青年人和老年人加工情绪图片过程中的注意偏向:眼动研究

利用眼动追踪技术,考察了老年人与青年人加工情绪图片过程中的注意偏向及再认成绩。给被试同时呈现积极、中性及消极情绪图片,分为注意和记忆两部分任务。基于线性混合模型的分析发现,与青年人相比,老年人表现出对积极图片更大的注意偏向,且在随后的再认过程中对积极情绪图片的再认正确率更高。结果支持了社会情绪选择理论,说明中国老年人同样存在“积极效应”,情绪加工过程中能够通过选择偏爱的积极情绪信息来适应老化。     

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.     

Unattractive people are unaware of their (un)attractiveness

Past research has shown that how people rate their physical attractiveness is only moderately correlated with how they are rated by others, suggesting that at least some people have little insight into their true level of attractiveness. The present research tests the hypothesis that unattractive people are not aware of their unattractiveness. In fact, six studies (overall N = 1,180) showed that unattractive participants considerably overestimated their attractiveness compared to ratings by strangers. In contrast, attractive participants were more accurate. If anything, they underestimated their attractiveness. It was also examined why unattractive people overestimate their attractiveness. As expected, unattractive participants differentiated less between attractive and unattractive stimulus persons than did attractive participants. They were also more likely than attractive participants to select unattractive stimulus persons to compare themselves to. However, these tendencies did not account for why unattractive participants overestimated their attractiveness, nor did affirming participant’s self-worth. Limitations and avenues for future research are discussed.     

The role of attentional slippage in Stroop dilution

The present study examined the cognitive locus of Stroop dilution using a psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm. Participants were asked to perform a tone discrimination task via a bimanual keypress response and a modified Stroop task via a vocal response serially as Task 1 and Task 2, respectively. In Task 2, a neutral word was added on half of the trials and no neutral word on the other half of the trials to observe the Stroop dilution effect. The amount of Stroop dilution, as well as the Stroop effect, was relatively constant across different stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs), which implies that Stroop dilution occurs due to the competition between a neutral word and a color word after a target color bar is selected to be processed further. These results indicate that focused attention plays an important role in the modulation of Stroop interference by the presence of a neutral word.     

Revealing psychological inertia in mode shift behavior and its quantitative influences on commuting trips

The inertia effects stemmed from repeated past behavior have been investigated by both psychology and transportation studies because of its bearing on explaining human mobility and forecasting travel demand. However, the existing literature from psychology does not strictly control potential endogeneity due to ignorance of detailed level-of-service (LOS) variables of alternatives and rational preference in the analysis. Quantitative transportation studies are insufficient in providing explicit behavior mechanisms. This paper aims to fill the gaps by empirically examining the effects of irrational psychological inertia in mode shift behavior with controlling potential endogeneity. A specific-designed comparison experiment is conducted to demonstrate the existence of psychological inertia in mode shift behavior. The effects of dominance in LOS variables and rational preference towards a certain transport mode are controlled to eliminate potential endogeneity in the analysis. The results demonstrate that after controlling the above-mentioned endogeneity, both car and metro users show significantly and substantially larger predilections to previously used transport mode in mode shift scenarios without overturning travel contexts than those in new context mode choice scenarios with noticeable changes in travel contexts. The results support that psychological inertia plays a significant role in mode shift behavior after controlling potential endogeneity. Moreover, this study utilizes hybrid choice modeling to quantitatively measure the effect of psychological inertia. The relationships between travelers’ characteristics and strength of psychological inertia are analyzed as well to shed light on heterogeneity in the strength of psychological inertia. The findings provide solid evidence of psychological inertia in mode shift behavior by a novel method and provide an approach to measure the quantitative effects of psychological inertia along with empirical studies.     

A study of student assessment of the lexical and emotional characteristics of cancer-related words

IntroductionThe aim of this study was to clarify students’ knowledge and emotional feelings about words used in the announcement of cancer diagnoses.MethodA total of 465 students registered in a higher education institution rated familiarity, valence and arousal, and responded to questions about the definition and the contextual use of 20 cancer-related target words.ResultsThe words were estimated as being unfamiliar and negative, and were poorly defined by the majority of students. Many of these indicators varied according to whether the students reported having a relative diagnosed with cancer, and to their level of vocabulary.DiscussionThis study provides explanatory leads that should help to shed light on the nature of the difficulties students have in understanding medical messages.     

