摘要 : Examples can be beneficial or even detrimental to creativity under certain scenario. Presenting examples properly and stimulate the ability of creative idea generation matters to many fields including education, science, engineering, design, and the arts. Examples differing in abstract levels have been investigated in creativity literature, but it has not yet been demonstrated which abstraction level is most effective for boosting creativity. This study examined the effect of example abstraction in terms of example modality (i.e., pictorial or textual) and generality (i.e., categorical or specific) on creativity. Examples varying in modality (Experiment 1) or generality (Experiment 2) were presented to participants before a creativity task. In Experiment 1, 176 senior high school students were randomly assigned to textual-example (more abstract), pictorial-example (less abstract), and control (i.e., no example) groups. The results showed that idea fluency, originality, and flexibility were higher in the textual example group than in the pictorial example group. In Experiment 2, 165 senior high school students were randomly assigned to categorical-example (i.e., more abstract), specific-example (i.e., less abstract), and control groups. The results demonstrated no significant difference in idea fluency, originality, or flexibility between categorical and specific example groups. Moreover, idea originality, rather than fluency or flexibility, was higher in both example groups than in the control group. These findings indicate that example modality, rather than generality, can affect creativity. In comparison with pictorial examples, textual examples may activate a broader range of knowledge and contribute to creativity.

摘要 : Abacus-based mental calculation (AMC) has been shown to be effective in promoting math ability in children. Given that AMC relies on a visuospatial strategy to perform rapid and precise arithmetic, previous studies mostly focused on the promotion of AMC training on arithmetic ability and mathematical visual-spatial ability, as well as its transfer of advanced cognitive ability. However, little attention has been given to its impact on basic numerical comparison ability. Here, we aim to examine whether and how long-term AMC training impacts symbolic and non-symbolic numerical comparisons. The distance effect (DE) was utilized as a marker, indicating that the comparison between two numbers becomes faster as their numerical distance enlarges. In the current study, forty-one children matched for age and sex were recruited at primary school entry and randomly assigned to the AMC group and the control group. After three years of training, the event-related potential (ERP) recording technique was used to explore the temporal dynamics of number comparison, of which tasks were given in symbolic (Arabic number) or non-symbolic (dot array) format. In the symbolic task, the children in the AMC group showed a smaller DE than those in the control group. Two ERP components, N1 and P2p, located in parietal areas (PO7, PO8) were selected as neural markers of numerical processing. Both groups showed DE in the P2p component in both tasks, but only the children in the AMC group showed DE in the N1 component in the non-symbolic task. In addition, the DE size calculated from reaction times and ERP amplitudes was correlated with higher cognitive capacities, such as coding ability. Taken together, the present results provide evidence that long-term AMC training may be beneficial for numerical processing in children, which may be associated with neurocognitive indices of parietal brain regions.

摘要 : The size-eccentricity effect is a perceptual distortion phenomenon in which a peripherally located object is perceived to be smaller than a centrally located object. Although the increase in apparent object size caused by attention has been documented, little is known about the effect of different sizes of attentional focus on object appearance. The present study investigated how different sizes of attentional focus affect the size-eccentricity effect using a spatial pre-cueing paradigm. Additionally, we examined the influence of different task types on size perception. A peripheral object following a small attentional focus appeared larger, without observation of the size-eccentricity effect. In contrast, a peripheral object appeared smaller following a large attentional focus in both larger and smaller judgement tasks. These results suggest that the relative size of the attentional focus has opposite effects on the perception of object size, independent of task type. Furthermore, in addition to the structural properties of the retina and the locus of attention, the size of attentional focus determines the extent to which an object appears smaller in the periphery. The present study complements the attentional attraction field model of the size and density of population receptive fields in V1 and further explains how the effect of attention is restricted by retinal structure.

摘要 : This study investigated the effect of emotional motivation on the flexibility of strategy utilization under different levels of task workload. Using two-digit multiplication estimation as an example, an emotional priming paradigm and strategy-conversion task were employed. Participants were asked to complete two-digit multiplication computational estimation using different strategies, under different emotional motivational priming conditions. The results revealed that the switch costs under low intensity priming were significantly lower than those under high intensity priming under high workload, while the switch costs under avoidance direction priming were significantly lower than those under approach direction priming under low workload. This study demonstrated that high workload could bring about a low intensity advantage, while low workload could induce an avoidance direction advantage, suggesting that task load could moderate the impact of emotional motivation on arithmetic strategy utilization flexibility, and avoidance motivation is not always detrimental to cognitive flexibility.

摘要 : There is a long tradition of understanding globalization by measuring the "world city-ness", and there are two distinctive frameworks concerning the interrelations of the "world city network", one of which builds upon the notion of worldwide corporate organizations and the other on the infrastructure of transport. Despite that, more studies on a single city are still required, since most cities participated in the globalization process on their own terms. Thus, the aim of this study is to visualize the patterns of origins of foreign visitors using data from mobile phones in order to better understand how China's global cities contribute to globalization in a cartogram. It is found that the strength of Shanghai's global connections are concentrated overtly in the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, but Beijing still has the dominant role in sustaining China's global links.

