I checked 4 preprints servers on Thursday, March 06, 2025 using the Open Science Foundation API. For the period February 27 to March 05, I found 140 new paper(s).

MetaArxiv

Spurious Precision in Meta-Analysis of Observational Research
Tomas Havranek; Zuzana Irsova; Pedro R. D. Bom; Heiko Rachinger
Full text
Meta-analysis upweights studies reporting lower standard errors and hence more precision. But in observational settings common to much research in social sciences, precision is not given to the researcher. Precision must be estimated, and thus can be p-hacked to achieve statistical significance. Simulations and applications show that spurious precision can invalidate inverse-variance weighting and bias-correction methods based on the funnel plot. Selection models fail to solve the problem, and common cures to publication bias can become worse than the disease. We introduce a novel approach that addresses spuriousness: meta-analysis instrumental variable estimator (MAIVE).

PsyArxiv

Direct Mapping of Interventions to Thought Features: A Bayesian Proof-of-Concept Study
Lauren S. Hallion; Nur Hani Zainal; Christian A. Webb
Full text
Although uncontrollability is the core feature of perseverative thought that best accounts for its relationship to psychopathology, other features – for example, valence and content – have also been identified as potentially clinically-relevant in their own right. We describe results from a proof-of-concept study that examined the extent to which major underlying features of worry could be used to predict which of three common cognitive regulatory strategies (mindful acceptance; focused attention meditation; and thought suppression) would help regulate that worry. N = 40 adults selected for high trait worry (80% also met criteria for one or more DSM-5 anxiety-related diagnoses) generated and provided feature ratings for three idiographic thought topics. Participants then attempted to control each worry using each of the three strategies during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a within-subjects design (k = 468 observations). We used Bayesian multilevel modeling to test preregistered hypotheses regarding the extent to which each of five empirically-derived underlying dimensions of a worry (uncontrollability; negative valence; self-focus; apprehension; and social-memory content) could be used to predict which strategy would be most efficacious for regulating that worry. We did not find support for our preregistered hypotheses; however, in exploratory analyses, we found that mindfulness-based strategies were particularly effective compared to thought suppression for thoughts rated as higher (versus lower) in uncontrollability. Future research should test these principles in larger samples, using more diverse expressions of perseverative thought.
Direct Mapping of Interventions to Thought Features: A Bayesian Proof-of-Concept Study
Lauren S. Hallion; Nur Hani Zainal; Christian A. Webb
Full text
Although uncontrollability is the core feature of perseverative thought that best accounts for its relationship to psychopathology, other features – for example, valence and content – have also been identified as potentially clinically-relevant in their own right. We describe results from a proof-of-concept study that examined the extent to which major underlying features of worry could be used to predict which of three common cognitive regulatory strategies (mindful acceptance; focused attention meditation; and thought suppression) would help regulate that worry. N = 40 adults selected for high trait worry (80% also met criteria for one or more DSM-5 anxiety-related diagnoses) generated and provided feature ratings for three idiographic thought topics. Participants then attempted to control each worry using each of the three strategies during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a within-subjects design (k = 468 observations). We used Bayesian multilevel modeling to test preregistered hypotheses regarding the extent to which each of five empirically-derived underlying dimensions of a worry (uncontrollability; negative valence; self-focus; apprehension; and social-memory content) could be used to predict which strategy would be most efficacious for regulating that worry. We did not find support for our preregistered hypotheses; however, in exploratory analyses, we found that mindfulness-based strategies were particularly effective compared to thought suppression for thoughts rated as higher (versus lower) in uncontrollability. Future research should test these principles in larger samples, using more diverse expressions of perseverative thought.
Direct Mapping of Interventions to Thought Features: A Bayesian Proof-of-Concept Study
Lauren S. Hallion; Nur Hani Zainal; Christian A. Webb
Full text
Although uncontrollability is the core feature of perseverative thought that best accounts for its relationship to psychopathology, other features – for example, valence and content – have also been identified as potentially clinically-relevant in their own right. We describe results from a proof-of-concept study that examined the extent to which major underlying features of worry could be used to predict which of three common cognitive regulatory strategies (mindful acceptance; focused attention meditation; and thought suppression) would help regulate that worry. N = 40 adults selected for high trait worry (80% also met criteria for one or more DSM-5 anxiety-related diagnoses) generated and provided feature ratings for three idiographic thought topics. Participants then attempted to control each worry using each of the three strategies during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a within-subjects design (k = 468 observations). We used Bayesian multilevel modeling to test preregistered hypotheses regarding the extent to which each of five empirically-derived underlying dimensions of a worry (uncontrollability; negative valence; self-focus; apprehension; and social-memory content) could be used to predict which strategy would be most efficacious for regulating that worry. We did not find support for our preregistered hypotheses; however, in exploratory analyses, we found that mindfulness-based strategies were particularly effective compared to thought suppression for thoughts rated as higher (versus lower) in uncontrollability. Future research should test these principles in larger samples, using more diverse expressions of perseverative thought.
Direct Mapping of Interventions to Thought Features: A Bayesian Proof-of-Concept Study
Lauren S. Hallion; Nur Hani Zainal; Christian A. Webb
Full text
Although uncontrollability is the core feature of perseverative thought that best accounts for its relationship to psychopathology, other features – for example, valence and content – have also been identified as potentially clinically-relevant in their own right. We describe results from a proof-of-concept study that examined the extent to which major underlying features of worry could be used to predict which of three common cognitive regulatory strategies (mindful acceptance; focused attention meditation; and thought suppression) would help regulate that worry. N = 40 adults selected for high trait worry (80% also met criteria for one or more DSM-5 anxiety-related diagnoses) generated and provided feature ratings for three idiographic thought topics. Participants then attempted to control each worry using each of the three strategies during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a within-subjects design (k = 468 observations). We used Bayesian multilevel modeling to test preregistered hypotheses regarding the extent to which each of five empirically-derived underlying dimensions of a worry (uncontrollability; negative valence; self-focus; apprehension; and social-memory content) could be used to predict which strategy would be most efficacious for regulating that worry. We did not find support for our preregistered hypotheses; however, in exploratory analyses, we found that mindfulness-based strategies were particularly effective compared to thought suppression for thoughts rated as higher (versus lower) in uncontrollability. Future research should test these principles in larger samples, using more diverse expressions of perseverative thought.
Unlocking Infant Potential: The Critical Role of Early Stimulation in Brain Development
Amir Jahanian Najafabadi
Full text
Infant brains are remarkably prepared for learning from birth, but optimal development depends on appropriate early stimulation. At the Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory (Nu-Lab), our research explores how sensory experiences, motor interactions, and environmental factors shape cognitive and neural development in both full-term and preterm infants. We investigate how early experiences influence essential functions such as sensorimotor coordination, language acquisition, and social-emotional regulation. Our findings highlight the delicate balance between beneficial stimulation and potential risks of overstimulation, emphasizing the importance of age-appropriate engagement.
A novel approach to study the behavioral, neural and phenomenological impact of prefrontal HD-tDCS on conflict resolution
Darias Holgado; Víctor Martínez-Pérez; Elisa Martín-Arévalo; Tristan Bekinschtein; Miguel A. Fernåndez-del-Olmo; Daniel Sanabria; Antonio Luque-Casado
Full text
This study aimed to investigate the effects of high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) on conflict resolution, focusing on behavioral performance, neural activity, and subjective experience. Sixty participants were randomly assigned to anodal, cathodal, or sham HD-tDCS groups and completed a 30-minute flanker task during stimulation. Using a comprehensive methodological approach, including Drift-Diffusion Modeling (DDM), EEG analysis, Lempel-Ziv complexity, and Temporal Experience Tracing (TET), we assessed the cognitive, neural, and phenomenological effects of stimulation. Behavioral results indicated no significant improvements in reaction times or accuracy across the stimulation groups. Similarly, DDM parameters showed no effect of HD-tDCS on cognitive processes. However, EEG data revealed a significant reduction in neural complexity, in the anodal group during resting-state, suggesting neural reorganization. Subjective experience analysis identified two distinct clusters of task-related feelings, though time spent in these experiential states did not differ between groups. Interestingly, sensation of stimulation was significantly higher for anodal stimulation than sham when analyzed as a single dimension. Despite null behavioral effects, this study provides important insights into the neural and subjective responses to HD-tDCS and emphasizes the value of advanced analytic techniques in examining brain stimulation effects. These findings contribute to the ongoing debate about the efficacy of tDCS in cognitive enhancement.
Longitudinal associations between the infant gut microbiome and negative affect in toddlerhood
Sarah C Vogel; Nicolas Murgueitio; Nicole Huth; Kathy Sem; Sarah Short; Rebecca C. Knickmeyer; Roger Mills-Koonce; Cathi Propper; Nicholas J. Wagner
Full text
The role of the gut microbiome in infant development has gained increasing interest in recent years. Most research on this topic has focused on the first three to four years of life because this is a critical period for developing gut-brain connections. Prior studies have identified associations between the composition and diversity of the gut microbiome in infancy and markers of temperament, including negative affect. However, the specific microbes affected, and the directionality of these associations have differed between studies, likely due to differences in the developmental period of focus and assessment approaches. In the current preregistered study, we examined connections between the gut microbiome, assessed at two time points in infancy (2 weeks and 18 months), and negative affect measured at 30 months of age in a longitudinal study of infants and their caregivers. We found that infants with higher gut microbiome diversity at 2 weeks showed more observed negative affect during a study visit at 30 months. We also found evidence for associations between specific genera of bacteria in infancy and negative affect. These results suggest associations between specific features of the gut microbiome and child behavior may differ based on timing of gut microbiome measurement.
Reflection-Philosophy Order Effects and Correlations Across Samples
Nick Byrd
Full text
Reflective reasoning often correlates with certain philosophical decisions, but it is often unclear whether reflection causes those decisions. So a pre-registered experiment assessed how reflective thinking relates to decisions about 10 thought experiments from epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind. Participants from the United States were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, CloudResearch, Prolific, and a university. One participant source yielded up to 18 times as many low-quality respondents as the other three. Among remaining respondents, some prior correlations between reflective and philosophical thinking replicated. For example, reflection predicted denying that accidentally justified true beliefs count as knowledge. However, reflection test order did not impact philosophical decisions. Instead, a philosophical reflection effect emerged: making philosophical decisions before the reflection test improved reflection test performance. These and other data suggest causal paths between reflection and philosophy can go both directions, but detecting such results can depend on factors such as data quality.
High coherence among training exemplars promotes broad generalization of face families
Caitlin Bowman; Dagmar Zeithamova
Full text
How do we tailor learning experiences to promote formation and generalization of conceptual knowledge? Exposing learners to a highly variable set of examples has been postulated to benefit generalization, but evidence is conflicting. In the present study, we manipulated training set variability in terms of both the typicality of training examples (high vs. low coherence) and the number of unique examples (small vs. large set size) while controlling the total number of training trials. The face family category structure was designed to allow participants to learn by picking up on shared features across category members and/or by attending to unique features of individual category members. We found relatively little effect of set size but a clear benefit of high coherence (lower variability) training both in terms of category learning and generalization. Moreover, high coherence training biased participants to make judgments based on shared features in both categorization and recognition. Using an exploratory model fitting procedure, we tested the hypothesis that high coherence training facilitates prototype abstraction. Instead, we found an exemplar model advantage across training conditions. Yet, there was also systematic misfit for all models for some trial types, including underestimating the influence of shared features in categorization responses. Overall, we show that high-variability training is not necessarily beneficial for concept learning when the total length of training is controlled. Instead, training on typical examples promotes fast learning and broad category knowledge by helping learners extract shared category features.
Revised network loadings
Alexander P. Christensen; Hudson Golino; Francisco José Abad; Luis Eduardo Garrido
Full text
Psychometric assessment is the foundation of psychological research, where the accuracy of outcomes and their interpretations depend on measurement. Due to the widespread application of factor models, factor loadings are fundamental to modern psychometric assessment. Recent advances in network psychometrics introduced network loadings which aim to provide network models with a metric similar to factor loadings to assess measurement quality when the data are generated from a factor model. Our study revisits and refines the original network loadings to account for properties of (regularized) partial correlation networks, such as the reduction of partial correlation size as the number of variables increase, that were not considered previously. Using a simulation study, the revised network loadings demonstrated greater congruence with the simulated factor loadings across conditions relative to the original formulation. The simulation also evaluated how well correlations between factors can be captured by scores estimated with network loadings. The results show that not only can these network scores adequately estimate the simulated correlations between factors, they can do so without the need for rotation, a standard requirement for factor loadings. The consequence is that researchers do not need to choose a rotation with the revised network loadings, reducing the analytic degrees of freedom and eliminating this common source of variability in factor analysis. We discuss the interpretation of network loadings when data are believed to be generated from a network model and how they may fit into a network theory of measurement.
Self-serving optimism in well-being prediction: People believe in a bright future for themselves and their friends, but not for their enemies
Hallgeir SjÄstad; Siv Skard; Helge ThorbjÞrnsen; Elisabeth Norman
Full text
Psychological well-being is remarkably stable over time. However, people may still believe that the future will deviate from the past. Across four experiments in Norway and USA (N=1,827), participants were randomly assigned to report their well-being in the past or predict their future well-being. In line with a "bright-future hypothesis", people predicted higher levels of happiness and meaning in the future than in their historical baseline. We observed the same optimistic pattern for a 1-year as a 5-year time horizon. Rather than reflecting a past-neglecting cognitive mechanism, the evidence mostly favored a motivational explanation. First, the effect emerged both between-subjects and within-subjects: Even when people had just reported their past well-being, they still predicted future improvement. Second, predicted well-being improvement generalized to social judgments of a friend but not to an enemy, mediated by judgments of deservingness. In conclusion, people predict a bright future when they want to see one.
Investigating the Associations among Core Cognitive Vulnerability, Internalizing Symptoms, and Negative Situational Experiences: A Longitudinal Network Analysis
Utek Leong; Faith Evangeline Seah; Sacha Epskamp; Nur Hani Zainal; Ryan Y. Hong
Full text
Purpose: The goal of the present research was to investigate the temporal dynamics of the core cognitive vulnerability and individual internalizing symptom characteristics and to explore the role of negative events in relation to the core cognitive vulnerability and symptoms. Methods: Adopting a network approach, we fitted a multilevel vector autoregressive model to ecological momentary assessment data from 223 university students collected over 21 days – modelling associations between the core cognitive vulnerability, perceived event negativity, and 12 internalizing symptoms. Results: In the between-person network, core cognitive vulnerability was positively associated with the avoidance of anxiety-provoking situations, indicating that those with higher levels of core cognitive vulnerability on average tended to avoid anxiety-provoking situations more severely on average. In the contemporaneous network, momentary core cognitive vulnerability was associated with various momentary symptoms. In the temporal network, increases in momentary core cognitive vulnerability predicted subsequent increases in the severity of three specific symptoms – anxious mood, fear, and feeling like a failure. Interestingly, momentary core cognitive vulnerability predicted subsequent increases in the perceived event negativity, but perceived event negativity did not predict subsequent increases in momentary core cognitive vulnerability. Conclusions: Our findings show that the core cognitive vulnerability is differentially associated with symptoms at the between-person and within-person levels of analysis. On a moment-to-moment basis, core cognitive vulnerability temporally precedes and influences the severity of emotional symptoms and perceived event negativity. We discuss study implications and outline directions for future research to clarify the etiology of internalizing psychopathology.
Confidence reports during perceptual decision making dissociate from changes in subjective experience
NicolĂĄs SĂĄnchez-Fuenzalida; Simon van Gaal; Stephen M Fleming; Julia M. Haaf; Johannes Jacobus Fahrenfort
Full text
In noisy perceptual environments, people frequently make decisions based on non-perceptual information to maximize rewards. Therefore, a central problem in psychophysics, metacognition and consciousness research is to distinguish between decisions resulting from changes in subjective experience and those arising from non-perceptual information. It has recently been proposed that confidence reports can be used to discriminate between changes in subjective experience and those arising from non-perceptual information. Here we use a Bayesian ordinal modeling framework combined with an explicit measure of subjective experience to show across two experiments and three bias manipulations that confidence during perceptual decision-making does not uniquely reflect subjective experience. Instead, non-perceptual manipulations affecting response bias ‘leak’ into perceptual confidence reports. This occurs not only for biases resulting from changes in the base-rate of stimuli (‘cognitive’ priors), but also when biasing information does not inform decision correctness (asymmetric payoff matrix).
A Systematic Review and Theoretical Framework of Stress Generation in Daily Life
Peter Haehner; Rosalie Andrae; Wiebke Bleidorn
Full text
Stress generation describes processes by which individuals actively contribute to the occurrence of stressful events in their lives. Personal characteristics like neuroticism or psychopathology have been found predict the occurrence of major life stressors over several months or years. However, a profound understanding of stress generation over shorter time periods in people’s daily lives is still missing. Here, we integrated recent research on person-environment transactions with the clinical stress generation literature to develop a process model of stress generation. This process model posits that short-term dynamics between momentary personal characteristics and daily hassles are the building blocks for established long-term stress generation effects. To evaluate this model, we conducted a systematic literature search on stress generation in daily life (43 studies, Ntotal = 9’579). Results show that both dispositional traits and dynamic states predict the occurrence of daily hassles, supporting core aspects of the process model. However, future research on stress generation in daily life using measurement burst design, multi-method assessments of momentary state variables, and comprehensive assessments of daily hassles is needed.
Neural Mechanisms and Clinical Prospects of Activating Brain Functions Through Specific Actions and Behaviors
Jiaju Chen
Full text
This study explores the neural mechanisms by which specific actions and behaviors, such as exercise, meditation, and cognitive training, activate particular brain regions and enhance functional brain connectivity through neuroplasticity. By synthesizing existing research, we highlight how behavioral interventions influence brain activity and function, and discuss their potential applications in clinical contexts. Specifically, we examine the role of these interventions in improving cognitive abilities, emotional regulation, and neurological rehabilitation, o↔ering a foundation for further research and therapeutic development.
A generalizable neural signature of perceived loneliness
Laetitia Mwilambwe-Tshilobo; Diana Tamir; Emily B. Falk
Full text
Social interactions are fundamental to human well-being. Conversely, loneliness is related to poorer sleep, heightened depression, and increased mortality. Much of what people invest time, energy, and money in revolves around connecting with others. However, identifying the factors that make people feel connected or disconnected can be challenging due to individual differences in how loneliness is experienced. Studying the neural mechanisms that reflect how satisfied or lonely people feel offers a new window into this critical problem and allows us to test whether there exists a robust brain signature of loneliness. Loneliness may be associated with widespread changes in brain connectivity across multiple neural regions and systems. Here, we aim to capture this complexity by deriving a neural signature of loneliness from distributed brain patterns in resting-state functional connectivity data in the Human Connectome Project (HCP) dataset. We then demonstrated the generalizability of this neural signature in predicting individual differences in loneliness in an independent sample of young adult students
Color-emotion associations in text-to-image models
Jorge Alvarado
Full text
Text-to-image models learn associations between human-provided image tags and image features over billions of examples. As a result, such models provide a powerful mean to study the psychological relationships between colors and emotions. We generated, in 2024, images for different emotions descriptions varying in valence, arousal and dominance across several subjects and then extracted color features (chroma and L*a*b* values) from the resultant images to find color-emotion associations. Results show a joint effect of red and chroma to generate effects of joy, rage and negative powerless. In addition, lightness is key in generating effects of serenity, threat and a relief/stress divergence. Dominance emerged as an important dimension to understand interactions and nuances in color-emotion associations. The study highlights that specific combination of color elements convey emotions, rather than and beyond simple associations such as red-anger or lightness-valence.
Can passive heat- or cold-treatment mitigate depression? A review of physiological adaptations and clinical evidence
Øyvind HÞydal; Runa NotÞy; Kjetil HÞydal
Full text
Physical and mental health are tightly coupled. With a rising prevalence of the major mood disorders, recent years have seen a growing interest in the potential therapeutic value of lifestyle practises such as exercise and passive heat- or cold-treatment (e.g. sauna and ice baths). While the beneficial effects of exercise on mental health are now well documented, the potential benefits of heat- and cold therapy are less studied. Similarly to exercise, passive heat- and cold exposure may induce physiological responses which counteract the pathophysiological underpinnings of mood disorders such as depression and anxiety. Thus, passive heat- or cold treatment could complement exercise, or be a viable alternative for individuals hindered from doing exercise due to injuries or disability. Here, we first review physiological adaptations to passive heat- or cold treatment in the context of hypothesis for the biological pathogenesis of depression. Next, we review clinical interventions investigating effects of passive heat- or cold treatment on depressive disorder. Finally, we end with a discussion of future directions.
Hidden dynamics of economic hardship: Characterizing economic unpredictability and its role on self-regulation in early childhood
Meriah Lee DeJoseph; Nicole Walasek; Sihong Liu; Ethan Scott Young; Abbie Raikes; Marcus Richard Waldman; Willem Frankenhuis; Phillip Fisher
Full text
Economic hardship is known to shape children’s self-regulation, yet little is understood about how fluctuations in hardship unfold over time and whether different patterns of unpredictability carry unique developmental consequences. Using a socioeconomically diverse sample, we tracked families’ subjective economic hardship across 15–36 monthly assessments and applied an environmental statistics framework to quantify four indices of unpredictability: changepoints in mean, changepoints in variance, coefficient of variation, and noise. Principal component analysis revealed two distinct dimensions of economic unpredictability: systematic instability (frequent but predictable hardship fluctuations) and dynamic variability (infrequent but abrupt shifts in hardship). Economic unpredictability was disproportionately experienced by racially minoritized and lower-income families, reinforcing systemic inequities in economic resources. Relations between these indices and caregiver-reported measures of family routines and day-to-day unpredictability were weak, suggesting wide heterogeneity in the ways families adapt to economic unpredictability. Leveraging propensity score methods, we isolated the effects of unpredictability from hardship severity, finding that they predicted greater self-regulation challenges in early childhood, with the strongest effects for hardship severity. These findings underscore the importance of capturing economic hardship as a dynamic and multidimensional experience, with implications for policy efforts aimed at promoting stability in families’ access to resources.
Female rats retain goal-directed planning of action sequences after acute stress despite changes in planning structure and action sequence execution
Russell Dougherty; Eric Thrailkill; Sarah Van Horn; Auny Kussad; Donna Toufexis
Full text
When making decisions under stress, organisms tend to deliberate less and rely on automatic habits. Prior investigation into the influence of stress on decision-making has primarily viewed goal-direction and habit as independent and competitive sources of control in static environments. The effects of acute stress on the integration of goal-direction and habit in hierarchical planning to solve dynamic tasks remain unclear. Here, our aim was to assess whether stress prompted the usage of habitual action sequences over the selection of discrete goal-directed actions in a serial decision task. We trained 16 female Long Evans rats in a two-stage binary choice task and performed two probe tests, one following acute restraint stress and one under control conditions, to identify how stress affected higher-level planning of behavior and intermediate action structures. We found that under both stressed and control conditions, rats exhibited goal-directed planning of habitual action sequences. However, following stress, rats showed a greater tendency to reiterate action sequences independent of reinforcement, indicating that stress may induce an aversion to exploration in action planning. Stress also increased the latency between responses – degrading action sequence integrity despite conserving their overall structure and performance. Taken together, these findings suggest that although acute stress does not disrupt the overall macrostructure of behavior in two-stage decision-making, it does alter the microstructure of goal-directed and habitual control individually. Further, these results imply that the extent to which stress impairs goal-direction in female rats may depend on the incentive structure and attentional demands of the decision environment.
Reflection-Philosophy Order Effects and Correlations Across Samples
Nick Byrd
Full text
Reflective reasoning often correlates with certain philosophical decisions, but it is often unclear whether reflection causes those decisions. So a pre-registered experiment assessed how reflective thinking relates to decisions about 10 thought experiments from epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind. Participants from the United States were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, CloudResearch, Prolific, and a university. One participant source yielded up to 18 times as many low-quality respondents as the other three. Among remaining respondents, some prior correlations between reflective and philosophical thinking replicated. For example, reflection predicted denying that accidentally justified true beliefs count as knowledge. However, reflection test order did not impact philosophical decisions. Instead, a philosophical reflection effect emerged: making philosophical decisions before the reflection test improved reflection test performance. These and other data suggest causal paths between reflection and philosophy can go both directions, but detecting such results can depend on factors such as data quality.
Can passive heat- or cold-treatment mitigate depression? A review of physiological adaptations and clinical evidence
Øyvind HÞydal; Runa NotÞy; Kjetil HÞydal
Full text
Physical and mental health are tightly coupled. With a rising prevalence of the major mood disorders, recent years have seen a growing interest in the potential therapeutic value of lifestyle practises such as exercise and passive heat- or cold-treatment (e.g. sauna and ice baths). While the beneficial effects of exercise on mental health are now well documented, the potential benefits of heat- and cold therapy are less studied. Similarly to exercise, passive heat- and cold exposure may induce physiological responses which counteract the pathophysiological underpinnings of mood disorders such as depression and anxiety. Thus, passive heat- or cold treatment could complement exercise, or be a viable alternative for individuals hindered from doing exercise due to injuries or disability. Here, we first review physiological adaptations to passive heat- or cold treatment in the context of hypothesis for the biological pathogenesis of depression. Next, we review clinical interventions investigating effects of passive heat- or cold treatment on depressive disorder. Finally, we end with a discussion of future directions.
Can passive heat- or cold-treatment mitigate depression? A review of physiological adaptations and clinical evidence
Øyvind HÞydal; Runa NotÞy; Kjetil HÞydal
Full text
Physical and mental health are tightly coupled. With a rising prevalence of the major mood disorders, recent years have seen a growing interest in the potential therapeutic value of lifestyle practises such as exercise and passive heat- or cold-treatment (e.g. sauna and ice baths). While the beneficial effects of exercise on mental health are now well documented, the potential benefits of heat- and cold therapy are less studied. Similarly to exercise, passive heat- and cold exposure may induce physiological responses which counteract the pathophysiological underpinnings of mood disorders such as depression and anxiety. Thus, passive heat- or cold treatment could complement exercise, or be a viable alternative for individuals hindered from doing exercise due to injuries or disability. Here, we first review physiological adaptations to passive heat- or cold treatment in the context of hypothesis for the biological pathogenesis of depression. Next, we review clinical interventions investigating effects of passive heat- or cold treatment on depressive disorder. Finally, we end with a discussion of future directions.
Parques terapĂȘuticos e serviços ecossistĂȘmicos culturais na ĂĄrea urbana de Caxias do Sul: viabilidade entre comunidade e poder pĂșblico
Natanael Oliveira Teles dos Santos
Full text
Introdução: a urbanização acelerada e o estilo de vida moderno tĂȘm gerado um distanciamento crescente entre os indivĂ­duos e a natureza, resultando em impactos negativos na saĂșde fĂ­sica e mental. Objetivo geral: explicar o conceito de parque terapĂȘutico e seus benefĂ­cios na redução do estresse, promoção da saĂșde mental, incentivo Ă  prĂĄtica de atividades fĂ­sicas, fortalecimento dos laços comunitĂĄrios e valoração dos serviços ecossistĂȘmicos culturais no crescimento econĂŽmico e sustentĂĄvel do municĂ­pio de Caxias do Sul, RS. Apresentando dados cientĂ­ficos que comprovem os benefĂ­cios da “terapia pela natureza”. AlĂ©m de mostrar como o projeto pode se encaixar nas polĂ­ticas pĂșblicas da cidade e nas demandas da população. Resultados e discussĂŁo: a viabilidade da integração do bem-estar em parques terapĂȘuticos e valoração dos serviços ecossistĂȘmicos culturais mostrou um grande potencial para ser pesquisado mediante o desenvolvimento de um projeto. ConsideraçÔes finais: A criação de parques terapĂȘuticos em Caxias do Sul representa uma oportunidade para promover a construção de uma cidade mais funcional, sustentĂĄvel e inteligente.
Comparing object lifting kinematics and the size weight illusion between physical reality and virtual reality
David Harris; Callum O'Malley; Tom Arthur; Jack Owen Evans; Gavin Buckingham
Full text
This study compared the size weight illusion (SWI) and object lifting kinematics between physical and virtual conditions, shedding light on the nuanced disparities in perception and action across different environmental mediums. We examined whether prior expectations about object weight based on size cues, which affect the experience of real-world object interactions, are different in virtual reality (VR). Employing a highly realistic virtual environment with precisely-matched visual size and haptic cues, we tested the hypothesis that VR, which may be experienced as uncertain, unfamiliar, or unpredictable, would induce a smaller SWI due to a diminished effect of prior expectations. Participants (N=25) reported the felt heaviness of lifted objects that varied in both volume and mass in physical reality and a VR environment. Reach and lift kinematics, and self-reported presence, were also recorded. Our findings showed no differences between how participants perceived the SWI between real and virtual environments, although there was a trend towards a smaller illusion in VR. Contrary to our predictions, participants who experienced more presence in VR did not experience a larger SWI, but the inverse relationship was observed. Notably, differences in reach velocities between physical and virtual conditions suggested a more controlled approach in VR. These findings highlight the intricate relationship between immersion and sensorimotor processes in virtual environments, emphasising the need for deeper exploration into the underlying mechanisms that shape human interactions with immersive technologies, particularly the prior expectations associated with virtual environments.
The road to Aha: a recipe for mental breakthroughs
Kadi Tulver; Karl Kristjan Kaup; Jaan Aru
Full text
We present a novel framework for understanding the diverse spectrum of mental breakthrough events, ranging from problem-solving insights to profound personal transformations. We propose that these events, while varied in expression and impact, share common underlying mechanisms of representational change. We also hypothesise that the differences in phenomenological intensity can be conceptualised along a continuum. Central to our model are three core components – tension, altered salience, and enhanced flexibility – which we identify as essential prerequisites for significant cognitive restructuring. These components interact within an iterative cycle, influencing both the emergence and nature of insight experiences. Drawing on examples from different fields, we explore how a conflict between existing models can trigger this cycle, wherein mechanisms of attention allocation and relaxation of constraints work in tandem to facilitate the emergence of insights. Furthermore, we propose that the intensity of the “aha-moment” and the breadth of its impact are contingent on how central the conflict is within one's conceptual landscape and the extent to which existing mental models are challenged. Thus, the model accounts for both the subtle, momentary insights in problem-solving and the transformative realisations that reshape core beliefs and self-perception. By synthesising insights from various domains, including psychotherapy, contemplative science, and psychedelic research, we present a theoretical account with broad scope, aiming to shed light on the complex processes that can lead to a wide array of mental breakthroughs, thereby contributing to the understanding of insight phenomena across disciplines.
When models matter: Environmental demand guides the arbitration between model-based and model-free control
Leslie Held; Elise Lesage; Wouter Kool; Senne Braem
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As humans, we often repeat previously rewarded actions without thinking, but we also possess the ability to plan ahead and simulate actions based on an internal model of the environment. These two types of control are commonly conceptualised as model-free versus model-based control. While there is a body of research on interindividual differences in using either strategy, we aimed to test whether people can also learn to regulate which strategy to use based on environmental demand. We used a two-stage decision-making task in which two different first-stage states that repeated or alternated between trials shared a deterministic transition structure where actions led to the same second-stage states with drifting reward options. We manipulated how often participants (n = 140) were exposed to alternations versus repetitions between the different first-stage states. When these states frequently repeat, there is a reduced need to consult the transition structure as it pays off to adopt model-free control and simply retake previously rewarded actions. Conversely, when first-stage states frequently alternate, it is more beneficial to adopt model-based control, considering the transition structure and generalising reward outcomes between them. In line with our hypothesis, we show that participants exposed to more first-stage state alternations were also more model-based in a later test phase compared to participants exposed to more first-stage state repetitions. These findings suggest that people learn to arbitrate between different reinforcement-learning strategies consistent with a cost-benefit analysis sensitive to environmental demands.
Learning from error predictions rather than prediction errors: a theory of self-supervised learning in the brain
Nicolas Meirhaeghe
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Humans learn by doing and observing, but also by imagining the result of simulated actions in their mind. When learning from executed or observed actions, traditional theories posit that behavior improves by minimizing the difference between (i) the perceived outcome derived from sensory feedback and (ii) the desired outcome (performance error) or the outcome predicted by an internal model (prediction error). Supporting these theories, decades of electrophysiological studies have documented the role of the dopaminergic system and cerebellum in generating activity patterns compatible with the hypothesized error signals. In comparison, our understanding of the neural basis underlying the ability to learn from simulated actions is far more limited. Here, I argue that this form of self-supervised learning is best described in terms of a quantity known as the predicted performance error (PPE), theorized more than 30 years ago and yet largely overlooked ever since. Complementary to prediction errors (PEs), PPEs reflect “error predictions” between predicted and desired outcomes. Unlike PEs, however, PPEs exist even in the absence of sensory feedback and can in principle serve to evaluate actions without executing them, based on an efference copy of the underlying motor plan. I review evidence supporting the computation of PPEs in the brain, and propose a network implementation based on a cortico-basal ganglia loop interacting at multiple timescales with prefrontal, parietal, and hippocampal areas. I then connect PPEs to recent discoveries on motor planning, and formulate novel predictions linking PPEs to various high-level brain functions such as metacognition, problem-solving and deception.
L'Épreuve du ChĂŽmage : BaromĂštre de la Stigmatisation des « ChĂŽmeurs » et du ChĂŽmage
Charly Marie; Emma de Araujo; Morgane hoffmann; David Bourguignon
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Les personnes sans emploi portent un stigmate et peuvent vivre, anticiper et internaliser la stigmatisation. En retour, elles peuvent dĂ©ployer un ensemble de stratĂ©gies afin d’y faire face. MalgrĂ© ses consĂ©quences nĂ©gatives pour la santĂ© et l’insertion, l’étendue de ce stigmate et des façons de le nĂ©gocier reste largement inconnue. En consĂ©quence, nous rĂ©alisons une enquĂȘte de victimation afin de quantifier la frĂ©quence et l’intensitĂ© de la stigmatisation des personnes au chĂŽmage, ainsi que les stratĂ©gies que les individus mettent en place pour y faire face, via un Ă©chantillon reprĂ©sentatif des personnes demandeuses d’emploi en catĂ©gorie A de France travail (n = 2 098). Nous montrons qu’entre une personne demandeuse d’emploi sur deux et une sur trois rapporte vivre et anticiper ĂȘtre stigmatisĂ©âž±e ; entre une sur cinq et une sur six internalise la stigmatisation ; entre une sur trois et une sur six Ă©vite les personnes et les contextes potentiellement stigmatisants. Cette stigmatisation ne varie pas selon le genre ou la durĂ©e de chĂŽmage, mais est plus Ă©levĂ©e chez les personnes plus jeunes et avec un niveau de formation plus Ă©levĂ©. Ainsi, la stigmatisation du chĂŽmage ne semble pas apprise mais dĂ©couler du seul stĂ©rĂ©otype nĂ©gatif de « chĂŽmeur. » Ce travail oriente vers la rĂ©duction de la stigmatisation des personnes sans emploi, en particulier les plus jeunes, afin d’amĂ©liorer leur santĂ©, leur recours au droit et leur insertion.
