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The Effects of the Radical Family Size and High Frequency Phonetic Radical Family Member on Phonogram Recognition ZHANG Ji-Jia,JIANG Min-Min 2008, 40 (09):  947-960.  Abstract ( 2704 )   There has an amount of researches on the question of whether the speed and accuracy with which a word is identified is affected by the existence of other, orthographically words in alphabetic writing systems. However, it is unknown about the impacts of orthographic neighborhoods in the Chinese characters. Orthographic neighborhoods were defined as the characters with the same structure and the same semantic radicals or phonetic radicals as targets in the present study. Characters with the same semantic radicals composed the semantic radical family, while characters with the same phonetic radicals composed the phonetic radical family. There are inconsistent findings regarding the effect of semantic radical family size on phonogram recognition in the character decision tasks (CDT). The effect of high frequency phonetic radical family members which were mixed with the effect of the phonetic radical family size in the past researches should be examined independently. According to the multiple read-out model, orthographic neighborhood effects should vary as a function of the difficulty of the lexical decision task. The present study aimed to investigate whether the effects of family size, high frequency phonetic radical family members and phonological information of phonetic radical on phonogram recognition were different in the CDT with pseudo-characters or with non-characters. A total of 100 undergraduate students participated in present study. All of them were native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. The experiment was run on IBM computer using E-Prime software. A fixation point “+” was presented on the screen for 500ms, and then the target characters were displayed. Subjects were asked to perform the CDT. Both reaction time and error rate were analyzed with repeated measure ANOVA. The results indicated that:⑴ Characters included in large size semantic radical family were responded to more rapidly than characters included in small size family. The responses to characters included in large size phonetic radical family were faster than responses to characters included in small size family. ⑵ In the CDT with pseudo-characters, the lexical decision latencies to words with high frequency phonetic radical family members were slower than those to words without those members, whereas there was no inhibitory effect of high frequency phonetic radical family members in the CDT with non-characters.⑶ The effect of phonological information of phonetic radicals was not salient in the CDT with non-characters, but a pronounceable phonetic radical inhibited recognition of characters included in small size semantic radical family in the CDT with pseudo-characters. Multiple read-out model was tested and modified according to the data. These results were explained by the interactive activation model. The conclusions are directed from this study: A facilitatory radical family size effect and an inhibitory effect of high frequency phonetic radical family members on phonogram recognition were observed. These effects were mediated by the difficulty of the CDT. The effect of the phonological information of phonetic radicals was affected by the semantic radical family size and the difficulty of the CDT. It revealed an inhibitory effect of the phonological information of phonetic radicals on characters included in small size semantic radical family in the CDT with pseudo-characters Related Articles | Metrics

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Rating Comprehension and Predicting Performance: Clarifying Two Forms of Metacomprehension Monitoring CHEN Qi-Shan,LI Li 2008, 40 (09):  961-968.  Abstract ( 1575 )   Metacomprehension monitoring refers to the process of a reader monitoring and evaluating his or her understanding of a text. Participants may make metacomprehension monitoring judgments by either rating how much they understand a text, or predicting how well they can do in a comprehension test. Previous research seems to treat these questions as interchangeable and which one to use as a matter of convenience. Researchers have not investigated whether or not these questions may tap different metacomprehension monitoring processes. In this study, we compared two kinds of monitoring, namely, rating comprehension and predicting performance, by examining the way they were affected by two different orienting tasks that may provide different cues for the monitoring process. 165 college students at South China Normal University participated in this experiment. Three between-subject factors were manipulated. The participants were divided into keyword groups or pretest groups. The keyword group was divided into generating or reading group, the pretest group was divided into taking a pretest or reading the pretest with answers provided after reading all the six expository texts on a computer. Half of each group either rated their comprehension of each text or predicted their performance in a comprehension test on a 0~6 scale. All participants took a comprehension test on each text. Three questions assessed text-based knowledge (details available within a single paragraph of a text), and three inferential questions assessed knowledge of a situation model. The results showed that there were no significant effects on magnitudes of JOL. The interaction effect between orienting tasks and activity of the task on criterion test performance was significant. The performance for the taking pretest condition was higher than the reading pretest condition, whereas the generating keyword groups did not differ from the reading keyword groups. As far as monitoring