Cultural Dimensions Moderate the Association between Loneliness and Mental Health during Adolescence and Younger Adulthood: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Cultural factors, such as country or continent, influence the relationship between loneliness and mental health. However, less is known about how cultural dimensions moderate this relationship during adolescence and younger adulthood, even if these dimensions manifest as country or continent differences. This study aims to examine the potential influence of Hofstede's cultural dimensions on this relationship using a three-level meta-analysis approach. A total of 292 studies with 291,946 participants aged 10 to 24 were included in this study. The results indicate that cultural dimensions, such as individualism vs. collectivism, indulgence vs. restraint, power distance, and long-term vs. short-term orientation, moderated the associations between loneliness and social anxiety, stress, Internet overuse, and negative affect. The association between loneliness and mental health was not moderated by cultural dimensions, such as masculinity and uncertainty avoidance. These findings suggest that culture's influence on the association between loneliness and mental health is based on a domain-specific mechanism.

Adaptive adjustment after conflict with group opinion: evidence from neural electrophysiology.

Individuals inherently seek social consensus when making decisions or judgments. Previous studies have consistently indicated that dissenting group opinions are perceived as social conflict that demands attitude adjustment. However, the neurocognitive processes of attitude adjustment are unclear. In this electrophysiological study, participants were recruited to perform a face attractiveness judgment task. After forming their own judgment of a face, participants were informed of a purported group judgment (either consistent or inconsistent with their judgment), and then, critically, the same face was presented again. The neural responses to the second presented faces were measured. The second presented faces evoked a larger late positive potential after conflict with group opinions than those that did not conflict, suggesting that more motivated attention was allocated to stimulus. Moreover, faces elicited greater midfrontal theta (4-7 Hz) power after conflict with group opinions than after consistency with group opinions, suggesting that cognitive control was initiated to support attitude adjustment. Furthermore, the mixed-effects model revealed that single-trial theta power predicted behavioral change in the Conflict condition, but not in the No-Conflict condition. These findings provide novel insights into the neurocognitive processes underlying attitude adjustment, which is crucial to behavioral change during conformity.

The default-interventionist model underlies premise typicality weakening the premise diversity effect during category-based induction: Event-related potentials evidence.

The diversity effect during category-based induction (CBI) means that the more diverse the evidence, the higher will be the conclusion's inductive strength. However, it is influenced by the premise typicality. Three competitive cognitive processing models account for this influence: (1) The pre-emptive conflict resolution model assumes that only premise typicality activates; (2) the parallel-competitive model assumes that premise typicality and diversity activate in parallel; and (3) the default-interventionist model assumes that a default response of premise diversity first activates and is subsequently followed by premise typicality, or premise typicality activates first, followed by premise diversity. The timing of premise typicality affecting the diversity effect during CBI was measured using event-related potentials to determine which cognitive model best explains this influence. Similar to previous studies, non-diverse premise inductive tasks involving two typical premise categories were compared with diverse premise inductive tasks involving a typical and an atypical category. The results showed that non-diverse conditions had higher "correct" response proportions, greater inductive strength, higher "definitely" response proportions, and shorter reaction times than diverse conditions, showing that premise typicality weakens the diversity effect. Moreover, the diverse premises elicited larger P2, smaller FN400, and greater frontal post-N400-positivity amplitudes than non-diverse premises, suggesting that premise diversity was facilitated during a relatively early time window and revised by premise typicality in a later window. These results support the default-interventionist in nature during thinking and reasoning.

Self-interest is intuitive during opportunity (in)equity: Evidence from multivariate pattern analysis of electroencephalography data.

Fairness is a remarkable preference for human society, involving both outcome and opportunity equity. Most previous studies have explored whether fairness itself or self-interest is intuitive during outcome (in)equity. However, intuition during outcome (in)equity can be affected by both fairness level and actual payoff. Since opportunity (in)equity is only affected by the fairness level, we explored only intuition during fairness by measuring event-related potential responses to opportunity (in)equity. Participants played a social non-competitive two-person choice game with advantage opportunity inequity (AI), opportunity equity (OE), and disadvantage opportunity inequity (DI). The behavioral results suggested an opportunity inequity bias, with greater feelings of fairness and pleasantness during OE than during AI and DI. However, multivariate pattern analysis of the event-related potential (ERP) data suggested that AI, OE, and DI can be significantly distinguished from each other in relatively early windows overlapping with early positive negativity (EPN), and AI and DI can be significantly further distinguished during a relatively late window overlapping with late positive potential (LPP). Moreover, the conventional ERP analysis found that EPN amplitudes were more negative for AI than for OE and DI, as well as for OE than for DI, suggesting a pleasure bias for increased self-interest. LPP amplitudes were greater for DI than for AI and OE, suggesting enhanced sensitivity to DI. These results suggest that self-interest is intuitive during opportunity (in)equity.

