Experiences of facilitators and barriers for fulfilment of human needs when living with restless legs syndrome: a qualitative study

PURPOSE

Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) is a widespread condition that affects sleep leading to daytime sleepiness, depression, and reduced quality of life. This study aims to determine and describe how patients with RLS experience their everyday life, with a focus on facilitators and barriers related to Maslow's hierarchical theory of human needs.

METHOD

Semi-structured interviews were analysed with qualitative content analysis resulting in facilitators and barriers affecting the fulfilment of the five human needs.

RESULTS

Addressing RLS symptoms through medications and a quiet sleep environment fulfils psychological needs. Control over RLS symptoms, engagement in activities, trust in treatments, and social support meet safety and security needs. Social inclusion, close relationships, and meaningful interactions fulfil a sense of belongingness and love needs despite RLS. Competence in managing RLS, effective self-care strategies, confident communication, and trust-building support esteem needs. Finally, comprehensive understanding through person-centred interventions and coping fulfils the self-actualization needs in managing RLS.

CONCLUSION

Holistic and person-centred interventions, including facilitators for the fulfilment of physiological, psychological, and social needs could help healthcare professionals to provide holistic care.

Contribution of the abbreviated CAVE-st questionnaire in Spanish: the attitudes toward childbirth experiences

There are several factors that influence women's childbirth experience, and personal interactions with health professionals are of particular significance. The main objective of this study was to present the validation of an abbreviated form of an existing questionnaire on attitudes about childbirth in medical and nursing students. We used a sample of 512 perinatal medicine and nursing students who received the original 52-item CAVE-st questionnaire to obtain a shorter version with proper psychometric properties. We used Cronbach's alpha coefficient to evaluate the new version's internal consistency. The Kaiser- Meyer-Olkin test and the Barlett sphericity test were performed to assess the suitability of exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed using structural equation models in a second sample of 139 medical students. We obtained a 15-item version with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.82. The EFA revealed a four-dimensional structure, similar to the full 52-item version. In the CFA the adjustment indexes showed good model fitness, RMSEA= 0.046 [CI 0.00-0.07]; CFI = 0.978. We can conclude that the 15-item version is a valid tool for evaluating the attitude of students toward childbirth, pointing out the matters that should be improved in their training to avoid obstetric trauma by the promotion of a positive experience in women during childbirth.

Chronic illness experience in the context of resource-limited settings: a concept analysis

AIM

This review describes the ways in which individuals experience chronic illnesses in resource-limited settings; to define the concept and understand its attributes, antecedents and consequences.

METHODS

A comprehensive analysis of the databases CINAHL, PubMed and Google Scholar was conducted. During literature search the following limits were applied: articles published in English with available full-text; articles that focused on living with chronic illness in adults from the patient's perspective.

RESULTS

The following three attributes of chronic illness experience were identified: transformational experience, acceptance and self-management. Prominent predisposing factors (antecedents) were: genetic inheritance, malnutrition and poverty, high levels of stress and unhealthy lifestyle. The most dominant consequences were as follows: impact on quality of life; self-management burden; burden to others and economic stressors.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings underscore the need for health-care professionals to understand the chronic illness experience in the context of resource-limited settings and its consequences. The greater insights into the concept of chronic illness experience in resource-limited settings will guide nurses to support people in the realities of chronic illness experience in resource-limited settings in developing countries. This knowledge can guide nurses in providing competent care to chronically ill individuals, including meeting their individual needs with such illnesses.

Online communication skill training of patients with cancer: A test of the behavioral intention predictive framework for communication skills

Objective

To assess the Behavioral Intention Predictive Framework's utility in explaining variation in cancer patients' strong behavioral intention (SBI) to use LEAPS (Listen, Educate, Assess, Partner, Support) communication skills after viewing training videos.

Methods

Ninety-eight patients were enrolled through anonymized online platforms to view LEAPS training videos, complete background and communication questionnaires and report their SBI to use LEAPS skills.

Results

On average, patients indicated SBI to use 6 of 13 skills and 46% of patients expressed SBI across individual skills. The framework explained 27.7% of the adjusted variance in SBI with significant predictors of frequent past use of LEAPS-related shared decision-making behaviors, poor emotional health, being rarely accompanied to visits and positive ratings of narrative videos. Finally, 21.7% of the adjusted variance in problem communication was explained by infrequent use of LEAPS-related information behaviors, patient accompaniment of another adult and positive narrative scores.

Conclusion

Patients SBI to use multiple LEAPS skills and past problem communication were explained by framework predictors.

Innovation

Despite theoretical and empirical evidence that behavioral intention significantly predicts behavior, it has not been studied in patient communication research. Application of the novel framework to LEAPS training videos contributes an innovative address of this research gap.

Epidemiology of sleep patterns and circadian typology in uruguayan children: The contribution of school shifts

Healthy sleep is defined by the combination of adequate duration, good quality, and regular timing. In children, sleep thus depends on the interplay of individual, parental, organizational, community, and social variables, but only a few studies have addressed this issue in a comprehensive way nationwide. Using the Uruguayan nationally representative survey (Nutrition, Child Development, and Health Survey, Encuesta de Nutrición, Desarrollo Infantil y Salud, ENDIS), we present the first epidemiological characterization of chronobiological and sleep parameters in Latin American children. On average, Uruguayan urban children (n = 2437; 5-10-years old) showed quite late chronotypes (MSFsc = 03:53 ± 1:07), moderate misalignment (SJL = 1.0 ± 0.9 h), and adequate sleep duration (SDweek = 9.9 ± 1.0 h). Further, we show the substantial influence of school shift schedules on children's circadian typology and sleep patterns. Our results show that children attending the morning school shift have a higher risk of sleep problems than afternoon-school shift ones. The chronotype and sleep were earlier in morning-school shift children than in children attending the afternoon school shift. However, morning-school shift children had stronger misalignment, shorter sleep on school days, and a higher risk of chronic sleep deficit and non-healthy circadian misalignment (even worse in late chronotypes) than afternoon-shift children. This evidence points to the need of evaluating policies to reorganize school start times to prevent the negative effects that early schooling seems to have on children's sleep health, which has been neglected so far.

Exploring basic psychological needs within and across domains of physical activity

PURPOSE

This study explored variations in adults' experience of satisfaction, unfulfilment and frustration of basic psychological needs within and across four domains of physical activity: Transport, household, occupation, and recreation.

METHODS

We utilized a qualitative approach, conducting semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of 42 Danish adults. The participants ranged in age from 16 to 79 years (mean age 49 years, SD 21 years), gender (45% men, 55% women), and physical activity levels (38% low, 33% average, 29% high). Data were analysed using a thematic analysis, applying Self-Determination Theory as the guiding framework.

RESULTS

In the Transport domain, while most activities were seen as utilitarian necessities, autonomy satisfaction emerged for some through control over their means of transport. In Household domain, tasks were generally viewed as obligatory; however, activities with personal significance led to autonomy satisfaction and skill development. Occupation-wise, physical activity satisfaction varied, with the nature of the job impacting feelings of autonomy and competence. For Recreation domain, personal choice dictated autonomy satisfaction, with competence and relatedness varying according to goal achievement and social interactions.

CONCLUSION

The variations in the findings across domains indicate the effectiveness of applying strategies tailored to specific domains for enhancing need satisfaction.

