Grounded cognition

Masked distress: The mediated effects of face masks on physical and emotional suffocation

This study explores the effects of bodily states on emotions based on embodied cognition theories of conceptual metaphor and feelings-as-information theory. Specifically, it investigates how physical suffocation induced by mask-wearing affects perceptions of emotional suffocation related to one's romantic relationship and financial situation. In this quantitative online experiment, we employed a convenience sampling method through a crowdsourcing platform. Adult participants (N = 180, 25 years or older and involved in a romantic relationship) were randomly assigned to three conditions: wearing COVID-19 masks properly, wearing masks on their chins, or not wearing masks. After completing a puzzle meant to prolong mask-wear, participants filled out digital questionnaires assessing their experiences of physical and psychological distress. The results supported our proposed mechanisms, revealing that increased feeling of physical suffocation while wearing masks properly, compared to the other conditions, was linked to heightened feelings of financial and romantic distress, supporting the conceptual metaphor account. This link was partially mediated by elevated state anxiety, aligning with the feelings-as-information theory. This study demonstrates how bodily experiences can impact emotional states, and highlights the complex interplay between everyday behaviours like mask-wearing and emotions.

Neural Representations of Concreteness and Concrete Concepts Are Specific to the Individual

Different people listening to the same story may converge upon a largely shared interpretation while still developing idiosyncratic experiences atop that shared foundation. What linguistic properties support this individualized experience of natural language? Here, we investigate how the "concrete-abstract" axis-the extent to which a word is grounded in sensory experience-relates to within- and across-subject variability in the neural representations of language. Leveraging a dataset of human participants of both sexes who each listened to four auditory stories while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrate that neural representations of "concreteness" are both reliable across stories and relatively unique to individuals, while neural representations of "abstractness" are variable both within individuals and across the population. Using natural language processing tools, we show that concrete words exhibit similar neural representations despite spanning larger distances within a high-dimensional semantic space, which potentially reflects an underlying representational signature of sensory experience-namely, imageability-shared by concrete words but absent from abstract words. Our findings situate the concrete-abstract axis as a core dimension that supports both shared and individualized representations of natural language.

How deep is your art: An experimental study on the limits of artistic understanding in a single-task, single-modality neural network

Computational modeling of artwork meaning is complex and difficult. This is because art interpretation is multidimensional and highly subjective. This paper experimentally investigated the degree to which a state-of-the-art Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN), a popular Machine Learning approach, can correctly distinguish modern conceptual art work into the galleries devised by art curators. Two hypotheses were proposed to state that the DCNN model uses Exhibited Properties for classification, like shape and color, but not Non-Exhibited Properties, such as historical context and artist intention. The two hypotheses were experimentally validated using a methodology designed for this purpose. VGG-11 DCNN pre-trained on ImageNet dataset and discriminatively fine-tuned was trained on handcrafted datasets designed from real-world conceptual photography galleries. Experimental results supported the two hypotheses showing that the DCNN model ignores Non-Exhibited Properties and uses only Exhibited Properties for artwork classification. This work points to current DCNN limitations, which should be addressed by future DNN models.

Space as a mental toolbox in the representation of meaning

The experience of meaning has been found to be mapped onto spatial proximity whereby coherent-in contrast to incoherent-elements in a set are mentally represented as closer together in physical space. In a series of four experiments, we show that spatial representation of coherence is malleable and can employ other meaningful concrete dimensions of space that are made salient. When given task instructions cueing verticality, participants represented coherence in the upper vertical location when making judgements about the logical validity of realistic (Experiments 1 and 4) and unrealistic syllogistic scenarios (Experiment 3). When the task instruction made the spatial proximity between the stimuli materials and the participant salient (subjective proximity), participants represented coherence as spatially close to themselves (Experiment 2). We also found that being accurate in judging the validity of syllogisms was associated with representing coherence in the upper visual field or close to oneself. Overall, our findings show that identifying semantic links between an abstract concept and a given spatial dimension involves using that dimension to create spatial metaphoric mappings of the concept.

Mental simulation of colour properties during language comprehension: influence of context and comprehension stages

Many studies have shown that mental simulation may occur during language comprehension. Supporting evidence is derived from the matching effects in the sentence-picture verification (SPV) task often used to assess mental simulations of object properties, such as size, orientation, and shape. However, mixed results have been obtained regarding object colour, with researchers reporting matching or mismatching effects. This study investigated the impact of colour information clarity within sentences on the process of mental simulation during language comprehension. Employing the SPV task and using novel objects, we examined whether there is a mental simulation of colour after excluding typical/atypical colour bias and how varying levels of colour information clarity in sentences influence the emergence of matching effects at different stages of comprehension. To address these issues, we conducted two experiments. In Experiment 1, the participants read normal sentences and subsequently engaged in picture verification with a novel object after a 500 ms delay. In Experiment 2, the participants encountered sentences containing both clear and unclear colour information and, after either a 0 ms or 1500 ms interval, completed picture verification tasks with a novel object. Null effects were found in the 500 ms condition for normal sentences and the 0 ms condition for unclear colour information sentences. A mismatching effect appeared in the 0 ms condition after clear colour information sentences, and a matching effect appeared in the 1500 ms condition for all sentences. The results indicated that after excluding colour bias, the participants still formed mental simulations of colour during language comprehension. Our results also indicated that ongoing colour simulation with time pressure impacted the participant responses. The participants ignored unclear colour information under time pressure, but without time pressure, they constructed simulations that were as detailed as possible, regardless of whether the implicit colour information in the sentence was clear.

Organization of conceptual tool knowledge following left and right brain lesions: Evidence from neuropsychological dissociations and multivariate disconnectome symptom mapping

The aim of this work was to better understand the organization of conceptual tool knowledge following stroke. We explored specifically the link between manipulation kinematics and manipulation hand posture; and the link between manipulation kinematics and function relations in left brain-damaged (n = 30) and right brain-damaged (n = 30) patients. We examined the performance of brain-damaged patients in conceptual tool tasks using neuropsychological dissociations and disconnectome symptom mapping. Our results suggest that manipulation kinematics is more impaired than function relations, following left or right brain lesions. We also observed that manipulation kinematics and manipulation hand posture are dissociable dimensions but are still highly interrelated, particularly in left brain-damaged patients. We also found that the corpus callosum and bilateral superior longitudinal fasciculus are involved in action and semantic tool knowledge following left brain lesions. Our results provide evidence that the right hemisphere contains conceptual tool representations. Further studies are needed to better understand the mechanisms supporting the cognitive recovery of conceptual tool knowledge. An emerging hypothesis is that the right hemisphere may support functional recovery through interhemispheric transfer following a left hemisphere stroke.

