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25 February 2001, Volume 33 Issue 01 Previous Issue    Next Issue

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THE TIME COURSE OF GRAPHIC, PHONOLOGICAL AND SEMANTIC INFORMATION PROCESSING IN CHINESE CHARACTER RECOGNITION(Ⅰ) Chen Baoguo , Peng Danling (Department of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875) 2001, 33 (01):  1-6.  Abstract ( 1573 )   The time course of graphic, phonological and semantic activation during highfreq uency Chinese character recognition was investigated in two priming-category jud gement tasks based individually on semantic, phonological information. The two e xperiments showed that the order of accessing lexical information of highfrequen cy Chinese characters is (1) graphic, (2) semantic, (3) phonological. The result s suggested the meaning of high-frequency Chinese characters can be accessed dir ectly by the activation of graphic information. Phonology may be activated autom atically, but it may take place after the access of character meaning. Related Articles | Metrics

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STUDY OF ON-LINE PROCESSING OF CHINESE SENTENCE Shi Dongfang (College of Information Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875) Shu Hua , Zhang Houcan (Department of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875) 2001, 33 (01):  7-12.  Abstract ( 981 )   Sentence comprehension is a much studied topic in modern cognitive psychology. It is very important to understand the psycholinguistic mechanisms underlying sentence comprehension in Chinese, a language without inflections. Because the lexical information of verb form a “Main Frame” of a sentence, more recent English studies are concerned more with the immediate effect of verb information in sentence comprehension, but such study in Chinese is scarce. Many English studies found that verb information such as verb selectional restrictions, argument structures, etc. emit an immediate effect on certain response tasks while reading or listening to sentences. These studies led to setting up the Lexical Driven Model of sentence comprehension. In the present study, the relationship of Chinese transitive verbs and the nouns／adjectives just following verbs was manipulated to form continuity／uncontinuity sentences, in order to study the immediate effect of Chinese verb lexical information, such as selectional restrictions, during the process of Chinese sentence comprehension. Cross-modal repetition priming lexical decision paradigm and eye tracking technology were used in two experiments. In the first experiment, a significant longer response time to target noun was found due to the mismatch of verb and noun. For verb-adjective sentences, different continuity also led to significant different response time to target adjectives. In the second experiment, obviously continuity effect was found in both noun and adjective cases. All the results showed that lexical information such as verb selectional restrictions attend Chinese sentence processing as soon as activated and accessed, instead of using category information only at the very beginning, thus supporting the Lexical Driven Model. The present study proved that the integration of Chinese is carried out during reading or listening in incremental fashion. When difficulties or exceptions are encountered, all sorts of available information including lexical information were used to make a transient decision without disrupting Chinese sentence processing. The present study also showed that the modality of immediate effect that Chinese verb information issue is influenced to some extend by the sentence presentation method and experiment task. Related Articles | Metrics

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RE-VERIFICATION OF THE MECHANISM OF FEELING-OF-KNOWING Han Kai , Shen Dawei, Li Bo (Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871) 2001, 33 (01):  13-16.  Abstract ( 1111 )   Based on previous studies, in this experiment, two hypothesis about the mech anism of Feeling-of-knowing(FOK)-the cue familiarity hypothesis and the target memorability hypothesis (or retrievability hypothesis) were re-verified. Th e design of this experiment was 2×3 within-group design. The two factors were l evels of materials (meaningful and meaningless associated Chinese word-pairs), a nd three types of connections of the word-pairs: (1) A-B A-B; (2) A-D A-B; (3) C-B . The participants were undergraduates of Peking University, 10 men and 10 women, their age ranged from 18-22. The program of experiment was made in Visua l Basic, and the experiment was conducted on 586 computer. The materials were a list of 132 pairs of two-syllable Chinese word-pairs. 60 pairs were in the first half and 60 pair s in the second, 6 pairs were used for exercise, 6 pairs as buffers. The materia ls were presented to subjects in a random order that maintained the first-half-s econd-half distinction. The procedure included four phases: (1) Word-pairs learn ing, subjects were instructed to learn a list of pairs of items, and were told t hat after learning when later presented with the left item, they could recall th e right ones. (2) Cued recall, Subjects were given the cue items and asked to wr ite down the target words. (3) FOK judgment: all the cues were presented randoml y, subjects were asked to make a FOK judgment on a scale from 1 to 10. (4) Force d-choice recognition tests: six alternatives were used, the target was one of th e alternatives and was placed in a random position with respect to the other opt ions.The subjects’ choices and reaction time were recorded by computer. The ran king of the magnitude of FOK judgments was higher when cues were repeated than w hen not repeated. The subjects’ recall performance of the meaningful word-pairs was higher than the meaningless ones. This indicated that the memorial strength of the targets were significantly different between two types of materials. Thi s difference determined the magnitude of FOK judgments. The magnitude of FOK jud gment for the meaningful word-pairs was significantly higher than the meaningles s ones. This experiment favors the point that the magnitude of FOK judgment was determined by both cue familiarity and target memorability, which are not absolu tely against each other. But to significantly influence the rank of FOK judgment , the intensity of the two factors must at least reach a certain degree. Related Articles | Metrics

