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CN 11-1911/B

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    25 July 2016, Volume 48 Issue 7 Previous Issue    Next Issue

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    The response effects of Chinese and western music on emotion
    BAI Xuejun, MA Xie, TAO Yun
    2016, 48 (7):  757-769.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00757
    Abstract ( 3446 )   PDF (825KB) ( 280 )  

    Music tonality refers to music mode and harmony hierarchical structure. Studies on the relationship between music tonality and emotions are mainly done based on western music and westerners. It is found that music mode and harmony hierarchical structure that’s formed on a basis of a certain keynote are both important reasons of emotional responses. It is commonly shown that for westerners major modes arouses positive emotion while minor modes arouses passive emotion. What’s more, stable harmony generally arouses the feeling of relax while unstable harmony generally arouses the feeling of nervousness. The current dispute is whether the emotion effects of western music tonality which is established on the system of western music represent a cultural specificity or a cultural generality on emotional responses. Moreover, the emotional responses aroused by music tonality go in line with domain specificity or domain generality. To clear the dispute mentioned above, we examined the emotional responses of the Chinese person when the western music modes (major and minor) differed in the stability and harmony in experiment I. In Experiment II, we examined the emotional responses when the Chinese traditional music modes (gong-mode and yu-mode) were adopted. The Chinese gong-mode has similar characteristics to the western major mode and the Chinese yu-mode has similar characteristics to the western minor mode. We use subjective indicators (emotional valence, arousal and tension) and physical indicators (skin conductance, finger pulse and finger temperature) to examine the emotional responses. Six effects were observed through the two experiments. First, major and gong-mode induced positive emotion while minor and yu-mode induced negative emotion. The emotional valence when induced by the harmony in low stability was lower than when the harmony was in high stability. Second, the arousal induced by the harmony in low stability was higher than in high stability. Third, in major, the tension induced by the harmony in low stability was higher in high stability. Fourth, the skin conductance induced by the harmony in low stability was higher than in high stability. Fifth, the finger pulse induced by the harmony in low stability was higher than in high stability. Sixth, the finger temperature induced by major and gong-mode was higher than that of minor and yu-mode. Chinese participants, when examined under the circumstances of the western music tonality, share mostly common emotional responses with the western studies. As to the emotional responses, the Chinese traditional music tonality shares mostly common characteristics with the western music tonality. We suggest that the western and the Chinese music tonality are universal in emotional responses. Also, the emotional responses aroused by music tonality and its correlation trends with the subjective indicators have domain generality.

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    The impact of the irrelevant speech on visual awareness
    LIU Siyun, ZHOU Qian, JIA Huibin, ZHAO Qingbai
    2016, 48 (7):  770-782.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00770
    Abstract ( 1491 )   PDF (792KB) ( 128 )  

    The pioneer work on the irrelevant speech effect (ISE) can be traced back at Colle and Welsh’s report in 1976, and since then many behavioral and neuropsychological experiments have been carried out on this topic. In previous studies, the ISE refers to, compared to a silent-control condition, the disruption of serial recall due to the presentation of auditory distractors. To date, there are many models to explain ISE which have made great progress, such as phonological store hypothesis, changing state hypothesis, feature model and so on. However, most of the work were based on the working memory model, and none of them could satisfactorily explain the discrepancies among different models. And there are ongoing debates on how attention plays a role in the ISE. In the current study, we shifted the observed window to the earliest stage of visual perception (visual awareness or consciousness) and aimed to find out if the irrelevant speech would influence visual information processing earlier than in the memory stage. Three experiments were conducted in this study. All the participants were required to detect the target stimulus which was presented near subjective threshold under three different acoustic conditions. In Experiment 1, a 3 (the type of the irrelevant speech: monosyllabic word vs. pure tone vs. silence) × 3 (the type of picture: gray solid circle vs. cartoon face vs. cartoon clock) mix design was implemented. In Experiment 2, a 3 (the type of the irrelevant speech: monosyllabic word vs. pure tone vs. silence) × 2 (the type of picture: real face vs. real house) within-subject design was implemented. In Experiment 3, in order to examine the neural correlates of the irrelevant speech effect that was found in the previous two experiments, a single factor with 3 levels of the irrelevant sound background (monosyllabic word vs. pure tone vs. silence) were designed and the corresponding event-related potentials (VAN) were recorded. All the behavioral results were analyzed according to the Signal Detection Theory. The results in Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that the irrelevant speech did impair participants’ behavioral performances in the visual awareness task. The ERP results in Experiments 3 were in line with those of Experiments 1 and 2 in that the visual awareness negativity (VAN) around 200ms disappeared under the condition of irrelevant speech, whereas not under the condition of pure tone or silence. In summary, it is concluded that the irrelevant speech damages visual awareness, and this damage was not on the content of visual awareness, nor on the concurrent attentional mechanism.

