The establishment of the general microexpression recognition ability and its relevant brain activity

Microexpressions are very transitory expressions lasting about 1/25∼1/2 s, which can reveal people’s true emotions they try to hide or suppress. The PREMERT (pseudorandom ecological microexpression recognition test) could test the individual’s microexpression recognition ability with six microexpression Ms (the mean of accuracy rates of a microexpression type under six expression backgrounds), and six microexpression SDs (the standard deviation of accuracy rates of this microexpression type under six expression backgrounds), but it and other studies did not explore the general microexpression recognition ability (the GMERA) or could not test the GMERA effectively. Therefore, the current study put forward and established the GMERA with the behavioral data of the PREMERT. The spontaneous brain activity in the resting state is a stable index to measure individual cognitive characteristics. Therefore, the current study explored the relevant resting-state brain activity of the GMERA indicators to prove that GMERA is an individual cognitive characteristic from brain mechanisms with the neuroimaging data of the PREMERT. The results showed that (1) there was a three-layer hierarchical structure in human microexpression recognition ability: The GMERA (the highest layer); recognition of a type of microexpression under different expression backgrounds (the second layer); and recognition of a certain microexpression under a certain expression background (the third layer). A common factor GMERA was extracted from the six microexpression types recognition in PREMERT. Four indicators of the GMERA were calculated from six microexpression Ms and six microexpression SDs, such as GMERAL (level of GMERA), GMERAF (fluctuation of GMERA), GMERAB (background effect of GMERA), and GMERABF (fluctuation of GMERAB), which had good parallel-forms reliability, calibration validity, and ecological validity. The GMERA provided a concise and comprehensive overview of the individual’s microexpression recognition ability. The PREMERT was proved as a good test to measure the GMERA. (2) ALFFs (the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations) in both eyes-closed and eyes-opened resting-states and ALFFs-difference could predict the four indicators of the GMERA. The relevant resting-state brain areas were some areas of the expression recognition network, the microexpression consciousness and attention network, and the motor network for the change from expression backgrounds to microexpression. (3) The relevant brain areas of the GMERA and different types of microexpression recognition belonged to the three cognitive processes, but the relevant brain areas of the GMERA were the “higher-order” areas to be more concise and critical than those of different types of microexpression recognition

The Influence of Emotion Regulation on Estimation Strategy Execution in Individuals with Trait Anxiety

Previous studies have shown that some negative emotions hinder estimation strategy execution. However, these studies rarely investigate the influence of negative emotions on the estimation strategy execution in individuals with trait anxiety. The present study examines the relationship between negative emotions and trait anxiety in individuals’ estimation strategy execution. Moreover, it looks into the influence of different emotion regulation strategies on their estimation strategy execution. In October 2010, 803 college students were evaluated using the Trait Anxiety Scale. From these participants, individuals with high and low trait anxiety were selected to complete the double-digit multiplication estimation task. The results showed that the estimation strategy’s execution speed in individuals with high trait anxiety was slower than those with low trait anxiety under negative emotions (t (113) = −2.269, p = 0.025, d = 0.427). Both expression inhibition and cognitive reappraisal could significantly improve the execution speed of the estimation strategy in low trait anxiety (p < 0.001). For individuals with high trait anxiety, cognitive reappraisal regulating negative emotions can promote the estimation strategy’s execution speed (p = 0.031). However, the use of expression inhibition has no significant effect on estimation strategy execution (p = 0.101). In summary, the present study revealed that different emotion regulation strategies moderated the arithmetic strategy execution of individuals with trait anxiety, and cognitive reappraisal had a better effect in individuals with high trait anxiety

Ecological micro-expression recognition characteristics of young adults with subthreshold depression.

