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Hot hand fallacy or Gambler’s Fallacy? A research on the Gestalt phenomena in random sequence recency effect DU Xiu-Min,ZHANG Qing-Lin,ZENG Jian-Min,CUI Qian, LUO Jun-Long,RUAN Xiao-Lin 2008, 40 (08):  853-861.  Abstract ( 609 )   The researchers have studied the recency effect in the random sequences perception. It was thought people had two kinds of opposing expectations: the positive recency (the hot hand fallacy ) and the negative recency (the gambler’s fallacy). The existing studies focused on when the two effects would appear and how they would exchange with each other. Kahneman’s “local representativeness heuristic” (1971) was the first cognitive explanation of the recency effect. They identified the “law of small numbers”, which is the erroneous belief that properties of large samples also apply to very small samples, and the “law of small numbers” was the strategy in the predicting process. Moldoveanu and Leager (2002) tried to explain the effect with the casual model. Roney and Trick (2003) gave the Gestalt explanation. They thought that the random sequence recency involved two stages. The first one was about whether to consider the present and former outcomes as a group; when the outcomes were considered as a Gestalt, the perception entered the second stage, in which the subjects would decide the possible relationship between the present and former outcomes. However, Trick didn’t explain the dividing strategy of the random sequences. Our study aims to examine the Gestalt theory and the hypothesis that the dividing is based on the continuation of the same outcomes in the random sequences. That is, in the coin sequences, when the last outcomes are the same (all heads or all tails), the subjects would incline to consider these outcomes as a cognitive group or unit; while the last outcomes are different, they would be divided into different cognitive units. Moreover, the right/wrong sequences of the expectation make up another random binary series. The dividing of the right/wrong sequences is also based on the continuation. The outcomes of the coin and the right/wrong results are divided with the continuation strategy, and then form the different cognitive units depending on three factors--the continuation of the coin, the right/wrongness of the prediction and the continuation of the result series. Two experiments were conducted with totally 68 sophomores; all were majored in Chinese or culture and society. All subjects had not taken the probability course. Experiment 1 used the traditional paradigm. The subjects were asked to predict the outcomes of the random binary series in a coin tosses game on computer, and were informed the results of the expectations. After each expectation they were asked to value their confident beliefs of the prediction on a 5-point Linkert scale. Experiment 2 was based on the Experiment 1, in which the outcomes were still random but manipulated by the experimenter such that the participants were told that every five trials were a group. The results indicated: The subjects demonstrated a two-stage process involved in the recency effect. The first stage involved determining whether the present outcome was to be grouped with previous outcomes or considered as a part of a separate unit. The grouping was based on the continuation of the outcomes. If the present outcome was grouped with past ones, then a second stage occurred, one involving a decision about how the past outcomes were related to the present. When the last two outcomes were not the same, they mostly would predict the outcomes rationally; while the same outcomes continued and the last expectation was correct, the positive recency effect would appear; moreover, after several correct predictions, the fallacy diminished and even disappeared. While same outcomes continued but the last expectation was wrong, the negative recency effect would appear. But the negative recency effect was not affected remarkably by the growing wrong expectations. Overall, this study supports the Gestalt explanation of the random sequences bias and further elaborates the dividing strategy. People first divide the trials according to the continuation of the trials, and then have different expectations. The possible strategy used in the second procedure supports the casual model and the dual-processing theory Related Articles | Metrics

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Knowledge, Routines and Performance in Collective Problem Solving WANG Jian-An,ZHANG Gang 2008, 40 (08):  862-872.  