Loading...
ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B

Archive

    25 June 2020, Volume 52 Issue 6 Previous Issue    Next Issue

    Reports of Empirical Studies
    For Selected: Toggle Thumbnails
    Reports of Empirical Studies
    The underlying mechanism of object-based Correspondence effect
    SONG Xiaolei, WANG Dan, ZHANG Xinxin, JIA Xiaoqian
    2020, 52 (6):  669-681.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.00669
    Abstract ( 3323 )   PDF (2129KB) ( 114 )  

    The object-based Correspondence effect (also called object-based Simon effect), is a special spatial Correspondence effect, which refers to the phenomenon that responses are faster and more accurate when a handle of the graspable object and the response position or the responding hand are consistent than inconsistent. Tucker and Ellis (1998) first found the object-based Correspondence effect, and attributed the effect to the functional affordance of handles. In other words, when participants watch the graspable object, they automatically activate the tendency to grasp the handle of the object with their corresponding hands. Therefore, when the responding hand which is automatically activated by the handle is consistent that required by the task, responses are faster. In addition to the functional affordance, many researchers have also used the spatial position coding account to explain this effect. The account held the view that the generation of the object-based Correspondence effect was related to the position of the asymmetric handle of the stimuli, which automatically activated the response of the ipsilateral position, leading to the object-based Correspondence effect (Cho & Proctor, 2010). It's uncertain that the generation of object-based Correspondence effect is due to affordance coding or spatial coding hypothesis.

    In the present study, three experiments were conducted to investigate the generation mechanism of the object-based Correspondence effect. The stimulus materials were the silhouettes and photographs of the frying pans. In Experiment 1 the frying pan was located at the center of the screen, participants were asked to judge the stimulus to be upright or inverted, and responded with the responding hand. The aim of it was to examine whether the silhouettes and photographs of the frying pan would exist the object-based Correspondence effect without significant spatial position. In Experiment 2, the base of the frying pan was placed at the center of the screen, which made the left and right position of the handle more significant, and continue to examine whether the object-based Correspondence effect would appear when there existed the significant spatial coding. In Experiment 3, a crossed-hand response paradigm was adopted to separate response position from responding hand coding, in other words, participants pressed the right key with the left hand and the left key with the right hand, and to further explore the generation mechanism of the object-based Correspondence effect.

    The results suggested that there existed the object-based Correspondence effect in Experiment 1 when spatial location of the stimulus was not significant for silhouette stimuli, but not photograph stimuli. In Experiment 2 when the spatial position of the stimuli was more significant, silhouette and photograph stimuli both showed the Correspondence effect and the effect size was similar. The RT combined analysis of Experiment 1 and 2 suggested that the Correspondence effect size of Experimental 2 was larger than Experiment 1 for silhouette stimuli, and similar for photograph stimuli. In Experiment 3 when the hands were crossed there was Correspondence effect between the handle and the response position for both silhouette and photograph stimuli, but not the Correspondence effect between the handle and the responding hand. The combined analysis with the Experiment 2 suggested that the effect size of Experiment 3 was smaller than Experiment 2 for both silhouette and photograph stimuli.

    Based on these results, it is concluded that the spatial coding hypothesis plays an important role in the generation of the object-based Correspondence effect during a two key-pressing selection task, the affordance coding or other explanations are much smaller than that.

    Related Articles | Metrics
    Contextual modulation of action interpretation: Automatic integration of situational contexts during action understanding
    YANG Yisong, LIN Jing, HE Xiaoyan, YIN Jun
    2020, 52 (6):  682-693.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.00682
    Abstract ( 1511 )  

    Action understanding enables us to predict others' actions and interact with them smoothly; however, its impairment makes patients unable to take care of themselves leading to cases such as autism. Despite the central importance of action understanding, the cognitive mechanisms involved in it remain highly controversial. Two alternative accounts have been advanced. Simulation theory assumes that we understand actions by simulating the observed behavior through a direct matching process, which has been suggested to usually activate the mirror-neuron circuit. The alternative interpretive account (i.e., theory) assumes that action understanding is based on specialized inferential processes, in which a goal is assigned to an action by evaluating its efficiency as an optimal means of obtaining the goal within the specific constraints of the situation. Each account was supported by previous studies, but due to mythological drawbacks, the evidence can be explained by both accounts. Hence, it remains unclear how action understanding is implemented in our cognition.