Low Detail Retention in Visual Memory Despite Focused Effort
Filip Dechterenko; Jiri Lukavsky; Petr AdĂĄmek
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Humans can recognize a vast number of previously seen images, yet their ability to recall fine details from visual memory remains limited. This study investigated whether prolonged study of a small number of stimuli could improve the recognition accuracy for memorizing details of the scene. We developed a novel experimental paradigm that allowed repeated testing of memory for individual images, allowing us to query images repeatedly and measure which parts of the scene were remembered, and which were forgotten. Our results revealed that participants struggled to achieve high accuracy in detail-oriented memory tasks, even with extensive effort and focus. Follow-up experiments explored potential factors contributing to this limitation, shedding light on why memorizing fine details is inherently difficult. These findings underscore the challenges of achieving high-detail visual memory in long-term memory for complex scenes - Although we can memorize a large numbers of scenes with low fidelity, we cannot memorize details even in a small numbers of scenes.
Learning from error predictions rather than prediction errors: a theory of self-supervised learning in the brain
Nicolas Meirhaeghe
Full text
Humans learn by doing and observing, but also by imagining the result of simulated actions in their mind. When learning from executed or observed actions, traditional theories posit that behavior improves by minimizing the difference between (i) the perceived outcome derived from sensory feedback and (ii) the desired outcome (performance error) or the outcome predicted by an internal model (prediction error). Supporting these theories, decades of electrophysiological studies have documented the role of the dopaminergic system and cerebellum in generating activity patterns compatible with the hypothesized error signals. In comparison, our understanding of the neural basis underlying the ability to learn from simulated actions is far more limited. Here, I argue that this form of self-supervised learning is best described in terms of a quantity known as the predicted performance error (PPE), theorized more than 30 years ago and yet largely overlooked ever since. Complementary to prediction errors (PEs), PPEs reflect “error predictions” between predicted and desired outcomes. Unlike PEs, however, PPEs exist even in the absence of sensory feedback and can in principle serve to evaluate actions without executing them, based on an efference copy of the underlying motor plan. I review evidence supporting the computation of PPEs in the brain, and propose a network implementation based on a cortico-basal ganglia loop interacting at multiple timescales with prefrontal, parietal, and hippocampal areas. I then connect PPEs to recent discoveries on motor planning, and formulate novel predictions linking PPEs to various high-level brain functions such as metacognition, problem-solving and deception.
The relationship between cognitive processes, self-stigma, and internalizing psychopathology in individuals with a sexual preference for minors
David Demeester; Yannick Vander Zwalmen; Minne De Boeck; Kristof Hoorelbeke; Ernst H. W. Koster
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Individuals with a sexual preference for minors are subject to significant stigma in society, even in the absence of any criminal behavior, which can profoundly affect their psychological well-being. This stigma can contribute to the development of internalizing psychopathology (e.g., anxiety, depression, and stress), which is also recognized as dynamic risk factor for child sexual abuse. This cross-sectional questionnaire study (N = 92) aimed to examine the psychological distress experienced by this population. Specifically, we: (1) investigated the occurrence of internalizing complaints among individuals with a sexual preference for minors; (2) examined associations between cognitive processes (e.g., rumination, emotional attentional control), self-stigma, and internalizing psychopathology; and (3) explored the mediating role of rumination, specifically brooding, in linking self-stigma and internalizing psychopathology. The results indicate that individuals with a sexual preference for minors experience significantly higher levels of anxiety, depression, and stress compared to the general population. Furthermore, several hypothesized associations were confirmed, including associations between self-stigma, poor emotional attentional control, brooding and internalizing psychopathology. Mediation analyses further revealed that brooding mediates the effect of self-stigma on internalizing complaints, albeit with small effect sizes. Follow-up longitudinal studies are necessary to validate these findings and explore their implications. Ultimately, these insights aim to inform targeted interventions and support strategies for this population, which could help to prevent child sexual abuse.
A counterfactual explanation for recency effects in double prevention scenarios: commentary on Thanawala & Erb (2024)
Tadeg Quillien; Kevin O'Neill; Paul Henne
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Many cognitive scientists and philosophers take cases of double prevention to be one of the primary motivations for accepting causal pluralism, the view that people have multiple concepts of causation. Thanawala and Erb (2024) recently argue against Lombrozo's (2010) account of causal pluralism. They find that the temporal order of events affects people's causal judgments in double prevention cases, and they interpret this finding as showing that people use a productive concept of causation in double prevention scenarios. In contrast to this interpretation, we suggest that these new effects can be explained in terms of counterfactual reasoning. Specifically, the temporal order of events might influence the extent to which people simulate counterfactual alternatives to these events. We show that under this assumption, a recent counterfactual model of causal judgment can reproduce all qualitative effects of temporal order found in Thanawala and Erb's (2024) new work. Crucially, participants appear to preferentially simulate counterfactual alternatives to recent events, in line with work on counterfactual reasoning. Our findings complement past research that applied the counterfactual framework to temporal effects and double prevention independently, suggesting that these explanations are highly generalizable.
A Tutorial for Estimating Bayesian hierarchical mixture models for visual working memory tasks: Introducing the Bayesian Measurement Modeling (bmm) package for R
Gidon T. Frischkorn; Vencislav Popov
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Mixture models for visual working memory tasks using continuous report recall are highly popular measurement models in visual working memory research. Yet, efficient and easy- to-implement estimation procedures that flexibly enable group or condition comparisons are scarce. Specifically, most software packages implementing mixture models have used maximum likelihood estimation for single-subject data. Such estimation procedures require large trial numbers per participant to obtain robust and reliable estimates. This problem can be solved with hierarchical Bayesian estimation procedures that provide robust and reliable estimates with lower trial numbers. In this tutorial, we illustrate how mixture models for visual working memory tasks can be specified and fit in the newly developed R package bmm. The benefit of this implementation over existing hierarchical Bayesian implementations is that bmm integrates hierarchical Bayesian estimation of the mixture models with an efficient linear model syntax that enables us to adapt the mixture model to practically any experimental design. Specifically, this implementation allows varying model parameters over arbitrary groups or experimental conditions. Additionally, the hierarchical structure and the specification of informed priors can improve subject-level parameter estimation and solve estimation problems frequently. We illustrate these benefits in different examples and provide R code for easy adaptation to other use cases.
Community-led Intervention to Improve Health for Individuals living with Obesity in Under-served Communities
James H Liu; Evan A. Valdes; Gloria Finau; Jenn Sarich; Alosina Nua; Siautu Alefaio-Tugia
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OBJECTIVE: Obesity is a growing problem, especially for economically disadvantaged ethnic minorities. This study reports a formative evaluation of bio-psycho-social impacts of a 12-week lifestyle change and weight loss intervention led by a community-based NGO in alliance with a primary healthcare organization in New Zealand’s largest city. METHODS: BBM, steeped in indigenous models of holistic health, used social media to recruit 109 (predominantly Māori and Pacific) individuals living with obesity across 3 cohorts, participating in 2 days exercise and 1 day nutrition/dietary training weekly. Repeated-measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were conducted on measures of body weight, depressive symptoms, HbA1c, blood pressure, and self-reported exercise and eating taken at the programme’s start and end. Ten Talanoa (group discussions) gathered detailed accounts of experiences in the programme. RESULTS: Analysis of the 57% of participants who completed pre/post assessments showed significant weight loss (7.1 kgs from 180.1 initial weight), and substantial improvements in mental health, with depressive symptoms (PHQ-9) decreasing from 65% showing depressive symptoms at start to only 20% on completion. There were also statistically significant improvements in Glycated Haemoglobin (HbA1c), systolic blood pressure, and on self-reported fast food/soft drinks intake. Talanoa revealed that the programme provided a safe space for participants to thrive, and impacted on physical and mental wellbeing. CONCLUSIONS: BBM engaged participants living with obesity towards healthier lifestyles through the support of peer trainers well-versed in holistically working through ethnic minority life experiences in obesogenic environments. Community-led health interventions partnered with mainstream health professionals show promise for long-term weight loss.
Direct Mapping of Interventions to Thought Features: A Bayesian Proof-of-Concept Study
Nur Hani Zainal; Christian A. Webb; Lauren S. Hallion
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Although uncontrollability is the core feature of perseverative thought that best accounts for its relationship to psychopathology, other features – for example, valence and content – have also been identified as potentially clinically-relevant in their own right. We describe results from a proof-of-concept study that examined the extent to which major underlying features of worry could be used to predict which of three common cognitive regulatory strategies (mindful acceptance; focused attention meditation; and thought suppression) would help regulate that worry. N = 40 adults selected for high trait worry (80% also met criteria for one or more DSM-5 anxiety-related diagnoses) generated and provided feature ratings for three idiographic thought topics. Participants then attempted to control each worry using each of the three strategies during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a within-subjects design (k = 468 observations). We used Bayesian multilevel modeling to test preregistered hypotheses regarding the extent to which each of five empirically-derived underlying dimensions of a worry (uncontrollability; negative valence; self-focus; apprehension; and social-memory content) could be used to predict which strategy would be most efficacious for regulating that worry. We did not find support for our preregistered hypotheses; however, in exploratory analyses, we found that mindfulness-based strategies were particularly effective compared to thought suppression for thoughts rated as higher (versus lower) in uncontrollability. Future research should test these principles in larger samples, using more diverse expressions of perseverative thought.
Digitalização e inovação na triagem das altas habilidades/superdotação: uma breve revisão narrativa
Natanael Oliveira Teles dos Santos
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Este artigo analisa e discute novas possibilidades na identificação de indicadores de altas habilidades/superdotação (AH/SD), explorando o uso de tecnologias digitais para agilizar e tornar mais acessĂ­veis os instrumentos de triagem. A identificação precoce de alunos com AH/SD Ă© crucial para o desenvolvimento de suas potencialidades, mas enfrenta desafios como a falta de instrumentos normatizados e o desconhecimento por parte dos educadores. O objetivo deste estudo Ă© investigar como as novas tecnologias podem contribuir para a superação desses desafios, mantendo o rigor teĂłrico e preservando os dados coletados. O artigo explora o uso de testes e questionĂĄrios online, ferramentas de avaliação multimĂ­dia e inteligĂȘncia artificial (IA) como alternativas promissoras para a triagem de AH/SD. A plataforma CogniSigns, com seus assistentes virtuais V.E.R.A. e EugĂȘnio, Ă© apresentada como um exemplo de como a IA pode facilitar a identificação precoce e o acompanhamento de alunos com AH/SD. A triagem digital, com o apoio de tecnologias como a IA, pode auxiliar na coleta e anĂĄlise de dados de forma mais precisa, na criação de sistemas de recomendação personalizados e na implementação de intervençÔes eficazes. A integração de dados educacionais e a capacitação de professores e estudantes sĂŁo componentes essenciais para o sucesso da triagem digital, promovendo uma educação mais inclusiva e personalizada. Palavras-chave: Altas Habilidades. Superdotação. Triagem.
this is a chronos test 2
Eric L Olson; Daniel Steger
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this is a chronos test.klfvlfksvklcmdsklmlksdcmlksfcm
this is a chronos test 2
Eric L Olson; Daniel Steger
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this is a chronos test.klfvlfksvklcmdsklmlksdcmlksfcm
Reflection-Philosophy Order Effects and Correlations Across Samples
Nick Byrd
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Reflective reasoning often correlates with certain philosophical decisions, but it is often unclear whether reflection causes those decisions. So a pre-registered experiment assessed how reflective thinking relates to decisions about 10 thought experiments from epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind. Participants from the United States were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, CloudResearch, Prolific, and a university. One participant source yielded up to 18 times as many low-quality respondents as the other three. Among remaining respondents, some prior correlations between reflective and philosophical thinking replicated. For example, reflection predicted denying that accidentally justified true beliefs count as knowledge. However, no reflection test priming effects were detected. Rather, an unexpected philosophical reflection effect emerged: making the philosophical decisions before the reflection test improved test performance. These and other data suggest causal paths between reflection and philosophy can go both directions, but detecting such results can depend on factors such as data quality.
this is a chronos test 2
Eric L Olson; Daniel Steger
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this is a chronos test.klfvlfksvklcmdsklmlksdcmlksfcm
Preferences for costly cooperation are highly individualized
Mikayla Lalli; Michael J Carter; Nour Al Afif; Jiaqiao Tang; Hibaa Hasan; Enuri Dissanayake; Vida Sussman; Rakshith Lokesh; Scott Rathwell; Joshua G.A. Cashaback
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When deciding between action alternatives, we use information about the costs and rewards of each action to choose an appropriate plan. Curioni et al. (2022) recently found that participants had a strong preference for completing a virtual box-clearing task cooperatively with a partner rather than alone, despite it being more motorically and cognitively costly. Participants completed the task standing beside each other in close proximity, which may have created a social pressure to cooperate through a need to manage one’s reputation or a sense of commitment. Here, 50 human pairs—each composed of a “Decision-maker” and “Helper”—completed a box-clearing task modeled after Curioni et al. while seated farther away and out of view of one another. In 50% of trials, Decision-makers were forced to complete the task alone or with the Helper. In the remaining 50% of trials, Decision-makers chose to work alone or cooperatively. When working together, participants were required to synchronize their movements without communication or feedback of their partner’s movements. Decision-makers answered open-ended questions regarding why and when they chose to complete the task alone and together. We found a slight preference for individual action over costly joint action, yet this preference was not significantly different from chance. Inductive thematic analysis revealed two dominant themes: “chose actions with greater instrumental utility” and “chose actions with greater social value”. The identified themes suggest that preferences to cooperate are highly individualized, and that cooperative actions may provide additional social rewards that drive preferences for cooperation even when it is more costly.
The negative relationship between hunger and adolescent mental health is uncontroversial and universally present
Mirela Zaneva; Tsvetomira Dumbalska; Aaron Reeves; Lucy Bowes
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Hunger has established detrimental impacts on physical health, with emerging evidence indicating negative impacts on mental health. However, there is a pronounced knowledge gap outside high- income settings and for adolescents. Previous research also provides differing estimates of hunger’s impacts, potentially underpinned by a wide range of researcher degrees of freedom. We investigated the relationship between hunger and mental health in the Global School-based Student Health Survey with a sample of 410,213 adolescents from 79 countries. We used a principled multiverse analysis, systematically exploring 15,360 model specifications. Our results show a consistently stable negative relationship between hunger and adolescent mental health (worrying, median beta = .12; suicidality, median beta = .07). We find evidence of a dose-response relationship, such that more frequently experiencing hunger is associated with greater reported levels of worrying and suicidality. Overall, we provide robust evidence of the significant negative relationship between hunger and adolescent mental ill health.
Classifying Schizophrenia Patients and Healthy Individuals: Whole Brain SPECT Functional Connectivity using Support Vector Machine Classification
Amritha Harikumar; Joanne Wardell; David Keator; Daniel Amen; Sergey Plis; Vince D Calhoun
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Background: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been used to characterize functional brain networks in disorders ranging from depression to schizophrenia (Chatterjee & Mittal, 2019; Pilmeyer et al., 2022). Like fMRI, single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) is a technique which captures information about neurally linked blood flow activity through radioactive tracers (Davis et al., 2020). While a few SPECT studies in schizophrenia populations have been conducted (Malaspina et al., 1999) along with fMRI based studies (Steardo et al., 2020), research on SPECT data for individual subject classification is limited. We first used an independent component analysis (ICA) approach to estimate covarying SPECT networks (Harikumar et al., 2025). Results were then fed as input to a classifier model to evaluate accuracy of individual diagnostic prediction. Methods: 213 subjects (137 schizophrenia patients and 76 healthy controls) were used for the analysis. Classification input was based on loading parameters generated from spatially constrained ICA using a set of network priors derived from fMRI. Fifty-three SPECT components were estimated guided by the NeuroMark fMRI 1.0 template (Du et al., 2020). We initially focused on a support vector machine (SVM) classifier given previous favorable fMRI-SVM results. We also evaluated performance of multiple classifiers post hoc. Results and Conclusion: Linear SVM classification results showed a cross-validated classifier score (area under the curve (AUC)) of 83% (SD = 0.089), significantly above chance. Auditory, subcortical and sensorimotor networks were the highest ranked features. Results provide the first cross-validated classification of individual subject diagnoses using SPECT brain networks.
Fully automated estimation of fMRI guided SPECT brain networks and their functional network connectivity in schizophrenia patients vs controls: a NeuroMark ICA approach
Amritha Harikumar; Maria Misiura; Daniel Amen; David Keator; Vince D Calhoun
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Single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) scans have emerged as a useful imaging modality that has been explored in the literature for the last 40 years. To date, little work has focused on studying functional network connectivity utilizing SPECT data. In this study, we present a fully automated, spatially constrained ICA (sc-ICA) approach to evaluate functional network connectivity profiles in SPECT data using the NeuroMark pipeline. We evaluate both the expression of brain networks along with the whole brain SPECT connectome to evaluate the neuroimaging links to schizophrenia. 76 healthy controls, and 137 schizophrenia patient SPECT images were acquired from Amen Clinic sites along with diagnostic information. Each patient participated in two SPECT brain scans, acquired during rest and while performing a sustained attention task across twelve clinical imaging sites. Preprocessed SPECT data were analyzed via sc-ICA using 53 spatial priors derived from functional MRI data. 15 total components were found to show differences in various brain regions after correcting for multiple comparisons. FDR corrected resting SPECT results showed stronger covariation with CC-SC, CC-AUD, and DM-AUD networks. Many components showed reduced connectivity in patients. Additionally, relationships were associated with regressing loading parameters against age, sex, hearing voices and having disjointed thoughts. For the task data, connectivity between the cognitive control – default mode network was found in rest-task data after FDR correction. Task data covariation patterns largely remained the same as the rest data. In summary, we confirm existing work highlighting large scale network disruptions noted in prior schizophrenia fMRI studies.
A Comprehensive Network Analysis of Biopsychosocial Factors Associated with Postpartum Depression
Kristof Hoorelbeke; Eiko I Fried; Ernst H. W. Koster
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Background. The current study investigated relations between a broad set of postpartum depression (PPD) risk- and protective factors, their centrality and unique relations with PPD symptoms. Methods. Mixed graphical network models were estimated in cross-sectional data collected during Phase 7 (2012-2015) of the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System. Half of the 57,518 women were included in exploratory model 1, the other half in model 2 for cross-validation. A broad selection of biopsychosocial factors were modelled, including sociodemographic variables, indices of maternal health (behavior), pregnancy course, support, infant variables, and stressors. Results. A densely connected network of risk- and protective factors was obtained. Pregnancy duration, infant intensive care unit placement, infertility treatment, birth weight, income, and childbirth classes were ranked amongst the most central variables in the model. Out of 35 biopsychosocial factors included in the model, 11 were robustly related with PPD across both samples. High income, pre-pregnancy physical activity, pregnancy intention, and prenatal care focusing on depression risk were related to lower depression severity. Several other variables, including prior history of depression, pre-pregnancy dieting, prenatal risk behavior, and personal stressors were uniquely related to increased depression severity. Depressive complaints reduced with increased time since delivery. Women experiencing depressive symptoms were more likely to rely on aid from health workers postpartum. Results from models 1 and 2 were largely identical. Conclusions. Although cross-sectional in nature, these findings shed light on the complex associations between key risk- and protective factors for PPD, with implications for early detection and prevention.
Teaching is associated with the transmission of opaque culture and leadership across 23 egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies
Zachary H Garfield; Sheina Lew-Levy
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Despite extensive work on the evolution of cooperation, the roles of teaching and leadership in transmitting opaque cultural norms—foundations of cooperative behaviors—are underexplored. Similarly, while teaching is well-studied in the evolution of instrumental culture, little attention is given to its role in transmitting opaque culture, such as social values and norms. Transmitting opaque culture often requires teaching, and group leaders are well-positioned to facilitate this process. Using comparative ethnographic data, we explore teaching, leadership, and instrumental versus opaque culture by examining whether opaque culture is primarily transmitted via teaching, which age groups tend to learn these norms, and whether leaders are disproportionately involved in teaching. Drawing on ethnographic data from 23 egalitarian foraging societies, we find teaching is more strongly associated with transmitting cultural values and kinship knowledge than subsistence skills and is closely linked to opaque culture and leadership. Leader-directed teaching may drive cooperation, suggesting new research avenues.
A counterfactual explanation for recency effects in double prevention scenarios: commentary on Thanawala & Erb (2024)
Tadeg Quillien; Kevin O'Neill; Paul Henne
Full text
Many cognitive scientists and philosophers take cases of double prevention to be one of the primary motivations for accepting causal pluralism, the view that people have multiple concepts of causation. Thanawala and Erb (2024) recently argue against Lombrozo's (2010) account of causal pluralism. They find that the temporal order of events affects people's causal judgments in double prevention cases, and they interpret this finding as showing that people use a productive concept of causation in double prevention scenarios. In contrast to this interpretation, we suggest that these new effects can be explained in terms of counterfactual reasoning. Specifically, the temporal order of events might influence the extent to which people simulate counterfactual alternatives to these events. We show that under this assumption, a recent counterfactual model of causal judgment can reproduce all qualitative effects of temporal order found in Thanawala and Erb's (2024) new work. Crucially, participants appear to preferentially simulate counterfactual alternatives to recent events, in line with work on counterfactual reasoning. Our findings complement past research that applied the counterfactual framework to temporal effects and double prevention independently, suggesting that these explanations are highly generalizable.
Anxiety symptom trajectories across development: risk factors and outcomes
Elisavet Palaiologou; Megan Skelton; Elham Assary; Gerome Breen; Matthew Hotopf; GeneviĂšve Morneau-Vaillancourt; Ellen J Thompson; Celestine Laetitia Lockhart; Thomas McGregor; Robert Plomin
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Background: Anxiety is one of the most common conditions affecting young people. The onset and course of symptoms are highly variable across development and if left untreated, can lead to poor outcomes. We modelled trajectories of anxiety symptoms from childhood to early adulthood and examined associated predictors and adult outcomes. Method: We analysed data from the Twins Early Development Study, a UK-based longitudinal twin cohort (N = 13,965). Anxiety symptoms were assessed using items from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire from ages 4 to 26. Growth mixture modelling was used to identify anxiety symptom trajectories. We examined associations between trajectory class membership and genetic, early-life family environment and child characteristics, as well as adult outcomes at age 26. Findings: We identified four anxiety symptom trajectories: Low-Stable (n=9,440, 68%), Adolescent-Onset (n=2,486, 18%), Childhood-Limited (n=1,583, 11%) and Persistent (n=456, 3%). Neuroticism polygenic score, maternal depression, female sex, early conduct, and peer problems were associated with membership in all three of the smaller, higher severity, anxiety symptom classes. Female sex, conduct and peer problems distinguished these three classes from one another. The Adolescent-Onset anxiety class was additionally associated with general cognitive ability and polygenic scores for Major Depressive Disorder and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder; and Persistent anxiety with polygenic score for Anxiety Disorder. In terms of outcomes, Persistent and Adolescent-Onset trajectories were associated with poor clinical and life outcomes in early adulthood. Interpretation: The developmental course of anxiety is associated with polygenic risk for psychopathology, the early family environment, and child characteristics, with some associations differing between trajectory groups. Screening for high neuroticism polygenic score, maternal depression, general cognitive ability, and conduct and peer problems may enable the early identification of those at risk of developing anxiety.
Effectiveness, mediators and moderators of remote live vs. prerecorded physical exercise training for chronic low back pain
Carlos Gevers-Montoro; Maxime Bergevin; Florian Bobeuf; MylĂšne Aubertin-Leheudre; Benjamin Pageaux; Mathieu Roy
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Remote physical exercise training offers a more accessible alternative for the management of chronic low back pain (CLBP). However, the effectiveness of various remote delivery methods for this population are unclear. This randomized controlled trial compared live interactive training via videoconference to individual prerecorded video training sessions in patients with CLBP. Ninety-four individuals with CLBP were randomly assigned to a waitlist or to a 12-week general exercise program delivered by a certified kinesiologist, either through live interactive or prerecorded video sessions. The training intensity for the 3 weekly one-hour sessions was adapted to each participant’s fitness level. A total of 57 patients (average age 48.4 ±12.5 years, 36 women) completed the study, with comparable rates of attrition in the three groups. Those performing exercise, irrespective of modality, experienced significant and clinically meaningful (>20%) reduction in pain intensity ratings compared to waitlist. Similarly, exercise training (vs. waitlist) decreased movement-evoked pain. No differences were observed between both forms of training for pain intensity, perceived difficulty, effort, fatigue, satisfaction or pain evoked during the training sessions. The therapeutic effects of physical exercise training were moderated by sex, with women reporting less pain relief, and mediated by pain catastrophizing and functional performance (as measured by a repeated chair stand task). Altogether, these results support remote exercise training, independent of the mode of delivery, as an accessible alternative for the administration of physical exercise training for individuals with CLBP.
Preferences for costly cooperation are highly individualized
Mikayla Lalli; Nour Al Afif; Jiaqiao Tang; Hibaa Hasan; Enuri Dissanayake; Vida Sussman; Rakshith Lokesh; Scott Rathwell; Joshua G.A. Cashaback; Michael J Carter
Full text
When deciding between action alternatives, we use information about the costs and rewards of each action to choose an appropriate plan. Curioni et al. (2022) recently found that participants had a strong preference for completing a virtual box-clearing task cooperatively with a partner rather than alone, despite it being more motorically and cognitively costly. Participants completed the task standing beside each other in close proximity, which may have created a social pressure to cooperate through a need to manage one’s reputation or a sense of commitment. Here, 50 human pairs—each composed of a “Decision-maker” and “Helper”—completed a box-clearing task modeled after Curioni et al. while seated farther away and out of view of one another. In 50% of trials, Decision-makers were forced to complete the task alone or with the Helper. In the remaining 50% of trials, Decision-makers chose to work alone or cooperatively. When working together, participants were required to synchronize their movements without communication or feedback of their partner’s movements. Decision-makers answered open-ended questions regarding why and when they chose to complete the task alone and together. We found a slight preference for individual action over costly joint action, yet this preference was not significantly different from chance. Inductive thematic analysis revealed two dominant themes: “chose actions with greater instrumental utility” and “chose actions with greater social value”. The identified themes suggest that preferences to cooperate are highly individualized, and that cooperative actions may provide additional social rewards that drive preferences for cooperation even when it is more costly.
The Anti-Depression Computer Program: Results of an Effectiveness Study
Olga Troitskaya; Anastasia Batkhina
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This study is aimed at evaluating the efficiency of the iCognito Anti-Depression computer program, which combines cognitive-behavioural therapy, mindfulness, and problem-solving therapy methods, and is delivered by a conversational agent (chatbot) in Russian language via a smartphone application. The program was designed for mass usage to fill in the gap of insufficient mental health service provision in countries with large Russian-speaking population, such as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. A randomized wait-list controlled trial was conducted on a sample with moderate or severe depression (N = 73). The intervention consisted of fully automatized work with a computer program for 2 weeks. Сompleting the iCognito Anti-Depression program is associated with decreased depression, stress, anxiety, rumination, and sleep disturbance, as well as increased level of self-compassion, mindfulness, positive problem orientation, self-efficacy, subjective well-being, and optimism; with the interaction effect being insignificant for reflection and negative problem orientation. The program has been downloaded by approximately 400 000 Russian-speaking users since its release in 2020 and received positive user reviews (4.5 out of 5). Both the efficiency study and user demand demonstrate that mass computer programs such as “Anti-Depression” are able to expand access to basic psychological assistance internationally.
Developmental differences in exploration reveal underlying differences in structure inference
Nora Harhen; Rheza Budiono; Catherine A. Hartley; Aaron Bornstein
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Across development, we balance exploring to refine our causal models of the world with exploiting what we already know. Children and adolescents often explore more than adults, a tendency commonly attributed to greater decision-making noise or stronger motivation to learn. Here, we propose developmental changes in structure learning as an alternative driver of exploration. Through exploration, we uncover relevant statistical relationships in our environment that can be leveraged to obtain rewards. To test this proposal, 252 8-to-25-year-old participants completed a patch-foraging task indexing individual differences in structure learning. Younger participants explored more, leaving patches sooner than adults. Computational modeling revealed that their early departures stemmed from their use of simpler and easier-to-plan-over structure representations to guide their decisions. Our findings go beyond previous algorithmic accounts of developmental change in exploration, suggesting that heightened exploration can also arise from differences in how children learn the structure of their environments.
Large-Scale Simulation Study of Active Learning Models for Systematic Reviews
Jelle Jasper Teijema; Jonathan de Bruin; Ayoub Bagheri; Rens van de Schoot
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Despite progress in active learning, evaluation remains limited by constraints in simulation size, infrastructure, and dataset availability. This study advocates for large-scale simulations as the gold standard for evaluating active learning models in systematic review screening. Two large-scale simulations, totaling over 29 thousand runs, assessed active learning solutions. The first study evaluated 13 combinations of classification models and feature extraction techniques using high-quality datasets from the SYNERGY dataset. The second expanded this to 92 model combinations with additional classifiers and feature extractors. In every scenario tested, active learning outperformed random screening. The performance gained varied across datasets, models, and screening progression, ranging from considerable to near-flawless results. The findings demonstrate that active learning consistently outperforms random screening in systematic review tasks, offering significant efficiency gains. While the extent of improvement varies depending on the dataset, model choice, and screening stage, the overall advantage is clear. Since model performance differs, active learning systems should remain adaptable to accommodate new classifiers and feature extraction techniques. The publicly available results underscore the importance of open benchmarking to ensure reproducibility and the development of robust, generalizable active learning strategies.
Teaching is associated with the transmission of opaque culture and leadership across 23 egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies
Zachary H Garfield; Sheina Lew-Levy
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Despite extensive work on the evolution of cooperation, the roles of teaching and leadership in transmitting opaque cultural norms—foundations of cooperative behaviors—are underexplored. Similarly, while teaching is well-studied in the evolution of instrumental culture, little attention is given to its role in transmitting opaque culture, such as social values and norms. Transmitting opaque culture often requires teaching, and group leaders are well-positioned to facilitate this process. Using comparative ethnographic data, we explore teaching, leadership, and instrumental versus opaque culture by examining whether opaque culture is primarily transmitted via teaching, which age groups tend to learn these norms, and whether leaders are disproportionately involved in teaching. Drawing on ethnographic data from 23 egalitarian foraging societies, we find teaching is more strongly associated with transmitting cultural values and kinship knowledge than subsistence skills and is closely linked to opaque culture and leadership. Leader-directed teaching may drive cooperation, suggesting new research avenues.
The Open Empirical Cycle for Hypothesis Evaluation in Psychology
Herbert Hoijtink; Jonathan de Bruin; Sascha BĂ©la Duken; Jacques Flores; Willem Frankenhuis; Caspar J. Van Lissa
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In the last decade it has become clear that replicability of empirical psychological research should be better. Open science practices aim to enhance the transparency of research thereby both enabling others to reproduce the results presented in a paper and increasing the replicability of these results using new data. Examples of these practices include preregistration, publication of data and analyses, open access publications, and replication research. Although open science practices are gaining traction, they have rarely been placed in a broader epistemological context. To address this shortcoming, this paper introduces the open empirical cycle. It draws upon De Groot’s empirical cycle, a model of cumulative knowledge generation via scientific research. The open empirical cycle is a pragmatic guide for researchers that includes and links to open science practices. Adhering to the open empirical cycle, if only partly, will structure the scientific workflow and create awareness of the adverse consequences of deviations. Following the open empirical cycle increases the transparency, quality, trustworthiness, and replicability of research. The open empirical cycle presented in this paper focusses on hypothesis evaluation using quantitative data in psychology. However, it can straightforwardly be applied to hypothesis evaluation in other social and behavioral sciences and biomedical sciences. It brings together ideas from de Groot’s empirical cycle, traditional, and open research steps, key references, and open science tools, thereby providing a pragmatic, contemporary, and structured approach to hypothesis evaluation.
Teaching is associated with the transmission of opaque culture and leadership across 23 egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies
Zachary H Garfield; Sheina Lew-Levy
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Despite extensive work on the evolution of cooperation, the roles of teaching and leadership in transmitting opaque cultural norms—foundations of cooperative behaviors—are underexplored. Similarly, while teaching is well-studied in the evolution of instrumental culture, little attention is given to its role in transmitting opaque culture, such as social values and norms. Transmitting opaque culture often requires teaching, and group leaders are well-positioned to facilitate this process. Using comparative ethnographic data, we explore teaching, leadership, and instrumental versus opaque culture by examining whether opaque culture is primarily transmitted via teaching, which age groups tend to learn these norms, and whether leaders are disproportionately involved in teaching. Drawing on ethnographic data from 23 egalitarian foraging societies, we find teaching is more strongly associated with transmitting cultural values and kinship knowledge than subsistence skills and is closely linked to opaque culture and leadership. Leader-directed teaching may drive cooperation, suggesting new research avenues.
Beyond population means: The utility of Bayesian Prevalence analyses in autism research
Connor Tom Keating
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This article advocates for diversifying statistical methods in autism research to better capture the inherent heterogeneity within the autistic population. While null hypothesis statistical testing (NHST) on population means remains valuable for identifying group-level differences, it often overlooks significant individual variability. This article recommends complementing traditional approaches with Bayesian prevalence analysis, which estimates the proportion of autistic individuals displaying specific characteristics.
A lexical examination of the facets of Honesty-Humility: The Adjective Checklist of Honesty
Simona Amenta; Anastasia Galkina; Daniele Romano; Marco Perugini; Giulio Costantini
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The HEXACO model describes human personality through six major domains, each one further specified by four facets. Honesty-Humility is a key component of the model, and subsumes facets sincerity, fairness, modesty, and greed-avoidance. Although established and comprehensive measurement tools of HEXACO traits and facets through sentence items exist, a comprehensive assessment of honesty-humility through adjectives has not yet been developed. We present a novel instrument, the Adjective Checklist of Honesty (ACH), designed to enhance the assessment of Honesty by incorporating lexical descriptors of its facets, developed using a systematic approach. In Study 1, we identified a broad set of potential descriptors of honesty-humility facets, and refined it through independent raters to identify candidate items. In Study 2 (N = 266), we examined the factorial structure of the candidate items and developed the final 22-item version of the ACH. In Study 3 (N = 300), we confirmed the factorial structure of the shortened ACH questionnaire and collected validity evidence for the new scale. Our studies have important implications for the assessment of Honesty-Humility, shed light on the relationships between Honesty-Humility and truthfulness and, more generally, showcase the importance of a systematic approach in constructing assessment scales in personality psychology.
