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Intelligence is strongly associated with working memory. Working memory training can improve fluid intelligence, but the underlying mechanism requires further investigation. Because inhibition control may play a key role in working memory training, this study investigated this process from an electrophysiological perspective. In total, 40 children aged 9 to 11 years were enrolled and randomly divided into a training group (n = 20) and a control group (n = 20). The training group received 20 days of working memory training, whereas the control group did not receive any training. Before and after the training period, all participants were tested using Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM), and electrophysiological indicators were recorded while they performed go/no-go and Stroop tasks. The results revealed that relative to the control group, the training group had significantly improved RSPM scores in the test conducted after their training. For the go/no-go tasks, the training group exhibited a significant decrease in N2 amplitude, a significant increase in P3 amplitude, a significant decrease in theta band energy, and an improvement in response inhibition ability. No significant change was observed for the Stroop task. Correlation analysis revealed that an improvement in individual response inhibition can positively predict an improvement in fluid intelligence. These results suggest that working memory training enhances the fluid intelligence of children by enhancing their response inhibition ability.

Objectives: Previous studies revealed a positive association between neuroticism and depression. This study further extended the previous findings by exploring the psychological processes underlying this association among Chinese postgraduates. Guided by theoretical models and empirical research, we proposed a multiple mediation and moderated mediation model to investigate the roles of dispositional mindfulness and cognitive reappraisal in the relationship between neuroticism and depression.Methods: Using the NEO Five-Factor Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale, and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, 1103 first-year postgraduates at a comprehensive university in China were surveyed. Path analysis was adopted to test the models.Results: The results showed that dispositional mindfulness mediated the association between neuroticism and depression. Further, this mediating effect was moderated by cognitive reappraisal, with this effect being stronger in individuals with low engagement in cognitive reappraisal.Conclusion: The results support interrelations among neuroticism, depression, dispositional mindfulness, and cognitive reappraisal as moderated mediation rather than multiple mediation. The results enhance our understanding of psychological mechanisms between neuroticism and depression and provide suggestions for interventions to prevent or reduce depression in highly neurotic postgraduates.

Objectives: To examine the association between quarantine duration and psychological outcomes, social distancing, as well as vaccination intention during the second outbreak of COVID-19 in China.Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted in January 2021. Participants were invited to complete the measurement of quarantine duration, social distancing, psychological distress, wellbeing (WHO-5), and vaccination intention. Multiple linear regression and logistic regression were performed to examine the relationship between quarantine duration and psychological distress, wellbeing, social distancing, and vaccination intention.Results: Of the 944 participants, 17.2% of the participants experienced quarantine. Quarantine for 1–7 days increased the social distancing (β = 2.61 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.90–3.33) and vaccination intention (OR = 2.16 95% CI 1.22–3.82). Quarantine for >7 days was associated with the increased social distancing (β = 3.00 95% CI 2.37–3.64) and psychological distress (β = 1.03 95% CI 0.22–1.86), and decreased wellbeing (β = 1.27 95% CI 0.29–2.26).Conclusion: Longer quarantine duration showed increased social distancing, increased psychological distress, and decreased wellbeing. Quarantine for 1–7 days was associated with increased vaccination intention.

Whether working memory training is effective in enhancing fluid intelligence remains in dispute. Several researchers, who doubt the training benefits, consider that placebo effects may be the reason for positive training gains. One of the vital variables that may induce the placebo effect is the mindset of intelligence. In this article, we provide a test of whether the mindset of intelligence leads to placebo effects in working memory training. Participants were overtly recruited and allocated to the growth mindset group or the fixed mindset group by Theories of Intelligence Scale scores. A single, 1 h session working memory training is the cue to introduce the placebo effects. During pre/post-testing, all participants completed tasks measuring working memory capacity (near transfer) and fluid intelligence (far transfer). Our findings show no significant difference between the two groups in both tasks. Therefore, these results suggest that the placebo effect does not exist in this study, which means individuals' mindset of intelligence may not be a contributor to the placebo effect in 1 h working memory training. This research will further help to clarify the mechanism of the placebo effect in working memory training.

