Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Neural correlates of death anxiety
No full textDeath anxiety influences multiple facets of human lives and has been quantified using questionnaires. Whether and how self-reports of death anxiety are associated with brain activities remain unclear. We investigated neural correlates of death anxiety by recording brain responses to perceived skulls and examined whether a specific neural response to skulls may predict individual differences in subjective feelings of death anxiety. In three experiments we recorded self-reports of death anxiety and electroencephalography (EEG) signals and magnetoencephalography (MEG) signals in response to line drawings of skulls with face-like configural structures from young healthy adults. EEG results in Experiments 1-2 repeatedly showed that upright compared to inverted skulls evoked an early occipitoparietal negative activity at 120-140 ms after stimulus onset and increased the occipitotemporal N170 amplitude. Importantly, the amplitude of the early occipitoparietal negativity predicted self-reports of death anxiety across individuals. MEG results in Experiment 3 further localized the neural responses to skulls at 120-140 ms in the fusiform and temporal cortices, which also predicted individual differences in self-reports of death anxiety. Our findings of a neural correlate of death anxiety have implications for future research on relationships between death anxiety and mental health.</p
Associations between child maltreatment and depressive symptoms among deaf and hearing adolescent students: A moderated mediation model
No full textBackground: Childhood maltreatment is a well-established risk factor for adolescent mental health issues, particularly depressive symptoms. Deaf adolescents face heightened vulnerability due to unique challenges such as communication barriers and social exclusion. However, little is known about how social exclusion mediates the relationship between childhood maltreatment and depression in this population, or how emotion regulation strategies moderate these effects. Objective: This study aimed to examine the associations between childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms in deaf and hearing adolescents, with a focus on the mediating role of social exclusion and the moderating effects of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Participants and setting: A total of 2008 adolescent students (622 deaf, 1386 hearing) aged 12-23 years were recruited from six schools in China, including both mainstream and special education institutions. Methods: Participants completed self-report measures assessing childhood maltreatment, social exclusion, emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression), and depressive symptoms. Correlation analysis was conducted to examine variable associations, and an exploratory network analysis supplemented the main analyses by visualizing group-specific relationships. The core hypothesis was tested using a moderated mediation model to examine whether social exclusion mediated the relationship between childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms and whether emotion regulation moderated these pathways. Results: Deaf adolescents reported significantly higher levels of childhood maltreatment, social exclusion, expressive suppression, and depressive symptoms compared to their hearing peers (all p < .001). Social exclusion mediated the relationship between childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms in both groups, with a stronger indirect effect among deaf students than hearing students. Expressive suppression moderated this relationship differently in the two groups: it exacerbated depressive symptoms among deaf students (beta = 0.14, p = .002) but had a buffering effect among hearing students (beta = -0.04, p = .04). Cognitive reappraisal showed limited protective effects in either group. Conclusions: These findings highlight social exclusion as a key mediator linking childhood maltreatment to depressive symptoms, particularly among deaf adolescents. Expressive suppression exacerbated depressive symptoms in deaf students but buffered symptoms among hearing peers, suggesting that interventions should specifically aim to reduce reliance on expressive suppression in deaf adolescents. Although cognitive reappraisal showed limited protective effects in the current study, it remains an important strategy warranting further exploration in targeted interventions.</p
Decreased Memory Suppression Ability in Restrained Eaters on Food Information-Evidence from ERP Experiment
No full textBackground/Objectives: Food-related memory influences appetite regulation, with memory inhibition potentially reducing cravings. While obesity is linked to inhibitory deficits, how restrained eating affects memory suppression in healthy-weight individuals remains unclear. This study examined the cognitive and neural mechanisms of food-memory suppression in young women. Methods: Forty-two female participants completed a think/no-think task with high-/low-calorie food cues while an EEG was recorded. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were assessed and time-frequency analyses (theta/beta oscillations) were performed. Results: Restrained eaters showed reduced memory control for both food types. The ERP analysis revealed significant N200 amplitude differences between think/no-think conditions (p = 0.03) and a significant interaction between food calories and think/no-think conditions (p = 0.032). Theta oscillations differed by group, food calories, and conditions (p = 0.038), while beta oscillations reflected food-cue processing variations. Conclusions: In conclusion, restrained eaters exhibit distinct neural processing and attenuated food-memory suppression. These results elucidate the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying dietary behavior, suggesting that targeted interventions for maladaptive eating could strengthen memory inhibition
The Mental Health of Australian, Chinese and Vietnamese University Students: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of the DASS-21
