Evidence suggests divergent thinking is the cognitive basis of creative thoughts. Neuroimaging literature using resting-state functional connectivity has revealed network reorganizations during divergent thinking. Recent studies have revealed the changes of network organizations when performing creativity tasks, but such brain reconfigurations may be prolonged after task and be modulated by the trait of creativity. To investigate the dynamic reconfiguration, 40 young participants were recruited to perform consecutive Alternative Uses Tasks for divergent thinking and two resting-state scans were used for mapping (...) the brain reorganizations after AUT. We split participants into high- and low-creative groups based on creative achievement questionnaire and targeted on reconfigurations of the two brain networks: default-mode network and the network seeded at the left inferior frontal gyrus because the between-group difference of AUT-induced brain activation located at the left IFG. The changes of post-AUT RSFCs indicated the prolonged effect of divergent thinking. More specifically, the alterations of RSFCIFG−AG and RSFCIFG−IPL in the high-creative group had positive relationship with their AUT performances, but not found in the low-creative group. Furthermore, the RSFC changes of DMN did not present significant relationships with AUT performances. The findings not only confirmed the possibility of brain dynamic reconfiguration following divergent thinking, but also suggested the distinct IFGN reconfiguration between individuals with different creativity levels. (shrink)

Flipped learning could improve the learning effectiveness of students. However, some studies have pointed out the limitations related to flipped classrooms because the content of the flipped course does not vary according to the needs of the students. On the other hand, adaptive teaching, which customizes the learning mode according to the individual needs of students, can make up for some of the shortcomings of flipped teaching. This study combines adaptive teaching with flipped teaching and applies it to face-to-face classroom (...) activities. The purpose of this research is to explore whether the implementation of flipping and adaptive learning in a computer programming course can improve the learning effectiveness of students. The experimental subjects of this study are the sophomore students in the Department of Information Management. The flipped classroom with adaptive instruction has been realized in the limited course time. This study uses questionnaires to collect pre- and post-test data on the “learning motivation” of students. The learning effectiveness was evaluated based on the students' previous programming course and the semester scores of this course. Research results show that the post-test “learning motivation” has improved overall compared with the pre-test, and the learning effect is significant. The results of this research not only prove the effectiveness of modern teaching theories in programming courses but also lay the foundation for future teaching design. (shrink)

Background: Good nurses show concern for patients by caring for them effectively and attentively to foster their well-being. However, nurses cannot be taught didactically to be “good” or any trait that characterizes a good nurse. Nurses’ self-awareness of their role traits warrants further study. Objectives: This study aimed to develop a strategy to elicit nurses’ self-exploration of the importance of good nurse traits and to explore any discrepancies between such role traits perceived by nurses as ideally and actually important. Research (...) design: For this mixed-method study, we used good nurse trait card play to trigger nurses’ reflections based on clinical practice. Nurse participants appraised the ideal and actual importance of each trait using a Q-sort grid. The gap between the perceived ideal and actual importance of each trait was examined quantitatively, while trait-related clinical experiences were analyzed qualitatively. Participants and research context: Participants were 35 in-service nurses ; 10.1 years of nursing experience ) recruited from a teaching hospital in Taiwan. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the study site. Findings: Good nurse trait card play with a Q-sort grid served as an icebreaker to help nurse participants talk about their experiences as embodied in good quality nursing care. Nurses’ perceived role–trait discrepancies were divided into three categories: over-performed, least discrepant, and under-performed. The top over-performed trait was “obedience.” Discussion: Patients’ most valued traits were perceived by participants as ideally important but were under-performed, perhaps due to experienced nurses’ loss of idealism. Conclusion: Good nurse trait card play with Q-sort grid elicited nurses’ self-dialogue and revealed evidence of the incongruity between nurses’ perceived ideal and actual importance of traits. The top over-performed trait, “obedience,” deserves more study. (shrink)

