peak latency 70~120ms) at frontal scalp elicited by western faces have a more positive-going than those elicited by eastern faces regardless of recalling or not. This suggests that more resources are cost to other race faces in the early stage of processing, and thus supports the characteristic selective theory of other race effect. The late positive component (LPC) evoked by recognized faces is more positive-going than that by not memorized regardless of eastern or western faces. However, the DM effect elicited by western faces is smaller at the latency range 240 to 320 ms. Moreover, there is an obvious N260 at occipital area for the eastern faces, but none or very small N260 for the western faces. The N260 reflects the different encoding manner to different race faces in the brain and we are reasonable to call it “Specific Race Component” Related Articles | Metrics

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VERIFYING THE COGNITIVE MODEL OF THEORY OF MIND Sui Xiaoshuang,Su Yanjie 2003, 35 (01):  56-62.  Abstract ( 2834 )   The concept "theory of mind"(TOM) was first mentioned by Premack & Woodruff in 1978, which means a person can attribute mental state to oneself and others, predict one's behavior basing on his mind. Many researches in this field have shown that TOM could be divided into different components. Tager-Flusberg & Sullivan（2000）presented a cognitive model of TOM in their article for the first time. They thought TOM included two components, social perceptional component and social cognitive component. Perceptional component is connected with the emotion system, it means to judge people's intention, emotion, desire et al. rapidly by their facial expression, voice and body position. Cognitive component is related to the cognitive system, such as language. It needs to represent and reason people's mind before understanding their intention, desire and thought. In this article, several tests were made to further verify this model. The subjects were 90 3~5 year old preschool children. They were measured in language ability, TOM social perceptional component and social cognitive component. False belief task was used to measure cognitive component, and a new task was used to measure perceptional component, which was designed to suit children's characteristics. The relations of age, language and two components were analyzed. The results accorded with the model, and further proved the model Related Articles | Metrics

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DEVELOPMENT IN DIGIT WORKING MEMORY SPAN ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN AND ITS INFLUNETIAL FACTORS Li Deming,Liu Chang,Li Guiyun 2003, 35 (01):  63-68.  Abstract ( 2194 )   The experimental studies on development of digit working memory span across the life span and its influential factors were accomplished in 1993 healthy participants aged 10 to 90 years with education of 4~17 years. The subjects were divided into 10 age groups including 3 student groups with 10~12, 13~15, 16~19 years of age and 7 adult groups with an interval of 10 years of age. The education of 3 student groups were separately 4~6 years (the students in 4~6 years of primary school), 7~9 years (the students in junior middle school) and 10~12 years (the students in senior middle school), and the years of education between the adult groups were matched (mean years of education = 11.1±3.6). The results indicated: (1) The mean of digit working memory span was approximately 6±2 in the processing load of the most simple mental-arithmetic. (2) The best performance of digit working memory span was in the group of 16 to 19 years of age ( in the group of senior middle school students), and the regressive analyses indicated that digit working memory span changed in a parabola curve with the logarithm of age in ranging from 10 to 90 years of age. (3) There was significant difference in digit working memory span between the adults aged 20~90 years of age with high education (>12 years of education) and low education (≤12 years of education). It showed that education played an important role in the changing process with age in adults for digit working memory span. (4) It was found that the processing load of mental arithmetic had an obvious effect on digit working memory span as compared with our previous result Related Articles | Metrics

