Prototypes are Key Heuristic Information in Insight Problem Solving

Evidence from a range of fields indicates that inventions are often inspired by drawing a parallel to solutions found in nature. However, the cognitive mechanism of this process is not well understood. The cognitive mechanism of heuristic prototype in scientific innovation was tested with 3 experiments. First, 84 historical accounts of important scientific innovations were collected and the prototype solution underlying them was extracted. Experiment 1 tested the validity of these materials and showed that knowledge of the prototype facilitated insight solutions. Experiment 2 and 3 suggested that activation of the prototype was indeed the critical element in the process of insight. Also, the mechanism of this activation was linked to the semantic similarity between the feature function of the prototype and the required function of the problem. In addition, Experiment 3 showed that participants who were better at excluding interference information more readily activated the relevant prototype. To sum up, the experiments suggested that activating a memory of the heuristic prototype was important in solving scientific innovation insight problems. Activating the feature function of right heuristic prototype and linking it by way of semantic similarity to the required function of the problem was the key mechanism people used to solve scientific insight problem.     

Applying Western models of volunteering in Hong Kong: The role of empathy,prosocial motivation and motive–experience fit for volunteering

The present research investigates the applicability of prominent Western volunteering frameworks in Hong Kong. Two cross‐sectional surveys involving a total of 268 respondents were conducted. In Study 1, we tested a model of volunteering among 149 Hong Kong Chinese adult individuals (M_age = 34.8 years; 51.7% female) that examines antecedents and outcomes of voluntary engagement. Results show that prosocial motivation relates to volunteering, and that volunteering in turn predicts life satisfaction. Unexpectedly, and unlike studies in Western settings, other‐oriented empathy was not related to volunteering. Study 2 tests the propositions of the Volunteer Process Model (VPM) among 119 Hong Kong Chinese volunteers (M_age = 36.9 years; 58.0% female). Findings largely support the VPM: our results indicate that the link between motives, voluntary service length and frequency is mediated by satisfaction with volunteering. Moreover, findings suggest that a fit between motives and experience seems relevant for increasing volunteers' satisfaction with their service. Results of both studies suggest that Western volunteering models can be applied to volunteering in East Asian cultures when culture‐specific adaptations are considered.     

Sequence‐specific procedural learning deficits in children with specific language impairment

This study tested the procedural deficit hypothesis of specific language impairment (SLI) by comparing children's performance in two motor procedural learning tasks and an implicit verbal sequence learning task. Participants were 7‐ to 11‐year‐old children with SLI (n = 48), typically developing age‐matched children (n = 20) and younger typically developing children matched for receptive grammar (n = 28). In a serial reaction time task, the children with SLI performed at the same level as the grammar‐matched children, but poorer than age‐matched controls in learning motor sequences. When tested with a motor procedural learning task that did not involve learning sequential relationships between discrete elements (i.e. pursuit rotor), the children with SLI performed comparably with age‐matched children and better than younger grammar‐matched controls. In addition, poor implicit learning of word sequences in a verbal memory task (the Hebb effect) was found in the children with SLI. Together, these findings suggest that SLI might be characterized by deficits in learning sequence‐specific information, rather than generally weak procedural learning.     

Multiple contest experiences interact to influence each other’s effect on subsequent contest decisions in a mangrove killifish

Many animals modify behavioural decisions based on information they have previously acquired. Contest behaviour is often affected by previous contest experiences: individuals behave more and less aggressively after a victory and defeat, respectively (winner/loser effect). Individuals in the field sometimes encounter multiple competitors in quick succession, but whether these experiences interact to influence each other’s importance is unclear. We tested five hypotheses for experience interaction (no interaction, retroactive interference, proactive interaction, reinforcement and diminishing returns) using Kryptolebias marmoratus. Focal individuals were paired up with opponents having the same 1-month contest outcome (1 month before the experiment), as this difference in actual or perceived fighting ability has been shown to affect the fish’s response to new experiences. We gave the focal individual of a pair a winning or losing experience on day 1. Then both fish of the pair received the same winning, losing or no-contest experience on day 2. Then we organised fights between the two. The effect of a day-1 losing experience did depend on the fish’s actual or perceived fighting ability: one-month losers readily showed loser effects from the day-1 losing experience, irrespective of the day-2 experience (i.e. no interaction between day-1 and day-2 experiences). One-month winners, however, only showed loser effects from a day-1 losing experience when the day-2 experience was also a loss (i.e. reinforcement). Day-1 winning experiences did not interact with day-2 experiences in 1-month losers or winners. Therefore, multiple experiences sometimes reinforce each other, but how they combine to influence behaviour depends on an individual’s actual or perceived fighting ability.     

Predicting raters’ transparency judgments of English and Chinese morphological constituents using latent semantic analysis

The morphological constituents of English compounds (e.g., “butter” and “fly” for “butterfly”) and two-character Chinese compounds may differ in meaning from the whole word. Subjective differences and ambiguity of transparency make judgments difficult, and a computational alternative based on a general model might be a way to average across subjective differences. In the present study, we propose two approaches based on latent semantic analysis (Landauer & Dumais in Psychological Review 104:211–240, 1997): Model 1 compares the semantic similarity between a compound word and each of its constituents, and Model 2 derives the dominant meaning of a constituent from a clustering analysis of morphological family members (e.g., “butterfingers” or “buttermilk” for “butter”). The proposed models successfully predicted participants’ transparency ratings, and we recommend that experimenters use Model 1 for English compounds and Model 2 for Chinese compounds, on the basis of differences in raters’ morphological processing in the different writing systems. The dominance of lexical meaning, semantic transparency, and the average similarity between all pairs within a morphological family are provided, and practical applications for future studies are discussed.     