Abstract ( 1465 )   Most studies of routines had been based on field observation until the invention of Transform The Target, a game with 6 cards for 2 players (two-player TTT game for short) created by Cohen and Bacdayan (1994). Since then four experimental studies have been conducted to explore in laboratory the emergence and the measurement of routines in two-player TTT，the influence of procedural knowledge on the emergence of routines, and the relation between incentives, routines and performance. In this study a game with 9 cards for 3 players (three-player TTT game) was developed to investigate the emergence of routines in multilateral (not merely bilateral) interaction and the relation between knowledge (including declarative and procedural knowledge), routines and performance. Based on this three-player TTT game an experimental design with one between-subject factor (knowledge) and one within-subject factor (time) was adopted. A total of 96 students participated in the experiment, every 3 students formed a team to play the game, so there were altogether 32 teams, in which 16 teams were informed of the problem space (called groups with schema) whereas the other 16 teams not informed (groups without schema). Every team in each group was asked to play 40 hands of the game in 45 minutes. There are 3 main strategies or paths in the problem space to successfully play the game. The difference between the adoption times of the path adopted most frequently and that of the path adopted least frequently divided by the total adoption times was one indicator of the degree of routinization. The average move time of a hand and the variation across teams in the number of moves required to complete the hand in each group were the other indicators of the degree of routinization, and the decreasing rates of them the indicators of the speed of routinization. Each hand a team successfully completed earned it 150 points, each move the team made cost it 10 points, the value of the net points divided by the time needed to complete the hand was used as the indicator of performance. Repeated measures ANOVA and linear regression were used to analyze the data. The main results of this study were as follows: first, routines did emerge in three-player TTT game; secondly, while the degree of routines of the group with schema was lower on the whole than that of the group without schema, the increasing rate in the former is faster than that in the latter; and thirdly, the performance of the group without knowledge is higher than that of the group with knowledge, but the difference is significant at the earlier stage whereas it is not at the later stage. The above results indicated that the problem space given to the subjects who had not played this game before was only declarative knowledge to them at the beginning of the experiment. It would take a period of time for them to memorize this declarative knowledge. At the behavioral level only through the repeated play of the game this declarative knowledge would help facilitate the formation of procedural knowledge. At the neural level this would require their hippocampal engagement and compete with the striatum for the control over learning. But when the declarative knowledge was memorized it would help the procedural learning and hence increase the level of proficiency. Generally speaking, the declarative and procedural knowledge jointly (not the latter alone) contributed to the emergence of organizational routines, and organizational routines in turn contributed to the organizational performance Related Articles | Metrics

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Effects of Preparation Time and Foreknowledge on Task Switching HUANG Si-Lin,HU Qing-Fen,LIN Chong-De,LUO Liang,CHEN Guang 2008, 40 (08):  873-882.  Abstract ( 1360 )   Recently, Task switching is an important paradigm for studying executive control. Switching cost refer to the performance differences in task-switch and task-repeat trials. Many issues and problems need further exploration. Theoretically, there is disagreement as to whether switch costs actually represents the task-set reconfiguration or the task-set inertia. Many studies have 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 have varied the predictability of task sequence and found that the preparation benefit was the same for switches and repetitions. The present study explored the interaction of preparation time and foreknowledge in task switching. In addition, in order to study the effects of preparation time predictability on the task switching, the preparation time (CSI) was manipulated by blocked or randomized within subjects. Two explicit task-cuing experiments were used with the same materials and procedure, preparation times of 150ms and 900ms, and foreknowledge of the full- and the partial-foreknowledge. The full-foreknowledge specified both task transition and task identity. The partial-foreknowledge specified only task transition information. The response-stimulus interval was constant at 800ms, to control the amount of repetition priming from the previous trial. To examine the effect of preparation time predictability on the preparation effects of switch costs, in experiment 1, the preparation time was blocked within subjects, and in experiment 2, the preparation time was randomized within subjects. The RT was measured as the main index. Repeated-measure ANOVA was performed for experiment 1 and 2. The results revealed that: (1) Under the conditions of preparation time predictability and unpredictability, the interaction between the preparation time and the foreknowledge was significant. Under the condition of predictability, the RT of repeat task and switch-to task trials decreased with increasing preparation time, but there are no significant differences of switch-to cost; the RT of switch-away task is affected by preparation time, and switch-away cost advanced with prolonging preparation time. Under the condition of unpredictability, the RT of three types of tasks reduced with rising preparation time, but both of switch-to and switch-away cost went up. (2) Compared to the switch-to task, the RT and switch cost of the switch-away task were longer. (3) Under of the two conditions, there is not the preparation effect. The experimental results suggest that the switch cost may represent the preparation of the new task set and a residual component, and the task switching was not effected by the predictability of the preparation time Related Articles | Metrics