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THE EFFECT OF DIVIDING ATTENTION ON FALSE RECOGNITION He Haiying ,Zhang Jian ,Zhu Ying (Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871) 2001, 33 (01):  17-23.  Abstract ( 1551 )   Using DRM paradigm, two experiments to investigate the effect of dividing attent ion during the study phase on later false recognition was conducted. If organiza tional strategies during the study phase are contributing to relational memory i llusion, it would be expected that dividing attention during the study phase wou ld diminish false recognition. In experiment 1, two digits that were presented o n both sides of the word synchronously to control two levels of attention were u sed. In experiment 2, three digits that showed around the word sequentially were used to control three levels of attention. Remember/Know procedure was conducte d in both experiments, and experiment 2 involved feeling evaluation of remember response after R/K judgment. The result revealed that with attenuating of attent ion level, accurate recognition of studied items were significantly diminished, owning to remarkable dropping of remember response, but false recognition of cri ticallurediminished slightly.Remember/Know procedure showed accurate and false r ecognition had similar R pattern, but different K pattern. Accurate recognition contained richer sensory and perceptual detail than did false recognition. Related Articles | Metrics

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TIME CHARACTER OF RELATIVE LOCATION EFFECT IN SEARCHING IMAGINED ENVIRONMENT Mou Weimin ,Zhang Kan, Guo Sumei (Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101) 2001, 33 (01):  24-29.  Abstract ( 963 )   Franklin and Tversky (1990) reported that people accessed different directions according to the pattern as left = right = front Related Articles | Metrics

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THE COGNITION ON NUMBER WITH STRATEGIES IN PRESCHOOLERS Fang Ge, Tian Xuehong, Bi Hongyan (Institute of Psyvcholgy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101) 2001, 33 (01):  30-36.  Abstract ( 1187 )   The purpose of the study was to investigate how preschoolers developmentally understood the cardinal number, ordinal number, solving word problems and develo ping counting abilities by using various strategies, specially focused on the fo llowing questions: (1) How the variable of the tasks has effect on the cognition of number concept and counting ability; (2) The relationship and developmental sequence of the cardinal number and ordinal number; (3) The cognitive strategies used actively by the children in the performances. The subjects consisted of 92 children randomly selected from kindergartens i n the Beijing area with four groups aged 4, 5 and 6, half boys and half girls in each group. The tests were carried out individually. The methodology of the stu dy was characterized by qualitative and quantitative analyses. The results showed that: (1) The levels of understanding number concepts, cou nting abilities including solving word problems developed increasingly with age, however the accelerate rates of the development varied with the tasks tested; ( 2) The development of cognition on cardinal number and ordinal number was not sy nchronous at the age of 4 and 5, that is, the performances of the cardinal numbe r had an advantage over the ones of ordinal number, but the performances of both went to convergence at age 6; (3) The levels of strategies manifested in workin g out a solution for the tasks developed increasingly with age. This trend also showed a parallel developmental process in which the intellectual activities wit h extrinsic count by fingers or verbal numeration were gradually internalized in to the intrinsic intellectual operations in the mind. The results will be of benefit to the training program for promoting number ability in preschoolers. Related Articles | Metrics