The micro-expression (ME) processing characteristics of patients with depression has been studied but has not been investigated in people with subthreshold depression. Based on this, by adopting the ecological MEs recognition paradigm, this study aimed to explore ME recognition in people with subthreshold depression. A 4 (background expression: happy, neutral, sad and fearful) × 4 (ME: happy, neutral, sad, and fearful) study was designed; two groups of participants (experimental group with subthreshold depression vs. healthy control group, 32 participants in each group) were asked to complete the ecological ME recognition task, and the corresponding accuracy (ACC) and reaction time (RT) were analyzed. Results: (1) Under different background conditions, recognizing happy MEs had the highest ACC and shortest RT. (2) There was no significant difference in the ACC and RT between experimental and control groups. (3)In different contexts, individuals with subthreshold depression tended to misjudge neutral, sad, and fearful MEs as happy, while neutral MEs were misjudged as sad and fearful. (4) The performance of individuals with subthreshold depression in the ecological ME recognition task were influenced by the type of ME; they showed highest ACC and shortest RT when recognizing happy MEs (vs. the other MEs). Conclusions: (1) The performance of individuals' ecological ME recognition were influenced by the background expression, and this embodied the need for ecological ME recognition. (2) Individuals with subthreshold depression showed normal ecological ME recognition ability. (3) In terms of misjudgment, individuals with subthreshold depression showed both positive and negative bias, when completing the ecological ME recognition task. (4) Compared with the other MEs, happy MEs showed an advantage recognition effect for individuals with subthreshold depression who completed the ecological ME recognition task

Research on Status and Characteristics of the Mastery of Students’ Mathematical Learning Strategies in Chinese Junior High Schools

AbstractThe Diagnostic Questionnaire of Junior High School Students’ Mathematical Learning Strategies was developed with high reliability and validity. This questionnaire was utilized to survey 872 students. It was found that: (a) the mastery of students’ mathematical learning strategies was not ideal, (b) low performing school students grasped mathematical learning strategies poorly especially in grade 7 and the inadequate mastery of metacognitive strategies led to low mathematical achievements in low performing schools, (c) girls owned better metacognitive strategies and help-seeking strategies than boys, (d) metacognitive strategies and specific cognitive strategies were good predictors of mathematical performance

The relationships between bilingual learning, willingness to study abroad and convergent creativity

Convergent creativity is a form of creative thinking that uses existing knowledge or traditional methods to analyze available information and generate an appropriate solution. The differences in the performance of participants in convergent creativity caused by bilingual learning is a popular research area in creativity. A final sample of 68 participants was asked to complete the remote associates test (RAT). The results indicate that a moderate positive correlation exists between bilingual learning and convergent creativity. Students who want to study abroad perform better on the RAT than those who do not, and this effect is mediated by second language proficiency. These findings suggest that improving students’ English proficiency and increasing their opportunities to study abroad may be effective ways to promoting convergent creativity

Data_Sheet_1_The establishment of the general microexpression recognition ability and its relevant brain activity.CSV

Microexpressions are very transitory expressions lasting about 1/25∼1/2 s, which can reveal people’s true emotions they try to hide or suppress. The PREMERT (pseudorandom ecological microexpression recognition test) could test the individual’s microexpression recognition ability with six microexpression Ms (the mean of accuracy rates of a microexpression type under six expression backgrounds), and six microexpression SDs (the standard deviation of accuracy rates of this microexpression type under six expression backgrounds), but it and other studies did not explore the general microexpression recognition ability (the GMERA) or could not test the GMERA effectively. Therefore, the current study put forward and established the GMERA with the behavioral data of the PREMERT. The spontaneous brain activity in the resting state is a stable index to measure individual cognitive characteristics. Therefore, the current study explored the relevant resting-state brain activity of the GMERA indicators to prove that GMERA is an individual cognitive characteristic from brain mechanisms with the neuroimaging data of the PREMERT. The results showed that (1) there was a three-layer hierarchical structure in human microexpression recognition ability: The GMERA (the highest layer); recognition of a type of microexpression under different expression backgrounds (the second layer); and recognition of a certain microexpression under a certain expression background (the third layer). A common factor GMERA was extracted from the six microexpression types recognition in PREMERT. Four indicators of the GMERA were calculated from six microexpression Ms and six microexpression SDs, such as GMERAL (level of GMERA), GMERAF (fluctuation of GMERA), GMERAB (background effect of GMERA), and GMERABF (fluctuation of GMERAB), which had good parallel-forms reliability, calibration validity, and ecological validity. The GMERA provided a concise and comprehensive overview of the individual’s microexpression recognition ability. The PREMERT was proved as a good test to measure the GMERA. (2) ALFFs (the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations) in both eyes-closed and eyes-opened resting-states and ALFFs-difference could predict the four indicators of the GMERA. The relevant resting-state brain areas were some areas of the expression recognition network, the microexpression consciousness and attention network, and the motor network for the change from expression backgrounds to microexpression. (3) The relevant brain areas of the GMERA and different types of microexpression recognition belonged to the three cognitive processes, but the relevant brain areas of the GMERA were the “higher-order” areas to be more concise and critical than those of different types of microexpression recognition.</p