    The simulation theory claims that action understanding is sensitive to minor differences in the kinematics of actions, and the theory emphasizes the role of contextual information in action understanding. Namely, according to the theory, even for identical actions, contextual information modulates action understanding. Hence, to examine which account is involved in action understanding, we created a chasing action wherein a chaser pursues a movable target, but the chasing action occurred in different contexts. Specifically, in a constrained context, the chaser had to bypass the obstacles to approach the target, and the chaser's action was efficient in catching the target, while in an unconstrained context, the obstacles were removed but the chaser still implemented the same action as in the constrained context. All actions lasted for 3 seconds. In both contexts, the chaser and the target had exactly the same kinematics, but were assigned different goals if the inferential process is involved. To identify the outcome of action understanding, we measured μ suppression (electroencephalogram oscillations within the 8-13 Hz range in the sensorimotor regions; namely, C3 and C4 channels) related to action understanding. Participants were asked to count the fillers (i.e., incomplete chasing action) when watching actions presented on the screen.

    It was found that the chasing action occurred in the constrained context (M = -1.955 μV2) induced more μ suppression than the action occurred in the unconstrained context (M = -1.913 μV2), but in both contexts, the evaluated familiarity for them was not significantly different (Experiment 1). Importantly, the occipital α with the same frequency band as μ was not modulated by the contextual information, but this component was suggested to be functional with the attentional mechanisms. In Experiment 2, to further test whether the effect in Experiment 1 was specific to the inferential process, the target was set to be still but the chaser still moved in the same way, which cannot be attributed to an analytical goal. In this case, the possible simulation difference between constrained and unconstrained contexts when the target was still was almost the same as when the target was moving; however, we found that the difference in μ suppression between constrained and unconstrained contexts was insignificant.

    Our findings showed that contextual information modulates μ suppression, suggesting that the action understanding is sensitive to the context, and the assigned goal for the actions depends on the contextual information. Hence, our findings support the assumption that action understanding is primarily mediated by an inferential interpretive system rather than a simulation process.

    Related Articles | Metrics
    Consistency between self-reference and mother-reference in emotional perception of others' faces: Evidence from ERP
    DING Xiao-bing, WANG Rui, KANG Tie-jun, LIU Jian-yi, ZHOU Jia-ning
    2020, 52 (6):  694-705.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.00694
    Abstract ( 2441 )   PDF (834KB) ( 261 )  

    The self is a unique structure with unique motivations and emotional significance and the processing of self-related information has its own characteristics. These characteristics are reflected not only in the advantage of remembering self-related information, but also in the influence of the emotional perception of other people's faces. However, there has been little research on how the evaluation of one's mother affects the perceptual processing of others' emotions and whether there is consistency between the perceptual processing of others' emotions and the self's maternal reference and self-reference. To address this question, this study combined the evaluation contexts of the self, the mother, and other people's faces in a facial emotion assessment task to investigate whether the neural representations of self-reference and mother-reference are consistent in Chinese people's emotional processing.

    The participants were asked to rate the facial emotions of strangers in different valence evaluation contexts (negative, neutral, or positive) and based on different references (self-reference, mother-reference, other-reference, and no-reference). Except for neutral emotions, three reference contexts of positive or negative emotions were expressed through the personality trait words, while no-reference contexts were mainly noun contexts. For example, Lanzhou is the provincial capital of Gansu Province.

    At the beginning of the experiment, participants were presented with evaluative or declarative contextual material. We emphasized that the contextual material was the subsequent face statement. The neutral emotional face stimulus was presented after the contextual material. After the face stimulus disappeared, participants were asked to judge the valence and arousal of facial emotion. The changes in neural activity during the processing of facial emotion were recorded. The event-related potential (ERP) components of interest in this study are P1 and N170, which are related to early automatic processing of facial emotion, EPN components related to selective attention processing of facial emotion information, and LPP components reflecting late processing of facial emotion.

