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The Effects of Emotions and Task Frames on Risk Preferences in Self Decision Making and Anticipating Others’ Decisions LIU Yong-Fang,BI Yu-Fang,WANG Huai-Yong 2010, 42 (03):  317-324.  Abstract ( 2073 )   Although many researchers explore the effects of decision process emotions and task frames on risk preferences in self decision making (e.g., Clore & Schwarz, 1983; Slovic, 2002; Mayer, Gaschke, Braverman & Evans, 1992; Loewenstein, Weber & Hsee, 2001; Isen & Patrick, 1983; Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), few researchers examine their impacts on risk preferences in anticipating others’ decisions (e.g., Hsee & Weber, 1997; Wallach & Wing, 1968)). In this study, two experiments are presented to compare the effects of emotions and task frames in self decision making and anticipating others’ decisions. Experiment 1 used two film clips as materials to induce 80 undergraduate subjects’ happiness or sadness emotions, then asked subjects to either make choices for themselves or anticipate others’ choices on a risk preference questionnaire including ten items. In experiment 2, task frame variables were introduced to examine the complex relations among emotions, the decision maker’ roles and task frames. The 96 undergraduate subjects were asked to either make choices for themselves or anticipate others’ choices on a risk preference questionnaire including seven items under happiness or sadness emotion, and gain or loss frame conditions. The results of the two experiments showed that (1) In gain frames, the sadness emotion produces stronger risk preferences than the happiness emotion, and making choices for themselves shows stronger risk preferences than anticipating others’ choices. (2) In loss frames, the happiness emotion produces stronger risk preferences than the sadness emotion, and anticipating others’ choices produces stronger risk preferences than making choices for themselves; (3) In making decisions for themselves, the happiness emotion produces stronger risk preferences under the loss frame than under the gain frame, but the sadness emotion produces stronger risk preferences under the gain frame than under the loss frame. In contrast, in anticipating others’ decisions, the loss frame always produces stronger risk preferences than the gain frame, regardless of happiness emotion or sadness emotion. These results do not concur with the general findings about framing effects (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) and self-other decision bias (Hsee & Weber, 1997; Wallach & Wing, 1968), and suggest that there are complicated interaction among emotions, task frames and the decision maker’ roles. Rather, the effects of emotions and task frames on risk preferences depend on the decision maker’ roles. Related Articles | Metrics

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Effects of Supra- and Sub-liminal Emotional Cues on Inhibition of Return DENG Xiao-Hong,ZHANG De-Xuan,HUANG Shi-Xue,YUAN Wen,ZHOU Xiao-Lin 2010, 42 (03):  325-333.  Abstract ( 1405 )   In the classical exogenous cue-target paradigm, when a target is presented in the same location as a cue within a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 250 ms or less, target detection is facilitated. However, when the SOA is extended to more than 250 ms, target detection is slowed at the cued location. This phenomenon is called inhibition of return (IOR). IOR is generally assumed to be an adaptive mechanism which enhances the chance of success or survival by maximizing the chance of detecting important information in visual search during human evolution. If so, the time course and/or magnitude of IOR may be affected by biological information of the cue. If a cue provides information relevant to individual’s survival, then attention may not be inhibited from reorienting to the cue. However, previous evidence concerning this issue is controversial. This study is to further examine whether IOR is modulated by emotional valences of face, which convey important biological and social information. We hypothesized that emotional information conveyed through supraliminally presented face cues may not differentially affect the IOR effect, because this information could be suppressed by the top-down control settings demanding no interference from emotion, whereas emotional information conveyed through subliminally presented face cues may affect pattern of the IOR effect, because this information is processed automatically and it escapes from top-down suppression. A total of 32 undergraduate students participated in Experiments 1 and 2, which manipulated the number of simultaneously cued locations. Faces with different emotional valences (happy, angry and neutral) were as uninformative peripheral cues, supraliminally in Experiment 1 and subliminally in Experiment 2, while the participants were instructed to make detection responses to the target, which was presented at one of the cued locations or at an uncued location, as quickly and accurately as possible. Experiment 1 obtained an overall IOR effect but the magnitude of this effect was not affected by the emotional valences of face cues. Experiment 2 obtained a significant IOR effect, but only for the neutral face cues. These findings are consistent with our hypothesis, suggesting that IOR can be modulated by the property of biologically important cues. The evolutionary significance of the IOR mechanism was discussed. Related Articles | Metrics