We report our investigation on the S-shaped current–voltage characteristics in a hot-casting–processed (BA)2 (MA)3Pb4I13 Ruddlesden–Popper (RP) perovskite solar cell. The two-dimensional perovskite solar cells are fabricated with NiOx as the hole transport layer (HTL), which leads to significantly high open-circuit voltage (Voc). The champion device shows a Voc of 1.21 V and a short current density (Jsc) of 17.14 mA/cm2, leading to an overall power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 13.7%. Although the PCE is much higher than the control device fabricated on PEDOT:PSS, a significant S-shaped current–voltage behavior is observed in these NiOx-based devices. It is found that the S-shaped current–voltage behavior is related to the lower dimensional phase distribution and crystallinity at the bottom interface of the RP perovskite layer, and the S-shaped distortion is less severe after the device ageing test.

Quarantine and isolation at extended length, although considered as highly effective countermeasures for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) which started at the end of 2019, can have great impact on individual's mental health, especially emotional state. The present research recruited 5,115 participants from the general public across 32 provinces and autonomous regions in China in an online survey study, about 20 days after the lockdown of the epicenter (Wuhan), to investigate the relationship between the length of the quarantine and negative affect (including depression and anxiety), as well as the mediating roles of negative cognition (including worry and anticipation), and the moderating roles of dispositional optimism, tolerance of uncertainty, social support, and healthy behavior. The results showed that: (1) Worry and anticipation mediated the relationship between quarantine length and depression and anxiety; (2) Dispositional optimism moderated the path coefficients of quarantine length to worry, worry to anxiety, and anticipation to depression; (3) Tolerance of uncertainty moderated the path coefficient of worry to anxiety; (4) Social support moderated the path coefficient of anticipation to anxiety. In conclusion, during quarantine, dispositional optimism, uncertainty tolerance, and social support can buffer the direct or indirect effects of quarantine length on depression and anxiety. These findings could have profound implications on the societal responses to COVID-19 and future pandemics.

Spatial communications are essential to the survival and social interaction of human beings. In science fiction and the near future, robots are supposed to be able to understand spatial languages to collaborate and cooperate with humans. However, it remains unknown whether human speakers regard robots as human-like social partners. In this study, human speakers describe target locations to an imaginary human or robot addressee under various scenarios varying in relative speaker–addressee cognitive burden. Speakers made equivalent perspective choices to human and robot addressees, which consistently shifted according to the relative speaker–addressee cognitive burden. However, speakers’ perspective choice was only significantly correlated to their social skills when the addressees were humans but not robots. These results suggested that people generally assume robots and humans with equal capabilities in understanding spatial descriptions but do not regard robots as human-like social partners.

The ability to quickly identify fearful faces is important for the activation of defense mechanisms that allow an individual to deal with potential emergencies. This study examined the relationship between frontal electroencephalography (EEG) alpha asymmetry and the processing of congruent and incongruent fearful faces among female participants using event-related potentials (ERPs). Behavioral results showed that individuals with more left frontal EEG alpha asymmetry had shorter response times than individuals with more right frontal EEG alpha asymmetry during the cue-target task. ERP results indicated that, for individuals with more left frontal EEG alpha asymmetry, enhanced N1 reflected more rapid processing of emotional faces in the early stage, and enhanced P3 indicated that these individuals directed more attentional and motivational resources to the evaluation of emotional faces in the late stage. For individuals with more right frontal EEG alpha asymmetry, enhanced N2 indicated that these individuals experienced more conflict for incongruent fearful faces in the late stage. The present findings suggest that frontal EEG alpha asymmetry during resting conditions can reflect individual differences in the processing of congruent and incongruent fearful faces.