The sound of thought: Form matters-The prosody of inner speech

This paper offers a new perspective on inner speech based on the theoretical framework of embodiment, focusing on the embodiment of structure rather than content. We argue that inner speech is used to simulate the acoustic aspects of overt speech including prosody. Prosody refers to the rhythm, intonation, and stress of spoken language, which is closely related to structural aspects of phrases, sentences, and larger language contexts such as discourse and narrative. We propose that inner speech gives form and structure to thought, and that this form is a necessary component of mental life. Thus, our paper opens with a review of the varieties of inner speech, followed by evidence concerning the form of inner speech, and finally, we discuss the functionality of inner speech. We consider cognitive and socio-emotional functions in which inner speech is involved and posit that inner speech serves as a simulation that maintains form and that this form serves different aspects of thought - attention, memory, emotion and self- regulation, social conceptualization, and narrative of self. In concluding, we address future research asking how inner speech contributes to making mental processes accessible to conscious thought, and whether accessibility to consciousness is related to form and structure.

Electrophysiological signature of interoceptive attention: a spectral and source localization analysis

The ability to attend to and consciously process interoceptive signals is deemed critical for the development of minimal self, adaptive self-regulation and affective experience, and optimal expression of both instrumental and executive cognitive functions. Yet, notwithstanding the richness of theoretical proposals concerning inferential accounts of interoception, empirical evidence is still scarce. Building on such premises, this study was designed to investigate the electrophysiological signature of cognitive processes leading to aware coding of interoceptive signals via EEG source localization. Thirty-six healthy participants completed an interoceptive accuracy task, i.e., the Heartbeat Counting Task (HCT), while we collected task-related and resting state electrophysiological activity. eLORETA modelling and statistical nonparametric mapping were used to estimate intracortical current density and link such estimates to participants' performance at the task. Source analysis highlighted higher current density estimates for alpha frequencies during HCT with respect to rest, with the primary cortical generator in the right parahippocampal gyrus. Also, a set of medial cortical structures-primarily represented by the cingulate gyrus-showed significant relation between task-related changes in current density estimates for beta oscillations and HCT scores. Findings suggest the informativity of EEG task-related measures of neural activation when used to assess interoceptive skills, as well as of the potential of metrics and analysis based on source localization in the quest to improve our understanding of interoceptive accuracy and neurofunctional correlates of related active inferences.

Teachers' Gestures and How They Matter

How do teachers' gestures influence students' learning? This article reviews research investigating the role of gestures in communication, focusing on teachers' communication with their students, primarily in mathematics and science instruction. We first briefly consider gesture's role in communication more generally as a backdrop for considering teaching as a special context for communication. We then describe teachers' spontaneous gesturing in teaching contexts, and we consider how teachers' spontaneous gestures might influence students' learning. We then consider experimental studies that provide causal support for the effects of teachers' gestures on students' learning. We conclude by discussing future directions and implications for educational practice.

Listen to the beat: Behavioral and neurophysiological correlates of slow and fast heartbeat sounds

BACKGROUND

Listening to heartbeat sounds have been found to affect cardiac activity and behavior. However, less is known about the effects of these stimuli on brain activity and cognition. Alpha oscillations (8-13 Hz) are considered markers of cortical activation. Frontal alpha Asymmetry (FαA) reflects the valence attributed to the stimulus and the tendency to approach/avoid it.

AIM

This study investigates the effects of sounds mimicking heart pulsations at different rhythms on reaction times and neurophysiological activity.

METHOD

EEG data were collected during a resting-state condition and two Simple Reaction Time tasks (SRT), during which artificially generated heartbeat sounds at fast (120 bpm, FastBeat condition) or slow (60 bpm, SlowBeat condition) rhythms were administered. Alpha power was compared across the three conditions. Differences in the SRT and FαA values were examined between the FastBeat and SlowBeat conditions.

RESULTS

Compared to the resting-state condition, decreased alpha activity over bilateral frontocentral regions was observed in both tasks. The comparison between the FastBeat and the SlowBeat conditions revealed faster response times, a pattern of alpha suppression over right frontal regions, and lower FαA values in the former.

CONCLUSIONS

The similarity of alpha reductions elicited in the comparison between the resting-state and the two task conditions suggests that these patterns were ascribable to processes common to both conditions (SRT task, auditory stimulation). In contrast, the differences between the two conditions suggest that fast heartbeat sounds are perceived as more adverse and stressful stimuli, inducing cortical activation over regions associated with negative states and avoidant tendencies.

The links between experiential learning and 4E cognition

In this article, we explore the connections between two distinct approaches: experiential learning (EL) and 4E cognition. EL emphasizes the role of concrete experiences as the building blocks of learning, whereas 4E cognition views cognition as arising from the interactions that an individual has with their physical and social environment. Despite their divergent theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and interests, we argue that both frameworks share a common vision of cognition and that their integration could mutually enhance their respective fields. This article outlines the historical origins and underlying assumptions of both frameworks, highlighting the potential links that can be established between them. Specifically, we explore the significance of embodiment, embeddedness, extended cognition, and enactive processes in learning and cognition. To bridge these frameworks, we propose employing the concept of "concrete experience" as an active engagement of individuals with their physical and social surroundings. By encompassing the essential aspects assigned to concrete experiences in EL, as well as the embodiment, situatedness, extended cognition, and enactive features of 4E cognition, this notion serves as a unifying element. Ultimately, the article suggests that combining the insights from EL and 4E cognition can offer a richer, more holistic understanding of representation.

The role of action concepts in physical reasoning: insights from late childhood

A fundamental component of human cognition is the ability to intuitively reason about behaviours of objects and systems in the physical world without resorting to explicit scientific knowledge. This skill was traditionally considered a symbolic process. However, in the last decades, there has been a shift towards ideas of embodiment, suggesting that accessing physical knowledge and predicting physical outcomes is grounded in bodily interactions with the environment. Infants and children, who learn mainly through their embodied experiences, serve as a model to probe the link between reasoning and physical concepts. Here, we tested school-aged children (5- to 15-year-olds) in online reasoning games that involve different physical action concepts such as supporting, launching and clearing. We assessed changes in children's performance and strategies over development and their relationships with the different action concepts. Children reasoned more accurately in problems that involved supporting actions compared to launching or clearing actions. Moreover, when children failed, they were more strategic in subsequent attempts when problems involved support rather than launching or clearing. Children improved with age, but improvements differed across action concepts. Our findings suggest that accessing physical knowledge and predicting physical events are affected by action concepts, and those effects change over development. This article is part of the theme issue 'Minds in movement: embodied cognition in the age of artificial intelligence'.

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'.

Embodying anticipated affect enhances proactive behavior in 5-year-old children

Imagining anticipated affects can foster future-oriented behavior in adults. However, children often still have difficulties in vividly imagining how they will feel in a specific episode (affective episodic future thinking [EFT]). We investigated whether enacting anticipated affects helps children to imagine how they will feel and whether this enhances proactive behavior in turn. A total of 90 5-year-old children were randomly assigned to one of three groups. In the embodiment group, children were instructed to imagine and physically enact how positive and negative they would feel in an upcoming performance test. Children in the EFT-only group underwent a similar procedure but did not enact their future affect. In the control group, children were reminded of the upcoming test only without receiving a prompt to imagine the upcoming test. After the manipulation, children had the opportunity to play one of three games. One game was relevant for the test. Children's choice to play the relevant game in advance of the test served as an indicator for proactive behavior. Mechanisms (e.g., detailedness of the envisioned event) and moderators (theory of mind and neuroticism) of the link between embodied EFT and proactive behavior were explored. Children in the embodiment group chose the relevant game above chance level, but they did not choose the relevant game more often than children in the EFT-only group and the control group. Those results were independent of the assumed mediators and moderators.

