title: Bilingual comparison of Mandarin and English cognitive bias tasks.
abstract: Most research into cognitive biases has used Western samples, despite potential East-West socio-cultural differences. One reason is the lack of appropriate measures for non-Westerners. This study is about cross-linguistic equivalence which needs to be established before assessing cross-cultural differences in future research. We developed parallel Mandarin and English measures of interpretation bias and attention bias using back-translation and decentering procedures. We assessed task equivalence by administering both sets of measures to 47 bilingual Mandarin-English speakers. Interpretation bias measurement was similar and reliable across language versions, confirming suitability of the Mandarin versions for future cross-cultural research. By contrast, scores on attention bias tasks did not intercorrelate reliably, suggesting that nonverbal stimuli such as pictures or facial expressions of emotion might present better prospects for cross-cultural comparison. The development of the first set of equivalent measures of interpretation bias in an Eastern language paves the way for future research investigating East-West differences in biased cognition.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, 16 De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF, UK.
authors.forename: Louise
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1277-2564
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, 16 De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF, UK.
authors.forename: Wing Gi
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Leung
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, 16 De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF, UK.
authors.forename: Bryony
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Crane
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Tinbergen Building, 9 South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3UD, UK.
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Parkinson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Timothea
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Toulopoulou
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, 16 De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF, UK. jenny.yiend@kcl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Jenny
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yiend
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D015982:Bias; D002681:China; D003071:Cognition; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D006113:United Kingdom
keywords: Attention; Cognitive bias; Cross-cultural; Emotion; Information processing; Interpretation