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Face holistic processing is modulated by perceptual experience YAN Linlin, WANG Zhe, ZHANG Zhijun, SONG Saiwei, SUN Yuhao 2016, 48 (10):  1199-1209.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01199 Abstract ( 2935 )   PDF (752KB) ( 98 )   It is well known that same-race faces are better discriminated and recognized than other-race faces, a phenomenon confirmed experimentally and termed in the literature for face perception as the “own-race advantage”. Why do people have the bias in face processing? Some researchers claimed that the own-race advantage in discrimination is associated with interracial contact. The more visual experience with own race faces, the better discrimination within own-race faces. How visual experience affects the processing of same-race and other-race faces has yet to be determined. An influential hypothesis “experience-based holistic processing view” states that it would result from a reduced holistic processing with which we have less experience. To examine the effect of perceptual experience on holistic processing, with composite face paradigm and perceptual adaptation paradigm we investigated the composite-face effect of own-race faces, other-race faces and morphed faces during the perceptual discrimination. In the preliminary experiment, 20 Asian participants were presented with 704 color Asian-Caucasian morphed face stimuli for a race categorization task. These stimuli were generated with morphing software (MorphTM), allowing the creation of 11 blended face stimuli (from 0:100 to 100:0 for Asian:Caucasian proportions, respectively) for each of 64 Asian-Caucasian continua. In each continuum, the face that was equally often categorized as Asian and as Caucasian was identified as the ambiguous-race face. Result showed that the 52 Asian-Caucasian ambiguous faces were extracted and used as face stimuli in experiment 1a, experiment 1b and experiment 2. In Experiment 1a, we examined the holistic processing of own-race faces and other-race faces by using the composite paradigm in a two-alternative forced-choice delayed matching task. The results of Exp1a showed that own-race faces and other-race faces are processed holistically. However, morphed faces are not processed holistically. With gray pictures as stimuli, Exp1b replicated the same results as experiment 1a. In Experiment 2, we examined that the holistic processing of morphed faces can be induced by perceptual adaptation (5 seconds). Results showed that the morphed faces were processed holistically after short-term perceptual adaptation. Collectively, these findings indicate that face holistic processing is modulated by perceptual experience, even the short-term perceptual adaptation may affect participants’ face holistic processing as one of the most important factors. Related Articles | Metrics

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Seeing the Linda problem from a “mental image representation”: “Proposition representation” dual representation perspective LI Xiaoping 2016, 48 (10):  1210-1218.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01210 Abstract ( 1067 )   PDF (559KB) ( 103 )   A dual representation that is the mental image representation and the proposition representation of the Linda problem was proposed in this paper. We hold that people have two different but reasonable representations for the Linda problem. When people used the mental image representation, they think their task in the Linda problem was to judge to what extent of the typical images of the accountant, the feminist or the “accountant- feminist” match the image of Linda respectively according to the conversational rule. However, when people used the propositional representation, the Linda problem is just a math problem described by Tversky & Kahneman (1983). Although both of these two presentations were reasonable, the description of Linda in the Linda problem make people more often use the mental image representation. This is also the reason why most people more likely judge the Lady as accountant-feminist. To test the above assumption, four studies which contained 607 participants were conducted. In study 1, two translated versions, that are the translated versions of the mental image representation, and the translated version of frequency format representation of the Linda problem were used to investigate which version is more closed to participants’ representations. In study 2, another two translated versions, that is the translated version of mental image representation and the translated version of the ratio format representation was used to investigate which one is more closed to participants’ representations. In study 3, two new versions of the Linda problem and the original Linda problem was used to investigate the difference between of them. In one new version, the mathematics set was used to replace the professions in the original Linda problem, but the other expressions were still in nature language. In another new version, the professions were also replaced by mathematics set, and the other expressions were in math language simultaneously. In study 4, another new version of Linda problem and the original version of the Linda problem were sent to participants randomly. The only difference between the new version of Linda problem and the original one is that the new version had a new ranking item which is “Linda is a person in human being”. The results of the study 1 and 2 showed that most participants who committed the fallacy chose the mental image representation of the Linda problem as the one which matched their own representations; but the participants who didn’t commit the fallacy did not have this response bias; (2) The results of study 3 showed that the proportion of the fallacy on both of the new versions of the Linda problem were lower than the original version. However, there was no significant difference between the proportions of the fallacy on both of the new versions. (3) The results of study 4 showed that the proportion level of the fallacy on the new version of the Linda problem was lower than the original one. All the results supported the dual representations perspective of the Linda problem. This research suggested that more studies were needed to explore the mechanism of the Linda problem. Related Articles | Metrics