A cross-cultural comparison of finger-based and symbolic number representations

The current study examined predictions from embodied cognition for effects of finger counting on number processing. Although finger counting is spontaneous and nearly universal, counting habits reflect learning and culture. European cultures use a sub-base-five system, requiring a full hand plus additional fingers to express numbers exceeding 5. Chinese culture requires only one hand to express such numbers. We investigated the differential impact of early-acquired finger-based number representations on adult symbolic number processing. In total, 53 European and 56 Chinese adults performed two versions of the magnitude classification task, where numbers were presented either as Arabic symbols or as finger configurations consistent with respective cultural finger-counting habits. Participants classified numbers as smaller/larger than 5 with horizontally aligned buttons. Finger-based size and distance effects were larger in Chinese compared with Europeans. These differences did not, however, induce reliably different symbol processing signatures. This dissociation challenges the idea that sensory and motor habits shape our conceptual representations and implies notation-specific processing patterns.

Context, transparency and culture in motor resonance phenomena: Causal evidence of the motor cortex

A connection between language and movement information in metaphorical and literal expressions activates the motor system. Despite numerous studies exploring distinctions between idioms and metaphors, a notable research gap remains in the specific effect of idioms with different transparency levels concerning motor resonance. Our primary focus was analysing the functional role of the primary motor cortex (M1) in processing hand motor verbs both in literal expressions and in two idiomatic contexts, i.e., opaque and transparent idioms. Additionally, we explored a potential language and cultural effect by comparing Turkish and Spanish speakers. An overt priming task with self-paced reading was used to judge the relatedness of a primer and a target sentence. We implemented a repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) protocol using continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) compared to sham stimulation over the M1 in both Turkish and Spanish native speakers prior to the experimental task. Our findings reveal that the performance of Turkish and Spanish participants in processing hand motor actions was facilitated after the application of cTBS over the left M1. Moreover, brain stimulation specifically facilitated the processing of only transparent-but not opaque-idioms in both Spanish and Turkish participants. Our study reports distinct motor resonance results between different types of idioms with a parallel cross-cultural effect.

Body-object interaction ratings for 3600 French nouns

Body-object interaction (BOI) measures the ease with which the human body can interact with the concept represented by a word. This research focuses on two main objectives: first, to establish French norms for the psycholinguistic variable BOI, and second, to investigate the contribution of BOI to language processing in French. We collected BOI ratings for 3600 French nouns from participants through an online platform. The inter- and intrastudy reliability of these new ratings indicate that the ratings are robust. We then aimed to determine the role of BOI in word recognition. A hierarchical regression analysis was conducted using lexical decision reaction times (RTs) as the dependent variable. BOI was found to be a significant predictor of lexical decision latencies, beyond the contribution of word length, frequency, orthographic distinctiveness, and imageability. Contrary to previous findings in English, higher BOI values were associated with longer RTs in French, indicating an inhibitory effect of BOI on French word processing. Methodological differences may account for this divergent result. Taken together, the results of this study show the independent contribution of BOI to word recognition in French. This supports the notion that sensorimotor information is a crucial component of language processing. By providing a reliable and sizable BOI database for French nouns, we offer a valuable resource for psycholinguistic and language processing research. This research underscores the complex relationship between language, cognition, and sensorimotor experiences, advancing our comprehension of language processing mechanisms.

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.

Semantic-to-autobiographical memory priming: the role of stimulus processing

It is now well established that semantic processing can cause the activation of memories in the autobiographical memory system. Studies have shown that semantic processing of words, sounds, objects, or pictures primes autobiographical memories on voluntary and involuntary autobiographical memory tasks (the Crovitz cue-word task and the vigilance task). Known as semantic-to-autobiographical memory priming, our goal in the current study was to demonstrate that this form of priming occurs under different forms of processing (i.e., shallow versus deep), and that some forms of processing (e.g., visual mental imagery) may enhance priming in this domain. In Experiment 1, equivalent semantic-to-autobiographical priming was obtained on the vigilance task following shallow (e-counting) and deep (meaning judgements) word processing. In Experiment 2, word meaning judgements were compared to visual imagery of word meanings, and visual imagery led to more semantic-to-autobiographical priming on the vigilance task than meaning judgements. The results of these experiments support the idea that semantic-to-autobiographical priming occurs under a wide range of processing conditions, supporting a ubiquity claim, with some conditions producing more priming than others, and they further support the idea that this form of may play an important role in the production of involuntary memories in everyday life.

Grasping the Concept of an Object at a Glance: Category Information Accessed by Brief Dichoptic Presentation

What type of conceptual information about an object do we get at a brief glance? In two experiments, we investigated the nature of conceptual tokening-the moment at which conceptual information about an object is accessed. Using a masked picture-word congruency task with dichoptic presentations at "brief" (50-60 ms) and "long" (190-200 ms) durations, participants judged the relation between a picture (e.g., a banana) and a word representing one of four property types about the object: superordinate (fruit), basic level (banana), a high-salient (yellow), or low-salient feature (peel). In Experiment 1, stimuli were presented in black-and-white; in Experiment 2, they were presented in red and blue, with participants wearing red-blue anaglyph glasses. This manipulation allowed for the independent projection of stimuli to the left- and right-hemisphere visual areas, aiming to probe the early effects of these projections in conceptual tokening. Results showed that superordinate and basic-level properties elicited faster and more accurate responses than high- and low-salient features at both presentation times. This advantage persisted even when the objects were divided into categories (e.g., animals, vegetables, vehicles, tools), and when objects contained high-salient visual features. However, contrasts between categories show that animals, fruits, and vegetables tend to be categorized at the superordinate level, while vehicles tend to be categorized at the basic level. Also, for a restricted class of objects, high-salient features representing diagnostic color information (yellow for the picture of a banana) facilitated congruency judgments to the same extent as that of superordinate and basic-level labels. We suggest that early access to object concepts yields superordinate and basic-level information, with features only yielding effects at a later stage of processing, unless they represent diagnostic color information. We discuss these results advancing a unified theory of conceptual representation, integrating key postulates of atomism and feature-based theories.