accuracy (Gamma) was concerned, the interaction effect between types of monitoring and orienting tasks was significant. The simple main effect tests revealed that when the participants predicted their test performance, the pretest condition led to more accurate judgments than the keyword condition, whereas when they rated comprehension, the reverse was found. Metacomprehension monitoring accuracies as found with rating text understanding and predicting test performance were affected by two orienting tasks in different ways. The cues produced by taking a pretest may be useful for predicting the scores of a final test, but may not be useful for estimating how well a text is understood. The cues produced by generating keywords seem useful for readers to judge their understanding of one text relative to another, but may not be useful for them to calibrate their predictions of test scores. The results challenge the view that metacomprehension monitoring is a unitary process. Given our results, it is reasonable to conclude that rating comprehension and predicting performance may tap different aspects of metacomprehension monitoring Related Articles | Metrics

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Diagonal Mirror-Transfer in Perceptual Learning of Orientation Discrimination CHEN Xiao-Li,QU Zhe,WANG You,DING Yu-Long 2008, 40 (09):  969-974.  Abstract ( 2134 )   Adults’ ability to discriminate some basic features can be improved through training, which is referred to as perceptual learning. During recent years, perceptual learning has been investigated extensively in various visual tasks. In particular, studies on visual perceptual learning have reported mirror-transfer symmetrical about the vertical line. The present study aims to further investigate whether mirror-transfer symmetrical about the 45° diagonal line exists. The two-alternative forced-choice paradigm was applied to grating orientation discrimination task: two gratings of different orientations were presented successively, and subjects were required to decide whether the orientation of the second grating (test orientation) was clockwise or counterclockwise to that of the first one (reference orientation). There were three reference orientations, 15°, 45°, and 75° (15° and 75 ° are mirror orientations of each other about the 45° diagonal line). 11 subjects were trained with reference orientation of 15° or 75° for several days, and received threshold tests on all the three reference orientations both before and after the training. The two-up-one-down staircase procedure was adopted in threshold tests and training. The results showed that the threshold of trained orientation declined substantially after training. Such learning effect did not transfer to the 45° orientation which was 30° away from the trained orientation, but almost completely transferred to the mirror orientation which was 60° away. These results indicated that mirror–transfer symmetrical about the 45° diagonal line exists in visual perceptual learning of orientation discrimination. Diagonal mirror-transfer found in the present study suggests that visual perceptual learning of grating orientation discrimination might involve the intermediate visual cortex, which is characterized by both orientation selectivity and diagonal mirror transferability Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of Rewards and Punishment on Affective Decision-Making in Children with Two Subtypes of ADHD WANG Yong-Hui,ZHU Zhao-Hong,WANG Ping,WANG Zhen-Hong 2008, 40 (09):  975-986.  Abstract ( 1553 )   Although most of the theories on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) assumed that deficit in behavioral inhibition was probably the core problem of ADHD, recent studies implied that ADHD patients have aberrant sensitivity to reinforcement, such as rewards and punishment (Sergeant J et al.2000, 2005; Luman M et al. 2005), or emotional control deficit. This aberrant sensibility hypothesis challenges the traditional view on ADHD. However, whether the patients are aberrant sensitive to rewards or to punishment are not clear. Moreover, some relevant studies indicated that Skin conductance responses could reflect their physical arousal while subject responding to cognitive, emotional and social stimulus (Fishbein D et al.2005). Using two experimental designs, the present study examined the effect of rewards and punishment on affective decision-making on two subtypes of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and normal controls, and recorded their anticipatory Skin conductance recordings (SCRs) as well. Thirty-eight children between 7 and 12 years old with a clinical diagnosis of ADHD (22 of predominantly inattentive, i.e., ADHD-I; and 16 of combined, i.e., ADHD-C) were compared to 38 normal controls who were matched in age, IQ and the year of education in affective decision-making. Two variations of the Iowa Gambling Task (Bechara et al, 2000) were used, which typically involved two sets of cards in computer. On each of 100 trails, children chose from 1of 2 decks of cards, when turned, which displayed happy and sad faces (experiment 1), or red and green star (experiment 2) corresponding to rewards or punishment respectively, that means won (happy face or red star) or lost (sad face or green star) cartoon cards by each choice. Cards in 1 deck offered more rewards per trail, but were disadvantageous across trails due to occasional large losses; cards in the other deck offered fewer rewards per trial, but were advantageous overall. Different from the previous studies, the intension of rewards and punishment was manipulated in this study. The results showed that ADHD children were impaired in affective decision-making, and generated lower anticipatory SCRs during the later part of task before choosing from disadvantage card compared with normal controls at the conditions of instant rewards, but were intact at the condition of instant punishment. No significant differences were observed between the two subtypes of ADHD. The results of which suggested that the children with the two subtypes of ADHD only have aberrant sensibility to rewards, therefore impaired their decision-making. However, they showed the same pattern with normal children when avoiding punishment Related Articles | Metrics