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The emotional memory trade-off effect in retrieval-induced forgetting MAO Weibin, ZHAO Haoyuan, DONG Liyun, BAI Lu 2016, 48 (10):  1219-1228.  doi: DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01219 Abstract ( 1459 )   PDF (832KB) ( 167 )   Although researches on the retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) of emotional memory are very rich, there remain inconsistent findings so far, meanwhile many studies on RIF always took emotional memory as a whole. Emotional stimuli we faced in real life are complex, consisting of many different characteristics, such as details or gist of event, central emotional information or peripheral non-emotional information, and people are not able to remember them all to the same degree. A plenty of researches on memory demonstrated a central–peripheral trade-off in memory for complex negative emotional event, namely enhancement of memory for emotional central details of a complex stimuli came at the expense of corresponding memory impairment for non-emotional peripheral details. Our research aims to find whether the central -peripheral trade-off in memory existed in the retrieval- induced forgetting of complex emotional pictures in 2 experiments. 72 complex emotion pictures are selected as experimental materials, which belong to 6 categories and are consisted of central items and peripheral backgrounds, furthermore the valence of central items is either negative or neutral and the valence of all peripheral backgrounds is neutral. In study phase, all participants were asked to study 72 complex pictures which were presented on screen one by one randomly. Then in retrieval phase, participants were instructed to practice either the retrieval of whole pictures (Exp1) or only the retrieval of backgrounds (Exp2). Finally, in test phase participants were asked to complete the old/new recognition test and indicate whether each test picture is old or new by pressing key. Results showed that: (1) emotional memory trade-off effects existed significantly in retrieval-induced forgetting regardless of practicing the retrieval of whole pictures or peripheral backgrounds; (2) negative items showed retrieval-induced forgetting the same as neutral items; (3) retrieval-induced forgetting existed only in the central items but not in the peripheral backgrounds, regardless of retrieving whole pictures or just retrieving backgrounds. Related Articles | Metrics

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How value-based agendas affect study time allocation: An eye tracking study JIANG Yingjie, WANG Zhiwei, ZHENG Mingling, JIN Xuelian 2016, 48 (10):  1229-1238.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01229 Abstract ( 973 )   PDF (713KB) ( 83 )   Allocation of study time is generally considered as one of the most important indicators to show how learners adjust and control their learning processes efficiently, and it is influenced by habitual responding or an agenda-based process. In the agenda-based regulation (ABR) framework, agenda is a type of plans which can help learners finish their study in some situation. Generally, multiple factors, such as item difficulty and value, have effects on agenda-based regulation. Under the condition of limited study time and equal rewards for each item, learners often choose the item at their reading habit preferred position (left for Chinese) first to remember and then shift to another position (right for Chinese) when they feel they can fully recall the first one in the later test. However, if the rewards are unequal, especially when the item at opposite preferred position has higher rewards than those at the preferred position, habit-oriented learning may become counter-productive and learners tend to adopt a value-based agenda in item selection and study time allocation. The present study controlled the item difficulty in moderate level to observe whether the item value can influence the study decision shifting from habitual bias to value-based agendas by using the eye tracking technique. Three experiments were conducted with a paradigm devised by Metcalfe and her colleagues. Experiment 1 evaluated the habitual responding of native Chinese readers (mainly select items in a left-to-right fashion) in Chinese and provided a baseline to compare to Experiments 2 and 3. Participants were asked to learn the associations of 24 pairs of nouns. Two pairs of nouns were presented on a computer display for a total 3 s, one pair to the left and the other one to the right of the fixation. With the observation of clear bias of study time allocation to items on the left side, Experiments 2 and 3 were carried out to clarify if this habit oriented strategy was modulated by rewards, and if so, could rewards override such habit-oriented strategy and encourage the adaptation of a value-based strategy? The task procedures were the same across Experiments 2 and 3, and were similar to that of Experiment 1, only with the following two exceptions. First, the two pairs of nouns were associated with different rewards (1 vs. 5 points in Experiment 2; 1 vs. 10 points in Experiment 3). Second, participants need to complete two experimental blocks. In one block, the pairs of nouns with high rewards were presented on the left. In the other block, the pairs of nouns with high rewards were presented on the right. The results showed that: a) without rewards, participants tended to process items on the left side first, which give them more study time (Experiment 1); b) this left side bias remained when items of high rewards were presented on the left side of the display (Experiments 2 & 3); and c) when high rewards items were presented on the right side, the left side bias was disappeared if the reward contrast between left and right side items was moderate (Experiment 2), and was reversed if the reward contrast is high (Experiment 3). These observations suggest that value-based agenda can counteract or even override habitual processes in self-paced learning. The eye movements data of Experiments 2 and 3 further showed that the magnitude of reward contrast between items modulates the time course of learning decisions. High reward contrast triggers immediate selection of items associated with higher rewards, whereas the selection of higher rewards items takes a bit long time to resolve, when the reward contrast was moderate. The findings are in general consistent with the ABR framework. Study time allocation in self-paced learning is dynamic and context-specific. Item selection and study time are modulated by both habitual and value-based agendas, and the strength of value-based agenda is contingent on reward contrast. Related Articles | Metrics

