工作记忆能力与自我调控

自我调控泛指目标-导向行为, 是自我的核心功能之一。最近十几年有研究者将工作记忆能力(working memory capacity, WMC)的概念引入到对自我调控的研究中, 结果发现, 自我调控与WMC依赖的是共同的资源, WMC在注意调控、思维抑制、情绪调节以及冲动抑制等自我调控过程中发挥了重要作用。未来的研究应加强社会、认知和神经科学等不同学科之间的合作, 进一步探究自我调控的核心机制。     

小学生羞怯特质预测及语言风格模型构建

收集在线教学平台上1306名小学生的作文、日记及评论, 采用自然语言处理技术进行文本分析, 并应用机器学习模型实现对羞怯特质的自动预测, 构建小学生羞怯行为、认知和情绪的语言风格模型。研究发现：(1)扩充的心理词典适合分析小学生文本; (2)分别存在羞怯行为、认知和情绪问题的学生其日常用语既有共性也有特性, 且与普通学生存在差异; (3)羞怯各维度在不同分类器上达到较好的预测效果, 其中随机森林模型的整体表现相对最好。     

1～6秒时距认知分段性特征

时距认知分段性指不同长度时距的加工机制和表征方式是不同的。以往研究者对1 s以上时距认知的分段性仍存在分歧,为了探讨这一主题,本研究设计了实验1和实验2。实验1采用时间复制任务比较高、低工作记忆容量被试在完成1~6 s视、听时距加工的成绩,结果发现,时距长度与工作记忆容量或通道均存在交互作用,被试在复制1 s、2 s的平均复制时距、复制比率及变异系数没有随工作记忆容量或通道而变化,而复制3 s、4 s、5 s及6 s时,高WMC组较低WMC组或听觉组较视觉组,平均复制时距显著更长、复制比率显著更高、变异系数显著更小。实验2采用时间产生任务比较高、低工作记忆容量被试在完成1~6 s视、听时距加工的成绩,结果也发现,时距长度与工作记忆容量或通道均存在交互作用,被试在产生1 s、2 s的平均产生时距、产生比率及变异系数没有随工作记忆容量或通道而变化,而产生3 s、4 s、5 s及6 s时,高WMC组较低WMC组或听觉组较视觉组,平均产生时距显著更短、产生比率显著更低、变异系数显著更小。这意味着1~6 s的时距认知存在分段性,大约2~3 s可能为分段临界点。时间认知的分段性可以用时间工作记忆说解释,该假说是时间认知分段综合模型解释短时距加工分段性的具体表现形式。     

双重加工模型发展概况及研究展望

双重加工模型将社会认知加工区分为外显认知加工和内隐认知加工。上世纪80、90年代涌现出来的双重加工模型关注加工的条件,重在对心理现象的某一方面进行解释;进入21世纪后,模型强调加工所依据的原理,强调模型的包容性和应用范围。双重加工模型为人类行为提供了较为全面的解释,但存在术语较多,对两种加工的界定含糊等问题,其中双重加工的单一系统论与双重系统论引起的争议最大。在对双重加工模型的理论观点进行梳理后指出未来研究应重点关注两个方面:(1)将间接测量的正式加工模型引入内隐社会认知的测量中,可对双重加工的本质内涵进行更为深入地了解;(2)将个体差异纳入到双重加工模型中可以提高双重加工模型的解释力度。     

矩阵完成问题的项目生成研究

依据Embretson提出的认知设计系统方法,设计并编制了矩阵完成问题的项目生成系统,实际生成了矩阵完成问题测验。探讨矩阵测验与瑞文测验的关系,以及认知模型对矩阵问题的难度和区分度的预测能力。结果表明所设计的认知模型对矩阵项目的性能参数有一定的预测能力,生成的矩阵测验与瑞文测验有基本相同的心理测量属性。可以使用该系统生成的矩阵项目来测量被试的抽象推理能力。     

Mix-DINA——基于混合分布的多策略认知诊断模型

个体在完成多种类型认知任务时普遍使用了多种策略,且不同策略解题难度存在差异。但常见的测量模型忽视了这一事实,研究基于混合分布项目反应模型开发了Mix-DINA模型。其主要优点是:(1)可同时报告被试的知识状态与策略使用倾向;(2)不同策略对应题目参数自由估计,使之更符合主流心理学观点。研究通过模拟数据验证了自编Mix-DINA模型估计程序分析各类多策略作答时的有效性,结果显示Mix-DINA模型在分析单策略作答时也具有一定的稳健性。最后讨论了研究的局限,对多策略认知诊断的进一步研究给出了建议。     

