Xuejun Bai

Previous research has demonstrated that in visual working memory task, participants tend to process each item’s location information even when it is task-irrelevant. This is demonstrated in the evidence showing that, compared with testing an item at its original encoding location, testing in a new location impairs memory. For the location-change manipulation, previous studies manipulated the item’s location during the testing phase but did not distinguish between two independent mechanisms: displacement from the encoding location (displacement effect) and overlap with another item’s location during encoding (displacement + interference effect). Note that the latter effect could include interference from memory of the previous item in that location. In the present study, we employed a change-detection task requiring memory of color–orientation bindings (OLD vs NEW judgment). We presented multiple items sequentially during the encoding phase and in isolation during the testing phase. During testing, the item’s relative location between the testing and encoding phases was either congruent or incongruent. When the location was incongruent, by varying the probe location with or without overlapping the location of another item during encoding, we separated the effects of displacement and displacement plus interference on binding memory. For the OLD probes, performance for test locations congruent with the original encoding location was much better than for the incongruent locations. For the two types of incongruent locations, the location occupied by an item during encoding did not cause additional impairment. For the NEW probes, accuracy did not differ significantly between empty and occupied locations when the probe shared only orientation or neither feature with the previous occupant. However, NEW probes sharing the previous occupant’s color showed lower accuracy and faster correct responses at occupied than at empty locations. This pattern may reflect preferential encoding or use of color–location information, although feature-dependent interference during retrieval remains another possible explanation.

Context plays a crucial role in understanding the mechanisms of idiom comprehension. Previous studies of idiom processing have achieved mixed results through orthogonally manipulating preceding context and subsequent resolution; however, how these two factors jointly influence Chinese three-character idiom processing remains unexplored. To address this gap, we used an eye-tracking experiment that orthogonally manipulated pre-idiom cue type and post-idiom meaning bias. Cue type included figurative, literal, and unrelated conditions, whereas meaning bias was either figurative or literal. Results showed a reliable main effect of cue type in the cue region: literally related cues elicited shorter total reading times than both figuratively related and unrelated cues. No reliable main effect of meaning bias was found, and no strong evidence supported an interaction between cue type and meaning bias. Exploratory analyses separately examined the effect of cue type on literally and figuratively biased sentences in the disambiguation region. A tentative congruency pattern emerged: literal congruency appeared in gaze duration, whereas figurative congruency appeared in total reading time. These findings are relevant to theories of idiom comprehension, although future studies with larger sample sizes are needed to confirm the observed patterns, particularly the congruency patterns identified in the exploratory analyses.

Semantic radicals are meaning-bearing sublexical components of Chinese characters that have been shown to facilitate incidental vocabulary learning in L1 Chinese readers. However, it remains unclear whether this sublexical mechanism extends to learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL), and how semantic radicals shape the online processing and learning outcomes of novel words in both populations. The present study investigated the role of semantic radical consistency in incidental vocabulary learning among L1 readers and CFL learners. Eye movements were recorded while participants read sentences containing novel two-character pseudowords whose semantic radicals were manipulated to be either consistent or inconsistent with the word’s semantic category. Both groups successfully acquired orthographic and semantic representations of the novel words, with L1 readers outperforming CFL learners. Eye-tracking data revealed a significant group-by-consistency interaction during initial exposures. L1 readers exhibited dynamic sensitivity to radical consistency, allocating more fixation time to inconsistent items at first exposure and rapidly adjusting by the second, whereas CFL learners showed no reliable online consistency effects. Moreover, reading time proved a task-specific predictor of learning outcomes. Longer initial fixation benefited orthographic learning, while extended cumulative reading time was negatively associated with semantic accuracy. Taken together, these findings suggest that sublexical semantic cue deployment during real-time reading is qualitatively distinct between L1 readers and CFL learners.

This study investigated how word frequency, word length and visual complexity affect lexical processing during Chinese sentence oral reading, and whether these effects differ between developing and skilled readers. Third-grade children and adults read sentences aloud while their eye movements were recorded with an EyeLink 1000 Plus eye-tracker. Linear mixed-effects models revealed three main findings. First, children showed larger word-frequency and visual-complexity effects than adults, indicating less efficient lexical processing in developing readers. Second, word length moderated the effects of word frequency and visual complexity. Frequency effects were amplified for two-character words, whereas visual-complexity effects were stronger for single-character words on early measures and followed a different pattern on some late measures. Third, at the sentence level, children exhibited shorter forward saccades, more regressions and longer total reading times than adults. These findings provide developmental evidence for the visual and linguistic constraints hypothesis and show how visual recognition and overt phonological output jointly shape foveal lexical processing in Chinese oral reading.

