Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Institutional Repository of Institute of Psychology, CASNot a member yet
28529 research outputs found
Sort by
The effectiveness of social-themed picture book reading in promoting children's prosocial behavior
No full textIntroduction There is a need for an effective and low-cost approach to promote prosocial behavior in preschool children. This study examines the effectiveness of parent-child shared reading of socially themed picture books on prosocial behavior in preschoolers, and explores the mediating role of empathy.Methods Sixty children (aged 4-5 years) and their parents were randomly assigned to either the intervention group, which read socially themed picture books, or the control group, which read books on other topics. Shared reading sessions took place twice a week for eight weeks. Prosocial behavior tasks and the Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue) were administered pre- and post-intervention.Results Children in the intervention group scored significantly higher on prosocial behavior and empathy than those in the control group. Mediation analysis further revealed that empathy fully mediated the relationship between shared reading of socially themed picture books and prosocial behavior.Discussion These findings highlight the role of empathy as a key mechanism through which socially themed picture books promote prosocial behavior. This research provides valuable insights for family education, highlighting a low-cost approach that promotes children's social development through everyday storytelling without the need for specialized training
The benefits and safety of a virtual reality intervention in patients suffering from acute and chronic pain: A pilot study
No full textBackground: To overcome the challenge of psychotherapist scarcity in applying pain psychotherapy in clinical practice, we developed a virtual reality (VR) program delivering weeks of pain psychotherapy without psychotherapists, with a focus on minimizing the risk of motion sickness. Objectives: We conducted a single-arm pilot study to assess the efficacy and motion sickness associated with a VR session delivering guided imagery and breathing techniques selected from the initial course of our VR program, involving patients suffering from various acute and chronic pain. Methods: Patients underwent a 15-min VR session. Pain-related and anxiety ratings using a 0-10 numerical rating scale were collected pre-, during-, post-VR and in 6-h follow-up. Motion sickness symptoms were assessed using Simulator Sickness Questionnaire pre- and post-VR. Results: Patients (n = 73) reported their perceived pain intensity and anxiety reduced significantly from pre- to post-VR by 22.9% and 45.0% (all p < 0.0001), respectively. Such modulatory effects of VR in pain perception and anxiety persisted at 30 min, 1 h, 2 h, and 6 h post-VR (all p < 0.0001). The pre-post beneficial effects of VR were independent from patients' demographic characteristics and their pain duration. Importantly, only six patients (8.2%) had post-VR motion sickness symptoms, and only one patient reported moderate level of severity. Conclusion: These findings suggest the selected VR session delivering pain psychotherapeutic techniques may be effective and tolerable for patients with varying pain conditions, which provides initial evidence for the development of future randomized controlled trials of the complete VR program.</p
Creating sustainable neighbourhoods in cities: greener neighbourhoods could promote residents pro-environmental recycling behaviour
No full textContextGrowing evidence shows that people's desire to protect the environment may be linked to their connection with and experiences in nature. However, the effect of possible exposure to local green spaces and their landscape patterns on pro-environmental behaviours lacks extensive observational evidence.ObjectivesThis study investigates the relationship between residents' recycling behaviour and neighbourhood green spaces at both neighbourhood and individual levels, with consideration given to the impact of green space configuration. Considering that recycling, as a simple pro-environmental action, is often regarded as a 'first step' to further pro-environmental behaviours, our study is crucial for synergistically optimising neighbourhood landscape sustainability planning and waste management to enhance ecosystem services of neighbourhood green spaces and to support sustainable community development in compact cities.MethodsNeighbourhood-level observed recycling behaviour was quantified using data from 457 'smart' recycling stations, while self-reported recycling behaviour at the individual level was assessed through a nationally representative survey with 300 respondents in a mega-city in China. Linear mixed-effects model and structural equation model were used to analyse the relationships between the behaviour and multiple landscape indices of neighbourhood green spaces.ResultsAt the neighbourhood level, the