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ATTRIBUTION THEORY OF RESPONSIBILITY ON LEARNING BEHAVIOR IN COLLEGE STUDENTS Lin Zhongmin (Institute of Higher Education Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005) 2001, 33 (01):  37-42.  Abstract ( 1242 )   s: This research inquired into the correlation and characteristics between cognition, judgments of responsibility, affection, and helping behavior on the perceived controllability of learning behavior, in order to verify the applicability of the attribution theory concerning responsibility in Chinese college students. It also investigated into the influences of antecedents other than control and affects that lead most of the students to help their classmates. The basic experiment of our research accorded with Bernard Weiner. Since the results of our former research were not thoroughly consistent with the results of American students, one group of open杄nded questions was added in experiment 1, and three groups of variables (learning as a duty, borrowing class notes continually, and special causes as antecedents) were added in experiment 2. In total, 382 university students participated separately in these two experiments. Results and discussion: The mean judgments of the basic variables in the two different control conditions of the two experiments revealed significant differences, the students could treat the two conditions distinctively. The judgments of the variables in the uncontrollable condition were entirely consistent with the model of the attribution theory, while the judgments of the variables in the controllable condition were not fully consistent with it. The students judged the grade of anger lower than the grade of lending, most of the students were inclined to lend their class notes. However, the significant correlations between controllability and responsibility in the controllable condition indicated that the level of the controllability was the main cause of the judgments of responsibility, though they influenced the behavior indirectly through the medium of affects at times. All of the judgments of lending class notes in the controllable conditions of the two experiments were higher than the medium. Especially, the results of the judgments of special causes showed that the ideological tendency moderated the ratings of anger, the responsibility of skipping class, and raised the level of lending behavior. As compared with the model 5 of helping behavior of Bernard Weiner, there is a direct path from the stimulus to helping, which might be accompanied with ideological effects (antecedents). Therefore, we perceived in as an additional remark of helping behavior Model 5. Concerning the theory and models, they are applicable to Chinese university students if only considering the antecedents. Related Articles | Metrics

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THE EFFECT OF EMOTIONAL STRESS ON THE PRIMARY HUMORAL IMMUNITY OF RATS: INTERACTION WITH THE SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM Shao Feng , Lin Wenjuan, Wang Weiwen (Brain-Behavior Research center, Institute of Psychology, Chinese, Academy of Sc iences, Beijing 100101) 2001, 33 (01):  43-47.  Abstract ( 1171 )   The effect of exposure to emotional stress on the primary humoral immune fun ction(antiovallum antibody level and spleen index), the endocrine response (cort icosterone level, epinephrine and norepinephrine levels), the behavioral changes (exploring, grooming and attacking behavior) was studied in adult male Wistar r ats. Emotional stress was induced by randomly giving empty water bottles to rats trained to drink water at two set times each day. Emotional stress were given 1 4 times, ten minutes per each time during experimental period. Results showed th at firstly, empty water bottles induced significant attacking behavior (biting t he empty water bottle and cage shed) in rats of emotional stress group, secondly emotional stress decreased the weight of the spleen and the level of specific a nti-OVA IgG antibody and increased the levels of epinephrine, norepinephrine and corticosterone. A negative correlation between antibody levels and level of nor epinephrine was also found. Together with the previous work in our laboratory, t he results demonstrated that emotional stress suppressed the specific primary hu moral immunity of rats. The sympathetic nervous system may be involved in this immunomodulation. Related Articles | Metrics

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LEFT PREFRONTAL LOBE CONTRIBUTED TO SEMANTIC ENCODING OF UNRELATED WORD PAIRS: A NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY STUDY Yang Jiongjiong, Zeng Shaoqun, Luo Qingming3, Guan Linchu, Kuang Peizi Gong Hui, Britton Chance ( Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101) ( Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871) ( Institute for Biome 2001, 33 (01):  48-54.  Abstract ( 1503 )   In addition to positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resona nce imaging (fMRI) that can measure brain function in vivo, near-infrared spectr oscopy (NIRS) is being used in various fields of neuroscience. In the near-infra red region, light with wavelength of 760nm and 850nm have different characterist ics of absorbing two different states of hemoglobin (Hb), the oxyhemoglobin(O2Hb) and deoxyhemoglobin (HHb). The relative metabolic changes of O2Hb, HHb an d the total of them, the blood volume within the measured regions, can be detect ed. This study explored the feasibility of NIRS in detecting higher brain functi on, by investigating the role of the left prefrontal lobe in semantically encodi ng unrelated word pairs. The subjects studied unrelated word pairs that were vis ually presented under both semantic and shallow conditions. In semantic (or deep ) task, subjects were asked to form a sentence including the two words, while in perceptual (or shallow) task, they were asked to judge whether the two words ha d the same orthographic structures. Optical imager measured the relative changes of 760nm and 850nm absorption when the continuous light diffused through the le ft prefrontal lobe during the encoding tasks. In terms of intensity change, the regional blood volume change could be measured. Finally, subjects performed the recognition task. The results showed that recognition performance was better in semantic task than that in the perceptual task. Correspondingly, t he blood volume of the left prefrontal lobe, especially the dorsal part, increas ed in the semantic task as compared with the perceptual task. The proportion of the activated subjects out of the total subjects was higher in regions C and D t han in regions A and B. It demonstrated that the left prefrontal lobe contribute d to semantic encoding of unrelated word pairs. The present research also sugges ted that NIRS can be used to measure higher brain function non-invasively, for e xample, memory process. Related Articles | Metrics