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Negative Emotion Interferes with Behavioral Inhibitory Control: An ERP Study XIN Yong,LI Hong,YUAN Jia-Jin 2010, 42 (03):  334-341.  Abstract ( 1974 )   Considerable studies have shown that emotional processes interact with behavioral inhibitory control (Shafritz, Collins, & Blumberg, 2006; Goldstein, et al., 2007). However, how visual induced emotion influences behavioral inhibitory control remains unknown. Specifically, whether emotion of different valences influences behavioral inhibitory control similarly or positive and negative emotions impact this control in different ways remains undetermined. Based on previous studies reporting different effects of positive and negative emotions on cognitive processes (Rowe, Hirsh and Anderson, 2007), the present study hypothesize that the inducement of negative emotion may impair behavioral control while that of positive emotion promotes the achievement of the control. Using a two-choice oddball task (standard vs. deviant ratio: 85%:15%) and event-related potential measures (ERPs), the present study investigated the effect of emotion on behavioral inhibitory control. ERPs were recorded for standard stimuli, positive, neutral and negative deviant stimuli while subjects classify deviant and standard stimuli by pressing different keys, irrespective of the emotionality of deviants. All stimuli were emotionally evocative scenes taken from Chinese Affective Picture System. Response times for negative deviant stimuli were longer than those for neutral and positive deviants. ERP data showed significant amplitude differences between deviant and standard conditions during 240-300ms and 350-550ms intervals, suggesting that the present task is valid in inducing processes of behavioral inhibitory control. In the deviant-standard difference ERPs that purely index effect of this control, there were pronounced deviant-related N2 and P3 components in 240-300ms and 350-550ms intervals respectively. The deviant-related N2 during negative condition was larger than that during neutral condition, while deviant-related P3 was less pronounced in response to negative stimuli than in response to neutral stimuli. In contrast, the N2 was smaller while the P3 was larger during positive versus neutral conditions. Additionally, the peak latencies of N2 and P3 components were delayed during negative compared to neutral conditions. To summarize, the present study demonstrated a significant influence of emotion valence on processes of behavioral inhibitory control in both behavioral and electrophysiological levels. Negative emotion impairs processes of the response conflict monitoring and subsequent behavioral inhibition, while positive emotion may promote these processes. Related Articles | Metrics

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An Event-related-potential Study of Emotional Processing in Adolescence GAO Pei-Xia,LIU Hui-Jun,DING Ni,GUO De-Jun 2010, 42 (03):  342-351.  Abstract ( 1400 )   Recent studies have shown emotional facilitation of sensory processing in the visual cortex and the late positive potential of the event-related-potential (ERP) is enhanced for emotional stimuli in adults. To determine whether the LPP is sensitive to emotional content in adolescence, the present study used ERP to examine the time processing in adolescence and to testify whether the self-reported ratings of valence and arousal to emotional stimulus are covariate with the activation of motivational system in brain. ERPs were recorded from 48 students aged from 12 to 21 years while they were viewing developmentally appropriated pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). A total of 60 positive, 60 negative and 60 neutral pictures were presented in brief exposure and distinct sequences of every six pictures. For attention concentration, the subjects were instructed to realize a valence categorization task when the pictures offset. The ISI (inter-stimuli interval)varied between 1800ms to 2200ms. Electrophysiological data were collected from the scalp using a 37- channel system. These data were submitted to repeated-measure analysis of variance (MANOVA) with factors of stimuli valence, age, electrode site, and hemisphere. In all subjects, similar to the result of other emotional patterns, the positive, negative and neutral pictures elicited notable late positive potentials in the picture perception paradigm, which started at about 300ms after onset and might be sustained to 900ms. In all time courses both the positive and negative pictures elicited increased amplitudes as compared to neutral pictures in all subjects from parietal-occipital sites to all scalp regions. As for the age effect on the emotion perception, at frontal, central and temporal sites for late positive potential from 440-580ms, the elder groups showed the greater positivity, whereas the youngest group demonstrated greater at occipital sites. The self-reported ratings suggested clear categorization of the emotional stimulus by the adolescents, and the differential age effects from the ERP were also observed. In summary, the brain cortical responses to different valence of emotional pictures show generally same trends in the adolescent group: the enhanced late positive potentials, later in the waveform, which were evoked specifically by emotional pictures. This result implies that the motivational meaning of emotion modulates the event-related potential from early age. That the elder group has larger later sustained positivity may reflect the developmental contents. The results also infer that the temporal and the parietal lobe, especially the frontal lobe closely correlate with the developmental effects on emotional processing. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of Cognitive Task on Visual Control of Standing Posture REN Jie,WATANABE Kazuhiko,MIYATANI Makoto 2010, 42 (03):  360-366.  Abstract ( 1224 )   Normal postural control has traditionally been considered an automatic or reflex process using minimal attentional resources. Recent research has provided evidence against this assumption and shown that postural control could be influenced by posture-unrelated cognitive activity. However, it was not clear whether posture-cognition interferences were due to limited central information-processing capacity, or the U-shaped relationship between physiological arousal and postural control. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of concurrent cognitive activities on postural control with and without vision. To address this issue, a dual-task paradigm was used in the experiment. Eighteen young healthy adults aged from 21-35 years were asked to keep upright standing as still as possible for 60s (i.e. the primary task) in 2 (with/without cognitive task) × 2 (vision /no vision) test conditions. The order of the four test conditions were counter balanced across all subjects. Body sway was recorded from the top of head and evaluated by Root Mean Square (RMS), Mean Velocity (MV) and Romberg Quotient (RQ). A 2 × 2 ANOVA with repeated measures was performed on the data to examine the effects of cognitive task on postural control. Results showed that the main effects of cognitive task and vision, the interaction of vision by cognitive task were significant on RMS and MV of body sway, as well as the RQ was decreased significantly when stance with cognitive task. These findings suggested that concurrent cognitive activities hampered the visual control of standing posture. The posture-cognition interferences were due to the impeded of visual information processing. In addition, a strategy of freezing motor degrees of freedom (df-freezing strategy) would be adopted to decrease the body sway in higher cognitive-load conditions. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of Foreknowledge and Preparation Time on Task Switching HUANG Si-Lin,LIN Chong-De,HU Qing-Fen,LUO Liang,CHEN Guang 2010, 42 (03):  367-376.  Abstract ( 1096 )   In task switching, switch cost is the performance differences in task-switch and task-repetition trials. Recently, some researches have attempted to specify nature and origins of switch cost to uncover the mechanisms underlying task switching performance. Theoretically, there is disagreement as to whether switch cost actually represents the task-set reconfiguration or the task-set inertia. Many studies found that a prolonged preparation time reduces switch costs, which has been attributed to a task set reconfiguration process. However, unlike manipulations of preparation time, other studies varied the predictability of task sequence and found that the preparation benefit was the same for switches and repetitions. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of foreknowledge and preparation time on task switching. Two experiments were conducted in the present study. There were 30 participants (12 males and 18 females) volunteered to take part in experiment 1 and another 30 participants (9 males and 21 females) took part in experiment 2. In order to investigated the effect of foreknowledge on task switching, the experiment 1 was conducted with a 3 (foreknowledge type: no foreknowledge, part foreknowledge and full foreknowledge) × 2 (task type: switch task and repetition task) within-subject design. In the experiment 2, a 3 (preparation time: 100ms, 600ms and 1000ms) × 3 (foreknowledge type: no foreknowledge, part foreknowledge and full foreknowledge) × 2 (task type: switch task and repetition task) within-subject design was conducted to examined the mechanisms of effects of foreknowledge on task switching under the conditions of difference preparation time. The correct RT and switch cost were measured as the main index. The results showed that: (1) the amount of switch cost depend on foreknowledge, switch cost was smaller with full foreknowledge than with part and no foreknowledge, but not difference significantly between the later two. (2) The interaction between preparation time and foreknowledge was significant, and with increased preparation time, the effect of foreknowledge was more remarkable. Current findings suggest that the cognitive process that foreknowledge affected was task-set reconfiguration, rather than task-set inertia, and the effect was mediated by preparation time. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Encoding of Constituent Morphemes in the Oral Production of Chinese Disyllable Compound Words CHEN Xu–Hai,HUANG Xi-Ting 2010, 42 (03):  377-386.  Abstract ( 1541 )   In the last twenty years, researchers of language production have been interested in the encoding of the morphologically simple and complex words. Studies in this area have focused on the processing of semantic, phonology and orthographic information, and on whether the morphological structure of words affects how the words are represented and accessed. In studies of Indo-European languages, there is accumulated evidence that the constituent morphemes have a salient priming effect in the oral production of compound words (Roelofs, A. 1996; Zwitserlood, 2002). However, there is no agreement concerning the role of the semantic, orthographic and phonological information in the processing, and the time course of this information processing (Damian, 2003; Dohmes, 2004; Meunier, F. & Longtin, C. M., 2007; Fornells, A. R., Schmitt, B. M., Kutas, M., & Müntea, T. F., 2002). Research on language comprehension in Chinese has also emphasized the importance of morphemes. This is particularly apparent in research using compound words, showing that semantic, phonological, and orthographic factors of morphemes, as well as the frequency of morphemes affect the access of the whole word (Zhou, et al., 1999. In the domain of language production, we only know of three studies that have explored the morphological encoding of mandarin Chinese. These studies have found that only the phonological information of the morphemes can promote the production of compound words, with not much influence from semantic and orthographic information (Chen T. M. & Chen J. Y., 2006, 2007; Chen, J. Y., Chen, T. M., & Dell, G. S. 2002). These three studies, however, used an implicit prime paradigm, yielding results that departed from studies of Indo-European language and of Chinese language comprehension. Other paradigms are thus needed for further verification of these findings. The present study investigated the activation - and its time course - of morphemes in Chinese disyllable compound words using a classical experimental method in language-production research: the picture-word interference paradigm. We hypothesized that morphemes can be encoded and that there would be facilitation both phonological and orthographical. We also hypothesized a semantic inhabitation in the oral production of compound words. The present study includes three experiments. In the first one, we investigated the activation of morphemes in Chinese disyllable compound words with four kinds of "distractor" words (i.e., morphological, orthographic, phonological, and control) presented in different stimulus onset asynchrony SOA (i.e., -100ms, 0ms, 100ms) as participants (N = 39) named pictures. In Experiment Two we investigated the function of morpheme position in the Chinese disyllable compound words production and explored the role of semantic information. In this experiment (N = 42), we used the same design as in Experiment One but consider both morphemes of the words and changed the SOA (-200ms, 100ms). In Experiment Three (N = 18), we further investigated the semantic activation of morphemes in the Chinese disyllable compound words production. For this, we set a “semantic relative” prime to compare with the morphological prime. The results of these experiments showed that the orthographic and phonological information of morphemes can facilitate the production of Chinese disyllable compound words. However, semantic information had no salient effects in either initial or second morpheme. Furthermore the orthographic effects came early than the phonological ones. The results of this study imply that the phonological and orthographic information of morphemes can facilitate the production of Chinese disyllable compound words but the semantic information may have a complex role. Moreover, there seems to be no morphological encoding in the oral production of Chinese disyllable compound words. The time course of morpheme activation in Chinese disyllable compound words is similar to the mono-syllable, with orthographic activation first (SOA=-200ms) followed by phonological activation (SOA= 100ms). The position of the morphemes had no salient effect in the production of Chinese disyllable compound words. Related Articles | Metrics