No full textThe DASS-21 has been widely used in university student mental health research. However, studies on its cross-cultural reliability and validity, particularly among Eastern student populations, remain limited. This study examined the DASS-21's psychometric properties and measurement invariance across Australian, Chinese and Vietnamese students. Data were drawn from multiple surveys conducted between 2017 and 2021, comprising 2420 university students from Australia (n = 1093), China (n = 626) and Vietnam (n = 701). Single-group confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) supported the three-factor model of the DASS-21 with acceptable fit for each cultural group, requiring minor modifications for Chinese and Vietnamese data. Multiple-group CFAs resulted in an 18-item version (DASS-18) that achieved cross-group measurement invariance and acceptable internal consistency. Non-parametric tests revealed the lowest scores for all the DASS-18 results among Australian students, while Chinese students reported the highest level of anxiety and Vietnamese students reported the highest level of depression. The two Asian samples exhibited similar levels of stress and overall distress. In general, this study supports the measurement invariance of the DASS, with caution regarding culturally sensitive items. Implications for the DASS-21's universality and recommendations for future research and multicultural psychological assessment are discussed
Differences in types and causes of human errors between high-speed and conventional railway dispatching: the potential impact of automation
No full textDispatcher errors are critical for railway safety, yet the impact of new technology on error types and causes is less understood. High-speed railways (HSR) utilize advanced automated technologies that enhance efficiency but introduce new challenges. This study analyzed 8522 error records from both HSR and conventional rail (CR) dispatchers using a human error classification framework. We categorized these errors into three key task types: monitoring, planning and scheduling, and dispatching instructions. Results showed that HSR dispatchers make more errors in planning and scheduling tasks, particularly decision-making errors influenced by poor crew resource management and adverse mental states. In contrast, they make fewer errors in monitoring and dispatch instructions, with reduced decision errors and violations. Additionally, skill-based errors were less affected by factors such as personal readiness and supervisory issues. We explained these findings by linking them to how automation reduces procedural workload, decreases controllability and predictability, and induces out-of-theloop unfamiliarity
Form information modulates the temporal dynamics of walking direction and body orientation processing in biological motion perception
No full textBiological motion (BM) perception is crucial for survival and social interaction. Previous studies have shown that form structure influences the perception of walking direction and body orientation. However, the neural mechanisms underlying how form modulates the processing of these features remain unclear. To investigate how form is encoded and its interaction with the processing of walking direction and body orientation, we combined EEG and multivariate pattern analyses. Participants viewed classic point-light displays with different forms, walking directions, and body orientations. The decoding results revealed that form information was significantly decoded starting around 85 ms, peaking at 275 ms. The time generalization analysis revealed that the neural representation of form was transient before similar to 200 ms, and became stable thereafter. Importantly, decoding accuracy became significant at 100 ms for both body orientation and walking direction when form was intact, but remained at chance level for walking direction and was reduced for body orientation when form was scrambled. These results indicate that form structure influences the time course of body orientation and walking direction processing. These findings shed light on the encoding of form structure and its role in shaping the neural representation of other BM features
Perceiving Facial Emotions in Context: The Intertwined Roles of Emotional Valence and Consciousness
No full textFacial emotion perception in real life is inevitably influenced by the affective context, such as the expressions on nearby people's faces. However, to what extent and how the expressions of others exert a contextual influence on our interpretation of target facial emotions remains largely unclear. Using psychophysical methods, we demonstrated that the emotional facial context alone (i.e., without any evident social interaction cues) is sufficient to bias the perceived expression of an ambiguous target face (N = 160, healthy Asian college students, 2017-2025). Intriguingly, the contextual effect induced by faces with fearful, but not happy, expressions was regulated by observers' awareness of the context. For fearful contexts, the contextual effect showed a dissociation between nonconscious and conscious conditions, occurring only when the contextual face was not consciously perceived. By contrast, contextual faces expressing happiness biased emotion perception regardless of awareness. These findings broaden our understanding of the affective contextual effect in situations without explicit social relationships. More crucially, they unveil the intertwined roles of emotional valence and consciousness in emotional information integration, offering valuable insights into the intricate mechanisms whereby affective context shapes facial emotion perception
The effect of anhedonic traits on snack food consumption and interoception of food-related pleasure and bodily sensations (vol 115, 105282, 2024)
No full textCross-Informant Comparison of Depressive Symptoms in Youth: A Network Approach
No full textDevelopmental researchers generally use a multi-informant approach to assess youth depressive symptoms to increase diagnostic accuracy and reliability, but informant discrepancies between youth and caregivers are common. Previous studies have predominantly used the sum score-level approach to examine informant discrepancies, which may obscure the heterogeneity of depression. This study adopted a symptom-level approach, network analysis, to examine informant discrepancies regarding depressive symptoms. The participant sample comprised 1043 community youth living in China (M age = 13.68, 48.3% male) and their caregivers. Youth and caregivers completed the Children's Depression Inventory-Youth (CDI-Y) and the Children's Depression Inventory-Parents (CDI-P) separately. We employed R 4.3.0 and the Ising model to estimate two distinct networks. We then utilized the R-package Network Comparison Test to compare these two networks. Our findings revealed that irritability emerged as a symptom with high centrality in both networks, while crying demonstrated the most significant disparity in strength centrality, being stronger in the youth-report network. Youth-reported crying showed stronger connections with suicidal ideation (edge weight = 2.78), social withdrawal (edge weight = 1.72) and schoolwork difficulty (edge weight = 1.70), whereas caregivers-reported crying was more strongly associated with self-hatred (edge weight = 1.21). This study contributes to a better understanding of the structure of depressive symptoms from the perspectives of both youth and their caregivers
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