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The Impact of Material Presentation Mode on English Verbal Memory among Chinese Children with and without Formal Music Training MEI Lei-Lei,LI Yan-Fang,LONG You-Shan,CHEN Chuan-Sheng,DONG Qi 2008, 40 (08):  883-889.  Abstract ( 1459 )   Previous research has confirmed the age-old wisdom that verbal materials are better remembered when presented in musical forms (e.g., songs) than in other forms (e.g., regular speech). Furthermore, several studies have shown that music training can improve individuals’ verbal memory. These studies, however, had three limitations: they were conducted mainly with adults, they examined only verbal memory in native language, and they did not investigate potential interactive effects between music training and mode of presentation. In the present study, 112 children were recruited from a local primary school. About half of them (n=55) had received three or more years of regular formal music training (mainly piano). The rest (n=57) had received minimal (half a year or less, and mostly none) music training. Subjects within each group were randomly assigned to one of three presentation conditions: song, rhythm, and speech. In the “song” condition, subjects were asked to remember four carefully selected lines (27 words) in English that were presented as the lyrics to the tune of an English children’s song “Apple Song.” In the “rhythm” condition, they were read the same four lines with rhythm and in the speech condition as regular speech. The text was presented six times and subjects were asked to recall the text four times: after Trials three, five, and six, and 15 minutes after Trial six. Results showed that (1) subjects with formal music training outperformed those with minimal music training, (2) materials were retained better when presented in musical forms (song or rhythm) than when presented as regular speech, and (3) the effects of music training and presentation mode showed a significant interaction, indicating that music training facilitated verbal memory mainly under the “song” condition. These results extended previous research by replicating the association between music training and verbal memory among children and with second-language materials. Moreover, the present study specified that the music training’s facilitation effect was most prominent when the materials were presented as song lyrics. These results should provide useful information for teachers and developers of teaching materials Related Articles | Metrics

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Culture’s Effects on ‘black’ and ‘white’ Color Cognition of Undergraduates from Yi Nation, Bai Nation, Naxi Nation and Han Nation XIE Shu-Shu,ZHANG Ji-Jia,HE Xiu-Mei,LIN Na,XIAO Er-Ping 2008, 40 (08):  890-901.  Abstract ( 2062 )   Color cognition is a key issue on the debates of Linguistic Universalism and Relativity. Universalists declare that color cognition is independent with language and culture, is human’s common cognition ability, and will not be affected by language and culture. Whereas, Relativitists state that color cognition is affected by language and culture. Relativitists put forward four aspects of evidence to oppose Universalism, that is, data analyzing, ‘blue’ and ‘green’ cognition, cross-species researches and neuropsychological founding. However, Universalists doubted that whether the effects of language and culture on color cognition are direct or indirect. That is, does language and culture change color cognition perceptually or just assist people to finish tasks as an online strategy? This study was probe into the relationship between ‘black’/‘white’ cultures and ‘black’/‘white’ color cognition to investigate whether the different ‘black’/‘white’ cultures of Yi nation, Bai nation, Naxi nation and Han nation would influence the ‘black’/‘white’ color discrimination of people from these four nations, and to explore whether these language and culture effects are direct or indirect. There were two experiments in this study. Eighty-eight participants of Yi, Bai, Naxi and Han Nations from Yunnan Dali Institute took part in the experiments. Participants were asked to finish color similarity judgment in experiment 1 and finish color recognition task in experiment 2. Materials were selected according to CIE1976 L*a*b* and consisted of 7 ‘black’ and 7 ‘white’ stimulus which were all the same on wavelength and saturation (a* = b* = 0) but different on lightness. In experiment 1, there were three colors presented at the same time on the screen in every trial. Subjects were asked to judge which color was more similar with the color presented on the center of the screen, the color on the left side or right side. In experiment 2, subjects were asked to memorize the target color, and to recognize it 30s later by choosing it from two colors. All data were analyzed by SPSS10.0. The results