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MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN'S CONCEPTIONS OF ABILITY: A DEVELOPMENTAL STUDY Wang Meifang 2003, 35 (01):  69-75.  Abstract ( 2322 )   There have been three separate lines of research on children's conceptions of ability as stable: ability as constant across time and situations, ability as capacity, and ability as uncontrollable, and their implications for motivation in academic and social domains. Research has examined the convergences and divergences among the 3 dimensions in elementary school children. However, recent evidence suggests that even preschoolers understand traits (including ability) as constant across situations; they can use past behaviors to predict future behaviors and emotional reactions to future events. In the present study with 4-, 5-, 7-, 10-, 12-year-olds (N=160), we attempted to explore the 3 dimensions of conceptions of ability at a time. The weak correlations, exploratory factor analysis suggested that each dimension represents different understanding of the nature of ability. The conceptions of ability as constant across situations and as capacity reflected developmental differences and conceptions of ability as uncontrollable reflected individual differences in preschool to elementary school years. Moreover, children's conceptions of ability as constant and as capacity developed with different rates. The former were acquired from preschool years and matured in early elementary school years, while the latter did not start to develop until in middle elementary school years and did not reach the mature understanding in late elementary school years, for only half of 12-year-olds understood that ability may increase or limit the effect of effort on performance. Related Articles | Metrics

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THE SEMANTIC ENCODING CHARACTERISTICS IN CHILDREN’S TWO- DIMENSIONAL MODEL DRAWINGS Li Su,Li Wenfu,Wang Li 2003, 35 (01):  76-83.  Abstract ( 1989 )   The present study is the further exploration to the developmental process of encoding characteristics through children’s drawings. One hundred and sixty-three children aged from 4- to 7-years participated in the study. The two main tasks were: copy the three and two-dimensional stimuli of the same model. And copy two-dimensional model with different familiarity and different kinds of meaning. The participants were tested individually, and the sequence of the two tasks were assigned randomly. The results indicated that there were three kinds of coding in the children’s drawings. The first is separate coding, that is, the children copy the model through decomposing the components of the model. The second is canonical orientation representation. The third is the children copy the models as their actual visual appearance. Few children use the first coding in four groups. Canonical orientation predominant at the age of 4, and the third coding is predominant after the age of 5. The change of the encoding in children’s drawings is a dynamic developmental process. The familiarity and the meaning of the models influenced children’s encoding Related Articles | Metrics

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MOTHER’S ATTITUDES TO THEIR CHILD IN FAMILY FREE-PLAY AND INTELLIGENCE-TASK-ORIENTED PLAY Chen Huichang,Chen Xinyin,Hou Jin, 2003, 35 (01):  84-88.  Abstract ( 1367 )   In the present study 61 mothers’ attitudes and behaviors to their child in family free play and intelligence-task-oriented play had been observed by using videotaped observation. Mothers’ behaviors were coded through four dimensions: control behaviors, warmth, speech communication, and involvement. Results showed that when the child’s play transmitted from free play to intelligence-task-oriented play, the mothers’ attitudes and behaviors changed significantly: high control behaviors increased, low control behaviors decreased; more rejection behaviors and fewer acceptance behaviors appeared; speech communication and involvement behaviors also decreased. There were individual differences in the mothers in the two play-sessions: there were 42.6% of permitted mothers, 32.8% of warmth mothers and 24.6% communication mothers in the free play session, and there were 54% of permitted mothers, 23% of communication mothers and 23% of high control mothers in the intelligence-task-oriented play session Related Articles | Metrics

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PARENTS' CHILDREARING ATTITUDE AND CHILDREN'S PROBLEM BEHAVIORS AT TWO AND FOUR YEARS OF AGE Lu Qin, Chen Huichang, Wang Li and Chen Xinyin 2003, 35 (01):  89-92.  Abstract ( 1895 )   In this longitudinal study the relations between development of children's problem behaviors and parents' childrearing attitude have been identified by using the cross-lagged regression design. At children of two and four year of age, 172 parents reported their childrearing attitudes with CRPR, and their children's problem behaviors with CBCL. It was found that (1) parents' childrearing attitude and children's problem behaviors are significantly correlated: correlation for externalizing behaviors is stronger than that for internalizing behaviors. Externalizing behaviors at 2-year-old can significantly predict maternal punishment at 4-year-old. (2) During the period of two years, there was significant stability in externalizing behaviors, but less stability in internalizing behaviors. And there was moderate consistence in the father's childrearing attitudes, but relatively low in mother's childrearing attitudes Related Articles | Metrics