    The behavioral results showed that the faces in the self-reference and mother-reference contexts were more aroused than those in the other-reference contexts. Moreover, the faces in the negative context were perceived as more negative and the faces in the positive context were perceived as more positive. The ERP results showed that different valence and reference contexts had no significant influence on the early components (P1 and N170) of facial emotion perception, but that they influenced the relatively late components EPN and LPP. Compared with the contexts of un-reference and other-reference, the contexts of self-reference and mother-reference caused larger amplitudes in EPN and LPP. Furthermore, the emotional context (negative or positive) caused larger amplitudes than the neutral context. It is worth noting that there is no significant difference in the results of both behavioral and ERP levels between self-reference and mother-reference conditions.

    The results of this study showed that the mothers of Chinese individuals affect their perception and processing of other people's faces. Self-reference and mother-reference were consistent in face emotional processing. This result is highly consistent with previous research, suggesting that mothers shares neural representations with the self. This study is the first to provide ERP evidence of the inclusion of mothers in Chinese self-concept from the perspective of emotional processing.

    Related Articles | Metrics
    Effects of target detection on memory retrieval
    HUANG Yanqing, MENG Yingfang
    2020, 52 (6):  706-715.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.00706
    Abstract ( 2353 )   PDF (670KB) ( 203 )  

    Many previous studies have explored the relationship between retrieval interference and explicit memory by comparing memory performance in the divided-attention condition with that in the full-attention condition. However, relatively few studies have discussed the effect of target detection on explicit memory during retrieval in dual-task situations by comparing a target detection condition, in which participants carry out a recognition task and press the spacebar simultaneously when a target appears, with a distractor rejection condition, in which participants perform the same recognition task and do not respond when they see a distractor. Because the detection of a target requires more attention than the rejection of a distractor, an interesting question remains as to whether target detection and distractor rejection have different influences on recognition memory.

    Sixty undergraduate students (30 students in experiment 1 and 30 students in experiment 2) participated in this study. A study-test (encoding/recognition) paradigm was adopted, and the participants were required to perform a shallow/deep encoding task with two-character Chinese words as stimuli. They were then asked to conduct a target detection task and an old/new recognition task simultaneously in the retrieval phase. For the target detection task, in experiment 1, the participants were instructed to press the spacebar (overt detection); in experiment 2, the participants were instructed to perform a counting operation (covert detection) when they detected the target (a “+”) rather than the distractor (a “-”). The participants were told that the recognition task and the target detection task were equally important. They were asked to perform both tasks as quickly and as accurately as possible. The reaction time (RT) and accuracy data in the retrieval phase were recorded and analyzed by analysis of variance.

    The results showed that in experiment 1 (the keypress response task) and experiment 2(the counting response task), regardless of the kind of processing was required (i.e., shallow or deep processing), the reaction times for the old words were significantly shorter in the target condition than in the distractor condition, and the accuracy scores for recognizing the old words were significantly higher in the target condition than in the distractor condition, indicating that explicit memory retrieval was regulated by the participants' available attention resources. However, for the new words, we found the exactly opposite phenomenon: the reaction times were significantly longer in the target condition than in the distractor condition, and the accuracy scores were also significantly lower in the target condition than in the distractor condition. More importantly, we calculated the sensitivity index (d′) and decision criterion (C) established by signal detection theory. The participants' sensitivity indexes showed no significant variations between the target condition and the distractor condition, but the mean values of the decision criteria decreased in the target condition when compared to those in the distractor condition.

    The results revealed that detecting a target in the explicit memory retrieval phase did not boost the retrieval of words but decrease participants' decision criteria. Participants responded in a more liberal way in the target condition than in the distractor condition, and the effects of target detection on explicit memory retrieval may not be affected by the depth of processing and different reaction modes. Thus, explicit memory retrieval was also modulated by the available attention resources and, therefore, was not wholly automatic.

