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The Conceptual Structure of Kinship Words of the Moso XIAO Er-Ping,ZHANG Ji-Jia,WANG Juan,LIN Na 2010, 42 (10):  955-969.  Abstract ( 1432 )   The kinship of the Moso is one hot topic in the field of anthropology, ethnology, culturology and psychology in recent years. The Moso is a matriarchal ethnic group living in the border of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. From the perspective of cognitive psychology, the present study intends to explore the conceptual structure of kinship words of the Moso by comparison with that of Han and Naxi nationalities. Two experiments were conducted using the methods of natural classifying and multi-dimensional scale. In Experiment I, 109 Moso people (56 males and 53 females) with an average age of 18.12 and at least junior high school education were recruited. Participants were instructed to sort 62 kinship words in Chinese characters into groups based on their own standards. In Experiment II, another 105 Moso people (55males and 50 females) with an average age of 22.75 and similar education background were tested in the same way as Experiment I but with different materials, which were 27 basic kinship terms transliterated from local language by He Fayuan (1995). The aim of experiment II was to replicate and verify the results of experiment I. The results demonstrated that there are two main dimensions in the conceptual structure of kinship words of the Moso. One is level of intimacy among the relatives, the other one is position in the family tree. Their conceptual structure shares some common features as that of Han and Naxi nationalities, but also has some unique traits. For example, mother’s brother is classified as one of the lineal relatives in Moso people. We speculate those differences are caused by the unique matriarchy and marriage systems of the Moso. We also notice that avunculate and patriarchy are changing in modern Moso societies. In traditional Moso families, mother’s brother holds the greatest place in relatives, while father is not even an essential member of the family. In modern Moso families, though mother’s brother is still the most important member of the family, father is gradually becoming a necessary part of the family and plays an increasingly prominent role. Finally, the present study challenges the view that the Moso is a living fossil of matriarchal society. Matriarchy in the Moso society is not only the product of a particular period of history, but also the active and ongoing choice for survival and maintenance of Moso culture. Related Articles | Metrics

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Retinal Eccentricity Affects Visual Spatial Attention Gradient Huang Ze-Jun,Qian Xiu-Ying 2010, 42 (10):  970-980.  Abstract ( 1162 )   The distribution of spatial attention in visual field has been one of the most interesting topics in visual studies. However to date it remains controversial due to different paradigms used and many confounding factors involved. One such factor, the retinal eccentricity, can potentially spatial attention but has been largely overlook in previous reports. In the current study we aimed to investigate whether and how retinal eccentricity affects gradient distribution of visual spatial attention using Scharlau’s paradigm. In Experiment 1, the participants were presented with two target stimuli with different stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), and were asked to make untimed simultaneous judgment (SJ). Two target stimuli were separated at 6.4° or 3.2° distribution of retina. In addition, two conditions were set for the fixation point and attentional point, including an overlapping condition where two points overlapped and a separate condition where the attentional point was covertly pulled away from the fixation point by a peripheral exogenous cue. To avoid occurrence of response bias, the cue was backward-masked by the following target. The points of subjective simultaneous (PSS) across each conditions and distances were compared. The results showed that only PSS in the separate condition with long distances apartment between two points was significantly different with 0 ms. In order to prevent apparent movement which might confound the results of Experiment 1, the two target stimuli were assigned different topological structures in the Experiment 2, which confirmed that there was no significant difference of the subjective brightness between two stimuli. A follow-up study Experiment 3 replicated the procedure of Experiment 1 with the following modifications: the two target stimuli were topologically different; the contrast degree was reduced; and four dots were converged to the center cross before each trial to ensure the subjects focused their attentions on the center. The result showed that a distance effect was found only under the overlapping condition but not the separate condition, indicating that the gradient distribution of visual spatial attention was affected by retinal eccentricity. To sum up, the present study demonstrates that retinal eccentricity affects the gradient distribution of visual attention. Current findings also provide further evidences to support the “two attentional gradients theory” which argues for an inhibition gradient centered at the fixation point and an excitation gradient centered at the cued location in the visual field. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Modulation of Intentional Control on Automatic Inhibition in Cognitive Aging LIU Pan,XIE Ning,WU Yan-Hong 2010, 42 (10):  981-987.  