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STUDY ON THE DIMENSIONALITY OF THE COPING INVENTORY(COPE) Zhang Weidong (Department of Psychology, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062) 2001, 33 (01):  55-62.  Abstract ( 1384 )   Several preliminary studies focused on the adaptation of the coping inventory (C OPE) developed by C.S.Carver, et al to assess the coping behavior of Chinese col lege students. However, there existed the problem of inconsistency in factor str ucture among the instrument versions in source and target languages,and the revi sed Chinese version (C-COPE) was consequently reported. The current study was to further examine the dimensionality of COPE and C-COPE. In study 1, second-order exploratory factor analysis was conducted to explore the hierarchical dimension ality of C-COPE on the data collected in the sample of 736 college students, and derived a model which was subsequently tested. In study 2, ten priori models we re assumed on the basis of previous researches, among which two models of fourteen first-or der factors and four models of four second-order factors were derived from the C OPE inventory, two models of eight first-order factors and two models of three second-order factors were derived from the C-COPE inventory. With the LISREL VIII , the confirmatory factor analysis was completed to test the goodness-of-fit of these models to the assessment data from another sample of college students (N＝ 465). As the multiple indexes (i.e. chi-squire, GFI, AGFI, RMR, NFI, NNFI, CFI, IFI) and the significant difference of chi-squire between nested models indicate d, the result supported the oblique first-order-factor model of the C-COPE asses sing the eight coping dimensions (i.e. seeking social support, active control and planning, accumulation of mental resources, positive appraisal, focus on and venting of emotions, denial and mental disengagement, superstition coping, helplessness reaction). The hierarchical dimensionality of both COPE and C-COPE was not confirmed because of the instability of second-order factor structures across assessments in different samples. The conclusion drawn from the empirical evidence as well as theoretical analysis in this study was that there did exist construct inequivalence in cross-cultural assessment of coping by the COPE inventory and therefore adaptation approach instead of application of this instrument should be adopted, and that the multidimensional model of C-COPE was more suitable for assessing coping behaviors people adopted in Chinese society. The construct bias as well as item bias was analyzed in detail. The approach of improving the psychometric properties of C-COPE was also discussed. Related Articles | Metrics

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THE ANALYSIS OF THE STRUCTURE FOR SELF-EFFICACY OF INSURANCE SALESMEN Ling Wenquan (Institute of Human Resource Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632) Zhang Dingkun (College of Economic and Management, Qinghua University, Beijing 100084) Fang Liluo (Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100 2001, 33 (01):  63-67.  Abstract ( 1512 )   This research explored the intra-structure of the self-efficacy of insurance salesmen by the exploratory factor analysis and the confirmatory factor analysi s on the basis of theoretical analysis, interview and questionnaire surveying. T he results showed that self-efficacy of insurance salesmen in China consists of eight factors which are: Factor 1: Interview skills. In the conversation the sal esmen can self-supervise whenever necessary, adjusting one’s way of talking and contents promptly; can read the thought of customers and then continue or stop the conversation. Factor 2: Manner. The salesmen have to be suited to the occasi on, keep good appearance, fine and steady conversation, style, and glamorous and appealing temperament and so on. Factor 3: Persistence. The salesmen have to vi sit the customer on the original schedule even though it is windy and raining or they are weary in body and mind, or they suffer defeats continuously and so on. Factor 4: Control of emotion. The salesmen can adjust their mood while the cust omer refuses them or the customer is impervious to reason. The salesmen can adop t an optimistic attitude and so on. Factor 5: Master of knowledge. The salesmen learna lot of various knowledge about the insurance, can satisfactorily answer t he customer’s questions, make satisfying plan for the customers who want to mak e their insurance and so on. Factor 6: Plans and comments. The salesmen carry on their job and life according to the schedule. They have a clear quantity aim, w hich they have to achieve every month and every season and so on. Factor 7: Prep aration. Before the formal interview with an important customer, the salesmen al ready grasp the customer’s various information and have the image of the custom er and so on. Factor 8: Intuition and judgment. While the salesmen face new cust omers they can very quickly gain a clear idea of the customer’s social status, income situation, educational level, interest and so on. The Scale of Sefl-effic acy of Insurance Salesmen was made according to the principles and methods of ps ychological surveying. The insurance salesmen have to estimate their diathesis o f insurance sales by these eight factors. Related Articles | Metrics