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THE STABILITY OF CHILDREN’S BEHAVIORAL INHIBITION: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY FROM TWO TO FOUR YEARS OF AGE Wang Zhengyan,Chen Huichang,Chen Xinyin 2003, 35 (01):  93-100.  Abstract ( 2904 )   The present longitudinal study assessed and compared children's inhibition stability from two years to four years of age and examined the gender difference on development. Ss were from longitudinal sample in Beijing, China, 124 toddlers (2-year-old) and 103 Children (4-year-old), 21 children at 4 years dropped out because of moving, stopping cooperation, and other reasons. The study sample was children who both participated in the 2 year and 4 year observation. Children’s behavioral inhibition was rated from the Strange Situation at 2 and 4 years. Results showed that individual differences of behavioral inhibition were stable over the 2 years of the study (0.294). Compared to non-extreme group, the preservation of extreme children’s behaviors was more stable. There was no significant sex difference between boys and girls（t= -1.776, p=0.079）, but the result suggested that boys may keep uninhibited developmental trend and girls may keep inhibited developmental trend Related Articles | Metrics

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THE ROLE OF PARTIAL INFORMATION A PHONETIC PROVIDES IN LEARNING AND MEMORIZING NEW CHARACTERS Shu Hua,Bi Xuemei,Wu Ningning 2003, 35 (01):  101-105.  Abstract ( 2242 )   Phonetic awareness has been reported to be important in acquisition of Chinese characters. Using a learning-testing task, which is almost the same as the task a teacher uses in the classroom, the present study examined the role of partial information a phonetic provided for pronunciation of character in learning and memorizing new characters. The basic method is, in a serials of experiments, children are asked to learn and memorize three types of characters: (1) Characters in which the phonetic provides full information (onset, rime and tone) for pronunciation of the whole character, that is regular character. (2) Characters in which the phonetic provides partial information for pronunciation of the whole character, like tone-different character (onset and rime) and onset-different character (rime). (3) Characters in which the phonetic provides no information for pronunciation of the whole character, like phonetic-unknown character. The results showed: (a) Characters in which the phonetic provides full information were better learned than characters in which the phonetic provides partial information, and characters in which the phonetic provides partial information were learned better than characters in which the phonetic provides no information. (b) Children got higher score on tone-different semi-regular characters than on onset-different characters. All these suggested that children can make use of partial information and they are sensitive to different degrees of partial information So partial information is helpful for children in learning and memorizing new Chinese characters Related Articles | Metrics

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Adenosine A2a receptor mediates reserpine-induced depression in rats Huang Qingjun,Hao Xinling,Thomas R Minor 2003, 35 (01):  106-111.  Abstract ( 1775 )   Intraperitoneal injection of reserpine (4, 6 or 8 mg/kg) increased floating time in the Porsolt swim test in a dose-and time-dependent manner in rats. Although such behavioral depression usually is attributed to drug-induced depletion of brain monoamines, the outcome might be more directly related to brain adenosine signaling associated neuronal overactivation or brain cytokine induction following excitotoxic tissue damage. We addressed these possibilities by pretreating rats with caffeine (7 mg/kg), a high affinity adenosine receptor antagonist, prior to reserpine treatment (6 mg/kg). Caffeine partially reversed the ensuing behavioral depression as measured in the Prosolt swim test conducted 1, 24 and 72 hours after reserpine treatment. Further investigation has also been done to determine the subtype of adenosine receptor, which should mediate reserpine’s effect. The results showed that adenosine A2 receptor antagonist (DMPX) and A2a antagonist (CSC) reversed the reserpine-induced behavioral depression dose-dependently. These results suggest that adenosine mediates reserpine-induced depression via adenosine A2a receptor and provide evidence that adenosine plays a crucial role in mediating behavioral depression, which will benefit in understanding the mechanism of depression and finding new drug for anti-depressant treatment Related Articles | Metrics