Within-day time-varying associations between motivation and movement-related behaviors in older adults

ObjectivesEmerging evidence suggests both motivation and movement-related behaviors vary within and across days. Yet common data analytic approaches assume static or consistent relationships between motivation and behavior across time. Just as motivation and behavior change across time, so too might associations between motivation and behavior. This study will apply time-varying effect modeling to Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) data to examine time of day differences in how motivational constructs predict older adults’ subsequent movement-related behavior over the next 2 h.DesignOlder adults (n = 104) completed a 10-day EMA protocol.MethodParticipants answered up to 6 EMA prompts/day to assess momentary intentions and self-efficacy to stand or move as well as intentions and self-efficacy to limit sedentary time over the next 2 h. Participants wore an activPAL accelerometer continuously to measure time spent being upright (i.e., standing or moving) and time spent sitting.ResultsOn weekdays, intentions and self-efficacy were generally predictive of subsequent behavior in the expected direction over the majority of the day whereas these constructs predicted subsequent behavior in the expected directions over a smaller range of times on weekend days.ConclusionsThis study adds to emerging evidence that associations between motivational constructs and subsequent behavior change over the course of the day, but these time-varying associations may be different depending on the day of week. This work has implications for intervention design and the timing of intervention content delivery in approaches like just-in-time adaptive interventions.     

瞳孔变化在记忆加工中的生物标记作用

瞳孔在不同记忆任务的同一加工阶段内具有变化模式的一致性, 瞳孔的缩放变化反映了信息加工过程中神经系统的激活状态。在刺激呈现前的预编码阶段, 瞳孔随个体注意集中水平的提高而收缩。在信息编码阶段, 瞳孔扩张程度作为相继记忆效应的生物标记, 可预测信息未来提取阶段的回忆成绩。在信息提取阶段, 采用自由回忆任务时, 瞳孔随记忆负荷的释放而迅速收缩, 但每个项目的提取均会引发小幅度瞳孔扩张; 而在再认提取任务中, 呈现旧刺激比呈现新刺激时瞳孔扩张更明显, 产生瞳孔新旧效应。瞳孔是记忆加工中敏感而稳定的生物标记, 而瞳孔测量法是探究记忆加工生理机制的有效手段。未来可以从瞳孔追踪术的角度, 采用多种研究手段进一步探究记忆的生理机制。     

主题与类属关系的距离对分类和属性推理过程的影响：来自ERP的证据

不同关系类型对归纳推理具有重要的影响,然而主题关系（如,熊猫vs.竹子）与类属关系（如,熊猫vs.羚羊）在归纳推理中的神经机制仍然不清楚。本研究采用事件相关电位（ERP）技术,通过分开呈现属性归纳推理任务中的结论类别和结论属性,探讨两种关系类型及其距离在分类过程和属性推理过程中的ERP特征。结果发现：（1）结论类别呈现阶段,N400（370～500 ms）与LNC（the late negative component）（570～700 ms）时间窗口上,无论是主题关系还是类属关系,远距离比近距离均诱发了更大的负波;前者表明N400与语义整合密切相关,后者说明LNC与语义类别信息违背和假设形成有关。（2）结论属性呈现阶段,主题关系比类属关系诱发了更大的N1;同时,近距离比远距离诱发了更大的N1,反映了类别属性特征的知觉和自动化加工。结果表明：语义类别属性归纳存在距离效应,并且语义关系在属性推理过程中具有不同的加工方式。     

基于同义关联的句子错误记忆：发展性逆转现象及句式效应

以汉语把字句和被字句为材料,采用学习-再认方式,考察基于同义关联的句子错误记忆及其发展性逆转现象和句式效应。实验1结果发现高二和初二校正后的关键诱饵句错误再认率显著高于小学五年级,把字关键诱饵句校正后的错误再认率显著高于被字句,表明基于同义关联的句子错误记忆存在发展性逆转现象和句式效应。实验2结果发现三个年级关键诱饵句与无关句的错误再认率差异均不显著,表明去除同义关联后,句子错误记忆现象被抑制。结果表明,同义关联能诱发句子错误记忆,且句子错误记忆存在发展性逆转现象和句式效应。