Socio-Cultural Influences on Situated Cognition in Nature

Pattern breaking: a complex systems approach to psychedelic medicine

Recent research has demonstrated the potential of psychedelic therapy for mental health care. However, the psychological experience underlying its therapeutic effects remains poorly understood. This paper proposes a framework that suggests psychedelics act as destabilizers, both psychologically and neurophysiologically. Drawing on the 'entropic brain' hypothesis and the 'RElaxed Beliefs Under pSychedelics' model, this paper focuses on the richness of psychological experience. Through a complex systems theory perspective, we suggest that psychedelics destabilize fixed points or attractors, breaking reinforced patterns of thinking and behaving. Our approach explains how psychedelic-induced increases in brain entropy destabilize neurophysiological set points and lead to new conceptualizations of psychedelic psychotherapy. These insights have important implications for risk mitigation and treatment optimization in psychedelic medicine, both during the peak psychedelic experience and during the subacute period of potential recovery.

A longitudinal study of the effect of individual and socio-cultural factors on students’ creativity

This longitudinal study investigated how characteristics of individual and social relationships affect Korean students’ creativity development. Fifth graders (male: 3,623, female: 3,701) from 242 schools in Korea were followed annually from their 5th to 9th grades (indicating from the 5th elementary school grade to the 3rd middle school grade in the Korean school system). Exploratory factor analysis, internal consistency reliability (coefficient alpha), confirmatory factor analysis, and two-level growth model methods were performed. We investigated all nine constructs and their related items by checking metric and scalar invariance assumptions. When the measurement invariance assumptions were satisfied, we used the mean of items that constitute respective factors. We checked growth trajectories of creativity and tapped the possibility of the existence of subgroups based on the growth/change pattern using latent class growth modeling. The results showed that no subgroups existed. Thus, we constructed a two-level growth model to investigate the overall growth pattern of the students. Regarding level 1, we included time-varying variables such as peer attachment, self-regulation habits (self-management), parents’ academy-oriented involvement, parent affective support, individualized, interactive teaching methods, teachers’ academic pressure, and academic achievement. At level 2, we used gender and parenting style that was obtained at time point 1. The final combined model incorporating level 1 and 2 variables showed that students’ self-regulation had the most association with the student’s creativity followed by peer attachment, parents’ academic support, interaction with parents, interaction with teachers, academic pressure from teachers, and relationships with teachers. Methods for enhancing students’ creativity were discussed.

Real Workload-Situated Training in COVID-19 Prevention of General Practice Residents in China: A Situated Cognition Study

Objective: The participation of general practice (GP) residents in COVID-19 prevention and control tasks touched workload participation in public health and disease prevention and control and was also a rare, valuable training experience for the residents and research material for medical education. This experience contributed to the understanding of three key points: First, was the content of the COVID-19 prevention task suited to them, or did it overload them in the present? Second, their competence in the COVID-19 prevention task reflected whether the early medical school training was sufficient or not. Third, what can be drawn from this study to promote public health training in the future? This study aimed to explore these issues by conducting a real epidemic situated training (REST) program.

Methods: A situated cognition study was designed that included situational context design, legitimate peripheral participation, and the construction of a community of practice. The Task Cognitive Load Scale (NASA-TLX Scale) and self-developed questionnaires were adopted to conduct a questionnaire survey of resident doctors in a GP training program from West China Hospital of Sichuan University, and 183 questionnaires were collected. SPSS 23.0 statistical software was used for the statistical analysis of data.

Results: The NASA scale showed that the intensity of field epidemic prevention and control (training) was tolerable. In particular, there was statistical difference in the cognitive load intensity of training before and after the epidemic occurred at different time points (P < 0.05). This shows that they were early trained and well-prepared before sudden outbreak of the COVID-19. Before the outbreak of the epidemic, the public health knowledge and training received came from undergraduate education (83.16%), early residents program training (69.47%), online self-study (49.16%), and continuing education (20.53%).

Conclusion: Former medical school education and training at the regulatory training stage have a good effect and enable residents to master the skills required for epidemic prevention and control and to physically and mentally prepare for the task. After this stage, epidemic prevention and control training in real situations will make important contributions to the self-assessment and performance improvement of public health training.