Effect of egocentric and allocentric reference frames on spatial-numerical associations

From an embodied view of cognition, sensorimotor mechanisms are strongly involved in abstract processing, such as Arabic number meanings. For example, spatial cognition can influence number processing. These spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) have been deeply explored since the seminal SNAs of response code (SNARC) effect (i.e., faster left/right sided responses to small/large magnitude numbers, respectively). Although these SNAs along the transverse plane (left-to-right axis) have been extensively studied in cognitive sciences, no systematic assessment of other planes of the tridimensional space has been afforded. Moreover, there is no evidence of how SNAs organise themselves throughout the changes in spatial body-reference frames (egocentric and allocentric). Hence, this study aimed to explore how SNAs organise themselves along the transverse and sagittal planes when egocentric and allocentric changes are processed during body displacements in the environment. In the first experiment, the results revealed that, when the participants used an egocentric reference, SNAs were observed only along the sagittal plane. In a second experiment that used an allocentric reference, the reversed pattern of results was observed: SNAs were present only along the transverse plane of the body. Overall, these findings suggest that, depending on the spatial reference frames of the body, SNAs are strongly flexible.

Effect of gender matching and attentional focus on the link between action observation and action verb processing

Several studies have demonstrated the existence of a link between action observation (AO) and language. However, the optimizing parameters for this link have not been explored until now. To answer this question, the present study proposed two experiments for assessing the role of motor repertory and attentional focus. Sixty participants performed a priming task in which they had to decide if a verb was or was not an action verb after they saw a point-light display (PLD) representing an action. Only one difference distinguished the experiments. In experiment one, the PLD was either in accordance or not with the gender kinematics of the observer, whereas in the second experiment, the PLD either focused on or was unfocused on the main limbs implied in the action. The results show that motor repertory affects the link between action observation and action verb processing, whereas attentional focus does not. Implications of these results are highlighted in the discussion, notably to better understand the mechanisms that explain the link between action observation and action verb processing.

The place of the social in psychiatry: from structural determinants to the ecology of mind

PURPOSE

Social psychiatry considers the ways in which mental disorders are shaped by particular social environments. This paper outlines a cultural-ecosocial approach that emphasizes the ways in which cultural meaning and practices mediate the effects of the social determinants of mental health on the mechanisms of illness, disorder, and disease.

METHODS

Selective review of literature and conceptual synthesis.

RESULTS

"The social" in psychiatry stands for the structures and dynamics of groups of people interacting on multiple scales from the intimate sphere of couple and family to neighbourhoods, communities, societies, nations, and transnational or global networks. These interactions create social contexts, niches, forms of belonging, identities, institutions, and larger systems that influence the causes, expression, course, and outcome of mental disorders. Characterizing these systems requires theory that considers the ways in which social systems constitute dynamical systems that configure material, energetic, and informational flows that give rise to human experience. Unpacking the health consequences of these local and extended systems requires an interdisciplinary approach that considers: (1) the social psychological, psychophysiological, and sociophysiological processes that mediate the impact of the environment on body, mind, and person; (2) the interactional dynamics of social systems that give rise to structural adversity and inequity as well as resilience; and (3) the recursive effects of self-understanding, agency and subjectivity.

CONCLUSIONS

In the cultural-ecosocial view, "the social" is shorthand for interactional processes that constitute material and symbolic structures that provide cultural affordances, constraints, and challenges as well as resources for healing, recovery, and adaptation.

Exploring Adaptive Virtual Reality Systems Used in Interventions for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Systematic Review

BACKGROUND

Adaptive systems serve to personalize interventions or training based on the user's needs and performance. The adaptation techniques rely on an underlying engine responsible for processing incoming data and generating tailored responses. Adaptive virtual reality (VR) systems have proven to be efficient in data monitoring and manipulation, as well as in their ability to transfer learning outcomes to the real world. In recent years, there has been significant interest in applying these systems to improve deficits associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This is driven by the heterogeneity of symptoms among the population affected, highlighting the need for early customized interventions that target each individual's specific symptom configuration.

OBJECTIVE

Recognizing these technology-driven therapeutic tools as efficient solutions, this systematic review aims to explore the application of adaptive VR systems in interventions for young individuals with ASD.

METHODS

An extensive search was conducted across 3 different databases-PubMed Central, Scopus, and Web of Science-to identify relevant studies from approximately the past decade. Each author independently screened the included studies to assess the risk of bias. Studies satisfying the following inclusion criteria were selected: (1) the experimental tasks were delivered via a VR system, (2) system adaptation was automated, (3) the VR system was designed for intervention or training of ASD symptoms, (4) participants' ages ranged from 6 to 19 years, (5) the sample included at least 1 group with ASD, and (6) the adaptation strategy was thoroughly explained. Relevant information extracted from the studies included the sample size and mean age, the study's objectives, the skill trained, the implemented device, the adaptive strategy used, the engine techniques, and the signal used to adapt the systems.

RESULTS

Overall, a total of 10 articles were included, involving 129 participants, 76% of whom had ASD. The studies included level switching (7/10, 70%), adaptive feedback strategies (9/10, 90%), and weighing the choice between a machine learning (ML) adaptive engine (3/10, 30%) and a non-ML adaptive engine (8/10, 80%). Adaptation signals ranged from explicit behavioral indicators (6/10, 60%), such as task performance, to implicit biosignals, such as motor movements, eye gaze, speech, and peripheral physiological responses (7/10, 70%).

CONCLUSIONS

The findings reveal promising trends in the field, suggesting that automated VR systems leveraging real-time progression level switching and verbal feedback driven by non-ML techniques using explicit or, better yet, implicit signal processing have the potential to enhance interventions for young individuals with ASD. The limitations discussed mainly stem from the fact that no technological or automated tools were used to handle data, potentially introducing bias due to human error.

Positive and negative touch differentially modulate metacognitive memory judgements for emotional stimuli

Touch plays a crucial role in providing humans with information from the external environment and can be perceived by humans as positively or negatively valenced. It is well documented that touch can differentially influence social functions, but very little is known about how touch can modulate (meta)cognition. Utilizing a within-subject design, participants were exposed to (a) positive, (b) negative, and (c) no touch, alongside encoding of emotionally valenced (positive and negative) images. After a 20-minute delay, participants completed a Yes/No recognition task to investigate how touch influenced memory-related decision components (e.g. criterion, confidence). Results showed that, compared to the control condition, both positive and negative touch were associated with overall lower confidence ratings, a less liberal response bias and slower response times. Interestingly, for correct recognitions, only negative touch (vs. no touch) led to inappropriately lower confidence and slower response times while both confidence and response time remained unaltered in positive touch. Our findings provide the first evidence that positive and negative touch differentially interact with metacognitive memory-related decisions. Altered metacognitive judgements after being touched could have significant consequences in applied settings, such as situations of eyewitness testimony.

Validation of the French version of the Body Awareness Questionnaire: toward a way to assess alexisomia

Background

Awareness of one's own states is a particularly important part of cognition and emotion regulation. Recently, the concept of alexisomia has been used to refer to lack of awareness and expression of somatic sensations. Developing self-reported questionnaires to evaluate alexisomia represents a challenge for clinical psychology and medicine. In this context, we suggested to adapt the Body Awareness Questionnaire in French to measure alexisomia and its relation to alexithymia. In fact, we carried out a backtranslation and studied the validity of the construct in relation to proximal constructs around emotional awareness.