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Inhibitory effects of reappraisal on conditioned fear acquisition and expression: Long-term influences measured by a spontaneous recovery test AN Xianli, CHEN Siguang 2016, 48 (10):  1239-1247.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01239 Abstract ( 1140 )   PDF (797KB) ( 151 )   Fear is an emotional response that rapidly serves humans and animals by preparing them for threats and danger. However, excessive fear is a hallmark of various debilitating anxiety disorders. Ways in which to erase or decrease fear have recently gained considerable fundamental and applied research interest. Unfortunately, numerous prior experiments have found that an acquired fear is difficult to disrupt and always eventually recovers with the passage of time following intervention in the absence of any further training. In recent years, because of the fact that humans voluntarily monitor and regulate their emotional states during stressful situations, interest in modulating the fear response through emotional regulation has rapidly increased. Emotional regulation strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal, have been shown to effectively decrease subjective ratings of emotion, heart rate, and skin conductance responses (SCRs) to negative emotional stimuli. Cognitive reappraisal also robustly reduces the conditioned fear response. However, the long-term effects of reappraisal on the fear response are unknown. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of cognitive reappraisal on human fear acquisition and fear expression.We also evaluated whether reappraisal can inhibit conditioned fear in the long term by testing spontaneous fear recovery. In experiment 1, a sample of 30 right-handed college students (15 males and 15 females) underwent training using a partial reinforcement fear conditioning paradigm.The paradigm consisted of three stages: acquisition (day1), expression test (day2), and spontaneous recovery test (day32). One day1, the participants were randomly divided into two groups and instructed to perform reappraisal or attend to the stimulus when it was presented. For cognitive reappraisal training in the reappraisal group,the participants were taught to regulate their fear responses to the aversive stimulus. Fear acquisition training followed reappraisal training 5 min later, in which the participants learned that one colored square (e.g., blue, conditioned stimulus [CS+]) predicted a loud white noise (unconditioned stimulus [US]) and another colored square (e.g., yellow, [CS−]) was presented alone. In the acquisition process, the participants in the reappraisal group had to use the newly acquired regulation skills, and the participants in the attend group were asked to view the stimulus and attend to their natural feelings when the CS was presented. The next day, fear expression was tested by presenting the CS without the US. Thirty days later, a spontaneous fear recovery test was conducted similarly to the fear expression test. Experiment 2 included 28 participants (13 males and 15 females). The design of this experiment was the same as experiment 1, with the exception of the stage that reappraisal involved. In experiment 2, reappraisal was conducted in the fear expression test stage on day 2. In all stages of the two experiments, differential SCRs to the CS+ minus SCRs to the CS− served as an index of conditioned fear levels and were acquired from the participant’s middle phalanges of the second and third fingers on the left hand using the BIOPAC Systems skin conductance module. In experiment 1, reappraisal effectively decreased SCRs during fear acquisition with the CS+ relative to the CS−. Consistent with fear acquisition, 24h and 30 days later, the reappraisal group also exhibited significant lower conditioned fear levels in the fear expression and spontaneous fear recovery tests. In experiment 2, the reappraisal and attend groups exhibited equivalent levels of conditioned fear on day 1. However, reappraisal significantly decreased levels of conditioned fear in test 1. More importantly, compared with the attend group, reappraisal successfully inhibited the spontaneous recovery of conditioned fear 30 days later. The present results support the critical contribution of cognitive reappraisal in fear conditioning and in fear expression tests with regard to inhibiting the conditioned fear response. Importantly, these inhibitory effects lasted for at least 1 month. These parallel results suggest that cognitive reappraisal may be able to disrupt memory formation during conditioning or erase conditioned fear memory that is already consolidated. Our results are consistent with clinical findings, in which emotional cognitive reappraisal interventions are an effective treatment for patients with anxiety or depression disorders. Therefore, the use of cognitive reappraisal may be an effective tool for suppressing fear responses to traumatic events and prevent the development of stress-related psychological illness. Related Articles | Metrics

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The effects of presenting mode, reaction order of dual task on adults’ arithmetic strategy choice and execution AI Jiru; ZHANG Hongduan; SI Jiwei; LU Chun; ZHANG Tangzheng 2016, 48 (10):  1248-1257.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01248 Abstract ( 769 )   Strategy is the way and the method of solving problems. Individuals use a variety of strategies when facing arithmetic problems. Strategy flexibility and adaptability is one of the key issues in the researching field of arithmetic cognition. Researchers postulate that central executive system affects the strategy using. For instance, the probability of individuals’ best strategy choice would be in decline and they would make more mistakes in strategy execution under the central executive load condition. Dual task coordination is an important part of the central executive system, reflecting the ability of reasonable allocation of alternation resources to select different processing modes and then to arrange the task processing sequence. Some studies found that the response was slower and less accurate in a dual task situation, and error rate increased. The way of stimulus presentation and reaction sequence affect dual task coordination. This study examined the impact of dual-task coordination on strategy use of computational estimation with two different dual task situations, and aimed at revealing the difference of individuals’ performance in different situations. Use the choice /no choice method, with 40 college students as participants, we investigated the influence of dual-task coordination on individual’s choice and execution of arithmetic estimation strategy. In ExpⅠ, arithmetic estimation task and letter task were presented simultaneously, with letter disappeared when presented after a certain time interval. The arithmetic problems disappeared in half of the trials. Participants were asked to firstly react to arithmetic task, then the reaction of letter task. On the contrary, in ExpⅡ, experimental design and materials were the same as ExpⅠ, but the only difference was participants must react to letter task firstly, and then react to arithmetic task. Dual-task situations had significant impact on individual’s strategy use. In the condition of arithmetic problems disappearing, participants had lower accuracies of both tasks, and they tended to choose the more simple rounding-down