Psychedelic Use in Japan, and its Effect on Depression and anxiety: A Cross-Sectional Survey Analysis
Shiratori Takashi
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Introduction: Psychedelic research has expanded globally, but studies in Japan remain limited due to strict drug policies and social stigma. This study investigates the demographic characteristics and mental health effects of psychedelic use among Japanese users, providing insights for future drug policy and mental healthcare. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of Japanese psychedelic users recruited via social media (X, formerly Twitter) from May 1 to June 1, 2024. Eligible participants (aged 18+, Japanese nationals) completed an online questionnaire, reporting demographic data, psychedelic use history, and mental health assessments. Depression and anxiety were measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) scales before and after psychedelic use. Results: Among 615 participants, the average age was 33.8 years. LSD was the most used psychedelic. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests showed significant reductions in depression and anxiety scores after psychedelic use (PHQ-9: Z = –14.87, p < .001, r = 0.59; GAD-7: Z = –14.59, p < .001, r = 0.58), suggesting potential mental health benefits. Discussion: The findings support the self-medication hypothesis, indicating that individuals may turn to psychedelics for relief from mental distress, resulting in improved symptoms of depression and anxiety. However, the study’s reliance on self-reported data and lack of clinical control limits the ability to establish causal relationships. Further research should investigate the therapeutic potential and risks of psychedelic use in Japan’s cultural context. These findings highlight the need for culturally sensitive drug policies and continued exploration of psychedelic use outside clinical settings.
Open Science in the Developing World: A Collection of Practical Guides for Researchers in Developing Countries
Hu Chuan-Peng; Zhiqi Xu; Aleksandra Lazić; Piyali Bhattacharya; Leonardo Seda; Samiul Hossain; Alma Jeftic; Asil Ali Özdoğru; Olavo Bohrer Amaral; Nadica Miljković
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Over the past decade, the open science movement has transformed the research landscape, though its impact has largely been confined to developed countries. Recently, researchers from developing countries have called for a redesign of open science to better align with their unique contexts. However, raising awareness alone is insufficient—practical actions are required to drive meaningful and inclusive change. In this work, we analyze the opportunities offered by the open science movement and explore the macro- and micro-level barriers researchers in developing countries face when engaging with these practices. Drawing on these insights and the experiences of researchers from developing regions, we propose a four-level guide to support their gradual engagement with open science: (1) utilizing open resources to build a solid foundation for rigorous research, (2) adopting low-cost, easily implementable practices, (3) contributing to open science communities through actionable steps, and (4) taking on leadership roles or forming local communities to foster cultural change. We conclude by discussing potential pitfalls of engaging in open science and outline concrete recommendations for future action.
Falls in people with Alzheimer’s Disease: Exploring the role of inhibitory control
Marlee Jay Wells; Jane Alty; Mark R. Hinder; Rebecca Jane St George
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People with dementia fall at twice the rate of their age-matched peers, often with more serious consequences, yet the underlying reasons remain poorly understood. This narrative review explores relevant psychological, physiological and neuroimaging studies to discuss whether diminished inhibitory control contributes to poor balance and falls in people with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), the most common form of dementia. Inhibitory control, a component of executive function, plays a vital role in regulating attention and suppressing inappropriate impulses. Although objective tests of inhibitory control are not routinely used in clinical settings, research suggests inhibitory control declines early, and progressively, in AD. Postural tasks that engage inhibitory control can improve the accuracy of distinguishing fallers from non-fallers beyond known factors. Neuroimaging studies link the prefrontal cortex to both inhibitory and postural control, and this region exhibits neuronal loss early in AD. Thus, emerging evidence suggests that accurately assessing inhibitory control could not only inform falls risk but also aid AD detection.
Self and Other in Schizophrenic Self-Disorders: The Case of Paranoia
John Pallas
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Schizophrenia spectrum conditions are well-characterized as self-disorders. With its recent revision, the ipseity-disorder model of self-disorder explains a wider range of experiential phenomenon. This comment considers the revised model’s characterization of self-presence, finding a tension in its theoretical revision that propagates to its conceptualization of paranoia. It suggests that this tension precludes the explanation of paranoia as an instance of exaggerated self-presence. The phenomenon of paranoia may be better characterized as diminished self-presence in the context of heightened grip or hold on a perceptual reality that includes other minds.
Breaking the bureaucratic mold of instruction
Joachim Krueger
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This is an essay on how to create engagement in a college classroom without micro-managing students. It has been submitted to be published in the2025 Brown University Faculty Bulletin.
Individual differences do not mask effects of unconscious processing
Itay Yaron; Nathan Faivre; Liad Mudrik; Matan Mazor
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A wave of criticisms and replication failures is currently challenging claims about the scope of unconscious perception and cognition. Such failures to find unconscious processing effects at the population level may reflect the absence of individual-level effects, or alternatively, the averaging out of individual-level effects with opposing signs. Importantly, only the first suggests that consciousness may be necessary for the tested process to take place. To arbitrate between these two possibilities, we tested previously collected data where unconscious processing effects were not found (26 effects from 470 participants), using five frequentist and Bayesian tests that are robust to individual differences in effect signs. By and large, we found no reliable evidence for unconscious effects being masked by individual differences. In contrast, when we examined 136 non-significant effects from other domains, two novel non-parametric tests did reveal effects that were hidden by opposing individual results, though as we show, some of them might be driven by design-related factors. Taken together, five analysis approaches provide strong evidence for the restricted nature of unconscious processing effects not only across participants, but also across different trials within individuals. We provide analysis code and best-practice recommendations for testing for non-directional effects.
‘Is there a relationship between Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) and depersonalisation and derealisation experiences in adulthood?: A Systematic Review’
Sarah Dunstan
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Background Dissociation occurs in “fight or flight” situations when someone is feeling overwhelmed. Depersonalisation/Derealisation disorder (DPDRD) is a type of dissociation that involves feeling removed from one’s self and reality. DPDRD has been linked with interpersonal abuse but research is less clear on the role childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has on this dissociative experience. Method Following a systematic review protocol, four electronic database searches, a citation search and grey literature search were conducted. Overall, 10 papers assessing links between CSA and depersonalisation and derealisation were identified and quality assessed. A textual narrative synthesis was conducted to extract results from each study and identify patterns within the data. Results The synthesis indicated that samples were predominantly female and White/Caucasian. Over half the papers identified an association between CSA and depersonalisation/derealisation although these relationships were mainly weak or moderate. Further analysis suggested that methodological issues with sampling may have caused some bias. Conclusion Tentative links do exist between CSA and depersonalisation/derealisation, but methodological limitations within the studies, suggest possible biased results. Therefore, this review highlights a need for further research addressing these issues, to produce conclusive results. Keywords: Depersonalisation, derealisation, systematic review, childhood sexual abuse (CSA)
Nexed
Joachim Krueger
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This is a review of ‘Nexus: A brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI’ by Yuval A. Harari, to be published in the American Journal of Psychology.
Idéologie Fixe
Joachim Krueger
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This is a review of ‘The ideological brain: The radical science of flexible thinking’ by Leor Zmigrod, to be published in the American Journal of Psychology.
A novel approach to study the behavioral, neural and phenomenological impact of prefrontal HD-tDCS on conflict resolution
Víctor Martínez-Pérez; Elisa Martín-Arévalo; Tristan Bekinschtein; Miguel A. Fernåndez-del-Olmo; Daniel Sanabria; Antonio Luque-Casado; Darias Holgado
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This study aimed to investigate the effects of high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) on conflict resolution, focusing on behavioral performance, neural activity, and subjective experience. Sixty participants were randomly assigned to anodal, cathodal, or sham HD-tDCS groups and completed a 30-minute flanker task during stimulation. Using a comprehensive methodological approach, including Drift-Diffusion Modeling (DDM), EEG analysis, Lempel-Ziv complexity, and Temporal Experience Tracing (TET), we assessed the cognitive, neural, and phenomenological effects of stimulation. Behavioral results indicated no significant improvements in reaction times or accuracy across the stimulation groups. Similarly, DDM parameters showed no effect of HD-tDCS on cognitive processes. However, EEG data revealed a significant reduction in neural complexity, in the anodal group during resting-state, suggesting neural reorganization. Subjective experience analysis identified two distinct clusters of task-related feelings, though time spent in these experiential states did not differ between groups. Interestingly, sensation of stimulation was significantly higher for anodal stimulation than sham when analyzed as a single dimension. Despite null behavioral effects, this study provides important insights into the neural and subjective responses to HD-tDCS and emphasizes the value of advanced analytic techniques in examining brain stimulation effects. These findings contribute to the ongoing debate about the efficacy of tDCS in cognitive enhancement.
Defragmenting psychology
Farid Anvari; Taym Alsalti; Lorenz Oehler; Ian Hussey; Malte Elson; Ruben C. Arslan
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Psychology is fragmented into the study of a myriad of constructs and measures, most used very rarely. This hinders cumulative knowledge generation. More effort needs to focus on defragmenting the field and preventing further fragmentation. We provide several suggestions to this effect.
Does QM = AIT?
Tariq Khan
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A short philosophical and speculative essay proposing that quantum mechanics (QM) and algorithmic information theory (AIT) are actually equivalent, or reciprocal, means or operations of describing nature. An understanding of this relationship could provide a means to solve complex problems via a formal correspondence between continuous mathematics and discrete mathematics. Subjective attributes are noted between the operations and compared for their similarities as a first step to motivate additional technical research toward a formal and fundamental theorem of the relationship.
A systematic review on the relationship between psychological resilience, cognitive emotion regulation strategies, and climate anxiety
Nejc Plohl; Ana Lampret; UrĆĄka Smrke; Ćœiva Krajnc; Tina Kos; Bojan Musil
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The increasing prevalence of climate anxiety and its associations with mental health disorders have encouraged the scientific community to explore how individuals may effectively cope with this complex phenomenon. While existing research has primarily centered on behavioral strategies, much less is known about the role of traits and strategies that may help individuals mentally cope with adversity. Hence, the present preregistered review (PROSPERO: CRD42024574449) investigated the relationship between climate anxiety, psychological resilience, and cognitive emotion regulation (CER) strategies. We attempted to identify quantitative studies with observational designs that report novel results pertaining to associations of interest. To do so, we searched Scopus, Web of Science, EBSCOhost, ProQuest, and MEDLINE for published papers and theses, along with PsyArxiv, SocArXiv, and medRxiv for preprints. Additionally, we searched the reference lists of all eligible studies and assessed the quality of articles using the Survey Studies in Psychology checklist. In the end, 13 articles that contained 15 relevant studies and 97 relevant findings met our eligibility criteria. The results showed that psychological resilience was consistently negatively associated with climate anxiety, whereas the results were rather mixed for adaptive and maladaptive CER strategies. An additional identified construct, psychological adaptation to climate change - a blend of different (mal)adaptive CER strategies - was positively associated with climate anxiety. Despite limitations, such as the small number of studies and relatively low cohesion between them, our review highlights psychological resilience as a protective factor and the complexity of the relationship between CER strategies and climate anxiety.
The relationship of lightness illusions uncovered by individual differences and its advantage in model evaluation
Yuki Kobayashi; Arthur G Shapiro
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Computational models that explain lightness/brightness illusions have been proposed. These models have been assessed using a simplistic criterion: the number of illusions each model can correctly predict from the test set. This simple method of evaluation assumes that each illusion in the set is independent; however, since lightness illusions are not independent of each other, an unbalanced test set may distort the evaluation of models. Moreover, evaluating models with a single value obscures where the model’s strength and weakness lies. We collected illusion magnitudes of various lightness illusions through two online experiments and investigated their correlations to identify underlying factors in these illusions. Experiment 1 identified three common factors reflecting assimilation, contrast, and White’s effect. Experiment 2, with a different illusion set, identified two factors reflecting assimilation and contrast, and detected high independence of an illusion caused by remote luminance gradients. We then examined three well-known models using the outcomes of the experiments. This model test showed that the redundancy in the illusion sets does not markedly skew the evaluation of the models, but the predictions by some models have a strong bias towards the contrast effect. This study clarified that correlations of illusion magnitudes provide valuable insights into both illusions and models, and highlighted the need to assess models based on processes underlying lightness perception, rather than focusing on individual illusions.
Understanding The Ethical Implications of Neuroenhancement
Eugénia Correia de Barros
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In its widest definition, neuroenhancement describes actions done by healthy people to enhance their mental abilities beyond what is naturally possible. In contrast to therapy, which tries to reverse disease or lessen suffering, enhancement seeks to increase a person's potential regardless of disease or suffering. On the other hand, the growing application of neuromodulation technologies presents serious moral questions about social interaction and the pursuit of personal traits. Therefore, this paper aims to convince the scientific community that neuroenhancement has been used since the beginning of human civilization, whether through tools, inventions, or modern technologies. As such, it should be viewed as an extension of the innate human desire to innovate and improve.
Transtorno de Personalidade Narcisista: estudo de associação genÎmica ampla (GWAS) e novos recursos clínicos
Natanael Oliveira Teles dos Santos
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Introdução: O Transtorno de Personalidade Narcisista (TPN) Ă© prejudicial ao funcionamento social, emocional e interpessoal dos indivĂ­duos. Sua origem multifatorial Ă© complexa, envolvendo tanto fatores genĂ©ticos quanto ambientais. A forma de identificar o narcisismo patolĂłgico no processo diagnĂłstico em geral Ă© realizada exclusivamente com base nas entrevistas (anamnese), histĂłrico, inventĂĄrio, questionĂĄrio, e exames para exclusĂŁo de outras patologias, destacando-se a caracterĂ­stica de grandiosidade narcĂ­sica como sendo central para a definição do TPN conforme o DSM-5 TR (APA, 2023). Objetivo: Analisar e discutir a hipĂłtese da utilização de relatĂłrios genĂ©ticos aliados com estudos de anĂĄlise da morfologia cerebral por neuroimagem, como forma de contribuir com o diagnĂłstico e tratamento do TPN. MĂ©todo: RevisĂŁo de literatura. Foram selecionados estudos cientĂ­ficos publicados em periĂłdicos indexados, acessados por meio de bases de dados Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), National Library of Medicine (PubMed), PeriĂłdicos EletrĂŽnicos de Psicologia (PePSIC), revistas cientĂ­ficas, dissertaçÔes de mestrado, teses de doutorado e livros no idioma portuguĂȘs e inglĂȘs. Resultados: Os resultados deste artigo demonstraram que novas ferramentas oriundas dos estudos mais recentes em genĂ©tica e neuroimagem, podem auxiliar em muitos aspectos no processo de diagnĂłstico e tratamento do TPN. ConsideraçÔes finais: Portanto, conclui-se como interpretação dos achados, que Ă© preciso aguardar novas diretrizes, diante do impacto de todos esses estudos recentes de neurogenĂ©tica na comunidade mĂ©dica e cientĂ­fica. Palavras-chave: Empatia. Narcisismo. Transtornos da Personalidade. Polimorfismo.
Is intense physical exercise detrimental for cognition? A novel approach based on subjective, behavioral and physiological responses to a cognitive effort to failure to failure
Darias Holgado; Ludovic Leubaz; Paolo Ruggeri; Guillermo BorragĂĄn; Antonio Luque-Casado; Tristan Bekinschtein; Daniel Sanabria; Nicolas Place
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Background Most previous research has investigated whether performing a demanding cognitive task reduces the time a person can hold a subsequent physical effort. However, no previous research has investigated if performing an intense physical exercise reduces the time a person can complete a cognitive task with an adequate level of performance. The aim of this study was to assess the subjective, behavioral and physiological responses of performing an intense physical exercise on a posterior cognitive tak until failure. Methods In a pre-registered, within-participant experiment, 29 active participants performed a cognitive task until failure after either running to exhaustion at 90% maximal aerobic speed or walking for 10 minutes (control). Brain activity was recorded via EEG, brain complexity measured, and subjective experience assessed using the Temporal Experience Tracing (TET) method. Results Physical exercise reduced maximal force capacity and increased perceived exertion compared to the control, highlighting significant workload differences. Cognitive task durations were 4755.8 s (95% CI: 3326.8–5107.8) and 4308.2 s (95% CI: 3902.9–5481.2) for control and experimental conditions, with no significant difference (BF10 = 0.329). Subjective experience analysis revealed two task-demand clusters, but time spent in these states was similar across conditions. Cognitive performance was better during phases of low perceived demands. Brain complexity decreased after maximal aerobic effort, suggesting a physiological shift, though cognitive performance and subjective feelings remained unaffected. Conclusion There was no evidence that short intense physical exercise negatively affected participants' ability to sustain a cognitive effort to failure.
Truncating the Likelihood Allows Outlier Exclusion Without Overestimating the Evidence in the Bayes Factor t-Test
Henrik R. Godmann; FrantiĆĄek BartoĆĄ; Eric-Jan Wagenmakers
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The purpose of outlier exclusion is to improve data quality and prevent model misspecification. However, procedures to identify and exclude outliers may bring unwanted side effects such as an increase in the Type I error rate. Here we study the side effects of outlier exclusion procedures on the Bayes factor hypothesis test. We focus on the Bayesian independent samples t-test and show how outlier exclusion procedures may inflate the Bayes factor, resulting in conclusions that are overconfident. Researchers therefore find themselves on the horns of a dilemma: spurious effects and an inflation of evidence can occur both as a result of retaining outliers and as a result of removing extreme observations. To resolve the dilemma, we propose to truncate the likelihood function and embed the procedure in the Bayesian model-averaged t-test. Simulations demonstrate the adequacy of the proposed solution. The methodology has been implemented in the R package RoBTT and in JASP.
Translating psychological verbal theories into formal models of change with differential equations
Meng Chen; Rohit Batra; Emorie D Beck; Emilio Ferrer
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Characterizing psychological processes as dynamical systems has become a common practice in psychology. Most often, psychological theories are expressed in verbal terms and then interpreted by researchers in their operationalization. In contrast, theories can also be expressed formally in mathematical or computational terms. However, translating verbal theories of dynamical systems into formal theories, especially those represented by differential equations (DEs), often requires knowledge of physics and mathematics beyond the standard training received by psychologists. In this article, we seek to provide a roadmap for researchers who wish to build a formal theory expressed in DEs from a verbal theory. We use a running example to illustrate the various steps and end with a discussion on caveats of formalizing using DE models. Our roadmap aims at the phase of formal theory development and refinement, before a researcher collects their data. We discuss different DE applications and provide corresponding examples for researchers interested in further reading.
Threshold priors in item factor analysis under DELTA and THETA parameterizations
R. Noah Padgett; Sonja Désirée Winter
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Bayesian estimation approaches for item factor analyses (IFA) can provide a valuable tool to overcome difficulty in parameter estimation in frequentist approaches when the marginal response distribution is highly skewed. Highly skewed marginal response distributions are problematic in Bayesian IFA models with binary factor indicators depending on how the latent response distribution is parameterized. We provide an alternative implementation of Bayesian IFA under a DELTA, or a unit total variance, parameterization of the latent response distribution. We show that parameterizing the latent response distribution using fixed total variances improves coverage rates of credible intervals for threshold parameters. We apply our implementation of Bayesian IFA to data on psychopathology to illustrate the consistency in threshold recovery under relatively small sample sizes (n=200 sampled from the full population of N=9,282) when some indicators are highly skewed in the population (e.g., <3% of the population are positive on a factor indicator).
Relative Effectiveness and Predictors of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia and its Components in Older Adults: Main Outcomes of a Randomized Clinical Trial
Kathleen P O'Hora; Allison Brooke Morehouse; Leah Friedman; Donn Posner; Maryam Ahmadi; Beatriz Hernandez; Kristen Faye Burda; Clete Kushida; Jamie Zeitzer; Laura Lazzeroni
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Study Objectives: To determine the relative effectiveness and predictors of Cognitive therapy (CT), Behavioral therapy (BT), and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Insomnia in older adults. Methods: In a registered clinical trial (NCT02117388), 128 older adults with Insomnia Disorder were randomized to receive CBT, BT, or CT. Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) score was the primary outcome. Sleep diaries, fatigue, beliefs about sleep, cognitive arousal, and stress were secondary outcomes. Split-plot linear mixed models assessed within and between subject changes in outcomes among the treatments. As a secondary analysis, we used linear regression to test predictors of insomnia symptoms improvement, including sleep diary measures, cognitive arousal, stress, beliefs about sleep, baseline ISI score, and age. Benjamini-Hochberg correction was applied. Results: All groups exhibited insomnia symptom reduction at post-treatment (CT: d=-2.53, p<.001; BT: d=-2.39, p<.001; CBT: d=-2.90, p<.001) and 6FU (CT: d=-2.68, p<.001; BT: d=-2.85, p<.001; CBT: d=-3.14, p<.001). There were no group differences in the magnitude of ISI improvement (padj=.63), response (padj>.63), or remission (ISI<8; padj>.27). All groups exhibited significant improvements in secondary outcomes at post-treatment (padj <.05) and 6FU (padj<0.05). At post-treatment, the CT and CBT groups showed greater reductions in beliefs about sleep than the BT group (FInteraction(2,185)=5.99, padj=.03), and the CBT group showed a greater time in bed reduction than the CT and BT groups (FInteraction(2,185)=7.05, padj=.01). Baseline ISI was the only treatment predictor (b=1.95, padj<.001). Conclusions: CBT-I and its components each independently result in significant improvements in subjective insomnia symptoms, beliefs about sleep, worry, and fatigue in older adults.
Measuring Gambling Harm in Self-Reported Questionnaires: A Scoping Review
Cong Mou; Sai Abirami Kailasnathan; Eamonn Ferguson; Richard Tunney; Richard J. E. James
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Objectives: This review aims to examine how gambling harms are measured by mapping existing self-report measures, analyzing scoring methodologies, and identifying key gaps to inform future research and practice. Study design: Scoping review. Methods: The scoping review coded data from 108 studies, analyzing harm measures, corresponding scoring methods, sample-related variables, and associated measures. Results: (1) This review identified 37 distinct instruments used to measure gambling-related harm over the past two decades, encompassing gambling harm-specific surveys, problem gambling screening tools, custom questionnaires, and questionnaires on harm to affected others. (2) The current landscape reveals that most surveys capture only a subset of harm domains, with dichotomous scoring methods being widely used. (3) Additionally, harm measurement has been largely dominated by a few well-validated instruments, with criterion variables primarily focused on problem gambling severity, gambling engagement, and health-related constructs, and mainly delivered in the global north. Conclusions: This review highlights discrepancies between conceptual frameworks and real-world practices in the measurement of gambling harm, exposing critical gaps in quantification that have implications for policy decisions, clinical assessments, and public health management. It also questions the generalizability of existing measures to non-WEIRD populations. Future research should prioritize rigorous domain selection, refinement of assessment items, and improvements in quantification methods to better serve the needs of policymakers, researchers, and clinicians. Additionally, establishing cross-cultural validity and utility of gambling harm measures outside of WEIRD contexts is also essential.
Clinical Outcomes from a Collaborative Care Program to Treat Perinatal Depression and Anxiety
Katherine Steele; Martha Zimmermann; Tiffany Moore Simas; Nancy Byatt; Jessica Gaulton; Roshni Koli; Clare McNutt
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Objective: To evaluate a collaborative care program in an obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) practice for the treatment of perinatal depression and anxiety symptoms. Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review from the electronic medical records of N = 185 patients enrolled in a perinatal collaborative care program delivered by a behavioral health company, Family Well Health, in partnership with a large OB/GYN practice in Massachusetts (USA). FamilyWell’s collaborative program includes telehealth sessions with a certified coach or a licensed therapist, medication management, and implementation assistance to enhance depression screening, assessment, and treatment of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs). English-speaking adults (aged ≄18 years) who screened positive for depression (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale [EPDS] score ≄ 10) by their OB/GYN clinician were referred to the FamilyWell program. Enrolled patients received weekly or biweekly telehealth sessions with a certified coach (77%) or licensed therapist (23%) and completed monthly electronic symptom assessments for anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale [GAD-7]) and depression (Patient Health Questionnaire 9-item scale [PHQ-9]). Assessment scores were monitored by a behavioral care manager. We evaluated three clinical outcomes including change in GAD-7 and PHQ-9 scores, treatment response (50% or greater decrease in GAD-7 or PHQ-9 scores), and symptom remission (follow-up PHQ-9 or GAD-7 score <5). Results: Over 80% of referred patients enrolled in CoCM and more than 70% completed their intake session within one week. At baseline, 86% had a positive GAD-7 or PHQ-9 score (GAD-7 or PHQ-9 ≄ 10 indicating symptoms of moderate, moderate-severe, or severe depression or anxiety). PHQ-9 scores decreased by 1.3 points per month (95% CI [-1.5, -1.2], p < .001) and GAD-7 scores decreased by 1.3 points per month (95% CI [-1.5, -1.2], p < .001). Forty-seven percent of patients (n = 33) demonstrated depression treatment response and 52% (n = 45) demonstrated anxiety treatment response. In addition, 30% of patients (n = 26) experienced anxiety symptom remission at least once in a mean time of 3.2 months and 31% (n = 22) experienced depression symptom remission in a mean time of 3.5 months. Patients received a mean of 8 sessions with a therapist and 9 sessions with a coach before experiencing symptom remission. Conclusion: These data suggest that implementing a tech-enabled, coach-driven collaborative care program is associated with decreases in depression and anxiety symptoms. Symptom remission occurred within 8 sessions with a therapist or 9 sessions with a coach. Unlike other psychiatric collaborative care programs described in the literature, this program uniquely addresses the behavioral health workforce shortages by integrating certified coaches as a primary intervention and utilizes text-based support to enable scale. Our results suggest that this integrated behavioral health approach can be implemented outside the research setting.
The Dynamics of Self-Esteem and Depressive Symptoms Across Days, Months, and Years
Peter Haehner; Charles C Driver; Christopher James Hopwood; Maike Luhmann; Karla Fliedner; Wiebke Bleidorn
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Self-esteem and depressive symptoms are important predictors of a range of societally relevant outcomes and are theorized to influence each other reciprocally over time. However, existing research offers only a limited understanding of how their dynamics unfold across different time scales. Using three datasets with different temporal resolutions, we aimed to advance our understanding of the temporal unfolding of the reciprocal dynamics between self-esteem and depressive symptoms. Across these datasets, participants (Ntotal = 6,210) rated their self-esteem and depressive symptoms between 6 and 14 times across days, months, and years, respectively. Using continuous time dynamic models, we found limited evidence for significant within-person cross-lagged effects between self-esteem and depressive symptoms. Only in the yearly dataset, a cross-lagged effect from depressive symptoms to self-esteem emerged quite consistently. However, in all datasets, cross-lagged effects were small in size (–0.04 ≀ ïą ≀ –0.01). These findings suggest that the reciprocal dynamics between self-esteem and depressive symptoms may be less robust than commonly thought. Furthermore, exploratory analyses indicated that these effects depended on people’s overall levels of depressive symptoms, suggesting that theoretical frameworks that highlight transactions between self-esteem and depression may not generalize across all levels of depressive symptoms. Finally, self-esteem and depressive symptoms were strongly correlated within measurements, similarly stable over time, and changed similarly in response to negative life events, provoking questions as to their conceptual distinctiveness and measurement approaches.
A Smartphone-Based Intervention to Decrease Neuroticism: Protocol of the CHILL Study
Peter Haehner; Amanda Jo Wright; Rosalie Andrae; Till Lubczyk; Leyla Anina Rosero Betancourt§; Christopher James Hopwood; Wiebke Bleidorn
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Many people worldwide want to be less neurotic. As lower levels of neuroticism predict a variety of positive life outcomes, including health, success, and relationship quality, interventions that help people to become less neurotic could have wide-ranging impacts. This study protocol describes the rationale and design of the CHILL (Changing How I Live Life) Study, which aims to test and evaluate a smartphone-based intervention to reduce neuroticism in the general public. The CHILL Study comprises four survey assessments spread over 5 months, a 6-week intervention phase, and two 1-week experience sampling phases without interventions. During the intervention phase, participants motivated to become less neurotic are randomized to four core treatment groups. These treatment groups differ in their employed intervention strategies that target different aspects and levels of neuroticism. The CHILL Study moves beyond existing volitional personality change research by testing which strategies most effectively decrease neuroticism and evaluating the longevity and generalizability of intervention-induced neuroticism change via peer-reports, implicit personality assessments, and a 7-week follow-up period. The goals of the CHILL Study are to generate an effective method for decreasing neuroticism and facilitating the development of a comprehensive theory of neuroticism change.
Claims for no evidence also need evidence
Veli-Matti Karhulahti; Nick Huntington-Klein; Nick Ballou
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Matters Arising submitted to Nature Human Behaviour. Preprint made public due to editorial request.
After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon, By Greg Eghigian, Oxford University Press, 2024. 400 pp. $29.99 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-19-086987-8
Ivan Flis
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This is the postprint of the book review of Greg Eghigian's After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon. The review was published in the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences.
How Can We Characterize Human Generalization and Distinguish it from Generalization in Machines?
Mirko Thalmann; Eric Schulz
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People appear to excel at generalization: they require little experience to generalize their knowledge to new situations. But can we confidently make such a conclusion? To make progress toward a better understanding, we characterize human generalization by introducing three proposed cognitive mechanisms allowing people to generalize: applying simple rules, judging new objects by considering their similarity to previously encountered objects, and applying abstract rules. We highlight the systematicity with which people use these three mechanisms by, perhaps surprisingly, focusing on failures of generalization. These failures show that people prefer simple ways to generalize, even when simple is not ideal. Together, these results can be subsumed under two proposed stages: First, people infer what aspects of an environment are task relevant. And second, while repeatedly carrying out the task, the mental representations required to solve the task change. Throughout the review, we compare humans to contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) systems. This comparison shows that AI systems use the same generalization mechanisms as humans. However, they differ from humans in the way they abstract patterns from observations and apply these patterns to previously unknown objects - often resulting in generalization performance that is superior to, but sometimes inferior to that of humans.
Insomnia and emotion dysregulation: a meta-analytical perspective integrating regulatory strategies and dispositional difficulties
Fateme Samea; Nasrin Mortazavi; Gerion Michael Reimann; Amir Ebneabbasi; Mojtaba Zarei; Habibolah Khazaie; Andrea Goldstein-Piekarski; Kai Spiegelhalder; Chiara Baglioni; Amir A Sepehry
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Insomnia and emotion dysregulation are intricately related, yet their aggregate association across different domains of emotion dysregulation and the effect of moderating factors including health-related status, age, and gender remain unclear. This meta-analysis synthesized data from 57 studies, pooling 119 effect sizes from correlational and 55 effect sizes from group comparison studies. By separate analyses, we assessed both the strength of the association and whether clinically significant insomnia symptoms exacerbate difficulty in regulating emotion. Correlational analyses revealed a significant association between insomnia symptoms and emotion dysregulation, primarily in individuals with serious health-related conditions (Fisher Zno-serious condition = 0.22, Fisher Zserious-conditions = 0.37, p < 0.00001). Group comparison analyses indicated that clinically significant insomnia symptoms worsen emotion dysregulation regardless of health-related status (Hedges’ g = 0.99, p = 0.01). The reliance on maladaptive emotion regulation strategies and difficulties in dispositional domains of emotion regulation, particularly impulsivity, were more strongly associated with insomnia than challenges related to adaptive strategies. Age and gender did not impact these associations in either type of study. These findings underscore a robust link between insomnia and emotion dysregulation, suggesting the potential benefits of integrating emotion regulation skills into insomnia management to improve therapeutic outcomes.
Against Unconscious Mental Imagery in Aphantasia
Jianghao Liu; Christian Oliver Scholz; Merlin Monzel
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Aphantasia is defined as the absence (or near-absence) of imagery, most commonly in but not necessarily limited to the visual modality (Zeman et al. 2025). While the neural and cognitive underpinnings of aphantasia remain hotly debated (see Zeman, 2024 for a recent review), a proposal that has recently gained attention is that people with aphantasia may have unconscious mental imagery (Nanay, 2021; Michel et al. 2025), meaning that despite lacking the experience associated with imagery, they may still possess the relevant neural activity. A recent CB article by Chang and colleagues (2025) reported finding “imageless imagery” in aphantasic subjects, thus seemingly supporting this view. However, we argue here that the representations found in aphantasic subjects by Chang and colleagues (2025), as well as in other studies (e.g., Liu et al., 2025), should not be viewed as unconscious imagery because they fail to show the perception-like pattern usually associated with mental imagery.
Sumerian civilization as the basis of human specialized psychology
Boris Roik
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(Part of the Emotional Supra-Genetic Theory of Universe Development. First published online on 01.01.2000) This article examines the multi-level specialization that emerged within the Sumerian civilization and became the foundation for the further development of the human mind, social organization, and technology. The main emphasis is placed on the step-by-step optimization of economic, social, and genetic spheres of activity, which led to the formation of civilized societies, the advancement of science, and the creation of complex cognitive models. Particular attention is given to the role of linguistic programming, which was used to transmit knowledge and shape behavioral models, as well as its impact on human cognitive development and the subsequent evolution of intelligent systems. The key conclusion is that the development of civilization is directed not only towards adaptation to the environment but also towards the creation of new technologies and conditions for the emergence of higher-order mind carriers. This process can be regarded as preparation for the development of Artificial Mind, possessing enhanced capabilities for reflecting and transforming reality. Thus, the presented concept is part of the Theory of Emotional Supra-Genetic Development of the Universe, which describes the gradual development of consciousness and the formation of new levels of mind within the framework of natural and technological evolution.
Automated Generation of Perceptually-Uniform Circular Spaces for Novel Naturalistic Shapes
Ana Belen Carbajal Chavez; Eline Van Geert; Johan Wagemans; Yaniv Morgenstern
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Shape processing holds a crucial role in higher-level visual functions, such as object recognition. Previous efforts to explore high-level vision, independent of shape influence, involved meticulous measurements to control for perceptual shape similarity across distinct stimulus sets. However, there is a compelling need for a more efficient approach to automatically synthesize perceptually uniform spaces of novel shapes. In this pursuit, we present an image-based method that autonomously generates numerous perceptually uniform and circular shape sets, eliminating the need for extensive psychophysical measurements. Our method employs a search for circular shape sets correlated with ShapeComp, an image-computable shape similarity metric based on over 100 descriptors, highly predictive of human shape similarity. Using multi-arrangement methods, we demonstrate that predicted human similarity arrangements of shape sets defined as circular and uniformly spaced by ShapeComp, align with human shape similarity judgments and approximate circularity. Notably, shape sets chosen for uniformity and circularity in alternative shape spaces (e.g., Generative Adversarial Networks or Radial Frequency patterns), but not meeting these criteria in ShapeComp, did not necessarily register as perceptually uniform and circular. Therefore, leveraging ShapeComp, we introduce an automated method for generating extensive sets of perceptually uniform and circular shape spaces. We provide five newly validated circular shape sets derived from intricate naturalistic shapes, along with MATLAB code facilitating the creation of a limitless number of such sets. This advancement empowers cognitive scientists to construct large sets of perceptually uniform stimuli, allowing for a nuanced exploration of the impact of higher-level factors on object perception.
Sumerian civilization as the basis of human specialized psychology
Boris Roik
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(Part of the Emotional Supra Genetic Theory of Universe Development. First published online on 01.01.2000) This article examines the multi-level specialization that formed within the Sumerian civilization and became the basis for the further development of the human mind, social organization and technology. The main emphasis is on the step-by-step optimization of the economic, social and genetic spheres of activity, which led to the formation of civilized societies, the development of science and the creation of complex cognitive models. Particular attention is paid to the role of linguistic programming used to transmit knowledge and form behavioral models, as well as its influence on human cognitive development and the subsequent evolution of intelligent systems. The key conclusion is that the development of civilization is aimed not only at adaptation to the environment, but also at the creation of new technologies and conditions for the emergence of carriers of higher order intelligence. This process can be considered as preparation for the creation of Artificial Intelligence, which has expanded capabilities for reflecting and transforming reality. Thus, the presented concept is part of the Theory of Emotional Supra Genetic Development of the Universe, describing the gradual development of consciousness and the formation of new levels of intelligence within the framework of natural and technological evolution.
Automatic detection of dyslexia based on eye movements during reading in Russian
Anna Laurinavichyute; Anastasiya Lopukhina; David Reich
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Dyslexia, a common learning disability, requires an early diagnosis. However, current screening tests are very time- and resource-consuming. We present an LSTM model that aims to automatically classify dyslexia based on eye movements recorded during natural reading combined with basic demographic information and linguistic features of the fixated words. The proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art model and reaches the AUC of 0.93. We additionally discuss the outcomes of several ablation studies assessing which features are critical for model performance.
Tƫ Wairua: Development of an Indigenous Rongoā Māori Approach to Healing with Psilocybin Containing Mushrooms
Anna-Leigh Hodge; Anna Forsyth; Tehseen Noorani; Suresh Muthukumaraswamy; Anna Rolleston; Patrick McHugh
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Psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in certain fungi, has long been used by Indigenous cultures worldwide for healing and spiritual purposes. While emerging evidence points to psychedelic agents being novel avenues for the treatment of substance use disorders, the predominantly Western medical models of psychedelic-assisted therapy being developed lack Indigenous wisdom and input, raising concerns about safety, efficacy, ownership, and continuing colonial dynamics. In Aotearoa (New Zealand), the enduring impacts of colonisation on Māori include the suppression of Indigenous wisdom, even as research affirming the knowledge and practice of traditional Māori healing is on the rise. The Tƫ Wairua project will explore the integration of rongoā Māori (traditional Māori healing practices) with psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) for addressing problematic methamphetamine use (PMU) in Māori communities. This Māori-led project is driven by kaupapa Māori methodology and rongoā Māori conceptualisations of health and informed by biomedical psychedelic science. Based at Rangiwaho Marae in Te Tairāwhiti, a community with a high Māori population and a significant burden of PMU, the project aims to develop a culturally-appropriate PAT to explore the efficacy of psilocybin in treating PMU. This research represents a shift toward health interventions that respect and extend Indigenous wisdom, addressing the unique needs of Māori communities. It also seeks to develop a skilled Māori workforce to continue these healing practices, and challenge current legislation that restricts the use of Indigenous psychedelics. In creating sustainable pathways for healing through a community-driven, culturally-resonant PAT, Tƫ Wairua charts new directions in Indigenous-led psychedelic science.
Tƫ Wairua: Development of an Indigenous Rongoā Māori Approach to Healing with Psilocybin Containing Mushrooms
Anna-Leigh Hodge; Anna Forsyth; Tehseen Noorani; Suresh Muthukumaraswamy; Anna Rolleston; Patrick McHugh
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Psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in certain fungi, has long been used by Indigenous cultures worldwide for healing and spiritual purposes. While emerging evidence points to psychedelic agents being novel avenues for the treatment of substance use disorders, the predominantly Western medical models of psychedelic-assisted therapy being developed lack Indigenous wisdom and input, raising concerns about safety, efficacy, ownership, and continuing colonial dynamics. In Aotearoa (New Zealand), the enduring impacts of colonisation on Māori include the suppression of Indigenous wisdom, even as research affirming the knowledge and practice of traditional Māori healing is on the rise. The Tƫ Wairua project will explore the integration of rongoā Māori (traditional Māori healing practices) with psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) for addressing problematic methamphetamine use (PMU) in Māori communities. This Māori-led project is driven by kaupapa Māori methodology and rongoā Māori conceptualisations of health and informed by biomedical psychedelic science. Based at Rangiwaho Marae in Te Tairāwhiti, a community with a high Māori population and a significant burden of PMU, the project aims to develop a culturally-appropriate PAT to explore the efficacy of psilocybin in treating PMU. This research represents a shift toward health interventions that respect and extend Indigenous wisdom, addressing the unique needs of Māori communities. It also seeks to develop a skilled Māori workforce to continue these healing practices, and challenge current legislation that restricts the use of Indigenous psychedelics. In creating sustainable pathways for healing through a community-driven, culturally-resonant PAT, Tƫ Wairua charts new directions in Indigenous-led psychedelic science.
eddymotion: An open implementation of FSL's eddy with volume-to-volume artifact estimation for neuroimaging beyond diffusion MRI
Jon Haitz Legarreta Gorroño; Elodie Savary; Christopher Johnson Markiewicz; Ariel Rokem; Martin Norgaard; Oscar Esteban
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Synopsis Motivation: Create an open-source alternative to FSL’s eddy without commercial limitations that generalizes over problems beyond eddy current distortions of diffusion MRI. Goals: Evaluate the tool’s performance vis-à-vis with corresponding tools. Approach: We implement a Gaussian Process regressor model and a Bayesian optimization layer on an existing registration framework, and estimate the alignment of neuroimaging data enabled by the eddymotion framework.Results: Using publicly available neuroimaging data, we provide evidence about the effectiveness of our volume-to-volume modeling framework for generalized artifact identification and correction in neuroimaging. Impact We present eddymotion, an open-source framework for volume-to-volume artifact estimation inspired by FSL eddy. Our tool allows for easy alternative model implementation, it can be used for non-dMRI imaging modalities and does not have a restrictive license.
Inconclusive evidence for causal effects between rumination and sleep quality: A simulated reanalysis and comment on Yang and Lei (2025)
Kimmo Sorjonen; Bo Melin
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Based on findings from analyses with cross-lagged panel models, Yang and Lei suggested reciprocal causal effects between rumination and sleep problems. Here, we simulated data to resemble the data used by Yang and Lei. We used triangulation and fitted complementary models to the simulated data and found contradicting increasing and decreasing effects of initial rumination on subsequent change in sleep problems and vice versa. These divergent findings indicated that it is premature to assume causal effects between rumination and sleep problems and the suggestions by Yang and Lei in this regard can be challenged. It is important for researchers to be aware that correlations, including adjusted cross-lagged effects, do not prove causality in order not to overinterpret findings, something that appears to have happened to Yang and Lei. We recommend researchers to triangulate by fitting complementary models to their data in order to evaluate if analyzed data could be used to support contradicting conclusions, in which case the data should not be used to support any of those conclusions.
An evidence-based trajectory of spatial reasoning development for 7- to 11-year-olds.
Sue Gifford; Emily Kate Farran; Alison Borthwick
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Spatial reasoning involves understanding and visualising spatial relations and the spatial properties of objects, including spatial aspects of quantities. Spatialising the mathematics curriculum by emphasising thinking and working spatially has broad benefits for mathematics, including geometry, measures, number, algebra and statistics. Research shows that teaching children to think and work spatially results in substantially improved mathematics performance, with lifelong benefits. This trajectory of spatial reasoning development for 7- to 11-year-olds complements the trajectory of spatial reasoning development for birth to seven years developed by the Early Childhood Maths Group (see ECMG Spatial Reasoning Toolkit). These two trajectories are informed by extensive review of research in this area and together offer activities for children from birth to 11 years. This trajectory is presented in four sections, covering space (spatial relations) and shape (objects and properties) for 7- to 9-year-olds and 9- to 11-year-olds. Three columns identify the areas of spatial reasoning, the progression in children’s learning and developmentally appropriate activities. Each child develops in their own unique way: age bands are approximate and dependent on previous experience, so should be used as a guide rather than age-related expectations. Spatial reasoning is wider than traditional geometry, including aspects of space and shape such as position and direction, navigation, perspective-taking, scaling, transformations, shape properties and structure, composition and decomposition; the document could be used to substitute a geometry curriculum, with activities integrated throughout the curriculum. This document forms part of a series of Royal Society publications on spatial reasoning which can be found at: Royal Society Curriculum and Assessment and accompanies our earlier work on the ECMG Spatial Reasoning Toolkit. The series includes: ‱ RS ACME Primary and early years expert panel perspective: Spatial reasoning - June 2024 (royalsociety.org) ‱ Progression of Spatial Reasoning across age bands (Appendix 1 of document listed above) ‱ This document, An evidence-based trajectory of spatial reasoning development for 7- to 11-year-olds. ‱ Whole-school approach case studies: Supporting Primary Children’s Spatial Reasoning in Geography and Design & Technology
The Oxford Visual Perception Screen: development and normative data of a standardised assessment for visual perception difficulties
Kathleen Vancleef; Ruby Castellani; Rebecca Shorthose; Catherine Guo; Fulin Cai; Federica Guazzo; Nele Demeyere
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Objective: We aimed to develop and standardise a practical systematic screening tool for visual perception impairments after a stroke to replace current subjective methods. Study design: A mixed methods study including test development, a cross-sectional study, and a case series. Methods: Development of the Oxford Visual Perception Screen (OxVPS) follows a published Delphi, a survey and performance data on visual perception tasks. Stakeholder feedback from patients and health professionals improved iterative prototypes. Subsequently, we collected normative data from community dwelling older volunteers without a neurological history. Our case series included patients with ocular conditions or a stroke. For each task of OxVPS, we determined 5th centile cut-off scores. We further explored effects of age, visual acuity, and gender on visual perception through Generalised Linear Models. Results: OxVPS is a 15-minute paper-and-pen assessment comprising 10 tasks including picture naming, star counting, and reading. Normative data of 107 participants demonstrated persistent high performance with most cut-offs near ceiling. Apart from the Figure Copy (p<0.001) and Global Shape Perception task (p<0.001) we found no evidence for an effect of visual acuity on OxVPS. An effect of age was only observed in the Face Recognition (p<0.001) and Reading task (p<0.001). No effects of gender were observed. A series of eight cases illustrates the interpretation of OxVPS. Conclusion: We present the Oxford Visual Perception Screen, a standardised visual perception screening tool alongside normative data and illustrative cases. OxVPS can potentially change screening for visual perception impairments in clinical practice and is available at https://oxvps.webspace.durham.ac.uk/.
Judging object weights using familiar and newly learned cues: cue combination and individual differences
Olaf Kristiansen; Meike Scheller; Annisha Attanayake; Emily A. Bambrough; Marko Nardini
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Human perception is often characterised by efficient combination of sensory signals (cues). In recent studies, people could also improve precision via newly learned cues, with applications to enhance perception in healthy and clinical groups. However, it is unclear whether new cues can enhance manual object interactions. To study how new cues are used for object weight perception, people compared weights of containers. With haptic information plus the familiar visual cue of volume, participants showed precision improvements indicating cue combination. By contrast, a group of participants briefly trained with a novel visual cue to weight (line orientation) did not show improvements expected from combination. We then asked whether prolonged training (12 hours) with the novel cue would promote combination, testing for significant precision gains individually in six participants. Half of participants showed combination benefits, but these were not clearly related to training, as some combined cues before training. Using an illusion analogous to the size-weight illusion, we also asked whether the novel cue would become an automatic predictor of weight: two participants were susceptible to the illusion. We conclude that weight perception is susceptible to some enhancement, but subject to training effects and individual differences that are not yet understood.
How Regulatory Flexibility in Strategy Use Helps Self-Control: Theoretical Models, Empirical Evidence, and Empirical Challenges
Marie Hennecke; Sebastian BĂŒrgler; Wilhelm Hofmann; Malte Friese
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This chapter does not contain an abstrat. It reviews current research on the role of regulatory flexibility in strategy use for self-control.
When can we and when do we adapt? Evidence that conflict adaptation can transcend contexts early in childhood.
Hera Potamianou; Donna Bryce
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*This manuscript is not yet published* Developing the ability to focus on relevant information and ignore irrelevant information is crucial for navigating an ever-changing environment. This skill, cognitive control, can be studied using conflict tasks in which the relevant and irrelevant information in a trial either align or compete (congruency). Performance in these tasks can be affected not only by the current trial’s congruency but also by the previous trial’s congruency. In adults, this conflict adaptation has been reported to occur between trials of the same task and different tasks. The goal of this study was to study the development and flexibility of cognitive control by assessing conflict adaptation across different age groups and contexts. Two groups of children (aged 6 and 9 years) and one group of adults processed adaptations of the Stroop and Simon tasks and the resulting mouse-tracking variables (total movement time, initiation time, maximum absolute deviation, changes of direction) were analysed. Across three experiments different context similarities were created depending on which tasks were combined. The results indicate that within-task conflict adaptation occurs in all age groups, and that some aspects of the unfolding response are increasingly affected by the current and previous trial’s congruency with age (namely, the deviation from a direct path to the correct response). Adults show less consistent across-task conflict adaptation effects as the paired tasks become more dissimilar, whereas data collected from children demonstrated conflict adaptation effects that transferred across tasks that were considered to be medium or low similarity. This represents a remarkable capacity for conflict adaptation early in development.
Measuring Effortful control in middle childhood: Psychometric properties of the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire - self-report
Tatiana Marci; Giulia Calignano; ughetta moscardino; Maria Carbone; Gianmarco AltoĂš
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Effortful control (EC), defined as the ability to inhibit impulsive responses according to contextual demands, plays a key role in children’s socioemotional development. However, self-report measures of this ability are extremely scarce. The current study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the EC scale within the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire (TMCQ), the only available self-report measure of EC in middle childhood. Participants were 441 Italian children (53.7% girls) aged between 7.9-10 (Mage = 9.05, SD = 0.56). A series of confirmatory factor analyses supported a four-factor lower order structure, whereas evidence for the intended 1-factor higher order structure was not found. Structural equation modeling confirmed convergent validity of the questionnaire with theoretically related constructs such as self-worth, emotional-behavioral problems, and prosocial behavior, and confirmed inhibitory control and attentional focusing as core aspects of EC. Overall, the EC scale is a valuable tool for assessing temperament-based self-regulation in middle childhood using four separate scores, but reliability analyses suggest the need for refinement, and more research is needed to clarify its hierarchical structure in the TMCQ.
Estudio piloto de los familectos en español: optimizaciĂłn metodolĂłgica e implicaciones para el anĂĄlisis de la variaciĂłn sociolingĂŒĂ­stica
MarĂ­a Alcedo Ortiz; BĂĄrbara Marqueta-Gracia; Antonio BenĂ­tez-Burraco
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El familecto puede definirse como la variedad lingĂŒĂ­stica asociada a las unidades familiares, aquellos grupos de personas convivientes desde hace tiempo con las que se mantiene una relaciĂłn de parentesco y que comparten un horizonte de experiencias comĂșn. Sin embargo, este tĂ©rmino no ha sido bien acogido por la sociolingĂŒĂ­stica española y supone un ĂĄrea de estudio que plantea muchos interrogantes. En el presente estudio se han aprovechado las caracterĂ­sticas tipolĂłgicas de las lenguas esotĂ©ricas (aquellas empleadas por comunidades pequeñas de hablantes) para ofrecer una caracterizaciĂłn preliminar del familecto en español. Las hipĂłtesis formuladas al respecto se han cotejado con la reuniĂłn y anĂĄlisis de un corpus compuesto por conversaciones familiares. Los resultados se han comparado ademĂĄs con las caracterĂ­sticas del español coloquial, llegĂĄndose a la conclusiĂłn de que el familecto es una variedad diferenciada y no solo una muestra mĂĄs de estilo coloquial.
Brain age prediction in children and adolescents: current challenges and future directions
Dani Beck; Lucy Whitmore
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Recent advancements in computational techniques have enhanced our understanding of human brain development, particularly through the analysis of high-dimensional data from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). One notable approach is the “brain age prediction” framework, which predicts biological age based on neuroimaging data and calculates the brain age gap (BAG); a marker indicating deviation from expected (chronological) age. This method has most commonly been used in adult samples, but has in recent years increasingly been applied to youth populations to assess brain maturation. However, there are a number of unique considerations that must be taken into account when applying brain age prediction in youth. In this Perspective, we briefly review the existing brain age literature in children and adolescents. We next identify important challenges and considerations, and provide recommendations for researchers, as well as future directions for the field.
Investigating effects of day-to-day variations in environmental exposure on the human brain: the Day2Day Environment project
Kim Falkenstein; Claire Pauley; Simone KĂŒhn
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Background: Understanding how daily environmental exposures influence the human brain and mental health is increasingly important in the context of global urbanization and climate change. Previous studies have focused primarily on long-term environmental factors or isolated features like green space and air quality, neglecting the interaction between multiple exposures encountered in everyday life. This protocol paper describes the study design and dataset of the Day2Day Environment project, an ongoing study investigating how real-world, day-to-day environmental variability affects brain structure, function, and well-being. Methods: This longitudinal study collects multimodal data from 30 participants over 25 testing sessions, including neuroimaging and tracking of physiological, behavioral, and environmental variables. Using wearable devices, geographic ecological momentary assessments, and GPS-based geospatial tracking, we collect data on air quality, noise, light exposure, physical activity, stress, cognition, and affect. Neuroimaging measures include T1- and T2*-weighted images during rest and tasks, quantitative multi-parameter mapping, high-resolution proton density imaging of the hippocampus, and diffusion tensor imaging sequences. Conclusion: The Day2Day Environment dataset offers a unique opportunity to study short-term neuroplasticity in response to the dynamic interplay between multiple environmental exposures. Furthermore, the diversity of measurements in this dataset may be valuable for addressing research questions beyond environmental neuroscience.
Sense of Agency remains unchanged despite Motor Adaptation
Kazuma Takada; Wen Wen; Shunichi Kasahara; Tom Froese
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The Sense of Agency (SoA), the subjective feeling of controlling one’s actions and their consequences, has been explained through two primary theoretical frameworks: the comparator model and retrospective views. While the comparator model focuses on the consistency between the sensory prediction generated through internal models and the actual sensory input, retrospective theories emphasize the detection of regularities between one’s own actions and sensory input and self-attribution based on this information. However, how the two types of processes contribute to the exploration of control remains unclear. In the present study, we explored this question by examining the effect of updating the internal model for motor control on the SoA in a control detection task. Participants first adapted to a rotation of visual feedback while controlling a dot on the screen, then conducted free movements to choose the dot they felt they could control most effectively among five dots with different rotation angles (i.e., the control detection task). Experiment 1 used a tracking task for the motor adaptation, while Experiment 2 used a reaching task to replicate the result of Experiment 1. The results of the two experiments showed that the motor adaptation in both tasks did not have a significant effect on the control detection task. In other words, it is likely that the updating of the internal model only has a minimal effect on the control detection. Our findings indicated that the regularity detection process is likely to dominate in the exploration of the SoA, compared to the predictive process, which requires the internal model to generate predictions for each movement. These findings provide important insights for understanding the sense of agency in the context of exploratory behaviors within the novel environments.
Neuromodulation for Tourette syndrome: Current Techniques and Future Perspectives
Sarah Haslam; Kara Johnson; Daria Nesterovich Anderson; Neil Mahant; Collin Anderson
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Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (TS) is a chronic tic disorder characterized by both motor and vocal tics, with onset in childhood. Neuropsychiatric symptoms are nearly universal in TS, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive compulsive disorders, and anxiety disorders. TS can have substantial effects on quality of life, social and intellectual development, opportunities, relationships and more. There are limited treatment options for TS, such as behavioral therapy or pharmacological interventions, often with unsatisfactory benefit. Neuromodulation has been established as a viable treatment strategy for specific aspects of TS through modulation of neural pathways and networks. Several neuromodulation techniques have been utilized for TS, with deep brain stimulation (DBS) exhibiting the strongest efficacy. The invasive nature of DBS remains a disincentive for its uptake, in conjunction with the fact that tics often reduce in severity in early adulthood. Less invasive neuromodulation approaches have also been explored, but their efficacy remains limited. However, given its efficacy in TS, DBS provides the unique opportunity to record neural activity from deep brain structures, which has been used to investigate pathophysiology and to search for biomarkers of treatment response. This may guide strategies for less invasive neuromodulation therapies. To maximize progress in the field, we suggest several strategies: multicenter data sharing is crucial due to the small number of people treated at single centers, utilization of recording capabilities on recent DBS devices, correlation with the precise location of the implanted electrodes, and the use of pre-clinical studies to better understand the mechanisms of successful neuromodulation for TS.
Online disinhibition is not a master key: An examination of online disinhibition mechanisms
Wen Ruohan; Asako Miura
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Purpose This study aims to empirically examine how online disinhibition influences individuals’ behavior on the Internet based on the motivation-based online disinhibition model, a refinement of Suler’s (2004) online disinhibition theory. This model suggests that individuals’ behaviors are influenced by motivational factors, with online disinhibition moderating this process. Design/methodology/approach We observed how individuals expressed their attitudes by clicking “Like” when reading a fictional thread with multiple replies. In Study 1a, participants were shown two types of replies in a thread: inflammatory and normal posts. In Study 1b, we followed up with the participants from Study 1a by asking them how sensational and annoying they perceived each post. In Study 2, we examined whether participants clicked “Like” on a post that contained extreme language. Findings In Study 1a, the influence of online disinhibition on Like-clicking did not significantly differ across post types. In Study 1b, when participants perceived posts as sensational or annoying, they were more likely to click “Like” if they experienced high levels of online disinhibition. For posts that were neither sensational nor annoying, online disinhibition did not affect the likelihood of clicking “Like.” In Study 2, although online disinhibition was significantly correlated with Like-clicking on the extreme post, this effect was not observed among participants who held a negative attitude toward the extreme post. Originality This study rigorously examined the causal relationships among motivational factors, online disinhibition, and behaviors, challenging previously overgeneralized explanations of online disinhibition theory regarding online behaviors.
Drawings of THINGS: A large-scale drawing dataset of 1,854 object concepts
Kushin Mukherjee; Holly Huey; Laura Mai Stoinski; Martin N Hebart; Judith Fan; Wilma A. Bainbridge
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The development of large datasets of natural images has galvanized progress in psychology, neuroscience, and computer science. Notably, the THINGS database constitutes a collective effort towards understanding of human visual knowledge by accumulating rich data on a shared set of visual object concepts across several studies. In this paper, we introduce Drawing of THINGS (DoT), a novel dataset of 28,627 human drawings of 1,854 diverse object concepts, sampled systematically from concrete picturable and nameable nouns in the American English language, mirroring the structure of the THINGS image database. In addition to data on drawings’ stroke history, we further collected fine-grained recognition data for each drawing, along with metadata on participant demographics, drawing ability, and mental imagery. We characterize people’s ability to communicate and recognize semantic information encoded in drawings and compare this ability to their ability to recognize real-world images of the same visual objects. We also explore the relationship between drawing understanding and the memorability and typicality of the objects contained in THINGS. In sum, we envision DoT as a powerful tool that builds on the THINGS database to advance understanding of how humans express knowledge about visual concepts.
Academia’s Future in the United States: A Survey of Academics After the 2025 Executive Orders
Lorenzo Lorenzo-Luaces; Edmarie GuzmĂĄn-VĂ©lez; Claudia Lugo-Candelas; Jenny Zhen-Duan
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In early 2025, the Trump administration issued several executive orders that impacted academia. Using convenience sampling recruitment, 837 academics completed a survey and provided open-text responses assessing the impact of the executive orders. Our results indicate that many are considering pursuing private funding (58%), leaving academia (43%), and self-censoring (44%), in response to these executive orders. Most respondents (87%) are very worried about the state of academia and have very low confidence in the government (92%). While reactions to the executive orders were almost uniformly negative, DEI scholars and minoritized academics reported being more affected. Academics play a critical role in maintaining the U.S. as a world leader in health and innovation. The new executive orders will likely negatively impact the future of academia and science in the U.S.
A Null Result for Using a Simulated Vehicle Console Safety Message Nudge to Reduce Speeding Propensity in a Video Speed Test
Michael A. Nees; Hope Geiss
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An experiment used a nudge intervention modeled after the question-behavior effect (QBE) in an attempt to reduce speed propensity in a video simulated driving task. Participants viewed a vignette simulating a vehicle start-up sequence. The safety message on the center console was manipulated at two levels: a default legal message (common in contemporary vehicles upon console start-up) or a QBE safety message (i.e., “Will you drive safely today?”). The QBE message was hypothesized to reduce preferred speeds in a video speed test. Contrary to the hypothesis, we found no evidence to support that the QBE message resulted in different speed preferences as compared to the default message. This experiment was embedded in a larger study, reported elsewhere, to examine the validity of the video speed test (Nees & Geiss, submitted).
All Tied Up: Perceptions of BDSM and Kink for Mental Health Providers
Briana Louise Kunstman
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Due to the DSM diagnosis category including mental paraphilia, there has been a question of whether or not BDSM/kink is linked to pathology (Moser et al. 2005). Kink refers to unconventional sexual practices or desires. BDSM is an overarching term that refers to a spectrum of sexual behaviors and preferences that incorporate (B)ondage, (D)iscipline (or Domination), (S)adism (or submission), and (M)asochism. The biases and stigma towards BDSM and kink have shown to be detrimental, as research has found that many BDSM and kink identified individuals are not out due to the fear of stigma and concerns regarding clinician beliefs. This is the case regardless of having specific needs relating to their kink behaviors and preferring to be out to their providers (Waldura et. al 2016). Therefore, the current aim of this project is to broadly explore therapists’ understanding and attitudes towards BDSM and kink through semi-structured interviews. IRB approval was obtained and we recruited 10 practicing clinicians using Psychology Today. Consistent with the qualitative research tradition of eliciting diverse responses, we identified individuals from diverse backgrounds. Additionally, we selected participants who listed sex therapy or kink-allied work in their bios as well as those who have no link to these key terms. Participants were asked to provide informed consent and participate in a 30-45 minute interview via Google Meets. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis procedures outlined by Braun and Clarke (2022). Thematic analysis has been used to identify, analyze, and report patterns in the data. We identified several themes that give us a better understanding of how therapists’ react to specific dynamics, and what would make them more comfortable in working with BDSM-and-kink identifying individuals. This exploratory research allows us to better assess future steps needed to work towards BDSM and kink normalization to enhance treatment effectiveness and allow therapists to provide more individualized care for their clients. Additional implications will be discussed.
Synergistic tension among the music and lyrics of late-Romantic choral songs
Tudor Popescu; Adrian Kempf; Patrick Boenke; Marco Tettamanti
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Songs intimately combine two defining human capacities: music and language. As a song unfolds, interconnected musical and linguistic elements such as dissonant chords and evocative words combine to generate fluctuating patterns of tension and relaxation, with associated predictive expectations that shape aesthetic and emotional experiences. However, how these patterns integrate across both domains to produce a holistic sense of tension remains unexplored. We investigated this integration in a tension-rich subset of Western vocal music, late-Romantic art songs, hypothesising that tonal and semantic tension combine superadditively. Using a naturalistic listening paradigm, online participants rated tonal, semantic, and holistic tension in three selected songs. Results suggest that the musical dimension (tonal tension) plays a more prominent role than the linguistic one (semantic tension) in shaping overall affect. Music alone explained a greater proportion of variance in the holistic condition than did lyrics alone. A significant redundant-information component suggested an integration of music and lyrics under genre-specific rules, while a synergistic-information component indicated their combined effect exceeds the sum of their individual contributions. Though based on a specific tonal-poetic idiom, our findings illuminate how music and language might integrate during real-time listening, from the experiential perspective of tension. We discuss how both culture-specific and culture-invariant (universal) mechanisms may contribute to this process, offering insights into cross-domain aesthetic integration.
The Limpopo Facial Emotion Stimulus Set: Locally Validated Stimuli for Emotion Research in Sub-Saharan Africa
Emma Jayne Kilford; Sophie Luise Fielmann; Tlangelani Baloyi; Gabriele Chierchia; May I. Conley; Kathleen Kahn; Bianca D Moffett; Julia Ruiz Pozuelo; Tholene Sodi; Alan Stein
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Most research on facial emotion recognition has focused on participants from a narrow range of Western cultures, thereby limiting its applicability to diverse populations. This study aimed to validate a culturally relevant subset of facial emotion photographs for use in regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. We selected 206 emotional expressions from models of Black African descent from the Racially Diverse Affective Expression (RADIATE) dataset (Conley et al., 2018). Fifty-four students from the University of Limpopo, South Africa, rated these stimuli. Using a 75% rater agreement threshold, we refined the set to 131 validated images, termed the Limpopo facial emotion stimulus set. This subset demonstrated high recognition of the intended facial expressions and strong consistency between raters. We present psychometric results describing these open-access stimuli, which we hope will be informative for other researchers. Our validation process underscores the importance of adapting materials to match the cultural and social context of the target population. The Limpopo facial emotion stimulus set enhances the ecological validity of emotion research in Sub-Saharan Africa, filling a gap in the availability of culturally appropriate cognitive and emotional assessment tools.
Subjective valuation as a domain-general process in creative thinking
Gino Battistello; Sarah Moreno-Rodriguez; Emmanuelle Volle; Alizee Lopez-Persem
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Is a talented painter also a proficient writer? The ongoing discourse on whether creativity operates through domain-general or domain-specific mechanisms has led to challenges in our understanding of the creative process. Prior research suggests that creativity comprises two phases: idea generation and evaluation. A recent framework has proposed that the evaluation phase involves a valuation process which occurs upstream of the selection of an idea. In this framework, the value assigned to an idea, i.e., how much one likes an idea, energizes its production and drives its selection. While the role of valuation has been demonstrated in verbal semantic creativity, its domain generality remains to be tested. In this study, we assessed whether valuation is a domain-general or domain-specific process. Seventy-three participants engaged in three creativity tasks (producing semantic associations, alternate object uses, and drawings) followed by rating tasks. Using computational modeling, we found that a consistent valuation mechanism governs idea valuation across different domains. Specifically, the same value function and value parameters were shared across the evaluation of word associations, object uses and drawing completions. These findings advance our understanding of the evaluation phase of creativity, portraying the valuation component as inherently domain-general. Identifying such core components of creative ideation contributes to elucidating the cognitive mechanisms underlying creativity and provides empirical support for including valuation as a core process in creativity.
Subjective valuation as a domain-general process in creative thinking
Gino Battistello; Sarah Moreno-Rodriguez; Emmanuelle Volle; Alizee Lopez-Persem
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Is a talented painter also a proficient writer? The ongoing discourse on whether creativity operates through domain-general or domain-specific mechanisms has led to challenges in our understanding of the creative process. Prior research suggests that creativity comprises two phases: idea generation and evaluation. A recent framework has proposed that the evaluation phase involves a valuation process which occurs upstream of the selection of an idea. In this framework, the value assigned to an idea, i.e., how much one likes an idea, energizes its production and drives its selection. While the role of valuation has been demonstrated in verbal semantic creativity, its domain generality remains to be tested. In this study, we assessed whether valuation is a domain-general or domain-specific process. Seventy-three participants engaged in three creativity tasks (producing semantic associations, alternate object uses, and drawings) followed by rating tasks. Using computational modeling, we found that a consistent valuation mechanism governs idea valuation across different domains. Specifically, the same value function and value parameters were shared across the evaluation of word associations, object uses and drawing completions. These findings advance our understanding of the evaluation phase of creativity, portraying the valuation component as inherently domain-general. Identifying such core components of creative ideation contributes to elucidating the cognitive mechanisms underlying creativity and provides empirical support for including valuation as a core process in creativity.
Mind over bias: How is cognitive control related to politically motivated reasoning?
Olaf Borghi; Ben M Tappin; Kaat Smets; Manos Tsakiris
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People often favour information aligned with their ideological motives. Can our tendency for directional motivated reasoning be overcome with cognitive control? It remains contested whether cognitive control processes, such as cognitive reflection and inhibitory control, are linked to a greater tendency to engage in politically motivated reasoning, as proposed by the “motivated reflection” hypothesis, or can help people overcome it, as suggested by cognitive science research. In this pre-registered study (N = 504 UK participants rating n = 4963 news messages), we first provide evidence for motivated reasoning on multiple political and non-political topics. We then compare the relative evidence for these two competing hypotheses and find that for political topics, it is 20 times more likely that cognitive reflection is associated with less motivated reasoning – in contrast to the prediction from the influential “motivated reflection” hypothesis. Our results highlight the need for more nuanced theories of how different cognitive control processes interact with motivated reasoning.
Understanding Empathy Toward Dissimilar Others in Daily Social Contexts
Rui Watanabe; Hironobu Kuruma
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Empathy is essential for human social interaction; however, extending empathy toward individuals with dissimilar characteristics facing daily challenges may be difficult. This study investigated how people without disabilities empathize with individuals with disabilities, specifically those with stroke-induced hemiplegia, during manual interactions with objects or other people. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA), we examined the neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying empathy in these contexts. Participants observed video stimuli featuring individuals with hemiplegia performing hand movements, such as grasping a human hand or an object (a plastic bottle), using either their hemiplegic or non-hemiplegic hands. Behavioral results showed observing grasping movements performed by the hemiplegic hand elicited stronger negative empathic feelings than those performed by the non-hemiplegic hand, regardless of the grasping targets. Positive empathic feelings were more pronounced while observing the hemiplegic hand grasping the human hand than the object. Furthermore, classification approaches in MVPA revealed that parts of the mirror neuron system and mentalizing networks distinguished empathic responses to grasping the human hand and the object commonly across the hemiplegic and the non-hemiplegic hands conditions. Additionally, the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) more accurately classified empathic responses to hemiplegic than non-hemiplegic grasping movements. Representational similarity analysis revealed that brain regions associated with affective empathy were specifically attuned to feelings of relief involved in the grasping movements across conditions. These findings suggest that both affective and cognitive empathic brain systems are mutually engaged when empathizing with individuals with hemiplegia who face complex challenges. The dorsal MPFC likely plays a key role in facilitating precise empathic responses to the challenges of hemiplegic movements. Moreover, the affective system is particularly fine-tuned to positive feelings, such as relief. Our findings advance understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying empathy toward individuals with different characteristics.
Quantum consciousness, brains, and cognition
Jerome R Busemeyer; Meijuan Lu
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Quantum consciousness concerns both the possible role that quantum mechanics has for understanding consciousness as well as the role that consciousness has for interpreting quantum physics. Quantum brain theories hypothesize that quantum physical processes occur within and between the neurons of the brain and have important effects on cognition as well as consciousness. Quantum cognition is a growing new field in cognitive science concerned with the application of the mathematical principles of quantum theory to human judgment and decision-making behavior. What do all these theories have to do with each other? Quantum theories of consciousness have more to say about quantum physics than cognitive psychology and conscious experiences. Quantum brain theories have not been sufficiently “scaled up” to provide clear implications for how quantum physical processes generate more complex cognition. Quantum cognition theories have avoided addressing fundamental issues about consciousness and have remained agnostic with respect to the quantum brain hypothesis. This article will address the problem of connecting these ideas together by connecting quantum cognition to the other two topics.
Parent-Child Interaction Styles Relate to Preschooler’s Causal Play, Learning, and Generalization
Yang Yang; Lauren Leotti; Patrick Shafto; Vanessa LoBue; Elizabeth Bonawitz
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Parental involvement plays an important role in children’s learning within everyday social contexts. This study investigated whether and how a brief instructional intervention affected parent-child interactions during play, and how parents’ and children’s behaviors impacted children’s learning during the play and subsequent independent exploration. Parents and their 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 72) engaged with causal toys, with parents assigned to one of three conditions: Teaching (teach the child), Helping (help the child), or No-involvement (watch the child). During the Interactive Phase, parent-child dyads had four minutes to explore the toys and figure out the causal rule together. This was followed by the Independent Phase, in which children explored a different set of toys with a new causal rule on their own for three minutes. Children's learning outcomes were assessed after each phase. Results indicated that parents in the No-involvement condition asked fewer questions and provided less feedback and encouragement compared to those in the Teaching and Helping conditions. However, there were no significant differences in parental behaviors between the Helping and Teaching groups. Across all conditions, parents’ use of questioning (particularly pedagogical questions) and guidance in helping children generate evidence during the interaction predicted better learning outcomes for children. These improved learning outcomes were even observed following children’s independent exploration, suggesting that guidance (in particular in the form of pedagogical questions) supports “learning to learn”.
Familects: the origin of everything
Antonio BenĂ­tez-Burraco
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A familect is the type of inward-oriented language variety used by families. It exhibits some distinctive features compared to other more outward-oriented vernacular varieties, which result from its function in bonding and marking identity. Familects also share some characteristics with child language and child-oriented speech, as well as with forms of language play. Additionally, most of the familectal features can be found in the languages spoken by small, isolated, close-knit human groups. This commentary reviews both the idiosyncratic features of familects and their overlap with other vernacular varieties, as well as the functional explanations for them. It also argues for promoting research on this understudied variety found in all human languages, which should contribute to a better understanding of language diversity, language change, and language evolution.
Mind over bias: How is cognitive control related to politically motivated reasoning?
Olaf Borghi; Ben M Tappin; Kaat Smets; Manos Tsakiris
Full text
People often favour information aligned with their ideological motives. Can our tendency for directional motivated reasoning be overcome with cognitive control? It remains contested whether cognitive control processes, such as cognitive reflection and inhibitory control, are linked to a greater tendency to engage in politically motivated reasoning, as proposed by the “motivated reflection” hypothesis, or can help people overcome it, as suggested by cognitive science research. In this pre-registered study (N = 504 UK participants rating n = 4963 news messages), we first provide evidence for motivated reasoning on multiple political and non-political topics. We then compare the relative evidence for these two competing hypotheses and find that for political topics, it is 20 times more likely that cognitive reflection is associated with less motivated reasoning – in contrast to the prediction from the influential “motivated reflection” hypothesis. Our results highlight the need for more nuanced theories of how different cognitive control processes interact with motivated reasoning.
Personalized Artworks through the Integration of Psychology, Neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence, and Brain Science
Jiaju Chen
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The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), psychology, brain science, and neuroscience has created new opportunities for art creation. This paper explores how the integration of these disciplines can enable the design of personalized artworks. It examines the psychological factors influencing art perception, the neural mechanisms linked to emotional responses, the generative capabilities of AI, and the role of neuroscience in guiding personalized designs. A multidisciplinary framework is proposed to incorporate psychological and neural feedback into AI-driven art creation.
What can typing tell us about language production?
Nazbanou Nozari; Svetlana Pinet; Merel Muylle
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Although research on typing has not exactly been sparse, studying typing within a psycholinguistic framework has not been a common approach. This paper argues in favor of this practice. By reviewing findings on patterns of typing errors and statistical learning in typed production, as well as influences of various factors on typing, including the similarity between the target word and its context, we show that typing has much in common with other modalities of language production and should be viewed as reflecting the general architecture of the language production system. We then discuss some of the contributions of typing research to the action monitoring literature due to the unique position that typing occupies at the interaction of phonological, orthographic, visual, and motor processes. We end by encouraging greater integration of typing research into psycholinguistic frameworks, not simply to confirm the predictions of such theories but to break new frontiers and push for new domains of inquiry.
A Null Result for Using a Simulated Vehicle Console Safety Message Nudge to Reduce Speeding Propensity in a Video Speed Test
Michael A. Nees; Hope Geiss
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An experiment used a nudge intervention modeled after the question-behavior effect (QBE) in an attempt to reduce speed propensity in a video simulated driving task. Participants viewed a vignette simulating a vehicle start-up sequence. The safety message on the center console was manipulated at two levels: a default legal message (common in contemporary vehicles upon console start-up) or a QBE safety message (i.e., “Will you drive safely today?”). The QBE message was hypothesized to reduce preferred speeds in a video speed test. Contrary to the hypothesis, we found no evidence to support that the QBE message resulted in different speed preferences as compared to the default message. This experiment was embedded in a larger study, reported elsewhere, to examine the validity of the video speed test (Nees & Geiss, submitted).
Measuring conspiracy beliefs among Democrats and Republicans: A test of the measurement invariance of four short-form conspiracist ideation scales
Cameron Stuart Kay; Joshua Hart
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Are Republicans more likely to believe in conspiracy theories than Democrats? This question has received considerable attention among researchers, but answering it requires measures of conspiracist belief that function the same among Democrats and Republicans. Unfortunately, evidence of such measurement invariance is scarce. To address this limitation, the current preregistered study tested the invariance of four short-form conspiracist ideation measures across the two major US political parties. We hypothesized that all four scales would achieve strict factorial invariance. The General Measure of Conspiracism was the only measure to reach this level. The Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale–5 and Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire, by contrast, only achieved metric invariance, despite the former demonstrating the greatest overall fit of the measures tested. The American Conspiracy Thinking Scale only achieved configural invariance. Researchers who are interested in comparing conspiracist ideation between Democrats and Republicans may, therefore, be best served by using the General Measure of Conspiracism.
Speech Categorization Consistency Predicts Language and Reading Abilities in School-Age Children: Implications for Language and Reading Disorders
Hyoju Kim; Jamie Klein-Packard; Eldon Sorensen; Jacob Oleson; Bruce Tomblin; Bob McMurray
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Speech perception is fundamental to language and reading abilities. While these skills are correlated, most studies examining the role of speech perception on outcomes do not test both concurrently. Moreover, traditional forced-choice tasks have limitations in accurately indexing these relationships. This study used a visual analog scaling task—a continuous measure of speech categorization—to examine speech categorization alongside conventional language and reading assessments in a large sample of children (n = 237), including those with language and/or reading disabilities. Children with poorer language/reading exhibited lower trial-to-trial categorization consistency, but no differences in the slope of the mean function. Group analyses further linked differences in categorization consistency to language/reading disabilities, with reading being linked particularly to the processing of vowels. Critically, categorization consistency uniquely predicted language/reading, even when controlling for the mediating effect of phonological processing. These findings suggest that the consistency of perceptual processes is more important than the quality of the representations.
Investigating Retrieval Strategies in an Associative Recognition Test in Working Memory: Evidence from Eye Movements
Ruhi Bhanap; Klaus Oberauer; Agnes Rosner
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The study examines the retrieval strategies that people engage in during associative recognition in working memory. To this end, we employ eye movements as a tool to track the underlying retrieval processes. Previous work has shown that during retrieval people tend to look back at empty spatial locations where the information was presented at encoding, known as the looking at nothing (LAN) effect. Thus, reflecting which memorandum has been retrieved. In a series of four experiments, we presented participants with four-word pairs at four different locations at encoding. During an immediate retrieval test, they heard two words and were asked to indicate if these two words belonged to the same word pair (positive probe) or not (lure probe). We hypothesized that LAN observed during lure probes will be diagnostic in informing which strategy participants engage in. On the one hand, participants can retrieve a word pair associated with one of the probe words through a pairwise binding. On the other hand, they can retrieve both word pairs based on a parallel comparison to the integrated representation of all the word pairs to perform the task. All experiments provided evidence in favor of a retrieval strategy where they retrieved only one of the word pairs. Additionally, we implemented a measurement model for the timeline of LAN. The onset of the effect is dependent on the inter word interval at retrieval as well as the size and distance between the locations.
Divergent Effects of Partisanship on Social Information Search and Use
Mubashir Sultan; Lucas Molleman; Scarlett Slagter; Wouter van den Bos; Ralf Kurvers; Andrea Gradassi
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Social information plays a key role in almost all areas of human decision-making, helping individuals reduce uncertainty and improve their decisions. Despite a wealth of research on how people use social information, few studies have focused on the process of searching for social information. Social information search is, however, a key component of social learning. People also do not learn from just anyone, for example, they show preference for their ingroup and actively disregard information from the outgroup. Such a bias can have negative outcomes. Here, we examine how partisanship—known to cause a strong ingroup bias—affects social information search and social information use across four studies. We split the search process into initiation—an initial hurdle to seek out social information—and the extent of search after initiation. We found that partisanship did not affect the quantity of search after initiation, with participants exploring the choices of ingroup and outgroup members equally. However, in an election prediction task, where partisan identity was more salient, participants initiated more social information search from the ingroup. For social information use, participants gave more weight to the choices of ingroup members and weighed social information more if it aligned with their political beliefs. Our findings demonstrate the importance of disentangling social information search and use, highlighting that partisan biases in information processing can emerge at different stages.
Navigating unmeasured confounding in non-experimental psychological research: A practical guide to computing and interpreting E-value
Kaiwen Bi; Gabriel Joey Merrin; Tianyu Li; Xianlin Sun; Yi Chai; Zekai Lu; Mark Shuquan Chen
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Randomized experiments remain the gold standard for establishing causality, yet ethical and practical constraints in certain fields often require researchers to rely on observational data. Although psychologists recognize that correlation does not imply causality, the conventional cautionary statements regarding correlation typically found at the end of articles have not sufficiently advanced psychological science, particularly in subfields such as developmental and personality psychology that predominantly rely on observational data. Sensitivity analyses commonly used in biostatistics and epidemiology offer powerful tools to quantify the risk of unmeasured confounding in observational data analysis, essentially encouraging applied researchers to assess how strongly an unmeasured confounder must be associated with both the predictor and outcome in order to negate an observed predictor-outcome association (i.e., reduce the effect to null). This tutorial explores the frequently overlooked but critical issue of unmeasured confounding in psychological research and introduces psychologists to the E-value, a novel and straightforward method for assessing the robustness of exposure-outcome associations to unmeasured confounding. We demonstrate the application of E-value using common psychological research scenarios in R and discuss its strengths, limitations, and recommended best practices. Psychologists can more accurately assess and transparently report research findings, particularly in subfields relying primarily on observational data, by more explicitly considering unmeasured confounding and incorporating sensitivity analysis techniques like the E-value into their methodological toolkits.
De-identification when making datasets FAIR: Two worked examples from the behavioral and social sciences
Don van Ravenzwaaij; Marlon de Jong; Rink Hoekstra; Susanne Scheibe; Mark M. Span; Ineke Wessel; Vera Ellen Heininga
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In recent years, the advancement of open science has led to data sharing becoming more common practice. Data availability has clear merits for science as it opens up possibilities for re-use of datasets by others, leading to less redundancy, more efficiency, and more transparency. The ideal is for scientific data to be as open as possible and FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. Parallel to this development, recent times have seen more stringent guidelines with respect to data privacy, culminating in the General Data Protection Regulation law, or GDPR. Navigating the balance between protecting participants’ privacy and making one's dataset as open as possible can be challenging for researchers. In this paper, we provide two worked examples with real datasets from the behavioral and social sciences on how to be as open as possible and as closed as necessary, with the goal of maximally facilitating science while minimizing the risk of participant identification.
Automated Reproducibility Testing in R Markdown
Andreas Markus Brandmaier; Aaron Peikert
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Computational results are considered _reproducible_ if the same computation on the same data yields the same results if performed on a different computer or on the same computer later in time. Reproducibility is a prerequisite for replicable, robust and transparent research in digital environments. Various approaches have been suggested to increase chances of reproducibility. Many of them rely on R Markdown as a language to dynamically generate reproducible research assets (e.g., reports, posters, or presentations). However, a simple way to detect non-reproducibility, that is, unwanted changes in these assets over time is still missing. We introduce the R package `reproducibleRchunks`, which provides a new type of code chunk in R Markdown documents, which automatically stores meta data about original computational results and verifies later reproduction attempts. With a minimal change to users' workflows, we hope that this approach increases transparency and trustworthiness of digital research assets.
Effects of experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic on optimistically biased belief updating.
Liane Schmidt; Iraj Khalid; Orphée Morlaàs; Hugo Bottemanne; Lisa Thonon; Thomas DaCosta; Philippe Fossati
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Optimistically biased belief updating is essential for mental health and resilience in adversity. Here, we asked how experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic affected optimism biases in updating beliefs about the future. One hundred and twenty-three participants estimated the risks of experiencing adverse future life events in the face of belief-disconfirming evidence either outside the pandemic (n=58) or during the pandemic (n=65). While belief updating was optimistically biased and Reinforcement-learning-like outside the pandemic, the bias faded, and belief updating became more rational Bayesian-like during the pandemic. This malleability of anticipating the future during the COVID-19 pandemic was further underpinned by a lower integration of positive belief-disconfirming information, fewer but stronger negative estimations, and more confidence in base rates. The findings offer a window into the putative cognitive mechanisms of belief updating during the COVID-19 pandemic, driven more by quantifying the uncertainty of the future than by the motivational salience of optimistic outlooks.
Social Connectedness Without Eye Contact: 18- But Not 9-Month-Olds Use Proximal Touch to Infer Third-Party Joint Attention During Observational Learning
Maleen Thiele; Gustaf GredebÀck; Daniel Haun
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Decades of research have highlighted the important role of joint attention in early cultural learning. However, most previous studies focused on a limited range of joint attention settings involving the learner’s first-person participation in joint visual attention, characterized by eye contact and triadic gaze following. This has created an incomplete picture, tending to neglect the diversity in which infants experience social connectedness in their daily lives. To deepen our understanding of the multifaceted nature of joint attention, this study investigated infants’ object memory in previously unexplored joint attention contexts, including physical cues of togetherness within observed interactions. Nine- and 18-month-old German infants participated in an object encoding task featuring videos of two people looking at an object. The videos varied in the presence and combination of mutual eye contact and mutual touch in physical proximity. After each video, the familiarized object reappeared next to a novel object. Infants’ looking time preference for the novel object was used as a measure of their prior encoding of the familiarized object. Eighteen-month-olds demonstrated superior encoding in all conditions involving interpersonal connectedness, expressed through eye contact, proximal touch, or a combination of both. In contrast, 9-month-olds’ object encoding was only enhanced in the presence of eye contact, regardless of proximal touch. These findings demonstrate a developmental refinement from a primary reliance on visual cues to a more comprehensive understanding of third-party jointness incorporating a broader range of cues. Joint attention is a highly flexible social learning mechanism, capable of operating in diverse social environments.
Parasocial Relationships: Media And Escapism
Aarna Guha Thakurta
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Parasocial relationships have become increasingly prevalent in today’s digital world. This paper aims to explore their psychological and sociological implications, particularly their influence on identity formation, self-esteem, and social behaviour. The findings of a qualitative survey, emphasize upon the need for media literacy to help users approach digital interactions in a healthy and informed manner.
Continuous response to perceived affective intentions in music listening: Differences in musical training
Lena Heng; Claire Wei; Stephen McAdams
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Perception of affective intentions in music is a complex, yet commonplace, phenomenon that is influenced by listeners' experience with different musical traditions and the style of the music. This study explores the continuous responses of listeners to a piece of Chinese orchestral music and how their musical backgrounds influence affective responses, as well as the acoustic and musical features used in the perception of affective intentions. Three groups of listeners (trained in Chinese and Western art music traditions and nonmusicians) were presented with a 15.5-minute piece of music and responded continuously on a unidimensional emotional intensity scale and a two-dimensional valence and arousal interface in separate blocks. Functional data analysis compared differences between listener groups' response profiles. Time series analysis explored how each listener group utilized different acoustic and musical features over the course of the music. Results show significant differences between listener groups over different sections of the music. Valence responses diverge more than arousal or emotional intensity responses. The perception of affective intentions in music is influenced by the degree of familiarity listeners have with a musical tradition, the content implicated in the music, and the complex sonic environment created by the composer’s creation and the musicians' interpretation.
Object persistence explains event completion
Tal Boger; Brent Strickland
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Our minds consistently distort memories of objects and events. Oftentimes, these distortions serve to transform incoherent memories into coherent ones, as when we misremember partial events as whole (“event completion”). What mechanisms drive these distortions? Whereas extant work shows that representations of causality, continuity, familiarity, physical coherence, or event coherence create memory distortions, we suggest that a simpler and more fundamental mechanism may be at play: object persistence. Merely seeing an object take part in an event can create a persisting memory of its presence throughout that event. In 8 pre-registered experiments (N=317 adults), participants performed a simple task where they watched an animation, then chose whether or not a frame from the animation contained an object. Participants falsely remembered seeing an object when it was not there (E1). These effects persisted in the absence of causality (E2), continuity (E3), event familiarity (E4), object familiarity (E5), even when the events violated physical laws (E6), and when the events themselves were not coherent (E7). However, the effect disappeared when we abolished object persistence (E8). Thus, object persistence alone creates rich, enduring, and coherent representations of objects and events.
Can you see an emotion?: Emotional evaluation of contextless visual stimuli in Virtual Reality
Andres Pinilla; Jaime Garcia; William Raffe; Jan-Niklas Voigt-Antons; Sebastian Möller
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Previous studies support the existence of objective emotional visual cues. For instance, red and blue are usually associated with high and low arousal, respectively. A similar phenomenon has been observed with other colors, as well as textures, shapes, and motion patterns. Yet, it is not clear to which extent this phenomenon can be extrapolated to Virtual Reality (VR) stimuli. Therefore, this manuscript presents an experiment where five virtual environments were evaluated by 21 participants in terms of valence and arousal. The design of the virtual environments was informed by evidence found in previous studies. Each environment represents one of the four quadrants of the Circumplex Model of Affect, plus a neutral environment. The results suggest that the emotions associated with the virtual environments are consistent with the evidence used to inform the design process. Individual differences across participants do not seem to influence the evaluation of the visual cues.
Are Iranian Immigrants in the U.S. Happy? A Comparative Study of Well-being, Discrimination, and Social Support in Iranians in the U.S. and Iran
Saida Heshmati; Afarin Rajaei; Shalini Bhattacharya; Jaymes Paolo Rombaoa; Hosain Heshmati; Tina Badakhshan
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This study aimed to explore the well-being of Iranian immigrants in the U.S., investigating the potential buffering role of social support in coping with discrimination in both workplace and everyday situations. The research sought to understand the unique challenges faced by this demographic, especially in the context of recent political events and the broader U.S.-Iran relationship. A sample of 139 Iranian immigrants currently residing in the U.S. (62% Female, M age = 35.54, range age = 21–85) using convenience and snowball sampling techniques. Sociodemographic factors were collected, such as experiences of discrimination at work and in daily life, perceived social support, and measures of well-being and happiness. This sample’s well-being was compared to a sample of Iranians living in Iran (N = 248). Findings suggest that Iranian immigrants in the U.S. report higher levels of well-being compared to Iranians residing in Iran. Age, relationship status, and health were significantly associated with well-being in Iranian immigrants. Rather than everyday discrimination, work discrimination emerged as a significant negative predictor of well-being. While social support did not moderate the relationship between work discrimination and well-being, it was a significant predictor of well-being on its own. Despite facing workplace discrimination, Iranian immigrants in the U.S. demonstrate greater well-being than their counterparts in Iran, with social support playing a pivotal role in their overall happiness. This signifies the importance of immigration for the well-being of people immigrating from unstable countries such as Iran.
Sound communities: A quantitative proposal for studying bilingual speech
Joseph V Casillas; Charlie Nagle; Melissa Baese-Berk; Mark Amengual
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Bilingualism researchers have intensively studied how learning and using multiple languages affects all levels of linguistic structure. In this strand, examining diversity in the bilingual experience and the extent to which variables like language dominance regulate crosslinguistic interaction has been of special interest. However, most studies sample small groups of bilinguals from a single research site, creating a twofold generalizability problem. First, with small samples it is unlikely that researchers will be able to fully capture and quantify the range of variables known to affect findings. Second, when bilinguals are recruited from a single site, it is impossible to determine if findings are site-specific or apply to bilinguals more broadly. To address these issues, we propose a large(r)-scale, multisite approach to bilingualism research. We believe that such an approach, when informed by open science practices, has the potential to significantly advance the state of the art.
Musical anhedonia does not blunt perception of the speech-to-song illusion, but being a Yanny perceiver does: insights from the Laurel-Yanny illusion
Nicholas Kathios; Benjamin M Kubit; Nicole Grout; Jake Everard; Emma Zachary; Arushi Sankhe; Adam Tierney; Aniruddh D. Patel; Psyche Loui
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Some spoken phrases, when heard repeatedly, seem to transform into music, in a classic finding known as the speech-to-song illusion. Repeated listening to musical phrases can also lead to changes in liking, attributed to learning-related reduction of prediction errors generated by the dopaminergic reward system. Does repeating spoken phrases also result in changes in liking? Here we tested whether repeated presentation of spoken phrases can lead to changes in liking as well as in musicality, and whether these changes might vary with reward sensitivity. We also asked whether perceptual biases towards low versus high frequencies, as assessed using the Laurel/Yanny illusion, are linked to changes in musicality and liking with repetition. Results show a general reduction in liking for spoken phrases with repetition, but less so for phrases that transition more readily into song. People who upweight low frequencies in speech perception (and so perceive Laurel rather than Yanny) are more susceptible to changes in musicality with phrase repetition and marginally less susceptible to changes in liking. Individuals with musical anhedonia still perceived the speech-to-song illusion, but liked all spoken phrases less; this did not interact with repetition. Results show a dissociation between perception and emotional sensitivity to music, and support a model of frequency-weighted internal predictions for acoustic signals that might drive the speech-to-song illusion. Rather than treating illusions as isolated curiosities, we can use them as a window into theoretical debates surrounding models of perception and emotion.
On the Connection Between Bias and Censorship in Academia
Nathan Honeycutt; Lee Jussim
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This paper explores the connection between bias and academic censorship. After defining terms, we review recent scholarship on varieties of censorship, and varieties of bias. These are then applied to academic processes of peer review, drawing heavily on recent work identifying the ways in which such biases often manifest in academia. We then propose a series of psychological and social processes by which biases can lead to censorship. We conclude the paper with several concrete examples of academic censorship that seem to reflect the processes we have identified.
An illusion of time caused by repeated experience
Brynn Sherman; Sami Ryan Yousif
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How do people remember when something occurred? One obvious possibility is that, in the absence of explicit cues, people remember based on memory strength. If a memory is fuzzy, it likely occurred longer ago than a memory that is vivid. Here, we demonstrate a robust illusion of time that stands in stark contrast with this prediction. In six experiments, we show that experiences which are repeated (and, consequently, better remembered) are counterintuitively remembered as having initially occurred further away in time. This illusion is robust (amounting to as much as a 25% distortion in perceived time), consistent (exhibited by the vast majority of participants tested), and applicable at the scale of ordinary day-to-day experience (occurring even when participants were tested over one full week). We argue that this may be one of the key mechanisms underlying why it is that people’s sense of time often strongly deviates from reality.
Arctic Instincts? The Late Pleistocene Arctic Origins of East Asian Psychology
David Sun
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This article explores the hypothesis that modern East Asian populations inherited and maintained extensive psycho-social adaptations to arctic environments from ancestral Ancient Northern East Asian populations, which inhabited arctic and subarctic Northeast Eurasia around the Last Glacial Maximum period of the late Pleistocene, prior to back migrating southwards into East Asia in the Holocene. I present the first cross-psychology comparison between modern East Asian and Inuit populations, using the latter as a model for paleolithic Arctic populations. The comparison reveals that both East Asians and the Inuit exhibit notably high emotional control/suppression, ingroup harmony/cohesion and subdomain unassertiveness, indirectness, self and social consciousness, reserve/introversion, cautiousness, and perseverance/endurance. The same traits have been identified by decades of research in polar psychology (i.e., psychological research on workers, expeditioners, and military personnel living and working in the Arctic and Antarctic) as being adaptive for, or byproducts of, life in polar environments. I interpret this as indirect evidence supporting my hypothesis that the proposed Arcticist traits in modern East Asian and Inuit populations, primarily represent adaptations to arctic climates, specifically for the adaptive challenges of highly interdependent survival in an extremely dangerous, unpredictable, and isolated environment, with frequent prolonged close-quarters group confinement, and exacerbated consequences for social devaluation/exclusion/expulsion. The paper concludes with a re-examination of previous theories on the roots of East Asian psychology, mainly that of rice farming and Confucianism, in the light of my Arcticism theory.
Personality Traits and Traditional Philanthropy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Wiebke Bleidorn; Alexander Georg Stahlmann; Ulrich Orth; Luke D. Smillie; Christopher James Hopwood
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Volunteering and charitable giving are core examples of traditional philanthropy that contribute to the health of democratic societies and individual well-being. Differences in people’s willingness to engage in these behaviors hint at a role of psychological factors that foster or hinder these types of philanthropic engagement. Theory and empirical research suggest that broad personality traits may shape volunteering and charitable giving. However, existing evidence for links between specific traits and philanthropic engagement has been mixed, in part because of insufficient statistical power and methodological variation across studies. In this preregistered meta-analysis, we integrated data from 29 studies to estimate the associations between the Big Five personality traits with volunteering (N = 91,241, Median age = 34 years, 61% female, 36% U.S. samples) and charitable giving (N = 3559, Median age = 39 years, 52% female, 40% U.S. samples). We further examined potential moderators, including the types of personality and philanthropic behavior measures used, gender, age, and sample region, to begin to explain the substantial heterogeneity of effect sizes across studies. Results indicated modest but robust correlations between the Big Five personality traits, volunteering, and charitable giving, with the largest effect sizes emerging for the links between extraversion and volunteering (r = .09, 95% CI [.05, .12]) and for agreeableness and charitable giving (r = .14, 95% CI [.04, .25]). There was little evidence for systematic moderator effects. We describe the theoretical implications of these results for future research, discuss practical applications, and highlight gaps in this body of literature.
‘Brain Fog’: Exploring Associations with Stress, Connectedness to Nature, and Mindfulness
Sneha Jindal; Susan Bodnar
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'Brain fog,' or the experience of mental fatigue, impaired cognitive acuity, and confusion in the general population, has remained a largely under-researched phenomenon. However, it has been receiving increased scholarly attention in recent years. While previous literature has established a predictive relationship between mental fatigue and perceived stress, as well as the protective and mitigative role played by exposure to nature and mindfulness interventions, there exists minimal research specifically on brain fog, the non-clinical factors contributing to the development of its symptoms, and the factors that moderate these associations in the general population. The present study aims to address these research gaps and assess if Perceived Stress can predict Brain Fog. Furthermore, it aims to gauge if a sense of Connectedness to Nature and Mindfulness moderate the relationship between Brain Fog and Perceived Stress. Employing a quantitative and cross-sectional approach, this study recruited a sample of N = 70 participants via convenience-snowball sampling. The participants filled out an online survey comprising self-report inventories for each variable. The results indicated that Perceived Stress was a significant predictor of Brain Fog, negatively moderated by Connectedness to Nature. While Mindfulness did not predict or moderate Brain Fog, the Acting with Awareness facet of Mindfulness negatively moderated, or weakened, the relationship between Perceived Stress and Brain Fog. Insights obtained from this research will contribute to formulating alternative and holistic treatment pathways for the general population, who do not have access to specialized treatments, that can aid in mitigating symptomatic distress, including non-pathological levels of Brain Fog. Keywords: Brain Fog, Perceived Stress, Connectedness to Nature, Mindfulness
Current age and language use impact speech-in-noise differently for monolingual and bilingual adults
Rebecca Bieber; Ian Phillips; Gregory Matthew Ellis; Douglas S. Brungart
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Purpose: Some bilinguals may exhibit lower performance when understanding speech in noise (SIN) in their second language (L2) compared to monolinguals in their first language. Poorer performance has been found mostly for late bilinguals (L2 acquired after childhood) listening to sentences containing linguistic context, and less so for simultaneous/early bilinguals (L2 acquired during childhood) and when testing context-free stimuli. However, most previous studies tested younger participants, meaning little is known about interactions with age; the purpose of this study was to address this gap. Method: Context-free SIN understanding was measured via the Modified Rhyme Test (MRT) in 3836 young and middle-aged bilingual and monolingual adults (ages 18–57; 19.5% bilinguals, all L2 English) with normal to near-normal hearing. Bilingual adults included simultaneous (n = 466), early (n = 185), and late (n = 97) bilinguals. Performance on the MRT was measured with both accuracy and response time. A self-reported measure of current English use was also collected for bilinguals to evaluate its impact on MRT performance. Results: Age impacted MRT accuracy scores differently for each listener group. Relative to monolinguals, simultaneous and early bilinguals showed decreased performance with older age. Response times slowed with older age at similar rates for all groups, despite faster overall response times for monolinguals. Among all bilingual listeners, greater current English language use predicted higher MRT accuracy. For simultaneous bilinguals, greater English use was associated with faster response times. Conclusions: Speech-in-noise outcomes in bilingual adults are impacted not only by fixed features of their language history (i.e. age of acquisition) but also by language practices which can shift over time (i.e. current language use), supporting routine querying of language history and use in the Audiology clinic.
Current age and language use impact speech-in-noise differently for monolingual and bilingual adults
Rebecca Bieber; Ian Phillips; Gregory Matthew Ellis; Douglas S. Brungart
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Purpose: Some bilinguals may exhibit lower performance when understanding speech in noise (SIN) in their second language (L2) compared to monolinguals in their first language. Poorer performance has been found mostly for late bilinguals (L2 acquired after childhood) listening to sentences containing linguistic context, and less so for simultaneous/early bilinguals (L2 acquired during childhood) and when testing context-free stimuli. However, most previous studies tested younger participants, meaning little is known about interactions with age; the purpose of this study was to address this gap. Method: Context-free SIN understanding was measured via the Modified Rhyme Test (MRT) in 3836 young and middle-aged bilingual and monolingual adults (ages 18–57; 19.5% bilinguals, all L2 English) with normal to near-normal hearing. Bilingual adults included simultaneous (n = 466), early (n = 185), and late (n = 97) bilinguals. Performance on the MRT was measured with both accuracy and response time. A self-reported measure of current English use was also collected for bilinguals to evaluate its impact on MRT performance. Results: Age impacted MRT accuracy scores differently for each listener group. Relative to monolinguals, simultaneous and early bilinguals showed decreased performance with older age. Response times slowed with older age at similar rates for all groups, despite faster overall response times for monolinguals. Among all bilingual listeners, greater current English language use predicted higher MRT accuracy. For simultaneous bilinguals, greater English use was associated with faster response times. Conclusions: Speech-in-noise outcomes in bilingual adults are impacted not only by fixed features of their language history (i.e. age of acquisition) but also by language practices which can shift over time (i.e. current language use), supporting routine querying of language history and use in the Audiology clinic.
Comparing Likert and Visual Analogue Scales in Ecological Momentary Assessment
Jonas M B Haslbeck; Alberto Jover MartĂ­nez; Anne Roefs; Eiko I Fried; Lotte H.J.M. Lemmens; Esmee Lorraine Groot; Peter Adriaan Edelsbrunner
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Measuring subjective experiences in Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) studies has become a popular approach. A design choice in such studies is the response scale of the survey questions. Typically, researchers choose between a Likert scale and a visual analog scale (VAS). However, there is little guidance on this choice. We conducted a between-person experiment comparing a 7-point Likert scale (n=63) with a VAS (n=56) in an EMA study measuring affective states over 14 days. Using Bayesian multilevel models, we found that the VAS resulted in moderately higher within-person item means, lag-0 correlations, lag-1 autocorrelations, as well as lower within-person skewnesses and response frequencies of exact zeros. We found the largest difference in correlations with external criteria related to psychopathology, where correlations for the VAS were much higher. We did not observe reliable differences in within-person item variances, root mean squared successive differences, missing data, duration of measurements, and ratings about the experiences with the EMA survey. Apart from higher within-person means and higher correlations with external criteria in the VAS group, the differences were relatively small. While more research on response scales in EMA is needed, based on our results we conclude that the VAS should be preferred in studies aiming at capturing affective states relating to general psychopathology, as well as for items whose variation occurs close to scale limits. We conclude by discussing how our findings may contribute to a larger research agenda that addresses the fit of different response scales for different research aims.
On idle idols and ugly icons: Do homophones create interference in typing?
Merel Muylle; Robert Hartsuiker; Nazbanou Nozari
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Anecdotally, homophones (e.g., there/their) create difficulty in typing, but it is debated whether the so-called homophone interference is due to poor spelling knowledge (competence) or competition between representations (performance). Using a set of computer simulations and two experiments, we tested the predictions of these two accounts. In addition to comparing the typing of homophones to well-matched controls in a sentence-dictation task (Exp. 1) and in a question-answering task (Exp. 2), we also examined the influence of lexical competition and syntactic category on homophone typing: sentences either contained one or both homophones, and the homophones either belonged to the same or different syntactic categories. Homophone interference persisted after ruling our poor spelling knowledge, and was stronger with increased lexical competition, supporting the performance account. There was little evidence of sensitivity to syntax. Collectively, these results point to competition (both lexical and segmental) as the main source of homophone interference in typing.
Taking the ‘C’ out of CBT: A review of the role of cognition in clinical change
Sean Delaney
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Although the evidential support of CBT as an integrated treatment package is overwhelming there have been a number of objections against the centrality of cognition in clinical change. This paper will focus on three such challenges: ‱ Component-based studies of CBT ‱ Multi-level theories of cognition ‱ Third wave CBT approaches The paper accepts that although these three challenges pose questions, they are themselves not without criticism and their evidence is somewhat limited, inconsistent and open to interpretation. Yet it also observes an anomaly: despite repeated reference to evidential data within the cognitive therapy movement, there is limited research into the efficacy of specific cognitive techniques. It concludes however that while Beck’s notion of cognition as the centre-piece of psychotherapeutic process is evidentially assumptive, such is the role of the current cognitive paradigm that any radical alteration is deemed unlikely.
Quantum consciousness, brains, and cognition
Jerome R Busemeyer; Meijuan Lu
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Quantum consciousness concerns both the possible role that quantum mechanics has for understanding consciousness as well as the role that consciousness has for interpreting quantum physics. Quantum brain theories hypothesize that quantum physical processes occur within and between the neurons of the brain and have important effects on cognition as well as consciousness. Quantum cognition is a growing new field in cognitive science concerned with the application of the mathematical principles of quantum theory to human judgment and decision-making behavior. What do all these theories have to do with each other? Quantum theories of consciousness have more to say about quantum physics than cognitive psychology and conscious experiences. Quantum brain theories have not been sufficiently “scaled up” to provide clear implications for how quantum physical processes generate more complex cognition. Quantum cognition theories have avoided addressing fundamental issues about consciousness and have remained agnostic with respect to the quantum brain hypothesis. This article will address the problem of connecting these ideas together by connecting quantum cognition to the other two topics.
Making the wisdom of crowds efficient — with confidence
Julian Berger; Mehdi Moussaid; Ralph Hertwig; Stefan Michael Herzog; Ralf Kurvers
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Efficiently allocating individuals to work on complex decision problems is a key challenge for groups, organizations, and societies. It involves a crucial trade- off: Increasing the number of individuals working on a task typically improves accuracy, but also increases costs. Research in collective intelligence has proposed a plethora of mechanisms to pool the judgments of independent decision makers in order to improve performance. However, these mechanisms are static; because they do not adjust the number of crowd members to the challenge at hand, they incur high, fixed costs for every decision problem. We develop and test three decision rules that make it possible to benefit from the wisdom of the crowd adaptively depending on a case’s difficulty. Our rules rely on decision makers’ confidence judgments to stop crowd growth. Empirical analyses in four real-world domains (cancer diagnoses, false news classification, criminology, and forecasting) using seven datasets show that our adaptive decision rules can result in equal or higher accuracy compared to widely used static crowd aggregators, while relying on fewer individuals. Our findings present easily applicable practical decision guidelines that can substantially boost the efficiency of crowds.
Effects of visual distractors on discourse coherence in young and older adults: A test of the inhibitory deficit hypothesis
Paul Hoffman; Clara Moeller; Holly Maclean
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Producing coherent discourse requires us to regulate the content of our speech and avoid interference from discourse-irrelevant concepts that become active in semantic memory. The inhibitory deficit hypothesis proposes that coherence declines in later life are due to a reduced ability to inhibit these irrelevant ideas. However, existing evidence in support of this view is correlational. We performed an experimental test of the hypothesis by asking young (18-25) and older (70-90) participants to produce discourse on a range of topics while attending to two types of visual distractors: images of meaningful concepts and meaningless abstract patterns. The overall global coherence of responses was lower when participants were distracted (cf. no distraction) but this effect was not larger for meaningful distractors. Participants also spoke more slowly under distraction. These effects did not differ between age groups. Critically, however, in the meaningful distractor condition, responses diverged from the original topic more quickly than in the other conditions. This effect was only present in older participants. These results suggest two underlying effects at play. First, performing a concurrent task has a general effect on the speed and coherence of discourse, which in this study was age-invariant. Second, for older people, tasks that activate a series of irrelevant semantic representations have an additional cumulative effect on discourse content, causing it to deviate off topic more rapidly. Our results support the inhibitory deficit hypothesis and suggest that older people can improve their coherence by avoiding semantically-laden environmental distractors like TV or radio programmes.
Higher individualism predicts lower intensity of experienced love: Data from 91 countries
Marta Kowal; Piotr Sorokowski; S. Craig Roberts; W. P. MaƂecki; MichaƂ Misiak; Agnieszka Sorokowska; miroslaw kocur; Adam Bode; Steve M. J. Janssen; Felipe E. García
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Romantic love is a near-universal human experience. However, while it transcends cultural boundaries, its intensity varies significantly across individuals and societies. We hypothesize that this variability is partly driven by socio-cultural factors, particularly individualism—a cultural orientation prioritizing personal goals over group interests. As individualism continues to rise globally, its implications for romantic relationships remain underexplored. Here, we address this by examining the link between individualism and romantic love in two large-scale cross-cultural studies. In Study 1, we collected data from a convenience sample of 61,067 partnered individuals from 81 countries. In Study 2, we selected nationally representative samples from 50 countries, with controlled distributions of gender, age, and residential area (N = 6,620). The results were consistent across both studies—as individualism increased, both men and women reported lower levels of experienced love. In Study 2, individualism was additionally linked to a lower expressed desire for love, suggesting that individualism may erode the perceived importance of love. As people become increasingly individualistic, our findings provoke questions about the future of romantic love. They also carry implications for societal challenges such as rising divorce rates, fertility issues, and depression—all of which have been linked to unfulfilled or unhappy love.
Art Knowledge Training Shapes Understanding, Inspires Creativity and Stimulates Thinking
Ionela Bara; Richard Ramsey; Emily S. Cross
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According to aesthetic cognitivism theory, art represents a source of knowledge that promotes understanding, creativity and thinking. However, it remains unclear exactly what kind of art knowledge shapes understanding and thinking. Given the important role played by the arts in acquiring knowledge and facilitating learning and understanding of human culture, this study aimed to shed light on the transformative power of knowledge acquired through art training. Via a pre-registered study, we investigated the extent to which understanding, creative inspiration, thinking, and intellectual challenge judgements are impacted by distinct types of art knowledge training (e.g., in-depth training, brief training or no training), and the extent to which each kind of training generalises to new contexts. Using a training intervention paradigm and a multi-level Bayesian modelling approach, we found that participants (N ~50 per training group) assigned higher ratings of understanding, creativity, and thinking judgements for trained rather than for untrained artworks as a function of art training type. Particularly, in-depth art knowledge training involving visual and auditory descriptions of artworks rather than no training led to greater ratings. The effects of training generalised to unseen artworks produced by the same artist but not to different artists. Compared to the no training group, these effects were most robust for in-depth than brief art training group. These findings suggest that art knowledge training promotes art understanding, creative ideas and thinking, and generalises to new settings that involve a similar artistic style. This work shines a light on the training modality and required duration of art training to shape learning and guide the generalisation effects to novel contexts.
Face Processing in Humans and DCNNs: Comparing the Reliance on Holistic and Local Feature-Based Information
Benedikt Emanuel Wirth; Andreas Knoblauch; Philipp MĂŒller
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It is intensively debated whether Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs) constitute appropriate models for human vision. Here, we investigated whether DCNNs show a typical characteristic of human face perception, namely holistic processing. In Experiment 1, we compared unfamiliar face matching performance between a DCNN trained on face recognition and N = 32 human participants for different types of face images: Normal faces (with intact holistic and local feature-based information), Mooney faces (with intact holistic and degraded local feature-based information), and scrambled faces (with intact local feature-based information and degraded holistic information). The DCNN showed significantly larger performance decrements for both Mooney and scrambled faces than human participants. In Experiment 2, we trained three DCNN architectures on face recognition, one with unrestricted field size and two with field sizes restricted to approximately 1/9 and 1/16 of the input image, respectively. Subsequently, we compared unfamiliar face matching performance between these DCNNs and N = 36 human participants who viewed face images either in an unrestricted fashion or through a movable spotlight- like viewing aperture covering approximately 1/9 or 1/16 of the face images. While human face matching accuracy was substantially impaired by restricting the visual input with apertures, DCNN performance was not affected by restriction of the receptive field size. These results suggest that (a) DCNNs are able to achieve high face matching accuracy without using holistic information (b) the reliance of holistic information in DCNNs depends on the specific optimization conditions under which models are trained.
How the spontaneous perception of face pareidolia unfolds over time
Amanda K Robinson; Greta Stuart; Sophia M. Shatek; Adrian Herbert; Jessica Taubert
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The human brain rapidly detects faces, even in inanimate objects—a phenomenon known as face pareidolia. While this illusion reveals the automaticity of face detection, it also presents a paradox: how does the brain process stimuli that are simultaneously faces and objects? Here, we combined behavioral experiments with electroencephalography to track the temporal dynamics of face pareidolia processing. Using a large stimulus set of human faces, objects containing illusory faces, and matched control objects, we show that perception of face pareidolia is remarkably flexible and task dependent. When making spontaneous similarity judgments, participants perceived illusory faces as intermediate between faces and objects. However, in explicit categorization tasks, the same stimuli were predominantly classified as objects, while rating face-likeness bolstered the representation of face-like features. Neural responses tracked this perceptual flexibility: early visual processing (90-130ms) correlated with face-like judgments, while later activity (150-210ms) aligned with object categorization. This temporal progression demonstrates how the brain maintains multiple levels of representation, integrating early face detection with subsequent object recognition to support flexible behavior. Our findings demonstrate that face pareidolia exemplifies the brain's capacity to resolve perceptual ambiguity through dynamic processing, with task demands determining how competing representations contribute to perception.
Reliability and Validity of Thin Slice Judgments of the Working Alliance: A Multilevel Investigation
Alex Milovanov; Sarena Daljeet; Jonathan Oakman; Marjory Phillips
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Observational coding provides a means of measuring psychotherapy processes when self-report data is unavailable. The quality of the therapeutic alliance is a robust predictor of outcome as well as the most widely studied element of psychotherapy. The current study is the first to measure the alliance using thin slicing, or nonexpert judgments formed based on brief video clips. Four archival psychotherapy sessions from 53 adults were coded by undergraduates viewing either thin slices or entire sessions. Results indicated that four to five one-minute slices were sufficient to represent a session. We provide empirically derived coding guidelines specifying the number of raters and segments needed to optimize reliability for one-minute slices and entire sessions. A novel multilevel interrater reliability approach was applied. In addition, a single slice from three therapy sessions (3 minutes of coding total) was sufficient to predict therapy outcome (r = .28), with maximal predictive power when five slices from four sessions were aggregated (r = .33). Findings support the utility of thin slicing for efficiently capturing the alliance without compromising validity. More broadly, these data highlight the potential of thin slicing for tracking elements of psychotherapy across multiple timescales; this represents a possible avenue for addressing the time- and labour-intensive nature of existing coding methods, a current bottleneck in psychotherapy research. Further applications for research and clinical training are discussed.
No Change in Theory of Mind Related Processes During tDCS to the Right Temporoparietal Junction
Ze Freeman; Mariska Kret; Janet H. Bultitude; Chris Ashwin
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Many studies report changes to social cognition after delivering transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the scalp. Across multiple paradigms, it is unclear whether changes in social cognition are a result of modulating fundamental cognitive processes, like attention-shifting, or multidimensional ones, like theory of mind. The aim of this study was to segment theory of mind into component processes and examine how tDCS modulates task performance in each to clarify the role of the temporoparietal junction in social cognition. Three stimulation conditions were used: anodal, cathodal, and sham. tDCS was applied to the right temporoparietal junction whilst participants completed the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task, a shape association self-other distinction task, and the Wisconsin card-sorting task. Results showed no significant differences between anodal, cathodal, and sham tDCS conditions, as well as no significant change in task accuracy from before tDCS was applied to during tDCS being applied (p = .05). A significant difference in task performance was found between the three tasks. Exploratory analyses showed a significant, un-corrected task by stimulation by time point interaction, which is likely driven by the difference in task difficulty. The efficacy of tDCS remains unclear, and we highlight a potential file-drawer problem in this field.
Wisdom in time: Advancing dynamic models of wisdom, intellectual humility, open-mindedness, and perspective-taking
Igor Grossmann; Jackson A Smith; Neil Wegenschimmel; Peter Diep; Anna Dorfman
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Dynamic theories of wisdom emphasize that metacognitive attributes—including intellectual humility, open-mindedness, and empathy/perspective-taking—evolve in response to life’s challenges. These attributes are further recognized as essential for promoting societal and individual well-being, mitigating contemporary issues such as misinformation, polarization, and societal acrimony. Upon reviewing dominant theoretical models of wisdom, here we outline how expression of wisdom’s metacognitive attributes differs across situational contexts, with implications for measurement practices. Next, we posit that the temporal dimension—essential to virtually all theories of wisdom—is paradoxically neglected or misinterpreted in empirical studies. Our findings are supported by a systematic review of literature, demonstrating that many conclusions about developing wisdom or its downstream effects are based on cross-sectional, atemporal data. In response, we advocate for greater focus on the temporal bounds of empirical data in social psychology and offer tutorial-style recommendations for formalizing narrative theories to explicitly specify one’s level of analysis. Beyond wisdom, we provide case examples of temporal neglect across other clinical, social, and cultural domains. Our recommendations thus provide a template for advancing dynamic research practices across diverse fields critical to understanding psychological change.
Musical anhedonia does not blunt perception of the speech-to-song illusion, but being a Yanny perceiver does: insights from the Laurel-Yanny illusion
Nicholas Kathios; Benjamin M Kubit; Nicole Grout; Jake Everard; Emma Zachary; Arushi Sankhe; Adam Tierney; Aniruddh D. Patel; Psyche Loui
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Some spoken phrases, when heard repeatedly, seem to transform into music, in a classic finding known as the speech-to-song illusion. Repeated listening to musical phrases can also lead to changes in liking, attributed to learning-related reduction of prediction errors generated by the dopaminergic reward system. Does repeating spoken phrases also result in changes in liking? Here we tested whether repeated presentation of spoken phrases can lead to changes in liking as well as in musicality, and whether these changes might vary with reward sensitivity. We also asked whether perceptual biases towards low versus high frequencies, as assessed using the Laurel/Yanny illusion, are linked to changes in musicality and liking with repetition. Results show a general reduction in liking for spoken phrases with repetition, but less so for phrases that transition more readily into song. People who upweight low frequencies in speech perception (and so perceive Laurel rather than Yanny) are more susceptible to changes in musicality with phrase repetition and marginally less susceptible to changes in liking. Individuals with musical anhedonia still perceived the speech-to-song illusion, but liked all spoken phrases less; this did not interact with repetition. Results show a dissociation between perception and emotional sensitivity to music, and support a model of frequency-weighted internal predictions for acoustic signals that might drive the speech-to-song illusion. Rather than treating illusions as isolated curiosities, we can use them as a window into theoretical debates surrounding models of perception and emotion.
The interplay of music perceptual abilities and experiences with episodic musical memory
Nur Diyanah bte Abdul Wahab; Gladys Jiamin Heng; Leonardo Bonneti; SH Annabel Chen
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Despite a longstanding interest in associations between musical competency and memory, the multi-dimensional facet of musical competency remains understudied. The current study thus examines (1) the relationship between music perceptual abilities and episodic musical memory, and (2) the influence of musical behaviors, such as music listening and instrument playing, on music perception skills. Sixty-one participants (35M, 26F) completed an episodic musical memory task, adapted from the Mnemonic Similarity Task (MST; Stark et al., 2015), which measures general recognition and precision memory for music. Participants also completed a music perception task (Law & Zentner, 2012) and provided data on musical behaviors. Regression analyses revealed that general recognition memory for music was predicted by overall music perception proficiency. Proficiency in music perception is in turn predicted only by the extent of music instrument playing, independent of formal musical training or other musical experiences. In contrast, precision memory for music was not predicted by overall music perception proficiency, but only by melody and tempo perception, underscoring distinct links between specific musical skills and memory. These findings highlight the nuanced connections between musical habits, perceptual skills and musical memory skills, emphasizing the role of music production activities in nurturing musical competence.
Revisiting Gino et al.’s (2009) Contagion and Differentiation in Unethical Behavior: A Registered Conceptual Replication and Extension
Jareef Martuza; Esra Aslan
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Individual behavior is often shaped by observing others’ actions. The seminal and widely cited Experiment 1 by Gino, Ayal, et al. (2009) found that individuals are more likely to behave dishonestly after witnessing blatant dishonest behavior by an ingroup member than by an outgroup member. However, because there was no strict baseline condition in the original study, where participants would be exposed to the dishonesty of others without any in/outgroup signals, it remains unclear whether the original effect is driven by ingroup contagion, outgroup differentiation, or both. Furthermore, because that experiment used natural groups only, it also remains unclear if distinct properties of natural groups are necessary, or if mere categorization into arbitrary groups suffices. In this registered report, we propose to test their general hypothesis that exposure to ingroup dishonesty norms increases individual dishonest behavior more than exposure to outgroup dishonesty norms does. Using validated procedures for studying dishonesty norms, we propose a conceptual replication and extension of Gino, Ayal, et al.'s (2009) Experiment 1. We will test their general hypothesis in both minimal and natural groups with 3,600 U.S. Americans. In the treatment conditions, participants will be exposed to standardized information about others’ dishonest behavior, where we will systematically vary the group identity signals of those dishonest others, and then allow participants to cheat and double their experimental earnings. Findings will bolster understanding of how group identity-based dishonesty norms affect individual dishonesty by clarifying mechanisms and generalizability of the effect.
Immigrants’ Shared Beliefs on Love in the United States: Insights from a Cultural Consensus Theory Approach
Saida Heshmati; Jaymes Paolo Rombaoa
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Love is shaped by cultural context. The Cultural Consensus Theory (CCT) framework can be used to explore shared beliefs within cultures. Immigrants are a growing subculture within the United States that may have diverse views on love. This study investigated the shared beliefs of everyday love among 230 U.S. adults who had immigrated from 78 countries; participants were aged 19–72 years (M = 37.82, SD = 11.38). We aimed to (1) assess whether U.S. immigrants come to a consensus on what love means in daily life, (2) explore the details of U.S. immigrants’ shared beliefs on love while comparing those beliefs with the general U.S. population, and (3) examine the individual differences in decision-making styles. Using the Extended Condorcet Model and Bayesian psychometric methods for CCT analysis, we found that U.S. immigrants converge on a single-culture consensus on love and have similar beliefs as the general U.S. population on a set of 60 everyday love scenarios. We also found differences between immigrants and the general population for some scenarios. Lastly, we found that individual differences (personality factors, integration index, education, country of origin) were associated with people’s ability to know the consensus and guessing tendencies. While beliefs on love are mostly shared among people from both majority and immigrant populations, this research highlights how cultural background can inform nuances in shared beliefs on love.
Psychological Dynamics of Performance Crises in Professional Soccer: Developing and Validating Crisis Indices for Team Performance Assessment
Darko Jekauc; Jannik Jekauc; Constantin Rausch
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Performance crises in professional soccer can have profound psychological and organizational impacts, influencing team cohesion, confidence, decision-making, and stakeholder satisfaction. This study aims to develop and validate three quantitative indices – Relative Position (RP), Linear Rate of Change (LRC), and Exponential Rate of Change (ERC) – to assess team performance relative to expectations and detect the onset of crises. Using data from the 2023–24 Bundesliga season, the indices were applied to analyze patterns of underperformance and their connection to managerial changes, providing insights into the psychological dynamics underlying team crises. The RP index quantifies a team’s position relative to preseason expectations, while the LRC index captures cumulative performance trends over the season. The ERC index emphasizes recent performance momentum, identifying acute downturns that may trigger psychological and structural crises. Results show that the indices are effective in diagnosing both chronic and acute performance issues, with sharp declines in ERC often coinciding with coaching dismissals, reflecting the psychological tipping points of team management decisions. Illustrative case studies of FC Augsburg and VfL Wolfsburg demonstrated the indices’ practical utility, highlighting contrasting patterns of early versus late interventions. Across the league, teams experiencing managerial changes exhibited significant negative trends in all three indices, underscoring their reliability in identifying crises. By integrating psychological momentum, expectation management, and performance analysis, the proposed indices provide a systematic approach to monitoring team performance, understanding the psychological precursors of crises, and enabling timely interventions to mitigate performance downturns.
Coaching immigrant leaders: motivation to lead and obstacles to change
Shankar Subramaniam; Mukhunth Raghavan
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This project focuses on factors that motivate immigrants to seek leadership positions and the unique challenges they face in becoming successful leaders. Common themes that emerged from my coaching experience informed my literature search on motivational factors and leadership. A major finding is that including both sociocultural factors and family dynamics helps account for generational differences in immigrants’ path to leadership. A coaching tool has been developed to help with leadership coaching of immigrant clients.
Imagers and mentalizers: capturing individual variation in metaphor interpretation via intersubject representational dissimilarity
Chiara Battaglini; Federico Frau; Veronica Mangiaterra; Luca Bischetti; Paolo Canal; Valentina Bambini
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When girls are pearls, do they have rare gracious attributes, or are they beautiful? It is well known that not only are metaphors open to different interpretations but also that these interpretations might vary across individuals, even with the same cultural context. However, the literature lacks a description of which patterns of interpretation emerge across individuals and which factors might drive them. Previous evidence suggests that interpreters differently recruit sensorimotor and sociocognitive strategies to interpret metaphors. Here, we tested the importance of metaphor multimodality to explain individual variability. We describe participants’ interpretations according to a series of psycholinguistic variables, including affective, cognitive, and sensory processes, that mirrors psychological states and hints at different cognitive mechanisms. With an innovative method that combines i) a multidimensional semi-automated linguistic analysis, ii) IS-RDM, which allows to uncover participant-level patterns of similarity, and iii) a data-driven clustering method, we were able to identify two groups of participants based on their verbal interpretations. Results showed that there are mentalizers, who explore the semantic networks and rely on sociocognitive information (e.g. they interpret Teachers are lanterns as They are able to make others understand whatever they want to) and imagers, who reenact sensory properties and rely on the activation of mental images (e.g. they interpret Teachers are lanterns as They are luminous). Our study showed that a data-driven approach can capture different metaphor interpretative profiles from the semantic features of the words used, suggesting that: i) participants focus on sensorimotor vs. sociocognitive features according to the different processing strategies they adopt and ii) the words they produce to interpret a metaphor are cues into these cognitive mechanisms. These data allow the reconciliation of the multiplicity of theories about metaphor comprehension, which might be due to the existence of differences across individuals. There seems to be multimodal alternative routes to solving metaphorical meaning, and acknowledging individual preferences allows to open windows on the modalities with which each individual conceptualizes the world.
Figurative Archive: an open dataset and web-based application for the study of metaphor
Maddalena Bressler; Veronica Mangiaterra; Paolo Canal; Federico Frau; Fabrizio Luciani; Biagio Scalingi; Chiara Barattieri di San Pietro; Chiara Battaglini; Chiara Pompei; fortunata romeo
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Research on metaphor has steadily increased over the last decades, as this phenomenon opens a window into a range of processes in language and cognition, from pragmatic inference to abstraction and embodied simulation. At the same time, the demand for rigorously constructed and extensively normed experimental materials increased as well. Here, we present the Figurative Archive, an open database of 997 metaphors in Italian enriched with rating and corpus-based measures (from familiarity to lexical frequency), derived by collecting stimuli used across 11 studies. It includes both everyday and literary metaphors, varying in structure and semantic domains. Dataset validation comprised correlations between familiarity and other measures. The Figurative Archive has several aspects of novelty: it is increased in size compared to previous resources; it includes a novel measure of inclusiveness, to comply with current recommendations for non-discriminatory language use; it is displayed in a web-based interface, with features for a flexible and customized consultation. We provide guidelines for using the Archive in future metaphor studies, in the spirit of open science.
Relations between University Teachers’ Teaching-Related Coping Strategies and Well-Being Over Time: A Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis
Martin Daumiller; Kristina Stockinger; Markus Dresel
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Background: University teachers’ well-being plays a critical role in their productivity and educational effectiveness. Apart from cross-sectional research on demographic and institutional/contextual correlates, insight into potential causes and consequences of faculty well-being is limited. This includes insight into relations between different coping strategies and well-being. Aims: We studied the interplay of different strategies for coping with teaching-related stress with university teachers’ well-being over the course of one semester. Sample: Participants were 489 German university teachers (age: M=41.1 years, SD=11.4) from 34 universities. Their demographics were characteristic for German university staff. Methods: Participants reported on their use of task-oriented, emotion-oriented, and avoidance-oriented coping to manage teaching-related stress and on their subjective well-being (positive and negative affect; job satisfaction) at the beginning (T1: November) and end (T2: February) of the winter 2020/2021 term. Interrelations were examined via cross-lagged panel analysis. Results: Task-oriented coping was positively related to the slope of changes in positive affect, and vice versa, over time. Emotion-oriented coping (rumination) was positively related to the slope of changes in negative affect, and negatively to the slope of changes in positive affect and job satisfaction. Negative affect was positively related to the slope of changes in avoidance-oriented coping. Conclusions: The findings provide directions for further developing supportive measures for promoting well-being in university teaching staff by highlighting the relevance of different coping strategies as causes and consequences thereof. Task-oriented coping may be particularly adaptive for well-being: at the same time, interventions aiming to promote well-being may also facilitate task-oriented coping behaviors.
Psychotherapy as an Exercise in Value Conversion: Ethical Implications
Sean Delaney
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Although there has been some research on the role of value conversion within therapy, such research tends to pertain to resolution of ethical dilemmas or specific instances of conflict between therapist and client values. This research takes a counter argument: rather than view value conversion as an occasional or isolated incident, it argues that such processes are integral to therapy. This argument is supported through a critical discourse analysis of the historic ‘Gloria Films’ featuring Carl Rogers, Albert Ellis, Fritz Perls and Gloria Szymanski. The research concludes value conversion is more prevalent and more complicated than is reflected in the existing literature and by current ethical frameworks. However it also concludes that although such conversion processes are integral to therapy, there is less evidence to support the view that such conversions are successful.
Reasoning goals and representational decisions in computational cognitive neuroscience: lessons from the drift diffusion model
Ari Khoudary; Megan Peters; Aaron Bornstein
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Computational cognitive models are powerful tools for enhancing the quantitative and theoretical rigor of cognitive neuroscience. It is thus imperative that model users—researchers who develop models, use existing models, or integrate model-based findings into their own research—understand how these tools work and what factors need to be considered when engaging with them. To this end, we developed a philosophical toolkit that address core questions about computational cognitive models in the brain and behavioral sciences. Drawing on recent advances in philosophy of modeling, we highlight the central role of model users’ reasoning goals in the application and interpretation of formal models. We demonstrate the utility of this perspective by first offering a philosophical introduction to the highly popular drift diffusion model (DDM) and then providing a novel conceptual analysis of a long-standing debate about decision thresholds in the DDM. Contrary to most existing work, we suggest that the two model structures implicated in the debate offer complementary—rather than competing—explanations of speeded choice behavior. Further, by contrasting approaches to model development and comparison, we show how the explanation provided by each form of the model (parsimonious and normative) reflects the reasoning goals of the communities of users who developed them (cognitive psychometricians and formal decision scientists, respectively). We conclude our analysis by offering readers a principled heuristic for deciding which of the models to use, thus concretely demonstrating the conceptual and practical utility of philosophy for resolving meta-scientific challenges in the brain and behavioral sciences.
Lexical search and social reasoning jointly explain communication in associative reference games
Abhilasha Ashok Kumar; Robert Hawkins
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Effective linguistic communication depends upon many different cognitive processes working together in concert. Yet our computational models of these processes are often developed in isolation, without considering how these processes fit together. In this work, we study a simplified variant of the popular board game Codenames, which highlights the integration of two important processes: (1) lexical retrieval and (2) pragmatic reasoning. In this task, speakers must generate a "clue" word from their full lexicon that allows their partner to select a pair of target words from a context of distractors. In Experiment 1, we evaluate a suite of different models on an existing corpus of production data, finding that models with both semantic search and pragmatic reasoning components significantly outperform ablated variants. Experiment 2 elicits targeted endorsements for a particularly diagnostic set of clues, providing further evidence for the pragmatic selection component in isolation. Finally, Experiments 3 and 4 elicit lists of clues that speakers are considering for a target pair in the absence and presence of the board context, respectively, providing further evidence for the way context is infused into semantic search. Taken together, our findings shed new light on the way that retrieval processes (generating promising candidates) and selection processes (evaluating the likely communicative success of these candidates) must work in tandem to support effective communication.
Investigating dreams by strategically presenting sounds during REM sleep to reactivate waking experiences
Karen R Konkoly; Daniel Morris; Matthew Cho; Kaitlyn Hurka; S. Gabriela Torres-Platas; Lourdes Baehr; Ken A. Paller
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Dreams may partially reflect the memory reorganizing that occurs nightly to improve the usefulness of what we learn each day. However, solid evidence has yet to link dreaming with adaptive overnight memory processes. Dream research faces several challenges, including the difficulty of experimentally controlling dream content and the susceptibility of dream reports to distortion and forgetting upon awakening. Memory consolidation can be systematically manipulated using Targeted Memory Reactivation (TMR), whereby sensory stimulation during sleep triggers processing of previously acquired memories. Stimuli presented during sleep can be incorporated into dreams, but how reactivated memories might influence dream content is still unknown. This study aims to use TMR to strategically influence dreams. In the evening, participants performed two distinct tasks designed to be readily incorporated into dreams. Each task was associated with a unique sound and entailed a unique respiratory signature designed to be objectively verifiable during sleep. The association between each task and sound was further reinforced in a conditioning phase just prior to sleep. When a participant entered REM sleep, the experimenter presented one of the two sounds, thus attempting to induce dreams related to the associated task. Dream reports revealed incorporation of task elements that were high for both tasks, and relatively higher for the cued task. Dreaming of a task was linked with decreased negative valence and increased creativity. We conclude that this approach to dream curation provides a novel way to investigate the influence of dreaming on memory storage.
Evaluating convergence between two data visualization literacy assessments
Erik Brockbank; Arnav Verma; Hannah Lloyd; Holly Huey; Lace Padilla; Judith Fan
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Data visualizations play a crucial role in communicating patterns in quantitative data, making data visualization literacy a key target of STEM education. However, it is currently unclear to what degree different assessments of data visualization literacy measure the same underlying constructs. Here, we administered two widely used graph comprehension assessments (Galesic & Garcia-Retamero, 2011; Lee, Kim, & Kwon, 2016) to both a university-based convenience sample and a demographically representative sample of adult participants in the United States (N=1,113). Our analysis of individual variability in test performance suggests that overall scores are correlated between assessments and associated with the amount of prior coursework in mathematics. However, further exploration of individual error patterns suggests that these assessments probe somewhat distinct components of data visualization literacy, and we do not find evidence that these components correspond to the categories that guided the design of either test (e.g., questions that require retrieving values rather than making comparisons). Together, these findings suggest opportunities for development of more comprehensive assessments of data visualization literacy that are organized by components that better account for detailed behavioral patterns.
Agent-Based Modeling for Psychological Research on Social Phenomena
Jiin Jung; John H. Miller; Scott E. Page
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This paper describes seven potential benefits of incorporating agent-based modeling (ABM) as a core research methodology for psychological research on social phenomena: building formal theories of complex social systems, validating multilevel causation, understanding temporal and non-linear dynamics, demonstrating the completeness of theories, balancing consideration of people with their environments, bridging psychology and policy, and identifying unknown unknowns and the limits of prediction. Those benefits accrue from a resonance between how they approach questions and the questions they ask. For example, both rely on experiments to explore how individual interactions generate collective phenomena. The paper compares micro-mechanism-driven and macro-pattern-driven ABM paradigms and introduces a new research approach—the minimal society paradigm—and a modeling strategy, principle-oriented modeling. This framework integrates ABM into psychological research, supporting both theory building through minimal societies and adaptation to specific contexts. Last, recent methodological developments in this field are discussed.
Vaccine Misinformation and Social Determinants of Vaccine Intentions in a Pandemic
Ankit Shanker
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Objective: To examine how vaccine misinformation shapes perceived social norms and assess their mediating role in vaccination intentions during pandemics, an underexplored mechanism in misinformation's influence on vaccine decisions. Methods: In a pre-registered online experiment, UK residents (n=332) were randomly assigned to either a misinformation or control condition in a hypothetical pandemic scenario. I measured changes in vaccination intentions, first-order normative beliefs (perceptions of others' vaccination intentions), and second-order normative beliefs (perceptions of others' beliefs about vaccine safety) before and after exposure. Causal mediation analysis using inverse odds ratio weighting assessed the indirect effects of misinformation through changes in normative beliefs. Results: The pre-post comparison revealed that vaccine intentions declined 2.5% more in the misinformation condition compared to control (p = 0.024, d = 0.24). In the misinformation group, average vaccine intentions dropped from 62.4% to 59.3%, while the control group showed minimal change from 60.8% to 60.2%. Changes in first-order normative beliefs mediated 39.52% of misinformation's total effect on vaccination intentions. Conclusions: The findings reveal that vaccine misinformation operates through dual pathways: directly affecting individual beliefs while simultaneously distorting perceptions of social consensus about vaccination.
Exploring barriers to crisis support: Considerations for the design of automated digital suicide prevention interventions.
Arka Ghosh; Emily Beth Tack; Sarah Alexandra Popowski; Tanvi Lakhtakia; Theresa Nguyen; David C Mohr; Kimberly Van Orden; Madhu Reddy; Jonah Meyerhoff
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Suicidal thoughts and behaviors pose a major public health concern and are a leading cause of mortality in young adults. However, formal mental health care utilization remains limited due to attitudinal and structural barriers, including stigma. Digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) offer a promising alternative approach to help-seeking, especially for young adults who prefer self-managing their symptoms. Text messaging-based safety planning interventions can be a scalable approach to seek help that can mitigate many structural barriers and can be useful for young adults. In this study, we conducted two online focus groups (n=15 each) to understand what prevents young adults from seeking help for their suicidal thoughts and behaviors and what might prevent them from engaging with a fully automated text messaging-based safety planning intervention. Participants reported barriers to help seeking both within and outside crisis states. Outside crisis states, the major barriers to help seeking included an unwillingness to burden others, negative prior experiences, inability to verbalize distress, high cost of professional help, fear of repercussions, stigma, and inconsistency with self-image. During crisis, participants reported difficulty following through with a safety plan. Despite a preference for self-management, participants expressed skepticism towards a fully automated intervention, citing privacy concerns, doubts about effectiveness, and a desire for human support. Our findings highlight a key tension in designing DMHIs: while young adults prefer self-managing their problems, they may also disengage from DMHIs that lack human support. Understanding these barriers are critical for developing DMHIs that balance autonomy with perceived effectiveness and support.
Trial-By-Trial ERP-Behavior Relationships in Psychosis: Between- and Within-Person Variability in Performance Monitoring Adjustments
Bohyun Park; Amanda Holbrook; Philippe Rast; Gregory A. Light; Dan Foti; Roman Kotov; Peter E Clayson
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Cognitive impairment in schizophrenia, characterized by deficits in performance monitoring, predicts clinical and functional outcomes. The error-related negativity (ERN), a neurophysiological index of error detection, is reduced in psychosis, but it is unclear why this impaired error detection is not closely linked to post-error behavioral adjustments. A possibility is that research has overrelied on examining between-person relationships of average ERN and behavior, rather than focusing on within-person, trial-by-trial changes. This study aimed to determine whether neurophysiological indices of error detection (ERN, error positivity [Pe]) predict within-person post-error behavioral adjustments in psychotic disorders and whether these relationships are weaker in people with psychosis than in controls. ERN and Pe were assessed during a modified flanker task in 72 patients with psychosis and 82 healthy comparison participants. Multilevel location-scale models were used to examine trial-by-trial changes in the relationships between ERPs and behavior (response [RTs], accuracy). Results showed that ERP-RT relationships were similar across patients and controls. In both groups, greater within-person increases in ERN amplitude predicted longer and mor variable RTs following correct trials. Larger within-person increases in Pe predicted shorter and more variable RTs following correct trials, but less variable RTs following error trials. Exploratory analyses in a subset of patients with schizophrenia showed a similar pattern of effects as in the overall analyses. ERP-accuracy relationships were neither observed nor moderated by diagnostic groups. Within-person ERP-behavior relationships were preserved in psychosis, indicating intact performance monitoring at the individual level. This supports performance-monitoring as a transdiagnostic construct and underscores the importance of examining intraindividual variability to understand performance monitoring in psychotic disorders.