Methods

For this study, 610 university students completed questionnaires measuring a three dimensions alexithymia concept [with The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20)] or the five dimensions alexithymia concept [with The Bermond-Vorts Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ-B)] and alexisomia (with the BAQ).

Results

Confirmatory factor analyses showed that the BAQ can be envisaged through 4 factors as well as a unidimensional model to refer to alexisomia. We also found that body awareness was negatively related to scores of alexithymia.

Conclusion

Results are discussed in light of the construct of alexisomia and its clinical implications in somatic as well as mental disorders. We suggest that the BAQ, which assesses interoception, can contribute, in part, to the assessment of alexisomia. Like alexithymia, this is a key concept to take into consideration when designing treatment and prevention programs.

Embodiment and agency in a digital world

We are agents and our agency is often best characterized in terms of embodied cognition. However, this is not to deny that there are cognitively significant ways of agentive engagement with the world that may be described without referring to our embodiment. In this paper we shall focus on the interplay between embodied agency and non-embodied agency or agency that may not be straightforwardly described in terms of embodied cognition in the context of interaction with digital technologies. In recent years a lot of our daily lives are coupled to the world via digital technologies. Yet how to understand the nature and evolution of our agency in the context of interacting with daily digital technologies is an open question. We propose to address this question by focusing on whether the steady development of digital technologies in our daily lives challenges the view that embodied agency is the de facto way of robustly engaging with the world and if embodied cognition is challenged then what is taking its place in scenarios where it was once dominant.

PHONETIC UNDERPINNINGS OF SOUND SYMBOLISM ACROSS MULTIPLE DOMAINS OF MEANING

Sound symbolism occurs when the sound of a word alone can convey its meaning, e.g. 'balloon' and 'spike' sound rounded and pointed, respectively. Sound-symbolic correspondences are widespread in natural languages, but it is unclear how they are instantiated across different domains of meaning. Here, participants rated auditory pseudowords on opposing scales of seven different sound-symbolic domains: shape (rounded-pointed), texture (hard-soft), weight (light-heavy), size (small-big), brightness (bright-dark), arousal (calming-exciting), and valence (good-bad). Ratings showed cross-domain relationships, some mirroring those between corresponding physical domains, e.g. size and weight ratings were associated, reflecting a physical size-weight relationship, while others involved metaphorical mappings, e.g., bright/dark mapped onto good/bad, respectively. The phonetic features of the pseudowords formed unique sets with characteristic feature weightings for each domain and tended to follow the cross-domain ratings relationships. These results suggest that sound-symbolic correspondences rely on domain-specific patterns of phonetic features, with cross-domain correspondences reflecting physical or metaphorical relationships.

Writing direction influences the spatial representations of past- and future-tense forms: Evidence from eye tracking

The present study tests the hypothesis that the directionality of reading habits (left-to-right or right-to-left) impacts individuals' representation of nonspatial events. Using the blank screen paradigm, we examine whether eye movements reflect culture-specific spatial biases in processing temporal information, specifically, grammatical tense in Russian and Hebrew. Sixty-two native speakers of Russian (a language with a left-to-right reading and writing system) and 62 native speakers of Hebrew (a language with a right-to-left reading and writing system) listened to verbs in the past or future tense while their spontaneous gaze positions were recorded. Following the verb, a visual spatial probe appeared in one of the five locations of the screen, and participants responded manually to indicate its position. While participants' response latencies to the spatial probe revealed no significant effects, their gaze positions along the horizontal axis for past- and future-tensed verbs aligned with the reading and writing direction in their language. These results provide novel evidence that eye movements during auditory processing of grammatical tense are influenced by culturally specific reading and writing conventions, shifting leftward or rightward on the horizontal plane depending on the stimuli's time reference (past or future) and the participants' language (Russian or Hebrew). This spatial bias indicates a common underlying cognitive mechanism that uses spatial dimensions to represent temporal constructs.

Transmission Versus Truth, Imitation Versus Innovation: What Children Can Do That Large Language and Language-and-Vision Models Cannot (Yet)

Much discussion about large language models and language-and-vision models has focused on whether these models are intelligent agents. We present an alternative perspective. First, we argue that these artificial intelligence (AI) models are cultural technologies that enhance cultural transmission and are efficient and powerful imitation engines. Second, we explore what AI models can tell us about imitation and innovation by testing whether they can be used to discover new tools and novel causal structures and contrasting their responses with those of human children. Our work serves as a first step in determining which particular representations and competences, as well as which kinds of knowledge or skill, can be derived from particular learning techniques and data. In particular, we explore which kinds of cognitive capacities can be enabled by statistical analysis of large-scale linguistic data. Critically, our findings suggest that machines may need more than large-scale language and image data to allow the kinds of innovation that a small child can produce.

Spontaneous grip force fluctuations mirror semantic numerical magnitude processing: Larger numbers elicit larger forces

This study investigated the relationship between semantic numerical magnitudes and motor magnitudes. We asked whether the processing of numbers can affect motor behavior such as the size of numbers affecting the size of motor actions. For this, we recorded continuous grip force fluctuations from 43 healthy adults during a symbolic magnitude comparison task. We found that numbers induced spontaneous grip force fluctuations during number processing. Smaller numbers induced lower grip forces, whereas larger numbers induced larger forces. This result constitutes strong behavioral support for a generalized magnitude processing by continuously quantifying the response that challenges binary accounts of cross-domain interactions.

A new ontology for numerical cognition: Integrating evolutionary, embodied, and data informatics approaches

Numerical cognition is a field that investigates the sociocultural, developmental, cognitive, and biological aspects of mathematical abilities. Recent findings in cognitive neuroscience suggest that cognitive skills are facilitated by distributed, transient, and dynamic networks in the brain, rather than isolated functional modules. Further, research on the bodily and evolutionary bases of cognition reveals that our cognitive skills harness capacities originally evolved for action and that cognition is best understood in conjunction with perceptuomotor capacities. Despite these insights, neural models of numerical cognition struggle to capture the relation between mathematical skills and perceptuomotor systems. One front to addressing this issue is to identify building block sensorimotor processes (BBPs) in the brain that support numerical skills and develop a new ontology connecting the sensorimotor system with mathematical cognition. BBPs here are identified as sensorimotor functions, associated with distributed networks in the brain, and are consistently identified as supporting different cognitive abilities. BBPs can be identified with new approaches to neuroimaging; by examining an array of sensorimotor and cognitive tasks in experimental designs, employing data-driven informatics approaches to identify sensorimotor networks supporting cognitive processes, and interpreting the results considering the evolutionary and bodily foundations of mathematical abilities. New empirical insights on the BBPs can eventually lead to a revamped embodied cognitive ontology in numerical cognition. Among other mathematical skills, numerical magnitude processing and its sensorimotor origins are discussed to substantiate the arguments presented. Additionally, an fMRI study design is provided to illustrate the application of the arguments presented in empirical research.