EEG microstate temporal Dynamics Predict depressive symptoms in College Students.

Previous studies on resting-state electroencephalographic responses in patients with depressive disorders have identified electroencephalogram (EEG) parameters as potential biomarkers for the early detection and diagnosis of depressive disorders. However, these studies did not investigate the relationship between resting-state EEG microstates and the early detection of depressive symptoms in preclinical individuals. To explore the possible association between resting-state EEG microstate temporal dynamics and depressive symptoms among college students, EEG microstate analysis was performed on eyes-closed resting-state EEG data for approximately 5 min from 34 undergraduates with high intensity of depressive symptoms and 34 age- and sex-matched controls with low intensity of depressive symptoms. Five microstate classes (A-E) were identified to best explain the datasets of both groups. Compared to controls, the mean duration, occurrence, and coverage of microstate class B increased significantly, whereas the occurrence and coverage of microstate classes D and E decreased significantly in individuals with high intensity of depressive symptoms. Additionally, the presence of microstate class B was positively correlated with participants' Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) scores, and the presence of microstate classes D and E were negatively correlated with their BDI-II scores. Further, individuals with high intensity of depressive symptoms had higher transition probabilities of A→B, B→A, B→C, B→D, and C→B, with lower transition probabilities of A→D, A→E, D→A, D→E, E→A, E→C, and E→D than controls. These results highlight resting-state EEG microstate temporal dynamics as potential biomarkers for the early detection and timely treatment of depression in college students.

The choice levels modulate outcome processing during outcome independent of behavior selection: Evidence from event-related potentials.

Having a choice is a basic demand to influence human behavior. However, how various choice levels modulate outcome processing when the outcome is independent of the choices remains unclear. In this event-related potential (ERP) study, thirty-seven participants were instructed to perform a one-person choice task in which they were required to choose one card from 1 (no-choice level), 2 (medium-choice level), and 8 cards (high-choice level) to win a reward, with a 50% chance. Behavioral results indicated that pleasure and perceived control rating scores were linearly promoted with increased choice levels. ERP results revealed that having choices (medium- and high-choice level) elicited greater original-RewP and PCA-RewP amplitudes than having no choice (no-choice level), suggesting the amplification of the reward prediction error by quickly detecting whether there is a choice or not. Moreover, ERP results revealed that the original-P300 amplitudes were linearly enhanced with increased choice levels, suggesting the increased attentional allocation based on the motivational and emotional significance, due to advanced processing of the value of choice levels. Therefore, these results suggest that choice levels can modulate outcome processing, even when the outcome is independent of the choices, and provide further evidence to support the intrinsic value of having choices.

Common and distinctive cognitive processes between categorization and category-based induction: Evidence from event-related potentials.

Categorization involves forming equivalence classes of discriminable entities, whereas category-based induction (CBI) involves employing categorical knowledge to generalize novel properties. Previous studies have suggested either common or distinctive cognitive processing between categorization and CBI. However, no study has compared cognitive processes with the same stimuli sets using event-related potentials (ERPs), which help to determine the cognitive processes with a high temporal solution. In this study, we compared the ERP responses to categorization and CBI using two separate experiments (i.e., generic and specific conclusions), with the same task materials. Results from both experiments identified distinctive cognitive processing between categorization and CBI based on a greater proportion of "definitely" responses and smaller amplitudes of sustained negativity during categorization. These observations suggest that categorization involves decreased conflict monitoring and control than CBI under single-premise conditions. Contrastingly, categorization and CBI elicited similar FN400 amplitudes in both experiments, which suggests a common cognitive process between them. These findings present the common and distinctive cognitive processes between categorization and CBI.

P3a amplitude is related to conclusion specificity during category-based induction.