of experiment 1 showed that undergraduates from Yi Nation discriminated black stimulus with different lightness significantly faster and more accurate than discriminated the white ones, while subjects from Bai Nation distinguished white colors with different lightness notably faster and more accurate than distinguished the black ones. Participants from Naxi Nation had no significant difference when they discriminated different lightness ‘black’ and ‘white’. Neither did students from Han Nation. The results in experiment 2 found the same tendency with experiment 1 except that the difference between ‘black’ and ‘white’ discrimination in every nation enlarged on both reaction time and error ratio. The whole study showed that ⑴ the culture differences on ‘black’ and ‘white’ of Yi, Bai, Naxi and Han Nation affected the color ‘black’ and ‘white’ discrimination of undergraduates from these four nations; ⑵ the effects of language and culture on color cognition include indirect effect and direct effect Related Articles | Metrics

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Development and Psychometric Validity of the Resilience Scale for Chinese Adolescents HU Yue-Qin,GAN Yi-Qun 2008, 40 (08):  902-912.  Abstract ( 4933 )   Resilience is defined as individuals’ healthy and constructive adjustment after they have experienced serious, traumatic, or catastrophic events. Research on resilience was stimulated by the development of positive psychology. For research purposes, resilience is usually considered from three perspectives: personality, process, and outcome. These three components are different facets of a virtually consistent construct. Several resilience scales have been developed by Western researchers, such as the Resilience Scale (RS), Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA), and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC). However, the validity of these scales was not supported when the scales were tested on Chinese samples (Yu & Zhang, 2007). Therefore, the aim of the present study is to develop a localized resilience scale specifically for Chinese adolescents. For intervention purposes, in our research, resilience was defined as a coping process, since neither personalities nor outcomes can be easily altered. We interviewed twenty-five middle school students who had undergone major negative life events but were still mentally well-adjusted. The interview was structured and included an investigation into the students’ efforts in coping with adversity. Using content coding and stepwise coding, the information abstracted from the interviews was formulated into 100 items. Two hundred and eighty-three teenagers—including 126 males, 146 females and 12 unclear—from both junior and senior high schools completed the 100-item scale. After item discrimination analysis, 87 items were retained for exploratory factor analysis with oblique rotation. Items with low or double loadings were deleted. The final scale included 27 items, classified into five factors: goal planning, help-seeking, family support, affect control, and positive thinking, which accounted for 52.4% of the total variance; each factor individually accounted for more than 5% of the variance. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of separate factor and total scale were all higher than 0.70. The discrimination of each item was greater than 0.30. The second sample included 420 middle school students, consisting of 191 males, 209 females and 20 unclear. They completed the 27-item resilience scale and 2 relative scales. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on this sample. The fit indexes met the psychometric requirements, c2 = 787.85, df = 314, RMSEA = 0.07, and CFI = 0.92, which indicated that the five-factor structure of resilience was stable and achieved goodness of fit. Higher-order confirmatory factor analysis implied that goal planning, affect control, and positive thinking belong to a higher order factor called individual power, while help-seeking and family support belong to another factor called supportive power. The Resilience Scale (RS; Wagnild & Young, 1993) and the Quality of Life Scale for high school students (QLSH; Hu et al., 2002) were used as external criterion. The correlation coefficient with the RS was 0.53 and that with the QLSH was 0.49. No gender differences were found. The strategy of localization and the scope of application are also discussed in this study Related Articles | Metrics

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Memory Bias toward Body Information in Women with Negative Physical Self: Evidence from an ERP Study LIANG Yi,CHEN Hong,QIU Jiang,GAO Xiao,Zhao Ting-Ting 2008, 40 (08):  913-919.  