The Suffocation of Marriage: Climbing Mount Maslow Without Enough Oxygen

This article distills insights from historical, sociological, and psychological perspectives on marriage to develop the suffocation model of marriage in America. According to this model, contemporary Americans are asking their marriage to help them fulfill different sets of goals than in the past. Whereas they ask their marriage to help them fulfill their physiological and safety needs much less than in the past, they ask it to help them fulfill their esteem and self-actualization needs much more than in the past. Asking the marriage to help them fulfill the latter, higher level needs typically requires sufficient investment of time and psychological resources to ensure that the two spouses develop a deep bond and profound insight into each other's essential qualities. Although some spouses are investing sufficient resources—and reaping the marital and psychological benefits of doing so—most are not. Indeed, they are, on average, investing less than in the past. As a result, mean levels of marital quality and personal well-being are declining over time. According to the suffocation model, spouses who are struggling with an imbalance between what they are asking from their marriage and what they are investing in it have several promising options for corrective action: intervening to optimize their available resources, increasing their investment of resources in the marriage, and asking less of the marriage in terms of facilitating the fulfillment of spouses’ higher needs. Discussion explores the implications of the suffocation model for understanding dating and courtship, sociodemographic variation, and marriage beyond American's borders.     

Educators' implicit perspectives on wisdom: A comparison between interpersonal and intrapersonal perspectives

This research aimed to investigate educators' implicit perspectives on wisdom in order to compare interpersonal and intrapersonal perspectives and to help identify similarities or differences between these two theoretical perspectives. A total of 56 educators in Taiwan were interviewed individually. We utilised the grounded theory method to analyse the qualitative data. Results showed that both interpersonal and intrapersonal perspectives converged on four core components of wisdom: intrapsychic integration, actions in service of problem solving and ideal implementation, positive results and feedback and adjustments. The interpersonal perspective referred to external characteristics, and admiration and influence, whereas the intrapersonal perspective included greater detail about intrapsychic integration and action strategies than did the interpersonal perspective. We close with a discussion both of how wisdom appears to span across different fields and how the present results might feed into the teaching of wisdom in schools.     

Differential Effects of Personality Traits and Environmental Predictors on Reproductive and Creative Imagination

The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to analyze the effects of both personality and environmental variables on the imagination of video/film major university students; and (2) to test the mediator effect resulting from the variable of social climate. The results of this study supported both indicators of imaginative capabilities and environmental influences. The hypothesis of the study—that the variable of social climate mediates the effects of personality/environmental predictors and both types of imagination—was partially supported. The structural model also showed that most personality traits have direct effects on imagination, whereas most environmental predictors have indirect effects. Practical applications of this study were suggested, future inquiries were discussed, and limitations were acknowledged.     

Effects of Bilingualism and Trilingualism in L2 Production: Evidence from Errors and Self-Repairs in Early Balanced Bilingual and Trilingual Adults

Through analyzing response latencies, errors, and self-repairs in Mandarin, this investigation explores how monolingual, bilingual, and trilingual adults process their speech production differently using cognitive control mechanisms. In this study we conducted two experiments involving speech production in Mandarin. In the two experiments, 81 adults participated and were categorized into three groups: Mandarin monolingual, Hakka-Mandarin bilingual, and Hakka-Mandarin-Minnan trilingual. In Experiment 1 (unpreprogrammed task), each subject read 250 targets that were presented on a computer screen, one at a time, using E-prime; in Experiment 2 (preprogrammed task), each subject read 466 targets printed on A4 paper. Experiment 1 showed that bilinguals and trilinguals outperformed monolinguals in every aspect examined in this research, revealing the presence of bilingual and trilingual advantages in inhibitory control. Interestingly, in Experiment 2, we found a more complex pattern of results: a trilingual advantage in attentional control occurred during L2 production in terms of the number of errors and error correction; however, the bilingual group did not maintain this advantage in the task requiring attentional control. These experimental results revealed that the differences between the language groups became clearer when the inhibitory control demands increased and that compared with the trilingual advantage, the bilingual advantage in inhibitory control emerged in more limited contexts.     

Psychological distress in patients with chronic atrophic gastritis: the risk factors,protection factors,and cumulative effect

This study aimed to examine the psychological status among Chronic Atrophic Gastritis (CAG) patients and to find the cumulative effects of risk and protective factors. A sample of 101 CAG patients completed the investigation. Hierarchical linear regression was used to find risk and protective factors, and examine the cumulative effects in risk factor index (RFI) and protective factor index (PFI). Results showed that nine symptoms from SCL-90-R were severer among CAG patients than those in adult norm. Risk factors including positive family history of cancer and higher negative life events could predict higher GSI (β = 0.206, p = 0.023; β = 0.398, p < 0.001; R² = 0.203); more household resistant, positive coping and stronger resilience were protective factors and could predict GSI negatively (β = -0.188, p = 0.020; β = -0.350, p = 0.012; β = ?0.066, p = 0.621; R² = 0.190). The GSI was positively correlated with RFI (β = 0.338, p < 0.001; R² = 0.113) and negatively related to PFI (β = ?0.378, p < 0.001; R² = 0.133). In conclusion, CAG patients suffered from various psychological distress, and the protective factors should be enhanced cumulatively to protect against psychological distress.