    Related Articles | Metrics
    Socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting in a naturalistic collaborative retrieval situation
    ZHANG Huan, HOU Shuang, WANG Haiman, LIAN Yuxuan, YANG Haibo
    2020, 52 (6):  716-729.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.00716
    Abstract ( 2194 )   PDF (790KB) ( 313 )  

    In our daily life, people have plenty of opportunities to share their memories of past experience or knowledge with others. In such conversation, the phenomenon which, due to conscious or unconscious selective retrieval of speakers, listeners forget the unmentioned but relevant memories, is called socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting (SS-RIF). Based on previous research of the phenomenon, the current study focuses on the influence of bottom-up processing of social interactive situations and top-down cognitive control of inhibition on SS-RIF, investigating whether the presence of speaker or not, and the listener's ability of various types of inhibition control would affect the occurrence and scale of SS-RIF.

    In Experiment 1, a 2 (interactive level: the presence of the speaker, the absence of the speaker) × 2 (interactive role: speaker, listener) × 4 (item types: Rp+, Rp-, Nrp+, Nrp-) mixed design was adopted, in which interactive level was the between-participants design while interactive role and item type were the within-participants design. The dependent variable was the correct recall proportion in the final recall test. A total of 116 healthy volunteers participated in Experiment 1. They were randomly assigned to different interactive level conditions. All participants of Experiment 1 were recruited in Experiment 2 to explore the effect of different types of inhibitory control on socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting in different experimental conditions.

    It was found in Experiment 1 that, regardless of condition, the phenomenon of within-individual retrieval- induced forgetting in speakers appeared; however, the socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting in listeners only arose in the presence of the speaker condition. Furthermore, Experiment 2, carried out on the basis of Experiment 1, showed that the effect of socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting was independent from levels of inhibitory control. Interestingly, in the presence of the speaker condition, the effect of socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting in listeners was correlated with the effect of their within-individual retrieval- induced forgetting as speakers.

    The above results indicate that the factor of social interactive situation indeed plays a significant role in the effect of SS-RIF. Without the presence of speaker, through monitoring the accuracy of audio material, listener's SS-RIF do not appear. Moreover, the finding that levels of inhibition control do not affect SS-RIF may provide evidence for the double or multiple mechanisms under SS-RIF in social interactive condition, that is, not only inhibition, but also other mechanisms such as blocking jointly explain the phenomenon of SS-RIF. Furthermore, according to the correlation of the same person's effect of socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting as listener and within-individual retrieval-induced forgetting as speaker, it can be speculated that the inner mechanism of SS-RIF and RIF shares certain similarities. These findings are of great significance for understanding the occurrence conditions and factors affecting socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting, and shed light on the bidirectional processing model of SS-RIF. Further, they contribute to the revelation of the important role of SS-RIF in listeners forming collective memory, and provide some inspiring viewpoints for future research.

    Related Articles | Metrics
    Lexical tone perception mechanism in 2- to 4-year-old Mandarin-speaking children in the pre-attention stage
    YANG Wanqing, XIAO Rong, LIANG Dandan
    2020, 52 (6):  730-741.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.00730
    Abstract ( 1157 )  

    Lexical tones are a key component of tonal language. The accurate perception of different Mandarin lexical tones is essential for Mandarin-speaking children to process spoken Chinese. Previous studies based on the speech perception model of nontonal language proposed perceptual narrowing theory, while later studies indicated that the perception of lexical tones might be more complicated. Event-related potentials (ERPs) are an effective tool that can investigate Mandarin-speaking children's implicit perception of lexical tones. Some studies targeting children's speech perception have demonstrated that mismatch responses (MMRs, including MMN and p-MMR) indicate the development of phonetic representation. Moreover, these studies have provided empirical evidence in this field. However, ages between 2 and 4 years old needs to be explored empirically. The current study used MMN and p-MMR as the neural correlates of lexical tone perception of Mandarin in the pre-attention stage and investigated the development of lexical tone processing mechanisms in 2- to 4-year-old children. In addition, we paid attention to the influence of category information and the size of the deviance at the acoustic level.