strategy. The accuracy of strategy execution was lower in the case of arithmetic problems disappearing. In addition, reaction order of task showed impact on strategy use. In the strategy execution condition, when participants were asked to first response to arithmetic task, dual task of different contexts affected the accuracy of their strategy executions; When first react to letters task, different situations affected both the reaction time and accuracy of individual’s strategy execution. In the strategy selection condition, different dual task situations had a greater impact on adaptive strategy choices in the condition of first reaction to letter task. In conclusion, dual-task coordination can affect individual’s strategy execution and choice, and the effect in the choice situation is greater than that of execution situation. The more difficult the situation is, the more the influence of dual-task coordination on strategy uses. Future research can combine with electrical technology as well as functional magnetic resonance imaging technology (fMRI) to further explore the changes of individuals’ electrical components or activated brain regions under different dual-task situations. Thus, it can provide certain neurophysiological evidences for the findings in the present study. Related Articles | Metrics

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Chinese character practice: Comparison between children using handwriting and Pinyin keyboarding CHEN Jingjun; XU Lei; CHENG Xiaorong; LIU Huashan 2016, 48 (10):  1258-1269.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01258 Abstract ( 2597 )   A long-standing point is that the operational motion of handwriting has a special role in word encoding and retrieving, indicating that word representation may consist of a handwriting movement component. If so, highly frequent use of keyboarding may change the mental representation of words and further affect word learning. Thus, it is highly possible that performance in learning new Chinese characters with Pinyin keyboarding (which is widely used among Chinese teenagers) is worse than with handwriting. Further, the movement memory codes of learned characters may be weakened because of long-time Pinyin keyboarding and lack of handwriting track feedback. In addition, the glyphs of Chinese characters will be more likely to be forgotten when reviewed with Pinyin input than with handwriting. To test the above propositions, we compared Chinese character learning and retention between two groups of 6 graders, with one group using paper-pen writing and the other using Pinyin keyboarding. First, we used the traditional method to teach 2 classes of students 30 low-frequency characters in classrooms and participants were labeled as “mastered” or “un-mastered” according to their dictation performances. Then, these 2 classes were assigned randomly to practice with handwriting or Pinyin input. Thereafter, participants were instructed to practice with handwriting or Pinyin input once a week for six weeks and then tested in recognition and writing twice, one week and three months after the practice. We found that, in the first test, for the un-mastered group, the positive effects from the two practice methods were similar in recognition, but the writing performance after the handwriting practice was significantly better than that after the Pinyin keyboarding practice. For the mastered group, performances in recognition and writing after the two kinds of practices were similar and dictation and writing performances before and after the practice were also similar. In the second test, children’s performances were similar after handwriting and Pinyin keyboarding practices in both recognition and writing. The results suggested that Chinese characters learned with Pinyin keyboarding practice were not more likely to be forgotten than characters learned with handwriting practice. In conclusion, although handwriting and Pinyin keyboarding practices have different positive effects on learning Chinese characters, i.e., similar positive effects in recognition but a greater effect for handwriting than Pinyin keyboarding in writing, they have the same positive effects on reviewing characters. This suggests that compared with English words, Chinese characters learning is more dependent on the feedback of handwriting movement, which may be related to spacial features of Chinese characters. These results also suggest that we may use Pinyin input to teach children to read Chinese characters and use traditional handwriting to teach them to write. In addition, memory retention of the mastered characters after the two practices are similar after an interval without practice, suggesting that character amnesia may not be caused by the Pinyin keyboarding specifically, but by a weakened orthographic code due to lack of practice of handwriting or Pinyin input on a long-term basis. Related Articles | Metrics

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The cognitive characteristics and influential factors of Chinese word callers in primary school LI Liping; WU Xinchun; ZHOU Ningning; CHENG Yahua; NGUYEN Thi Phuong 2016, 48 (10):  1270-1281.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01270 Abstract ( 1227 )   According to the Simple View of Reading, reading comprehension is the product of word decoding and linguistic comprehension. Both components are necessary for reading comprehension, but neither is sufficient alone. If a child can read words quickly and accurately, but does not understand the meaning of words, he or she will not understand the text. Some readers can efficiently decode the words in the text into their spoken forms without comprehending the passage. These students are called word callers. Although many researchers agree that word callers indeed exist in reading comprehension, few studies pay attention to Chinese word callers and the factors that may impact poor comprehension in Chinese word callers are unknown. The present cross-sectional study involved 840 students (428 males, 412 females) from grade 1 to grade 6 in two primary schools of Shanxi province, China. At the beginning of autumn semester, a battery of measures were administered, including IQ, word list reading, reading comprehension, homophone awareness, homograph awareness, compound word production, character recognition, vocabulary definition and working memory. ANOVAs and logistic regression were conducted to answer three research questions: (1) What was the prevalence of word callers for Chinese children? (2) What were the linguistic and cognitive characteristics of word callers? (3) What are the underlying difficulties in reading comprehension for word callers? The results showed: (1) The prevalence of word callers in Chinese primary schools was similar to that of alphabetic language reader, ranging from 0.7% ~ 10.1% in