Category-based induction involves the generalization of a novel property (conclusion property) to a new category (conclusion category), based on the knowledge that a category exemplar (premise category) has the respective novel property. Previous studies have shown that conclusion specificity (i.e., specific [S] or generic categories [G]) influences category-based induction. However, the timing of brain activity underlying this effect is not well known, especially with controlling the similarities of premise and conclusion categories between S and G arguments. In this study, the event-related potential (ERP) responses to category-based induction between S and G arguments were compared under both congruent (+, premise and conclusion categories are related) and incongruent (-, premise and conclusion categories are unrelated) arguments; additionally, the similarities of premise and conclusion categories between S and G arguments were controlled. The results showed that replicating this effect, S+ arguments have increased "strong" response rates compared to G+ arguments, suggesting that category-based induction is contingent on factors beyond matched similarities. Moreover, S arguments have more liberal inductive decision thresholds than G arguments, which suggest that conclusion specificity affects the inductive decision reflected by inductive decision thresholds. Furthermore, G+ arguments elicit greater P3a amplitudes than S+ arguments, which suggest greater attention resources allocation to the review of decisions for G+ arguments than that for S+ arguments. Taken together, the conclusion specificity effect during semantic category-based induction can be revealed by "strong" response rates, inductive decision thresholds, and P3a component after controlling the premise-conclusion similarity, providing evidence that category-based induction rely on more than simple similarity judgment and conclusion specificity would affect category-based induction.

Neural Oscillation Profiles of a Premise Monotonicity Effect During Semantic Category-Based Induction.

A premise monotonicity effect during category-based induction is a robust effect, in which participants are more likely to generalize properties shared by many instances rather than those shared by few instances. Previous studies have shown the event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by this effect. However, the neural oscillations in the brain underlying this effect are not well known, and such oscillations can convey task-related cognitive processing information which is lost in traditional ERP analysis. In the present study, the phase-locked and non-phase-locked power of neural oscillations related to this effect were measured by manipulating the premise sample size [single (S) vs. two (T)] in a semantic category-based induction task. For phase-locked power, the results illustrated that the premise monotonicity effect was revealed by anterior delta power, suggesting differences in working memory updating. The results also illustrated that T arguments evoked larger posterior theta-alpha power than S arguments, suggesting that T arguments led to enhanced subjectively perceived inductive confidence than S arguments. For non-phase-locked power, the results illustrated that the premise monotonicity effect was indicated by anterior theta power, suggesting that the differences in sample size were related to a change in the need for cognitive control and the implementation of adaptive cognitive control. Moreover, the results illustrated that the premise monotonicity effect was revealed by alpha-beta power, which suggested the unification of sentence and inference-driven information. Therefore, the neural oscillation profiles of the premise monotonicity effect during semantic category-based induction were elucidated, and supported the connectionist models of category-based induction.

FN400 and sustained negativity reveal a premise monotonicity effect during semantic category-based induction.

The premise monotonicity effect during category-based induction is a robust effect that occurs when generalization of a novel property shared by many cases is more likely than one shared by few cases. The timing of brain activity during this effect is unclear. Therefore, the event-related potentials (ERPs) underpinning this effect were measured by manipulating the premise sample size (single [S] vs. two [T]) in a semantic category-based induction task, with the conclusion categories either including the premise categories (congruent induction) or not (incongruent induction). The behavioral results replicated the premise monotonicity effect, and revealed that S arguments produced longer reaction times and more conservative response criteria than did T arguments. This suggests that the premise monotonicity effect was affected by both evidence accumulation speed and decision threshold. ERP results demonstrated that the premise monotonicity effect was reflected by two parameters during inductive decision: (1) S arguments elicited larger FN400 amplitudes than did T arguments under congruent induction, which was linked to reduced global similarity, decreased cognitive relevance, and attenuated conceptual fluency and (2) S arguments elicited larger sustained negativity (SN) in the 450-1050-ms time window than did T arguments, which is related to more inference-driven integration and interpretive processes. Our findings provide insight into the complex temporal course of the premise monotonicity effect during semantic category-based induction.

FN400 amplitudes reveal the differentiation of semantic inferences within natural vs. artificial domains.

Category-based inferences allow inductions about novel properties based on categorical memberships (e.g., knowing all trout have genes [premise] allows us to infer that all fish have genes [conclusion]). Natural (N) and artificial (A) domains are the most obvious and traditional distinctions in categorization. The distinct event-related potential (ERP) responses for N and A domains have not yet been examined during category-based inferences. In this study, the differences between ERP inference parameters within N and A domains were measured during inductive decision processing, while controlling the premise-conclusion similarity and premise typicality between those two domains. Twenty-two adults were asked to make a decision on whether a conclusion was definitely weak, possibly weak, possibly strong, or definitely strong, based on a premise. The behavioral results showed that semantic inferences within the N domain shared similar inductive strength, similar "correct" response rates, and similar reaction times with that within the A domain. However, the ERP results showed that semantic inferences elicited smaller frontal-distributed N400 (FN400) amplitudes within the N domain than within the A domain, which suggested that knowledge of the ontological domain of a category affects category-based inferences, and underlaid the increased categorical coherence and homogeneity in the N as compared to the A categories. Therefore, we have distinguished the cognitive course of semantic inferences between N and A domains.