Microsaccades, small saccadic eye movements occurring during fixation, have been suggested to be modulated by various sensory, cognitive, and affective processes relating to arousal. Although the modulation of fatigue-related arousal on microsaccade behavior has previously been characterized, the influence of other aspects of arousal, such as emotional arousal, is less understood. Moreover, microsaccades are modulated by cognitive processes that could also be linked to arousal. To investigate the influence of emotional arousal, saccade preparation, and global luminance levels on microsaccade behavior, (...) emotional auditory stimuli were presented prior to the onset of a fixation cue whose color indicated to look either at the peripheral stimulus or in the opposite direction of the stimulus. Microsaccade behavior was found to be significantly modulated by saccade preparation and global luminance level, but not emotional arousal. In the pro- and anti-saccade task, microsaccade rate was lower during anti-saccade preparation as compared to pro-saccade preparation, though microsaccade dynamics were comparable during both trial types. Our results reveal a differential role of arousal linked to emotion, fatigue, saccade preparation, and global luminance level on microsaccade behavior. (shrink)

Interactions with teachers and peers are critical for children’s social, behavioral, and academic development in the classroom context. However, these two types of interpersonal interactions in the classroom are usually pursued via separate lines of inquiries. The current study bridges these two areas of research to examine the way in which teachers influence child-perceived peer social support and peer victimization for 2,678 children within 183 classrooms in preschool through grade three. Two levels of teacher influence are considered, namely teacher-child closeness (...) and conflict relationships at the child-level, and teacher management of interpersonal interactions at the classroom-level. Results of multilevel regression models showed that teacher-child closeness was associated with the growth of child-perceived peer social support from fall to spring, whereas teacher-child conflict and teachers’ behavior management practices were associated with the change in child-perceived peer victimization across the academic year. These associations were unique and above and beyond the influence of children’s actual peer social interactions, including reciprocal friendships and the collective classroom reputation of peer victimization. Collectively, findings highlight the multi-faceted teacher roles in shaping children’s perceptions of their peer social experiences during the earliest years of schooling. (shrink)

Chinese mind-body exercises are positively associated with executive function, but their effects on EF, from synthesized evidence using systematic and meta-analytic reviews, have not been conducted. Therefore, the present systematic review with meta-analysis attempted to determine whether CMBEs affect EF and its sub-domains, as well as how exercise, sample, and study characteristics moderate the causal relationship between CMBEs and EF in middle-aged and older adults. Seven electronic databases were searched for relevant studies published from the inception of each database through (...) June 2020. Randomized controlled trials with at least one outcome measure of CMBEs on EF in adults of mean age ≥ 50 years with intact cognition or mild cognitive impairment and with or without chronic diseases were included. A total of 29 studies ultimately were included in this study. The results indicated that CMBEs improved overall EF, as well as its sub-domains of working memory and shifting. The beneficial effects of CMBEs on EF occurred regardless of type, frequency of group classes, session time, total training time, and length of the CMBEs, in addition to that more frequent participation in both group classes and home practice sessions resulted in more beneficial effects. The positive effects of CMBEs on EF were also demonstrated, regardless of participants mean age, sex, and cognitive statuses, health status, as well as training mode and study language. This review thus suggests that CMBEs can be used as an effective method with small to moderate and positive effects in enhancing EF, and that more frequent group classes and home practice sessions may increase these effects. However, certain limitations, including strictly design studies, limited ES samples for specific variables, and possible biased publications, required paying particular attention to, for further exploring the effects of CMBEs on EF. (shrink)

Background Adherence to ethical guidelines and regulations and protecting and respecting the dignity and autonomy of participants by obtaining a valid informed consent form (ICF) prior to participation in research are crucial; The subjects did not add signatures next to the corrections made to signatures or dates on the ICF, Multiple signatures in other fields, ICF missing/missing signature, Incorrect ICF version Signed after modification, Correction tape used to correct signature, Impersonated signature, Non-research-member signature, however, ICFs are often not properly completed, (...) which must be addressed. This study analyzed ICF signing errors and implemented measures to reduce or prevent these errors. Methods We used the plan–do–check–act (PDCA) cycle to help improve the correctness and validity of ICF signing. Results Interim and final reports from January 2016 to February 2020 including 363 ICFs were studied. The total proportion of correct ICF signatures (200, 83.3%) following the PDCA intervention was significantly higher than that before the intervention (P < 0.05). Analysis of the types of signing error demonstrated that signature errors were significantly reduced after the intervention, particularly for subjects did not add signatures next to the corrections made to signatures or dates on the ICF (16, 6.7%) and impersonated signature (0; P < 0.05). Conclusions The proportions of other error types—multiple signatures in other fields, missing or unsigned ICF, incorrect signature order, incorrect ICF version, use of correction tape to correct signature, and non-medical profession members signing the ICF—did not differ significantly. (shrink)

Self-location—the sense of where I am in space—provides an experiential anchor for one's interaction with the environment. In the studies of full-body illusions, many researchers have defined self-location solely in terms of body-location—the subjective feeling of where my body is. Although this view is useful, there is an issue regarding whether it can fully accommodate the role of 1PP-location—the sense of where my first-person perspective is located in space. In this study, we investigate self-location by comparing body-location and 1PP-location: using (...) a head-mounted display (HMD) and a stereo camera, the subjects watched their own body standing in front of them and received tactile stimulations. We manipulated their senses of body-location and 1PP-location in three different conditions: the participants standing still (Basic condition), asking them to move forward (Walking condition), and swiftly moving the stereo camera away from their body (Visual condition). In the Walking condition, the participants watched their body moving away from their 1PP. In the Visual condition, the scene seen via the HMD was systematically receding. Our data show that, under different manipulations of movement, the spatial unity between 1PP-location and body-location can be temporarily interrupted. Interestingly, we also observed a “double-body effect.” We further suggest that it is better to consider body-location and 1PP-location as interrelated but distinct factors that jointly support the sense of self-location. (shrink)

Recent studies of the rubber hand illusion (RHI) have shown that the sense of body ownership is constrained by several factors and yet is still very flexible. However, exactly how flexible is our sense of body ownership? In this study, we address this issue by investigating the following question: is it possible that one may have the illusory experience of owning four hands? Under visual manipulation, the participant adopted the experimenter’s first-person perspective (1PP) as if it was his/her own. Sitting (...) face to face, the participant saw four hands—the experimenter’s two hands from the adopted 1PP together with the subject’s own two hands from the adopted third-person perspective (3PP). We found that: (1) the four-hand illusion did not occur in the passive four-hand condition. (2) In the active four-hand condition, the participants tapped their index fingers, imitated by the experimenter. When tactile stimulations were not provided, the key illusion was not induced, either. (3) Strikingly, once all four hands began to act with the same pattern and received synchronous tactile stimulations at the same time, many participants felt as if they had two more hands. These results show that the sense of body ownership is much more flexible than most researchers have suggested. (shrink)

Employees often experience ethical dilemmas throughout their service in an organization. This study utilized a multilevel standpoint to address employees’ differences in ethical reasoning. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze responses from 40,485 full‐time employees across 54 countries. Drawing from Durkheim's concepts of the homo duplex, socialization process, and social conditions, this study found a positive relationship between employees’ income level and unethical reasoning. Furthermore, the results indicate that modern social regulation, technological advancement, economic development, and economic change moderate (...) the relationship between income and ethical judgment. The study findings contribute to the Durkheimian model by validating the effects of individual‐ and country‐level factors on employees’ ethicality. Considering that the results contradict Durkheim's initial propositions, another concept and theory are proposed, which may complement Durkheim's arguments. Practical implications for organizations and society are further discussed to reinforce employees’ ethics. (shrink)

Most children experience some form of grouping in the classroom every day. Understanding how teachers make grouping decisions and their impacts on children’s social development can shed light on effective teacher practices for promoting positive social dynamics in the classroom. This study examined the influence of teachers’ grouping strategies on changes in young children’s social experiences with peers across an academic year. A total of 1,463 children and 79 teachers from kindergarten to third-grade classrooms participated in this study. Teachers rated (...) children’s behavioral problems as the most important consideration when creating seating charts or assigning children to small groups. Promoting existing or new friendships was rated as the least important consideration. Heterogeneous ability grouping, rated as somewhat important by the teachers, was associated with a decrease in children’s friendships and yet also a decrease in girls’ experience with peer conflicts. Our findings begin to fill in the gaps in the literature on the social impacts of ability grouping for young children. (shrink)

In recent years, workplace well-being has been a popular research topic, because it is helpful to promote employees’ welfare, thereby bringing valuable personal and organizational outcomes. With the development of technology, the technology industry plays an important role in Taiwan. Although the salary and benefits provided by the technology industry are better than other industries, the work often requires a lot of time and effort. It is worth paying attention to whether a happy workplace will bring subjective well-being for the (...) technology industry in Taiwan. This study explored the influence of workplace well-being, job involvement, and flow on the subjective well-being. The research was conducted by a questionnaire survey. A total of 256 employees in the technology industry in the Nanzi Processing Zone in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan were surveyed. Collected data were analyzed by statistical methods, such as multivariate and structural equation models. The study results indicated that workplace well-being, flow, and job involvement have a positive and significant impact on the subjective well-being. In addition to having a direct impact on subjective well-being, flow is also a significant variable to mediate the impact of workplace well-being to subjective well-being. In addition, job involvement also affects subjective well-being through flow, which means that the state of selflessness at work is the most important factor affecting subjective well-being. Finally, based on the research findings, the researcher provided practical suggestions to the government and the technology industry. (shrink)

In the current digital environment, people can visit every corner of the world without leaving their homes. New media technology compresses distance and time, but it also subverts the traditional mode of audience presence. Many traditional, offline content expression modes are also moving toward the digital field, and digital art is among them. Digital new media is a new art form that requires its audience to have a new media literacy; this literacy is necessary for esthetic experience and for audience (...) participation. At present, the relatively lack of objective methodology for scientific research on aesthetic and media literacy has limited our current understanding. Therefore, we need to develop a new model and conduct empirical research with college students as the audience. Empirical research was conducted with an audience of college students. The study had the following purposes: to add a new dimension to the esthetic model, namely new media literacy, to align the model with the current digital environment, and to test the moderating effect of new media literacy on esthetic emotion as represented by interest and confusion. The experiment verified the study’s hypothesis that higher new media literacy was associated with higher esthetic interest and lower confusion. By contrast, has a substantial influence on the cognitive processes in humans, lower new media literacy was associated with lower esthetic interest and higher confusion. New media literacy is an essential quality for contemporary audiences. This knowledge may be useful for effective design. It provides a traditional and favorable learning environment and empirical reference for the subsequent improvement of digital aesthetics and media literacy. (shrink)

Life education, also known as life and death education, is an important subject in Taiwan with institutions offering degree programs and courses that focus on quality learning and implementation of life education. What is interesting from the perspective of Taiwanese Education is that the teaching of life education also incorporates a number of Eastern-derived and conceptualized tenets, for example, Buddhist teaching and the importance of spiritual wisdom. This premise contends then that life education in Taiwan, in general, is concerned with (...) the promotion, fulfillment, and cherishing of quality life experiences (e.g., personal contentment, happiness). One example of life education, which resonates with other spiritual beliefs and religious faiths (e.g., Hinduism), is related to spiritual cultivation and the enlightenment of life wisdom. Our own teaching of the subject, likewise, places emphasis on the goal of teaching students to seek meaningful understanding of and appreciation for three major, interrelated components of life education: life wisdom, life practice, and life care. Life education is a beneficial subject as its theoretical understanding may help individuals cope with pathologies and negative life experiences. One negative life experience, in this case, is the ultimate fate of humankind: death. Approaching death and/or the onset of grief is something that we all have to experience. How does one approach death? It is not easy feat and, of course, grief for a loved one is personal and some of us struggle with this. We contend that spiritual cultivation and enlightenment, arising from life education, may assist us with the coping of death (e.g., the possibility of transcendence beyond the realm of life). Forming the premise of the present article, we propose that a person’s ‘spiritual and enlightened self’, reflecting the convergence of three major aspects of life education (i.e., Philosophical reflection, Enrichment of personal well-being, and Spiritual cultivation), would result in the initiation and creation of a number of virtues and positive characteristics – for example: having a positive outlook in life, showing compassion, forgiveness, etc. These virtues and quality characteristics, from our philosophical reasoning, are equivalent to those qualities that positive psychology advocates for. (shrink)