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Children’s Development of Analogical Reasoning from the Perspective of Perceptual Distraction Task MA Xiao-Qing,FENG Ting-Yong,LI Yu,LI Hong 2008, 40 (09):  987-993.  Abstract ( 2245 )   The mechanism underlying the development of children’s analogical reasoning is not yet well explained. Growing domain knowledge and relational shift from perceptual similarity to relational similarity had been used to explain the development of analogical reasoning. Although younger children were asked to attend relational similarity, they could not inhibit the advantage of perceptual similarity in analogical reasoning task. We hypothesized that inhibitory control of perceptual distraction may be an important factor that influenced children’s development of analogical reasoning. Using four kinds of self-designed picture-mapping tasks, we explored the influence of perceptual distraction on children’s development of analogical reasoning, and the possible mechanism underlying the development of analogical reasoning. The picture-mapping tasks included four kinds of condition: single relation with no distraction, single relation with distraction, double relations with no distraction, double relations with distraction. 90 children aged 4, 5 and 6 years participated in the study. Each child completed tasks of all the four conditions. The result indicated: (1) With relevant knowledge and experiences, children’s performances in analogical reasoning were modulated significantly by perceptual distraction. Children’s performances were better in conditions with no distraction than conditions with distraction. Even 4 years olds understood the task and selected the right relational match when there was not perceptual distraction. Error analysis suggested that children were more likely to make distraction-error than other errors, but this tendency decreased with age. It confirmed that inhibitory control of perceptual distraction may have an effect on children’s development of analogical reasoning. (2) Children’s ability of analogical reasoning developed with age. 6 years olds were remarkably superior to 4 years olds and 5 years olds in the analogical reasoning tasks, but there wasn’t significant difference between 4 years olds and 5 years olds in the analogical reasoning tasks. The major finding of the study is that inhibitory control of perceptual distraction may be one mechanism critical to children’s development of analogical reasoning. In general, most children of 6 years old can inhibit irrelative distracting objects and complete analogical reasoning tasks on the basis of relational similarity Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effects of Encoding Fluency and Retrieval Fluency on Children’s with Learning Disabilities Judgements of Learning HOU Rui-He,YU Guo-Liang 2008, 40 (09):  994-1001.  Abstract ( 1121 )   There is much controversy on the psychological mechanism of Judgements of learning (JOLs). Cue-utilization approach proposed by Koriat considers that most of the cues can be grouped into three classes: intrinsic, extrinsic, and mnemonic. Both intrinsic and extrinsic cues may affect JOLs directly, and they may also exert their effect indirectly through their influence on any of the internal, mnemonic cues. The theory can explain successfully the bases or implications of JOLs from a broad perspective, but it can not state the way how individuals make JOLs. Meanwhile, some researchers proposed encoding fluency and retrieval fluency to explain and examine their effects on JOLs during leaning process, which are helpful for researchers to probe into the psychological mechanism of JOLs deeply. In addition, some research focused on children with learning disabilities (LD) found that, compared to their normal peers, lower metacognitive accuracy was one of their important characteristics. However, most of research was descriptive, and can not provide suitable targeted direction for educational practices. According to these, the present study would examine the different effects of different fluency cues on children with LD to find their specific influencial patterns. Twenty children with LD and twenty normal children selected from a common primary school (Mean age = 10.5 years) participated in the experiment to make item-by-item JOLs for paired words presented using a PC. This study examined the effects of encoding fluency (inferred from self-paced study time) and retrieval fluency (inferred from the latency of pre-JOL retrieval) on JOLs, wihch were elicited either immediately after study or after a short or longer delay. Results showed that: (1) Children with LD mainly utilized retrieval fluency to make JOL across immediate and delay conditions. However, for normal children, it showed some distinction between encoding and retrieval fluency as potential cues for JOL across immediate and delay conditions. (2)As a kind of JOLs cues, encoding fluency was more valid than retrieval fluency with immediate JOLs condition, whereas retrieval fluency validity increased with JOLs delay. Based on the above all results, normal children’s JOLs are based on the flexible and adaptive utilization of different mnemonic cues according to their relative validity in predicting their final recall, whereas the cues children’s with LD JOLs based on are not comparably flexible Related Articles | Metrics