observed recycling behaviour positively relates to the ratio (but not the area) of green spaces within 1000 m around residences and the density of the recycling stations. However, other landscape characteristics of green spaces did not show significant effects on recycling behaviour. At the individual level, the green area ratio influences recycling behaviour via residents' green space perception, visit frequency to the green spaces and subjective norm, with the aggregation level of green spaces (but not shape index) serving as a moderating factor.ConclusionsOur study suggests a close link between neighbourhood greenspaces and residents' sustainable behaviours. Moreover, different patterns of green space could be adopted in communities with varying green space ratios to better reconnect residents with the natural world, hence improving landscape sustainability in compact cities.</p
Altered Sensorimotor Striatal Network Connectivity in Women With Anorexia Nervosa
No full textObjectiveAnorexia nervosa (AN) is associated with disturbances in reward processing, cognitive control, and body image perception, implicating striatal dysfunction. Evidence suggests that underweight may modulate brain function in AN. We aimed to investigate whole-brain resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the striatum in patients with AN while controlling for the acute effects of underweight.MethodUsing theoretically selected striatal sub-regions, whole-brain rsFC patterns of the striatum were compared among patients with AN (n = 39, BMI = 16.19 +/- 1.48 kg/m2), normal weight healthy controls (NHC) (n = 31, BMI = 20.98 +/- 1.72 kg/m2), and underweight healthy controls (UHC) (n = 22, BMI = 16.68 +/- 0.69 kg/m2). Correlation analysis between rsFC and clinical measures was conducted for the patients with AN.ResultsCompared with the NHC group, AN patients showed increased striatal rsFC with the fronto-parietal network (FPN) and reduced striatal rsFC with sensorimotor and visual regions. Compared with the UHC group, AN patients exhibited reduced striatal rsFC solely with sensorimotor and visual regions. No significant correlations were found between striatal rsFC and clinical variables in the patients with AN.ConclusionOur findings suggest that decreased striatal rsFC with sensorimotor and visual areas may represent illness-specific neural correlates in patients with AN
CELECOXIB ADDED TO RISPERIDONE FOR DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS IN FIRST-EPISODE AND DRUG NA? VE SCHIZOPHRENIA: PHARMACOGENETIC IMPACT OF BDNF GENE POLYMORPHISMS
No full textProlonged visual perceptual changes induced by short-term dyadic training: The roles of confidence and autistic traits in social learning
No full textAs social creatures, we are naturally swayed by the opinions of others, which largely shape our attitudes and preferences. However, whether social influence can directly impact our visual perceptual experience remains debated. We designed a two-phase dyadic training paradigm where participants first made a visual categorization judgment and then were informed of an alleged social partner's choice on the same stimulus. Results demonstrated that social influence significantly modified participants' subsequent visual categorizations, even when they had been well-trained prior to the dyadic training. This effect persisted for an extended period of up to six weeks. Diffusion model analysis revealed that this effect stemmed from perceptual processing more than mere response bias, and its strength was inversely related to the participants' confidence and autistic-like tendencies. These findings offer compelling evidence that our perceptual experiences are deeply influenced by social factors, with individual confidence and personality traits playing significant roles
Higher refresh rate does not necessarily improve scrolling experience on mobile phones
No full textThe present study explored how different refresh rates affect the scrolling experience on mobile phones. Users (N = 76) completed two out of three scrolling tasks involving texts and/or images, with refresh rate set at 60, 90, or 120 Hz. Users were required to rate the perceived smoothness and levels of jittering at each refresh rate and detect if there was a perceivable change in refresh rates while scrolling. The results showed that refresh rates of 90 and 120 Hz enhanced perceived smoothness and reduced screen jittering compared to 60 Hz, with minimal differences observed between 90 and 120 Hz across most tasks. Moreover, users showed greater sensitivity to changes in refresh rate between 60 Hz and higher values than to changes within the 90 Hz to 120 Hz range, with this difference being more pronounced when the refresh rate decreased. Additionally, users displayed a more conservative response bias toward refresh rate decreases compared to increases in the specific scrolling task. These findings shed light on users' perceptual experience of scrolling with various refresh rates, and offer useful design guidelines for optimising the screen display of mobile devices