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    The effect of cue-target relevance and search strategies on attentional capture: Evidence from meaning cues
    WANG Huiyuan, SUI Jie, ZHANG Ming
    2016, 48 (7):  783-793.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00783
    Abstract ( 1105 )   PDF (517KB) ( 109 )  

    It is well known that involuntary shifting of spatial visual attention was modulated by perceptional relevance and meaningful concept relevance among stimuli as well as strategies employed for search performing, and a very recent study further showed the interactions among these factors (Wang, Zhang, & Sui, 2014). However, there were several pitfalls in the study, (1) cue-related stimuli were relatively not abstract with less social meanings, (2) the experiment did not systematically measure cue-target relations, (3) the absolute response times were impaired by the attributes of the Chinese character targets. These issues were addressed in the present study. A modified spatial cueing paradigm was employed in the current study. A trial began with a fixation screen presented for 500 ms, followed by an uninformative red or white Chinese character cue which appeared for 100 ms. Then a fixation screen was showed for 100 ms, followed by a target screen with four squares for 500 ms, either four color squares or one red and three white squares. Participants had to make a judgment for the gap orientation of the red target square while ignoring other distractors. Targets were randomly presented at the one of four locations, either cued or non-cued (valid vs. invalided trials). The effect of attentional capture referred to slower responses to targets in the invalid than valid trials. In the current study, there were four experimental conditions according to cue-target combinations for singleton detection mode task and feature search mode task. The order of experimental conditions was counterbalanced across participants. The results showed that there was no the capture effect in the meaningful cues only when feature search mode was induced by itself, but, the capture effect was observed when singleton detection mode was used, and when the semantic relevance between the cue and the target was established. The capture effects were also significant when there was the perceptional relevance between the cue and target. In addition, the effect from perception relevance was greater than that from semantic relevance and singleton detection mode. In contrast, the capture effects induced by singleton detection mode and by semantic relevance were eliminated when perceptional relevance occurred. It was concluded that (1) attentional capture from meaningful cues was consistent with contingent attentional orienting hypothesis, the cues may capture attention only based on the current attentional control setting, (2) perceptional relevance was dominant on modulating the involuntary attentional orienting, while semantic relevance affected the involuntary attentional orienting but the capture effect was overlapped when other factors operated, (3) although the search strategies reduced the response latencies greatly, the strategy based on singleton detection mode modulated the involuntary attentional orienting, nevertheless the modulating capacity was very limited.

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    Positive affect and selective attention: Approach-motivation intensity influences the early and late attention processing stages
    LIU Fang, DING Jinhong, ZHANG Qin
    2016, 48 (7):  794-803.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00794
    Abstract ( 1895 )   PDF (729KB) ( 247 )  