摘要 : Agrifood land plays a crucial role in indigenous communities. However, there is limited study on the overall sustainability and inter-ethnic comparison of agrifood lands across ethnic groups. To address these gaps, we developed a visual eco-efficiency framework of ecological footprint, biocapacity, and ecological benefit to evaluate the sustainability of agrifood land in these regions, as well as analyzed the sustainability of agrifood land and examined its explanatory factors across six ethnic groups in the Yunnan Province of China. The results showed that the ecological benefits of agrifood lands fluctuated in a low ecological deficit, and the eco-efficiency of different ethnic groups varied significantly, from 2010 to 2020. Moreover, redundancy analysis showed that cash crops, forestry, fishery, and livestock were major contributors to the eco-efficiency of agrifood lands in ethnic groups, rather than the commonly accepted staple foods. Another finding revealed that the contribution of urbanization rate to the eco-efficiency of agricultural food land had a rule of reversed U and was influenced by the annual average temperature and the ethnic population rate. Our study not only provided a visual framework for evaluating the sustainability of agrifood land in ethnic areas but also shed new light on its explanatory factors across different ethnic groups. The study served as a scientific foundation for the investigation, monitoring, and management of indigenous agriculture by governments and the agricultural sectors. © 2023 by the authors.

摘要 : As the most commonly used exterior-protecting components for buildings, window glass, due to its typical brittle characteristics, is more prone to break under the action of blast loads and produce high-speed flying fragments, which can pose a great threat to personal safety. This paper studies the influence of the size of window glasses on their failure characteristics. A simplified numerical simulation-based method for evaluating the P–I (pressure–impulsive) curve of window glass failure under blast loads is proposed. The influences of the length–width ratio, the area, and the thickness of the P–I curves of window glasses are systematically investigated. It was found that smaller a length–width ratio, smaller area, and thicker panel could increase the blast resistance of the window glasses. The empirical prediction formulae for the P–I curves of window glasses with different geometrical dimensions are established, and the validity of the proposed empirical formula is verified. © 2023 by the authors.

摘要 : In the grey prediction, the GM(N, 1) model is an important type. There are relatively more studies on the GM(2, 1) model, but most scholars used the GM(2, 1) model to explore the prediction problem of monotone time sequences and only a few scholars used the GM(2, 1) model to predict non-monotone time sequences, such as the quarterly variation sequence. The paper uses the GM(2, 1) model to predict quarterly variation sequences. To improve the modeling precision, the paper makes improvements in the following three aspects: (1) to improve quarterly data’s adaptability to the model, the paper improves the original time sequence, i.e. introducing a quarterly multiple factor for a data transformation of the original time sequence; (2) to make the model present quarterly data’s variation characteristics, the paper improves the traditional GM(2, 1) model’s structure, i.e. introducing a superposed trigonometric function to extend the model’s grey action; (3) to improve the model’s simulation and prediction precision, the paper improves the parameter optimization method, i.e. considering the minimum of the maximum of average simulation and prediction relative errors as the objective function. The results of this study are as follows: (1) the introduction of seasonal multiplication factor enhances the adaptability of quarterly data to the model; (2) the expanded model can reflect the characteristics of seasonal data changes; (3) examples show that the simulation and prediction accuracies of the expanded model are very high, and the average simulation relative error is only 1.44%, and the average prediction relative error is only 1.43%. The errors are very small; (4) the simulation and prediction accuracies of the extended model are significantly higher than those of the traditional and comparative models. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

摘要 : Areal changes in alpine lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are reliable indicators of climate change and anthropogenic disturbance. This study used long-term Landsat images and meteorological records to monitor the temporal evolution patterns of lakes within the Changtang National Nature Reserve between 1972 and 2021 and examine the climatic and anthropogenic impacts on lake area changes. The results revealed that the area of Lake LongmuCo and Lake Jiezechaqia significantly expanded by 12.81% and 12.88% from 1972 to 2021, respectively. After 1999, Lake LongmuCo and Lake Jiezechaqia entered into a period of rapid expansion. During 1972–2021, the annual mean temperature significantly increased at a rate of 0.05 °C/a, while the change in annual precipitation was not significant. The temperature change was a major contributor to the observed changes of Lake LongmuCo and Lake Jiezechaqia between 1972 and 2021, while human intervention also played a vital role during 2013–2021. The glaciers around these two lakes decreased by 21.81%, and the increase in water supply from warming-triggered glacier melting was a reason of expansion of Lake LongmuCo and Lake Jiezechaqia. The areas of the two artificial salt lakes affiliated with Lake LongmuCo and Lake Jiezechaqia were 0.24 km2 and 2.67 km2 in 2013 and rose to 0.51 km2 and 9.80 km2 in 2021, respectively. In particular, the continuous exploitations of salt lakes to extract lithium resources have retarded the rate of expansion of Lake LongmuCo and Lake Jiezechaqia. The dams constructed by industrial enterprises have blocked the expansion of Lake LongmuCo to the south. This paper sheds new light on the influences of recent human intervention and climatic variation on alpine lakes within the TP. Due to the importance of alpine lakes in the TP, we need more comprehensive and in-depth efforts to protect the lake ecosystems within the national nature reserves. © 2023 by the authors.

摘要 : The multi-function characteristics of cultivated land have been widely recognized by researchers in China and globally, and it is important to provide a theoretical basis and practical reference for future research on the evaluation and zoning of cultivated land quality based on a space–function–environment perspective. Spearman rank correlation analysis and cluster analysis were used to categorize cultivated land by its quality. This study developed a theoretical evaluation framework of the space–function–environment quality for cultivated land and constructed a total of 23 indicators of cultivated land quality in three dimensions. The framework was applied to a case study that evaluated and zoned cultivated land quality based on a space–function–environment perspective. The results showed that the synergies and tradeoffs among spatial quality, functional quality and environmental quality, and the influences of the three on cultivated land quality are mutually restricted and act together. The cultivated land in Qujiang District can be divided into five types of areas according to the cold and hot spot analysis results of the secondary indexes of cultivated land spatial quality, functional quality and environmental quality. Based on these results, different protection schemes are proposed for different cultivated land qualities. © 2023 by the authors.