This study systematically examined the activation and interaction between concrete and abstract semantic representations in the processing of verbal metaphors in Chinese via two experiments. Experiment 1 demonstrated that understanding verbal metaphors facilitated semantic judgments of related abstract verbs. In Experiment 2, during the predicate processing stage, verb-object metaphorical sentences elicited an N400 effect similar to that observed in concrete sentences, whereas subject-predicate metaphorical sentences elicited a P600/LPC effect resembling that found in abstract sentences. Moreover, subject-predicate metaphorical sentences induced a significantly larger P600/LPC amplitude than verb-object metaphorical sentences. During the object processing stage, both types of metaphorical sentences elicited significantly larger P600/LPC amplitudes than literal sentences, although no significant difference was found between the two metaphorical sentence types. These findings suggest that the comprehension of verbal metaphors involves a co-activation mechanism of concrete and abstract semantics. Furthermore, the timing of literal meaning conflict plays a regulatory role in the activation dynamics of these semantic representations.

The impact of object orientation on object-based attention has been inconsistently reported in previous studies, which may be attributed to variations in task difficulty. This study used the two-rectangle cuing paradigm and systematically manipulated task difficulty to investigate the influence of object orientation on object-based attention in two experimental conditions: detection task versus simple discrimination task (Experiment 1), and simple discrimination task versus difficult discrimination task (Experiment 2). The results showed that as task difficulty increased, the horizontal advantage became more pronounced, which strengthened the influence of object orientation on object-based attention. However, pure object-based attention was unaffected by task difficulty or cue-target orientation. In Experiment 3, based on Experiment 2, a 45° tilt of the rectangular frame was introduced to eliminate the horizontal advantage, further confirming that pure object-based attention was independent of task difficulty and object orientation. This study clarifies previous controversies regarding the influence of object orientation on object-based attention and proposes an effective experimental method for isolating pure object-based attention by eliminating the horizontal advantage in the two-rectangle cuing paradigm.

In the current study, we adopted a training-test paradigm to investigate the influence of categorical semantic word information associated with rewards on non-spatial attentional capture. During the training phase, participants made a forced-choice between two two-character words belonging to different categories. The semantic words of different categories were respectively associated with high or low levels of monetary rewards, but the participants were not informed about these. During the testing phase, no additional rewards were provided, participants performed a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task and responded to the category of the target semantic word. In some trials, the differential rewarded categorical semantic words in the previous training phase were presented as task-irrelevant distractors prior to the target words and the different time intervals between the presentation of the distractor and the target were set. The results showed that when the categorical semantic words associated with high reward served as distractors, compared with the condition that distractors associated with low reward and the neutral condition, the participants’ accuracy rate in identifying the target word significantly decreased. However, this effect only occurred under the condition of short time interval. These findings suggest that reward can be selectively associated with semantic information and trigger non-spatial attentional capture.

Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) has become one of the most prominent mental health concerns. Although prior studies have examined IGD performance in color-word conflict Stroop tasks, the processing characteristics underlying global-local conflict tasks remain poorly understood. This study investigated interference control capabilities in individuals with IGD using a global-local conflict task combined with fNIRS. Results revealed that in the control group, accuracy was significantly lower in the incongruent condition compared to the congruent condition, whereas no significant difference was observed across conditions in the IGD group. In the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the IGD group exhibited greater activation than the control group. Additionally, in the frontopolar and orbitofrontal regions, the control group exhibited greater activation during the incongruent condition than the congruent condition, while the IGD group showed no significant differences. Further correlation analyses revealed significant associations between task performance and brain activation. These findings suggest that IGD may exhibit enhanced processing efficiency in the global-local task. Changes in activation within the frontopolar and orbitofrontal regions may underlie this neural mechanism. Overall, this study provides novel insights into the cognitive mechanisms of individuals with IGD in the context of global-local interference tasks, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of IGD.

This study used an affective priming paradigm to examine the development of children’s emotion recognition ability and the interplay between children’s emotional word processing and emotional face processing. Experiment 1 used emotion words to prime emotional faces and explored the effects of verbal emotional information on emotional face processing. Experiment 2 used emotional faces to prime emotional words and explored the effects of emotional faces on the processing of verbal emotional information. The results showed that children judged emotional stimuli faster and more accurately with age. In the positive word-priming condition, children in all age groups showed a consistency effect, whereas in the negative word-priming condition, a consistency effect was observed only in the 7-year-old group. In the face-priming condition, all age groups showed a consistency effect, but no interactions between the other variables and age were found. This indicates that there is mutual influence between the emotional information of speech and faces in children’s emotion recognition, and children’s ability to recognize facial emotions is regulated by age, providing developmental empirical support for the theory of embodied emotion cognition.