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THE EFFECTS OF EXEMPLAR ACTIVATION IN SOCIAL JUDGMENT Wang Pei,Wang Xinbo 2003, 35 (01):  112-119.  Abstract ( 2076 )   Investigated the condition, function, intention and direction of the exemplar-activation effects in social judgment. Ss were 160 sophomores in the Department of Psychology, Northwest Normal University, China. The results suggested: (1) The exemplar-activation effect exists in both strong and weak priming conditions, and takes the forms of assimilation effect. (2) Under the strong priming condition, the exemplar-activation effect is significant. Furthermore, two kinds of exemplars (positive, negative) both show assimilation effects on each target of valences (positive, negative). But the positive exemplar shows stronger effect on the negative target than on the positive one. And the negative exemplar shows stronger effect on the positive target than on the negative one. (3) Under weak priming condition, the valence of exemplar and the valence of target jointly affect social judgment and its process of decision-making, and the effects of exemplar activation are weakened: ①overall, the significant effects of exemplar activation emerge only on the negative target; ②comparing the intensity of specific exemplar effects on the positive target with that of negative target, it reveals that the positive exemplar shows greater effect on the negative target, but the effects of negative exemplar is not significant. And “relation effect”could dilute the effects of exemplar activation Related Articles | Metrics

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A CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PERSONALITY: USING DIFFERENTIAL ITEM FUNCTIONING OF IRT Cao Yiwei 2003, 35 (01):  120-126.  Abstract ( 2387 )   Item response theory graded model was used to study Differential Item Function (DIF) between Chinese and Japanese samples on a measure of “environment sensitivity”, which is a subscale of Shiba’s simple personality inventory. Several issues were addressed. The first issue was that proportion of DIF items is rather larger (3/4) on the scale. Second, the DIF items were affected by item content and thresholds, but was not affected by the item discrimination. Third, the Japanese multiple IRFs of the DIF items were more similar than Chinese. It is proposed that identifying cultural differences by using the DIF items. Finally, a topic for future research was suggested Related Articles | Metrics

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PROCESSES AND PRELIMINARY RESULTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE CHINESE PERSONALITY SCALE（QZPS） Wang Dengfeng,Cui Hong 2003, 35 (01):  127-136.  Abstract ( 5321 )   This research aimed at constructing a generalized scale measuring Chinese personality structure. The hang-ups and potential disservices of directly applying Western Scales to Chinese subjects were firstly clarified. According to systematic research on Chinese personality adjectives under the “lexical hypothesis” of personality research, the Chinese Personality structure was established by Yang & Wang (1999) and confirmed in recent researches, The Chinese Personality Scale （QZPS）was constructed under this clearly defined theory on Chinese personality. More than 1600 items were written from describing the characteristics of each personality adjective and were rated by over 2000 subjects in four separated questionnaires, 409 items were selected. Then, more than 1000 subjects rated each item and analysis indicated that QZPS was consisted of 215 items, measuring Chinese personality with seven dimensions and eighteen secondary factors. The seven dimensions was described as: (1) extroversion, (2) good-heartedness, (3) emotionality ,(4) talent, (5) interpersonal relations, (6) diligence, and (7) honesty Related Articles | Metrics

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RESEARCH PROGRESS IN CONDITIONED IMMUNOENHANCEMENT Huang Jingxin, Lin Wenjuan, Chen Jihuan 2003, 35 (01):  137-142.  Abstract ( 1953 )   This paper reviewed recent research on conditioned immunoenhancement. It also introduced some immune stimuli, observed indexes and experimental procedures in conditioned immunoenhancement paradigm。Functions in immunoenhancement process of some brain area such as hypothalamus, insular cortex, nervous pathway such as sympathetic and vagus nerve and neuroendocrine hormone such as β-endorphin, interferon and interleukin-1 are discussed Related Articles | Metrics