نشریه روانشناسی شناختی
سال هفتم شماره 4 (پیاپی 22، زمستان 1398)

Recently, research has been conducted on the use of social networks as a new platform for identifying people with mental disorders. In addition, because of the complexity of diagnosing psychological diseases using conventional methods, the use of machine learning for identifying theses psychological diseases is increasing. The goal of this article was to systematically review the research conducted using social media data for predicting and diagnosing psychological disorders with the help of machine learning. Based on systematic review on the Prisma method, the aim of this article was achieved through searching the main keywords of diagnosis and the prediction of mental disorders combined with machine learning and social media data without considering the dates of their publications. Depression had the highest frequency among the final 20 selected articles with a predictive power of 42% and 87%, the lowest and the highest respectively. On the other hand, only 30% of studies used questionnaires for gathering data on social media and the most common approach for data collection was public posts on social media by the use of regular expressions. Twitter has also been used as the largest source of data collection in these sorts of studies. It seems that computational psychology based on machine learning methods could help to identify disorders at an appropriate time and select more effective treatments for mental disorders among the users of social media.

Metaphores are considered as one of the most common functions of language and due to their abstract meaning, they can be used to study the performance of patients suffering from cognitive deficits. This research aimed at investigating dead and novel metaphor comprehension in Persian-speaking Alzheimer’s patients, and analyzing the role of executive function in this process. This research has taken advantage of co-relational methods. The sample society is composed of 5 Persian-speaking Alzheimer’s patients whose age and education matched healthy controls. To assess patients’ executive abilities and metaphor comprehension, stroop color, clock drawing and metaphor comprehension tests were used respectively. The results showed Alzheimer’s patients’ deficit in metaphor comprehension, particularly in the novel ones. Patients’ performance in metaphor comprehension was related with theirs in stroop color test and clock drawing tests, although this correlation was more significant in the case of novel metaphors. On the one hand, the relationship between patients’ metaphor comprehension and their executive abilities demonstrated that deficit in executive system plays an important role in patients’ poor metaphor comprehension. On the other hand, this highlights the significant role of pre-frontal cortex in metaphor comprehension.

Critical thinking helps people to consider and analyze a wide range of information. The importance of strengthening this skill is significant for managers because it leads to success and the overcoming of crises. The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Test, is a tool for measuring critical thinking and has been designed to combine the aspects of skill and tendency for critical thinking. The purpose of this study is to investigate psychometric properties of this test amomg the Iran Gas Transmission Company managers and to evaluate its psychometrics properties using validation and reliability methods as suitable tools for identifying and measuring critical thinking in the Iranian sample, especially among managers. The sample of the present study included 472 staff managers, who participated in the study of "The Development of Psychological Identity of the Managers at the Iran Gas Transmission Company" in 2018-2019, and responded to 80 questions of a computer-based version of the test. The findings of this study showed that the test on our sample society has four dimensions of analytical thinking, evaluation, interpretation, and assumption while its original version has five dimensions. Moreover, an exploratory factor analysis revealed that the two components of inference and inferring had to be merged and this new component was called analytical thinking. In addition, confirmatory factor analysis of the model with the four components was meaningful and desirable in all fit indices of the model. According to the results of this research, the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Test can be used to achieve research goals.

Researchers emphasise the effect of metacognition on learning and teaching. The purpose of this article was to investigate the metacognitive knowledge and skills of physics students at Farhangian University in mechanicchr('39')s problem solving. This qualitative study is an interpretive phenomenology and the methods of think-aloud protocols, interviewing and observation in natural conditions have been used to collect data and evaluate the metacognitive knowledge and skills of students and instructors at Farhangian University. The sample of the current study were forty two girls in the first semester, who studied physics at the Nasibeh Campus of Farhangian University in Tehran. Metacognitive evaluations were also performed to solve problems in mechanics in the kinematic field. In this study, the samples included students who had successfully passed the university entrance exam in the previous six months. In addition, one day before the start of the research, they participated in the universitychr('39')s basic physics exam, therefore, they had the necessary preparation and knowledge to solve the problems. The study was conducted in three stages. In the first stage, two to three problems were solved by the students with the think-aloud protocols. To familiarize students with the think-aloud protocols, they practiced this method with the help of a researcher. In the second stage, the researcher interviewed six students who were more interested and cooperative. In the third stage, the behavior of all forty-two students was observed and recorded during the academic semester, while solving problems under normal conditions. The results showed that most of the students surveyed had moderate metacognitive knowledge and very poor metacognitive skills.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of working memory training with emotional stimulation on self-injury behaviors of people with borderline personality disorder. The method of current study was semi-experimental and its design was pre-test and post-test with a control group. All the students of University of Mohaghegh Ardebili with borderline personality disorder in the 2017-2018 academic year comprised the population of this study. Forty people were selected by the screening method via the Boderline Traits Scale (STB) and the Structured Clinical Interview for Mental Disorders (SCID-II) and they were assigned to two experimental and control groups. The experimental group attended working memory training with emotional stimulation for 10 sessions of 30 to 45 minutes for 10 days, i.e. during two weeks every day (except Thursdays and Fridays), while the control group did not receive such training. The Sansone and Wiederman Self-Harm Inventory (SHI) questionnaire was used to collect information for both pre-test and post-test stages. Data were analyzed using a statistical method of single variable covariance analysis. The results showed that the mean self-injury scores of the subjects in the experimental group were significantly reduced compared to the control group in the post-test stage. According to the present study, it could be suggested that working memory training with emotional stimulation via strengthening cognitive control is effective for reducing impulsive behaviors such as self-injury.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of training neuropsychological executive functions on metamemory, planning and problem solving in students with mathematics disorder. This research is semi-experimental and its design includes pre-test and post-test as well as a control group. The population of this research were female students with mathematics disorder from the third to sixth grade of primery school, who had been to the Isar Specialty Learning Problem Instruction Center in 2017-2018. Thirty of them were selected by available sampling and were divided into experimental and control groups. Initially, both groups were tested by Wechsler Intelligence Test and K-Mathematical Test. Both groups were assessed by pre-test and post-test using the Metamemory Questionnaire and the Tower of London Questionnaire. The experimental group received 10 sessions for 3 months, while the control group did not receive any training. The results of multivariate analysis of covariance indicated that there was a significant difference between the two groups in terms of metamemory, planning and problem solving. This means that training executive functions has been able to increase the amount of metamemory, planning and problem solving for students with mathematics disorder. The results of this study can be used in the education and treatment of students with mathematics disorder and executive functions should always be considered as a key factor.

Depression is the most common mental disorder that disrupts patients’ lives and imposes costs on society. Recently, the use of biomarkers in the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders has been considered. The question is whether biomarkers derived from EEG are capable of separating depressed patients from healthy people. The objective of this study was to compare the power of different frequency bands in depressed and healthy individuals. The participants of this non-experimental study were selected using clinical criteria based on DSM-5 at Atieh Clinic in Tehran in 2016-2017 (29 women and 21 men who were depressed and 19 women and 31 men who were healthy). EEG was recorded in 19 channels and five frequency bands (delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma) at rest (eyes closed) and during the Emtional Contineous Performance Task (ECPT). The results showed that at rest, the mean power was significantly higher in the depressed group only in the gamma band (Fz and Cz). Significant differences were also observed in theta (P8, O1 and O2), alpha (P4, P8 and O1), beta (Fp1, P3, Pz, and P4) and gamma (Fp1, Fp2, Fz and O1) during activity. Furthermore, mean powers in the depressed group were higher. It seems that EEG power during activity is a better discriminator than power in resting state and it could potentially be used as a biomarker for the diagnosis of depression.