• Enhancing mindfulness interventions for test anxiety: A perspective based on the NIH stage model

    Subjects: Psychology >> Clinical and Counseling Psychology submitted time 2023-07-13

    Abstract: Because interventions to reduce test anxiety’s detrimental consequences have remained ineffective, the academic community has begun to introduce the concept of mindfulness into such interventions following the concept’s repeated validation. The NIH stage model, aimed at promoting the implementation and dissemination of psychological interventions, divides the development of interventions into six stages: basic research, intervention generation and refinement, efficacy testing, mixed efficacy–effectiveness testing, effectiveness testing, and implementation and dissemination. In our study, we therefore organized past studies on mindfulness-based interventions for test anxiety according to the NIH’s model. First, we explored the potential mechanism underlying mindfulness when it comes to treating test anxiety. Second, we summarized three dominant approaches, labeled “initial evaluation of treatment,” “refinement of intervention,” and “promotion of implementation and dissemination,” all rooted in previous evidence. Last, considering the NIH’s model and the uniqueness of mindfulness as an intervetion, we encourage future research focused on exploring the mechanism of change and implementing pragmatic research while being sensitive to four aspects of recent studies on mindfulness: the inclusion of open monitoring, the proper assessment of treatment adherence, increasing attention to how mindful attitudes are learned, and the possible influence of different understandings of self between Western and Eastern cultures.

  • Sleep and the consolidation of perceptual and motor sequences in implicit learning

    Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2022-06-07

    Abstract:

      Implicit learning is integral to human cognition. It occurs during the learning phase (online periods) and the offline interval after the learning phase (offline periods). The process during the offline periods is referred to as consolidation, which means stabilization or enhancement of a memory trace even without additional practice after the initial acquisition. Some studies have preliminarily explored the effect of sleep on the consolidation of perceptual and motor sequences in implicit learning. However, these studies have failed to achieve a complete separation of motor sequences and perceptual sequences, thus leaving open the question of whether the sequence type moderates the effects of sleep on the consolidation of implicit sequence learning. In addition, previous studies of explicit learning have found that sequences with long length and high complexity were more likely to benefit from sleep than simple sequences, showing a sleep-based offline consolidation effect. Therefore, the question of whether the effect of sleep on offline consolidation of implicit learning of perceptual and motor sequences is moderated by sequence complexity remains unresolved.

      The present study addressed these issues through three experiments applying different sequence length levels and complexities using a modified version of the Serial Reaction Time (SRT) task, which allows independent manipulation of perceptual and motor sequences. Participants were instructed to press the corresponding key as quickly and accurately as possible according to which color of the target square was the same as that of the surrounding square. In the perceptual sequence group, the target square color followed a sequence, but the finger response orders were randomly assigned. The opposite was true for the motor sequence group. Subsequently, a prediction test was used to estimate the amount of possible explicit knowledge.

      Experiment 1 used a short six-element sequence with lower complexity and showed a more robust offline consolidation effect in the motor sequence group compared to the perceptual sequence group. However, sleep does not promote the offline consolidation of both sequences. In Experiment 2, a more complex sequence (sequence length 11) was used. The results showed that participants implicitly learned the motor sequence. In the motor sequence group, participants with sleep performed a better offline consolidation effect than those without sleep. However, participants neither implicitly acquired the sequence nor showed an offline consolidation effect in the perceptual sequence group. Participants performed a small perceptual sequence learning effect in Experiment 1 or 2. Based on this result, the sleep-related offline consolidation of the perceptual sequence was further examined using a more simple sequence of length 4 in Experiment 3. The results showed that participants exhibited improvements in the performance of perceptual sequences learning, but no offline consolidation effect was observed in either group.

      The combined results of the three experiments showed that sleep does not promote the offline consolidation of perceptual sequences, regardless of the degree of difficulty. For motor sequences, the sequence learning effect significantly increased following sleep but not after waking when the sequence length was long and structural complexity was high. However, sleep-related offline improvements were absent when the sequence length was short. In conclusion, these results indicated that the offline consolidation of implicit sequence knowledge based on sleep is modulated by sequence type and sequence complexity.

  • 何以近朱者赤、近墨者黑?特质激活理论的缘起、现状和未来

    Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology submitted time 2019-08-21

    Abstract: " "

  • Interpretative phenomenological analysis in China: A systematic review and guideline

    Subjects: Psychology >> Other Disciplines of Psychology submitted time 2019-07-30

    Abstract: As a qualitative method, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) has been increasingly employed in psychology and other social sciences disciplines. In China, the quality of research using IPA was doubtful, and thus a systematic review of the current studies was warranted. Through a comprehensive search in Chinese and English database and screening, 49 articles were included. According to Smith’s criterion, 26 studies explicitly referred to IPA theoretical principles; 33 studies had clear and transparent data collection and analysis process. Most of the studies (n = 40) were coherent and plausible, however, only a small proportion of the studies (n = 13) provided strong evidence to support the themes. In the forty-nine included studies, only 4 articles were rated as “good”, 11 articles were “acceptable”, and the remaining 34 articles were “unacceptable”. Based on previous research and recommendations, this study attempted to present a guideline to conduct and write a good IPA study."