The world is experiencing pandemic of the COVID-19 now, a RNA virus that spread out from Wuhan, China. Two countries, China first and later Italy, have gone to full lock down due to rapid spread of this virus. Till to date, no epidemiological data on mental health problems due to outbreak of the COVID-19 and mass isolation were not available. To meet this need, the present study was undertaken to assess the mental health status of Chinese people. An online survey was conducted on a sample of 1074 Chinese people, majority of whom from Hubei province. Lack of adequate opportunities to conduct face to face interview, anxiety, depression, mental wellbeing and alcohol consumption behavior were assessed via self-reported measures. Results showed higher rate of anxiety, depression, hazardous and harmful alcohol use, and lower mental wellbeing than usual ratio. Results also revealed that young people aged 21-40 years are in more vulnerable position in terms of their mental health conditions and alcohol use. To address mental health crisis during this epidemic, it is high time to implement multi-faceted approach (i.e. forming multidisciplinary mental health team, providing psychiatric treatments and other mental health services, utilizing online counseling platforms, rehabilitation program, ensuring certain care for vulnerable groups, etc.). 19 cases found in China, where 64117 recovered and discharged from hospital where total death tolls reached 3177 (Worldometers, 2020, March 13). The COVID-19 is spread all across the world very rapidly (total affected cases 134769 and death 4983, Worldometers, 2020, March 13, 2020). The outbreak of COVID-19 spread over a very fast period, due to the Chinese Lunar New Year, which is the biggest temporary migration of the earth (Belluz, 2020). During this occasion under normal circumstances, around 3 billion domestic trips are made where 15 million are made only from the epicenter of COVID-19 Wuhan. In contemplation of curbing the outbreak, the Chinese government imposed the lockdown and restricted transportation. Chinese nationals confined themselves for an indefinite period as the part of the first level measure to major hazards public health emergency.

Two unique measures of morphological awareness, along with other reading-related tasks, were orally administered to 100 kindergarten and 100 2nd-grade Hong Kong Chinese children. These morphological awareness tasks were developed on the basis of 2 special properties of Chinese: (a) the relatively large number of homophones requires speakers to distinguish unique meanings in syllables with identical sounds, and (b) complex vocabulary words are often built from 2 or more previously learned morphemes. Both tasks of morphological awareness predicted unique variance in Chinese character recognition in these children, after controlling for age, phonological awareness, speeded naming, speed of processing, and vocabulary. Developmentally, both tasks of morphological awareness improved with age. Results demonstrate that morphological awareness is uniquely important for early Chinese character recognition.

No abstract

Previous studies have reported that when people self-reflect--they typically judge the self as more positive (or less negative) compared to others on a range of dimensions (such as health, social skills, or achievement). In the present study, we investigated whether viewing the self through the eyes of other people reduces this egocentric (self-centered) bias. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were examined in 17 subjects who performed judgments of adjectives in positive or negative valences from either self-perspective or other-perspective. Reaction times revealed an interaction between the factors perspective and emotional valence. Faster responses occurred after positive words in the self-perspective condition. A similar interaction was observed in the ERP waveforms in the time range of the N400 component: smaller N400 amplitudes were elicited by positive stimuli compared to negative stimuli in the self-perspective condition, but not in the other-perspective condition. Similarly, a reversed pattern was found in the late positive component (LPC) at 415-815 ms. The present study suggests that shifts in perspectives between self and others can change self-appraisal, which in turn reduces egocentric biases of the self. On a neural level, this modulation may be associated with an increase in self-monitoring processes.

No abstract