A cue reactivity experiment: Exposure to images of alcoholic beverages and social contexts on alcohol cravings, motivations, attitudes, approval, and behavior

The incentive-sensitization theory of addiction postulates that relevant cues can trigger alcohol cravings, tendencies, and related outcomes. Additionally, consistent with the encoding specificity principle and social impact theory, social contexts depicting people can activate pro-alcohol reactions and tendencies. This randomized experiment tested the cue reactivity effects of exposure to images depicting variations in the number of people consuming alcoholic or nonalcoholic beverages on alcohol-related cravings and outcomes. The sample consisted of 594 adult alcohol users who passed manipulation checks. Participants were randomly assigned to a condition in a 2 (beverage type cue manipulation: alcoholic vs. nonalcoholic) × 3 (social context cue manipulation: beverage-only [no people] vs. solitary drinking [1 person] vs. social drinking [2 or more people]) factorial design and primed with a series of photographs. Dependent variables measured alcohol cravings, alcohol motives, alcohol attitudes, alcohol approval, and alcohol behavior. Factorial MANCOVA and ANCOVAs were performed. Main effects for the social context manipulation were found. Specifically, the social drinking condition compared to the beverage-only condition induced significantly higher pro-alcohol cravings, attitudes, and behaviors. The beverage type manipulation did not influence the dependent variables. The findings offer insights that visual cues depicting social drinking scenarios activated alcohol-related cravings and outcomes, regardless of whether the beverages shown were alcoholic or nonalcoholic. This priming experiment helps to understand the social mechanisms underlying cue reactivity and offers implications for advancing cue-based alcohol interventions.

Influence of odor environments on cognitive efficiency: A comprehensive review

Cognitive efficiency, characterized by the rapid and accurate processing of information, significantly enhances work and learning outcomes. This efficiency manifests in improved time management, decision-making, learning capabilities, and creativity. While the influence of thermal, acoustic, and lighting conditions on cognitive performance has been extensively studied, the role of olfactory stimuli remains underexplored. Olfactory perception, distinguished by its intensity, speed of perception, and the breadth of stimuli, plays a pivotal role in cognitive efficiency. This review investigates the mechanisms through which odor environments influence cognitive performance. We analyze how odor environments can affect cognitive efficiency through two different scenarios (work and sleep) and pathways (direct and indirect effects). Current research, which mainly focuses on the interplay between odors, emotional responses, and cognitive efficiency through both subjective and objective measures, is thoroughly analyzed. We highlight existing research gaps and suggest future directions for investigating the influence of odor environments on cognitive efficiency. This review aims to establish a theoretical basis for managing and leveraging odor environments in workplace settings.

Association between the performance of executive function and the remission of depressive state after clinical treatment in patients with depression

BACKGROUND

Previous studies have reported that patients with depression have significant cognitive impairment. The aim of this study is to comprehensively evaluate the impairment of executive functions in patients with depression and whether the cognitive behavior performance of executive function is association with remission of depressive state after clinical treatment.

METHODS

We used cognitive-behavioral test to evaluate the performance of executive functions of 95 inpatients with depression before hospitalization and conducted two follow-up evaluations of their depression status on the 15th day of hospitalization and approximately 9 months after discharge.

RESULTS

The performance of executive function except the accuracy of inhibition control in patients with depression were significantly worse than that of healthy controls. Multivariate linear regression analysis found that the reaction time of working memory not only had a significant linear relationship with the baseline depression scores of patients with depression, but also had a significant linear relationship with the reduced depression scores after two follow-up visits.

LIMITATIONS

We only used cognitive-behavioral data as indicators to evaluate the cognitive performances of participants and only measured three components of executive function.

CONCLUSIONS

The reaction time of working memory was a stable and effective predictor of symptom relief in patients with depression after clinical treatment. These results provide initial evidence for working memory to predict the clinical prognosis of inpatients with depression prospectively, which could be further leveraged to improve intervention approaches and analyze the heterogeneity of depression.

Do neuroticism and efficacy beliefs moderate the relationship between climate change worry and mental wellbeing?

BACKGROUND

Research on the nature and prevalence of phenomena like climate anxiety (or eco-anxiety) is increasing rapidly but there is little understanding of the conditions under which climate change worry becomes more or less likely to significantly impact mental wellbeing. Here, we considered two plausible moderators of the relationship between climate change worry and mental wellbeing: neuroticism and efficacy beliefs.

METHODS

Analysis was conducted with survey data gathered in six European countries in autumn 2019. Participants were recruited from universities in the participating countries using opportunity sampling.

RESULTS

We found that climate change worry is negatively related to mental wellbeing at any level of perceived efficacy. In contrast, climate change worry is only significantly related to mental wellbeing at low and average levels of neuroticism. High neuroticism appears to have a masking, rather than amplifying, role in the relationship between climate change worry and mental wellbeing.

LIMITATIONS

The cross-sectional design of the study precludes verification of causal relationships among variables. The brief measure of neuroticism employed also did not allow for nuanced analysis of how different facets of neuroticism contribute to the observed interaction with climate change worry. Findings cannot be indiscriminately generalised to less privileged groups facing the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

CONCLUSION

Our findings lend to a view that harmful impacts of climate change worry on mental wellbeing cannot simply be ascribed to dispositional traits like neuroticism. We advocate for interventions that tackle negative climate-related emotions as unique psychological stressors.

Emotion regulation mediates the relation between intolerance of uncertainty and emotion difficulties: A longitudinal investigation

Intolerance of uncertainty has been proposed as a transdiagnostic factor in emotional disorders. Despite comprehensive empirical evidence demonstrating the association between intolerance of uncertainty and emotional disorders, the underlying mechanism remains elusive. Drawing on theoretical frameworks and empirical studies, the current study proposed that emotion regulation emerges as a potential mechanism. We explored the connections among intolerance of uncertainty, eight emotion regulation strategies (both adaptive and maladaptive), and emotional difficulties (specifically anxiety and depression) using a three-wave longitudinal approach (N = 341). Our findings revealed that heightened intolerance of uncertainty predicted increased anxiety but not depression over time. Greater intolerance of uncertainty significantly predicted elevated levels of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies including experiential avoidance, thought suppression, rumination, and reassurance-seeking. Adaptive strategies (i.e., mindfulness, cognitive reappraisal, problem-solving) predicted lower anxiety and/or depression whereas maladaptive emotion regulation strategy rumination predicted greater levels of anxiety and depression. Surprisingly, thought suppression predicted lower levels of anxiety and depression. More importantly, our analysis showed that both rumination and thought suppression served as significant mediators in the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and both anxiety and depression. These results hold implications for future interventions, emphasising rumination and thought suppression as potential targets for interventions aimed at alleviating emotional difficulties in individuals with intolerance of uncertainty.

Empathic pain: Exploring the multidimensional impacts of biological and social aspects in pain

Empathic pain refers to an individual's perception, judgment, and emotional response to others' pain. This complex social cognitive ability is crucial for healthy interactions in human society. In recent years, with the development of multidisciplinary research in neuroscience, psychology and sociology, empathic pain has become a focal point of widespread attention in these fields. However, the neural mechanism underlying empathic pain remain a controversial and unresolved area. This review aims to comprehensively summarize the history, influencing factors, neural mechanisms and pharmacological interventions of empathic pain. We hope to provide a comprehensive scientific perspective on how humans perceive and respond to others' pain experiences and to provide guidance for future research directions and clinical applications. This article is part of the Special Issue on "Empathic Pain".