测验项目反应机制与心理测量模型假设的对应性分析

从测验项目解决的认知过程的视角分析了在不同测验理论框架下的测量模型中的基本假设, 指出测量模型是测验开发者有关测验项目反应机制的理论假设的具体表征, 是系统检验测量假设和过程的统计框架。然而, 不管是经典测验理论、概化理论, 还是早期的项目反应理论模型, 相关假设都过于简化, 缺少相应实质理论的支持。与之相比, 认知测量模型强调与个体在测验项目反应过程中的认知过程、认知策略和知识结构的对应性, 提供了在实质理论基础上界定测量建构、设计测验项目、进行建模分析和解释的可能性, 为日益边缘化的心理测量学和主流心理学研究的融合奠定了基础。     

形成性测量模型：结构方程模型的新视角

形成性测量模型(Formative Model, FM)是指标变异导致潜变量变异的模型, 反映性测量模型(Reflective Model, RM)是潜变量变异导致指标变异的模型。FM在模型界定、识别和估计、信效度评价以及模型应用等方面均与RM存在极大的不同。模型界定错误会使参数估计发生偏差, 影响统计结论的有效性, 应当审慎考虑指标和潜变量之间的关系, 选择恰当的测量模型。进一步揭示两者的区别和误用带来的偏差, 完善FM的识别和估计、信效度评价方法、对变量含义的解释以及高阶FM的理论解释和模型估计是未来的研究方向。     

多项式加工树模型次序约束的量化分析及其应用

多项式加工树（MPT）模型是一种认知测量模型,能够对潜在认知过程进行测量和检验。已有研究探讨了二链MPT模型次序约束的重新参数化问题,本研究探讨了MPT模型次序约束的量化分析方法并从二链推广到多链,同时归纳出MPT模型参数向量内和参数向量间两参数次序约束量化分析的结论。数据分析结果表明该方法不仅在MPT模型框架下验证了潜在参数次序关系,而且给出了约束的量化指标,为潜在认知测量提供更有意义的解释。     

用于项目生成的认知模型的构建与比较——以矩阵完成问题为例

项目生成是一种新的测验编制技术,它可以弥补传统测验编制技术的缺陷.使用该技术编制测验,要进行大量的前期工作,如必须要了解和归纳所编测验中项目的所有刺激特征,据此建立认知模型,再将认知模型与心理计量模型联合,构建能预测新生成项目难度的数学模型等.该研究以矩阵完成问题为例,在带约束的两参数Logistic模型的基础上,通过对构建的几个认知模型的比较,挑选合适的认知模型为矩阵完成问题的项目生成研究服务.研究结果表明,自建的认知模型能够满足矩阵问题项目生成的要求.     

Working memory benefits creative insight, musical improvisation, and original ideation through maintained task-focused attention

Anecdotes from creative eminences suggest that executive control plays an important role in creativity, but scientific evidence is sparse. Invoking the Dual Pathway to Creativity Model, the authors hypothesize that working memory capacity (WMC) relates to creative performance because it enables persistent, focused, and systematic combining of elements and possibilities (persistence). Study 1 indeed showed that under cognitive load, participants performed worse on a creative insight task. Study 2 revealed positive associations between time-on-task and creativity among individuals high but not low in WMC, even after controlling for general intelligence. Study 3 revealed that across trials, semiprofessional cellists performed increasingly more creative improvisations when they had high rather than low WMC. Study 4 showed that WMC predicts original ideation because it allows persistent (rather than flexible) processing. The authors conclude that WMC benefits creativity because it enables the individual to maintain attention focused on the task and prevents undesirable mind wandering.     