Nearly 50% of women of reproductive age worldwide experience premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Women with PMS exhibit low positive affect and low frontal electroencephalography asymmetry scores, both of which are associated with reward processing. These findings suggest that women with PMS may exhibit deficiencies in reward processing. A probabilistic reward task based on signal detection approach was used to assess reward responsiveness in 30 women with moderate-to-severe PMS and 31 controls without PMS. The results revealed that in the late luteal phase, the women with moderate-to-severe PMS exhibited lower response bias and lower hit rate toward more frequently rewarded stimuli (rich stimuli) than the controls. By contrast, the response bias and hit rate did not differ between the two groups in the follicular phase. The group differences still remained after controlling for anhedonic symptoms. Furthermore, trial-by-trial probability analyses revealed that women with moderate-to-severe PMS exhibited a trend of having a higher miss rate for rich stimuli than the controls. In particular, when a rich stimulus was preceded by an infrequently rewarded stimulus (a rewarded lean stimulus), participants in the PMS group exhibited a trend for higher miss rate than those in the control group in the late luteal and follicular phases. However, group differences in the probability analyses were nonsignificant after controlling for anhedonic symptoms. These results provide preliminary evidence that women with moderate-to-severe PMS exhibit dysfunctional reward responsiveness and impaired ability to modulate their behavior as a function of prior reinforcement.

BackgroundEducational psychology research has linked fluid intelligence (Gf) with working memory (WM), but it is still dubious whether electroencephalography (EEG) markers robustly indicate Gf. This study addresses this issue and notes the relationship between WM task-related EEG markers with Gf and academic performance.MethodA sample of 62 healthy children between the ages of 9 and 12 years was selected to perform three tasks: (1) Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) test to assess Gf; (2) 2-back task to assess central executive system (CES); and (3) delayed match-to-sample task to assess short-term storage. These subjects were divided into high ability (HA) and low ability (LA) groups based on their RSPM scores. Support vector machine and logistic regression were used to train the EEG candidate indicators. A multiple regression was used to predict children’s academic performance using P3 amplitude, P2 latency, and θ-ERS.ResultsBehavioral results demonstrated that the correct rate of the HA group is higher than that of the LA group. The event-related potential results of the 2-back task showed that the P3 amplitude of the HA group was relatively larger and that the P2 latency was shorter than that observed in the LA group. For the delayed matching to sample task, the θ-ERS of the LA group was higher than that of the HA group. However, the area under the curve of these three indicators for Gf was < 0.75 for each and < 0.85 for the combined indicators. In predicting academic performance, only P3 amplitude showed a significant effect.ConclusionThese results challenge previous findings, which reported that P3, P2, or theta power might be used in standard psychometric tests to assess an individual’s intelligence.

Introduction: Individuals with test anxiety [i.e., high test anxiety (HTA)] always treat tests/examinations as a potential threat. This cognitive mode impairs these individuals’ ability of inhibitory control and leads to a high level of anxiety. However, characterizing aspects of HTA’s impaired inhibitory control ability are unclear and need to be studied.Methods: Forty-six participants were recruited and divided into a HTA (N = 26) and low test anxiety (LTA; i.e., healthy control; N = 20) group. Self-reports (Test Anxiety Scale, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for negative emotions) were obtained. An emotional Stroop (ES) task and a numerical Stroop (NS) task, causing different types of interferences, were used for assessing the emotional and cognitive aspects of attentional control ability (behavioral data). Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were registered to further assess processing stages related to different aspects of attentional control ability.Results: Compared with the LTA group, the HTA group has inhibitory control deficits of both emotional (see ERP components P1-P2-N2 and P3) and cognitive (see ERP component P3) interference. Compared with the LTA group, the HTA doesn't have lower accuracy in neither ES nor NS but displays longer reaction times only in ES. Additionally, the HTA group’s ES results also show that (1) the degree of emotional interference indicates the level of an individual’s anxiety, and (2) the ERP component P2 may serve as an index of the level of test anxiety.Conclusion: HTA individuals have extensive inhibitory deficits for both emotional and cognitive aspects; however, impairment impacts more on emotional aspects than on cognitive aspects. Additionally, as compared to NS, the negative impact of more impaired processing stages on task performance is more substantial in ES.