    Sixteen 2- to 4-year-old Mandarin-speaking children (7 boys and 9 girls; mean age: 3.4 years old; range: 2.6 - 3.10 years old) were recruited in this study. The study used the oddball paradigm and designed two experiments: Experiment 1 investigated the mismatch responses in across-category lexical tone perception in the participants. The stimuli consisted of three syllables: /yi1/ (T1), /yi2/ (T2), and /yi3/ (T3). T3 was assigned as the standard; T1 was assigned as the large deviant; T2 was the small deviant. This experiment investigated how the deviance size affects children's perception of different lexical tones in the across-category condition. Experiment 2 investigated the mismatch responses of the participants to the perception of tones in the same category and were designated yi3a (T3a) and yi3b (T3b) within the category. These tones have the same phonological information but differ from the standard T3 stimulus in the acoustic information (based on the frequency and contour). The distances between T3a & T3 and T3b & T3 were modulated in Praat to control the distances of T1 & T3 and T2 & T3, respectively. This experiment detected the influence of the degree of similarity on the acoustic information on lexical tone perception without changing the category information.

    The results of the EEG data showed that (1) only the across-category large-deviance pair (T1/T3) elicited an obvious MMN response, indicating that 2- to 4-year-old Mandarin-speaking children can distinguish tones with obvious category boundaries in the pre-attention stage; (2) the across-category small-deviance pair (T2/T3) and the two kinds of within-category deviations (T3a/T3; T3b/T3) achieved the same data performance: no significant MMN or p-MMR was elicited. However, the internal mechanisms of these two conditions are different. The former may indicate that 2- to 4-year-old Mandarin-speaking children are in the period of transition from p-MMR to MMN. The latter may reflect that children have established a lexical tone category, and due to their immature perception ability, it is impossible for them to distinguish the differences among within-category lexical tones.

    In summary, the current study has filled the age gap in the relevant lexical tone perception neural mechanism research and has revealed what is crucial to children's lexical tone neural mechanism of perception development. Moreover, this research has identified the size difference between isometric across-category stimulation with within-category stimulation, which innovatively provides a reference for future research. The conclusion indicates that 2- to 4-year-old Mandarin-speaking children are in the period of lexical tone category formation. In the pre-attention stage, the obvious category boundary of lexical tones can be distinguished accurately. For the inconspicuous category boundaries of lexical tones, the neural mechanism is transforming from p-MMR to MMN. The magnitude of the deviance does not affect lexical tone perception within the same category.

    Related Articles | Metrics
    Altered reward processing in women with premenstrual syndrome: Evidence from ERPs and time-frequency analysis
    HOU Lulu, CHEN Lirong, ZHOU Renlai
    2020, 52 (6):  742-757.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.00742
    Abstract ( 1453 )  

    Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) refers to a series of physical, emotional, and behavioral symptoms that occur periodically in women during the late luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. It peaks within a week before menses and improves or disappears after the onset of menses. PMS occurs in 30%~40% of females at reproductive-age and can have deleterious effects on the social functioning and interpersonal relationships for those with PMS during the late luteal phase. Therefore, the potential causes and mechanisms of PMS have attracted researchers' attention. Affect balance is an important basis for maintaining mental health and the imbalance of positive and negative affect might be one of the causes of PMS. However, previous studies on the mechanism of PMS mostly focused on the increase of negative affect. Only limited studies explored the decrease of positive affect. Built upon the strong link between positive affect and reward processing, the present study aims to explore the causes of positive affect deficiencies tied to the dysfunctional reward processing during PMS.

    Despite the lack of consensus on the diagnostic criteria of PMS, one of the most widely used diagnostic criteria for PMS are from John Bancroft's recommendations, which have been translated into the PMS Scale in Chinese. Of the 259 women who were asked to self-assess using this scale, 45 right-handed females (23 with PMS and 22 without PMS) with regular menstrual cycle voluntarily participated in this study. After completing a series of questionnaires, a simple gambling task was used to elicit reward positivity (RewP, 250~350 ms), an event-related potential (ERP) component elicited by feedback indicating gain versus loss. All participants completed this task twice, once in the late luteal and the other in the early follicular phase, respectively. In addition to ERP analysis, we also conducted time-frequency analysis to examine the neural oscillations underlying the reward processing.