Abstract ( 1739 )   Behavior research evidence has shown that people with a negative physical self have a cognitive bias with a longer reaction time to body information than to neutral information. Chen (2005) indicated that participants with a fat negative physical self have a cognitive preference and selectively perceived body information; however, the underlying mechanism of this phenomenon has not been discussed further. Therefore, the aim of this study is to reveal the brain mechanism of negative physical self by using the event-related potential (ERP) technique. ERPs were recorded to examine the electrophysiologic correlates of the recognition of body pictures. After completing the Negative Physical Self Scale (NPSS), based on their scores on the NPSS-Fat, 28 participants were assigned to the control group (14 normal females) or experimental group (14 females with a negative physical self). During phase one, 288 pictures were presented to the participants. The participants were asked to respond when the target picture appeared. Phase two involved the random presentation of 576 pictures, which consisted of the 288 pictures already presented in phase one and 288 new ones. The participants were requested to judge whether or not the pictures had appeared in phase one. According to the participants’ responses, the electroencephalography (EEG) of the responses to “fat pictures,” “thin pictures,” and “neutral pictures” was separately overlapped. The averaged epoch for an ERP was 1200 ms including an epoch of 200 ms for the pre-answer baseline. ERP waveforms of both groups showed that both fat pictures and thin pictures elicited a more positive ERP deflection than did neutral pictures in the time interval of 250~1000 ms. Moreover, we found that the fat pictures elicited a more positive ERP deflection than did the thin pictures in the time interval of 750~800 ms only in the experimental group. A voltage map of the difference wave of the fat and thin pictures showed strong activity in the central frontal region. The dipole analysis (brain electrical source analysis (BESA) software) localized the generator of the difference wave (fat pictures minus thin pictures) in the right occipital lobe. In the current study, it is indicated that the difference wave of the fat and thin pictures mainly activated the right inferior occipital gyrus, which was consistent with Uddin et al.’s (2005) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) findings that the same brain region was activated by images of one’s own face. A possible interpretation might be that body information may have activated physical self-schema in participants with a negative physical self, which might be reflected by the activation of the right inferior occipital gyrus Related Articles | Metrics

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Cognitive Interference or Emotional Interference: Comparison of PIU College Students’ Implicit Mental Characteristics ZHENG Xi-Fu 2008, 40 (08):  920-926.  Abstract ( 1302 )   PIU (Pathological Internet Use) is a term used to denote problematic Internet use. Young’s eight criteria deduced from the problematic gambling standard of DSM is often used to diagnose PIU. It can be diagnosed as long as one fulfills more than five criteria. The incidence of PIU is about 6%~14% and it can result in mental and physical problems. Pressure, personality, and cognitive characteristics are contributors to PIU, of which implicit cognitive characteristics and implicit cognitive strategies are the key factors. There are two paradigms of implicit cognition characteristics in the current research; one is an implicit association paradigm and the other is a STROOP paradigm. Both of these take RT (reaction time) as the main index. A total of 671 college students were chosen from Grades 1 to 4 as subjects, of which 56 were PIU students. According to the diagnosis scores, the non-PIU subjects were divided into three groups: high addictive tendency group (172), low score group (167), and people between them (286). We adopted a 4 × 2 mixed design and used a computer for this experiment. Four groups of subjects finished the traditional STROOP experiment and the emotional STROOP experiment, both of which require subjects to denominate the colors of emotional words (i.e., positive or negative), neutral words, and Internet-related words, then record their RT. The results indicate that: (1) there was a significant difference between the RT of PIU subjects and high addictive tendency subjects on Internet-related words and that of neutral ones (T values were 12.62 and 11.38, p﹤0.01); (2) the average RT of female subjects on Internet-related words and neutral words were 411.97 and 394.36. Males’ RTs were 427.68 and 401.41—however, there was no significant difference between male subjects and female ones; (3) there was a significant difference in RT for emotional words, among the four groups. There was no significant difference for neutral words. The RT of college students with PIU and those with high addictive tendency on Internet-related words was larger than those of the other two groups, and showed cognitive interference; the RT for emotional words was also larger than for the other two groups, and showed emotional interference Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effects of Career Plateau on Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment and Turnover Intentions XIE Bao-Guo,LONG Li-Rong 2008, 40 (08):  927-938.  