Give Me a Chance! Sense of Opportunity Inequality Affects Brain Responses to Outcome Evaluation in a Social Competitive Context: An Event-Related Potential Study.

People are strongly motivated to pursue social equality during social interactions. Previous studies have shown that outcome equality influences the neural activities of monetary feedback processing in socioeconomic games; however, it remains unclear whether perception of opportunity equality affects outcome evaluation even when outcomes are maintained equal. The current study investigated the electrophysiological activities of outcome evaluation in different instructed opportunity equality conditions with event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants were asked to play a competitive dice game against an opponent to win money. Opportunity equality was manipulated in three conditions, depending on whether participants were allowed the opportunity to throw less, equal, or more dice compared to their opponents. Although participants received a winning outcome with approximately 50% chance in all equality conditions, they selectively exhibited sensitivity to the less-dice condition by reporting stronger feelings of unfairness and unpleasantness than in the equal and more-dice conditions. In line with the behavioral results, larger reward positivity amplitudes were elicited by the monetary outcome in the less-dice condition than in the other two conditions, reflecting intensified reward prediction error (RPE) signals under negative emotional arousal. Further, P3 amplitudes were enhanced following reward feedback only in the unequal conditions, perhaps due to the high-level motivational and affective processing associated with resolving conflict between social norms and self-interest. The present findings elucidate the complex temporal course of outcome evaluation processes in different opportunity equality conditions.

The rule expectancy effect on the electrophysiological correlates underlying numerical rule acquisition.

The present study aimed to provide electrophysiological evidence about acquiring complex numerical rules when unexpected numbers were presented. Hence, we compared the neural correlates underlying the acquisition of unexpected complex rules (e.g., 12, 14, 18, 24) compared to expected simple rules (e.g., 12, 14, 16, 18). The event-related potential (ERP) results for the rule acquisition process for the third numbers showed that, in contrast to expected simple rules, unexpected complex rules elicited: an enhanced N200, reflecting the detection of a conflict between the expected numbers and the displayed numbers; a decreased P300, indicating a feeling of uncertainty accompanied by identifying numerical regularity; and an increased LPC, reflecting the working-memory updating caused by expectancy violation and rule acquisition. These results describe the precise time course of acquiring novel and complex rules when unexpected numbers were presented.

Event-related potential parameters of category and property violations during semantic category-based induction.

Previous studies have failed to clarify the event-related potentials (ERPs) that occur in response to categorization and property inferences during category-based induction. The present study examined ERP differences among acceptable-induction conclusions, unrelated-category conclusions, and unrelated-property conclusions to dissociate categorization and property-inference processing during category-based induction. The results showed that: (a) conclusions with categories that were unrelated to the premise evoked greater frontal N2 amplitudes, smaller P3b amplitudes, and greater N400 amplitudes, compared to conclusions with categories that were logically related to the premise; and (b) conclusions with unrelated properties evoked larger late positive components (LPCs) during the 700-800ms time interval compared to conclusions with related properties. These results suggest that the N2-P3b-N400 effects reflect categorization violations, while the LPCs are related to property violations during category-based induction, therefore, the ERP responses to category-related and property-related processes are dissociated respectively during category-based induction.

Event-related potential responses to letter-string comparison analogies.

Previous studies have used analogy completion tasks (e.g., abe is to abf as ijk is to what?) to examine the event-related potential (ERP) parameters of analogical reasoning. In the present study, ERP responses to analogies were investigated using an analogy comparison task (e.g., is abe to abf as ijk is to ijl?), with a focus on structural evaluation. The results showed that the identical match task elicited an N2 component with smaller amplitude than that of the N2 component in the zero- and one-step consistent analogies, reflecting automatic match detection. The data also showed that there were significant differences in the N400 during the consistent and inconsistent analogies, which may reflect a delayed perceptual mismatch with semantic strategies. Moreover, one-step consistent analogies evoked smaller late positive component (LPC) amplitudes than that evoked by identical match or zero-step consistent analogies in the 500- to 800-ms time interval, and one-step inconsistent analogies elicited smaller amplitude LPCs than that elicited by zero-step inconsistent analogies in the 500- to 750-ms time interval, which suggested that LPCs reflected structure evaluation in analogy comparison tasks.

Belief and sign, true and false: the unique of false belief reasoning.