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Effects of Huperzine A on Stress Induced Expression of Morphine Behavioral Sensitization ZHANG Jing,LI Xin-Wang,MA Lan-Hua 2010, 42 (03):  387-394.  Abstract ( 989 )   Behavioral sensitization is defined as an increased behavioral response after repeated intermittent treatment with various drugs of abuse and is thought to be involved in drug abuse and addiction. This experiment examined the effects of Huperzine A on stress-induced expression of morphine behavioral sensitization in rats. Rats were treated with saline or morphine (3 mg/kg) for 7 days to induce behavioral sensitization (defined as a progressive increase of locomotor activity in the current study). In the subsequent experimental sessions, a stressor (empty bottle during scheduled water availability) was introduced acutely or chronically to elicit expression of morphine sensitization. The locomotor activities of the rats were monitored daily by using computer-interfaced monitoring system. The distance traveled (cm) during the development period was analyzed by two-way ANOVA with treatment day as the repeated measure. The data from the two challenge tests were separately analyzed by one-way ANOVA. Post hoc analyses (LSD test) were performed for assessing specific group comparison. Morphine induced significant behavioral sensitization during daily treatment. Environmental cue elicited marked hyperactivity during morphine discontinuation, which gradually dissipated within 7 days. Acute or chronic stress treatment both markedly induced expression of behavioral sensitization. A challenge dose of morphine markedly elicited the expression of behavioral sensitization, which was prevented by Huperzine A. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that stress induces robust expression of morphine sensitization and this can be inhibited by a cholinesterase inhibitor Huperzine A. This suggests that drugs that act as cholinesterase inhibitors (e.g. Huperzine A) may be useful therapeutics for opioid addiction. Related Articles | Metrics

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Characterization of Children’s Affective Decision Making: Sensitivity to the Frequency of Punishment and Reward LI Xiao-Jing,LI Hong,ZHANG Ting,LIAO YU 2010, 42 (03):  395-405.  Abstract ( 1710 )   Affective decision making is an individual ability to make choice under risk and uncertainty. The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) developed by Bechara has been widely used to assess decision behavior under uncertainty. The original IGT was designed to examine the decision making that is profitable in the future. In IGT participants have to develop a long-term profitable monetary scenario in a situation of uncertainty and a conflict between the chance of encountering an immediate large reward (US$100) in two long-term loosing decks (A and B; US$250 per10 cards) and the chance of encountering an immediate small reward (US$50) in two long-term winning decks (C and D; US$+250 per 10 cards). According to the research, it is found that normal adults choose more from the good decks while individuals with pre-frontal ventromedial cortex (VM-PFC) never learned to choose more from the good decks. Bechara consider that patients with VM-PFC opting for choices that yield high immediate gains in spite of higher future losses. While there is a large amount of research on the IGT in the adult population, there is less work done on children. In order to examine whether young children would show a similar preference for immediate prospects, the modification IGT adopted considering children unique features. Basically, development of affective decision making was studied in 120 children at the age of 3 and 5 using modified IGT. Results shows young children are inclined to make advantageous choices, in particular, when the probability of punishment is higher. Children act sensitively towards the frequency of rewards and punishments. Compared with the age of 3 and 4, the study also implies that the age of 4 and 5 ones could make more advantageous choice by increasing the frequency of reward in advantage cards. In conclusion, both standards and reversed tasks show children’s decision making deficits might be associated with sensitivity to frequency of punishment. However, this is not noticeable among younger aged group. The abilities of affective decision making be developed extremely fast between 3 and 4 years old. Related Articles | Metrics

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Two Kinds of Visual Feature as Cues Have Different Influences on Children’s False Memory LIU Ze-Wen, GUO Qian, GE Lie-Zhong 2010, 42 (03):  406-414.  Abstract ( 1326 )   Currently There are two research strands regarding false memory. First, there are how to decrease false memory and, second, how to understand the development of false memory. At the first aspect, a few of reports showed some perceived features, such as colour and location, could covertly contribute to false memories. This was not in accordance with fuzzy-trace theory’s prediction which suggested that more perceived features would decrease false memory. More recently, research demonstrated false memory for the semantically related unpresented items increased with age. We hypothesized that i. specific visual features which provide specific information would decrease false memory, but nonspecific visual features would increase false memory; and that ii. younger children’s false memory would be less influenced than older children from the two kinds of features as cues. 144 children, divided into groups aged 8-, 10-, and 12-years of age, took part in two experiments. DRM paradigm was used in both. In the first, we examined the effects of specific visual features of a picture on false memory. In the second , we investigated how the location of words (nonspecific visual features) influence false memory. We found the false