Motivated information processing, social tuning, and group creativity

The extent to which groups are creative has wide implications for their overall performance, including the quality of their problem solutions, judgments, and decisions. To further understanding of group creativity, we integrate the motivated information processing in groups model (De Dreu, Nijstad, & Van Knippenberg, 2008) with work on epistemic social tuning (Lunn, Sinclair, Whitchurch, & Glenn, 2007). Three propositions were advanced: (a) Groups produce more ideas when members have high rather than low epistemic motivation, especially when members also have a prosocial rather than pro-self motivation; (b) these ideas are more original, appropriate, or feasible when a group norm favors originality, appropriateness, or feasibility; and (c) originality is valued more in individualistic cultures (e.g., the Netherlands), whereas appropriateness is valued more in collectivist cultures (e.g., Korea). Four studies involving 3-person groups generating ideas supported these propositions: Epistemic motivation (mild vs. intense time pressure; presence vs. absence of process accountability) stimulated production and originality, especially when prosocial rather than pro-self motives were present and participants were Dutch or originality norms were experimentally primed. When appropriateness norms were primed or participants were Korean, epistemic motivation stimulated production and appropriateness, especially when prosocial rather than pro-self motives were present. We discuss implications for research on group processes and for work on culture and creativity.     

创造性思维与认知抑制的关系

抑制是创造性思维过程中的一种重要的认知加工机制。创造性思维与认知抑制的关系主要有三种观点：创造性思维的认知去抑制假说、认知抑制假说和适应性认知抑制假说。本文系统评述了创造性思维与认知抑制关系的相关理论、研究新进展和神经机制。未来研究应加强创造性思维与认知抑制关系的理论整合与构建,分析创造性思维的不同阶段的认知抑制机制,采用无意抑制与有意抑制研究范式,对创造性思维与认知抑制的关系、影响因素及神经机制进行深入研究。     

The Adaptable Mind in Design: Relating Personality,Cognitive Style,and Creative Performance

This study examined domain-specific relationships between creative personality traits, cognitive styles, and creative performance in design. Design students (n = 39) completed the Adjective Check List (ACL) and the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) to gauge personality and cognitive style, respectively. The ACL was scored using Domino's Creativity Scale (ACL-Cr) to identify creative personality traits. The sample also completed a design task that was evaluated for creativity using the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT). Findings indicated that participants showing flexibility between cerebral, limbic, right, and left modes of thinking had significantly higher mean scores on creative personality than did those who exhibited a more entrenched cognitive style. Creative personality traits (ACL-Cr) significantly predicted creative performance on the design task. While cognitive style (HBDI) did not predict creative performance, flexibility between styles was significantly correlated to the creative personality. In sum, individuals exhibiting adaptable thinking appear to possess the flexibility necessary to design creatively and potentially transform the domain with original and imaginative solutions.     

Unraveling Effects of Novelty on Creativity

Novelty is inherent to creative processes. A positive effect of novelty on creative task performance was therefore predicted. However, creativity can benefit from divergent, as well as convergent thinking. Subsequently, novelty may benefit creative performance when divergent thinking is required, but it could inhibit creative performance when convergent thinking is required. In Study 1, participants were primed with novelty or familiarity, and performed a creativity task that required divergent thinking. Results showed a beneficial effect of novelty priming on originality of the answers. In Study 2, a creativity task that required convergent thinking was framed as novel, familiar, or neutral. Results showed an inhibitory effect of novelty on creativity. Results are related to information processing styles, and implications for creativity and novelty research are discussed.     

Are Individuals with Schizophrenia or Schizotypy More Creative? Evidence from Multiple Tests of Creative Potential

Schizophrenia and schizotypy have been often associated with above average creativity; however, empirical studies on the relationship between schizophrenia spectrum disorders and enhanced creativity generated inconsistent results. This research investigates if the association between schizophrenia spectrum disorders and creative potential levels is dependent upon which cognitive processes are examined during administered tests of creative potential. Our study examined 117 participants stratified into the following three subgroups: (a) 39 psychometrically determined low-schizotypal individuals, (b) 35 psychometrically determined high-schizotypal individuals, and (c) 43 patients with schizophrenia. Each participant completed 2 divergent thinking (DT) tasks, 2 convergent thinking (CT) tasks, and 2 creative tasks that combine both DT and CT processes. The data suggest that Group C had typical abilities in the DT, CT, and the combined creative thinking tasks; however, the group as a whole had intact originality during the Figural Completion (DT task) and the Tangram Construction (combined task). Notably, Group B showed significant advantages in both verbal and figural DT tasks. Group A and Group B demonstrated no significant differences in the creative thinking processes of CT; however, both groups outperformed Group C in these tasks.     