To investigate the roles of normative beliefs about aggression and moral disengagement in the process of bystander intervention, the present study conducted a test among 2107 middle school students based on the five-step bystander intervention model (notice, interpret, accept, know, and intervene). The results showed that: 1) attention to bullying incidents increased individuals’ normative beliefs about aggression and moral disengagement, thereby influencing other stages of the intervention process; 2) the normative beliefs about aggression in class-level inhibited bystanders’ interpret step and accept step in the intervention process, but had no significant impact on know step and intervene step. Therefore, developing anti-bullying strategies to improve individuals’ aggression norm beliefs is critical to the prevention and control of school bullying.

To investigate the relationship between cumulative ecological risk and suicidal ideation among junior high school students, as well as the chain mediating role of positive psychological capital and personal growth initiative in this relationship, a questionnaire survey was conducted on 1176 junior high school students using the Cumulative Ecological Risk Questionnaire, Positive Psychological Capital Questionnaire, Personal Growth Initiative Scale, and Positive and Negative Suicide Ideation. The results indicated that: 1) the cumulative ecological risk positively predicted suicidal ideation; 2) positive psychological capital mediated the relationship between cumulative ecological risk and suicidal ideation; 3) positive psychological capital and personal growth initiative played a chain mediating role between cumulative ecological risk and suicidal ideation.

This study investigated the mediating role of children’s narcissism in the relations between parent-child attachment and children’s reactive and proactive aggression, as well as the moderating role of sensory processing sensitivity (SPS). A survey was conducted with 643 children aged 9~14 using the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire, the parent attachment subscale of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment, the Narcissism Scale for Children, and the Highly Sensitive Child Scale. The results showed that vulnerable narcissism mediated the effects of parent-child trust and parent-child alienation on children’s proactive and reactive aggression, while grandiose narcissism mediated the effects of parent-child communication and parent-child alienation on reactive aggression. Higher SPS enhanced the positive association between vulnerable narcissism and reactive aggression and aggravated the negative impact of parent-child alienation on reactive aggression. The study comprehensively revealed the relations among parent-child attachment, different narcissism types, and children’s reactive and proactive aggression, highlighting the susceptibility of high SPS children to reactive aggression.

Psychological reactance is an important psychological characteristic of adolescents. Adolescents may resist discipline and thus engage in deviant behaviors due to their reactance. In this study, the Hong’s Psychological Reactance Scale, the Deviant Peer Affiliation Scale, the Deviant Group Identity Scale, and the Deviant Behavior Scale were administered to 1856 adolescents. Data from 1445 adolescents aged 11~17 were included for analysis. The results showed that: 1) Psychological reactance positively predicted adolescents’ deviant behaviors. 2) Deviant peer affiliation and deviant group identity played a chain mediating role in the relationship between psychological reactance and deviant behaviors. Specifically, higher level of psychological reactance were associated with greater deviant peer affiliation and stronger deviant group identity, which in turn led to more deviant behavior among adolescents. This study highlights the influence of psychological reactance and peer group on adolescent deviant behaviors and provides guidance for preventive interventions targeting adolescent deviant behaviors.

The group-based developmental assessment tool for young children demonstrates distinct advantages in terms of comprehensiveness, group applicability, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. Compared to traditional individual diagnostic instruments, it provides more effective evaluation of collective developmental status in young children, thereby offering valuable guidance and evidence for improving kindergarten teaching quality. Consequently, developing group assessment tools for social domain development holds significant importance. This study developed a Social Domain Development Assessment Scale for 3- to 6-year-old children, which was administered to 2352 parents. Psychometric analyses confirmed the scale’s structural validity and reliability. Results indicate that the scale comprises six dimensions: emotional stability and happiness, proactive exploration and expression, self-control and management, understanding and caring for others, positive peer interaction, and compliance with social rules and norms, with a total of 24 items. The scale demonstrates satisfactory reliability and validity, establishing it as a scientifically valid group assessment tool for evaluating social domain development in 3- to 6-year-old children.

Although previous studies have explored the relationship between empathy and creativity from various theoretical perspectives, their findings remain inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. This study employed a three-level meta-analytic approach to systematically investigate the association between empathy and creativity and examine potential moderating factors. Through comprehensive literature searches and rigorous screening, a total of 29 studies were included, encompassing 50 effect sizes and 21,462 participants. The analysis revealed a moderate positive correlation between empathy and creativity, with this relationship significantly moderated by the dimensions of empathy and types of creativity. Specifically, compared to affective empathy, both total empathy and cognitive empathy exhibited stronger correlations with creativity; similarly, empathy demonstrated a stronger association with team creativity than with individual creativity. These findings underscore the robust link between empathy and creativity while clarifying discrepancies in the strength and direction of their association. Future research should further explore the roles of different dimensions of empathy and types of creativity to deepen our understanding of their interplay.