alarm rates of critical lures increased from 8 to 12 to a statistically significant extent. We also found specific visual feature had a positive effect false memory which increases with age – with no significant effect on 8-years-olds, and with no significant difference between the false alarm rates of critical lures of 10 year olds and children of 12 years of age. Nonspecific visual feature had negative effect on false memory but no significant effect on the 8 year old group. The negative effect on the false memory of the 10 and 12 years old group were significantly different. The results indicate that false memory, induced by DRM paradigm, increases from 8 to 12. This may be due to children of 8 years of age being unable to ‘get the gist’ of the semantically related words and connect them and that this ability will increase as they get older. The visual features, no matter specific or nonspecific, seem to have no influence on children of 8 years old, but have significant effect on children of 10 and 12 years of age. The impairing effect secondary to specific visual features on false memory rises from age 8 to 10 but further from 10 to 12. This may be because this impaired effect is related to the ability to form the ‘verbatim trace’. The increasing effect brought by nonspecific visual features on false memory rises from age 8 to 12 suggesting that the ability to ‘get the gist’ of semantically related words and connect increases across these age groups. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Influence of “Hot” Executive Function on the Verbal Working Memory of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Reading Disability (RD) Children ZHANG Wei,LIU Xiang-Ping,SONG Hong-Yan 2010, 42 (03):  415-422.  Abstract ( 1288 )   The deficit of “cool” executive function (EF) associated with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been substantially confirmed. But whether ADHD children show the deficit of “hot” EF associated with orbital and medial prefrontal cortex (OMPFC) remains unknown, and till now no research made an explicit exploration for interaction models between the two EFs. Commonly different from some studies related to the children’s gambling task, in which the “hot” EF impeded “cool” EF, this study aims to explore the facilitation of the “hot” EF to “cold” EF in the entertaining verbal N-back task. Pure cognitive processions were involved in boring N-back task while both “hot” EF and “cold” EF were involved in the entertaining N-back task. Participants were 77 children age between seven and twelve, of whom 60 were classified as having ADHD and /or reading disability (RD). All the disorder participants were recruited at a clinic and normal children were recruited from a elementary school. A four-group mixed design consisting of reading disabilities only (RD, n=15), reading disabilities and ADHD (RD+ADHD, n=24), ADHD only (ADHD, n=21) and a comparison group (n=17) was utilized. In the experiment, two adapted N-back working memory paradigms were used to explore verbal working memory ability, one was a traditional N-back task, another was entertaining N-back task. There are the same difficulty and materials between the two tasks. The results indicate that ADHD and RD groups behaved worse than comparison group and no significant differences had been detected between ADHD and RD groups in the boring task. A significant increase in ADHD had been found when comparing entertaining task with boring task. No significant differences had been detected between ADHD and comparison groups. Also, no significant changes related to the task types had been found in RD children. All these findings suggest that ADHD and RD children both show verbal working memory problems, however they have different mechanisms. The “hot” EF facilitates the performance of ADHD in verbal working memory task while not to RD. These results support the Haber model indirectly. According to this model, “hot” EF modulates “cool” EF by a special pathway. Related Articles | Metrics

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Biodata as A Personnel Recruitment Selection Approach in China: Assessment and Its Validity YAN Jin,WU Ying-Jie,ZHANG Wei 2010, 42 (03):  423-433.  Abstract ( 1826 )   In this study, we examined the validity and reliability of a domestically-derived biodata assessment tool targeted to recruitment in China. The use of biodata provides an important and key assessment method in personnel assessment and selection. It focuses on an individual’s personal history. One’s past behaviors are critical predictors in predicting individual’s future behaviors. Consequently, biodata uses facts from an individual’s past to predict future working behaviors. Despite of the promise of biodata as an assessment tool, its validity and reliability within China has been limited. In the assessment and selection of government officials in China, biodata methods are mainly used during the first step of screening potential candidates. During the early stages of screening, it will lead to subjective and unstable results without defining proper criteria. In universities in China, millions of resumes were received during annual campus recruitment require processing. An implementation