Xianghong Sun

Response inhibition in adolescent earthquake survivors with and without posttraumatic stress disorder: A combined behavioral and ERP study

The aim of this study was to investigate whether adolescent patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) show an impairment of executive control in a response inhibition task and to investigate its neurophysiological correlates using event-related potentials (ERPs). We analyzed data from 25 Wenchuan earthquake survivors between 15 and 19 years of age (16 diagnosed with PTSD) using a Go/NoGo task. The PTSD group made more commission errors than the non-PTSD group, indicating impairment in response inhibition. The PTSD group responded faster to Go trials and there was a significant negative correlation between their reaction time and commission/omission errors, reflecting a speed-accuracy tradeoff for the PTSD group. The PTSD group exhibited a shorter NoGo-N2 latency than the non-PTSD group, suggesting faster monitoring or detection of the response conflict. These results suggest that the impairment of response inhibition in adolescent participants with PTSD is related to their impulsive cognitive functioning.

Effects of Personality on Risky Driving Behavior and Accident Involvement for Chinese Drivers

Objective: Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of injury-related fatalities in China and pose the most serious threat to driving safety. Driver personality is considered as an effective predictor for risky driving behavior and accident liability. Previous studies have focused on the relationship between personality and risky driving behavior, but only a few of them have explored the effects of personality variables on accident involvement. In addition, few studies have examined the effects of personality on Chinese drivers’ risky driving and accident involvement. The present study aimed to examine the effects of personality variables on Chinese drivers’ unsafe driving behaviors and accident involvement. Methods: Two hundred and twenty-four Chinese drivers aged 20 to 50 were required to complete questionnaires assessing their personality traits (anger, sensation-seeking, altruism, and normlessness), risky driving behaviors (aggressive violations, ordinary violations), and accident involvement (all accidents, serious accidents, at-fault accidents). Multivariate regression analyses, adjusting for gender, age, and overall mileage, were conducted to identify the personality traits related to risky driving behaviors and accident involvement. Results: Participants’ personality traits were found to be significantly correlated with both risky driving behavior and accident involvement. Specifically, the traits of anger and normlessness were effective predictors for aggressive violations. The traits of anger, sensation-seeking, normlessness, and altruism were effective predictors for ordinary violations. Moreover, altruism and normlessness were significant predictors for the total number of accidents participants had during the past 3 years. Conclusions: Consistent with previous studies, the present study revealed that personality traits play an important role in predicting Chinese drivers’ risky driving behaviors. In addition, Chinese drivers’ personality characteristics were also associated with accident involvement. Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publishers online edition of Traffic Injury Prevention to view the supplemental file.

Cultural usability tests - how usability tests are not the same all over the world

The cultural diversity of users of technology challenges our methods for usability evaluation. In this paper we report on a multi-site, cross-cultural grounded theory field study of think aloud testing in seven companies in three countries (Denmark, China and India). The theoretical model that emerges from the data suggests that the production of a usability problem list is multicausal and subject to cultural variations. Even the way usability problems are experienced by test participants may be different. In the discussion we outline practical guidelines for a test that is more sensitive towards cultural usability.

Enhanced mismatch negativity in adolescents with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

The mismatch negativity (MMN) is observed following rare or unique sensory events, and reflects pre-attentional sensory processing of unexpected stimuli. The MMN is altered in several mental illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but did not yield consistent results. We measured MMN in 27 survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake, including 13 who were diagnosed with PTSD, to determine if pre-attentive processing in the auditory cortex was altered by this disease. The amplitude of MMN was significantly greater in the PTSD group compared to the control group. In contrast, no significant group difference was found in the N1 potential, an event-related potential that reflects cortical transmission of sensory information. These results demonstrated an increased sensitivity to deviant stimuli in PTSD that may reflect a chronic state of hyperarousal and hypervigilance in trauma victims.

Culture-Centered Design: Cultural Factors in Interface Usability and Usability Tests

As technologies in the field of information and communication quickly developed all over the world, application of a standardized interface posed usability problems for users of multi-culture. In this situation, we should have a new perspective of user-interface design, which is the challenge of designing a culture-centered interface that is more natural. This article first reviews domain psychological research conclusions on cultural differences in cognitive and perception between East Asians and Westerners. Then the recent researches on cultural interfaces design and cultural usability test of Web site, software and digital devices are reviewed. The discussion of cultural issues will provide valuable implication to the digital product designers and researchers on design approaches and usability test methods.