Associations of parental divorce with student mental health and academic outcomes: A quantitative study in rural China

BACKGROUND

This paper examines the prevalence, correlates, and developmental consequences of divorce among junior high school students in rural China. Specifically, we investigate the connections between parental divorce and student mental health and academic performance, while also examining whether a student's living arrangement after divorce influences these outcomes.

METHODS

Data were collected from 17,955 students across 122 rural junior high schools in China on their mental health, characteristics, and academic performance. Mental health was measured using the self-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire.

RESULTS

About 8.35 % of the students had divorced parents, with increased risk observed for students who were only children, had migrant mothers, or had higher educated mothers (ORs = 4.35, 29.94, and 1.78, respectively; Bonferroni-adjusted p < 0.05). Students with divorced parents exhibited a higher likelihood of internalizing (0.032), externalizing (0.052) abnormality (Bonferroni-adjusted p < 0.001) and scored 0.203 SD lower on the math test (Bonferroni-adjusted p < 0.001). Living arrangements post-divorce, either with a mother or a father, equally negatively impacted student mental health and academic performance, with a mitigating effect observed when grandparental childcare was provided.

LIMITATIONS

Our study faced limitations in assessing the influence of grandparental childcare on coping with parental divorce due to challenges in gauging the extent of such support for students residing with a parent after divorce. This study did not empirically find differences by ethnicity; further in-depth case study is needed to better illuminate the findings.

CONCLUSIONS

Parental divorce among young students in rural China is associated with adverse developmental outcomes. These findings underscore the importance of implementing targeted programs in rural China to mitigate these risks and provide support for young students with divorced parents.

Introducing prediction intervals for sample means

Researchers and practitioners are typically familiar with descriptive statistics and statistical inference. However, outside of regression techniques, little attention may be given to questions around prediction. In the current paper, we introduce prediction intervals using fundamental concepts that are learned in descriptive and inferential statistical training (i.e., sampling error, standard deviation). We walk through an example using simple hand calculations and reference a simple R package that can be used to calculate prediction intervals.

Minds in movement: embodied cognition in the age of artificial intelligence

This theme issue brings together researchers from diverse fields to assess the current status and future prospects of embodied cognition in the age of generative artificial intelligence. In this introduction, we first clarify our view of embodiment as a potentially unifying concept in the study of cognition, characterizing this as a perspective that questions mind-body dualism and recognizes a profound continuity between sensorimotor action in the world and more abstract forms of cognition. We then consider how this unifying concept is developed and elaborated by the other contributions to this issue, identifying the following two key themes: (i) the role of language in cognition and its entanglement with the body and (ii) bodily mechanisms of interpersonal perception and alignment across the domains of social affiliation, teaching and learning. On balance, we consider that embodied approaches to the study of cognition, culture and evolution remain promising, but will require greater integration across disciplines to fully realize their potential. We conclude by suggesting that researchers will need to be ready and able to meet the various methodological, theoretical and practical challenges this will entail and remain open to encountering markedly different viewpoints about how and why embodiment matters. This article is the part of this theme issue 'Minds in movement: embodied cognition in the age of artificial intelligence'.

Spontaneous movement synchrony as an exogenous source for interbrain synchronization in cooperative learning

Learning through cooperation with conspecifics-'cooperative learning'-is critical to cultural evolution and survival. Recent progress has established that interbrain synchronization (IBS) between individuals predicts success in cooperative learning. However, the likely sources of IBS during learning interactions remain poorly understood. To address this dearth of knowledge, we tested whether movement synchrony serves as an exogenous factor that drives IBS, taking an embodiment perspective. We formed dyads of individuals with varying levels of prior knowledge (high-high (HH), high-low (HL), low-low (LL) dyads) and instructed them to collaboratively analyse an ancient Chinese poem. During the task, we simultaneously recorded their brain activity using functional near-infrared spectroscopy and filmed the entire experiment to parse interpersonal movement synchrony using the computer-vision motion energy analysis. Interestingly, the homogeneous groups (HH and/or LL) exhibited stronger movement synchrony and IBS compared with the heterogeneous group. Importantly, mediation analysis revealed that spontaneous and synchronized body movements between individuals contribute to IBS, hence facilitating learning. This study therefore fills a critical gap in our understanding of how interpersonal transmission of information between individual brains, associated with behavioural entrainment, shapes social learning. This article is part of the theme issue 'Minds in movement: embodied cognition in the age of artificial intelligence'.

Psychological responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and situational impact: A network analysis in Hong Kong residents

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic has had situational impacts and induced various psychological responses among residents. The present study aims to analyze the network structure of psychological responses to the pandemic and their relationships with situational impact, resilience, and well-being through a network approach.

METHODS

An online survey recruited 1122 residents (mean age = 32.5 years, 65.4 % female) in Hong Kong from October 2020 to October 2021. The participants completed the Mental Impact and Distress Scale: Psychological Response (MIDc-PR) and other validated measures. Gaussian graphical modeling was conducted in R to identify the central MIDc-PR symptoms and their bridge linkages with situational impact, resilience, and well-being.

RESULTS

In the MIDc-PR network, the central symptoms were 'Routine' and 'Images' for Anticipation and 'Tense' and 'Lonely' for Modulation, with 12 bridge edges between the two clusters. In the combined network, the MIDc-PR nodes showed 12 bridge edges with situational impact, particularly in the health domain. 'Concerned', 'Sleep', and 'Lonely' showed negative linkages with resilience; 'Unmotivated' and 'Trapped' showed negative linkages with well-being. The network models showed good levels of stability and did not differ significantly in network structure and global strength across gender and age groups.

LIMITATIONS

The cross-sectional study design only allowed undirected associations in the network and could not model the within-subject effects.

CONCLUSIONS

The study findings contributed to the literature by elucidating the network structure of psychological responses to the pandemic. The central and bridge symptoms have clinical implications as potential targets for future interventions.

Weight stigma is uniquely tied to maladaptive eating across different racial, ethnic, and gender groups

Weight stigma, racism, and sexism (social devaluation due to body weight, race or ethnicity, and sex or gender), have been linked to increased maladaptive eating behaviors; however, no research has investigated the unique associations between different forms of stigma and eating concurrently. We analyzed within-group (by race/ethnicity and sex) effects of different forms of stigma on maladaptive eating behaviors to test whether there is some unique relationship between weight stigma and maladaptive eating across identities. Additionally, we explored differences by racial/ethnic group and sex, as well as BMI category, in levels of reported weight stigma, racism, sexism, and maladaptive eating. Participants (N = 1051) were recruited so that there were approximately even numbers of participants identifying as Black (33.3%), Hispanic or Latino (32.8%), and White (33.9%). Overall, participants reported similar amounts of weight stigma by race/ethnicity and sex, but different levels of racism and sexism. Weight stigma, but not racism or sexism consistently predicted binge eating and eating to cope across groups, controlling for education, income, BMI, and age. Restricted dieting, however, was only predicted by weight stigma for Hispanic/Latino and Black men. These findings suggest that weight stigma is a unique predictor of maladaptive eating, even when considering the effects of racism and sexism. This study provides evidence of a more focused model of weight stigma and eating outcomes, rather than a more general model of the effect of stigma on eating outcomes due to overall stress. Future research should investigate when and why weight stigma drives restricted dieting, since this relationship seems strongest in men, going against many common inclinations about weight stigma.