For a long time, a controversy has been proposed that whether the process of theory of mind is a result of domain-specific or domain-general changes (Wellman in The handbook of childhood cognitive development. Blackwell Publication, New Jersey, 2011). This event-related potential study explored the neural time course of domain-general and domain-specific components in belief reasoning. Fourteen participants completed location transfer false belief (FB), true belief (TB), false sign (FS) and true sign (TS) tasks, in which two pictures told a story related to a dog that ran from a green into a red box. In the TB and FB tasks, a boy saw or did not see the transfer of the dog, respectively. In the FS and TS tasks, an arrow that pointed to the green box either altered its direction to the red box or did not alter following the transfer of the dog. Participants then inferred where the boy thought of, or the arrow indicated the location of the dog. FB and TB reasoning elicited lower N2 amplitudes than FS and TS reasoning, which is associated with domain-general components, the detection, and classification. The late slow wave (LSW) for FB was more positive at frontal, central, and parietal sites than FS because of the domain-specific component involved in FB reasoning. However, the LSW was less positive for TB than for FB but did not differ from the TS condition, which implies that mental representation might not be involved in TB reasoning.

Category label effects on Chinese children's inductive inferences: modulation by perceptual detail and category specificity.

Inductive generalization of novel properties to same-category or similar-looking objects was studied in Chinese preschool children. The effects of category labels on generalizations were investigated by comparing basic-level labels, superordinate-level labels, and a control phrase applied to three kinds of stimulus materials: colored photographs (Experiment 1), realistic line drawings (Experiment 2), and cartoon-like line drawings (Experiment 3). No significant labeling effects were found for photos and realistic drawings, but there were significant effects for cartoon-like drawings. Children made mostly (>70%) category-based inferences about photographs whether or not labels were provided (Experiment 1). Children showed a bias toward category-based inferences about realistic drawings (Experiment 2) but did so only when labels were provided. Finally, children made mostly appearance-based generalizations for cartoon-like drawings (Experiment 3). However, labels (basic or superordinate level) reduced appearance-based responses. Labeling effects did not depend on having identical labels; however, identical superordinate labels were more effective than different basic-level labels for the least informative stimuli (i.e., cartoons). Thus, labels sometimes confirm the identity of ambiguous items. This evidence of labeling effects in Mandarin-speaking Chinese children extends previous findings beyond English-speaking children and shows that the effects are not narrowly culture and language specific.

How does typicality of category members affect the deductive reasoning? An ERP study.

The typicality effect describes a phenomenon whereby a typical item is easier to be judged as a member of a category than are atypical items. This effect has been intensively studied in the context of category verification tasks. The present study further investigated the typicality effect using our newly developed category-based deductive reasoning task. Subjects were required to judge whether an incoming stimulus had the properties described in the premise presented before. The stimuli were either typical or atypical members of four target semantic categories or were non-target stimuli. According to the ERP results, three phases were needed to determine whether the object has the property associated with the category in the premise. First, significant amplitude differences were seen between typical and atypical items at N1, which suggested that attention processing was influenced by the expectation in this up-to-down (deductive) process. The premise automatically induced the expectation of the prototype of one concept, i.e. the expectation for the prototype of birds was induced when the premise was "Birds possess the property C". Typical items (e.g., sparrow) were more similar to the prototype; hence, they were easier to be matched with the prototype induced by the premise than were atypical items (e.g., ostrich). Additionally, there was a dissociation between typical and atypical items at P2, which suggested that the participants' early detection of an item's category membership was influenced by the typicality. Thirdly, N400 effect is related to the process of semantic processes and determining whether the object has the property associated with the category in the premise. N400 mean amplitudes during the 300-500 ms epoch were significantly greater for non-target members than for target members, while words of lower typicality (atypical) evoked greater N400 amplitudes during the 350-450 ms epoch than did words of higher typicality (typical).

Neural signs of flexible categorization: evidence from the flexibility of inclusion of humans in animal/non-animal categorization.

The temporal course of the human brain dealing with flexible categorization was analyzed by using an event-related potential (ERP) technique in an animal/non-animal categorization task in two parallel experiments. Participants shown animal, person, mixed and non-animal images were asked if they saw 'animals' after being instructed to exclude humans in the category of 'animals' in Experiment 1, while they were told to define humans as animals in Experiment 2. The ERP data analysis showed that targets elicited larger P150 amplitudes than non-targets, which may reflect early perceptual detection and selection. Images including humans (person and mixed images) elicited larger anterior N2 amplitudes than animal images, regardless of the polysemy of the animal category, which may reflect an extra load on attention and monitoring processes in flexible categorization. Compared to non-targets, targets elicited larger P3 amplitudes, which may be associated with the categorical decision process.