Deaf people’s social activities are restricted by communication barriers, which is not conducive to their social adaptability development. To explore deaf college students’ implicit attitudes toward social activities and to improve special education development policies, this study used the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the Go/No-Go Association Test (GNAT) to compare the implicit social activity attitudes of deaf and hearing college students. The results of the IAT task indicated that deaf college students had a significantly higher D-value (greater than 0) compared with hearing college students. The results of the GNAT task showed that, under the individual-activities/group-activities + positive-conditions setting, hearing college students had a shorter reaction time. This indicated that deaf college students had a more positive implicit attitude towards group activities, while hearing college students tended to associate both group activities and individual activities with positive emotions. This suggests that deaf college students have a stronger willingness to socialize at an implicit level for group social activities. In the future, the implicit attitudes of deaf college students towards social activities can be gradually transformed into explicit social participation behaviors through the construction of supportive campus environments and social skills training courses.

This study explored the impact of negative emotional granularity on daily life satisfaction and the mediating role of sleep quality. By using the experience sampling method, 198 college students were tracked for 7 consecutive days. Participants’ mood states were assessed 8 times daily to measure negative emotional granularity. Additionally, they reported their sleep quality from the previous night and their daily life satisfaction each day. Multilevel structural equation modeling showed that: 1) at the interindividual level, negative emotional granularity positively predicted both sleep quality and daily life satisfaction; furthermore, sleep quality of the previous night positively predicted daily life satisfaction at the intraindividual level; 2) sleep quality mediated the relationship between negative emotional granularity and daily life satisfaction. These findings indicate that emotion regulation training programs designed to enhance negative emotion differentiation abilities may represent a promising intervention for improving both sleep quality and daily life satisfaction.

The significant human and material resources required for traditional item development have hindered the advancement of computer adaptive testing. However, with the progress of natural language processing technology, it has become possible to automatically generate items based on specific measurement objectives and to construct adaptive testing item banks on this basis. Nevertheless, the performance of the constructed item bank still requires validation. Therefore, this study utilized ChatGPT to generate a large number of Chinese personality items related to emotional stability. Through a series of item bank construction steps and simulations of adaptive testing, the quality of the generated items and the constructed item bank was evaluated. The results reveal that GPT-generated items exhibit performance similar to that of classical items, thereby validating a cost-effective and efficient supplementary solution for item bank development.

With the development of science and technology, robots have become increasingly integrated into people’s daily lives and work. This study developed the Public Robot Attitude Scale based on the Three-component Model of Attitudes encompassing cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions. The scale was then used to explore the role of personality in the public attitudes toward robots. In Study 1, 699 participants across the country were surveyed. Item analysis and exploratory factor analysis were conducted first, followed by confirmatory factor analysis and reliability and validity tests. The final Public Robot Attitude Scale consisted of three subscales-cognitive, affective, and behavioral-comprising 34 items in total, with good reliability and validity. In Study 2, 1567 participants nationwide were surveyed using the Public Robot Attitude Scale and the Big Five Personality Inventory to examine the role of personality in public attitudes toward robots. Results showed that conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness significantly positively influenced individuals’ cognitive attitudes toward robots. Neuroticism and extraversion significantly negatively affected individuals’ affective attitudes toward robots, while openness had a significant positive influence. Neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness significantly and positively influenced individuals’ behavioral attitudes toward robots. This research provides valuable insights into the relationship between personality traits and attitudes toward robots, offering a foundation for future studies and applications in human-robot interaction.

To investigate the relationship between perceived discrimination and social withdrawal among community-corrections subjects, as well as the underlying mechanisms, a questionnaire was administered to 715 community-corrections subjects regarding their perceived discrimination, perceived social support, meaning in life, and social withdrawal. The results showed that: 1) perceived discrimination positively predicted community-corrections subjects’ social withdrawal; 2) perceived social support played a mediating role between perceived discrimination and social withdrawal; 3) meaning in life also played a mediating role between perceived discrimination and social withdrawal; 4) perceived social support and meaning in life played a chain mediation role in the relationship between perceived discrimination and social withdrawal. The findings provided insights for promoting the reintegration of community-corrections subjects into society and for reducing the risk of recidivism.

A survey of 608 aircraft maintenance technicians (AMTs) examined the relationship between sense of calling and AMTs’ safety behaviors, as well as the mechanisms involving safety climate and safety-specific transformational leadership. The results showed that: 1) sense of calling positively predicted AMTs’ safety behaviors; 2) safety climate played a partial mediating role in the relationship between sense of calling and AMTs’ safety behaviors; 3) safety-specific transformational leadership negatively moderated the relationship between sense of calling and safety climate. These results provide valuable practical guidance for airlines in managing aviation safety.