Goal inference in moral narratives

We often form beliefs about others based on narratives they tell about their own moral actions. When constructing such moral narratives, narrators balance multiple goals, such as conveying accurate information about what happened ('informational goals') and swaying audiences' impressions about their moral characters ('reputational goals'). Here, we ask to what extent audiences' detection of narrators' reputational goals guide or prevent them from making moral character judgments intended by narrators. Across two pre-registered experiments, audiences read narratives written by real narrators about their own moral actions. Each narrator was incentivized to write about the same action twice while trying to appear like a morally good or bad person (positive and negative reputational goals). Audiences detected narrators' reputational goals with high accuracy and made judgments about moral character that aligned with narrators' goals. However, audiences were more suspicious toward positive than negative reputational goals, requiring more evidence of high informational goals. These results demonstrate how audiences' inferences of reputational goals can both support and hinder narrators: accurate goal recognition increases the chance that audiences will make judgments intended by narrators, but inferred positive reputational goals can lead to doubts about accuracy. More generally, this provides a novel approach to studying how moral information about people is transmitted through naturalistic narratives.

Absolute-judgment models better predict eyewitness decision-making than do relative-judgment models

When presented with a lineup, the witness is tasked with identifying the culprit or indicating that the culprit is not present. The witness then qualifies the decision with a confidence judgment. But how do witnesses go about making these decisions and judgments? According to absolute-judgment models, witnesses determine which lineup member provides the strongest match to memory and base their identification decision and confidence judgment on the absolute strength of this MAX lineup member. Conversely, relative-judgment models propose that witnesses determine which lineup member provides the strongest match to memory and then base their identification decision and confidence judgment on the relative strength of the MAX lineup member compared to the remaining lineup members. We took a critical test approach to test the predictions of both models. As predicted by the absolute-judgment model, but contrary to the predictions of the relative-judgment model, witnesses were more likely to correctly reject low-similarity lineups than high-similarity lineups (Experiment 1), and more likely to reject biased lineups than fair lineups (Experiment 2). Likewise, witnesses rejected low-similarity lineups with greater confidence than high-similarity lineups (Experiment 1) and rejected biased lineups with greater confidence than fair lineups (Experiment 2). Only a single pattern was consistent with the relative model and inconsistent with the absolute model: suspect identifications from biased lineups were made with greater confidence than suspect identifications from fair lineups (Experiment 2). The results suggest that absolute-judgment models better predict witness decision-making than do relative-judgment models and that pure relative-judgment models are unviable.

Effortful retrieval of semantic memories induces forgetting of related negative and neutral episodic memories

Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) experiments show that the act of retrieving some recently encoded items from a given conceptual category leads to greater forgetting of competing items from that same category. However, RIF studies using emotional stimuli have produced mixed results, perhaps due to the reinstatement of arousal or negative affect during retrieval practice. To induce forgetting of negative episodic memories more indirectly, we examined if retrieving neutral semantic memories leads to RIF of related negative memories. In two experiments, participants studied eight categorized lists comprised of an equal number of negative and neutral words (Experiment 1) or neutral words preceded by neutral or negative images (Experiment 2). To avoid re-exposing individuals to negative material during retrieval practice, participants then performed a semantic memory retrieval task in which they generated (i.e., completed word-stems for) new neutral words from half of the studied categories. We found that semantic retrieval, or word generation, induced forgetting of recently studied words irrespective of their emotional valence or original emotional context. Additionally, across both experiments, less successful word generation was associated with stronger RIF effects. In Experiment 2, the magnitude of RIF was also correlated with higher subjective ratings of retrieval effort during word generation. Together, these results suggest that even when retrieving neutral semantic memories, effortful retrieval may enhance inhibitory processes that lead to forgetting of both neutral and negative episodic memories.

Refining Bayesian hierarchical MPT modeling: Integrating prior knowledge and ordinal expectations

Multinomial processing tree (MPT) models are a broad class of statistical models used to test sophisticated psychological theories. The research questions derived from these theories often go beyond simple condition effects on parameters and involve ordinal expectations (e.g., the same-direction effect on the memory parameter is stronger in one experimental condition than another) or disordinal expectations (e.g., the effect reverses in one experimental condition). Here, we argue that by refining common modeling practices, Bayesian hierarchical models are well suited to estimate and test these expectations. Concretely, we show that the default priors proposed in the literature lead to nonsensical predictions for individuals and the population distribution, leading to problems not only in model comparison but also in parameter estimation. Rather than relying on these priors, we argue that MPT modelers should determine priors that are consistent with their theoretical knowledge. In addition, we demonstrate how Bayesian model comparison may be used to test ordinal and disordinal interactions by means of Bayes factors. We apply the techniques discussed to empirical data from Bell et al. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41, 456-472 (2015).

Estimating the Reliability and Stability of Cognitive Processes Contributing to Responses on the Implicit Association Test

Implicit measures were initially assumed to assess stable individual differences, but other perspectives posit that they reflect context-dependent processes. This pre-registered research investigates whether the processes contributing to responses on the race Implicit Association Test are temporally stable and reliably measured using multinomial processing tree modeling. We applied two models-the Quad model and the Process Dissociation Procedure-to six datasets (N = 2,036), each collected over two occasions, examined the within-measurement reliability and between-measurement stability of model parameters, and meta-analyzed the results. Parameters reflecting accuracy-oriented processes demonstrate adequate stability and reliability, which suggests these processes are relatively stable within individuals. Parameters reflecting evaluative associations demonstrate poor stability but modest reliability, which suggests that associations are either context-dependent or stable but noisily measured. These findings suggest that processes contributing to racial bias on implicit measures differ in temporal stability, which has practical implications for predicting behavior using the Implicit Association Test.

When Interdependence Backfires: The Coronavirus Infected Three Times More People in Rice-Farming Areas During Chinese New Year

Interdependent cultures around the world have generally controlled COVID-19 better. We tested this pattern in China based on the rice theory, which argues that historically rice-farming regions of China are more interdependent than wheat-farming areas. Unlike earlier findings, rice-farming areas suffered more COVID-19 cases in the early days of the outbreak. We suspected this happened because the outbreak fell on Chinese New Year, and people in rice areas felt more pressure to visit family and friends. We found historical evidence that people in rice areas visit more family and friends for Chinese New Year than people in wheat areas. In 2020, rice areas also saw more New Year travel. Regional differences in social visits were correlated with COVID-19 spread. These results reveal an exception to the general idea that interdependent culture helps cultures contain COVID-19. When relational duties conflict with public health, interdependence can lead to more spread of disease.