Estimation Strategy Selection Is Modulated by Snapshot Emotional Priming, but Not Math Anxiety

The present study explored the role of snapshot emotional priming and math anxiety in estimation strategy selection. Participants were asked to complete a two-digit multiplication estimation task (e.g., 34 &times; 67) under explicit (Experiment 1) and implicit (Experiment 2) snapshot emotional priming conditions by freely choosing to use DU (down-up, e.g., doing 30 &times; 70 = 2100 for 34 &times; 67) or UD (up-down, e.g., doing 40 &times; 60 = 2400 for 34 &times; 67) strategies to arrive as close as possible to the correct answer. In Experiment 1, individuals&rsquo; estimation performance was positively influenced by explicit happy priming (shorter RT (reaction time)), while not affected by explicit fear priming. In Experiment 2, individuals&rsquo; estimation ACC (accuracy) when using the UD strategy was negatively affected by both implicit happy and fear priming, but their RT when using DU and UD strategies was positively impacted by implicit happy priming. In both experiments, the correlations between math anxiety and estimation performance (ACC, RT, and strategy selection adaptivity) was not significant. The present study suggests that fear priming was not always detrimental to individuals&rsquo; estimation performance, and happy priming did not always universally improve individuals&rsquo; estimation performance. Additionally, estimation strategy selection was not influenced by math anxiety

Comparison of Ecological Micro-Expression Recognition in Patients with Depression and Healthy Individuals

Previous studies have focused on the characteristics of ordinary facial expressions in patients with depression, and have not investigated the processing characteristics of ecological micro-expressions (MEs, i.e., MEs that presented in different background expressions) in these patients. Based on this, adopting the ecological MEs recognition paradigm, this study aimed to comparatively evaluate facial ME recognition in depressed and healthy individuals. The findings of the study are as follows: (1) background expression: the accuracy (ACC) in the neutral background condition tended to be higher than that in the fear background condition, and the reaction time (RT) in the neutral background condition was significantly longer than that in other backgrounds. The type of ME and its interaction with the type of background expression could affect participants’ ecological MEs recognition ACC and speed. Depression type: there was no significant difference between the ecological MEs recognition ACC of patients with depression and healthy individuals, but the patients’ RT was significantly longer than that of healthy individuals; and (2) patients with depression judged happy MEs that were presented against different backgrounds as neutral and judged neutral MEs that were presented against sad backgrounds as sad. The present study suggested the following: (1) ecological MEs recognition was influenced by background expressions. The ACC of happy MEs was the highest, of neutral ME moderate and of sadness and fear the lowest. The response to the happy MEs was significantly shorter than that of identifying other MEs. It is necessary to conduct research on ecological MEs recognition; (2) the speed of patients with depression in identifying ecological MEs was slower than of healthy individuals; indicating that the patients’ cognitive function was impaired; and (3) the patients with depression showed negative bias in the ecological MEs recognition task, reflecting the lack of happy ME recognition ability and the generalized identification of sad MEs in those patients