The value of action observation in speech and language rehabilitation: A systematic review and meta-analysis

In this systematic review and meta-analysis, our aim was to identify and quantify evidence of action observation therapy (AOT) efficacy in managing language deficits in patients with aphasia. This study conducts two quantitative investigations: firstly, comparing the effects of AOT and conventional control therapy in different groups, and secondly, analyzing within AOT group to explore potential moderators of AOT effectiveness. Four databases were searched up until August 2023 to find studies utilizing AOT for aphasia management. Seven eligible studies were included. The main analyses revealed moderate evidence of improvement in naming tasks, with a large effect size (Hedge's g = 1.27, 95 %CI [0.44; 2.09], p = 0.003, I2 < 25) following AOT compared to control interventions. Furthermore, to be efficient, AOT should focus on human actions (e.g., running, jumping) rather than non-human actions (e.g., meowing or barking). These findings indicate that AOT is a promising alternative complementary approach for patients with aphasia. Future research should confirm the potential benefits of AOT with more randomized controlled studies and aim to clarify the minimal dose necessary and the possibility of transfer to various language tasks.

Language with vision: A study on grounded word and sentence embeddings

Grounding language in vision is an active field of research seeking to construct cognitively plausible word and sentence representations by incorporating perceptual knowledge from vision into text-based representations. Despite many attempts at language grounding, achieving an optimal equilibrium between textual representations of the language and our embodied experiences remains an open field. Some common concerns are the following. Is visual grounding advantageous for abstract words, or is its effectiveness restricted to concrete words? What is the optimal way of bridging the gap between text and vision? To what extent is perceptual knowledge from images advantageous for acquiring high-quality embeddings? Leveraging the current advances in machine learning and natural language processing, the present study addresses these questions by proposing a simple yet very effective computational grounding model for pre-trained word embeddings. Our model effectively balances the interplay between language and vision by aligning textual embeddings with visual information while simultaneously preserving the distributional statistics that characterize word usage in text corpora. By applying a learned alignment, we are able to indirectly ground unseen words including abstract words. A series of evaluations on a range of behavioral datasets shows that visual grounding is beneficial not only for concrete words but also for abstract words, lending support to the indirect theory of abstract concepts. Moreover, our approach offers advantages for contextualized embeddings, such as those generated by BERT (Devlin et al, 2018), but only when trained on corpora of modest, cognitively plausible sizes. Code and grounded embeddings for English are available at ( https://github.com/Hazel1994/Visually_Grounded_Word_Embeddings_2 ).

Effects of physically active maths lessons on children's maths performance and maths-related affective factors: Multi-arm cluster randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND

Physical activity (PA) may benefit academic performance, but it is unclear what kind of classroom-based PA is optimal for learning.

AIM

We studied the effects of physically active maths lessons on children's maths performance and maths-related effects, and whether gender and previous mathematical or motor skills modify these effects.

SAMPLE

A total of 22 volunteered teachers and their pupils with signed consent (N = 397, mean age: 9.3 years, 51% females) participated in a 5-month, teacher-led, multi-arm, cluster-randomized controlled trial.

METHODS

The intervention included a PAL group (20 min of physically active learning in each 45-min lesson), a breaks group (two 5-min PA breaks in each 45-min lesson) and a control group (traditional teaching). Maths performance was assessed with a tailored curriculum-based test. Maths-related enjoyment, self-perceptions and anxiety were measured with a self-reported questionnaire. The individual-level intervention effects were tested via covariate-adjusted linear mixed-effect models with school classes serving as random effects.

RESULTS

Changes in maths performance or self-perceptions did not differ between the intervention groups. Maths anxiety in learning situations increased in the PAL group (effect .28, 95% CI = .01-.56); there was no change in the other groups. Subgroup analyses suggested that maths anxiety increased in the PAL group among children in the two lowest tertiles of motor skills. It decreased in the highest tertile. Enjoyment decreased in the breaks group among pupils in the lowest motor skill tertile.

CONCLUSIONS

Physically active maths lessons did not affect maths performance or self-perceptions but had divergent effects on maths anxiety and enjoyment, depending on motor skills.

Does the right hemisphere retain functional characteristics typical of the emotional adaptive system? An evolutionary approach to the problem of brain asymmetries

The right and left hemispheres host two complementary adaptive systems with a right-sided prevalence of automatic and unconscious processing modes, typical of the 'emotional system', and a left-sided prevalence of propositional and conscious processing modes typical of the 'cognitive system' The principal right hemispheric syndromes (and the functioning modes typical of this hemisphere) are, indeed, characterized by automatic and unconscious processing modalities. Thus, the unilateral neglect syndrome discloses a defective automatic (and spared intentional) spatial orienting of attention; face and voice recognition disorders are due to disruption of mechanisms that automatically generate familiarity feelings and anosognosia seems due to the unconscious loss of personal significance attributed by the patient to the pathological event. Since emotions were the only adaptive system existing before the development of language (which is provided of a strong capacity to develop and shape cognition), the persistence in the right hemisphere of mechanisms typical of the emotional system strongly supports an evolutionary model of brain laterality. (160 words).

Why concepts are (probably) vectors

For decades, cognitive scientists have debated what kind of representation might characterize human concepts. Whatever the format of the representation, it must allow for the computation of varied properties, including similarities, features, categories, definitions, and relations. It must also support the development of theories, ad hoc categories, and knowledge of procedures. Here, we discuss why vector-based representations provide a compelling account that can meet all these needs while being plausibly encoded into neural architectures. This view has become especially promising with recent advances in both large language models and vector symbolic architectures. These innovations show how vectors can handle many properties traditionally thought to be out of reach for neural models, including compositionality, definitions, structures, and symbolic computational processes.

Self-reported sensibility to bodily signals predicts individual differences in autobiographical memory: an exploratory study

Recent theoretical perspectives have advanced that autobiographical memory processes are supported by interoception, the perception of internal bodily sensations. Yet, this relationship remains largely underexplored. The present study addressed this critical gap in the literature by systematically investigating the association between self-reported Interoceptive Sensibility and various individual differences measures of autobiographical memory. In Study 1, using a correlational approach in a large sample of participants (N = 247), we identified significant correlations between standardised measures of interoception and the general experience of autobiographical memory and the frequency of involuntary mental time travel. These associations remained significant even after controlling for potential confounding factors in terms of age, gender, and trait affectivity, underscoring their robustness. Study 2 replicated and extended the associations identified in Study 1 in another large participant sample (N = 257), further validating them by accounting for the potential confounding effect of well-being. Our findings demonstrate that individuals' ability to perceive and understand bodily signals robustly relates to how they experience autobiographical memories. By adopting an exploratory approach based on individual differences, our results provide novel and concrete insights into the association between interoception and autobiographical memory, providing a strong foundation for future investigations into the causal mechanisms connecting these two constructs.