Imagining the future improves saving in preschoolers

Preschoolers are notoriously poor at delaying gratification and saving limited resources, yet evidence-based methods of improving these behaviors are lacking. Using the marble game saving paradigm, we examined whether young children's saving behavior would increase as a result of engaging in future-oriented imagination using a storyboard. Participants were 115 typically developing 4-year-olds from a midwestern U.S. metropolitan area (Mage = 53.48 months, SD = 4.14, range = 47-60; 54.8% female; 84.5% White; 7.3% Hispanic/Latino ethnicity; median annual household income = $150,000-$174,999). Children were randomly assigned to one of four storyboard conditions prior to the marble game: Positive Future Simulation, Negative Future Simulation, Positive Routine, or Negative Routine. In each condition, children were asked to imagine how they would feel in the future situation using a smiley face rating scale. Results showed that children were significantly more likely to save (and to save more marbles) in the experimental conditions compared with the control conditions (medium effect sizes). Moreover, imagining saving for the future (and how good that would feel) was more effective at increasing saving behaviors than imagining not saving (and how bad that would feel). Emotion ratings were consistent with the assigned condition, but positive emotion alone did not account for these effects. Results held after accounting for game order and verbal IQ. Implications of temporal psychological distancing and emotion anticipation for children's future-oriented decision making are discussed.

Psychometric benefits of self-chosen rating scales over given rating scales

Rating scales are susceptible to response styles that undermine the scale quality. Optimizing a rating scale can tailor it to individuals' cognitive abilities, thereby preventing the occurrence of response styles related to a suboptimal response format. However, the discrimination ability of individuals in a sample may vary, suggesting that different rating scales may be appropriate for different individuals. This study aims to examine (1) whether response styles can be avoided when individuals are allowed to choose a rating scale and (2) whether the psychometric properties of self-chosen rating scales improve compared to given rating scales. To address these objectives, data from the flourishing scale were used as an illustrative example. MTurk workers from Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform (N = 7042) completed an eight-item flourishing scale twice: (1) using a randomly assigned four-, six-, or 11-point rating scale, and (2) using a self-chosen rating scale. Applying the restrictive mixed generalized partial credit model (rmGPCM) allowed examination of category use across the conditions. Correlations with external variables were calculated to assess the effects of the rating scales on criterion validity. The results revealed consistent use of self-chosen rating scales, with approximately equal proportions of the three response styles. Ordinary response behavior was observed in 55-58% of individuals, which was an increase of 12-15% compared to assigned rating scales. The self-chosen rating scales also exhibited superior psychometric properties. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Can deepfakes be used to study emotion perception? A comparison of dynamic face stimuli

Video recordings accurately capture facial expression movements; however, they are difficult for face perception researchers to standardise and manipulate. For this reason, dynamic morphs of photographs are often used, despite their lack of naturalistic facial motion. This study aimed to investigate how humans perceive emotions from faces using real videos and two different approaches to artificially generating dynamic expressions - dynamic morphs, and AI-synthesised deepfakes. Our participants perceived dynamic morphed expressions as less intense when compared with videos (all emotions) and deepfakes (fearful, happy, sad). Videos and deepfakes were perceived similarly. Additionally, they perceived morphed happiness and sadness, but not morphed anger or fear, as less genuine than other formats. Our findings support previous research indicating that social responses to morphed emotions are not representative of those to video recordings. The findings also suggest that deepfakes may offer a more suitable standardized stimulus type compared to morphs. Additionally, qualitative data were collected from participants and analysed using ChatGPT, a large language model. ChatGPT successfully identified themes in the data consistent with those identified by an independent human researcher. According to this analysis, our participants perceived dynamic morphs as less natural compared with videos and deepfakes. That participants perceived deepfakes and videos similarly suggests that deepfakes effectively replicate natural facial movements, making them a promising alternative for face perception research. The study contributes to the growing body of research exploring the usefulness of generative artificial intelligence for advancing the study of human perception.

Dragging but not tapping promotes preschoolers' numerical estimating with touchscreens

When solving mathematical problems, young children will perform better when they can use gestures that match mental representations. However, despite their increasing prevalence in educational settings, few studies have explored this effect in touchscreen-based interactions. Thus, we investigated the impact on young children's performance of dragging (where a continuous gesture is performed that is congruent with the change in number) and tapping (involving a discrete gesture that is incongruent) on a touchscreen device when engaged in a continuous number line estimation task. By examining differences in the set size and position of the number line estimation, we were also able to explore the boundary conditions for the superiority effect of congruent gestures. We used a 2 (Gesture Type: drag or tap) × 2 (Set Size: Set 0-10 or Set 0-20) × 2 (Position: left of midpoint or right of midpoint) mixed design. A total of 70 children aged 5 and 6 years (33 girls) were recruited and randomly assigned to either the Drag or Tap group. We found that the congruent gesture (drag) generally facilitated better performance with the touchscreen but with boundary conditions. When completing difficult estimations (right side in the large set size), the Drag group was more accurate, responded to the stimulus faster, and spent more time manipulating than the Tap group. These findings suggest that when children require explicit scaffolding, congruent touchscreen gestures help to release mental resources for strategic adjustments, decrease the difficulty of numerical estimation, and support constructing mental representations.

Feeling the future of eyewitness research

For decades, eyewitness memory research has had the worthy goal of minimizing the chances that an innocent suspect is falsely identified. However, this is not the only goal. Partial receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves provide a way to identify lineup procedures that keep the false alarm rate low while also maximizing the hit rate. Recently, there have been attempts to extend the ROC curve into high false alarm rate regions that fair lineups are intentionally designed to avoid. These new full ROCs could provide a way for the police to circumvent the protections offered by fillers in a fair lineup. Moreover, these attempts to extend the ROC curve are not based on a mathematically coherent model of latent diagnostic signals. In this article, we empirically demonstrate how this lack of a solid foundation can lead to dubious conclusions, such as eyewitnesses possessing precognition and being able to reliably identify the person they will see commit a crime in the future.

Optimal processing of surface facial EMG to identify emotional expressions: A data-driven approach

Surface facial electromyography (EMG) is commonly used to detect emotions from subtle facial expressions. Although there are established procedures for collecting EMG data and some aspects of their processing, there is little agreement among researchers about the optimal way to process the EMG signal, so that the study-unrelated variability (noise) is removed, and the emotion-related variability is best detected. The aim of the current paper was to establish an optimal processing pipeline for EMG data for identifying emotional expressions in facial muscles. We identified the most common processing steps from existing literature and created 72 processing pipelines that represented all the different processing choices. We applied these pipelines to a previously published dataset from a facial mimicry experiment, where 100 adult participants observed happy and sad facial expressions, whilst the activity of their facial muscles, zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii, was recorded with EMG. We used a resampling approach and subsets of the original data to investigate the effect and robustness of different processing choices on the performance of a logistic regression model that predicted the mimicked emotion (happy/sad) from the EMG signal. In addition, we used a random forest model to identify the most important processing steps for the sensitivity of the logistic regression model. Three processing steps were found to be most impactful: baseline correction, standardisation within muscles, and standardisation within subjects. The chosen feature of interest and the signal averaging had little influence on the sensitivity to the effect. We recommend an optimal processing pipeline, share our code and data, and provide a step-by-step walkthrough for researchers.

How ready is speech-to-text for psychological language research? Evaluating the validity of AI-generated English transcripts for analyzing free-spoken responses in younger and older adults

For the longest time, the gold standard in preparing spoken language corpora for text analysis in psychology was using human transcription. However, such standard comes at extensive cost, and creates barriers to quantitative spoken language analysis that recent advances in speech-to-text technology could address. The current study quantifies the accuracy of AI-generated transcripts compared to human-corrected transcripts across younger (n = 100) and older (n = 92) adults and two spoken language tasks. Further, it evaluates the validity of Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC)-features extracted from these two kinds of transcripts, as well as transcripts specifically prepared for LIWC analyses via tagging. We find that overall, AI-generated transcripts are highly accurate with a word error rate of 2.50% to 3.36%, albeit being slightly less accurate for younger compared to older adults. LIWC features extracted from either transcripts are highly correlated, while the tagging procedure significantly alters filler word categories. Based on these results, automatic speech-to-text appears to be ready for psychological language research when using spoken language tasks in relatively quiet environments, unless filler words are of interest to researchers.

