The relationship between life satisfaction and nostalgia: Perceived social support and meaning in life chain mediation.

Much of the previous research has used experimental studies to explore the positive predictive effect of nostalgia on life satisfaction. However, the possible mediating effects involved remain unclear. To analyze the chain mediating mechanism between perceived social support and meaning in life in the relationship between nostalgia and life satisfaction and to improve the positive application of nostalgia to life satisfaction to ensure the physical and mental health of individuals, this study adopted the method of questionnaire survey, applied the Southampton Nostalgia scale, Perceived Social Support scale, Meaning in Life Scale and Life Satisfaction Scale. This study conducted a horizontal survey on 452 subjects recruited online from Gansu Province, Guangdong Province, Qinghai Province, and other places in China. The results showed that (1) there was a significant positive correlation between nostalgia and perceived social support, presence of meaning in life, searching for meaning in life, and life satisfaction. (2) Perceived social support and meaning in life play a chain mediating role in the relationship between nostalgia and life satisfaction. (3) Perceived social support and different dimensions of meaning in life are different in the relationship between nostalgia and life satisfaction. The findings contribute to understanding the chain-mediated mechanism between life satisfaction and nostalgia and provide recommendations for psychological service providers to apply nostalgia to enhance individual life satisfaction.

Influence of figure information on attention distribution in Chinese landscape painting.

Chinese landscape painting is a complex form of visual art. More researchers pay more attention to the creation process and expressed intention of landscape painting. However, the appreciation of works of visual art is often related to cognitive processing, and it is influenced by the content of the works. This study hypothesized that the information of the figure in landscape paintings could guide the allocation of attention and affect cognitive processing. To test this hypothesis, the vertical landscape paintings of the Song and Ming Dynasties were used as experimental materials in the experiment, and the eye-movement technology was applied to record and compare the differences of the eye-movement indexes of landscape paintings with and without figures. The results showed that the dwell time of landscape painting with figure was significantly longer than that of landscape painting without figure, and the dwell time of the interest area of the figure was significantly longer than that of the interest area without figure. However, the first three fixation duration of the interest area with figures is significantly less than that of the interest area without figure, and there was no difference in the saccade counts and the distribution of fixation points between different landscape paintings. It suggested that the figure in the landscape painting can attract peoples' attention, but it does not have attention priority. Meanwhile, peoples tend to holistic processing when they viewing the vertical landscape paintings, and it is not influenced by the information of figure.

Metacognitive prompts and numerical ordinality in solving word problems: An eye-tracking study.

BACKGROUND: The ability to translate concrete manipulatives into abstract mathematical formulas can aid in the solving of mathematical word problems among students, and metacognitive prompts play a significant role in enhancing this process. AIMS: Based on the concept of semantic congruence, we explored the effects of metacognitive prompts and numerical ordinality on information searching and cognitive processing, throughout the process of solving mathematical word problems among primary school students in China. SAMPLE: Participants included 73 primary school students (38 boys and 35 girls) with normal or corrected visual acuity. METHODS: This study was based on a 2 (prompt information: no-prompt, metacognitive-prompt) × 2 (number attribute: cardinal number, ordinal number) mixed experimental design. We analysed multiple eye-movement indices, such as fixation duration, saccadic amplitude, and pupil size, since they pertained to the areas of interest. RESULTS: When solving both types of problems, pupil sizes were significantly smaller under the metacognitive-prompt condition compared with the no-prompt condition, and shorter dwell time for specific sentences, conditional on metacognitive prompts, indicated the optimization of the presented algorithm. Additionally, the levels of fixation durations and saccadic amplitudes were significantly higher when solving ordinal number word problems compared with solving ordinal number problems, indicating that primary school students were less efficient in reading and faced increased levels of difficulty when solving ordinal number problems. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that for Chinese upper-grade primary school students, cognitive load was lower in the metacognitive prompting condition and when solving cardinal problems, and higher when solving ordinal problems.

Cognitive Style Differences in Attention Distribution Regarding Calligraphic Perception.

PURPOSE: Calligraphy is the most unique form of artistic expression in Chinese culture. However, most studies that used calligraphy as a research object only explored its artistic value from an artistic perspective. Thus, we know little about the information processing and influencing factors of calligraphic perception. Thus, we aimed to determine whether there are differences in attention distribution due to cognitive style in the process of calligraphic perception. METHODS: The calligraphy of Lan Ting Ji Xu, which is known as the first running script in the history of Chinese calligraphy, was selected as the experimental material. The study used eye movement experiments to explore the differences in cognitive styles of attention distribution when perceiving calligraphy, through the analysis of eye movement data of participants. RESULTS: The results showed that field-independent participants had more fixation duration, number of fixations, and saccade angle when they perceived calligraphic works than those who were field-dependent. In other words, field-independent individuals spend more attention resources in the perceptual process. In addition, through data analysis, it was found that fixation duration, number of fixations, and saccade angle in the middle position of calligraphy are larger than the data on both sides of the calligraphy. In other words, when individuals perceive calligraphy, the content in the middle position can attract more attention resources than those on both sides. CONCLUSION: We found that individuals with different cognitive styles have differences in attention distribution in the process of perceiving calligraphy.