This study examined mood enhancement effects from 4-week focusing attention (FA) meditation and 4-week open monitoring (OM) meditation in an 8-week mindfulness training program designed for ordinary individuals. Forty participants were randomly assigned to a training group or a control group. All participants were asked to perform cognitive tasks and subjective scale tests at three time points (pre-, mid-, and post-tests). Compared with the participants in the control group, the participants in the meditation training group showed significantly decreased anxiety, depression, and rumination scores; significantly increased mindfulness scores; and significantly reduced reaction times (RTs) in the incongruent condition for the Stroop task. The present study demonstrated that 8-week mindfulness meditation training could effectively enhance the level of mindfulness and improve emotional states. Moreover, FA meditation could partially improve individual levels of mindfulness and effectively improve mood, while OM meditation could further improve individual levels of mindfulness and maintain a positive mood.

Amygdala activity was previously found to correlate with neuroticism as an effect of valence, but so far few studies have focused on motivational context. The network subserving altered amygdala activity has not yet been investigated although some studies showed strong effective connections with prefrontal cortex (PFC). The goal of this study was to test the modulatory role of neuroticism on the functional connectivity (FC) between amygdala and other brain regions, especially PFC, during emotion processing from motivational direction. We applied an emotional picture viewing paradigm with different motivational directions (approaching and avoiding) in a large participant sample. The results showed that neuroticism predicted the amount of amygdala FC to dorsomedial PFC (dmPFC) and middle cingulate cortex (MCC). Increased FC during negative vs. positive pictures was found primarily in low neuroticism subjects, especially during the avoid condition. This valence and motivation dependent connectivity increase were disrupted for high neurotic participants. No effect of neuroticism was found for the approach condition. We showed that neuroticism, especially in the context of passive affect regulation, may have impaired connectivity between amygdala and putative regulatory cortical networks.

Metaphor is a bridge for understanding abstract concepts (the target domain) from concrete concepts (the source domain). This study, with two experiments, aimed to investigate the cultural differences of the horizontal spatial metaphors for morality between two groups of students: Han Chinese, the ethnic majority, and Hui Chinese, an ethnic minority in China. Experiment 1 adopted a spatial Stroop task. It showed that neither Hui nor Han students exhibited horizontal spatial metaphors for morality. Experiment 2 adopted a modified implicit association test paradigm to enhance the association between the moral concepts and the horizontal spatial positions. In Experiment 2, we found horizontal spatial metaphors for morality in Hui students, but not in Han students. These results indicated that the differences of horizontal spatial metaphors between Hui and Han participants were influenced by the different cultures they live in. Moreover, this study also found that the association between the source domain and the target domain was an important factor for metaphor formations.

Working memory (WM) deficit is considered the key cause of learning difficulties (LDs). Studies have shown that WM is plastic and thus can be improved through training. This positive effect is transferable to fluid intelligence and academic performance. This study investigated whether WM updating ability and academic performance in children with LDs could be improved through WM updating training and explored the effects of this training on the children’s brain activity. We used a running memory task lasting approximately 40 min per day for 28 days to train a group of 23 children with LDs (TLDs group). We also selected two control groups of 22 children with LDs (CLDs group) and 20 children without LDs (normal control [NC] group). The behavioral results of a pretest indicated that WM updating ability and academic performance in the TLDs and CLDs groups were significantly lower than those in the NC group before training. Compared with the CLDs group, the TLDs group exhibited significant performance improvement in a 2-back WM task, as well as in mathematical ability. Event-related potentials (ERPs) results suggested that the amplitudes of N160 (representative of visual recognition) and P300 (representative of updating processing, which is a valid index for updating WM) in the TLDs and CLDs groups were markedly lower than those in the NC group before training. In the TLDs group, these two components increased considerably after training, approaching levels similar to those in the NC group. The results of this study suggest that WM updating training can improve WM updating ability in children with LDs and the training effect can transfer to mathematical performance in such children. Furthermore, the participants’ brain activity levels can exhibit positive changes. This article provides experimental evidence that WM updating training could mitigate the symptoms of LDs to a certain degree.