    Questionnaire results showed that women with PMS reported lower levels of happiness and calmness than healthy women, and their affect balance was also lower than that of healthy women, independent of menstrual cycle. Electrophysiological results suggested that in the late luteal phase, compared with healthy women, women with PMS were characterized by reduced RewP responses towards monetary gains, but not towards monetary losses. Further correlational analysis showed that the amplitude of RewP to gain feedback and difference wave amplitude in women with PMS was related to the affect balance in the late luteal phase. Time-frequency analysis showed that the theta-band (4~7 Hz, 250~4000 ms) power to gain feedback in PMS group was lower than that of healthy group in the late luteal phase.

    Taken together, the amplitude of RewP and the theta-band power are related to reward processing. Results showed that in the late luteal phase, the amplitude of RewP and the theta-band power in women with PMS were lower than that in healthy women, and the amplitude of RewP was related to affect balance for women with PMS. These results suggest that the altered neurophysiological response in reward processing of women with PMS may be one of the causes of their low positive affect and affect imbalance in the late luteal phase. Our findings provide a basis for PMS intervention from the perspective of increasing positive affect, which supplements and enriches previous interventions mostly based on reducing negative affect.

    Related Articles | Metrics
    Differential effects of avoidance and approach negative personality traits on patterns of stress cardiovascular responses
    Lü Wei
    2020, 52 (6):  758-776.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.00758
    Abstract ( 1456 )  

    A cluster of negative personality traits such as trait anxiety, trait depression, trait anger, trait hostility, has long been viewed as high risk factors that lead to cardiovascular diseases. Patterns of stress cardiovascular responses are the important physiological pathways through which personality traits influence cardiovascular diseases. In the past decades, studies exploring the associations between negative personality traits and patterns of stress cardiovascular responses have mainly focused on a specific negative trait and its cardiovascular responses to a single low/moderate stress exposure, however, no study to date has differentiated two types of negative traits and their relations with patterns of cardiovascular responses to repeated stress exposure under distinct intensity conditions. The present study sought to investigate the associations between avoidance vs. approach negative traits and the patterns of cardiovascular responses to two successive stress exposures under moderate and high intensity psychosocial stress conditions. Moreover, the potential mechanisms underlying these associations were preliminarily explored by considering the mediating role of stress cognitive appraisals.

    Eligible 167 healthy undergraduate students recruited from universities in Xi'an (58 males, 109 females), aged 17~25 years (19.23 ± 1.13), took part in the present study. Upon arrival, participants completed a package of questionnaires including trait depression, trait anxiety, trait anger, and trait hostility. Then, participants were randomly assigned to either moderate- or high-intensity psychosocial stress condition, and underwent four laboratory phases: baseline, stress exposure 1, post-stress 1, stress exposure 2. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were utilized to examine the main effects of stress intensity, avoidance and approach negative traits, as well as interaction effects of negative traits and stress intensity in predicting cardiovascular reactivity to, cardiovascular recovery from stress, and cardiovascular reactivity to repeated stress. Furthermore, mediation effect analyses were conducted to explore whether the associations between negative traits and stress cardiovascular reactivity were mediated by cognitive appraisals.

    Results showed that the mock interview tasks used for both two stress exposures were effective in eliciting subjective and physiological stress responses. Intensity of psychosocial stress was successfully manipulated, with high-intensity stress elicited greater psychophysiological responses than low-intensity stress. Regression analyses showed that regardless of the stress intensity, avoidance negative trait predicted blunted stress cardiovascular reactivity to the first and second stress exposures, and predicted poor cardiovascular recovery after the stress exposure. Whereas, approach negative trait predicted greater stress cardiovascular reactivity to the first and second stress exposures, and predicted poor cardiovascular recovery after the stress exposure. In addition, mediation analyses showed that the association between avoidance negative trait and HR reactivity to repeated stress was mediated by perceived personal resources to repeated stress.