Evaluating the impact of individuals' morningness-eveningness on the effectiveness of a habit-formation intervention for a simple and a complex behavior

Planning-based interventions are often used to help individuals form habits. Existing literature suggests a one-size-fits all approach to habit formation, but planning interventions may be optimized if tailored to individual differences and/or behavioral complexity. We test the hypothesis that planning to do a relatively complex behaviour (exercise) at a time that matches an individuals' diurnal preference will facilitate behavioral engagement; whereas for a simpler behaviour (calcium supplementation), the optimal time-of-day for a new behavior will occur in the morning. Young, women volunteers (N = 317) were randomly assigned to take calcium supplements or to exercise for 4 weeks and to control (no planning) or to one of three planning interventions (morning plan; evening plan; unassigned-time plan). Participants reported diurnal preference at baseline and habit strength and behavioral frequency weekly. Fitbit Zips and Medication Event Monitoring System Caps (MEMS) were used to objectively assess behavioral engagement. Multilevel modelling found that calcium-supplementation was greatest for morning-types in the morning-cue condition, whereas exercise was greatest for morning-types with morning cues and evening-types with evening cues. Habit-formation strategies may depend on diurnal preference and behavioral complexity. Future research can evaluate the role of other individual differences.

On humans' (explicit) intuitions about the meaning of novel words

Pseudowords offer a unique opportunity to investigate how humans deal with new (verbal) information. Within this framework, previous studies have shown that, at the implicit level, humans exploit systematic associations in the form-meaning interface to process new information by relying on (sub-lexical) contents already mapped in semantic memory. However, whether speakers exploit such processes in explicit decisions about the meanings elicited by unfamiliar terms remains an open, important question. Here, we tested this by leveraging computational models that are able to induce semantic representations for out-of-vocabulary stimuli. Across two experiments, we demonstrate that participants' guesses about pseudoword meanings in a 2AFC task consistently align with the model's predictions. This indicates that humans' ability to extract meaningful knowledge from complex statistical patterns can affect explicit decisions.

Impacts of number lines and circle visual displays on caregivers' fraction understanding

Playful fraction picture books, together with math instructional content called "back matter," may promote fraction learning, which is crucial because fractions are difficult and often disliked content. However, open questions remain regarding how different types of back matter may affect caregivers' ability to use fraction picture books as a teaching tool. The current study offers a novel investigation into how back matter affects caregivers' (N = 160) fraction understanding (i.e., equivalence and arithmetic) and subjective beliefs about math using a pretest/posttest design. We contrasted existing back matter text with research-informed back matter text crossed with either circle area or number line visual displays. Caregivers' performance improved from pretest to posttest in the Researcher-Generated + Circles condition (fraction equivalence) and in the Existing + Circles, Researcher-Generated + Circles, and Researcher-Generated + Number Lines conditions (fraction arithmetic). In addition, caregivers were aware of their learning; they predicted improvements in their fraction arithmetic performance over time. These findings suggest that brief interventions, such as back matter in children's picture books, may improve adults' fraction understanding.

A new sample-size planning approach for person-specific VAR(1) studies: Predictive accuracy analysis

Researchers increasingly study short-term dynamic processes that evolve within single individuals using N = 1 studies. The processes of interest are typically captured by fitting a VAR(1) model to the resulting data. A crucial question is how to perform sample-size planning and thus decide on the number of measurement occasions that are needed. The most popular approach is to perform a power analysis, which focuses on detecting the effects of interest. We argue that performing sample-size planning based on out-of-sample predictive accuracy yields additional important information regarding potential overfitting of the model. Predictive accuracy quantifies how well the estimated VAR(1) model will allow predicting unseen data from the same individual. We propose a new simulation-based sample-size planning method called predictive accuracy analysis (PAA), and an associated Shiny app. This approach makes use of a novel predictive accuracy metric that accounts for the multivariate nature of the prediction problem. We showcase how the values of the different VAR(1) model parameters impact power and predictive accuracy-based sample-size recommendations using simulated data sets and real data applications. The range of recommended sample sizes is smaller for predictive accuracy analysis than for power analysis.

Building integrated number sense in adults and children: Comparing fractions-only training with cross-notation number line training

Mounting evidence points to the predictive power of cross-notation rational number understanding (e.g., 2/5 vs. 0.25) relative to within-notation understanding (e.g., 2/5 vs. 1/4) in predicting math outcomes. Although correlational in nature, these studies suggest that number sense training emphasizing integrating across notations may have more positive outcomes than a within-notation focus. However, this idea has not been empirically tested. Thus, across two studies with undergraduate students (N = 183 and N = 181), we investigated the effects of a number line training program using a cross-notation approach (one that focused on connections among fractions, decimals, and percentages) and a within-notation approach (one that focused on fraction magnitude representation only). Both number line approaches produced positive effects, but those of the cross-notation approach were larger for fraction magnitude estimation and cross-notation comparison accuracy. In a third study (N = 63), we adapted the cross-notation number line training for use in place of typical classroom warm-up activities for middle school students. Similar to the results with undergraduate students, the cross-notation training program yielded positive benefits for middle school students over a typical warm-up activity (fraction arithmetic practice). Together, these results suggest the importance of an integrated approach to teaching rational number notations, an approach that appears to be uncommon in current curricula.

Developmental pathways from insomnia to suicidality: A resilience perspective

BACKGROUND

Insomnia has been identified as a potential risk factor for suicidality. However, to date, few studies using the longitudinal-design have examined the underlying mechanism of this relationship. Based on a resilience perspective, this study aimed to investigate the dynamic longitudinal relationships between insomnia, resilience, and suicidality.

METHODS

A total of 5785 freshmen were sampled from a large-scale health-related cohort among Chinese college students. This study spanned six waves, covering the period from 2020 to 2022. Data from T1 to T4 were used because resilience was not measured at baseline (T0) and T5. The cross-lagged panel models and the latent growth curve mediation model were used to examine the longitudinal dynamic relationships between insomnia, resilience, and suicidality.

RESULTS

The results showed that insomnia symptoms and suicidality mutually predicted each other, and resilience played a longitudinal mediating role in linking insomnia symptoms and suicidality.

CONCLUSIONS

Given that resilience served as a mediator in the relation between insomnia symptoms and suicidality, some resilience-oriented prevention and intervention programs will be helpful in reducing the risk of suicide among university students.