Researchers interested in emotions have endeavored to elicit emotional responses in the laboratory and have determined that films were one of the most effective ways to elicit emotions. The present study presented the development of a new standardized emotional film database for Asian culture. There were eight kinds of emotion: fear, disgust, anger, sadness, neutrality, surprise, amusement, and pleasure. Each kind included eight film clips, and a total of 64 emotional films were viewed by 110 participants. We analyzed both the subjective experience (valence, arousal, motivation, and dominance) and physiological response (heart rate and respiration rate) to the presentation of each film. The results of the subjective ratings indicated that our set of 64 films successfully elicited the target emotions. Heart rate declined while watching high-arousal films compared to neutral ones. Films that expressed amusement elicited the lowest respiration rate, whereas fear elicited the highest. The amount and category of emotional films in this database were considerable. This database may help researchers choose applicable emotional films for study according to their own purposes and help in studies of cultural differences in emotion.

Older adults are more likely to regulate their emotions by engaging in cognitive reappraisal. However, depending on the type of cognitive reappraisal used, efforts to regulate emotions are sometimes met with success and other times with failure. It has been suggested the well-known age-related decline in cognitive control might be the culprit behind the poor use of detached reappraisal by older adults. However, this possibility has not been thoroughly investigated. In addition, studies have not examined what aspects of cognitive control- shifting, updating or inhibition-might be relevant to cognitive reappraisal. In the present study, 41 older participants were tested on cognitive control and abilities to use detached and positive reappraisal. Results showed detached reappraisal compared to positive relied more heavily on cognitive control, specifically mental set shifting. Results of this study have important implications for development of cognitive training interventions for older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examined whether test anxiety (TA) is related to impaired attentional networks under emotional distraction. High and low test-anxious students completed a modified version of the attention network test (ANT) in which emotional distracters, specifically threat-related or neutral words, were embedded in centrally presented hollow arrows in Experiment 1. Results showed a significant reduction in efficiency of the executive attention in test-anxious students compared to controls when the fillers were threat/testrelated words. To evaluate the effect of the test adaptation, the original ANT, which utilized no emotional distracter, was employed as a control task in Experiment 2. We then consolidated the data on efficiency of attentional networks, which were derived from both tasks. Contrasting the two tasks showed that TA reduced executive attention in the revised task only, suggesting an enhanced sensitivity provided by the adaptation from the original task. Taken together, these findings indicate that the attentional deficit in test-anxious individuals represents a situation-related defect of a single component of attention rather than an underlying structural and universal attentional deficit. The results support the hypothesis of attentional control theory and contribute to the understanding of attentional mechanisms in individuals with TA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prospective memory (PM) refers to the ability to remember to perform intended actions in the future. Although PM deficits are a prominent impairment in schizophrenia, little is still known about the nature of PM in symptomatically remitted patients with schizophrenia. To address this issue, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 20 symptomatically remitted patients with schizophrenia and 20 healthy controls during an event-based PM paradigm. Behavioral results showed that symptomatically remitted patients with schizophrenia performed poorly on the PM task compared with healthy controls. On the neural level, the N300, a component of the ERPs related to PM cue detection, was reliable across these two groups, suggesting a degree of functional recovery of processes supporting cue detection in patients with symptomatically remitted schizophrenia. By contrast, the amplitude of the prospective positivity, a component of the ERPs related to PM intention retrieval, was significantly attenuated in symptomatically remitted schizophrenia patients relative to healthy controls. Furthermore, a significant positive correlation between the amplitude of the prospective positivity and accuracy on the PM task was found in those patients, indicating that patients' poor performance on this task may result from the failure to recover PM cue-induced intention from memory. These results provide evidence for the existence of altered PM processing in patients with symptomatically remitted schizophrenia, which is characterized by a selective deficit in retrospective component (intention retrieval) of PM. Therefore, these findings shed new light on the neurophysiological processes underlying PM in schizophrenia patients during clinical remission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]