Effect of personality traits, age and sex on aggressive driving: Psychometric adaptation of the Driver Aggression Indicators Scale in China

This study aimed to assess the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the Driver Aggression Indicators Scale (DAIS), which measures aggressive driving behaviors. Besides, demographic variables (sex and age) and the big five personality traits were examined as potential impact factors of aggressive driving. A total of 422 participants completed the DAIS, Big Five Personality Inventory (BFPI), and the socio-demographic scale. First, psychometric results confirmed that the DAIS had a stable two-factor structure and acceptable internal consistency. Then, agreeableness and conscientiousness were negatively correlated with hostile aggression and revenge committed by the drivers themselves, while neuroticism was positively correlated with aggressive driving committed by the drivers themselves. Meanwhile, more agreeable drivers may perceive less hostile aggression and revenge. More neurotic drivers may perceive more aggressive warning. Finally, the effects of age and sex on aggressive driving were not same as most studies. We found that older age group perceived and committed more hostile acts of aggression and revenge than younger age groups. Female drivers of 49-60 years perceived more aggressive warnings committed by other drivers.

Driving distraction analysis by ECG signals: an entropy analysis

This paper presents a novel method in driving distraction analysis: entropy analysis of ECG signals. ECG signals were recorded continuously while 15 drivers were driving with a simulator. Mental computation task was employed as driving distraction. Sample entropy and power spectrum entropy of drivers. ECG signals while they were driving with and without distraction were derived. The result indicated that entropy of drivers ECG signals was sensitive to driving distraction and were potential significant metrics in driving distraction measurement.

Negativity Bias in Dangerous Drivers

The behavioral and cognitive characteristics of dangerous drivers differ significantly from those of safe drivers. However, differences in emotional information processing have seldom been investigated. Previous studies have revealed that drivers with higher anger/anxiety trait scores are more likely to be involved in crashes and that individuals with higher anger traits exhibit stronger negativity biases when processing emotions compared with control groups. However, researchers have not explored the relationship between emotional information processing and driving behavior. In this study, we examined the emotional information processing differences between dangerous drivers and safe drivers. Thirty-eight non-professional drivers were divided into two groups according to the penalty points that they had accrued for traffic violations: 15 drivers with 6 or more points were included in the dangerous driver group, and 23 drivers with 3 or fewer points were included in the safe driver group. The emotional Stroop task was used to measure negativity biases, and both behavioral and electroencephalograph data were recorded. The behavioral results revealed stronger negativity biases in the dangerous drivers than in the safe drivers. The bias score was correlated with self-reported dangerous driving behavior. Drivers with strong negativity biases reported having been involved in mores crashes compared with the less-biased drivers. The event-related potentials (ERPs) revealed that the dangerous drivers exhibited reduced P3 components when responding to negative stimuli, suggesting decreased inhibitory control of information that is task-irrelevant but emotionally salient. The influence of negativity bias provides one possible explanation of the effects of individual differences on dangerous driving behavior and traffic crashes.

A study on the vertical navigation of high rise buildings

Scroll bar and stab touch screen controls were designed and compared to a soft keyboard to help firefighters perform vertical navigation tasks for high-rise buildings depicted on a graphical display. 18 male subjects were asked to accomplish three experimental tasks: 1) input floor number and navigate to the floor, 2) switch the current floor to another one that was two floors higher/lower, and 3) check around the floors in the high rise to find the one on fire. Task completion time and number of screen operations were recorded. Results showed that, keyboard method of floor selection was the fastest, and scroll bar the slowest. In Task 1 and Task 2, the least number of screen operations were shown with soft keyboard. But in Task 3, keyboard was slowest. The other two control methods were not sensitive to tasks. Design implications for scroll bar and stab controls are discussed.

Modeling of Causes of Sina Weibo Continuance Intention with Mediation of Gender Effects

Sina Weibo is a Twitter-like social networking site and one of the most popular microblogging services in China. This study aims to examine the factors that influence the intentions of users to continue using this site. This paper synthesizes the expectation confirmation model, constructs of habit and perceived critical mass, and the gender effect to construct a theoretical model to explain and predict these user intentions. The model is then tested via an online survey of 498 Sina Weibo users and partial least squares (PLS) modeling. The results indicate that the continuance intention of users is directly predicted by their perceived usefulness of the service (β = 0.299), their satisfaction (β = 0.208), and their habits (β = 0.389), which jointly explain 65.9% of the variance in intention. In addition to the effects of these predictors on the continuance intentions of Sina Weibo users, an assessment of the moderating effect of gender suggests that habit plays a more important role for females than for males in continuance intention, but perceived usefulness seems to be more important for males than for females. The implications of these findings are then discussed.