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THE BIASED INFORMATION SAMPLING IN GROUP DECISION MAKING Zheng Quanquan ,Zhu Huayan, Hu Lingyan, Wu Changxu ,Ding Yuefeing (Department of Psychology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310028) 2001, 33 (01):  68-74.  Abstract ( 1482 )   It is commonly known that the benefit of decision-making group could pool me mbers’ partial information. The groups could compose an unbiased recognition of the decision alternatives and then make the best decision. However, the biased sampling model of group discussion suggested that group members often fail to ef fectively pool their information because of two kinds of tendencies: (1) Informa tion that members held in common before discussion and (2) information that supp orted members’existing preferences. This study tested the above hypotheses of t he model by a simulation in laboratory experiments of selection of candidates fo r student body president and then met in 4-person groups to decide which candida te was best suited for the position. 180 Zhejiang University undergraduates part icipated in these experiments under 3 conditions. Assignment to experimental con dition and to decision-making groups within conditions was random. There were 60 subjects of 15 groups in each of the shared, unshared／consensus and unshared／ conflict conditions. Their preference and information about each candidate they could remember in pre-and post-discussion were measured on questionnaires, which were compared by several methods. The results showed: most of the groups decide d in favor of the candidate initially preferred by most of the members rather th an the most favorable candidates. The data of group members’ pre-and post-discu ssion recall of candidate attributes indicated that discussion tended to perpetu ate, not to correct members’ distorted pictures of the candidates. The results confirmed the hypotheses of the biased sampling model of group discussion propos ed by Stasser and Larson. In order to improve the efficiency of pooling informat ion in group decision-making, some measures, such as giving group decision train ing in advance, were also suggested by this study. Related Articles | Metrics

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THE COMPONENT OF MULTI-DIMENSIONAL CRITERIA Zhou Zhihong ,Wang Erping (Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101) 2001, 33 (01):  75-81.  Abstract ( 1073 )   A criterion is a sample of performance (including behavior and outcomes), me asured directly or indirectly, perceived to be of value to organizational consti tuencies for facilitating decisions about predictors or programs. Overviewing pr ecursors′ researches about criteria, one conclusion can be drawn that when crit eria are used, we should use multiple criteria. According to this, we put forwar d two hypotheses: (1) Every criterion can’t correlate with all work behaviors. (2) Not only judgemental measurement criteria, but also nonjudgemental measureme nt criteria should be used in performance appraisal. Using critical incident tec hnique, we analysed salesperson’s job in the machinary factory, collected a ser ies of anecdotes of job behavior (collected from supervisors and salespersons) t hat described especially good or especially poor job performance, and sumed up r elative work behavior samples. Organizing these sale behavior samples and other behavior samples, we developed a self-rating forced-choice scale for salesperson ’s performance appraisal. After that, we collected six kinds of judgemental mea surement criteria and ten kinds of nonjudgemental measurement criteria. Judging the correlation between judgemental measurement criteria, nonjudgemental measure ment criteria and behaviors in forced-choice scale, and selecting criteria and w ork behavior samples, we found that all criteria were correlated with at least o ne work behavior sample and those work behavior samples which significantly corr elated with every criterion were not the same as one another. So it verified the hypothesis (1) We also found that only four work behavior samples were correlat ed with judgemental measurement criteria and nonjudgemental measurement criteria . Other work behavior samples either correlated with judgemental measurement criteria or nonjudgemental measurement criteria. So hypo thesis (2) also was verified. Moreover, the factor analysis of judgemental measu rement criteria and nonjudgemental measurement criteria also verified the hypoth esis 2. Related Articles | Metrics