The affective grounds of the mind. The Affective Pertinentization (APER) model

The paper presents the Affective Pertinentization model (APER), a theory of the affect and its role it plays in meaning-making. APER views the affect as the basic form of making sense of reality. It consists of a global, bipolar pattern of neurophysiological activity through which the organism maps the instant-by-instant variation of its environment. Such a pattern of neuropsychological activity is constituted by a plurality of bipolar affective dimensions, each of which maps a component of the environmental variability. The affect has a pluri-componential structure defining a multidimensional affective landscape that foregrounds (i.e., makes pertinent) a certain pattern of facets of the environment (e.g., its pleasantness/unpleasantness) relevant to survival, while backgrounding the others. Doing so, the affect grounds the following cognitive processes. Accordingly, meaning-making can be modeled as a function of the dimensionality of the affective landscape. The greater the dimensionality of the affective landscape, the more differentiated the system of meaning is. Following a brief review of current theories pertaining to the affect, the paper proceeds discussing the APER's core tenets - the multidimensional view of the affect, its semiotic function, and the concepts of Affective Landscape and Phase Space of Meaning. The paper then proceeds deepening the relationship between the APER model and other theories, highlighting how the APER succeeds in framing original conceptualizations of several challenging issues - the intertwinement between affect and sensory modalities, the manner in which the mind constitutes the content of the experience, the determinants of psychopathology, the intertwinement of mind and culture, and the spreading of affective forms of thinking and behaving in society. Finally, the unsolved issues and future developments of the model are briefly envisaged.

Impaired processing of conspecifics in Parkinson's disease

Experimental evidence indicates that the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) processes emotional/affective features crucial to elaborate knowledge about social groups and that knowledge of social concepts is stored in the anterior temporal lobe (ATL).We investigated whether knowledge about social groups is impaired in Parkinson's disease (PD), in which dysfunctional connectivity between IFG and ATL has been demonstrated.PD patients (N = 20) and healthy controls (HC, N = 16) were given a lexical decision task in a semantic priming paradigm: the prime-targets included 144 words and 144 pseudowords, each preceded by three types of prime ("animals," "things," "persons"). Out of these 288 prime-targets, forty-eight were congruent (same category) and 96 incongruent (different category). Out of 48 congruent prime-targets, 24 denoted social items and 24 nonsocial items. Thus, four types of trials were obtained: congruent social; congruent nonsocial; incongruent social; incongruent nonsocial.Congruent target-words were recognized better than incongruent target-words by all groups. The semantic priming effect was preserved in PD; however, accuracy was significantly lower in PD than in HC in social items. No difference emerged between the two groups in nonsocial items.Impaired processing of words denoting social groups in PD may be due to impairment in accessing the affective/emotional features that characterize conceptual knowledge of social groups, for the functional disconnection between the IFG and the ATL.

Simulated fire video collection for advancing understanding of human behavior in building fires

Introduction

The goal of the present research was to develop a video collection of simulated fires to investigate how people perceive growing building fires. In fire safety science, a critical factor to occupant responses to building fires is the pre-movement period, determined by how long it takes an individual to initiate taking protective action with an incipient fire. Key to studying the psychological processes that contribute to the duration of the pre-movement period is presenting human subjects with building fires. One approach used in previous research is to present videos of building fires to individuals via scenarios. The numerical simulations used to model fire dynamics can be used to render videos for these scenarios. However, such simulations have predominantly been used in fire protection engineering to design buildings and are relatively inaccessible to social scientists.

Method

The present study documents a collection of videos, based on numerical simulations, which can be used by researchers to study human behavior in fire. These videos display developing fires in different types of rooms, growing at different rates, different smoke thickness, among other characteristics. As part of a validation study, participants were presented with subsets of the video clips and were asked to rate the perceived risk posed by the simulated fire.

Results and discussion

We observed that ratings varied by the intensity and growth rate of the fires, smoke opacity, type of room, and where the viewpoint was located from the fire. These effects aligned with those observed in previous fire science research, providing evidence that the videos could elicit perceived risk using fire simulations. The present research indicates that future studies can utilize the video library of fire simulations to study human perceptions of developing building fires as situational factors are systematically manipulated.

The "good is up" metaphoric effects on recognition: True for source guessing but false for item memory

The "good is up" metaphor, which links valence and verticality was found to influence affective judgement and to direct attention, but its effects on memory remain unclear with contradictory research findings. To provide a more accurate assessment of memory components involved in recognition, such as item memory and source-guessing biases, a standard source monitoring paradigm was applied in this research. A series of three experiments provided a conceptual replication and extension of Experiment 2 by Crawford et al., (2014) and yielded a consistent result pattern suggesting that the "good is up" metaphor biases participants' guessing of source location. That is, when source memory failed, participants were more inclined to guess the "up" location versus "down" location for positive items (and vice versa for negative items). It did, however, not affect source memory or item memory for valenced stimuli learned from metaphor-congruent versus incongruent locations (i.e., no metaphor-(in)congruent effects in memory). We suggest that the "good is up" metaphor may affect cognitive processes in a more subtle way than originally suggested.

Kneel, stand, prostrate: The psychology of prayer postures in three world religions

Most people practice a religion, often multiple times daily. Among the most visible aspects of these practices are body postures, which according to embodiment theories, likely shape the psychological experience of religion. In a preregistered study, we test this idea among Christians, Muslims, and Hindus in the United States, Turkey, and India (N = 2,458). In a repeated-measures experimental design, participants imagined praying in various typical postures, then reported their affective experiences, perceived relationship with deity, and prayer content for each posture. Compared to downward and constrictive postures, expansive and upward postures led to more positive emotions, dominance, and praise-focused prayers, yet fewer introspective or intercessory prayers. Interestingly, these effects varied based on religious context (e.g., many Hindus found upward and expansive postures offensive, causing no positive affect). We further explored whether these effects varied based on posture familiarity, religiosity, interoceptive sensibility, and personality traits. This research provides unique data on embodied processes shaping affect and cognition in religious practices.

A qualitative analysis of Chinese higher education students' intentions and influencing factors in using ChatGPT: a grounded theory approach

The emergence of ChatGPT has significantly impacted the field of education. While much of the existing research has predominantly examined the theoretical implications of ChatGPT, there is a notable absence of empirical studies substantiating these claims. As pivotal stakeholders in education and primary users of ChatGPT, exploring the willingness and influencing factors of higher education students to use ChatGPT can offer valuable insights into the real-world needs of student users. This, in turn, can serve as a foundation for empowering education with intelligent technologies in the future. This study focuses specifically on the demographic of students in Chinese higher education who have utilized ChatGPT. Using semi-structured interviews and grounded theory methodology, we aim to comprehensively understand the extent to which students embrace new technologies. Our objective is to elucidate the behavioral inclinations and influencing factors of student users. The findings of this study will contribute practical insights for refining policy frameworks, expanding the dissemination of quality resources, optimizing and upgrading products for an enhanced user experience, and fostering higher-order thinking skills to adeptly navigate evolving technological landscapes. In conclusion, this research endeavors to bridge the gap between theoretical discussions and practical applications.