grade 1 to grade 6. The prevalence of word callers in the first grade was 0.7%, and the prevalence was between 6.5% and 10.1% after the second grade; (2) Controlling for age and IQ, word callers performed better than typical readers in character recognition, however, word callers had poorer performance in morphological awareness and vocabulary definition; (3) The logistical analysis showed that age and IQ contributed to the prevalence rate of word caller, and both standard regression coefficients were significant (β = 0.87, p＜0.001; β = −0.43, p < 0.001 respectively); (4) As the linguistic factors, homophone awareness and vocabulary also contributed to the incidence rate of word caller (β = −0.28, p < 0.05; β = −0.30, p < 0.05 respectively). The results demonstrated that not only the general factors (e.g. age and IQ) but also the linguistic and cognitive factors (e.g. homophone awareness and vocabulary) impact poor comprehension in word callers. The phenomenon of word caller in the current study indicates that there is a gap between word reading fluency and reading comprehension for some Chinese elementary-age children. Understanding word caller has both theoretical and practical implication for improving reading instruction. Related Articles | Metrics

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The impact of social network site (Qzone) on adolescents’ depression: The serial mediation of upward social comparison and self-esteem NIU Gengfeng; SUN Xiaojun; ZHOU Zongkui; KONG Fanchang; TIAN Yuan 2016, 48 (10):  1282-1291.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01282 Abstract ( 4182 )   With the rapid rise and increasing popularity all over the world, social network site (SNS) has become an important platform for interpersonal interaction, especially among adolescents. The impact of SNS use has become the focus of relevant studies. Empirical evidence has suggested a complex mechanism in the relationship between SNS use and psychological adaptions. In particular, SNS offers abundant opportunities for social comparison with detailed information about others. Besides, users tend to present an idealized version of the self on SNS. Therefore, the majority of the social comparative information that individuals receive on SNS may lean in upward comparison, which may cause people to feel inadequate, and have poorer self-evaluations and low self-esteem. The social rank theory of depression claimed that the feeling of subordination was the mechanism that can trigger depression. The vulnerability model of depression also stated that low self-esteem might cause the onset and maintenance of depression. Since depression is a common psychological problem for adolescents, this study aimed to investigate the effect of SNS (Qzone, which is the most popular SNS among Chinese adolescents) use on depression as well as its mechanism. We hypothesized that upward social comparison on SNS and self-esteem may mediate the relationship between SNS use and depression. A sample of 964 adolescents (mean age = 14.23 years, SD = 1.27) were recruited for the study. They were required to complete a battery of questionnaires, including Intensity of SNS use Scale, Upward Social Comparison Measure on SNS, Rosenberg Self-esteem scale and Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Based on the social comparison theory and the vulnerability model of depression, a multiple mediation model was constructed to analyze the mediating effects of upward social comparison on SNS and self-esteem in the association between SNS use and depression. The data were analyzed by the Mplus 7.0. Results indicated that: (1) After controlling for gender, age, and years of SNS use, SNS use was positively correlated with upward social comparison on SNS and depression, while negatively correlated with self-esteem; upward social comparison on SNS was positively correlated with depression, while negatively correlated with self-esteem; and self-esteem was negatively correlated with depression. (2) Mediation analysis revealed that SNS use could affect depression through the mediation of upward social comparison on SNS and self-esteem. The mediation effect contained two paths, the separate mediation effect of upward social comparison, and the serial mediation effect of upward social comparison and self-esteem. In summary, this study uncovered the mechanism underlying the relationship between SNS use and depression, which contributes to the understanding of the complex mechanism between SNS use and its outcomes. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the upward social comparison induced by SNS may be one of the key factors in the aforementioned relationship between SNS use and depression. Future studies should investigate the effect of SNS in a more comprehensive and objective manner, paying attention to the potential risk of SNS use, as well as the specific experience and feelings on SNS. Related Articles | Metrics

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The effect of psychological distance on the base-rate neglect XU Fuming; JIANG Duo; ZHANG Hui; LI Ou; KONG Shixiao; SHI Yanwei 2016, 48 (10):  1292-1301.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01292 Abstract ( 1394 )   The base-rate neglect refers to the phenomenon that individuals tend to underestimate or neglect base-rate information in probability judgment and decision-making. The phenomenon is widespread in daily behavioral decision-making. Since the concept of base-rate neglect has been proposed, the studies of its psychological mechanisms have reached well-documented results and conclusions. But the exploration for its influence factors turned out to be a conservative, thus few researches tried to shed light on its application. What’s more, there is little empirical study of base-rate neglect in China. Therefore, this study aims to verify the base-rate neglect in real decision-making situations, and explore how the psychological distance would affect the base-rate neglect. Study 1 carried out one experiment with 2 (temporal distance: distant vs. near) × 2 (base rate: high vs. low) between-subject design to examine the moderate effect of temporal distance. A total of 121 students were recruited. The results showed that the temporal distance affected the base-rate neglect under the selection circumstances, and that the base-rate neglect effect was weakened along with the increasing temporal distance, thus individuals tended to make probability judgments based on base rate. Similarly, study 2 explored the effect of spatial distance on the base-rate neglect with 2 (spatial distance: distant vs. near) × 2 (base rate: high vs. low) between-subject design. A total of 122 students were recruited. The results indicated that the spatial distance affected the base-rate neglect in the selection circumstances, and that the base-rate neglect effect was weakened along with the increasing spatial distance, thus individuals tended to make probability judgments based on base rate. The same with the pattern in study 1 and study 2, study 3 explored the effect of social distance on the base-rate neglect with 2 (social distance: distant vs. near) × 2 (base rate: high vs. low) between-subject design. A total of 144 students were recruited. It was found that the social distance affected the base-rate neglect in the selection circumstances, and that the base-rate neglect effect was weakened along with the increasing social distance, thus individuals tended to make probability judgments based on base rate. In sum, three studies provided consistent evidences that different dimensions of psychological distance, namely temporal distance, spatial distance and social distance could affect the relative weight according to case description information as well as base rate information in the base-rate neglect situations. Related Articles | Metrics