Internet addiction (IA) refers to an individual’s excessive and uncontrollable internet use. According to the cognitive-behavioral model of IA, school disconnectedness and relative deprivation may function as environmental and cognitive risk factors for adolescent IA, while adversity beliefs could serve as a protective factor. To examine whether relative deprivation mediates the link between school disconnectedness and adolescent IA, and whether adversity beliefs moderate this mediation, 2485 Chinese adolescents completed anonymous measures assessing school disconnectedness, relative deprivation, adversity beliefs, and IA. Results showed that: (1) school disconnectedness positively predicted IA; (2) relative deprivation partially mediated this relationship; (3) adversity beliefs moderated the relationship between school disconnectedness and IA; (4) adversity beliefs also moderated the link between relative deprivation and IA. These findings show the mediating role of relative deprivation and the moderating role of adversity beliefs in the association between school disconnectedness and IA, suggesting that fostering adversity beliefs could help reduce IA among adolescents.

A questionnaire survey was conducted with 1153 adolescents to examine how emotional support within family and school contexts relates to adolescents’ prosocial behavior. Results indicated that both family cohesion and teacher emotional support were positively and significantly associated with prosocial behavior. Further analysis revealed that adolescents’ meaning in life mediated these relationships and that self-compassion together with meaning in life served as a sequential mediating pathway. When the direct effects of family cohesion and teacher emotional support on prosocial behavior were compared, teacher emotional support exhibited a significantly stronger direct association. However, no significant differences emerged between the two sources of support concerning the sequential (chain-mediating) pathways. These findings extend current understanding of adolescent prosocial development and highlight the importance of collaborative efforts by families and schools to meet adolescents’ emotional needs and promote prosocial tendencies.

Visual context plays an important role in reading behavior. However, the effects of background color on reading performance remain underexplored. This study investigated how background color (white vs. light green) affects reading performance, visual fatigue, emotion, and physiological responses in first language (L1, Chinese) and second language (L2, English) reading contexts. Forty university students completed reading tasks under both background color conditions, and self-report, behavioral, eye-tracking, and physiological data were collected. The results showed differential effects of background color across L1 and L2 reading contexts. In L1 reading experiment, a light green background significantly increased pupil diameter (indicating lower visual fatigue), reduced negative emotion, and improved reading performance compared to a white background. Moreover, background color significantly affected skin temperature among female participants only. In L2 reading, the green background also increased pupil diameter, though this effect was limited to female readers, with no significant improvements in reading performance or emotional response. These findings suggest that perceptual features of digital reading environments can influence multiple aspects of reading, including visual fatigue, emotion, and performance, with varying effects across L1 and L2 reading contexts. Notably, the effects of background color appear to be moderated by task complexity and gender, with female readers showing greater sensitivity to background color effects, particularly under more demanding reading conditions. The study highlights the role of individual differences and perceptual context in shaping reading experience, with implications for interface design and digital learning platforms.

Research based on the theory of embodied cognition has revealed that the vertical position of target information in space influences individuals’ construal level, which in turn affects their ethical decision-making. However, previous studies have shown inconsistent effects of construal level on ethical decision-making, which may be moderated by factors such as the manipulation methods of construal level and the salience of trade-offs. This study examines how manipulating the vertical position (high/low) of target information in space—thereby altering perceived spatial distance—impacts ethical decision-making through the lens of embodied cognition, using eye-tracking technology. Experiment 1 isolated the effect of target verticality, while Experiment 2 introduced trade-off salience as an additional factor. Eye-tracking metrics in Experiment 1 revealed that lower target positions significantly increased late-stage cognitive processing difficulty. Experiment 2 demonstrated an interaction between target position and trade-off salience in ethical decision-making. These findings suggest that spatial positioning influences cognitive processing via construal level, with its effects on ethical decision-making moderated by trade-off cues. In summary, this study reveals the significant influence of trade-off salience as a contextual cue in individuals’ ethical decision-making while also providing an embodied cognition perspective to inform decision behavior in human–computer interaction contexts.