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THEORY OF DESIRES AND EMOTIONS IN PRE-QIN PERIOD Guo Yongyu (Department of Psychology, Huazhong Normal University, Wuhan 430079) 2001, 33 (01):  82-87.  Abstract ( 1408 )   This paper explored the theories about desires and emotions in pre-Qin perio d which is a phase of ancient Chinese psychological history. There were four asp ects about the subject: desires, emotions, theirrelationship, the theorists’ at titudes to desires and emotions of human beings. The paper involved the theorist s such as Confucius, Mencius, Xun Zi, Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi, Mo Zi, Han Fei Zi, and so on. Also the paper discussed the theorists’ contribution to modern psycholog y and the value to modern human being. The scholars of the pre-Qin period shared nearly the same opinion of the nat ure and the varieties of desires. They treated desires from the point of human n ature and classified it into several basic categories. Those desires for food an d clothes were regarded as primary ones. In the discussions about emotions by th e pre-Qin scholars, several points should be paid special attention to: emotions and desires are not separable; man has several basic emotions such as pleasure, anger, sorrow and enjoyment;emotions find outlets in expressions, facial or voc al; it was nice for people to be sincere and to treat others with universal love , pities and sympathy. No systematic theories about the relationship between des ires and emotions can be found, but we may conclude that the emphasis of the pre decessors’ argument was “which was the basis on which the other was produced”. Some scholars such as Xun Zi insisted that inherent nature was the most essential, while the majority took the opposite stand. In this argument, Mencius had a surprisingly radical viewpoint of filial piety, which is in fact a reflection of the subconscious wish of being forever in one’s childhood. He t hought that even though all the desires for music, color, wealth and honor were satisfied, it was still impossible to relieve one’s anxiety, which,according to him, could only be relieved by filial piety to one’s parents. Referring to the treatment of desires and emotions, the pre-Qin scholars mostly agreed to check them. Generally speaking, the viewpoints possessed by Confucius and Xun Zi are r ational and practical, whereas the spiritual freedom by Zhuang Zi, the sentiment s of a savior by Mo Zi, and the heroic personality by Mencius are beyond the rea ch of the common. Lao Zi and Han Fei Zi stood for non-desire and check of the ma ss’ desires, which can be viewed as a conservative thought of politics in the t ime of extremely low productivity. Related Articles | Metrics

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PERCEPTUAL UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSING OF THE BRAIN Ke Xue ,Sui Nan (Institute of Psychology, CAS, Beijing 100101) Shen Deli (Psychology and Behaviour Research Center, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 30 0074) 2001, 33 (01):  88-93.  Abstract ( 1217 )   Consciousness has become a challenging question in life sciences. The viewpo int that consciousness is the processing of information at various levels of awareness is being widely accepted. It is inevitable to deal with unconscious or automatic p rocessing for explicating consciousness. The main concern is how consciousness i s converted into unconsciousness, how unconsciousness is done into consciousness , and the potential brain mechanisms of the conversion, including involvements o f anatomical and functional structure, synaptic connections in the neural networ ks and so on. The study of unconsciousness is of great benefit to untie the myst ery of consciousness that has been coming into focus by contemporary neuroscienc e. Recent progress of the study on the mechanisms of unconscious processing was reviewed from the points of cognitive neuroscience at different levels: the cogn itive profile of unconsciousness, the correlation between unconsciousness and br ain structures, and the interplay of synaptic connections. Contemporary research in cognitive psychology revealed that unconscious processing could even reach s emantic level, including unconscious processing of image, character and figure. In addition, unconscious processing was different from conscious processing in n ature and was distributed widely across the processing system of the brain, rath er than localized in any particular unit. Recently, cognitive neuroscience has g ot lots of findings on perceptual unconscious processing with functional magneti c resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), electroencephalo gram (EEG) etc. Various regions of the brain were involved in perceptual unconsc ious processing. Both the higher-and lower-order cortical areas had computation al power to make inferences about specific features of complex objects. The mech anism of synchronous neural activation of cortex was likely to bind together var ious features that belonged to each object and separate them from features of ot her objects. Evidence from neural networks and synapse also indicated that synch ronous neural activation of the cortex was an important mechanism of information processing. Finally, some potential perspectives of how to study unconsciousnes s and consciousness in cognitive neuroscience were presented. Related Articles | Metrics