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he influence of social exclusion on consumer preference for products with different textures and its underlying process DING Ying; GONG Xiushuang 2016, 48 (10):  1302-1313.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01302 Abstract ( 1416 )   Social exclusion happens ubiquitously, which could result in inevitable negative consequences to human beings in both physiological domain and psychological domain. Although substantial studies have been conducted to understand the antecedents and behavioral consequences of social exclusion, little research attention has been given to the influence of social exclusion on consumer choice. The current research aims to investigate the impact of social exclusion experience on consumer preference for products with different textures. Building on the social exclusion theory and sensory marketing research, we propose that social exclusion (vs. social inclusion) will make people prefer soft products more. This effect will be mediated by negative psychological experience promoted by social exclusion, and this effect will be further moderated by desirability of belongingness. One pilot study and four main experiments were conducted to test the proposed hypotheses. Experiment 1 established the effect of social exclusion on consumer choice of soft versus hard product by using a 2 (social exclusion: exclusion vs. inclusion) by 2 (product texture: soft vs. hard) between-subjects design. Social exclusion was manipulated using a group rejection task, and participants indicated their purchase intention after touching the product stimulus. The results suggested that after experiencing social exclusion, the participants preferred soft tissue box more. Experiment 2 replicated the findings of experiment 1 in another product category and instructed the participants to touch the products by wearing an eye mask to eliminate visual cues. The purpose of Experiment 2 was to validate the robustness of the findings of experiment 1 and to examine the mediation effect of negative psychological experience by using a 2 (social exclusion: exclusion vs. inclusion) between-subjects design. Social exclusion was manipulated by a social network rejection task. The results indicated that the participants preferred soft product option in social exclusion condition compared with those in social inclusion condition, and this effect was mediated by negative psychological experience. In Experiment 3, we manipulated social exclusion in a marketing context. In order to further validate the robustness of our findings, tangible product stimuli were changed into pictures for participants to observe rather than touch. Experiment 4 investigated the moderating effect of desirability of belongingness through a 2 (social exclusion: exclusion vs. inclusion) by 2 (desirability of belongingness: desirable vs. undesirable) between-subjects design. Our findings showed that the influence of social exclusion on consumer preference for soft product option was replicated when belongingness was believed as desirable, and the effect was alleviated when belongingness was believed as undesirable. Mediation analysis confirmed the mediating role of negative psychological experience. The current research provides empirical evidence to the influence of social exclusion on consumer preference for products with different textures, and its underlying process. Our findings could shed new light on social exclusion literature by identifying a new behavioral consequence. In addition, our results advance knowledge about the link between social exclusion and haptic experience. Moreover, our findings would provide meaningful implications for product design and new product promotion. Related Articles | Metrics

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Active coping or avoidance? The effect of proactive personality on the relationship between workplace ostracism and organizational citizenship behavior XIE Jun; YAN Ming 2016, 48 (10):  1314-1325.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01314 Abstract ( 2227 )   Workplace ostracism was defined as being ignored or excluded by others in workplace. Although previous studies have investigated the relationship between workplace ostracism and organizational citizenship behavior, the empirical findings were mixed. Some scholars suggested that employee personality play a critical role in determining how the individuals respond to workplace ostracism. However, the process through which these moderating effects occur has not been fully studied. Fortunately, the transactional model of stress and coping strategies can provide a substantial theoretical framework by which the moderating effects of personality can be explored. The relationship between stressor (e.g., workplace ostracism) and work outcomes depends on the coping strategies that individual adopt. With this argument, we aimed to examine the moderating role that proactive personality and two broad categories of coping strategies—active and avoidance—in the relationship between workplace ostracism and organizational citizenship behavior. In order to test our model, we conducted a survey on 249 employee-supervisor dyads from nine large companies in Guangdong province. The survey questionnaires were coded in order to match employee and their leaders. All respondents were informed that the purpose of the survey was to examine human resource practices. The confidentiality of their responses was emphasized. Respondents put the completed questionnaires into the sealed envelopes and returned them directly to our research assistants. Data were collected from multiple sources to avoid the common method bias. Specifically, employees reported their proactive personality, perceived workplace ostracism, active and avoidance coping strategies. Their leaders were asked