    According to the Motivational Dimensional Model of Affect, positive affects that varies in approach motivational intensity have diverse impacts on cognitive processes. Previous studies used the local-global visual-processing task and Navon task to examine the attentional consequences of approach-motivated positive affect, and demonstrated that positive affect which is high in approach-motivation reduced the breadth of attention, whereas low approach-motivated positive affect increased global attention. Most of these researches were done by measuring response time (RT). So far, however, relatively little is known about the neural mechanisms of this phenomenon. Studies of attention have suggested that attention operates at both early (sensory input) and late (response selection) processing stages. The high temporal resolution of event-related potentials (ERPs) allows for a more detailed analysis of the time course of attention processing. Therefore the present study used ERP technology and Flanker task to explore whether the effect of motivational intensity on the breadth of attention occurred at the early or the late attention processing stage. Twenty participants (six men and fourteen women) took part in this experiment. Pictures of dessert and scene were used to induce participants’ high and low approach-motivated positive affect. After viewing each picture, participants were asked to accomplish Flanker task, which was, respond to the central target letter by pressing a corresponding button. In 75% of the Flanker tasks, a white rectangular probe stimulus was presented on the left or right of the central letter. EEG activity was recorded during the whole process of the experiment. The results showed that, during the interval of 90~130 ms after Flanker letters onset, the Flanker letters with probe stimuli under high approach-motivated positive affect evoked smaller P1 than the low approach-motivated positive affect. It might suggest that high approach-motivated positive affect narrows the focus of attention during visual input stage. In addition, the Flanker letters under high approach-motivated positive affect evoked the more negative N2b component between 280 and 350 ms; however, at 400~600 ms, the low approach-motivated positive affect evoked a larger P3 component. These results indicated that the high approach-motivated positive affect enhanced the capability of interference suppression, and the participants under low approach-motivated positive affect would pay more attention to periphery stimulus. In sum, the emotional motivational intensity not only impacted the early stage of attention processing but also modulated the late attention processing.

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    Early screening and dynamic intervention of children with insufficient number sense
    ZHANG Lijin; BI Yuan; LIANG Yi; LIU Minhong
    2016, 48 (7):  804-817.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00804
    Abstract ( 1265 )  

    As a common learning disability among grade school children, Mathematical Learning Disabilities (MLD) typically involve lower arithmetical abilities relative to children’s mental age, However, children with MLD do not necessarily show reading and spelling disabilities. Based on the definition of disproportionate ability and achievement, the common method of MLD assessment is to evaluate the discrepancy between intelligence and mathematical achievement while controlling for children’s reading ability. However, early diagnosis or assessment of MLD seems to be impractical for first to third grade children, due to relatively high math test scores that often yield a “ceiling effect.” Thus, it seems that the achievement discrepancy model is more appropriate for senior grades of primary school (4~6 grade) than for younger children. Unfortunately, it has been suggested that remedial instructions for students with diagnosis of MLD are far from perfect. Clearly early diagnosis and intervention is crucial for young children with potential risk of developing MLD. Number sense refers to an intuitive understanding of numbers that enables a person to solve mathematical problems with flexibility and creativity. It forms a foundation for number concepts and computing methods acquisition. Preschool and primary grades are critical periods for developing number sense. Previous studies supported insufficient number sense as a strong predictor of MLD. Asian essential characteristic of MLD, calculation fluency refers to the capacity of rapid and accurate computation and has been used as a key marker of potential MLD in young children. Given that insufficient number sense can lead to calculation deficiencies which in turn predicts MLD, early assessment and diagnosis of children’s number sense, followed by specialized interventions, are particularly important for prevention of MLD. In order to examine the positive impact of interventions on number sense and calculation fluency among first grade primary school pupils, the current study first constructed the Number Sense Developmental Test, screening for children with number sense insufficiency and then provided dynamic interventions of number transformation and estimation. Children with insufficient number sense was assigned to either intervention group (n = 29) or control group (n = 27). A third group of children with sufficient number sense (n = 40) was also included as the reference group. Using a “pretest-intervention-posttest” design, the current study examined not only the effect of interventions on number sense and calculation fluency, but also the relation between number sense and calculation fluency. Results showed that the 46-item “Number Sense Developmental Test (for 1st grade)” yielded five dimensions: counting, number knowledge, number transformation, estimation, and number patterns. Evidence of psychometric properties of the test includes internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, parallel-forms reliability, content validity, and criterion validity, all of which were satisfactory. There was no difference on number sense and calculation fluency between the intervention group and the control group before the intervention, though both groups scored lower than did the reference group. After a six-week intervention that involves twelve blocks of number transformation and estimation training, the intervention group scored higher on both the total and four dimensions of the post-test scores than did the control group (ps < 0.01) with the exception of their scores on the number knowledge dimension. In addition, the posttest scores of the intervention group were comparable to those of the reference group (ps > 0.05). A similar pattern of findings was also found on calculation fluency among the three groups. While children in the control group also made some progress on number knowledge, number transformation and estimation (ps < 0.05), the improvement from pretest to posttest among these children were significantly lower than that of the children in the intervention group. In addition, unlike the intervention group, the control group failed to make significant progress in estimation and number patterns. Further comparison of number sense growth scores among the three groups revealed that the intervention group scored higher than control group on several dimensions, t counting = 3.52, p < 0.001; t number transformation = 4.46, p < 0.001; t estimation = 1.99, p < 0.05; t number patterns = 2.84, p < 0.01; t total = 7.00, p < 0.01. These results confirmed the positive impact the intervention on several key components of number sense (i.e., number transformation and estimation) among children with insufficient number sense. Moreover, the results showed that the pretest scores of number sense was significant related to posttest scores of calculation fluency (β = 0.275, p < 0.01), whereas the reverse relation between pretest scores of calculation fluency and the posttest scores of number sense was not (β = 0.155, p > 0.05), providing some initial evidence on the direction of the relation between number sense and calculation fluency. The findings of the current study provide support for the positive impact of interventions on certain components of number sense, pointing out the critical role an early intervention may play in developing number sense among young children. Such interventions not only are beneficial for helping children develop mathematics abilities, but also are necessary for early screening and diagnosis of MLD among young children.