Abstract ( 1266 )   Cognitive aging is an unavoidable phenomenon for human beings. Various theories have been proposed to clarify the mechanism underlying cognitive aging, such as Processing Speed Theory (Salthouse, 1985, 1996), Decline in Inhibition Theory (Hasher & Zacks, 1988) and Working Memory Theory (Swanson, 1999), which attribute the age-related decline of cognitive ability to descended processing speed, reduced efficiency of inhibitory control and decreased working memory capacity, respectively. Additionally, Executive Decline Hypothesis, which was proposed recently (Li & Chen, 2006), argues that the age-related decline of executive functioning is the main reason of cognitive aging. Meanwhile, previous research with young adults as participants has demonstrated that, although location-based inhibition of return (IOR) remains unaffected in cognitive aging and is regarded as a type of automatic inhibitory ability, it can be modulated by top-down intentional cognitive control. Nevertheless, whether this modulation is affected in cognitive aging remains an open question. Therefore, the present research aims to investigate this question by combining the proportion control method and the location-based IOR paradigm with both young and old adults as participants. A detection task was adopted for this purpose. In this task, a target (a white spot) appeared in either the left or the right white square on a gray background on a computer screen and participants were asked to detect the stimulus as quickly as possible by pressing the space bar. Each time before the target was shown, one of the two squares flashed up, which was defined as a cue indicating the location of the coming target. The whole experiment was divided into two sessions, in which the validity proportion of the location cue was 50% and 80% respectively. Participants were informed of the validity proportion before each session. Sixteen old adults (mean age = 64.4 years old) and sixteen college students (mean age = 22.4 years old) were recruited for the experiment. Analysis of variance on reaction time showed that when the validity proportion was set at 50%, both young and older adults showed typical location-based IOR effects and no significant difference in the effect size was found between the two groups (older adults: IOR = 20.7ms vs. young adults: IOR = 16.2ms); however, when the proportion of valid cue was increased to 80%, IOR effects declined by different extents in the two groups. A reversed IOR effect (IOR = -31.8ms) was found in young adults while the IOR effect disappeared in old adults (IOR = 3.1ms, p > 0.1). When the proportion of valid cue was set to a baseline level (50%), participants were unable to predict the target location effectively. Thus, the identical effect size of IOR in the two groups implies that the location-based IOR as an automatic inhibition remains unaffected in cognitive aging. However, when the proportion of valid cue was increased to 80%, participants were more likely to attend to the cued location, suggesting a top-down cognitive control on attention. Thus, the declined IOR effect demonstrates that the automatic inhibition of return is modulated by intentional control. This finding is also consistent with that of previous research (e.g. Zhang & Chen, 2002b, 2004). More importantly, the amount of modulation in the old adults is significantly smaller than that of the young adults, indicating that the modulation of intentional control on automatic inhibition diminished during cognitive aging, which supports the Executive Decline Hypothesis (Raz, 2000; West, 1996). Related Articles | Metrics

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Adolescents’ Internet Morality and Deviant Behavior Online MA Xiao-Hui,LEI Li 2010, 42 (10):  988-997.  Abstract ( 3245 )   Nowadays, the Internet has become an indispensable part of people’s lives. Internet morality and ethics are becoming more and more an area of concern. Adolescents have become the biggest Internet user groups in China. When adolescents use the Internet, they engage in various kinds of deviant behaviors which have been of concern by to many researchers. But how adolescents’ morality influence their deviant behavior constitutes a hitherto unstudied issue. The relationship between deviant online behaviors by adolescents and their moral performance deserves much more attention. The present study investigates adolescents’ morality on the Internet, their Internet deviance, and the relation between Internet moral cognition, moral emotion, moral intention, and deviant behavior online. 496 adolescents from three provincial middle schools were asked to complete an Adolescent Internet Morality Questionnaire, and a Scale of Adolescent Internet Deviance, which assessed their Internet moral performance and deviant behavior online. The results indicated that (1) adolescents’ morality towards Internet was positive, and the correlation between moral cognition, emotion and intention was positive; adolescents considered there should be some moral standards as principles of behaviors for Internet users, they disliked immoral actions in Internet Society, and they had positive intention online; (2) adolescents’ deviant behavior on the Internet was not serious. However, the frequency of inflammatory and pornographic behaviors in boys online was significantly higher than that in girls. As the adolescents grew older, there was a reduction in inflammatory behaviors, including hostility, aggression, conflict and irritability; (3) Internet moral intention and cognition could significantly and negatively predict adolescents’ deviance on the Internet. However, Internet emotion could not predict their deviance online. The results show that the adolescents Internet morality can predict moral behavior online: if adolescents maintain a more positive morality, they will engage in less deviant behavior online. This study indicates that in order to reduce adolescents’ deviant behavior on the Internet, we should pay more attention to their moral education and to characteristics of age and gender. Related Articles | Metrics