Parallel Spatiotemporal Network to recognize micro-expression
No full textMicro-expressions are fleeting spontaneous facial expressions that commonly occur in high-stakes scenarios and reflect humans’ mental states. Thus, it is one of the crucial clues for lie detection. Furthermore, due to the brief duration of micro-expression, temporal information is important for micro-expression recognition. The paper proposes a Parallel Spatiotemporal Network (PSN) to recognize micro-expression. The proposed PSN includes a spatial sub-network and a temporal sub-network. The spatial sub-network is a shallow network with subtle motion information as the input. And the temporal sub-network is a network with a novel temporal feature extraction unit that extracts sparse temporal features of micro-expressions. Finally, we propose an element-wise addition with 1 × 1 convolutional kernel fusion model to fuse the spatial and temporal features. The proposed PSN gets better measurement metrics (such as recognition rate, F1 score, true positive rate, and true negative rate) than the other state-of-the-art methods on the consisted databases consisting of CASME, CASME II, CAS(ME)2, and SAMM.</p
Default Mode Network, Disorganization, and Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia
No full textBackground and Hypothesis Disorganized thinking is a prominent feature of schizophrenia that becomes persistent in the presence of treatment resistance. Disruption of the default mode network (DMN), which regulates self-referential thinking, is now a well-established feature of schizophrenia. However, we do not know if DMN disruption affects disorganization and contributes to treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS).Study Design This study investigated the DMN in 48 TRS, 76 non-TRS, and 64 healthy controls (HC) using a spatiotemporal approach with resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. We recovered DMN as an integrated network using multivariate group independent component analysis and estimated its loading coefficient (reflecting spatial prominence) and Shannon Entropy (reflecting temporal variability). Additionally, voxel-level analyses were conducted to examine network homogeneity and entropy within the DMN. We explored the relationship between DMN measures and disorganization using regression analysis.Results TRS had higher spatial loading on population-level DMN pattern, but lower entropy compared to HC. Non-TRS patients showed intermediate DMN alterations, not significantly differing from either TRS or HC. No voxel-level differences were noted between TRS and non-TRS, emphasizing the continuum between the two groups. DMN's loading coefficient was higher in patients with more severe disorganization.Conclusions TRS may represent the most severe end of a spectrum of spatiotemporal DMN dysfunction in schizophrenia. While excessive spatial contribution of the DMN (high loading coefficient) is specifically associated with disorganization, both excessive spatial contribution and exaggerated temporal stability of DMN are features of schizophrenia that become more pronounced with refractoriness to first-line treatments
Interactions Between Depressive Symptoms, Childhood Trauma, and Drug Craving in Chinese Men with Methamphetamine Use Disorder: A Network Analysis
No full textDrug craving in methamphetamine use disorder (MAUD) patients is influenced by various adverse psychological problems. This study adopted network analysis to investigate the interrelationships between psychological correlates and drug craving and identify the critical pathways between them. A total of 757 men with MAUD were recruited from a drug rehabilitation center in southwest China. They completed self-report scales to measure emotion regulation, depressive symptoms, childhood trauma, and drug craving. We conducted a network analysis to assess the interaction between psychological variables and drug craving. Network structural features included network centrality, stability, and bridge strength. Results revealed positive correlations between various psychological correlates and drug craving. Limited access to emotion regulation strategies, lack of emotional awareness, and non-acceptance of emotional responses emerged as the nodes with the highest strength centrality. A bridge function analysis identified that depressive symptoms, emotional abuse, and negative reinforcement were the main bridges connecting psychological problems and drug craving. These findings support the interaction between affective factors, childhood traumatic experiences, and drug craving. Central symptoms (e.g. limited access to emotion regulation strategies) and key bridge symptoms (e.g. depressive symptoms) may serve as potential targets for intervention for MAUD patients undergoing withdrawal treatment
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage Institutional Repository of Institute of Psychology, CAS? Access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard!