The negativity bias has been shown in many fields, including in face processing. We assume that this bias stems from the potential threat inlayed in the stimuli (e.g., negative moral behaviors) in previous studies. In the present study, we conducted one behavioral and one event-related potentials (ERPs) experiments to test whether the positivity bias rather than negativity bias will arise when participants process information whose negative aspect involves no threat, i.e., the ability information. In both experiments, participants first completed a valence rating (negative-to-positive) of neutral facial expressions. Further, in the learning period, participants associated the neutral faces with high-ability, low-ability, or control sentences. Finally, participants rated these facial expressions again. Results of the behavioral experiment showed that compared with pre-learning, the expressions of the faces associated with high ability sentences were classified as more positive in the post-learning expression rating task, and the faces associated with low ability sentences were evaluated as more negative. Meanwhile, the change in the high-ability group was greater than that of the low-ability group. The ERP data showed that the faces associated with high-ability sentences elicited a larger early posterior negativity, an ERP component considered to reflect early sensory processing of the emotional stimuli, than the faces associated with control sentences. However, no such effect was found in faces associated with low-ability sentences. To conclude, high ability sentences exerted stronger influence on expression perception than did low ability ones. Thus, we found a positivity bias in this ability-related facial perceptual task. Our findings demonstrate an effect of valenced ability information on face perception, thereby adding to the evidence on the opinion that person-related knowledge can influence face processing. What’s more, the positivity bias in non-threatening surroundings increases scope for studies on processing bias.
Recent theories propose that language comprehension can influence perception at the low level of perceptual system. Here, we used an adaptation paradigm to test whether processing language caused color adaptation in the visual system. After prolonged exposure to a color linguistic context, which depicted red, green, or non-specific color scenes, participants immediately performed a color detection task, indicating whether they saw a green color square in the middle of a white screen or not. We found that participants were more likely to perceive the green color square after listening to discourses denoting red compared to discourses denoting green or conveying non-specific color information, revealing that language comprehension caused an adaptation aftereffect at the perceptual level. Therefore, semantic representation of color may have a common neural substrate with color perception. These results are in line with the simulation view of embodied language comprehension theory, which predicts that processing language reactivates the sensorimotor systems that are engaged during real experience.
The degree of inflation persistence fluctuates more in developing countries than in industrialized countries. This is because there are more economic reforms in developing countries than in industrialized countries. Hence, it is important to study the inflation persistence in developing countries. The present paper investigates the pattern of inflation persistence in China, a developing and transitional economy. Specifically, the paper studies statistically the number of structural breaks in China's inflation persistence based on the monthly retail price index (MRPI) and the quarterly retail price index (QRPI) inflation series from 1983 to 2011. The findings show that there are five and three structural breaks in the MRPI and QRPI inflation persistence, respectively. The present paper also exposes a high degree of persistence over the whole sample period and a slight decline in the level of the persistence since 1994. Furthermore, the persistence of two inflation series does not change monotonously but with obvious cyclical patterns. Using these derived estimated structural breakpoints, likely causes of the breakpoints in inflation persistence are investigated. Finally, theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
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