Table of Content

15 January 2008, Volume 24 Issue 1

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Children’s Understanding of Multiple Interpretations Corresponding to Observer’s Expectation

WANG Yan, SU Yan-jie

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  1-6. 

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The study explored 6 to 8 years old children's understanding of the phenomenon that differed in observer's expectation leading to different interpretations to the same ambiguous information.The factors influencing the observer's expectation include perceptual experience,knowledge level,prior experience,and social prejudice were manipulated,and participants were required to predict the observer's interpretations of restricted view drawings or ambiguous actions.The results indicated that 6-year-olds could only partly understand that observer's social prejudice influence their interpretation of actor's behavior,and they could not understand that prior perceptual experience and knowledge level influence observer's interpretations of visual stimuli,they could not understand that previous experience influence how observer interprets actor's behavior either.7-year-olds could understand all the factors influencing expectations,except knowledge level.8-year-olds could understand difference in interpretations due to a variety of observer's expectations.They seemed to have stable interpretive theory of mind,though they still did not reach the fully mature understanding of the complex issue of interpretation.

Desire-belief Understanding and Emotion Understanding in Children’s Theory of Mind aged 3-6: Their Development and Relation

CHEN Jing, LI Hong

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  7-13. 

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This study examined children's development of desire-belief understanding and emotion understanding of theory of mind,and discussed the relat ion between the abilities to understand desire-belief and emot ion.256 children aged 3-6 participated in this study,and methods of experiment and interview were conducted.The results showed that:(1) there are age-related increases in development of desire-belief understanding and emotion understanding in theory of mind of children aged 3-6; 4-year-old children are in the critical period of the ability of belief-based emotion understanding; and children aged 4-5 are in the critical period of the ability of emotional perspect ive-taking;(2) the ability of false belief understanding appears earlier than the ability of belief-based emotion understanding;(3) there is a significant correlation between of desire-belief understanding and emot ion understanding.

Quantity of Family Shared Reading as a Predictor of Young Children’s Oral Vocabulary

ZHAO Jin-dong, ZHOU Hui, CHEN Xiao

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  14-18. 

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This research was to develop a useful questionnaire for measuring the quantity of family shared reading based on the Chinese cultural background and conduct a further study for the relationship between shared reading and the oral vocabulary of 32 to 5-year-old children.A checklist,Children's Book Title List(BTL) was developed with satisfactory reliability and validity.The quantity of family shared reading explained unique variance in children's oral vocabulary after controlling for the intelligence of young children and parental educational level.The power of prediction of the Children's Book Title list was better than that of parent-reported frequency of shared reading.

A Study on Visual Selective Attention Development of Primary School Children

ZHANG Xue-min, SHEN Ji-liang, LIN Chong-de, WANG Ping-ping, LIU Shuai

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  19-24. 

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The present study was intended to research the development of selective attention of primary school children and its influential factors.The subjects were grade one,three and five of primary school children.We focused on how number of distractor,cue validity and singleton or non-singleton affect the development of selective attention of primary school children.The results indicated that:(1) grade three(aged 8～9 year) children showed significant attention shift;(2)children's selective attention processing speed was slower roughly 300～1100 ms in the same task;(3) the effect of number of distractor,cue validity and singleton or non-singleton on children's selective attention processing speed was consistent with adults,however,children's processing had durative developmental trend.

The Difference between Children’s Encoding Strategies and Retrieval Strategies

BI You-yu, ZHANG Xiang-kui

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  25-30. 

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The research selected 33 grade 2 students of a primary school,among whom boys and girls are half-and-half.Their age is between 83 and 106 months.The average is 94 months.Microgenitic design was used.Children's memory performances were tested in 5 independent interval using a words list including 15 words within 3 categories.The Results were as follows:(1) during the development of the category memory strategy,there are the processes of sudden change as well as gradual change,category encoding strategies had production def iciency,category retrieval strategies are spontaneous gradual changing process.,and both of them will increase suddenly after training;(2) when tasks are unfamiliar,a few children have the phenomenon of the category encoding strategies and retrieval strategies applying defects.