to rate the employees’ organizational citizenship behavior. Hierarchical regressions and bootstrap with MPLUS were applied to test our hypotheses. Empirical results supported our arguments that workplace ostracism was negatively related to organizational citizenship behavior. The relationship between workplace ostracism and organizational citizenship behavior was weaker when employees were high in proactive personality. Moreover, the mediated moderation analyses revealed that proactive personality was positively associated with active coping strategies and negatively associated with avoidance coping strategies. Specifically, the relationship between workplace ostracism and organizational citizenship behavior was weaker when employees used active coping strategies. The moderating effects of proactive personality between workplace ostracism and organizational citizenship behavior were mediated by the use of active coping strategies. With these findings, we make some contributions to the literature and management practice. First, we extended previous work on the relationship between workplace ostracism and organizational citizenship behavior by showing that individuals with high proactive personality are more likely to choose constructive behaviors in response to the negative work environment and stressful work events. Second, our results also supported the moderating role of active coping strategies on the relationship between workplace ostracism and organizational citizenship behavior, contributing to the study of boundary effect on the relationship between workplace ostracism and organizational citizenship behavior. Third, our findings suggest that active coping strategies partially mediate the moderating effects of proactive personality on the relationship between workplace ostracism and organizational citizenship behavior, revealing how personality effects on work outcomes. The results also confirmed the notion that coping strategies might be an important psychological construct through which personality traits were expressed. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Mechanism of openness to experience’s effect on cross-cultural management effectiveness LIU Changchang; JIA Liangding; LI Juexing; LIU Depeng; YANG Yiyi 2016, 48 (10):  1326-1337.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01326 Abstract ( 981 )   Although researches have shown openness to experience is positively related to cross-cultural adaptation, studies in the Chinese context have indicated a negative relationship between managers’ openness to experience and their leadership effectiveness. Combined with a large number of failure cases in expatriates practice, it should be noted that it’s necessary to examine the relationship between managers’ personality traits and management performance as well as its mechanism in a cross-cultural context. According to trait activation theory, only trait-relevant contexts can evoke traits action on the corresponding performance. Yet cross-cultural context accords with all the characteristics inspiring openness to experience. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the effect of expatriate managers’ openness to experience on cross-cultural management effectiveness. Besides, based on job performance theory, we revealed that cultural intelligence mediated the above relationship. In the meantime, since contexts could not only stimulate traits acting on performance, but also affect the relationship strength between them, we thus explored the moderation role of contextual features – represented by cultural distance – on the two stages of indirect effects. Participants are from 27 Chinese multinational corporations. We collected paired data through a questionnaire survey of 119 expatriate senior managers located in five host countries / regions and their headquarters’ supervisors. Data collection contained three waves with two months’ interval. First, expatriate managers reported their demographic information and Big Five personality traits. Second, they reported their cultural intelligence. At last, CEO or HR managers at headquarters evaluated expatriate managers’ cross-cultural management effectiveness. In the end, we formed 119 paired data and the valid response rate was 58.6%. The present study mainly adopted hierarchical regression to test hypotheses. The results showed a positive relationship between openness to experience of expatriate managers and their cross-cultural management effectiveness. Moreover, cultural intelligence completely mediated the relationship between openness to experience and cross-cultural management effectiveness. As predicted, cultural distance played an opposite moderated role in the two stages of the indirect effect. Specifically, cultural distance accentuated the positive relationship between openness to experience and cultural intelligence, while it weakened the positive relationship between cultural intelligence and cross-cultural management effectiveness. The main contributions of this study are as follows. First, we reconcile the conflicting research findings between openness to experience and cross-cultural management effectiveness. This study opens the “black box” of their relationship by exploring cultural intelligence as a mediator, exploring cultural characteristics’ moderating role by including cultural distance as a dual-stage moderator, thereby providing a comprehensive understanding of the divergent relationship between openness to experience and performance. Second, the present study identifies the boundary conditions of the impact of openness to experience on cultural intelligence, providing a theoretical basis for training and developing expatriate managers’ cultural intelligence. Third, this study explores the edge conditions of cultural intelligence predicting cross-cultural management effectiveness, explaining the inhibition of cultural distance in the above relationships, therefore providing insights for organizations to form a reasonable expectation of expatriate managers’ reassignment to other host countries. Finally, we offer the corresponding theoretical foundation of the expatriate manager selection, training and appointment for organization cross-cultural management practices. Related Articles | Metrics

