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Abstract: Late positive potential (LPP) is an event-related potential (ERP) component involved in emotional processing that has been consistently observed in Caucasians. Previous studies have demonstrated that emotionally arousing pictures typically elicit larger LPPs than neutral pictures. In the present study, we examined whether the emotional content effect on LPPs generalizes to Chinese individuals. Brain potentials were recorded from participants viewing both emotional and neutral pictures from the international affective picture system (IAPS). Our results showed greater LPPs for emotional than for neutral pictures. The effects of both pleasant and unpleasant pictures appeared relatively early, and lasted for up to 6s. In addition, subjective ratings for picture arousal correlated strongly with corresponding LPP amplitudes. These results replicate previous findings in Caucasians, and suggest that the emotion processes underlying the LPP are more universal than cultural-specific in nature. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A numeral classifier is required between a numeral and a noun in Chinese, which comes in two varieties, sortal classifer (C) and measural classifier (M), also known as ‘classifier’ and ‘measure word’, respectively. Cs categorize objects based on semantic attributes and Cs and Ms both denote quantity in terms of mathematical values. The aim of this study was to conduct a psycholinguistic experiment to examine whether participants process C/Ms based on their mathematical values with a semantic distance comparison task, where participants judged which of the two C/M phrases was semantically closer to the target C/M. Results showed that participants performed more accurately and faster for C/Ms with fixed values than the ones with variable values. These results demonstrated that mathematical values do play an important role in the processing of C/Ms. This study may thus shed light on the influence of the linguistic system of C/Ms on magnitude cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human rationality–the ability to behave in order to maximize the achievement of their presumed goals (i.e., their optimal choices)–is the foundation for democracy. Research evidence has suggested that voters may not make decisions after exhaustively processing relevant information; instead, our decision-making capacity may be restricted by our own biases and the environment. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which humans in a democratic society can be rational when making decisions in a serious, complex situation–voting in a local political election. We believe examining human rationality in a political election is important, because a well-functioning democracy rests largely upon the rational choices of individual voters. Previous research has shown that explicit political attitudes predict voting intention and choices (i.e., actual votes) in democratic societies, indicating that people are able to reason comprehensively when making voting decisions. Other work, though, has demonstrated that the attitudes of which we may not be aware, such as our implicit (e.g., subconscious) preferences, can predict voting choices, which may question the well-functioning democracy. In this study, we systematically examined predictors on voting intention and choices in the 2014 mayoral election in Taipei, Taiwan. Results indicate that explicit political party preferences had the largest impact on voting intention and choices. Moreover, implicit political party preferences interacted with explicit political party preferences in accounting for voting intention, and in turn predicted voting choices. Ethnic identity and perceived voting intention of significant others were found to predict voting choices, but not voting intention. In sum, to the comfort of democracy, voters appeared to engage mainly explicit, controlled processes in making their decisions; but findings on ethnic identity and perceived voting intention of significant others may suggest otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]