Mei Peng

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) is increasingly used by school students, yet validated instruments for assessing problematic GAI use (PUGAI) in this population remain scarce. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Problematic Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence Scale (PUGAIS) in a large school-based sample of Chinese students. A cross-sectional survey included 19,484 students in Grades 4–9 who had used GAI. The sample was randomly split for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Internal consistency, measurement invariance across sex, school type, and developmentally defined age groups, concurrent validity, latent classes, and a preliminary threshold were also examined. Following item refinement, the 8-item PUGAIS (PUGAIS-8) showed a dominant one-factor structure, although confirmatory model-fit evidence was mixed. The scale showed high internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.940) and measurement invariance of item thresholds and factor loadings across sex, school type, and age groups. Ordinal sensitivity analyses indicated that the item-reduction results were partly sensitive to analytic treatment, although the PUGAIS-8 showed a more favorable overall structural fit than the original 10-item specification. A substantial floor effect indicated limited differentiation at the lower end of the construct. PUGAIS-8 scores were positively associated with depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, insomnia symptoms, and short-video addiction (r = 0.365–0.413, all p < 0.01). Latent class analysis identified a high-score subgroup (7.2%), and an exploratory ROC analysis yielded an internally derived descriptive threshold of 20.5. Overall, the findings provide initial psychometric support for the PUGAIS-8 as a brief measure of PUGAI among Chinese school students, while indicating the need for independent replication of the item-reduction findings and further evaluation of its measurement properties and proposed threshold.

Background: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a growing concern among adolescents, yet the emotional mechanisms underlying this behavior remain insufficiently understood. Emotional reactivity—including sensitivity, intensity, and persistence—may be associated with NSSI through its relationship with adolescents’ capacity to tolerate emotional distress, and this indirect association may differ by gender. Methods: A total of 3,640 adolescents (M _age = 18.27, SD = 1.45; 52.34% were male) completed measures of emotional reactivity, distress tolerance, and NSSI behaviors. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the mediating role of distress tolerance in the link between emotional reactivity and NSSI, and multi-group analyses were conducted to explore gender-related patterns. Results: Emotional reactivity was significantly and positively associated with NSSI. Distress tolerance mediated the association between emotional reactivity and NSSI: higher emotional reactivity was associated with lower distress tolerance, which in turn was associated with higher levels of NSSI. Gender-stratified analyses showed that the indirect effects were significant among females but not males. Further examination of the dimensions of emotional reactivity revealed that gender differences were significant for emotional intensity but not for emotional sensitivity or emotional persistence. Conclusions: These findings suggest that distress tolerance is a key psychological factor underlying the association between emotional reactivity and NSSI, with this association being particularly salient among female participants. Prevention and intervention programs should focus on strengthening distress-tolerance skills and providing gender-sensitive support to reduce NSSI risk among adolescents.

Although associative interference has traditionally been attributed to retrieval competition, emerging evidence suggests that interference may also arise from encoding-based representational processes. The present study examined whether retroactive interference (RI) and proactive interference (PI) can occur in the absence of explicit retrieval competition and whether they reflect distinct underlying mechanisms. Participants studied two lists of word–picture pairs in an AB/AC associative learning paradigm, followed by a non-competitive two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) associative recognition test and a source memory task. Across both frequentist and Bayesian analyses, recognition accuracy revealed a significant RI effect—lower accuracy for earlier A-B pairs relative to non-overlapping controls—whereas PI manifested as longer reaction times (RTs) for later A-C pairs, despite comparable accuracy. Source judgments showed faster correct responses for overlapping than for non-overlapping pairs, suggesting that cue overlap facilitated more fluent retrieval rather than confusion. These findings indicate that interference can emerge independently of retrieval competition and that RI and PI are supported by dissociable mechanisms: RI reflects encoding-related reorganization that weakens earlier associations, whereas PI reflects increased retrieval effort following differentiation of overlapping traces. Together, the results support a process-interaction framework in which encoding-based reactivation and reorganization shape later retrieval dynamics, demonstrating that associative interference arises from the interplay between encoding and retrieval processes rather than retrieval competition alone.

Interference between similar associations poses a core challenge for episodic memory. While retrieval-based accounts have dominated past theories, it remains unclear whether retroactive interference (RI) and proactive interference (PI) can emerge independently of retrieval competition. To address this, we employed a two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) associative recognition task that minimized retrieval competition by using same-list distractors. Participants studied overlapping (A–B, A–C) and non-overlapping (E–F, G–H) associations, followed by associative recognition and source memory judgments. Results revealed an asymmetric interference pattern: RI impaired recognition accuracy without affecting response times, suggesting degraded recollection due to representational suppression. In contrast, PI was reflected in longer response times without accuracy loss, consistent with increased retrieval demands stemming from encoding-related differentiation. Source judgments showed no integration-induced cost and even faster RTs for overlapping pairs, further supporting the operation of pattern separation during A–C encoding. These findings highlight the critical role of encoding—rather than retrieval alone—in shaping interference. RI and PI reflect distinct processes: suppression-driven weakening of prior traces versus complexity-induced retrieval delays, respectively. Our results challenge retrieval-centric models and underscore the need for encoding-focused frameworks in memory interference research. Future work should examine how encoding strength, contextual differentiation, and individual variability modulate interference effects across memory tasks.

It remains unknown whether home-school collaborative strategies can improve the resilience of adolescents and children from single-parent families in China. This study addresses the gap in resilience interventions for single-parent family students by validating a 7-week home-school collaborative intervention strategy. The participants were 89 primary and secondary school children from China, randomly assigned to either the experimental group (20 single-parent and 27 non-single-parent students) or the control group (20 single-parent and 22 non-single-parent students). Both groups used the Adolescent Psychological Resilience Scale to report their resilience levels during the pre-test and post-test phases. Single-parent family parents also reported their collaborative participation using a behavior checklist. The experimental group exhibited higher resilience gain scores compared to the control group. The intervention effects in the experimental group remained stable for one month after the intervention ended. Additionally, the intervention at the school level fostered greater collaborative involvement from single-parent families, particularly in terms of family support participation. The Home-school collaborative intervention strategy is a valuable measure for enhancing the resilience of students from single-parent families and has the potential for application within both family and school contexts.