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Gender Difference of Personality Traits among Hong Kong Secondary School Students and Their Developmental Analyses Weiqiao FAN,Fanny M. CHEUNG, Shu Fai CHEUNG,Kwok LEUNG 2008, 40 (09):  1002-1012.  Abstract ( 2263 )   Gender difference has been studied extensively in the field of personality. Many studies have demonstrated significant gender difference in personality traits (e.g., self-esteem, extraversion) among people from different age groups and cultural contexts. Although the stabilities and changes of personality structure from adolescence to adulthood have also been investigated, few studies have explored gender difference in personality traits from a developmental perspective. This paper compared gender difference in the Cross-cultural (Chinese) Personality Assessment Inventory -- Adolescent Version (CPAI-A) among three age groups of secondary school students in Hong Kong. The CPAI-A was based on the adult version of the CPAI-2 which was developed using a combined emic-etic approach. The participants were 2,506 (1135 males, 1371 females) Hong Kong secondary school students aged 12 to 18 (M=15.25, SD=1.72) drawn from a representative sample of secondary schools. The participants were divided into three age groups which corresponded to the phases of the secondary school system in Hong Kong: 12-14 years, 15-16 years, and 17-18 years. We used MANOVA to examine the overall group differences, followed by further univariate analysis to examine the specific gender difference in personality traits among three age groups. The results indicated that gender was a key factor that contributed to group difference in personality traits among secondary school students in Hong Kong. Three typical developmental features of gender difference in personality traits were found: (1) There were consistent gender differences in some general and clinical personality traits across the three groups. For example, male students scored significantly higher on the scales of Enterprise, Optimism vs. Pessimism, Ah-Q Mentality, and Antisocial Behavior than did their females counterparts. (2) An increasing or decreasing trend was observed for some general and clinical personality traits. For instance, gender differences in Leadership, Ren Qing, and Alienation increased with age, but those in Discipline and Family Orientation, and Depression decreased from lower age group to higher group. (3) Changing patterns of gender differences were observed in some general personality traits. For example, a “V” curve of gender difference in Novelty and Graciousness vs. Meanness was found with significant gender difference observed in the 12-14 age group and again in the 17-18 age group, but insignificant in the middle age group (15-16 years). Given the continuity between the CPAI-2 and the CAPI-A which was developed based on the CPAI-2 (adult version), patterns of gender difference in personality found in the CPAI-A were also compared with those found in adults from the CPAI-2 standardization study. The stabilities and changes in the development of gender difference across different age groups of secondary school students and from adolescence to adulthood were discussed. The study highlighted the development of gender difference as one of the important aspects in personality development Related Articles | Metrics

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The Development Characteristic of Adolescents’ Social Adaptive Behavior NIE Yan-Gang,LIN Chong-De,PANG Yi-Song,DING Li1, GAN Xiu-Ying 2008, 40 (09):  1013-1020.  Abstract ( 1344 )   Development and adaptation are the basic tasks of human life. Social adaptation is the core issue of individual’s survival and development, and also an important socialization objective of adolescents. How to improve adolescents’ social well-adaptive behavior and change their social maladaptive behavior is an important theme in education and psychology. Thus in the current study we investigated developmental characteristics of adolescents’ social adaptive behavior with a self-developed scale. In this study 1556 students from 6 middle schools in Guangzhou Province were invited to complete the Adolescents’ Social Adaptive Behavior Scale. We demonstrated that averagely, adolescents’ social adaptive behaviors develop well, but the distribution of the ABQ and the MABQ (Maladaptive Behavior Quality) were remarkably different from the theoretic distribution. The ‘excellent’ and ‘good’ adapters were fewer than expected but the ‘bad’ and ‘worst’ adapters were more than theoretic distribution. We found significant interactions on social well-adaptive behavior, such as grade and gender, grade and household registration, household registration and gender. We also showed significant interactions on social mal-adaptive behavior, such as grade and gender as well as grade and household. Significant grade difference in social adaptive behavior was found. Grade 1 of junior middle school got the highest score and grade 1 of senior school got the lowest score in social well-adaptive behavior. Grade 1 of junior school got the lowest score in social maladaptive behavior. Overall gender difference of adaptive behavior was not salient, but there were some gender differences in specific dimensions. Male students’ scores were significantly higher in self orientation, social life, study adaptation and social interaction, while female students’ scores were significantly higher in social cognition and sex. Finally, urban students got significantly higher score in social well-adaptive behavior and lower score in maladaptive behavior than rural students This study indicated that in order to promote adolescents’ social adaptation, we should pay more attention to the characteristics of grade, gender and family origin Related Articles | Metrics