Exploring the Mechanism for Prototype Elicitation Effect in Insight

WU Zhen-zhen, QIU Jiang, ZHANG Qing-lin

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  31-35. 

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This study selected logogriph(a riddle about a Chinese Character) problem as the material and investigated the theory of the activation of prototypal matters in insight problem solving through the "Xvs.X(X=3,6,9)" learning and testing experimental paradigm,and explored whether the activation of prototypal matters was effected by the increasing of the amount of learning and the elicitation index.The results showed that:(1) the activation of prototypal matters wasn't effected evidently by the increasing of the amount of learning;(2) "elicitation" was an effective index and it greatly effected the activation of prototypal matters;(3) the results supported the idea that the activation of the prototypal matters came as a result of automatic processing and the activation of heuristic information in prototypal matters maybe the result of automatic processing.

Left-home Adolescents’ Perception of Social Support Networks and their Associations with Individual Depression and Loneliness: Variable-centered and Person-centered Perspectives

ZHAO Jing-xin, LIU Xia, SHEN Ji-liang

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  36-42. 

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In a sample of 400 adolescents included parents-seft-for-work(PLW) group,father-left-for-work(FLW) group and parents-stay-at-home(PSH) group from rural areas of Henan Province,the present study investigated adolescents' perception of social support networks and their associations with individual depression and loneliness.Variable-centered and person-centered analyses revealed that adolescents' perception of social supports tends to be similar across relationships,and was more similarly across relationships in the same environment than in the different environment.Variable-centered analyses indicated that teacher supports and father supports significantly predicted the variance of adolescents' depression,and mother supports and classmates supports significantly predicted the variance of adolescents' loneliness in general.However,the predication powers of supports from different relationship functioned as adolescents' group.Person-centered analyses indicated that adolescents who reported high social support in all four relationship had lower depression and loneliness than those from other social support networks.

SAge-Related and Gender Differences: Influence of Positive Emotions on Task Switching

WANG Yan-mei, GUO De-jun, FANG Ping, HAN Xue-jun, TANG Liping, QU Jing

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  43-48. 

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Gender and age are always two important factors in emotion research.Some studies show that positive emotions promote cognitive flexibility.Task switching is the most important component of cognitive flexibility.This study investigated the impact of positive emotions on task switching among different grades and gender.A digital judgment task was administered to 52 undergraduates(18 male,34 female),36 high school students(19 male,17 female),45 middle school students(20 male,25 female) following brief presentation of emotional pictures.The task involved maintaining condition and switching condition.First,participants were trained to respond to target digit appearing in a prespecified color while ignoring distracter digit in a different color.Then participants were transferred to switching conditions.They had to respond to stimuli in a new color while distracters appeared in the previous target color.The results showed that for male students,positive emotions promoted task switching only in middle school.However,for female students,this promotion effect existed in all the grades.

Characteristics of Parent-Adolescent Communication

YANG Xiao-li, ZOU Hong

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  49-54. 

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Random sampling by the whole class was used in this study,60-adolescents and their parents in two ordinary middle schools of Lanzhou,Gansu province were selected,and a self-constructed questionnaire was adopted to explore the characteristics of parent-adolescent communication.The results indicated that the self-constructed Questionnaire on Parent-Adolescent Communication had good reliability and validity,which included Adolescents.Communication with Parents Questionnaire and Parents.Communication with Adolescents Questionnaire.Concerning adolescents.communication with parents,girls communicated with parents better than boys did,and the 8^th grade students.communication were the worst among four grades.Concerning parents.communication with adolescents,parents communicated better with girls than boys,communicated better with the 7^th,10^th and 11^th grade students than the 8^th grade students.Compared with fathers,mothers communicated better with children,and the difference showed on the dimensions of Questionnaire on Parent-Adolescent Communication.

Researches into the Relationships among Attachment, General Self-efficacy and Depressive Symptoms in Junior Middle School Students

LU Yan, ZHANG Yue-juan

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  55-59,87. 

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To analyze the relationships between attachment,general self-efficacy and depressive symptoms,929 junior middle school students were asked to complete the IPPA,GESE,and SDS.The results are as follows:(1) there were strong negative relations between father,mother,peer attachment and depressive symptoms,between general self-efficacy and depressive symptoms; peer attachment was positively related to both father and mother attachment;(2) a model was presented in which father(mother) attachment had a direct impact on peer attachment,meanwhile father(mother) attachment directly influenced both depressive symptoms and general self-efficacy and the influence of both father(mother) and peer attachment on depressive symptoms were partly mediated by general self-efficacy.

Future Time Perspective, Goal Orientation, Social Connectedness and Undergraduates’ Academic Adjustment

LI Dong-ping, ZHANG Wei, LI Ni-ni, MAI Yu-jiao, YU Miao-zi

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  60-65. 

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A survey using a cluster sampling of undergraduates was conducted to examine the relationship between future time perspective(FTP),goal orientation,social connectedness and academic adjustment.A total of 708 undergraduates participated in filling in a package of anonymous questionnaire.The results are as follows:(1) FTP,learning orientation,and social connectedness were positively related to academic adjustment,while performance orientation was negatively related to academic adjustment;(2) the relationship between behavioral commitment(the behavioral tendency component of FTP),future purpose consciousness(the cognitive component of FTP),future image(the cognitive component of FTP),social connectedness and academic adjustment was partially mediated by learning orientation; performance orientation partially mediated the relationship between future purpose consciousness and academic adjustment.However,future efficacy and far-goal orientation(the affective component of FTP) had no impact on academic adjustment.

Researches into the Relationships among Job Burnout, Self-esteem and Social Support of Employed Mothers

LI Li-ying, LIU Hui-jun

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  66-71. 

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The study explored the status of the employed mothers' job burnout and the relation of job burnout,self-esteem and social support,by surveying 380 employed women including working as teachers,nurses and business service people with questionnaires.The results showed that:(1) the job burnout's level of the employed mothers was significant higher than the employed women without children;(2) self-esteem had a significant negative correlation with the burnout of the employed mothers; social support from different sources had a significant negative correlation with one or more dimensions of the employed mothers' job burnout;(3) self-esteem played a mediating role between social support and job burnout.

Eye Movement Studies on the Perceptual Span of Chinese Reading by Fifth Graders

YAN Guo-li, XIONG Jian-ping, BAI Xue-jun

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  72-77. 

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The eye-movement-contingent display change technique was used in this study to explore the perceptual span of the fifth graders.The results are as follows:(1) the fifth graders' perceptual span in Chinese reading was asymmetric;(2) the fifth graders'perceptual span was 1 character to the left of the fixated character and 2 or 3 characters to its right.

Achievement of Junior High School Students and Achievement Stroop Interference

ZHENG Xi-fu

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  78-82. 

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129 junior high school students were selected.A version of the modified Stroop color-naming task was used to examine their reacting time on naming the color of different words,including high achievement-related words,low achievement-related words and neutral words.The results suggest that the students'reacting time toward achievement-related words is longer than that toward neutral words,especially for low achievement-related words.The difference between the two is significant,representing typical Stroop interference.RT of students with high scores is longer than that of students with low scores toward all 3 kinds of words.The difference is significant regarding achievement-related words.Students with high scores show more typical Stroop interference.Student performance correlates significantly with RT toward achievement-related words.RT of girl students is longer than that of boy students toward all 3 kinds of words.The difference is significant regarding high achievement-related words.Girl students show more significant Stroop interference than boy students.

The Effect of Abstract and Background Music on Cognitive Load and Multimedia Learning

GONG De-ying, LIU Dian-zhi, ZHANG Da-jun

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  83-87. 

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This study is intended to investigate the effect of abstract and background music on learner's self-rating cognitive load and learning performance,and students are requested to learn material about mobile communication with multimedia presentation.The results are as follows:(1) there was no interaction between abstract and background music;(2) students who were asked to abstract the material got lower scores on cognitive load and higher scores on transfer test than those who are not asked to do that,but there was no significant difference on retention test between the two groups;(3) students learned with background music got lower scores on retention test than those without music,while there was no significant difference on cognitive load and transfer test between them.