The Moderating Role of Agreeableness in the Relationship between Experiencing Anger and Creative Performance

Previous studies regarding the effect of experiencing anger on creative performance have shown controversial findings. Some studies have reported that anger hampers creative performance, whereas others have shown that anger promotes cognitive motivation and improves creative performance. Anger is associated with hostility, threats, and conflict, states that are congruent with low agreeableness. In contrast, anger is incompatible with an agreeable individual's preference for harmony and peace. Experiencing this negative activating emotion should be demanding and stressful to them and thereby hamper creative task engagement. Accordingly, we conducted an experimental study to examine whether agreeableness moderated the association between anger and creative performance. A total of 128 undergraduates were randomly assigned to receive either induced anger or a neutral emotion and then completed a creativity task. We found that participants with lower levels of agreeableness showed better fluency, flexibility, and originality in creativity in the anger relative to the neutral-emotion condition, whereas participants with higher levels of agreeableness showed better creative performance in the neutral emotion relative to the anger condition. The present findings not only provide a viable account for integrating inconsistent findings regarding the facilitating effect of anger on creativity but also contribute to contingent strategies for promoting creative performance.     

Creative ways to well-being: Reappraisal inventiveness in the context of anger-evoking situations

Neuroscientific studies in the field of creativity mainly focused on tasks drawing on basic verbal divergent thinking demands. This study took a step further by investigating brain mechanisms in response to other types of creative behavior, involving more “real-life” creativity demands in the context of emotion regulation and well-being. Specifically, functional patterns of EEG alpha activity were investigated while participants were required to generate as many and as different ways as possible to reappraise presented anger-eliciting situations in a manner that reduces their anger. Cognitive reappraisal involves some of the same cognitive processes as in conventional verbal creativity tasks, inasmuch as it requires an individual to inhibit or disengage from an emotional event, to shift attention between different perspectives, and to flexibly adopt new solutions. To examine whether alpha oscillations during cognitive reappraisal are different from those during conventional creative ideation, the EEG was also assessed during performance of the Alternative Uses task, requiring individuals to generate as many and as original uses of an object as possible. While cognitive reappraisal was associated with a similar pattern of alpha power as observed in conventional verbal creative ideation, the former yielded significantly stronger alpha power increases at prefrontal sites, along with lower alpha increases at more posterior cortical sites, indicating higher cognitive control and less spontaneous imaginative thought processes in the generation of effective strategies to regulate an ongoing negative emotional state.     

The Importance of the Default Mode Network in Creativity—A Structural MRI Study

Anecdotal reports as well as behavioral studies have suggested that creative performance benefits from unconscious processes. So far, however, little is known about how creative ideas arise from the brain. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the neural correlates of creativity by means of structural MRI research. Given that unconscious and less controlled processes are important in creative thinking, structural brain research may find a positive correlation between well‐established creativity measures and cortical thickness in brain structures of the default mode network (i.e., the counterpart of the cognitive control network). Individuals performed the Alternative Uses task by which an individual's cognitive flexibility and the average uniqueness and average creativity of a participant's ideas were assessed. We computed optimized voxel‐based‐morphometry (VBM) to explore the correlation between inter‐individual differences in creativity and inter‐individual differences in gray matter volume. For all creativity measures, a positive correlation was found between creative performance and gray matter volume of the default mode network. These findings support the idea that the default mode network is important in creativity, and provide neurostructural support for the idea that unconscious forms of information processing are important in creativity. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Creative Thinking in an Emotional Context: Specific Relevance of Executive Control of Emotion-Laden Representations in the Inventiveness in Generating Alternative Appraisals of Negative Events

Although divergent thinking ability in different domains may largely rely on the same basic executive functions, domain-specific functions may also be important, in particular when it comes to more real-life creativity demands. This study investigated if functional executive control of emotion-laden representations may be specifically relevant in cognitive reappraisal, which implies being creative in an affective context. In a sample of 88 healthy individuals, the relation between the participants’ inventiveness in generating positive reappraisals of adverse events (Reappraisal Inventiveness Test) and in generating novel ideas without emotional component (conventional divergent thinking test) to their executive functioning in tasks without (Mittenecker Pointing Test) and with emotional contribution (humor processing task) was studied. In line with hybrid models of creative thinking, poorer basic inhibition skills were found to be associated with poorer fluency performance in both divergent thinking tasks. Relations applied more specifically to reappraisal inventiveness when it came to executive processes with a more prominent emotional component. Creative performance in both tasks may have been hampered by time limits. The results support the notion that, in addition to basic executive functioning, more specific cognitive control functions are implicated in more real-life creative performance, according to related domain-specific demands.