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    Effectiveness and mechanism of internet-based self-help intervention for depression: The Chinese version of MoodGYM
    REN Zhihong; LI Xianyun; ZHAO Lingbo; YU Xianglian; LI Zhenghan; LAI Lizu; RUAN Yijun; JIANG Guangrong
    2016, 48 (7):  818-832.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00818
    Abstract ( 2484 )  

    Depression is an important global public health issue, for which the internet cognitive-behavioral therapy (ICBT) is drawing increasingly broad attention in recent years. This intervention model is still in its infancy in China, whose validity, though, has already been tested by various studies in western countries. Beijing Suicide Research and Prevention Center (BSRPC) first introduced MoodGYM, a ICBT program for depression in 2014, and later made it available in Chinese. The aim of the present study is twofold: (1) to test the online intervention validity of the computerized intervention program of MoodGYM among college students with depression with randomized controlled trials (RCT); (2) to simultaneously explore the mechanism of cognitive distortion, a finding from clinic practice, and interpretation bias, a discovery in cognitive research, in ICBT for depression with multiple mediation model. The sample consisted of 62 college student subjects, who were randomly divided into either a MoodGYM intervention group (n = 47) and a delayed intervention group (n = 15), with a 3:1 proportion as the weighted random selection demands. This study uses the complete-case analysis, and the result of intention-to-treat analysis (ITT) is also reported. The results suggest that the computerized self-help intervention of MoodGYM on Chinese college students with depression indicates a statistically significant difference in the MoodGYM group after intervention (Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, CES-D, d = 0.93; Patient Health Questionnaire, PHQ-9, d = 0.79), regardless of whether complete-case analysis or intention-to-treat analysis was used. Meanwhile, clinical significance was also found in the validity of ICBT for depression. When compared to the control group, ICBT not only promoted the reduction of negative automatic thoughts as measured through the explicit self-report scale (Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire, ATQ), but resulted in a decrease of negative interpretation biases obtained from the implicit cognitive measure (Scrambled Sentences Test, SST) as well, and thus led to depressive symptom relief. In addition, while ICBT for depression enhanced the improvement of participants’ dysfunctional attitudes, no significance was observed in tests of mediation effect. Despite the limitations of the using computerized intervention for depression there are often too little professional staff for student counseling centers to meet the need of large student populations, whereas the self-help ICBT shows encouraging therapeutic effects and advantages to assist in the care of large numbers of users. Consequently, ICBT may well serve as a supplement to traditional psychotherapies, or as a self-help intervention in the gradient treatment model.

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    Interpersonal distance influences on pain empathy: Friends priming effect
    SONG Juan; GUO Fengbo; ZHANG Zhen; YUAN Sheng; JIN Hua; WANG Yiwen
    2016, 48 (7):  833-844.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00833
    Abstract ( 3520 )  