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How Do Ambivalent Consumers Interpret Diversified Word-of-Mouth Information? HUANG Min-Xue,XIE Ting-Ting,FENG Xiao-Liang 2010, 42 (10):  998-1010.  Abstract ( 1608 )   Ambivalent attitude is a widespread phenomenon. However, it is seldom studied in the field of consumer behavior. Ambivalent consumers generally need extra input to reduce decision conflict. Widespread use of Internet facilitates consumers’ access to word-of-mouth of a mass of people. However, online word-of-mouth on a particular target is highly diversified and contains both positive and negative attitudes due to anonymity and freedom of the Internet. We explore how consumers with attitudinal ambivalence cope with external diversified word-of-mouth information. Recent research in marketing clarified that attitudinal ambivalence is characterized by subjective discomfort because its structure is inherently unstable. In line with cognitive dissonance theory, people may be motivated to resolve the conflicting evaluations they hold. Specifically, highly ambivalent consumers, holding high positive attitude and high negative attitude simultaneously, are motivated to reduce ambivalence-induced discomfort and uncertainty. Hence, they tend to selectively pay attention to the positive attitude, and change their attitudes accordingly. This is based on the idea that consumers have positive purchase intention and positive attitude is more capable of reducing ambivalence. On the other hand, less ambivalent consumers holding high positive attitude but low negative attitude, need to acknowledge potential post-buying risks rather than reduce ambivalence. In this regard, they tend to process the negative attitude and become affected by it because negative attitude remains as potential risk. Meanwhile, if what consumers selectively pay attention to is in accord with attitude consensus, the impact will be escalated, whereas if they are discordant, consumers will ignore the attitude consensus. Based on a pretest on 60 college students, we chose Windows 7 (an upcoming operating system of Microsoft Corporation at the time of the experiment) as the attitude target. Positive-biased and the negative-biased base-rate information were designed (representing inconsistent word-of-mouth) as stimulus. A 2*2 field experiment where extent of consumer ambivalence can be high and low, and bias of base-rate information can be positive and negative was conducted to examine the influence of the external inconsistent attitudes on consumers’ attitudes. One hundred and fifty two college students participated in the two-stage experiment in exchange for 10 RMB as token fee. We measured participants’ attitude ambivalence toward Windows 7 following Thompson et al., and computed their score of ambivalence using the Griffin function. Subsequently, the participants were classified into either high or low ambivalence group. After a period of two weeks, participants randomly read a positive-biased vs. negative-biased base-rate message toward Windows 7. The positive and negative attitudes were again reported. The results proved that the extent of consumers’ attitudinal ambivalence robustly moderated their selective attention to external conflicting attitudes and ruled out the mitigation effect of social consensus on selective attention when the two are in discord. In order to generalize the experiment results, we also recruited 90 college students to repeat a similar study with 3G cell phone product as the attitude target. The results prove that our earlier findings are robust. This paper may contribute to extant literature in several ways. Firstly, it elaborates on the coping strategy consumers employ to process external diversified information. Secondly, it implies that companies should tolerate a certain amount of negative word-of-mouth simultaneously presented with the dominant positive word-of-mouth. Moreover, it also suggests that marketers can employ consumer ambivalence as a segmentation factor and formulate corresponding communication approach. Related Articles | Metrics

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A Polytomous Cognitive Diagnosis Model: P- DINA Model TU Dong-Bo,CAI Yan,DAI Hai-Qi,DING Shu-Liang 2010, 42 (10):  1011-1020.  Abstract ( 1968 )   Almost all of cognitive diagnosis models are only adaptive for dichotomous data, which can not satisfy the demands in real work and limit the application and development of cognitive diagnosis. In this paper the dichotomous DINA model was extended to polytomous model, called P-DINA model, and MCMC algorithm was employed to estimate its parameters. Monte Carlo method was used here to explore the feasibility of MCMC algorithm and to probe the estimated precision and the properties of P-DINA model. Three experiments were conducted. The former two experiments were performed under unstructured and structured attribute hierarchy with six cognitive attributes, 60 test items and 500 examinees. The target of these two experiments was to explore the feasibility of MCMC algorithm and the estimated precision of P-DINA model. The third experiment intended to study the properties of P-DINA model under unstructured attribute hierarchy with the number of cognitive attributes varying from 4 to 8. Simulation results showed that: (1) Under P-DINA model, the estimated method of MCMC algorithm held fairly robustness, and the precision of item and person parameters was preferably great. Furthermore, the estimated precision of item parameters was similar between both attribute hierarchies, while the estimated precision of person parameters (MMR and PRM) under structured attribute hierarchy was better than those under unstructured attribute hierarchy. It indicated that the P-DINA model was reasonable and feasible; (2) Under unstructured attribute hierarchy: the estimated precision of slipping parameter, s, and the attribute match ration (MMR & PMR) decreased with the increase of the number of attributes, while the estimate precision of guessing parameter, g, was on the contrary. In real application, if PMR was asked to be higher than 80%, then the number of cognitive attributes was suggested not greater than seven. Related Articles | Metrics