Researches into Implicit Theories on Creativity of Teachers

HUANG Si-lin, LIN Chong-de

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  88-93. 

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Social validity method is used to study implicit theories of teachers.255 Participants were selected from middle school.The results are as follows:(1) 28 important psychological traits of creativity were found in the views of teachers;(2) the adjectives ranked first include imaginative,fond of thinking,discernment,self-confidence,motivation,curiosity,attention to new things,grasp the rule in phenomena,capacity of logical reasoning,recognize the similarities and differences in between things;(3) those adjectives can be synthesized as five factors:novel and flexible thinking style,curiosity and good at questioning,logical thinking,problem-advancing,confident and aggressive characteristic.

Working Memory and Processing Speed in Children with Chinese Learning Disabilities

WANG En-guo, LIU Chang

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  94-100. 

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The classic working memory and processing speed task were used as material,working memory evaluation were used as instrument,and undertaking the approach of screening learning disabilities,and 52 middle school students from 3 different secondary schools were used as subjects in this study.The results are as follows:(1) compares with the control group,the Chinese learning disabilities children has the obvious insufficiency in the working memory and the processing speed aspect,but the processing speed cannot explain the different ability group's difference,the Chinese learning disabilities children's flaw lies in the working memory ability the drop;(2) the working memory flaw lies in the verbal working memory and the central executive function insufficiency,with regards the spatial working memory ability to have nothing to do with.The Chinese learning disabilities already have the general working memory flaw(central executive function),and they also have the specific working memory(verbal working memory) ability insufficiency.

Evidence for Skill-Automatization in Dyslexia

LI Hong, SHU Hua, XUE Jing, YANG Jian-feng

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  101-105. 

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This study examined dyslexia automatization deficit hypothesis using the serial reaction time(SRT) task.41 dyslexic and 41 age and IQ matched normal readers in the fifth and the sixth graders were assessed by a visuomotor sequence learning task with both random and sequence trials.Implicit learning was measured by comparing reaction time to the sequence against reaction time to a random display.Result indicated that although the dyslexic group was slower overall than the control group,contrary to the expectation of the automatization deficit theory,Chinese dyslexia children demonstrated significant sequence-specific reaction time decrement as well as those normal readers.This result suggested that automatic skill learning was intact in Chinese dyslexic individuals.

A Study on Coding and Recognition of Internet Addicts

WANG Zhi, JIANG Qi, ZhANG Da-jun

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  106-112. 

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To explore internet addicts whether they have negative social cognition processing on coding and recognition,this study investigated coding and recognition of internet addicts through mode of Tverskty's ocial cogntion.The results are as follows:(1) internet addicts have much more negative coding than non-internet addicts,and they have more negative coding biases than non-internet addicts;(2) internet addicts have more negative recognition than non-Internet addicts,and they have more negative recognition biases than non-Internet addicts.

Preliminary Report on Figural Representational Capacity Test for Children

HU Qing-fen, XIN Zi-qiang, ZHANG Li, ZHANG Li

Psychological Development and Education. 2008, 24(1):  113-118. 

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Representational capacity can be measured in terms of the complex degree of relations individual can comprehend and understand.Based on the relational-representational complexity model developed by Xin Ziqiang,combined with the relational complexity theory proposed by Halford,a computerized Figural Representational Capacity Test was designed for measuring children.The test consisted of 50 items,which belonged to 25 categories.The test was used in the study to measure 265 subjects from grade 3,4,5 and 6.Results showed that:(1) Most items'difficulty,distinctiveness were good;(2) Reliability,constructs validity,criterion related validity of the test were also satisfactory;(3) The prior analysis of task complexity(involving analysis of dimensions in every item and elements included in every dimension) based on the two theories could fully predict task difficulty(R²=0.83).Such results indicted that the test could be an effective and reliable instrument for measuring children's representational level.