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The polytomously scored cognitive diagnosis computerized adaptive testing CAI Yan; MIAO Ying; TU Dongbo 2016, 48 (10):  1338-1346.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01338 Abstract ( 918 )   Cognitive diagnostic computerized adaptive testing (CD-CAT) purports to combine the strengths of both CAT and cognitive diagnosis. Currently, most CD-CAT researches focus on the dichotomous data. However there are large polytomous data in educational and psychological tests in practice. This paper proposed a new CD-CAT procedure with polytomous score, called as psCD-CAT. The paper focused on two facets: one was to develop the item selection algorithm, parameter estimation, the polytomous cognitive diagnostic model and terminal rules for psCD-CAT; the other one was to discuss the classification accuracy and item usage in psCD-CAT. Monte Carlo simulation was conducted here. Two experimental conditions were simulated: the fixed test length CAT (10, 15 and 20 items respectively) and the variable test length CAT (the post probability of knowledge state was set to 0.75,0.80 and 0.85 respectively). Simulation studies showed: The classification accuracy, test security and test efficiency under psCD-CAT were all acceptable and reasonable. Whenever under fixed or variable length conditions, PS-PWKL and PS-HKL item selection strategies had high classification accuracy, test security and test efficiency. However, PS-KL item selection strategy had low classification accuracy under fixed variable length conditions and had low test security and test efficiency under variable length conditions. Contract to the random item selection, PS-PWKL and PS-HKL algorithm should be improved to control the item exposure. In conclusion, the proposed psCD-CAT by this paper had overcame the shortcomings stemmed from dichotomously scored CD-CAT, thus they might expect a good prospect and application. And it provided a kind of new methods and techniques in cognitive diagnosis, which might extended the applicable area. Related Articles | Metrics

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Using confirmatory compensatory multidimensional IRT models to do cognitive diagnosis ZHAN Peida; CHEN Ping; BIAN Yufang 2016, 48 (10):  1347-1356.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.01347 Abstract ( 1303 )   Traditional testing methods, such as classical testing theory or unidimensional item response theory models (UIRMs), typically provide a single sum score or overall ability. Advances in psychometrics have focused on measuring multiple dimensions of ability to provide more detailed and refined feedback for students. In recent years, cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) have received great attention, particularly in the areas of educational and psychological measurement. The outcome of a DCM analysis is a profile of a set of attributes, α, also called a latent class, for each person; this provides cognitive diagnostic information about distinct skills underlying a test that students mastery or non-mastery. During the same period, another kind of models, multidimensional IRT models (MIRTMs), which also can provide fine-grained information about students’ strengths and weaknesses in the learning process were neglected. MIRTMs are different from CDMs in that latent variables in MIRTMs are continuous (namely, latent traits; θ) rather than categorical (typically binary). However, categorical variables in CDMs may be too rough to describe students’ skills when compared with the continuous latent traits in MIRTMs. Diagnostic measurement is the process of analyzing data from a diagnostic assessment for the purpose of making classification-based decisions. Currently, all testing method that have cognitive diagnostic function require substantive information about the attributes involved in specific items. Especially for CDMs, a confirmatory matrix that indicating which latent variables are required for an item, often referred to as Q matrix , is a essential term to analysis response data. Actually, such confirmatory matrices also exist in some multidimensional IRT models (MIRTMs), such as the scoring matrix in multidimensional random coefficients multinomial logit model. Therefore, it can be deduced that when MIRTMs are formulated in a confirmatory model defined by Q matrix, may also have diagnostic potential. Although some articles have noticed that viewpoint (e.g., Embretson & Yang, 2013; Stout, 2007; Wang & Nydick, 2015), no one really explored the diagnostic potential of confirmatory MIRTMs (C-MIRTMs). The main reason can be deduced that latent traits in MIRTMs are continuous, which can not be directly used to make classification-based diagnostic decisions. No matter MIRTMs or CDMs, multidimensional models normally can be specified into compensatory and non-compensatory models due to the relationship among dimensions. In compensatory models, students with high level on one dimension can compensate for lower levels on the other dimensions. Conversely, non-compensatory models assume that every dimensions are independent or partially independent with each others. Comparatively speaking, compensatory models are more general than non-compensatory models. Thus, only two compensatory models were concerned in this study, multidimensional 2-parameter logistic model (M2PLM) and linear logistic model (LLM) respectively, due to space limited. To explore the cognitive diagnostic function of MIRTMs, a confirmatory compensatory M2PLM (CC-M2PLM) were presented by introducing Q matrix in the item response function of M2PLM firstly. Then a cutoff point (CP) was used to transform estimated latent traits in CC-M2PLM to categorical variables (namely, trans-border attributes). This transformation step can be done after data analysis, thus two kinds of analysis results can be reported simultaneously: continuous latent traits and categorical trans-border attributes. Therefore, a suitable CP is very important, because of different CP will lead to different classification results. A simple pilot study was done to found the suitable CP: a test created with the CC-M2PLM but estimated with the LLM revealed that the LLM approximately divided the latent traits distribution in half, with a value of zero in IRT scale being the location of where masters (α = 1 if θ > 0) and non-masters (α = 0 if θ ≤ 0) were set. According to the result of pilot study, the CP was set equal to 0 for all dimensions (i.e., CPk = 0). Parameters in CC-M2PLM and LLM can be estimated by the mirt and CDM packages in R respectively. In simulation study, a series of simulations were conducted to evaluate cognitive diagnostic function of CC-M2PLM. The response data was generated by LLM, which can be treated as a diagnostic measurement dataset. CC-M2PLM and LLM were all used to fit that dataset, and results showed that the pattern (profile) correct classification ratio (PCCR) and the attribute correct classification ratio (ACCR) of trans-border attributes (from CC-M2PLM) and estimated attributes (from LLM) are almost same, the extent of most differences are smaller than 1%. Results of simulation study indicated that CC-M2PLM can be used to diagnostic measurement and its cognitive diagnostic function was as good as that of LLM. Finally, two empirical examples of diagnostic measurement were given to demonstrate applications and implications of the CC-M2PLM. Related Articles | Metrics