Abstract ( 4606 )   A number of theoretical models suggested that continued constant mobility is an important source of satisfaction and motivation. It has been shown that the perception of mobility have an influence on employee attitudes about his job and organization. Since Ference put forward career plateau, a lot of literature about career plateau had come forth. Many researchers in the field focused on the effects of career plateau on work attitudes, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, performance, work involvement and intention to quit. But the literature in this area includes a multitude of contradictory conclusions about the attitudes of those who have attained career plateau and those who have not. With development of Chinese society, career plateau is becoming an important task of organizational career management. But, the empirical study on consequences of career plateau is scarcity in Chinese culture. Hence, our study focuses on three possible consequences of career plateau: job satisfaction, organizational commitment and intention to quit, using the method of quantitative research. Career plateau questionnaire was developed by ourselves. It was composed of three dimensions: hierarchal plateau, content plateau and inclusive plateau. The instruments which measured employee’s work attitudes included Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire, organizational commitment questionnaire and turnover intention questionnaire. Sampling has been carried out twice. The 219 valid data from 4 different enterprises was collected, in order to develop career plateau questionnaire by using the exploratory factor analysis. The 288 samples from 4 different enterprises was collected, in order to test the validate and reliability of career plateau questionnaire. The relationship between job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention was analyzed, based on the 288 samples. The results indicated：(1) hierarchal plateau had no effect on job satisfaction and organizational commitment, but could increase the likelihood of turnover. However, the relationship between hierarchal plateau and turnover intention was moderated by organizational tenure. (2) content plateau had negative effect on job satisfaction, organizational commitment. Moreover, it also could increase the likelihood of turnover. (3) inclusive plateau had negative effect on job satisfaction and organizational commitment, but no effect on turnover intention significantly. The primary theoretical contribution of the research is that career plateau was proved to have a significant impact on work attitudes of employees in the context of Chinese culture. The second theoretical contribution of the research is that clarified the specific relationship between career plateau and job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention, providing a theoretical guidance for the organizational career management Related Articles | Metrics

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Application of Rough Set and Neural Networks in Psychological Measurement YU Jia-Yuan 2008, 40 (08):  939-946.  Abstract ( 1869 )   Factor analysis has often been used to simplify and combine (reduce) observed variables in the construction of psychological measurement instruments, and multiple regression has frequently been used in validity studies. One major challenge, however, is that all these variables have to satisfy the requirements for interval scales. Otherwise，new statistical procedures have to be developed. In artificial intelligence, rough set can be used to reduce attributes and artificial neural networks can also be used to set up relations among the variables in a model. In this study, it was posited that these methods could also be similarly applied to psychological measurement. Under the rough set theory, there are different discretization methods and algorithms to reduce attributes, it is necessary to find the most suitable way for psychological measurement and to see whether the neural network methodology is better than that of multiple regression in validity studies. Responses data on the Competency Assessment Questionnaire of 718 civil servants who were not leaders working in a human resource section were obtained. The data were constructed into a rough set decision table with 21 condition attributes and 1 decision attribute. Seven methods, which included Boolean reasoning, Manual, Entropy/MDL, Equal frequency binning, Naive, Semi-naive and SOM, were used in the discretization. A total of 14 different reducts were obtained with the genetic algorithm and the Johnson algorithm. These were checked in validity studies with the probability neural networks method and the hierarchical regression method. The results showed that reduct D21 was the best among the 14 reducts, which used the Manual method in discretization and the genetic algorithm in reduction. Its correct classification rate was 89.30. In contrast, the average correct classification rate with the probability neural networks was 82.92 which was still higher than the 71.93 of the hierarchical regression method. The research showed the following findings. (i) In the construction of psychological measurement instruments, if the assumptions to apply factor analysis cannot be satisfied, the rough set methods can be used to reduce observed variables. (ii) The rough set provided several reducts. The best of them could be obtained through the neural networks in validity studies. (iii) In predictive validity studies, a higher classification rate could be obtained with the probability neural networks than with the hierarchical regression method. (iv) Theoretical analysis and empirical study showed that the rough set and neural networks could be applied in psychological measurement Related Articles | Metrics