The present study aimed to examine the neural mechanisms underlying the ability to process the mental rotation with mirrored stimuli for different depressive tendencies with psychomotor retardation. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, we measured brain cortex activation of participants with higher and lower depressive tendencies while performing a left-right paradigm of object mental rotation or a same-different paradigm of subject mental rotation. Behavioral data revealed no differences in reaction time and rotation speed. The fNIRS data revealed a higher deactivation of oxyhemoglobin (...) change for the higher depression group in the perceptual stage of object mental rotation with mirrored stimuli in the superior external frontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, premotor cortex, and primary motor cortex. In addition, there existed a significant difference between the two groups in premotor cortex in subject mental rotation with mirrored stimuli. These results suggest that the neural mechanism of higher depression individuals connected with psychomotor retardation exists in the frontal and motor areas when processing object mental rotation with mirrored stimuli, and the motor cortex when processing subject mental rotation. (shrink)

This study investigates the influences of action research on primary school English instruction from five dimensions in the classroom, viz., types of questions, language errors, gestures, facial expressions, and interpersonal distance. Four English teachers’ 9 real classroom teaching videos before and after action research are collected and annotated by using ELAN software. The results show that primary school English teachers in Chinese rural areas prefer closed questions to open questions; They make some language errors; Deictic gestures are the most common (...) gestures used, while metaphoric gestures, beat gestures and iconic gestures are rare; Teachers have the same preference for three types of facial expressions, and teachers’ serious expressions accounts for most of the time; They seldom keep an intimate distance or personal distance from their students. Second, Action research is effective to motivate teachers in rural areas, who make great progress in all five dimensions after AR: more open questions are asked; pragmatic errors and grammatical errors are reduced; deictic gestures increase; apathetic decrease, and more intimate distance is exhibited in the interpersonal distance dimension. Third, teacher’s English teaching competence is partly transferrable to her future professional development, and this is also the long-lasting effect of AR. (shrink)