    Overall, the present study findings suggest that both two types of negative trait are associated with a rigid stress cardiovascular response pattern in coping with a changing environment. In specific, avoidance negative trait is associated with blunted stress cardiovascular reactivity and poor cardiovascular recovery, whereas approach negative trait is associated with greater stress cardiovascular reactivity and poor cardiovascular recovery, implying differential physiological mechanisms underlying cardiovascular diseases.

    Related Articles | Metrics
    Adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in internal and external conflicts: Evidence from Saccade task
    LI Yaojin, ZHANG Wei, FU Bei, ZHOU Bingping
    2020, 52 (6):  777-785.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.00777
    Abstract ( 1331 )  

    Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a childhood onset disorder with the cardinal features of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. And the core symptoms of ADHD in childhood will gradually change into more serious neurological disorders in adulthood. Thus, it is necessary to study the pathological and physiological mechanisms of adult ADHD patients. Compared with normal people, patients with ADHD have stronger exogenous stimulation drive ability and weaker endogenous control ability. Therefore, the reason why ADHD in adults is susceptible to external interference is whether the level of response generated exogenous stimulation is too strong or the level of response generated by endogenous driving is too weak.

    Twenty-six adult ADHD patients were screened by adult ADHD self-reporting scale (ASRS) as ADHD group, and 25 normal adult participants were selected as control group. Three experimental paradigms of saccade (reverse saccade, memory-oriented saccade and visual-oriented saccade) were used to investigate the ability of endogenous and exogenous saccade conversion and the ability of endogenous and exogenous saccade production and maintenance.

    The results showed that the response level of adult ADHD patients to endogenous stimulation was lower than that of exogenous stimulation in reverse saccade experiment; in memory-oriented saccade experiment, the ability of adult ADHD patients to produce and maintain endogenous saccade was not significantly lower than that of normal subjects; in visual-oriented saccade experiment, the ability of adult ADHD to produce and maintain exogenous saccades was significantly better than that of normal subjects.

    Therefore, the level of response of adult ADHD from endogenous stimuli is indeed lower than that produced by exogenous stimuli. Adult ADHD is susceptible to exogenous visual interference and is more likely to be caused by excessive levels of response from exogenous stimuli.

    Related Articles | Metrics
    Social value orientation modulates the processing of social rewards for self: Evidence from ERPs study
    LI Jin, SUN Yu, YANG Zilu, ZHONG Yiping
    2020, 52 (6):  786-800.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.00786
    Abstract ( 1898 )  

    Social value orientation (SVO) is a relatively stable personality trait that reflects how the individual evaluate interdependent outcomes for oneself and the other in human social environments. Previous studies showed that people could be classified into proselfs and prosocials by assessing the Triple-Dominance Measure. Emerging studies have demonstrated that SVO is a personality trait that is closely associated with the processing of rewards allocation. Outcome evaluation is closely associated with the reward processing. Past research always focused on the modulation of SVO on the outcomes evaluation involving the monetary rewards. However, relatively little is known about how the SVO modulates the processing of outcome evaluation involving the social rewards for self.

    In the present study, we adopted the Event-related potentials (ERPs) technology to examine the temporal processing of the influence of SVO on the processing of the social reward for self. In particular, we focused on two types of social reward in this study, i.e., the “social acceptance” and “reflected glory”. Advice-giving is a typical or common way for individuals to gain the social acceptance and reflected glory. Evaluating outcomes of advice involves with these two kinds of social rewards. Specifically, if individuals' advice is accepted, they may feel that they have garnered the "social acceptance". Further, if the advice provided leads to another's personal success, individuals may further feel a sense of reward through “reflected glory”. The proselfs (n = 26) and prosocials (n = 25) were asked to complete the advice-giving guessing card task, in which task participants acted as an advisor who selected one of two advice options to give another person. Subsequently, all participants were informed that the other accepted (vs. rejected) their advice and the other's final outcome (gain vs. loss), while recording their electroencephalogram (EEG) at the feedback from the other processing stage (advice was accepted or rejected by the other) and outcomes for the other (gain or loss) processing stage.