    Based on references in the scientific literature, empathy, the capacity to understand, share and evaluate others’ feelings and thoughts, plays a crucial role in human social communication and interaction. It has been proposed to mediate acquisition of appropriate social behaviors such as helping and cooperation. The capacity of empathy varies with personal development and it has its evolutionary significance. Studying the mechanisms and brain activities of empathy and its affecting factors really get a great importance and it is essential to human emotional behaviors. Results from recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies suggest that imagining or seeing the pain of others’ body or facial expressions may generate activation of the affective nodes and the sensorimotor nodes in pain matrix. Some fMRI researchers have indicated a relation between interpersonal relationship and empathy. And also, ERP components related to empathy has been found. According to ERP studies, in empathy, there was an early negative potential relating to emotion sharing and a late positive potential relating to social evaluation. So far, there were some studies focused on affecting factors on empathy. Our study mainly concerned the electrophysiology evidence of interpersonal relationship’s effect on empathy to test the meanings of empathy-related ERP components and the brain activation. Our event-related potential study recorded 14 right-handed subjects’ electrophysiology data by using priming paradigm in pain empathy task to investigate the influence of interpersonal relationship and its brain mechanism. The data of friend’s photo priming condition and stranger’s photo priming condition were recorded and compared with each other. Each condition contained two kinds of judgment, that is, pain judgment and no-pain judgment. We also used sLORETA to check out the brain activation of empathy and relationship’s effect on empathy. The study used IRI-C and combined its data to ERP amplitude data to verified neural mechanisms of empathy and the personal capacity by using correlation analysis. The study found that N1 amplitude was decreased in the friend priming condition of pain empathy decision task compared with N1 in the stranger priming condition, which indicated that N1 did have the effect of emotion sharing. Comparing with strangers, the similar neural network activated when people shard the emotion of their friends and made the N1 fall down. P3 amplitude was increased in the friend priming condition of pain empathy decision task compared with P3 in the stranger priming condition, which indicated that interpersonal relationship strengthen the conscious processing of cue perception and social cognitive evaluation in pain empathy. To investigate brain mechanisms of empathy we used software of sLORETA to complete the source analysis of N1 and P3 in the pain task under both two priming conditions. The results showed that pain judgments in both two conditions mainly activated the precentral gyrus, Brodmann 4and there was no significant difference between these two conditions. We found significant difference at 600-700 ms and 700-800 ms for P3 through Brodmann 22. And we also found positive relation between IRI-C and N1 and negative relation between IRI-C and P3. Interpersonal relationship did have effect on empathy either for pain. As showed in ERP results, for pain empathy N1 and P3 were regarded as automatic emotion sharing and controlled cognitive evaluation of pain. The study found that interpersonal relationship affected both the early automatic processing (N1) and the late controlled processing (P3) of empathy. N1 did have the effect of emotion sharing. Comparing with strangers, the similar neural network activated when people shard the emotion of their friends and made the N1 fall down. P3 shows that interpersonal relationship strengthened the conscious processing of cue perception and social cognitive evaluation in pain empathy.

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    The influence of self-control in the perceived of deception and deception
    FAN Wei, ZHONG Yiping, LI Huiyun, MENG Chuyi, YOU Chang, FU Xiaolan
    2016, 48 (7):  845-856.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00845
    Abstract ( 2195 )   PDF (623KB) ( 446 )  

    Deceit judgment and deceit behavior have different psychological mechanisms. Understanding the relationship between them will enhance mutual trust and long-term interests of the team. Self-control refers to the ability of restraining unnecessary automatic behavior inclination to maintain or promote cooperation. Self-control is believed as the supervision mechanism of the internal natural impulse and the external cultural requirements. Self-control is an important motivation clue in the deceit recognition. However, the self-control plays the motivation clue role in the deceit recognition or the supervision mechanism role in implementing deceits, the cognition mechanism remains unclear yet. The influences of the self-control ability and self-control resources on the deceits are different, but the cognition mechanism of the impacts hasn’t been revealed yet. In the present study, we adopted behavioral experiments to investigate the influence of self-control on deception from two views. In experiment 1, we used the material priming method to examine the impact of perceived others’ self-control ability on deceit judgment. The results showed that compared with the ones who have high self-control ability, subjects tended to think the ones who have low self-control ability were inclined to have deception behavior and inclination for their own interest. In experiment 2, we used the video priming method to investigate the impact of perceived others’ self-control resource exhaustion on deception judgment. And the results showed that when perceiving others’ self-control resource exhausted, there were no significant main effects or interaction effect in deception inclination when evaluating others deceived for his own interests and other’s interest, or in some given contexts. In experiment 3, we adopted the visual perception task to examine the influence of different levels of self-control ability on deceit behavior. The results showed that compared with the high self-control resource group, the low self-control resource group had more deception behavior and inclination. In experiment 4, we adopted the Stroop color task and the visual perception task to examine self-control resource’s impact on deception behavior. The results showed that compared with the control group, the self-control resource exhaustion group had more deception behavior and inclination. These findings showed that when judging deception, people preferentially utilize others’ self-control ability level to judge whether they have deception motivation or inclination. When implementing deception behavior, individuals who have high self-control ability can better restrain selfish motivation and consider long term interests. The individuals who have sufficient self-control resource are inclined to withstand the temptation.