HPA activity mediates the link between trait impulsivity and boredom

Boredom, a complex emotional state with implications for mental health and well-being, has garnered attention across disciplines, yet remains relatively understudied in psychiatric research. Here, we explored the intricate relationship between trait-impulsivity, stress, and boredom across two studies. Participants completed self-report measures of trait-impulsivity and boredom and boredom-inducing tasks. Study 1, involving 80 participants (42 women and 38 men, aged 20-63), replicates previous findings, by demonstrating that impulsive individuals report greater boredom following a boring task. Study 2 then extends this, using 20 participants (9 women and 12 men, aged 18-24), to show that hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity, specifically heightened salivary cortisol responses, mediate the link between impulsivity and boredom following a boring task. Collectively, these results demonstrate that HPA axis activity may underline the relationship between trait-impulsivity and boredom by extending previous work and offering a novel insight into potential mechanisms. These findings offer promise for personalised interventions, designed for high impulsivity individuals, to alleviate the negative impacts of boredom and potentially break the identified feedback loop.

Age matters: The effect of regret and loss aversion on cultured meat acceptance

Cultured meat shows great promise as a more sustainable alternative to conventional meat consumption. However, consumer acceptance of cultured meat remains a great challenge as studies indicate a general reluctance to adopt this product. Notably, while existing literature has provided various factors influencing consumer acceptance of cultured meat, there is a limited focus on the use of affective cues. The present research examines the impact of regret appeal on consumers' willingness to try cultured meat. In two experimental studies, the authors investigate (1) the interactive effect between regret and age on willingness to try cultured meat, and (2) the role of loss aversion as a mediating factor between regret and willingness to try cultured meat. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of regret appeal in increasing consumers' willingness to try cultured meat, particularly among older populations. This is because older populations exhibit higher levels of loss aversion. The present study is the first to shed light on the interactive effect of regret and age in influencing sustainable product acceptance. Furthermore, the study establishes the first empirical evidence to demonstrate that loss aversion is a valid self-regulating strategy adopted to cope with the feeling of regret in a consumption context.

Development and evaluation of a PICC virtual simulator in neonatal nursing: A randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND

Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter (PICC) is essential in neonatal care, especially for critically ill infants. Traditional training for neonatal PICC insertion faces challenges such as high costs and limited practice opportunities. Virtual simulation technology has emerged as a potential training tool, providing a realistic, risk-free learning environment.

OBJECTIVES

The study aimed to assess the effectiveness of a virtual simulation teaching system in neonatal PICC care training, focusing on improving nursing students' knowledge， skills and interest in pediatric nursing.

DESIGN

A quasi-experimental design was used, with assessments conducted before and after the activity.

PARTICIPANTS

The study involved 58 graduate nursing students from China Medical University, divided into experimental and control groups.

METHODS

The System Usability Scale (SUS) was utilized to assess teachers' experiences with the PICC virtual simulation software. Students' perceptions of the software and their interest in pediatric nursing were measured using Self-Administered Questionnaires. Furthermore, Theoretical and Operational Assessments were applied to determine the extent of students' knowledge and practical skills before and after experimentation.

RESULTS

Teachers and students have favorably evaluated the software system, with notable improvements in theoretical scores following testing. While the virtual simulation system does not enhance practical skills, it does increase student interest in pediatric nursing and employment.

CONCLUSIONS

This neonatal virtual simulation software serves as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, traditional clinical training. Its integration into educational programs significantly enhances learning outcomes.

An examination of the effects of eye-tracking on behavior in psychology experiments

Eye-tracking is emerging as a tool for researchers to better understand cognition and behavior. However, it is possible that experiment participants adjust their behavior when they know their eyes are being tracked. This potential change would be considered a type of Hawthorne effect, in which participants alter their behavior in response to being watched and could potentially compromise the outcomes and conclusions of experimental studies that use eye tracking. We examined whether eye-tracking produced Hawthorne effects in six commonly used psychological scales and five behavioral tasks. The dependent measures were selected because they are widely used and cited and because they involved measures of sensitive topics, including gambling behavior, racial bias, undesirable personality characteristics, or because they require working memory or executive attention resources, which might be affected by Hawthorne effects. The only task where Hawthorne effects manifested was the mixed gambles task, in which participants accepted or rejected gambles involving a 50/50 chance of gaining or losing different monetary amounts. Participants in the eye-tracking condition accepted fewer gambles that were low in expected value, and they also took longer to respond for these low-value gambles. These results suggest that eye-tracking is not likely to produce Hawthorne effects in most common psychology laboratory tasks, except for those involving risky decisions where the probability of the outcomes from each choice are known.

A survey of experimental stimulus presentation code sharing in major areas of psychology

Computer code plays a vital role in modern science, from the conception and design of experiments through to final data analyses. Open sharing of code has been widely discussed as being advantageous to the scientific process, allowing experiments to be more easily replicated, helping with error detection, and reducing wasted effort and resources. In the case of psychology, the code used to present stimuli is a fundamental component of many experiments. It is not known, however, the degree to which researchers are sharing this type of code. To estimate this, we conducted a survey of 400 psychology papers published between 2016 and 2021, identifying those working with the open-source tools Psychtoolbox and PsychoPy that openly share stimulus presentation code. For those that did, we established if it would run following download and also appraised the code's usability in terms of style and documentation. It was found that only 8.4% of papers shared stimulus code, compared to 17.9% sharing analysis code and 31.7% sharing data. Of shared code, 70% ran directly or after minor corrections. For code that did not run, the main error was missing dependencies (66.7%). The usability of the code was moderate, with low levels of code annotation and minimal documentation provided. These results suggest that stimulus presentation code sharing lags behind other forms of code and data sharing, potentially due to less emphasis on such code in open-science discussions and in journal policies. The results also highlight a need for improved documentation to maximize code utility.

SEMA3: A free smartphone platform for daily life surveys

Traditionally, behavioral, social, and health science researchers have relied on global/retrospective survey methods administered cross-sectionally (i.e., on a single occasion) or longitudinally (i.e., on several occasions separated by weeks, months, or years). More recently, social and health scientists have added daily life survey methods (also known as intensive longitudinal methods or ambulatory assessment) to their toolkit. These methods (e.g., daily diaries, experience sampling, ecological momentary assessment) involve dense repeated assessments in everyday settings. To facilitate research using daily life survey methods, we present SEMA3 ( http://www.SEMA3.com ), a platform for designing and administering intensive longitudinal daily life surveys via Android and iOS smartphones. SEMA3 fills an important gap by providing researchers with a free, intuitive, and flexible platform with basic and advanced functionality. In this article, we describe SEMA3's development history and system architecture, provide an overview of how to design a study using SEMA3 and outline its key features, and discuss the platform's limitations and propose directions for future development of SEMA3.

Age-related shifts in mental health determinants from a deprived area in the European Union: informing the national healthy aging program of Hungary

Mental disorders are among the leading causes of disability worldwide, disproportionately affecting older people. This study aims to assess the mental health of elderly individuals living in a deprived region of Hungary, and to identify and estimate the weight of different determinants of mental health across different age groups. A cross-sectional study was conducted with randomly selected samples of individuals (n = 860) aged 18 years and older in Northeast Hungary. The World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5), the single-item Life Satisfaction Scale, and the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) were used to measure mental health of the participants. Multiple linear regression analysis was performed to measure the association between sociodemographic and health-related variables and mental health. Overall, the mean WHO-5 score was 69.2 ± 18.1 and it showed a significant decrease by age (p < 0.001), with the lowest score observed in aged 75 years and above (p < 0.001). The mean life satisfaction score was 7.5 ± 1.9 and it showed a significant decreasing trend over the life course (p < 0.001). The highest level of psychological distress as assessed by GHQ-12 was observed in the group aged 75 years or older (11.5 ± 6.0, p < 0.001). Multiple linear regression indicated that self-reported financial status, social support, sense of control over their health, activity limitation and pain intensity were the most important determinants of mental health among older adults. Interventions to improve the mental health of older adults should focus on the positive impact of social support, the reduction of financial insecurity and the use of effective pain relief medications.

