Why Do You Trust News? The Event-Related Potential Evidence of Media Channel and News Type

Health information, what do people search and where? a cross-sectional online survey study in the adult Swiss population

Health promotion and disease prevention are crucial for improving public health and alleviating the burden of illness in the population. This study aimed to investigate, the sources of health information most used and trusted, and the health topics most searched, by means of a nationwide cross-sectional online survey of a representative sample of the adult Swiss general population. Overall, complete surveys of 2020 participants were analysed (mean age 47 years old, 51% male, and matching the Swiss population regarding age, sex, and language-speaking region). Sources' use were calculated with descriptive statistics per sex and age groups. The most frequently used sources were general practitioners (min: 46% to max: 73%), government websites (40% to 55%), family and friends (37% to 63%), pharmacy (33% to 46%), and television (21% to 57%). The most trusted sources were specialised physicians (94% to 98%) general practitioners (90% to 96%), and pharmacies (81% to 89%). Based on multivariable controlled regression, age (per five years increase) was associated with increased odds of using television (Odds Ratio (OR): 1.19, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.12 to 1.21), print media (OR: 1.15, 95% CI: 1.10 to 1.19), radio (OR: 1.15, 95%CI: 1.10 to 1.20), and the general practitioner (OR: 1.11, 95% CI: 1.07 to 1.15), and decreased odds of using news websites (OR: 0.94, 95% CI:0.9 to 0.98), family and friends (OR: 0.93, 95% CI: 0.9 to 0.98), foreign authorities websites (OR: 0.91, 95%CI: 0.86 to 0.97), and social media (OR: 0.88, 95% CI: 0.84 to 0.92). Women were more likely to seek health information in the pharmacy (OR: 1.39, 95% CI: 1.15 to 1.68), specialised physicians (OR: 1.39, 95% CI:1.13 to 1.72), television (OR: 1.41, 95% CI: 1.16 to 1.72), and books (OR: 1.9, 95% CI: 1.44 to 2.5). The most searched health topics, based on the International Classification of Primary Care, 2nd edition (ICPC2), were general and unspecified symptoms (20.9%) and musculoskeletal issues (19.4%). The use of these findings by policymakers and health care providers could potentially enhance the effectiveness of health-related education strategies, by aligning communication efforts with the populations' preferences and content needs, and allocating resources where they are most commonly accessed and trusted, namely in the general practice.

Spiking neural networks for predictive and explainable modelling of multimodal streaming data with a case study on financial time series and online news

In a first study, this paper argues and demonstrates that spiking neural networks (SNN) can be successfully used for predictive and explainable modelling of multimodal streaming data. The paper proposes a new method, where both time series and on-line news are integrated as numerical streaming data in the same time domain and then used to train incrementally a SNN model. The connectivity and the spiking activity of the SNN are then analyzed through clustering and dynamic graph extraction to reveal on-line interaction between all input variables in regard to the predicted one. The paper answers the main research question of how to understand the dynamic interaction of time series and on-line news through their integrative modelling. It offers a new method to evaluate the efficiency of using on-line news on the predictive modelling of time series. Results on financial stock time series and online news are presented. In contrast to traditional machine learning techniques, the method reveals the dynamic interaction between stock variables and news and their dynamic impact on model accuracy when compared to models that do not use news information. Along with the used financial data, the method is applicable to a wide range of other multimodal time series and news data, such as economic, medical, environmental and social. The proposed method, being based on SNN, promotes the use of massively parallel and low energy neuromorphic hardware for multivariate on-line data modelling.

Online information acquisition affects food risk prevention behaviours: the roles of topic concern, information credibility and risk perception

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only brought great challenges to the global health system but also bred numerous rumours about food safety. Food safety issues have once again attracted public attention.

METHODS

The data were drawn from the fifth wave of the first Taiwan Communication Survey database. The respondents were selected via multistage stratified random sampling. The sampling units were townships/districts, villages/neighbourhoods and households. The sample consisted of 2098 respondents. This study first used propensity value matching to analyse the direct impact of online food safety information acquisition on preventive behaviours and examined the heterogeneous impact caused by the difference in the degree of topic attention through value matching. Hayes' PROCESS macro model 6 was applied to confirm the mediating effect and the serial mediating effect.