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The Relations of Adolescents’ Separation-Individuation，the Internet Recreation Service Preference and Their Pathological Internet Use LEI Li,GUO Fei 2008, 40 (09):  1021-1029.  Abstract ( 2428 )   The Internet brings about the adolescents an exciting and colorful recreation world. Meanwhile, the pathological Internet use (PIU) among adolescents has caught some attention. It is believed that both the individual factors of adolescents and the functions of the Internet are related to the PIU. Separation- individuation is a very important developmental task which is presumed to have significant adaptational consequences for adolescents. The imaginary audience ideation is considered to serve defensive functions in separation- individuation process. The present research examined the relations between the separation- individuation, imaginary audience, preference of the Internet recreation service, and PIU among Chinese adolescents. The present study conducted a questionnaire survey with Chinese adolescents (n=332). The separation- individuation was measured by the reduced version of Separation-Individuation Test of Adolescence (SITA), which was reduced and revised by Italian researchers Ingoglia, Inguglia, and Liga, et al. (2004) . (The SITA was developed by Levine, Green, and Millon, et al., 1986). The imaginary audience was measured by the New Imaginary Audience Scale, which was developed by Lapsley et al. (1989). In present study, the Adolescent Preference of the Internet Service Scales (Lei & Liu, 2005) and the Adolescent Pathological Internet Use Scale(Lei & Yang, 2006) were used to measure the preference of the Internet recreation service and PIU of the adolescents, respectively. And the data was analyzed with SPSS 12.0 and Amos 4.0 The results indicate that (1) both the preference of the Internet recreation service and the PIU among the male students are significantly higher than the female; (2) both the separation anxiety and the rejection expectancy could predict PIU positively; (3) the preference of the Internet recreation service could predict PIU; (4) the imaginary audience ideation could predict PIU; (5) the engulfment anxiety could predict PIU indirectly through the Internet Recreation service Preference; (6) both the self- involvement and separation anxiety could predict PIU indirectly through the imaginary audience ideation. Lanthier and Windham (2004) argued whether the Internet use was addictive or non-addictive was depended on the users’ individual factors and their attitude to the Internet use. The findings of the present study support their view. The results indicate that the special developmental task, separation-individuation, the imaginary audience ideation during adolescence, and the preference Internet recreation service work together to predict the adolescents’ PIU Related Articles | Metrics

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A Many-faceted Rasch Model Analysis of Structured Interview SUN Xiao-Min,XUE Gang 2008, 40 (09):  1030-1040.  Abstract ( 1112 )   Being one of the most important techniques in personnel selection, structured interview has attracted more and more research interest in improving its reliability and validity. Some researches focus on the standardization of its content and dimensions, others try to decrease rater bias by intensive rater training. The third one, to handle the possible bias in statistic way, has attracted more and more attention. Many-faceted Rasch Model (MFRM), an extension to Rasch model, served as such kind of techniques. By parameterizing not only interviewee’s ability and item difficulty but also judge severity, MFRM offers an effective way to estimate interviewee’s latent trait, that is, the ability, and provides detailed information of inter-rater reliability as far as a specific interviewee is concerned. This study used MFRM to analyze the result of a structured interview and demonstrated a creative way to locate the source of bias for a specific interviewee. Data came from a structured interview. There were 7 raters in each interview panel. Since the interview last two days, these 21 raters were randomized into 3 panels in the morning of each day in order to prevent cheating. Rating scores of two panels were used in this study. A、B、C、D、E、F、G were raters of one panel and interviewed interviewees numbered 1-34. A、E、H、I、J、K、L were raters in the other panel that interviewees numbered 35-66 were interviewed. Each rater rated each interviewee independently on five dimensions using a 10 points rating scale. Using Facets 3.62.0, a computer program based on MFRM, the abilities of 66 interviewees was estimated, accompanied with a Infit MnSq, which demonstrated the degree to which raters in the panel agreed with each other on the evaluation of a specific interviewee. The ranking order based on interview raw scores and Facets estimated logits values were compared. Difference were found between those them. To track the source of error for interviewee numbered 56, bias analysis of Facets was also made. (1) The ability of 66 interviewees were reported with infit MnSq, showing inter-rater reliability at individual level; (2) The ranking order based on interview raw score and estimated ability score were quite different, especially for some interviews. Taking interviewee numbered 56 for example, the ranking difference was as large as 15. (3) Bias analysis aimed at locating the source of error for interviewee number 56 show that not only rater consistency, but also rater severity contribute to the ranking difference. The results confirmed the utility of MFRM analysis. The application of MFRM in the analysis of structured interview was proved to be not only an effective way in personnel selection, but also provided diagnostic information for sources of error locating at individual level Related Articles | Metrics