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    The influence of childhood stress and mortality threat on mating standards
    WANG Jiaying; CHEN Bin-Bin
    2016, 48 (7):  857-866.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00857
    Abstract ( 2779 )  

    Life history theory focuses on interpreting organisms’ trade-off in the allocation of limited resource. Research shows that the childhood stress influences an individual’s life history strategies. Based on previous literature, this experiment investigated the interaction effect of childhood stress and current environment stress on men’s and women’s mating standards. Participants were 70 Chinese undergraduate students (59 females, 11 males) with ages ranging from 17 to 23 (M = 19.37, SD = 1.16). In the mortality threat condition, participants were primed by reading a news article on the recent increases in random violence and mortality in the country. In the control condition, participants were asked to read a paper about a person spending hours searching for the lost key in an afternoon. The two passages were similar in length and style and elicited similar levels of general arousal. Mating standards and childhood stress were measured by self-report scales. A series of independent-sample t-test results showed that with regard to resource, women’s standard was higher than men’s and single participants had lower mating standard than those in a relationship. After controlling gender and relationship status, regression analysis showed that the interaction effect only existed on the mating standard for physical attractiveness. Specifically, the participants with higher childhood stress showed significantly lower mating standard for physical attractiveness in the mortality condition than in the control condition, whereas the participants with less childhood stress showed higher mating standard for physical attractiveness in the mortality condition than in the control condition. Further, the participants with mortality prime had higher standard for good parent than the ones in the control group. No main or interaction effects were found on the mating standard for resource. The results indicated that the childhood stress and cues to environmental harshness might influence the mating standards, but they might have different impact on different mating standards.

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    Way different, never work together? A moderated model of informational faultlines, overlapping team tenure, transactive memory system, and team learning
    CHEN Shuai; WANG Duanxu
    2016, 48 (7):  867-879.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00867
    Abstract ( 1140 )  

    There is an old Chinese saying: “Do not attempt to work with people whose way is not your way”. In parallel, social categorization theory and social identity theory have pointed out that people tend to categorize each other according to demographic characteristics (such as gender, age, ethnicity and vocation, etc.). As both proverb and theories suggested, teams with faultlines tended to perform bad in learning due to malfunction in across-subgroup interaction. However, we argued that faultlines were not always detrimental and that they might even play a facilitating role in some cases. First, we focused on information-based faultlines, which were expected to exert different effect on team learning compared to social category faultlines. Second, we elaborated on the typology of team learning and investigated the impact of information-based faultlines on two different dimensions of team learning. Finally, we considered the moderating role of overlapping team tenure and transactive memory system to better understand when faultlines might affect team learning and what managers can do to manage and use faultlines to their advantage. Data were collected using a questionnaire survey approach. Two different types of questionnaires were presented: a team manager questionnaire and a team member questionnaire. The team manager questionnaire was primarily used to collect team learning data, whereas the team member questionnaire was used to collect member demographic information and transactive memory system data. We contacted and invited 106 workgroups within 36 companies to participate. By excluding team data that lacked adequate observations, we kept 76 teams with matched observations. We further eliminated samples with incomplete individual demographic information as required by the measure for faultlines. Also, teams with less than four team members were dropped because subgroups within these teams had been shown to exhibit different dynamics. Therefore, the effective sample size was 56 teams (including 56 team leaders and 364 team members). We used regression analysis to test the hypotheses. The findings indicated that information-based faultlines had effects neither on team internal learning nor on team external learning. Nevertheless, the effects of information-based faultlines on both types of team learning were moderated by overlapping team tenure and transactive memory system. Specifically, the effects of information-based faultlines on team internal and external learning were stronger when overlapping team tenure was long and when the level of transactive memory system was high within teams. The research enriched the faultlines theory by specifying the types of faultlines and focusing mainly on the dynamics of information-based faultlines. We also extended team learning literature by theorizing about the two properties of team learning and exploring their respective forming conditions. Taken together, this study challenged some straightforward fashions by exploring the boundary conditions concerning the effects of information-based faultlines on bilateral team learning.