Body ownership concerns what it is like to feel a body part or a full body as mine, and has become a prominent area of study. We propose that there is a closely related type of bodily self-consciousness largely neglected by researchers—experiential ownership. It refers to the sense that I am the one who is having a conscious experience. Are body ownership and experiential ownership actually the same phenomenon or are they genuinely different? In our experiments, the participant watched a (...) rubber hand or someone else’s body from the first-person perspective and was touched either synchronously or asynchronously. The main findings: (1) The sense of body ownership was hindered in the asynchronous conditions of both the body-part and the full-body experiments. However, a strong sense of experiential ownership was observed in those conditions. (2) We found the opposite when the participants’ responses were measured after tactile stimulations had ceased for 5 s. In the synchronous conditions of another set of body-part and full-body experiments, only experiential ownership was blocked but not body ownership. These results demonstrate for the first time the double dissociation between body ownership and experiential ownership. Experiential ownership is indeed a distinct type of bodily self-consciousness. (shrink)

We investigate two issues about the subjective experience of one's body: first, is the experience of owning a full-body fundamentally different from the experience of owning a body-part?Second, when I experience a bodily sensation, does it guarantee that I cannot be wrong about whether it is me who feels it? To address these issues, we conducted a series of experiments that combined the rubber hand illusion (RHI) and the “body swap illusion.” The subject wore a head mounted display (HMD) connected (...) with a stereo camera set on the experimenter's head. Sitting face to face, they used their right hand holding a paintbrush to brush each other's left hand. Through the HMD, the subject adopted the experimenter's first-person perspective (1PP) as if it was his/her own 1PP: the subject watched either the experimenter's hand from the adopted 1PP, and/or the subject's own hand from the adopted third-person perspective (3PP) in the opposite direction (180°), or the subject's full body from the adopted 3PP (180°, with or without face). The synchronous full-body conditions generate a “self-touching illusion”: many participants felt that “I was brushing my own hand!” We found that (1) the sense of body-part ownership and the sense of full-body ownership are not fundamentally different from each other; and (2) our data present a strong case against the mainstream philosophical view called the immunity principle (IEM). We argue that it is possible for misrepresentation to occur in the subject's sense of “experiential ownership” (the sense that I am the one who is having this bodily experience). We discuss these findings and conclude that not only the sense of body ownership but also the sense of experiential ownership call for further interdisciplinary studies. (shrink)

With the continuous progress and penetration of automated data collection technology, enterprises and organizations are facing the problem of information overload. The demand for expertise in data mining and analysis is increasing. Self-efficacy is a pivotal construct that is significantly related to willingness and ability to perform a particular task. Thus, the objective of this study is to develop an instrument for assessing self-efficacy in data mining and analysis. An initial measurement list was developed based on the skills and abilities (...) about executing data mining and analysis, and expert recommendations. A useful sample of 103 university students completed the online survey questionnaire. A 19-item four-factor model was extracted by exploratory factor analysis. Using the partial least squares-structural equation modeling technique, the model was cross-examined. The instrument showed satisfactory reliability and validity. The proposed instrument will be of value to researchers and practitioners in evaluating an individual’s abilities and readiness in executing data mining and analysis. (shrink)

In a recent study (Chen et al., 2018), we conducted a series of experiments that induced the “four-hand illusion”: using a head-mounted display (HMD), the participant adopted the experimenter’s first-person perspective (1PP) as if it was his/her own 1PP. The participant saw four hands via the HMD: the experimenter’s two hands from the adopted 1PP and the subject’s own two hands from the adopted third-person perspective (3PP). In the active four-hand condition, the participant tapped his/her index fingers, imitated by (...) the experimenter. Once all four hands acted synchronously and received synchronous tactile stimulations at the same time, many participants felt as if they owned two more hands. In this paper, we argue that there is a philosophical implication of this novel illusion. According to Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) and Legrand (2010), one can experience one’s own body or body-part either as-object or as-subject but cannot experience it as both simultaneously, i.e., these two experiences are mutually exclusive. Call this view the Experiential Exclusion Thesis. We contend that a key component of the four-hand illusion—the subjective experience of the 1PP-hands that involved both “kinesthetic sense of movement” and “visual sense of movement” (the movement that the participant sees via the HMD)—provides an important counter-example against this thesis. We argue that it is possible for a healthy subject to experience the same body-part both as-subject and as-object simultaneously. Our goal is not to annihilate the distinction between body-as-object and body-as-subject, but to show that it is not as rigid as suggested by the phenomenologists. (shrink)