of biodata resume filtering is the primary choice in determining the first pool of applicants’ competency level. Biodata methods also have a long history of effectively coordinating personnel assessment. However, the usage of biodata tools derrived from outside of China have not been valid or reliable for personnel recruitment within China. In order to promote accuracy during the utilization of biodata information in making proper decisions, this study developed a biodata assessment tool for use in China’s campus recruitment. We developed an application form using a standardized coding tool to measure biodata information. During implementation we first developed biodata assessment tools, selecting 250 applicants’ data consisting of an individual’s cognitive ability, personality, biodata and interviewing ability. Secondly, we coded the application forms with a standardized coding tool. In the semi-structured application form, the biodata information, such as academic records, computer skills, rewards and social experiences, were used by a score scaling method. We then statistically tested the validity with a verification method which is seeking the relationship between biodata and other assessment tools. After the logarithmic transformation of the scaling data and the reliability analysis was completed, a validity analysis was conducted from the biodata, cognitive ability, personality and the interview results. The results revealed that the relationship was congruent with previous research results verifying the validity and incremental value of biodata. It explained reliable variance of personnel recruitment decsions. The statistical result showed that the validity of our domestically-derived biodata tools in prediction was effective, and, in turn, revealed that biodata can be an effective tool for personnel assessment. We also determined that biodata would account for distinct incremental variance in the selection result in comparison with the variance contributed by GMA or FFM personality data. We then concluded that biodata’s joint use of other assessment would increase its prediction significance. Based on this conclusion, the study provides implementation solutions for biodata scoring and it’s use with other measuring tools based on empirical research. In conclusion, the scaling tools developed and the methods used in this research can supply significant validity in assessment. The instruments are both cost effective and easy to operate. We verify the incremental validity based on empirical research using Chinese data which offers both theoretical and practical contributions. Related Articles | Metrics

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Test Equating with Testlets WU Rui,DING Shu-Liang,GAN Deng-Wen 2010, 42 (03):  434-442.  Abstract ( 1449 )   The research on test equating is very important for fairness of examnation, item banking, teaching quality assessing and computerized adaptive test. Along with the development of research on examination, testlets have appeared in different examnations increasingly, such as reading comprehension, mathematics, map etc. How to equate tests composed of testlets is a problem we are facing. When item response theory (IRT) models are applied in test equating, strong statistical assumptions—local independence (LI)—must be met. However, previous studies have shown that local independence is likely to be violated when testlets are contained in test. Hence, when equating tests composed of testlets, that local dependence is ignored can lead to distortion of equating coefficients using standard IRT model. In order to solve this problem, we use a testlets-based model—2 Parameters Testlet Model (2PTM), which derives from IRT 2 Parameters Logistic Model by adding random-effect parameters associated with each testlet. Local dependence is considered in 2PTM. IRT characteristic curve equating methods and specific procedures for calculating equating coefficients were presented in this paper. In terms of the recovery of estimating the equating coefficients and based on Wilcoxon sign-rank test, a lot of experiments was done using Monte Carlo simulation method. The effectiveness of equating tests containing testlets was investigated under the several conditions, including the accuracy of the estimation of item parameters (AEIP), the number of examinees and the degree of local dependence. The findings of equating tests made up of testlets using 2PTM were compared with standard IRT model—2PLM, which not account for local dependence among items from a common testlet. Results suggest that 2PTM is better than 2PLM in recovery and have significant differences mostly, so 2PTM is suitable for equating tests based testlets. In addition, the findings of using six different equating criterions for 2PTM were also compared with each other. The results showed that, generally speaking, when the value of the coefficient A is between 0.5 and 0.9, the performance of SLcrit is the best, SQRcrit is proper for 0.9<A<1.5 and Hcrit is proper for 1.5<A<2.0. The higher AEIP is, the better SQRcrit and SLcrit perform. Hcrit and SQRcrit are proper for large testlet effect. LCcrit, Wcrit and SREcrit are rarely better than others. Related Articles | Metrics