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    Consumers’ power states and impulsive buying
    JIN Fei; ZHU Huawei
    2016, 48 (7):  880-890.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00880
    Abstract ( 2889 )  

    Power has long been a common and fundamental component of social systems and organizations and it is also a psychological state of individuals. The circumstance around us can change our current power state at any moment. The influence of power on human behavior and the underlying mechanism have been pervasively examined in the psychology and other sociology literatures. These literatures suggest that power is an omnipresent force which can affect humans’ cognition, preference and behavior. However, it has been largely neglected in consumer behavior research. Prior research has been focused on product preference, consumption utilities and brand switch behavior. Based on current literatures, we explored the relationship between power states and impulsive buying which is very common in consumer behavior but underexplored. We proposed the impulsive buying was largely due to a fluency effect derived from match between different power states and product categories. Given this finding, the authors then demonstrated an important boundary condition by priming powerful participants’ hedonic goals. Three studies were conducted to check the propositions. Experiment 1 supported the interaction effects of power and product categories on impulsive buying through 2 (power: high vs. low) × 2 (product category: utilitarian vs. hedonic) between-subjects design. 123 university students participated the experiment. Study 2 primed power states via role play. A total of 168 participants completed a study with a 2 (power: high vs. low) × 2 (product category: utilitarian vs. hedonic) between-subjects design. In this study, we utilized a new product (i.e. a smart watch) to enhance the external validity. Further, we aimed to check the underlying mechanism. Based on extant research, we tested the role of fluency and deservingness. In study 3, we changed the product presentation mode to assess the basic proposition and the moderating role of hedonic goals among participants in high power state. 115 undergraduate students participated the 2 (power: high vs. low) × 2 (hedonic goal: stimulate vs. no stimulate) × 2 (product categories: utilitarian vs. hedonic) mixed design, with power and hedonic goal between-subjects design and product within-subjects design. The results of these three studies provided supports for our theorizing: (1) Participants in high power state showed more impulsive intention in utilitarian condition, whereas those in low power state prefer hedonic product. (2) Study 2 provided robust evidence for the interaction effects and the underlying mechanism of processing fluency when participants in different power states faced different product types. (3) Participants in high power state preferred the hedonic product when they were stimulated hedonic goals. However, such effect was not applied to participants in the low power state which confirmed our basic proposition that the power states and the product categories affected impulsive buying again. The research concluded by discussing the theoretical contributions of our findings and managerial implications for practice. Firstly, we propose a new means to broaden the understanding of power and consumer behavior, which enriches the relevant research on power. Secondly, by showing the relation between power and impulsive buying and that processing fluency plays a mediating role in this effect, our research offers a new explanation to understand impulses. Last but not the least, the result makes beneficial supplement to Approach-Inhibition Theory by showing the powerless may buy hedonic product impulsively. Beyond the theoretical implications, this article offers critical insights for marketers.

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    The influence factors of grade response cluster diagnostic method
    KANG Chunhua; REN Ping; ZENG Pingfei
    2016, 48 (7):  891-902.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00891
    Abstract ( 649 )  