    We focused on the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P3 in outcome evaluation. The results of ERPs showed that at the feedback from the other processing stage, compared with the proselfs, the prosocials are more sensitive to the feedback from the other. In particular, at the early stage (FRN), there was no difference between having the advice accepting and rejecting for proselfs, however, this FRN effect was observed in the prosocials participants. At the later stage (P3), we also found there was a difference between having the advice accepting and rejecting for prosocials but not for the proselfs. On the other hand, at the final outcome for the other processing stage, at the early stage, there was a main effect of SVO, indicating that for prosocials, the FRN peak-to-peak value is more negative than the proselfs. There was a significant interaction among the SVO, Feedback from the other and Outcome for the other in the FRN. For the prosocials, there was a difference between the other's gain and loss in FRN following their own selections (i.e., advice) were rejected, whereas this difference did not emerge for the proselfs. In addition, we also observed that there was a significant interaction among the SVO, Feedback from the other and Outcome for the other in the P3. In particular, following the participant's advice was rejected, for the prosocials, compared with the other's loss outcome, the other's gain outcome elicited a larger P3. However, for the proselfs, the P3 showed a different pattern, showing that following the participant's advice was rejected, compared with the other's gain outcome, the other's loss outcome elicited a larger P3.

    Our findings indicates that the influences of SVO on the processing of self-rewards occurs at the early stage (mirrored in FRN) and the late stage (mirrored in P3). At the feedback from the other processing stage, at the early and the later stages, compared with prosoicals, the proselfs are relatively insensitive to the other's feedback about the advice (rejecting or accepting). At the final outcome for the other processing stage, at the earlier stage, prosocials are sensitive to the others' wins or losses in both the “accepted” and “rejected” conditions, whereas proselfs are not interested in the others' outcomes in the “self are rejected” context. Furthermore, at the late stage of outcome evaluation, prosocials attaches the significance on the other's interest and proselfs attached the importance on the self-interest. Taken together, SVO has a modulation effect on the processing of social rewards.

    Related Articles | Metrics
    Where there's a will, there's a way: Intrinsic motivational orientation, idea quality, and idea implementation
    DONG Niannian, WANG Xueli
    2020, 52 (6):  801-810.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.00801
    Abstract ( 2902 )  

    The innovation process can be conceptualized as encompassing two stages: idea generation and idea implementation. However, to date, more early research has been focused on the idea generation stage, and these two subfields still remain stubbornly disconnected from one another. To integrate these two disparate subfields and advance our comprehensive understanding of the innovation process, the current study relied on self-determination theory and Yale attitude change approach to examine the effect of intrinsic motivational orientation of idea generators on idea quality, and further tested the effect of idea quality, rewards of the idea generators, and their interaction on idea implementation.

    To test the hypotheses in the proposed model, we collected data from 251 idea generators, 7 idea evaluators and the manager of an innovative proposal project at 3 different time points in a large financial company. In the first wave, 440 ideas proposed by 440 idea generators were recorded. In the second wave, all of the idea generators were invited to complete a questionnaire, including demographic information and intrinsic motivational orientation, and the number of valid questionnaires was 251; moreover, 7 in-house experts assessed the idea generators and the quality of each idea. Approximately six months later, the manager of this project reported the implementation degree of all of the ideas. Our hypotheses were examined using SPSS 22.0.

    By analyzing the multi-time and multi-source data, it was found in this study that: (1) intrinsic motivational orientation of the idea generators has a significantly positive effect on idea quality; (2) idea quality further facilitates idea implementation; (3) rewards of the idea generators positively influence idea implementation; and (4) idea quality and rewards of the idea generators interact to predict idea implementation.

    The findings presented here contribute to innovation literature in the following ways. First, this study tracks the innovation process from idea generation to idea implementation, bridging the theoretical divide between creativity research and idea implementation research. Second, this study clarifies the positive effect of intrinsic motivational orientation on idea quality, which is a beneficial supplement to, and promotion of the existing research on the relationship between intrinsic motivation and creativity. Third, Yale attitude change theory is introduced into idea implementation research, which not only expands the application scope of this theory, but also enriches theoretical perspectives of idea implementation research.

    Related Articles | Metrics