Examining the association of vaccine-related mindsets and post-vaccination antibody response, side effects, and affective outcomes

Background

Although vaccines are largely effective and safe, there is variability in post-vaccination experience regarding antibody response, side effects, and affective outcomes. Vaccine mindsets, specific beliefs about the vaccine, may be associated with post-vaccination experience. This is important since mindsets are malleable and may help decrease vaccine hesitancy and improve post-vaccination experience.

Methods

In a prospective study, we measured overall positive vaccine mindset and specific mindsets regarding efficacy, body response, and side effects. We tested whether vaccine mindsets before vaccination predicted neutralizing antibody response, side effects, vaccine-related stress, and affective outcomes (general stress, sadness, and happiness). Antibody response was assessed one month and six months after participants completed a SARS-CoV-2 vaccination series. Side effect experience and affective reactions were assessed daily on the vaccination day and the subsequent five days.

Results

There was no significant association between the aggregate vaccine mindset score and neutralizing antibody response; however, people with a more positive vaccine mindset reported fewer side effects, less same-day vaccine-related anxiety, and improved affective outcomes after vaccination. In secondary analyses, when specific mindsets were explored, the mindset that vaccine side effects are a sign of treatment efficacy predicted higher antibodies, but not side effects experience and vaccine-related anxiety. Vaccine efficacy and body-response mindsets predicted fewer side effects, vaccine-related anxiety, and improved affective outcomes after vaccination.

Conclusion

These findings underscore the potential of vaccine mindsets in enhancing the overall post-vaccination experience and, in some cases, increasing antibody response.

Socially isolated, but not lonely in lockdown: Exploring the role of reflective functioning as a protective factor in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany

INTRODUCTION

Loneliness is a pressing public mental health issue. So far, there has been a paucity of investigations focused on the individual differences modulating this subjective feeling in the face of difficult circumstances, e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, the present study aimed to investigate the role of mentalization; given that the construct comprises reflection abilities that might be particularly relevant to the pandemic's interpersonal challenges.

METHODS

A survey representative of the German population was conducted from May to June 2020 (N = 2503). We examined mentalization, operationalized as reflective functioning (RF) and measured using the Mentalization Questionnaire (MZQ), both as a protective factor against loneliness on its own and as a moderator of the association of social isolation with loneliness.

RESULTS

Of the overall sample, 822 (32.8 %) individuals reported social isolation. Worse RF was moderately associated with higher levels of loneliness (r = 0.433, p < .001). A linear regression model (controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and general personality pathology) confirmed this positive association, but also indicated an interaction effect of RF and social isolation in the statistical prediction of loneliness. Stratified models showed that RF was a comparatively weaker statistical predictor of loneliness among the socially isolated.

DISCUSSION

This representative population study expanded our knowledge about the factors shaping loneliness in the population. RF emerged as a potentially modifiable protective influence. Further research needs to clarify the mechanisms through which it mitigates loneliness.

LIMITATIONS

The cross-sectional design does not give insight into the temporal association of RF and loneliness.

Decoding the essence of two-character Chinese words: Unveiling valence, arousal, concreteness, familiarity, and imageability through word norming

Investigation of affective and semantic dimensions of words is essential for studying word processing. In this study, we expanded Tse et al.'s (Behav Res Methods 49:1503-1519, 2017; Behav Res Methods 55:4382-4402, 2023) Chinese Lexicon Project by norming five word dimensions (valence, arousal, familiarity, concreteness, and imageability) for over 25,000 two-character Chinese words presented in traditional script. Through regression models that controlled for other variables, we examined the relationships among these dimensions. We included ambiguity, quantified by the standard deviation of the ratings of a given lexical variable across different raters, as separate variables (e.g., valence ambiguity) to explore their connections with other variables. The intensity-ambiguity relationships (i.e., between normed variables and their ambiguities, like valence with valence ambiguity) were also examined. In these analyses with a large pool of words and controlling for other lexical variables, we replicated the asymmetric U-shaped valence-arousal relationship, which was moderated by valence and arousal ambiguities. We also observed a curvilinear relationship between valence and familiarity and between valence and concreteness. Replicating Brainerd et al.'s (J Exp Psychol Gen 150:1476-1499, 2021; J Mem Lang 121:104286, 2021) quadratic intensity-ambiguity relationships, we found that the ambiguity of valence, arousal, concreteness, and imageability decreases as the value of these variables is extremely low or extremely high, although this was not generalized to familiarity. While concreteness and imageability were strongly correlated, they displayed different relationships with arousal, valence, familiarity, and valence ambiguity, suggesting their distinct conceptual nature. These findings further our understanding of the affective and semantic dimensions of two-character Chinese words. The normed values of all these variables can be accessed via https://osf.io/hwkv7 .

Many nonnormalities, one simulation: Do different data generation algorithms affect study results?

Monte Carlo simulation studies are among the primary scientific outputs contributed by methodologists, guiding application of various statistical tools in practice. Although methodological researchers routinely extend simulation study findings through follow-up work, few studies are ever replicated. Simulation studies are susceptible to factors that can contribute to replicability failures, however. This paper sought to conduct a meta-scientific study by replicating one highly cited simulation study (Curran et al., Psychological Methods, 1, 16-29, 1996) that investigated the robustness of normal theory maximum likelihood (ML)-based chi-square fit statistics under multivariate nonnormality. We further examined the generalizability of the original study findings across different nonnormal data generation algorithms. Our replication results were generally consistent with original findings, but we discerned several differences. Our generalizability results were more mixed. Only two results observed under the original data generation algorithm held completely across other algorithms examined. One of the most striking findings we observed was that results associated with the independent generator (IG) data generation algorithm vastly differed from other procedures examined and suggested that ML was robust to nonnormality for the particular factor model used in the simulation. Findings point to the reality that extant methodological recommendations may not be universally valid in contexts where multiple data generation algorithms exist for a given data characteristic. We recommend that researchers consider multiple approaches to generating a specific data or model characteristic (when more than one is available) to optimize the generalizability of simulation results.

Age-Related Variations of Genetic and Environmental Contributions to the Covariation of Fear, Distress and Externalizing Symptoms: A Twin Study in Childhood and Adolescence

The frequency with which Internalizing and Externalizing symptoms co-occur suggests that, behind both domains, there may be a common susceptibility represented by a general psychopathology factor. However, it's still unclear whether this common susceptibility is affected by age-related variations. Internalizing (i.e., Fear and Distress) and Externalizing symptoms were evaluated in 803 twin pairs from the population-based Italian Twin Registry. Model-fitting analysis was performed separately in the 6-14 and 15-18 age groups to estimate genetic and environmental contributions to the covariance among symptoms. For the 6-14 group, a multivariate Cholesky model best fitted the data, while, for the 15-18 group, the best fit was provided by a Common Pathway model in which nearly 50% of total variance of each trait was mediated by common genetic factors. Our findings support a common susceptibility behind Internalizing and Externalizing symptoms, mainly genetic in origin, that becomes more evident at the beginning of puberty.