    Due to the limitation of the Parameter Diagnosis model, in recent years, researchers begin to explore the nonparametric diagnosis method which is simpler and more efficient, such as SVM, the machine learning method based on statistical learning theory which is raised by Vapnik according to the risk minimization principle. SVM not only has simple structure, but can also use small sample which is quite time saving and efficient. Chiu and other fellows raised clustering method of 0-1 grading based on the idea of Sum-Scores. In order to match the practical evaluation, researchers developed clustering method of 0-1 grading into multi- grading, and discussed how sample size, percentage of random errors and attribute hierarchy structure impact on the class accuracy. The result indicates that GRCDM shows quite high class accuracy in both simulation and practice situation, little dependence on the sample size and compactness of attribute hierarchy structure, and is adaptable to small scale evaluation. All those characteristics show the advantage of nonparametric method. Nevertheless, the recent research on the nonparametric method is still superficial, so further efforts are needed to explore influence factor, investigate deep into the advantages and features of GRCDM, and enrich the study of nonparametric method with the help of the existing achievement of parameter method. By analyzing the influence factors of the diagnostic on evaluation class accuracy through three well- designed simulate studies from both test and subject layer, this research studies the five factors including the number of attribute, sample distribute, attribute hierarchy structure, attribute hierarchy structure misspecification and Q-matrix misspecification which cause the influence to the GRCDM, tries to investigate its performance comprehensively, and drives the research of the nonparametric diagnostic method. The result indicates thatGRCDM shows no dependence on the number of attribute and the more attribute the test has, the higher class accuracy this method has. Secondly, the sample distribution shows no influence on the class accuracy of GRCDM, reflecting the advantage that nonparametric method has no requirement of ability distribution. Thirdly, GRCDM has a great sensitivity to the attribute hierarchy structure misspecification, especially when for divergent or unstructured attribute hierarchy structure and the disorder of attribute hierarchy structure will lead to the maximum decreasing. Lastly, the influence on GRCDM caused by Q-matrix misspecification is differentiated by the attribute hierarchy structure, of which divergent and convergent will be influenced less, and the decreasing amplitude of the class accuracy of unstructured and linear attribute hierarchy structure will be maximum when both over and under specification of Q-matrix entries for items. This research is the penetration and extension based on the former research. Through the three simulation studies, some significant conclusions have been got, some of them being peculiar to nonparametric method, and some shared with parameter method. All in all, through this research, we can know more about the features of GRCDM. Knowing the advantage of nonparametric method and the difference from parameter method will provide useful information to both theoretical research and practical application of cognitive diagnostic assessment.

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    New item selection methods in cognitive diagnostic computerized adaptive testing: Combining item discrimination indices
    GUO Lei; ZHENG Chanjin; BIAN Yufang; SONG Naiqing; XIA Lingxiang
    2016, 48 (7):  903-914.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00903
    Abstract ( 885 )  

    Interest in developing computerized adaptive testing (CAT) under cognitive diagnostic models has increased recently. Cognitive diagnostic computerized adaptive testing (CD-CAT) attempt to classify examinees into the correct latent class profile so as to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of each examinee whereas CAT algorithms choose items from the item bank to achieve that goal as efficiently as possible. Most of the research in CD-CAT uses the posterior-weighted Kullback-Leibler (PWKL) index due to its high efficiency. The PWKL index integrated the posterior probabilities of examinees’ latent class profiles into the KL information, and thus improved item selection efficiency considerably. However, the PWKL index only used examinee-based information to assess the relative importance of each latent class profile. The current study attempted to take advantage of not only the examinee-base information but also the item-based information that could be readily obtained from items. In a sense, the PWKL index should be regarded as single-source index. This paper introduced four new multiple-source item selection methods, GIDPWKL, AIDPWKL, CIDPWKL, and KLEDPWKL respectively, which can be modified from the PWKL index by combining the item discrimination information. Two simulation studies were conducted to evaluate the new methods’ efficiency against the PWKL index and mutual information (MI) index in the DINA model with the exposure control. The effects of different factors were investigated: the Q matrix structure (simple vs. complex), item quality (high vs. low) and test length (moderate vs. short). Simulation results indicated that: (1) In most cases, the shorter the test length was, the higher AACCR and PCCR values the four new methods would have in the fix-length test. The GIDPWKL index had the highest average attribute correct classification rate and pattern correct classification rate among the six methods, and followed by AIDPWKL index. The performance among the CIDPWKL, KLEDPWKL, and MI depends on the experimental conditions. (2) In most cases, the higher the item quality was, the more advantage the four new methods would have in the fix-length test. (3) The structure of the Q matrix affected the performance of different item selection methods. (4) In the variable-length test, the mean of test length across all examinees for the four new methods and MI method were all smaller than those in the PWKL method. As a whole, the performance of the GIDPWKL index was the best, and should be recommended in practice where had the similar testing scenarios.

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