RESULTS

The research results show that an increase in the frequency of the acquisition of online food safety information significantly increases individuals' food risk prevention behaviour. However, only users with high concern about the issue are affected. The food risk prevention behaviour of users with low concern about this issue is not affected by the acquisition of online food safety information. Further analysis shows that risk perception and information credibility both play mediating roles in the impact of online food safety information acquisition on food risk prevention behaviour. Moreover, the transmission and united effects of information credibility and risk perception play a distal mediating role.

CONCLUSIONS

Food risk prevention behaviours are an important topic for personal health as well as government management. Our study's findings can provide empirical evidence for risk managers and decision-makers to reevaluate the role of the internet in food risk management.

Finding normal-to-better neurocognitive indexes in individuals with schizotypal traits using a social role task

Schizophrenia patients make more errors and have longer reaction times (RTs) than healthy controls in most cognitive tasks. Deficits are also observed in subclinical participants having high scores on the schizotypal personality questionnaire (SPQ). They are accompanied by smaller amplitudes of the event-related brain potentials (ERPs) that index attention and semantic- and working-memory. These functions are thus thought to be impaired in individuals having various schizophrenia attributes (SzAs). Nevertheless, normal RTs were recently found in SzAs during a particular self-referential task where half of the stimuli were names of extraordinary social roles (e.g., genius). Each name (ordinary or extraordinary) was presented individually, and participants were asked to decide whether or not they would consider themselves performing the role at any moment of their lives. To further test an absence of cognitive deficits in this task, the ERPs elicited by names of social roles were also examined in 175 healthy participants. The absence of longer RTs in high- than in low-SPQs was replicated. Moreover, the ERPs of high SPQs had larger occipital N1s, larger P2s and larger occipital N400s than those of low SPQs while late positive potentials (LPPs) were of similar amplitudes. Such results are consistent with clinical observations of greater attention and faster processing of stimuli related to extraordinary/delusional beliefs. Further studies should test whether the cognitive deficits found in SzAs are due to the use of tasks and stimuli that are less within their focus of interest than within that of healthy controls.

Renting vs. Owning: Public Stereotypes of Housing Consumption Decision From the Perspective of Confucian Culture: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials

The ideas of face consciousness, group conformity, extended family concept, and crisis consciousness in Confucian culture have a subtle and far-reaching impact on housing consumption decision among the Chinese public, forming a housing consumption model of "preferring to own a house rather than rent one." The poor interaction between the housing rental market and the sales market caused by the shortage of rental demand and irrational purchasing behaviors has led to soaring house prices and imbalance between supply and demand that prevail in major cities in China. To gain a deeper understanding of public cognitive attitude toward decisions on owning and renting a house, this study divided the subjects into high and low impact groups based on the overall Confucian culture and four subdimensions. It attempts to take a cognitive neuroscience approach for assessing public stereotypes of housing consumption decision with different types based on the analysis of event-related potentials (ERPs). The results are as follows. First, overall, there is an obvious implicit stereotype of renting a house and explicit stereotype of owning a house among the public. Second, ERPs data show that descriptions of renting a house with positive adjectives could evoke more significant N400 responses. In other words, in the heuristic system, the public perceive that renting a house is restrictive, stressful, unhappy, and crisis. Data from subjective reports show that, after processing information in the analytic system, the public tend to think that owning a house is self-contained, restful, warm, and comfortable. Third, a more negative stereotype of renting a house exists in the high Confucian culture influence group (HIC) Group than in the low Confucian culture influence group (LIC) Group, and is more inclined to own a home. Fourth, under the Confucian culture sub-dimension, there are differences in housing consumption stereotypes between high and low groups in terms of extended family concept, group conformity, and crisis consciousness. Fifth, the moderating effect analysis found that perceived usefulness, trust in the rental market, and policy perception can be important factors in guiding public housing consumption stereotypes.