You can count on your fingers: Finger-based intervention improves first-graders' arithmetic learning

The question of whether finger use should be encouraged or discouraged in early mathematics instruction remains a topic of debate. Scientific evidence on this matter is scarce due to the limited number of systematic intervention studies. Accordingly, we conducted an intervention study in which first-graders (Mage = 6.48 years, SD = 0.35) completed a finger-based training (18 sessions of ∼ 30 min each) over the course of the first school year. The training was integrated into standard mathematics instruction in schools and compared with business-as-usual curriculum teaching. At the end of first grade and in a follow-up test 9 months later in second grade, children who received the finger training (n = 119) outperformed the control group (n = 123) in written addition and subtraction. No group differences were observed for number line estimation tasks. These results suggest that finger-based numerical strategies can enhance arithmetic learning, supporting the idea of an embodied representation of numbers, and challenge the prevailing skepticism about finger use in primary mathematics education.

Valence and concreteness in item recognition: Evidence against the affective embodiment account

The Affective Embodiment Account posits that sensorimotor interactions play an important role in learning and processing concrete words whereas experiences from emotional states play an important role in learning and processing abstract words. Because of this, there should be greater enhancement of valence for abstract than for concrete words and therefore there should be an interaction between valence and concreteness. Although this prediction has been observed in a number of tasks, very few studies have looked specifically at memory. Three experiments are reported that assess whether valence interacts with concreteness in recognition. In Experiment 1, recognition of concrete words was better than abstract, but there was no difference as a function of whether the words were positive or negative and there was no interaction. Experiment 2 compared positive and neutral words and Experiment 3 compared negative and neutral words; in both, there was a concreteness effect but no effect of valence and no interaction. These results replicate previous findings that when positive and negative words are equated more fully, valence has no effect on recognition, and also suggest a limit on the scope of the Affective Embodiment Account.

Sound symbolism in manual and vocal responses: phoneme-response interactions associated with grasping as well as vertical and size dimensions of keypresses

It has been shown that reading the vowel [i] and consonant [t] facilitates precision grip responses, while [ɑ] and [k] are associated with faster power grip responses. A similar effect has been observed when participants perform responses with small or large response keys. The present study investigated whether the vowels and consonants could produce different effects with the grip responses and keypresses when the speech units are read aloud (Experiment 1) or silently (Experiment 2). As a second objective, the study investigated whether the recently observed effect, in which the upper position of a visual stimulus is associated with faster vocalizations of the high vowel and the lower position is associated with the low vowel, can be observed in manual responses linking, for example, the [i] with responses of the upper key and [ɑ] with lower responses. Firstly, the study showed that when the consonants are overtly articulated, the interaction effect can be observed only with the grip responses, while the vowel production was shown to systematically influence small/large keypresses, as well as precision/power grip responses. Secondly, the vowel [i] and consonant [t] were associated with the upper responses, while [ɑ] and [k] were associated with the lower responses, particularly in the overt articulation task. The paper delves into the potential sound-symbolic implications of these phonetic elements, suggesting that their acoustic and articulatory characteristics might implicitly align them with specific response magnitudes, vertical positions, and grip types.

The role of body-object interaction in children's concept processing: insights from two Chinese communities

A rating of body-object interactions (BOIs) reflects the ease with which a human body can interact physically with a word's referent. Studies with adults have demonstrated a facilitating BOI effect in language tasks, with faster and more accurate responses for high BOI words (e.g., cup) than low BOI words (e.g., coal). A few studies have explored the BOI effect in children. However, these studies have all adopted adult-rated BOIs, which may differ from children's. Using child-rated BOIs, the present study investigated the BOI effect in Chinese children and its relationship with age, as well as whether there was a community difference in the BOI effect. Children (aged 7-8) from Mainland China (N = 100) and Hong Kong SAR (HK; N = 90) completed a lexical decision task used to measure the BOI effect. The children were asked to judge whether each item was a real Chinese word; each real word was assigned a child-rated BOI score. After controlling nonverbal intelligence, gender, working memory, and Chinese character reading, a significant BOI effect was observed at the response accuracy and speed levels. The accuracy and latency analyses illustrated a community difference; the BOI effect was smaller in the HK children. This study suggests that BOI measures may be sensitive to the ecological differences between tested communities. The findings support the need for further investigations into the BOI effect across Chinese communities, particularly those in Mainland China.

Encouraging online consumers into making better food choices: The power of nature exposure on healthy food choices

BACKGROUND

online environments can influence food desire and choices. We tested if online calming nature and stressful street environments can affect desire for healthy and unhealthy foods.

METHOD

we asked 238 participants (40 ± 14 yrs) to rate their desire (100 mm VAS) for 7 low calorie nutrient rich foods (Healthy) and 7 high calorie nutrient poor foods (Unhealthy), and perceived stress (state anxiety in STAI), before and after imagining themselves in a control, nature park, or busy street condition.

RESULTS

participants who imagined themselves being in a nature park had a significant higher desire for Healthy foods, than participants in the busy street condition (p < 0.05). Participants in the busy street condition decreased their desire for Healthy foods after they imagined themselves in a busy street (p < 0.05)). However, perceived stress did not impact the association between condition and desire for low calorie foods nor high calorie foods.

CONCLUSION

this study suggests that online environments can have an impact on healthy food desires, which could be of importance for the increased number of food choices which are made in online environments.

The label-feedback effect is influenced by target category in visual search

The label-feedback hypothesis states that language can modulate visual processing. In particular, hearing or reading aloud target names (labels) speeds up performance in visual search tasks by facilitating target detection and such advantage is often measured against a condition where the target name is shown visually (i.e. via the same modality as the search task). The current study conceptually complements and expands previous investigations. The effect of a multimodal label presentation (i.e., an audio+visual, AV, priming label) in a visual search task is compared to that of a multimodal (i.e. white noise+visual, NV, label) and two unimodal (i.e. audio, A, label or visual, V, label) control conditions. The name of a category (i.e. a label at the superordinate level) is used as a cue, instead of the more commonly used target name (a basic level label), with targets belonging to one of three categories: garments, improper weapons, and proper weapons. These categories vary for their structure, improper weapons being an ad hoc category (i.e. context-dependent), unlike proper weapons and garments. The preregistered analysis shows an overall facilitation of visual search performance in the AV condition compared to the NV condition, confirming that the label-feedback effect may not be explained away by the effects of multimodal stimulation only and that it extends to superordinate labels. Moreover, exploratory analyses show that such facilitation is driven by the garments and proper weapons categories, rather than improper weapons. Thus, the superordinate label-feedback effect is modulated by the structural properties of a category. These findings are consistent with the idea that the AV condition prompts an "up-regulation" of the label, a requirement for enhancing the label's beneficial effects, but not when the label refers to an ad hoc category. They also highlight the peculiar status of the category of improper weapons and set it apart from that of proper weapons.