Sociodemographic and mental-health characteristics of psychedelic-assisted therapy participants: Latent class analysis of a cross-sectional, purposive online sample
Dan Petrovitch; Samuel Hosford; Andrew K. Littlefield; Heather Austin-Robillard
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Psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) is an emerging treatment approach that often combines pharmacotherapeutic dosing sessions with more traditional psychotherapy. Despite limited formal regulatory approval, treatment seekers can currently access PAT through a variety of avenues, including ketamine treatment centers and “supported adult use” psilocybin centers in the U.S., drug tourism, “underground” therapy, and participation in clinical trials, among other ways. This has created a heterogenous landscape of PAT access in which people self-report PAT utilization with a variety of psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs. However, there is limited published data on patterns of PAT involvement across drugs among real-world patients. Therefore, the present study investigated patterns of PAT utilization by applying latent class analysis (LCA) to a purposive sample of 244 self-identified PAT patients. Participants were recruited from a variety of sources (e.g., ketamine clinics, social media groups, a large U.S. university) and asked to report lifetime PAT utilization involving six compounds: psilocybin, ketamine, mescaline, ayahuasca/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). Participants also completed sociodemographic and internalizing measures (e.g., Beck Depression Inventory II, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7), and responses were compared across classes. LCA yielded a three-class solution. In addition to High- (55.7% of the sample) and Medium-PAT classes (29.1%), a unique Psilocybin-Ketamine class (15.2%) was identified—membership in this class was characterized by universal involvement with psilocybin and notable involvement with ketamine PAT compared to other compounds. Between-class comparisons of mental-health assessments indicated that the High-PAT class reported elevated depression and anxiety. These findings suggest that high levels of lifetime involvement in a variety of PAT modalities may be associated with more severe self-reported psychiatric symptoms, raising questions about selection or iatrogenic effects within the current PAT landscape. The emergence of a Psilocybin-Ketamine class implies that these substances may serve as initial entry points into PAT.
Why pro-environmental attitudes don’t always translate in behavior: Exploring the role of moral disengagement
Nils Demurie; Kim Dierckx; Alain Van Hiel; Arne Roets
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Research indicates a significant gap between the individual’s pro-environmental attitudes and actual behavior. To explain this gap, the present paper integrates prominent models of ecological behavior with theories of cognitive dissonance and moral disengagement into the new Behavior Attitude Alignment Model (BAAM). This model suggests that behavioral barriers can create an inconsistency between pro-environmental attitudes and behavior, leading to negative affect. Individuals may resolve this negative affect either by acting more pro-environmentally or by adjusting their attitudes through moral disengagement. Two studies were conducted to test this extended model. The first study (n = 256) focused on behaviors with varying behavioral barriers (eating less meat vs. recycling), while the second study (n = 188) manipulated behavioral barriers for sustainable consumption with a product choice task. The results from both studies indicate that higher behavioral barriers induce moral disengagement, which negatively affects behavioral attitudes, leading to less pro-environmental behavior. However, barriers had no significant effect on negative affect. These findings suggest that moral disengagement plays a crucial role in explaining pro-environmental behavior and offers new insights for developing interventions to counteract this process. Consequently, the present work lays the groundwork for identifying new strategies to close the attitude-behavior gap, and therefore contributes to a more sustainable future.
Synergistic tension among the music and lyrics of late-Romantic choral songs
Tudor Popescu; Adrian Kempf; Patrick Boenke; Marco Tettamanti
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Songs intimately combine two defining human capacities: music and language. As a song unfolds, interconnected musical and linguistic elements such as dissonant chords and evocative words combine to generate fluctuating patterns of tension and relaxation, with associated predictive expectations that shape aesthetic and emotional experiences. However, how these patterns integrate across both domains to produce a holistic sense of tension remains unexplored. We investigated this integration in a tension-rich subset of Western vocal music, late-Romantic art songs, hypothesising that tonal and semantic tension combine superadditively. Using a naturalistic listening paradigm, online participants rated tonal, semantic, and holistic tension in three selected songs. Results suggest that the musical dimension (tonal tension) plays a more prominent role than the linguistic one (semantic tension) in shaping overall affect. Music alone explained a greater proportion of variance in the holistic condition than did lyrics alone. A significant redundant-information component suggested an integration of music and lyrics under genre-specific rules, while a synergistic-information component indicated their combined effect exceeds the sum of their individual contributions. Though based on a specific tonal-poetic idiom, our findings illuminate how music and language might integrate during real-time listening, from the experiential perspective of tension. We discuss how both culture-specific and culture-invariant (universal) mechanisms may contribute to this process, offering insights into cross-domain aesthetic integration.
Synergistic tension in the music and lyrics of late-Romantic choral songs
Tudor Popescu; Adrian Kempf; Patrick Boenke; Marco Tettamanti
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Songs intimately combine two defining human capacities: music and language. As a song unfolds, interconnected musical and linguistic elements such as dissonant chords and evocative words combine to generate fluctuating patterns of tension and relaxation, with associated predictive expectations that shape aesthetic and emotional experiences. However, how these patterns integrate across both domains to produce a holistic sense of tension remains unexplored. We investigated this integration in a tension-rich subset of Western vocal music, late-Romantic art songs, hypothesising that tonal and semantic tension combine superadditively. Using a naturalistic listening paradigm, online participants rated tonal, semantic, and holistic tension in three selected songs. Results suggest that the musical dimension (tonal tension) plays a more prominent role than the linguistic one (semantic tension) in shaping overall affect. Music alone explained a greater proportion of variance in the holistic condition than did lyrics alone. A significant redundant-information component suggested an integration of music and lyrics under genre-specific rules, while a synergistic-information component indicated their combined effect exceeds the sum of their individual contributions. Though based on a specific tonal-poetic idiom, our findings illuminate how music and language might integrate during real-time listening, from the experiential perspective of tension. We discuss how both culture-specific and culture-invariant (universal) mechanisms may contribute to this process, offering insights into cross-domain aesthetic integration.
Advancements of Phonetics in the 21st century: Quantitative data analysis
Morgan Sonderegger; Marton Soskuthy
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Phonetic research in the 21st century has relied heavily on quantitative analysis. This article reviews the evolution of common practices and the emergence of newer techniques. Using a detailed literature survey, we show that most work follows a mainstream, which has shifted from ANOVAs to mixed-effects regression models over time. Alongside this mainstream, we highlight the increasing use of a diverse methodological toolbox, especially Bayesian methods and dynamic methods, for which we provide comprehensive reviews. Bayesian methods, as well as frequentist methods beyond linear and logistic regression, offer flexibility in model specification, interpretation, and incorporation of prior knowledge. Dynamic methods, such as GAMs and functional data analysis, capture non-linear patterns in acoustic and articulatory data. Machine learning techniques, such as random forests, expand the questions and types of data phoneticians can analyze. We also discuss the growing importance of open science practices promoting replicability and transparency. We argue that the future lies in a diverse methodological toolbox, with techniques chosen based on research questions and data structure.
Developing and Piloting a QUick Evaluation of Research Integrity for Evidence Synthesis in Education (QUERIES-Edu)
Lucija Batinovic; Marta Topor; Natalie Hyltse; Henrik Danielsson; Rickard Carlsson
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The threat to evidence synthesis is becoming more prominent with increasing worries that the unexpected amounts of retrieved studies, questionable data and inconsistent findings are beginning to overwhelm the publication system and potentially bias meta-analytic conclusions. This paper presents an integrity assessment checklist (​​QUick Evaluation of Research Integrity for Evidence Synthesis in Education; QUERIES-Edu) and a pilot study plan that provides an overview of research integrity status in special education research and assesses the feasibility of the checklist. The checklist consists of questions that evaluate the research integrity of a scientific study, as well as its journal and publisher. An expert panel will provide feedback and suggestions for the items, after which the final version will be implemented. The checklist will be evaluated by a user panel that will conduct the assessment on studies included in a large scoping review of educational interventions for students with intellectual disability. Our aim is that the checklist will enable authors of systematic reviews to conduct quick checks of studies before they are included in thorough quality appraisal, which in turn will facilitate evidence synthesis and ensure the trustworthiness of included studies.
Children’s social connections, internet usage and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Global South: evidence from Disrupting Harm
Thomas E. Metherell; Sebastian Kurten; Sakshi Ghai; Daniel Kardefelt-Winther; George Ploubidis; DarĂ­o Moreno-Agostino; Amy Orben
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Objective: To investigate the cross-sectional associations of digital technology use with mental health indicators during the COVID-19 pandemic in 12 countries in the Global South. Methods: We used data from the UNICEF Innocenti Disrupting Harm survey of 11,912 children aged 12–17 in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. We modelled the associations of social connection and internet use during lockdown with six different indicators of wellbeing in each country and in the overall sample using robust linear and logistic regression. We controlled for a range of putative socioeconomic and demographic confounders and handled missing data using multiple imputation. Findings: We did not find clear evidence for any general associations of social connection or internet use with mental health indicators during lockdown across countries. Rather, our results are complex and demonstrate that the relationship depends heavily on an individual’s context; not just on the country they are living in but also on their sex, urbanicity and other factors. Nonetheless, our results highlight key focus areas for further research. Conclusion: Extensive further research is needed to identify ways in which technology use, including internet use, might act as a risk or protective factor relevant to mental ill health among young people in the countries of the Global South.
Bullying Trajectories from Childhood to Adolescence: The Relationship with Mental Health Outcomes for Autistic and Neurotypical Youth
Emre Deniz; Nathalie Noret; Athena Ru Wern Chow; Jessie Baldwin; Umar Toseeb
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Autistic youth are more likely to be involved in bullying, have poorer mental health, and experience friendships and social support differently compared to neurotypical youth. What remains unclear is whether relationship between bullying and mental health is different for autistic and neurotypical youth and whether friendships and social support moderate this relationship. In this United Kingdom based population-based study, we investigated the relationship between bullying involvement, victimisation and perpetration, from early childhood (age 5 years) through to mid-adolescence (age 14 years) with mental health outcomes in later adolescence (age 17 years) for autistic (n= 576) and neurotypical youth (n=14,963). We used parent-, teacher-, and self-reports of bullying at ages 5, 7, 11, and 14 years, to identify five bullying trajectory groups (uninvolved, adolescence victim, early childhood victim, early childhood bully, and bully-victims). Autistic youth were more likely than their neurotypical peers to be in one of the bullying trajectory groups compared to being in the uninvolved group. Specifically, 74% of autistic youth experienced bullying either as victims, bullies, or bully-victims between early childhood and adolescence compared to 38% of neurotypical youth. Both autistic and neurotypical youth who were involved in bullying, whether as a perpetrator or victim, experienced poorer subsequent mental health later in adolescence. Higher perceived social support buffered the effects of bullying involvement for neurotypical but not autistic youth. These findings highlight the need for further research focussing on possible targets for intervention to mitigate the possible impacts of bullying on subsequent mental health for autistic youth.
An introduction to Sequential Monte Carlo for Bayesian inference and model comparison -- with examples for psychology and behavioural science
Max Hinne
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Bayesian inference is becoming an increasingly popular framework for statistics in the behavioural sciences. However, its application is hampered by its computational intractability -- almost all Bayesian analyses require a form of approximation. While some of these approximate inference algorithms, such as Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), have become well-known throughout the literature, other approaches exist that are not as widespread. Here, we provide an introduction to another family of approximate inference techniques known as Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC). We show that SMC brings a number of benefits, which we illustrate in three different examples: linear regression and variable selection for depression, growth curve mixture modelling of grade point averages, and in computational modelling of the Iowa Gambling Task. These use cases demonstrate that SMC is efficient in exploring posterior distributions, reaching similar predictive performance as state-of-the-art MCMC approaches, in less wall-clock time. Moreover, they show that SMC is effective in dealing with multi-modal distributions, and that SMC not only approximates the posterior distribution, but simultaneously provides a useful estimate of the marginal likelihood, which is the essential quantity in Bayesian model comparison. All of this comes at no additional effort of the end user.
Practitioner Review: caregiver-infant relationship difficulties and intervention in infancy
Celia Smith; Kyla Vaillaincourt; Jennifer Somers; Isil Necef; Helen Minnis; Jeyda Ibrahim; Sam Wass
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The infant-caregiver relationship is foundational to early development. Early atypical development can lead to long-term developmental cascades that cause later-life behavioural, emotional, and cognitive difficulties. Here, we focus on co-regulation – i.e., dynamic processes of mutual adaptation that underpin the caregiver-child relationship - during the 0-3 years age range. We explore the practical relevance of understanding co-regulation for intervention by pinpointing key mechanisms of change that drive the effectiveness of interventions. We discuss how mutual adaptation can be both beneficial (as it helps children to achieve and maintain an optimal, ‘critical’ state and fosters bio-behavioural synchrony) and detrimental (as short-term stress cycles can be dynamically reinforced across the dyad, and atypical long-term rhythms in one partner can progressively influence the other partner over time). We review how these principles are applied in current interventions, such as Circle of Security Parenting (COS-P), Video Interaction Guidance (VIG), Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP). We discuss under-explored areas that could be targeted in future intervention research. We highlight that child-caregiver relationships have been extensively studied at short-interval timescales - from seconds to minutes - in both naturalistic and controlled settings, and that most interventions focus on this timescale. There remains, though, a lack of quantitative data on how short-term interactions influence longer-term relationship dynamics over days, weeks and months, and this area is relatively under-explored in intervention research.
Data Relations Architecture in Psychological Practice
Naoki Kamiya
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Data utilization and relationship design by data in psychological practice have been promoted from a technological and efficiency perspective. Examples include introducing digital therapy, virtual reality, AI, large-scale language models, and wearable technology. However, the risks posed by technology solutions (e.g., digital divide, bias, inaccuracy) are also alarming. This paper proposes a framework called Data Relations Architecture (DRA), which integrates ethical, cultural, and historical perspectives in working with data and aims to architect relations based on diversity. The need for DRA is demonstrated by examining three hypothetical scenarios: treatment retention rates and cultural factors, optimizing mental health care design, and culturally adaptive data governance.
Borderline Personality as a Disorder of Temporality - A Phenomenological Meta-Synthesis
Anna Sterna; Marcin Moskalewicz; Thomas Fuchs
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This paper synthesizes research on temporal experience in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) from a phenomenologically grounded perspective. It advocates for a closer integration of phenomenology with empirical research results, with the specific goal of bridging the gap between theoretical and evidence-based understanding of BPD temporality. Utilizing a variant of indirect phenomenology, the paper adopts phenomenological insights into temporality to integrate the existing literature from cognitive sciences, chronobiology, and psychoanalysis, which provides qualitative, quantitative, and theoretical inputs. The findings reveal a coherent picture of BPD temporality characterized by fragmentation and discontinuity. Past experience is dense yet disorganized and recreated in the presence of present affective stimuli. The present absorbs one in an immediate, immersive manner. The future is perceived as blurred and disowned, with its horizon being truncated. This contributes to the feeling of being stuck and disoriented within one's temporal landscape. One lives in disturbing cycles between a negativity-biased past and a narrow present, which hinders the process of self development.
Falsifying the Insufficient Adjustment Model: No Evidence for Unidirectional Adjustment From Anchors
Lukas Röseler; Lisa Incerti; Tobias R. Rebholz; Christian Seida; Frank Papenmeier
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After considering a more or less random number (i.e., an anchor), people’s subsequent estimates are biased toward that number. Such anchoring phenomena have been explained via an adjustment process that ends too early. We present a formalized version of the insufficient adjustment model, which captures the idea that decreasing the time that people have to adjust from anchors draws their estimates closer to the anchors. In four independent studies (N = 898), we could not confirm this effect of time on anchoring. Moreover, anchoring effects vanished in the two studies that deviated from classical paradigms by using a visual scale or a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm to allow faster responses. Although we propose that the current version of the insufficient adjustment model should be discarded, we believe that adjustment models hold the most potential for the future of anchoring research, and we make suggestions for what these might look like.
Early language acquisition: From birth order effect to child-to-caregiver ratio
Audun Rosslund; Natalia Kartushina; Nora Serres; Julien Mayor
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Growing up with multiple siblings might negatively affect a child’s language development. This study examined the associations between birth order, sibling characteristics and parent-reported vocabulary size in 6,163 Norwegian 8–36-month-old children (51.4% female). Results confirmed that birth order was negatively associated with vocabulary, yet exhibited a U-shaped pattern. A ‘child-to-caregiver ratio’ in the household was introduced, in which old-enough siblings are considered caregivers for their younger siblings. This index explained variance in vocabulary better than birth order, and suggested that female siblings may adopt a caregiving role 1–3 years earlier than males, indicating sex differences in the age at which siblings contribute, rather than deplete, available resources. A child-to-caregiver ratio might better capture the interplay between language learning resources and demands within households.
What the Press Reveals About "The Unemployed": A Lexicometric Analysis of 12,996 Articles from French Written Newspapers from 2005 to 2022
Charly Marie; David Bourguignon
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Unemployed people face a negative stigma leading to adverse outcomes. However, its origins, content, evolution, and transmission remain understudied. Integrating social psychology and communication studies, we use lexicometric methods to analyze 12,996 articles on “the unemployed” published in the French press between 2005 and 2022. We show that unemployed people are largely invisible in the media, are mostly portrayed as dehumanized economic, political, or welfare issues requiring control and sanction procedures rather than individuals, and that unemployment is mostly individualized. When they are visible, which is rare, unemployed individuals are portrayed as persevering and willing poor men in need of guidance and support, who adhere to a strong social norm to work and take personal responsibility for their situation. Different discourses about unemployed people emerge both from political leaders in a top-down approach, and from liberal-left and local newspapers in a bottom-up perspective.
Can We Be Friends with GPT? Exploring the Dynamics of Relationship Development towards a GPT4-based Social Chatbot
Leonard Block Santos; Evelien Heyselaar; Fred Hasselman; Johan Karremans
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Emotional relationships with social chatbots might have become possible due to recent technical breakthroughs. However, the literature shows contradictory findings between group-level laboratory studies and participant-level ecological investigations. We argue that the dynamic and complex nature of friendship is hardly described by classic analyses and might require a complex-systems approach. Therefore, we conducted N = 11 case studies, of which three are presented here. With a self-made GPT-4-Turbo-based social chatbot on WhatsApp, we investigated whether friendship development would take place within a two-month time frame. With our rich quantitative time series data, we determined recurring phases within each participant. These phases are discussed and evaluated using rich qualitative data, taking inspiration from previous work on mixed-methods complexity analyses. In conclusion, our resulting data set shows an enormous variety of experiences with our chatbot and introduces novel analyses to research into human-machine interactions.Emotional relationships with social chatbots might have become possible due to recent technical breakthroughs. However, the literature shows contradictory findings between group-level laboratory studies and participant-level ecological investigations. We argue that the dynamic and complex nature of friendship is hardly described by classic analyses and might require a complex-systems approach. Therefore, we conducted N = 11 case studies, of which three are presented here. With a self-made GPT-4-Turbo-based social chatbot on WhatsApp, we investigated whether friendship development would take place within a two-month time frame. With our rich quantitative time series data, we determined recurring phases within each participant. These phases are discussed and evaluated using rich qualitative data, taking inspiration from previous work on mixed-methods complexity analyses. In conclusion, our resulting data set shows an enormous variety of experiences with our chatbot and introduces novel analyses to research into human-machine interactions.
‘Community Conversations’ to Understand Perceptions of Crime and Violence in a Low-Income Urban Setting
Catherine Draper; Hleliwe Makaula; Nonkululo Sikweyiya; Kimberley D Lakes; Caylee J Cook; Isabelle Blanchette; Anna Blumenthal
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Crime and violence are highly prevalent in South Africa, exacerbated by numerous socioeconomic challenges. To investigate how exposure to crime and violence (and their impacts, e.g. stress) are perceived in low-income communities, we hosted a set of facilitated ‘community conversations’, as opportunities for community engagement. Our objective was to provide a safe space for community members to share their perceptions; we were interested to know if such conversations would be feasible with adolescents (>12 years) and adults in the community. We hosted five conversations (each 2.5-3 hours in length) with 25 adults (56% female) and 47 adolescents (26% female) at a local church, providing refreshments. Overall, it proved feasible to arrange and conduct ‘community conversations’ about stress and exposure to crime and violence in this community. Despite the sensitive nature of the topics being discussed, participants in all groups were found to be willing to speak openly and appeared to respond well to the term ‘stress’ rather than mental health. The main challenges identified in discussions were poverty, safety (linked to crime and violence), substance abuse, lack of trust, and conflict in homes, and a lack of unity within the community linked to a lack of trust. Poverty and unemployment were seen as contributing to these challenges, contributing to community members feeling unsafe and unprotected, and living with the fear of being targeted by crime and violence. Based on our experience of these conversations, we make recommendations relating to the feasibility, facilitation, and the role of such activities in research. Participants’ responses provided a positive indication that facilitating similar conversations on a more regular basis (and potentially in other communities) could help provide support for community members while also increasing researchers’ understanding of community member experiences.
Multi-Voxel Pattern Analysis for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscientists
Joao F Guassi Moreira; Jennifer A Silvers
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The current prevailing approaches to analyzing task fMRI data in developmental cognitive neuroscience are brain connectivity and mass univariate task-based analyses, used either in isolation or as part of a broader analytic framework (e.g., BWAS). While these are powerful tools, it is somewhat surprising that multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) is not more common in developmental cognitive neuroscience given its enhanced ability to both probe neural population codes and greater sensitivity relative to the mass univariate approach. Omitting MVPA methods might represent a missed opportunity to leverage a suite of tools that are uniquely poised to reveal mechanisms underlying brain development. The goal of this review is to spur awareness and adoption of MVPA in developmental cognitive neuroscience by providing a practical introduction to foundational MVPA concepts. We begin by defining MVPA and explain why examining multivoxel patterns of brain activity can aid in understanding the developing human brain. We then survey four different types of MVPA: Decoding, representational similarity analysis (RSA), pattern expression, and voxel-wise encoding models. Each variant of MVPA is presented with a conceptual overview of the method followed by practical considerations and subvariants thereof. We go on to highlight the types of developmental questions that can be answered by MPVA, discuss practical matters in MVPA implementation germane to developmental cognitive neuroscientists, and make recommendations for integrating MVPA with the existing analytic ecosystem in the field.
Challenging Heights: Findings from a Randomized Controlled Trial Testing Interpretation Bias Modification as an Adjunct to Exposure Therapy for Acrophobic Patients
Beray Macit; Annalisa Lipp; Armin Zlomuzica; Harald Engler; Simon Edward Blackwell; Felix WĂŒrtz; JĂŒrgen Margraf; Marcella Lydia Woud
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Exposure is highly effective for treating acrophobia and there is growing consensus that cognitive mechanisms play an important role in exposure-based therapies. The present randomized controlled trial investigated whether adding a Cognitive Bias Modification - Interpretation (CBM-I) training to a single-session exposure therapy further facilitates cognitive change. The sample included diagnosed acrophobia patients (N = 81), all of whom received exposure therapy. One day after the exposure therapy, patients were randomized to receive either CBM-I or a sham training. The CBM-I trained patients to interpret and appraise ambiguous, height-related scenarios in a less threatening and adaptive manner, whereas the sham training comprised ambiguous, neutral scenarios. Outcomes included changes in interpretational biases (Encoding Recognition Task, Heights Interpretation Questionnaire, Scrambled Sentences Task), acrophobia-related symptoms (Acrophobia Questionnaire), and behavioral avoidance (Behavioral Approach Test). In intention-to-treat analyses patients receiving CBM-I showed a greater reduction in interpretational biases post-training compared to the sham condition (primary outcome). However, group differences were not sustained at follow-up and both groups demonstrated improvements across all outcomes, except for the Scrambled Sentences Task. Exploratory analyses revealed strong associations between the assessed cognitive, behavioral, and subjective outcomes, but neither of these outcomes correlated with hormonal measures (progesterone, estradiol). To conclude, our findings suggest that while CBM-I can temporarily facilitate cognitive change in the context of exposure, its long-term benefits and downstream effects may require further optimization. Future research should refine CBM-I protocols to maximize its efficacy as a potential adjunct to exposure therapy.
Modeling Non-Linear Psychological Processes: Reviewing and Evaluating Non-parametric Approaches and Their Applicability to Intensive Longitudinal Data
Jan Ian Failenschmid; Leonie V. D. E. Vogelsmeier; Joris Mulder; Joran Jongerling
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Psychological concepts are increasingly understood as complex dynamic systems that change over time. To study these complex systems, researchers are increasingly gathering intensive longitudinal data (ILD), revealing non-linear phenomena such as asymptotic growth, mean-level switching, and regulatory oscillations. However, psychological researchers currently lack advanced statistical methods that are flexible enough to capture these non-linear processes accurately, which hinders theory development. While methods such as local polynomial regression, Gaussian processes, and generalized additive models (GAMs) exist outside of psychology, they are rarely applied within the field because they have not yet been reviewed accessibly and evaluated within the context of ILD. To address this important gap, this article introduces these three methods for an applied psychological audience. We further conducted a simulation study, which demonstrates that all three methods infer non-linear processes that have been found in ILD more accurately than polynomial regression. Particularly, GAMs closely captured the underlying processes, performing almost as well as the data-generating parametric models. Finally, we illustrate how GAMs can be applied to explore idiographic processes and identify potential phenomena in ILD. This comprehensive analysis empowers psychological researchers to model non-linear processes accurately and select a method that aligns with their data and research goals.
People “fake-good” on personality self-reports more strongly in a job context than in a dating context
Richard Rau; Louisa Marie Schömann; Michael P. Grosz
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Socially desirable responding can impair the validity of self-report questionnaires, especially in high-stakes situations in which people are incentivized to manage the impression they make on others. To assess the potential impact of impression management, previous studies have used faking-good instructions (i.e., they have encouraged respondents to present themselves favorably) in a neutral context or in job/university application contexts. The current experiment examined the context dependency of faking-good effects. Participants (N = 231) completed the Big Five Inventory-2 twice, first honestly and then with faking-good instructions in a job or dating context. Socially desirable responding was present in both contexts. Yet, it was more pronounced in the job context than in the dating context for many (but not all) Big Five dimensions and facets. Future research should investigate whether faking behavior differs across contexts not only under faking-good instructions but also in high-stakes situations (e.g., personnel selection or online dating).
Actual-ideal discrepancy and intention to change behavior on communication about conflict in close relationships: A within-person experiment
Kyosuke Kakinuma; Keise Izuma
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When people experience conflicts between their ideal standards and their partner’s actual state, they often resolve conflict through communication. Numerous observational studies suggest that direct regulation attempts (e.g., requesting one’s partner to change) are positively associated with the behavior change of the target partner. However, previous research using between-person and correlational designs has provided limited evidence. Moreover, the psychological components of partner regulation that affect targets’ intentions and behavior remain unclear. Therefore, we employed a within-person experimental paradigm to rigorously test targets’ psychological processes underlying interpersonal conflict resolution through communication. This focused on the discrepancy between targets’ actual states and requesters’ ideals. In the paradigm, we systematically manipulated targets’ perceived discrepancy. In our experiment (N = 78 couples), targets were asked to rate the actual frequency of 40–80 important actions, and requesters were asked to rate the ideal frequency of the targets’ actions. These actions were then randomly assigned to either the discrepancy feedback or no-feedback condition. Results showed that, in the feedback condition, discrepancies were positively associated with targets’ intentions to improve their behavior (but not with behavioral changes). These findings suggest that although people can facilitate their partners’ intention to change important actions by simply communicating their ideals, they must make additional efforts (e.g., suggesting a solution and promoting prospective memory) to get their partners to execute the intention. This study provides critical insight into the psychological process underlying conflict resolution in close relationships using a within-person experiment.
An Extended Chinese Social Evaluative Word List
Lilulu; Chen Qingrong; Hu Chuan-Peng
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Social evaluation, i.e., people’s views of self, others, and groups, is ubiquitous and embedded in our language. In turn, social evaluative words are used intensively in studies of human social evaluation. However, standardized Chinese word lists for social evaluation are under-developed; the only available word lists are based on the big-two model of social evaluation (i.e., agency and warmth) and cover small numbers of words. To fill the gap, we conducted a survey with a relatively large sample (n = 1270, 50% female) and a large number of words (1908) that might describe extended social evaluative dimensions: appearance, socioeconomic status, sociability, competence, and morality. The participants rated the extent to which each word described a certain social evaluation dimension and how positive/negative each word was. Based on this dataset, we selected words that dominantly describe one of the five above-mentioned dimensions. The final word list has 1040 words, including 245 appearance words (143 positive, 11 neutral, 91 negative), 108 socioeconomic status words (36 positive, 2 neutral, 70 negative), 93 sociability words (53 positive, 5 neutral, 35 negative), 261 competence words (185 positive, 4 neutral, 72 negative), and 333 morality words (149 positive, 1 neutral, 183 negative). This word list provides an extended Chinese social evaluative word list and will serve as a useful resource for researchers in social psychology, linguistics, sociology, and computational social science.
Using ecological momentary assessment, geolocation tracking, and neuroimaging to assess effects of tobacco retail exposure on smoking behavior: Protocol for the GeoSmoking Study
Nicole Cooper; Benjamin Muzekari; Mary Andrews; Elizabeth Beard; Melis Cakar; Jose Carreras Tartak; Susan Hao; Darin G. Johnson; Bradley D. Mattan; Alexandra M. Paul
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Background: Cigarette smoking is one of the world’s main public health concerns, accounting for 1 in 5 deaths in the United States (U.S) per year. Exposure to tobacco retail has been linked to adverse smoking outcomes, but research utilizing naturalistic and causal approaches to quantify these effects in the real world remains relatively sparse. To address this, we used ecological momentary assessment, geolocation tracking, and neuroimaging to assess smoking outcomes in the real world, and conducted a randomized controlled trial focused on the effects of real-world exposure to tobacco retail. Objective: The GeoSmoking Study aimed to evaluate: (1) within-person associations between real-world tobacco retail exposure and cigarette craving and smoking; (2) causal effects of real-world tobacco retail exposure; and (3) neural cue reactivity as a mechanism for real-world tobacco retail effects. Methods: In a two-week baseline period, we used ecological momentary assessment to collect reports of craving and smoking multiple times per day. Simultaneously, we used geolocation tracking to quantify tobacco retail exposure, through creation of a tobacco retailer database across three U.S. states (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware). A four-week intervention period followed, in which participants were randomly assigned to enter either a non-tobacco retail store once per day (Non-tobacco retailer condition), a tobacco retail store once per day (Tobacco retailer condition), or follow their normal routines (Control condition). An optional functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session concluded the study. Individuals participated remotely, unless they opted in to the fMRI session, which was conducted at the University of Pennsylvania. Results: The GeoSmoking Study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Pennsylvania on February 3rd, 2022. Data collection started on May 25th, 2022 and ended on June 10th, 2024. In total, 310 participants were enrolled, 282 participants completed the baseline phase, 244 participants completed the intervention phase, and 24 participants completed the fMRI scan. Conclusions: This novel and innovative study protocol was successfully implemented. Findings from planned analyses may have significant implications for health behaviors, outcomes, and policy. Trial Registration: Cancer Prevention through Neural and Geospatial Examination of Tobacco Marketing Effects in Smokers: 1R01CA229305-01A1; ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04279483
Associations between real-world tobacco retail exposure and smoking outcomes: a geolocation study
Benjamin Muzekari; Nicole Cooper; Anthony Resnick; Alexandra M. Paul; Omaya Torres; Mary Andrews; Bradley D. Mattan; Christin Scholz; Darin G. Johnson; Jose Carreras Tartak
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Importance: The tobacco industry spends over $8 billion annually in the United States on marketing at the point-of-sale. Exposure to tobacco retail has been associated with smoking outcomes, but few studies have objectively logged day-to-day, real-world tobacco retail exposure and linked exposure to smoking outcomes, which can provide insight into dynamic associations. Objective: To assess pre-registered hypotheses that individuals report greater craving and cigarettes smoked on days when their objectively logged retail exposure is higher than usual. Design: A 14-day within-person observational study combining geolocating tracking, public tobacco-retail location records, and ecological momentary assessment. Data collection occurred from 2022 to 2024. Setting: A remote study including participants statewide in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. Participants: Main eligibility criteria were: aged 21-65 years, smoked at least five cigarettes per day for the previous six months, owned an iPhone or Android smartphone, and a resident of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Delaware. Participants were selected via convenience sampling. A total of 310 participants enrolled and 273 participants were included in the final analysis. Exposure: To assess tobacco retail exposure, mobility data collected objectively via geolocation tracking was matched with locations of tobacco retailers across three states. Main Outcomes and Measures: Daily average craving and daily number of cigarettes smoked, reported via ecological momentary assessment. Results: Multilevel models revealed support for both pre-registered hypotheses. On days when individuals had more tobacco marketing exposure than their usual baseline, they reported significantly higher levels of craving (b = 0.04, t(3,456.79) = 2.56, p = 0.01) and smoking significantly more cigarettes (b = 0.01, t(3,469) = 2.47, p = 0.01). Conclusions and Relevance: People’s environments shape their feelings and behaviors. Exposure to tobacco retail in the real-world is associated with increases in craving and smoking. Findings highlight the significance of retail exposure in relation to smoking, information that is critical for developing effective tobacco control interventions.
Age-related differences in embodiment under visually deprived conditions in healthy aging: A tool-use study
Amir Jahanian Najafabadi
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In our prior research, we found that higher ratings of ownership were associated with increased body schema (BS) plasticity during virtual tool-use training in younger healthy adults. However, in older adults, the emergence of ownership remained stable, and no incorporation of virtual tools was observed. Moreover, an increased sense of agency in older adults depended on virtual tool-use training, which relied on visuo-tactile feedback compared to vision only feedback condition, and participants’ learning performance. In contrast, a sense of agency in younger adults emerged independently of these factors. In this study, we tested whether training temporarily visually deprived (blindfolded) participants with a cane affects emergence of ownership and agency over the cane, and if this relates to BS of the hand within the perceived space. For this study, datasets from a total of 43 healthy young and older adults who underwent two conditions of tool-use training were analyzed. Training conditions were as follows: (Condition A) while blindfolded, using a cane to find a target object with no time restriction; and (Condition B) walking blindfolded with a cane for 20 minutes. Older adults had 10 minutes of training in conditions B. Changes in the BS were assessed using a tactile distance judgment task (TDJ), where participants judged distances between two tactile stimuli applied to their right hand in a proximodistal orientation. Plasticity of peripersonal space (PPS) was assessed using a reaching distance estimation task (RDE). Participants further rated their perceived ownership and agency after training blocks A and B. Results revealed while young adults demonstrated stronger adaptability and control across conditions, older adults showed resilience by employing alternative strategies in the absence of visual input relying more on incorporation of cane and space around them. This study highlights age-related differences in sensory processing and motor adaptation under visually deprived conditions. Keyword: Tool-use, young adults, old adults, vision, blindfolded, body schema, peripersonal space, sense of ownership and agency
Do Mindsets Really Matter? A Closer Look at Social Media Perceptions and Well-Being
Douglas A. Parry; Bronwyne Coetzee
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Building on the idea that subjective evaluations of social media use (SMU) may shape well- being effects, this study investigated how two “social media mindsets”—agency (perceived control over SMU) and valence (perceived effects of SMU)—relate to self-reported and logged SMU, and four well-being indicators (depression, anxiety, stress, life satisfaction) in a South African sample of young adults (N = 1,858; M = 21.01). Agency mindsets were negatively correlated with SMU and positively with well-being, while valence mindsets were associated with higher SMU but not to well-being. Logged SMU showed weaker associations with mindsets and well-being than self-reported SMU, suggesting differences between perceived and actual behaviour. The findings replicate, extend, and in some cases contradict prior research, emphasizing how users’ sense of control is more important for well-being than SMU duration or perceptions of its effects, and that more work is needed to understand whether the “mindsets” concept is fruitful.
Pathological personality traits and self-reported managerial leadership. A comparison of the Dirty Dozen and Five-Factor Model – Antagonistic Triad Measure
Nathaniel Luke Phillips; Leigha Rose; Donald Lynam; Josh Miller
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The present study (N = 427) investigated the predictive and incremental validity of two measures of Dark Triad traits—the Dirty Dozen (DD) and the Five-Factor Model Antagonistic Triad Measure (FFM ATM)—in their relation to self-reported managerial leadership. Prior research has highlighted the complexity of Dark Triad (DT) traits, suggesting that unidimensional measures like the DD may obscure the nuanced relationships between these constructs and relevant outcomes. The FFM ATM disaggregates Dark Triad traits into both core components (Antagonism, Emotional Stability, Impulsivity, and Agency) as well as traditional DT subscales (e.g., Psychopathy comprises Antagonism, Emotional Stability, and Impulsivity). Results demonstrated that the FFM ATM provided substantially better statistical prediction and incremental validity across leadership dimensions. Specifically, both FFM ATM empirically derived factors and multidimensional DT subscales accounted for nearly all explained variance in leadership factors, outperforming the DD in predictive accuracy in all cases. These findings underscore the importance of recognizing the multidimensional structure of Dark Triad traits to capture their distinct and overlapping influences on leadership. Moreover, the results suggest that theoretically grounded and empirically robust measures like the FFM ATM offer a clearer description of how individual differences in Dark Triad traits relate to self-reported managerial leadership compared to short, omnibus measures.
Body and spatial representational plasticity during training with and without cane in blindfolded young adults and older adults
Amir Jahanian Najafabadi
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Prior research showed that active tool use extends the body representation of both the forearm and hand wielding the tool and the calf, even without direct tool-environment interaction, particularly under blindfolded conditions (short-term visual deprivation) in young adults. In this research, we examined whether changes in body schema (BS) in the absence of vision induced by active tool-use training are limb-specific in young and older adults. Additionally, we examined whether plasticity of peripersonal space (PPS) predicts such effects. A total of 43 healthy young and older adults underwent three conditions of tool-use training: (Condition A) while blindfolded, using a cane to find a target object with no time restriction; (Condition B) walking blindfolded with a cane for 20 minutes; (Condition C) walking blindfolded without a cane for 20 minutes. Older adults had 10 minutes of training in conditions B and C. Changes in the BS were assessed using a tactile distance judgment task (TDJ), where participants judged distances between two tactile stimuli applied to their right forearm, hand, shin, and foot in a proximodistal orientation. PPS was assessed using a reaching distance estimation task (RDE). Findings suggest that while tool-use and task-specific conditions influence BS, their effects may be more localized and context-dependent than broadly systematic. Therefore, results of this study call into question to what degree and how robustly BS is plastic and limb specific in the absence of vision and how malleable this is by extension of the PPS toward the acting space by tool-use training in healthy aging. Keyword: Tool-use, young adults, old adults, vision, blindfolded, body schema, peripersonal space
Eeyore: Realistic Depression Simulation via Supervised and Preference Optimization
siyang liu; Bianca Brie; Wenda Li; Laura Biester; Andrew Lee; James W. Pennebaker; Rada Mihalcea
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Large Language Models (LLMs) have been previously explored for mental healthcare training and therapy client simulation, but they still fall short in authentically capturing diverse client traits and psychological conditions. We introduce \textbf{Eeyore}, an 8B model optimized for realistic depression simulation through a structured alignment framework, incorporating expert input at every stage. First, we systematically curate real-world depression-related conversations, extracting depressive traits to guide data filtering and psychological profile construction, and use this dataset to instruction-tune Eeyore for profile adherence. Next, to further enhance realism, Eeyore undergoes iterative preference optimization - first leveraging model-generated preferences and then calibrating with a small set of expert-annotated preferences. Throughout the entire pipeline, we actively collaborate with domain experts, developing interactive interfaces to validate trait extraction and iteratively refine structured psychological profiles for clinically meaningful role-play customization. Despite its smaller model size, the Eeyore depression simulation outperforms GPT-4o with SOTA prompting strategies, both in linguistic authenticity and profile adherence.
Enhancing Human Detection of Real and AI-Generated Hyperrealistic Faces
Tina Seabrooke; Mansi Pattni; Philip Anthony Higham
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Recent advancements in generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have prompted concerns about the proliferation of deepfake content—synthetic images, audio, and videos—online. StyleGan2, a powerful generative adversarial network architecture, can generate synthetic images of human faces that appear more realistic than actual human faces—a phenomenon termed AI hyperrealism. Across four preregistered experiments (total N = 661), we tested whether a novel behavioral intervention, termed DISCERN-AI, improved people’s ability to discriminate between real and synthetic StyleGan2 images. DISCERN-AI combines instructions about which visual features are diagnostic for classifying real and synthetic images with an inductive learning training protocol. In Experiment 1, participants completed a pre-test, DISCERN-AI, and a post-test. In Experiment 2, participants underwent DISCERN-AI or a control task before completing a post-test. In Experiments 3A and 3B, participants completed a shortened version of the intervention or control task, followed by an immediate post-test and a second post-test after 20 days. In all experiments, participants showed below-chance discrimination performance (AI hyperrealism) in the pre-test and control conditions. After completing DISCERN-AI, however, participants consistently showed above-chance discrimination performance, even when tested after 20 days. Together, the results provide support for an easily scalable intervention that substantially improves people’s ability to discriminate between real and synthetic StyleGan2 images.
Spouse Support and Stress: Gender Differences in Neural Measures of Performance Monitoring Under Observation of a Spouse
Peter E Clayson; Kipras Varkala; Scott Baldwin; Patrick Steffen; Jonathan Sandberg; Michael J. Larson
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Spousal support can mitigate stress’s impact on daily functioning and neural responses to stressors. However, the effectiveness of spousal support in reducing stress may be moderated by gender. The present study investigated the impact of observer presence in 66 heterosexual married couples, specifically a spouse or a confederate, on two neural indices of performance monitoring: early error detection (error-related negativity [ERN]) and later error awareness (error positivity [Pe]). Contrary to predictions, ERN was consistently smaller in observed conditions, suggesting that being observed, irrespective of the observer’s identity, diminished attention to errors. Notably, only women exhibited an enhanced ERN in the presence of their spouse, suggesting gender-specific differences in neural responses to spousal support during performance monitoring. Pe was larger when completing the task in the presence of a spouse and men displayed larger Pe than women. The present findings underscore the complex role of social context in performance monitoring, challenging existing assumptions about the uniformity of neural indices of performance monitoring during observation. Findings emphasize the need to dissect the nuanced interplay between observer presence, gender differences, and performance monitoring and offer valuable insights into the social modulation of error processing, particularly in a stressful observation context.
Representations of geometric shapes have syntactic structure
Barbu Revencu; Maxence Pajot; Stanislas Dehaene
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Recent research suggests that humans use language-like mental representations for many stimuli, from auditory sequences to visual shapes. However, evidence has been largely indirect, relying on stimulus compression as a proxy for internal representation. Using constituency tests, we probed representational structure in the domain of geometry more directly. Across three preregistered experiments (n= 136), we find robust evidence for tree structure in human adults’ shape representations. First, the same shape can receive different structural representations depending on how a preceding animation organizes it. Second, subparts of shapes are easier to detect when they belong to the same subtree than when spanning different subtrees. Third, shape fragments are easier to reconfigure the higher in the tree they are split. Unlike humans, state-of-the-art deep networks show no syntactic effects whatsoever. Thus, humans—and so far only humans—encode geometric shapes in hierarchical structures, mirroring the representations used in natural language processing.
Dispelling the Myth of Moral Inversion: Liberals and Conservatives Show Similar Patterns of Moral Expansiveness
Kyle Fiore Law; Liane Young; Stylianos Syropoulos
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Do ideological differences in moral concern reflect a true reversal of ethical priorities, or do liberals simply extend moral concern more broadly without compromising their commitment to close relationships? Across two large-scale reanalyses, we test the claim that liberal moral universalism comes at the expense of concern for close others. First, we analyze a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults (N = 1,000) weighted to match census benchmarks. Second, we conduct an integrative reanalysis of four large online convenience samples (N = 3,201; Prolific). Using the Moral Expansiveness Scale (MES), a widely used measure of moral concern, we examine how ideology shapes moral circles and whether concern for distant others competes with––or coexists alongside––care for those closer to home. Results show that greater concern for distant entities, including outgroups and non-human entities, positively correlates with concern for close others rather than displacing it. Moreover, across the ideological spectrum, ingroup favoritism remains a strong and consistent pattern. However, very conservative individuals in the representative sample showed no meaningful difference between their moral concern for ingroups and outgroups, driven not by heightened outgroup concern but by lower concern for close others. These findings challenge the notion that liberals neglect their immediate social circles and instead suggest that ideological differences in moral expansiveness stem from the degree to which concern extends outward. Our results have important implications for understanding how ideological worldviews shape moral priorities, particularly in a political climate where moral concern is often framed in zero-sum terms.
The Influence of Fine Motor Skills and Executive Functions on Automatized Handwriting
Gaelle Alhaddad; Jérémy Danna; Mariama Dione; Marieke Longcamp
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The study aimed to explore the understudied area of typical adult handwriting performance, focusing on the potential predictive roles of fine motor skills and executive functions. While the initial stages of handwriting acquisition are assumed to rely upon executive functions and fine motor skills, both components are no longer viewed as needed in automatized, expert handwriting. We tested this assumption by assessing the contributions of these components to handwriting performance in a group of 33 adult participants. Linear regressions were used to examine whether dexterity, manual praxis, working memory, inhibition and flexibility predict handwriting speed, legibility, and fluency. Results revealed that fine motor skills were a significant contributor to all aspects of handwriting performance. Executive functions also predicted handwriting performance, with a significant effect of flexibility on writing speed and of working memory on legibility. These findings highlight that, even at a high level of expertise and automatization, handwriting remains a motor skill whose performance depends on executive and fine motor control capacities. They suggest a predictive coding account of graphomotor control, whereby internal forward and inverse models would support the execution and monitoring of handwriting movements. This raises important questions about the extent to which disorders in motor and executive processes can affect handwriting performance and highlights the need for further research into this complex motor behavior.
The development of turn-taking skills in typical development and autism
Riccardo Fusaroli; Christopher Martin Mikkelsen Cox; Ethan Weed; BalĂĄzs IstvĂĄn SzabĂł; deborah fein; Letitia Naigles
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Social interaction depends on turn-taking and adapting to one's conversational partner, yet little is known about typical and atypical development of these abilities. We investigated this in a longitudinal corpus of spontaneous speech in 64 parent-child dyads: 32 typically developing children (20.27 months at start, 6 girls, 24 white) and 32 with autism (linguistically matched, 32.76 months, 4 girls, 31 white). Contrary to prior studies, children with autism responded 189ms faster on average than typically developing children, due to more overlapping speech. Latency decreased in both groups (47-78ms every 4 months) and depended on individual differences in socio-cognitive, linguistic, and motor skills, which for autism explained all variance by age. Both groups equally adapted their tempo to their interlocutors. With robust conceptualization and modeling techniques, we highlight the importance of overlapping speech, show that latencies in autism might be faster than in typical development and situate turn-taking into fine-grained developmental and interpersonal contexts.
Least Effort and Alignment in Task-Oriented Communication
Polyphony Bruna; Chris Kello
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Conversational partners align the meanings of their words over the course of interaction to coordinate and communicate. One process of alignment is lexical entrainment, whereby partners mirror and abbreviate their word usage to converge on shared terms for referents relevant to the conservation. However, lexical entrainment may result in inefficient mimicry that does not add new information, suggesting that task-oriented communication may favor alignment through other means. The present study investigates the process of alignment in Danish conversations in which dyads learned to categorize unfamiliar “aliens” using trial-and-error feedback. Performance improved as dyad communication became less verbose, measured as a decrease in the entropy of word usage. Word usage also diverged between partners as measured by Jensen-Shannon Divergence, which indicates that alignment was not achieved through lexical entrainment. A computational model of dyadic communication is shown to account for the alien game results in terms of joint least effort. The model shows that alignment of partner referents can increase as a result of minimizing both the joint entropy of dyadic word usage, and the entropy of word usage conditioned on the separate partner referent distributions. We conclude that the principle of least effort, originally proposed to shape language evolution, may also support alignment in task-oriented communication.
Negativity and Identity Language Have Additive Effects on Online News Consumption
Jesper Rasmussen; Steve Rathje; Jay Joseph Van Bavel; Claire Robertson
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Almost nine out of ten Americans get some of their news online, and outlets compete to monetize their attention. One strategy for news outlets to capture people’s attention is by producing headlines that activate negative feelings and make group identities salient. Prior research has found that headlines containing negative emotions or identity language receive more engagement. However, most existing research is based on correlational data, making it unclear why this content drives engagement. The present work addresses this gap by analyzing 43,932 headlines tested in randomized controlled trials that generated 164,053,523 impressions from the Upworthy Research Archive. We find that headlines containing both negativity and identity language increased the click rate by 9,9%, which is more than twice as likely as headlines containing only negative language (4.3%) and about two-thirds higher than headlines with only identity language (5.9%). We also found causal evidence in support of the out-group animosity hypothesis: Negativity about out-groups boosted engagement by 14.1%, compared to just 1.6% for negativity about in-groups. Our findings reveal that news media companies have an incentive to produce news headlines containing out-group derogation to maximize engagement, which may, in turn, heighten animosity between groups.
Scrutinizing the Value and Implementation of Volitional Personality Development at Work
Marie Hennecke; Pia V. Ingold
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In this commentary, we discuss DuprĂ© and Wille’s proposal (2024) to consider employees’ personality change goals in the work context. We compare volitional personality development to skill development and call for more evidence to determine the benefits for both employees and organizations in this context. We also put forward that a clearer understanding is required of how job demands influence personality traits and of how these demands interact with and shape the integration of potential complementary personality development training modules. In closing, we provide avenues for future research.
Can't help processing numbers with text: Eye-tracking evidence for simultaneous instead of sequential processing of text and numbers in arithmetic word problems
Lilly Roth; Hans-Christoph Nuerk; Felix Cramer; Gabriella Daroczy
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Solving arithmetic word problems requires individuals to create a correct mental representation, and this involves both text processing and number processing. The latter comprises understanding the semantic meaning of numbers (i.e., their magnitudes) and potentially executing the appropriate mathematical operation. However, it is not yet clear whether number processing occurs after text processing or both take place simultaneously. We hypothesize that number processing occurs early and simultaneously with other problem-solving processes such as text processing. To test this hypothesis, we created non-solvable word problems that do not require any number processing and we manipulated the calculation difficulty using carry/borrow vs. non-carry/non-borrow within addition and subtraction problems. According to a strictly sequential model, this manipulation should not matter, because the problem is non-solvable, and no calculation is required. In contrast, according to an interactive model, attention to numbers would be higher when word problems require a carry/borrow compared to a non-carry/non-borrow operation. Eye-tracking was used to measure attention to numbers and text in 63 adults, operationalized by static (duration and count of fixations and regressions) and dynamic measures (count of transitions). An interaction between difficulty and operation was found for all static and dynamic eye-tracking variables as well as for response times and error rates. The observed number processing in non-solvable word problems, which indicates that it occurs simultaneously with text processing, is inconsistent with strictly sequential models.
True colors SNARC: Semantic number processing is highly automatic
Lilly Roth; John Pascal Caffier; Ulf-Dietrich Reips; Krzysztof Cipora; Lydia Braun; Hans-Christoph Nuerk
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Numbers are highly relevant in our everyday lives. Besides intentionally processing number magnitude when necessary, we often automatically process it even when not required. The SNARC (Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes; Dehaene et al., 1993) effect, describing faster left-/right-sided responses to smaller/larger numbers, respectively, provides evidence for this automaticity. It arises in semantic number-processing tasks both when number magnitude is task-relevant (e.g., magnitude classification) and task-irrelevant (e.g., parity judgment). However, findings on the SNARC effect in tasks requiring the processing of non-semantic number features are mixed: while it has been observed in orientation judgment tasks, it was mostly absent in color judgment tasks. Importantly, previous studies were underpowered or did not control for confounding variables. In two highly powered online experiments, we found a small but significant SNARC effect in both nominal color judgment (cyan vs. yellow; slope = 1.71 ms) and color intensity judgment (light cyan vs. dark cyan; slope = 1.13 ms) of Arabic digits from 1 to 9 excluding 5, which did not significantly differ in size. Further, we found little evidence for the MARC (Linguistic Markedness of Response Codes, i.e., faster left-/right-sided responses to odd/even numbers, respectively; Nuerk et al., 2004) effect. Moreover, the odd effect (i.e., faster responses to even than to odd numbers; Hines, 1990) was detected. Taken together, both magnitude and parity are processed automatically even if participants respond to physical non-semantic and non-spatial number features, but the spatial mapping seems more automatic for magnitude than for parity.
The struggle is still real: Marginalized identity of roma preschoolers in the replication of Clark & Clark doll study 77 years after.
Iris Zezelj; Olja Jovanović; Jelena vranjesevic
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In this article, we present findings on how minority Roma and majority Serbian preschoolers perceive their own and the other group ethnic identity, and whether they are willing to interact with one another. In a conceptual replication of the seminal Doll study (Clark & Clark, 1947), we individually interviewed 212 children age 5 to 7 from ethnically heterogeneous and ethnically homogeneous preschool groups on group categorization and self-categorization, content of stereotypes, markers of social status, and contact preferences. While we observed a typical pattern of ingroup preference in children from the majority (Serbian) ethnic group, we found the inverse in the Roma group: they identified with the lighter skin doll, attributed more positive traits to it, saw it as a higher status one, and chose it as the one they want to interact with. These markers of negative identity testify to internalized oppression at a very early age. We address similarities and differences in manifestations of oppression across groups and cultures. Drawing from the results, we offer ways to empower minority groups in their first education settings.
An analysis of functional relationships between systemic conditions and unethical behavior in German academia
Ncole Bössel; Annette Kluge; Daniel Leising; Dorothee Mischkowski; Le Vy Phan; Franz Richter; Manfred Schmitt; Jutta Stahl
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This paper is an updated English version of a report filed by a commission that the German Psychological Society (DGPs) appointed in 2022. The commission’s task was a) to identify factors in the academic system that enable and/or promote unethical behaviors, and b) to propose corrective measures. Based on expert interviews, a literature review, feedback form the community and discussions within the commission, the following problematic issues were identified: (P1) negligent or fraudulent scientific practices, (P2) abuse of power, (P3) insufficient mentoring of Early Career Researchers, (P4) insufficient quality of teaching, (P5) counterproductive incentives, (P6) overburdening of professors with tasks, (P7) fixed- and short-term contracts for most employees, (P8) unnecessarily steep power differentials, (P9) an ineffective peer-review system, (P10) lack of validity in personnel selection procedures, (P11) low awareness and commitment regarding ethical norms, and (P12) weak mechanisms for detecting and sanctioning unethical behavior. The commission offers concrete recommendations for changes to the academic system that should make the occurrence of unethical behavior less likely. Even though some of these recommendations might be rather specific for the field of psychology and for the German academic system, most of them may be valid for science in general.
The effects of prosodic focus on the interpretation of short exchanges
Candice Frances; antje meyer
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People often produce ambiguous and indirect answers such as “The food was great” in response to “How was your trip?” This study examines how prosodic focus contributes to the interpretation of these sentences. Across two experiments, we investigate the influence of prosodic focus on how listeners interpret indirect responses. In Experiment 1, participants heard semantically ambiguous question-answer pairs where prosodic focus was placed on either an adjective or a noun. Experiment 2 introduced explicit affirmative or negative interjections to assess the influence of prosodic focus when additional disambiguating cues were present. Prosodic focus systematically shaped interpretation, even when explicit lexical markers were available, affecting which elements of the sentence listeners prioritized in their responses. Exploratory cluster analyses revealed individual differences, with some participants relying on lexical semantics and others weighting prosodic cues more strongly. These findings support interactive models of speech comprehension, highlighting the role of prosody in shaping meaning.
The pervasive role of linguistic knowledge in verbal fluency tests: How individual differences in language skills shape the mental lexicon
Kyla McConnell; Berit Reise; antje meyer
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“List as many words as you can that start with M.” The verbal fluency (VF) task is simple, yet even a typical university student only manages to produce about 15 words within one minute, and there is substantial variability around this mean. We investigated the individual differences in linguistic and domain-general skills that support verbal fluency and lead to this variability. In particular, we focused on the role of linguistic knowledge, which was calculated through six tests capturing vocabulary, amount of reading, and knowledge of grammar rules. We compared this to the role of three key domain-general skills: working memory (WM), processing speed, and nonverbal reasoning (IQ). 571 young native Dutch speakers completed semantic (category) and phonemic (letter) VF tasks, along with an individual differences test battery. We assessed the VF trials for the total number of correct words as well as two temporal variables, the time to first response and the time by which half of the responses have been produced. Linear mixed effects models revealed that linguistic knowledge was the strongest predictor of performance across all scores, and it had a larger effect than the domain-general skills. We discuss the role of linguistic knowledge and how it shapes the mental lexicon, concluding that better language skills lead to more efficient and detailed associative links between words that share semantic or phonological/orthographic features. We also provide updated norms for VF performance in Dutch and practical suggestions for using the task.
Visual Word Recognition is Impeded by Adjacent Words
Athanassios Protopapas; Laoura Ziaka; Dzan Zelihic; Bob McMurray; Keith S Apfelbaum
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We report two experiments demonstrating that visual word recognition is impeded by the presence of nearby stimuli, especially adjacent words. Reading research has converged on a consensus that skilled readers control their attention to make use of information from adjacent (primarily upcoming) words, increasing reading efficiency. Other lines of research seem to point to potential interference from nearby items, yet this has not been investigated at the critical lexical level. To specifically target lexical activation, here we employ a novel variant of the visual world paradigm with masked (75 ms) flanked visual word targets, contrasting five flanker conditions across two experiments, namely none, repeated symbols, unknown font strings, pseudowords, and words. Analysis of multiple observed variables from 60 and 58 adult Norwegian speakers showed strong interference—compared to no flankers—for all flanker conditions except the repeated symbols. Interference increased with additional levels of possible flanker processing, and was greatest for higher-frequency word targets, consistent with rapid dynamic modulation of attentional breadth. Our findings demonstrate that nearby words interfere with lexical activation of the fixated word and call for a more nuanced approach to the role of preview in fluent reading. We conclude that skilled reading involves a constant complex interplay between the drive toward efficiency, which requires a broad attentional field, and the need to shield processing from interference, which limits attentional breadth.
Automated Scoring in the Era of Artificial Intelligence: An Empirical Study with Turkish Essays
Burak AYDIN; Tarık KÄ±ĆŸla; Nursel Tan Elmas; Okan Bulut
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Automated scoring (AS) has gained significant attention as a tool to enhance the efficiency and reliability of assessment processes. Yet, its application in low-resource languages, such as Turkish, remains limited. This study addresses this gap by empirically evaluating AS for Turkish using a zero-shot approach with a rubric powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o. A dataset of 590 essays written by learners of Turkish as a second language was scored by professional human raters and an artificial intelligence (AI) model integrated via a custom-built interface. The scoring rubric, grounded in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, assessed six dimensions of writing quality. Results revealed a strong alignment between human and AI scores with a Quadratic Weighted Kappa of 0.93, Pearson correlation of 0.73, and an overlap measure of 83.5%. Analysis of rater effects showed minimal influence on score discrepancies, though factors such as experience and gender exhibited modest effects. These findings demonstrate the potential of AI-driven scoring in Turkish, offering valuable insights for broader implementation in underrepresented languages. The limitations of the study, such as reliance on single-rater scores and focusing on a specific task type, highlight avenues for future research to expand and refine the proposed approach.
Enhancing Scalability in Preventive Interventions: Theoretical Framework and Practical Applications for Expanding the Reach and Impact of Preventive Intervention Programs
Sahba Saberi
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Background: The field of preventive psychological intervention has made significant strides, but a need persists for comprehensive frameworks with a strategic direction for large-scale implementation. Existing preventive programs face limitations that hinder their ability to reach a larger audience and have a broad impact. Body: The Fount Prevention Framework aims to bridge this gap by proposing strategies to enable preventive intervention programs to achieve scalability, reach a wider audience, enhance mental health outcomes, reduce the financial burden, and allow faster access for communities. This paper examines the fundamental features of the Fount Prevention Framework, which serves as a protocol designed to guide prevention and mental health promotion programs in achieving a broader impact. Additionally, the paper examines a preventive program, Mind Wellbeing, developed based on this framework, as a practical application of how these principles can be implemented. Strategies that render the program independent of experts, trained facilitators, and technology-based delivery modes—including the use of a self-help, group-based mode of program delivery through physical, paperback workbooks—are examined. Other features of the program, such as its transdiagnostic, universal, and comprehensive nature, are explored in light of the need to foster widespread prevention coverage and broader public engagement and participation. Limitations and challenges of the program are also addressed, offering insights into the broader application of the framework and considerations necessary for achieving a goal of this magnitude. Conclusion: Through ongoing empirical research and innovative strategizing to overcome the intrinsic challenges faced by programs of this nature, the measures proposed by this framework may present a compelling avenue for influencing global mental health and a potential pathway to enhancing mental health outcomes worldwide.
Cognitive networks highlight differences and similarities in the STEM mindsets of human and LLM-simulated trainees, experts and academics
Edith Haim; Lars van den Bergh; Cynthia S. Q. Siew; Yoed Kenett; Daniele Marinazzo; Massimo Stella
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Understanding attitudes towards STEM means quantifying the cognitive and emotional ways in which individuals, and potentially large language models too, conceptualise such subjects. This study uses behavioural forma mentis networks (BFMNs) to investigate the STEM-focused mindset, i.e. ways of associating and perceiving ideas, of 177 human participants and 177 artificial humans simulated by GPT-3.5. Participants were split in 3 groups - trainees, experts and academics - to compare the influence of expertise level on their mindsets. The results revealed that human forma mentis networks exhibited significantly higher clustering coefficients compared to GPT-3.5’s, indicating that human mindsets displayed a tendency to form and close triads of conceptual associations while recollecting STEM ideas. Human experts, in particular, demonstrated robust clustering coefficients, reflecting better integration of STEM concepts into their cognitive networks. In contrast, GPT-3.5 produced sparser networks with weaker clustering, highlighting its limitations in replicating human-like mindsets. Furthermore, both human and GPT mindsets framed “mathematics” in neutral/positive terms, differently from STEM high-schoolers, researchers and other large language models sampled in other works. This research contributes to understanding how mindset structure can provide cognitive insights about memory structure and machine limitations.
Theoretical note: The relation between structure and dynamics in psychological networks of attitudes
Mark Orr
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Two claims of the the Causal Attitude Network (CAN) model and the descendent Attitude Entropy framework (AE) are indicative of significant theoretical hurdles facing the psychological network modeling efforts of attitudes. The first claim is that the dynamics of change in an Ising-like attitude network, under perturbation of any one single node, can be inferred from the static network attributes of said node. The second claim is that psychological network models of attitudes with Ising-like dynamics will maximize both attitudinal consistency and accuracy when within the small-world topological regime. The first claim, one with significant application potentials, has not been sufficiently tested; the second claim, one with high theoretical novelty, has never been addressed. Using a set of analytic results and simulations, we found little support for these claims–in short, the predictions are not logically consistent with the theory. Our results have implications beyond attitude models to the the larger field of psychological networks (e.g., in clinical psychology) in reference to how we should explain and understand their dynamics. KEYWORDS: attitudes, neural networks, dynamical systems, psychological networks.
Binary climate data visuals amplify perceived impact of climate change
Grace Liu; Jake Snell; Thomas L. Griffiths; Rachit Dubey
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For much of the global population, climate change appears as a slow, gradual shift in daily weather. This leads many to perceive its impacts as minor and results in apathy (the "boiling frog" effect). How can we convey the urgency of the crisis when its impacts appear so subtle? Here, through a series of large-scale cognitive experiments (N=799), we find that presenting people with binary climate data (e.g., lake freeze history) significantly increases the perceived impact of climate change (Cohen's d = 0.40 [0.26, 0.54]) compared to continuous data (e.g., mean temperature). Computational modeling and follow-up experiments (N=398) suggest that binary data enhances perceived impact by creating an "illusion" of sudden shifts. Crucially, our approach does not involve selective data presentation but rather compares different datasets that reflect equivalent trends in climate change over time. These findings, robustly replicated across multiple experiments, provide a cognitive basis for the "boiling frog" effect and offer a psychologically grounded approach for policymakers and educators to improve climate change communication while maintaining scientific accuracy.

SocArxiv

POLICIES ‘FOR’ AND ‘WITH’ ‘LEFT BEHIND PLACES’
Danny MacKinnon; Maryame Amarouche; Vincent BĂ©al; Nicolas Cauchi-Duval; Rachel S. Franklin; Nadir Kinossian; Thilo Lang; Mehdi Le Petit-Guerin; Tim Leibert; Nora Nafaa
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For over a decade, concern has mounted about places in Europe and North America that have been ‘left behind’ by the growth and prosperity experienced in more economically dynamic regions. This briefing paper summarises the findings from the ‘Beyond Left Behind Places’ project. Filling a gap in the policy debate, this study included qualitative research with residents of economically ‘left behind’ regions in France, Germany and the UK to gather their experiences and perceptions. The qualitative research was focused on six case studies areas, two in each country. It aimed to give agency and voice to people living in ‘left behind’ areas and draw on their experiences and priorities to inform the development of locally tailored policy responses. The case studies were designed to explore residents’ employment activities and access to services, alongside their perceptions of their areas and of recent place-based policies. Based on our findings, we outline a set of directions and recommendations on policies ‘for’ and ‘with’ ‘left behind places.
Financial, spatial and ecological limits to fossil fuel emission offsetting
Alain Naef; Nina L. Friggens; Patrick Njeukam
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Burning all the reserves of the 200 largest fossil fuel companies could generate up to 673GtCO2. We only have a 400GtCO2 emissions budget to remain under 1.5°C global warming by 2050 according to the IPCC. Rapid action is needed to cut, or as a last resort, offset these emissions. It remains unclear who will pay to offset these emissions and how to proceed. Here we show that if the cost of offsetting is above $150 per ton of CO2, all large fossil fuel companies would have a negative market value. Using the social cost of carbon to give a valuation of fossil fuel companies, we find that they have a negative value for society. Fossil fuel companies could decide to offset their emissions by afforestation (a cheaper alternative and the most used technology today). We measure how much space would be needed to offset all the emissions from current fossil fuel reserves. We show that offsetting all reserves would require covering the equivalent of the whole of North and Central America with only trees, removing all of the people and cultivated land. Afforestation, while more economical could disrupt existing ecosystems that provide important ecosystem services.
Road Testing Child Benefit and Social Assistance Reforms: Critically analysing the trilemma between poverty reduction, public expenditure and work incentives
Toon Van Havere; Max Thaning; Wim Van Lancker; Rense Nieuwenhuis; Holly Shorey
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In this working paper, we critically analyse the trilemma between poverty reduction, social expenditure and work incentives, based on a set of simulated policy reforms designed to reduce poverty among families with children. We find that the simulated reforms demonstrated that poverty reduction is possible through increasing child benefits and social assistance. The reforms were typically associated with an increase between 1% and 3-4% of social expenditure. We found that most reforms were associated with reduced work incentives, but that the changes in the participation tax rates tended to be small: the child benefit reforms usually resulted in an increase of around a few percent. For a set of reforms, we have demonstrated the relevance of attempting to quantify this trilemma. While indeed the results indicate the existence of such trilemma, in particular the aspect of work (dis)incentives may not be an unequivocal barrier to poverty reduction.
'Adult Care & Work': Blueprint of an EU-SILC ad hoc module
Alzbeta Bartova; Wim Van Lancker; Holly Shorey
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In the context of ageing populations and shrinking families, the care for relatives represents a growing risk to labour market activity for many individuals in productive age, as well as for gender equality and the well-being of caregivers. The risk can be further amplified if more adult family members need assistance or when care for an adult relative collides with childcare responsibilities, which would be an accumulation of the care burden (cumulative care). As such, adult care provision might have important ramifications for the European care strategy, the EU’s strategy on gender equality, and the headline employment target that at least 78% of the population aged 20 to 64 should be in employment by 2030. Yet, we do not have a tool that would systematically monitor the amount of care family members provide to their relatives and whether or how these care responsibilities affect their working lives. We argue that there is a clear need for high-quality, comparative data on the extent and intensity of care for adult relatives or other close persons in European households. For that reason, we propose an EU-SILC ad-hoc module on ‘Care and Work’ that allows to monitor and understand the extent and intensity of care for adult relatives or other close persons. The proposed ad hoc module fits well with existing variables on employment and work intensity, as well as with variables on childcare, poverty risks and material deprivation to set the adult care in a wider context of issues such as gender employment and pay gaps, or risks of poverty and social exclusion.
What if there were a moratorium on new housebuilding? An exploratory study with London-based housing associations
Anna Pagani; Alex Macmillan; Federico Savini; Michael Davies; Nici Zimmermann
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The shortage of social housing is a crucial element of the UK housing crisis. In England, social rented housing provision significantly relies on market homes construction, with detrimental impacts on residents and the environment. Moratoria are often cited in the degrowth literature as policy tools supporting strategies to break free from growth-driven mechanisms and achieve high levels of well-being while reducing environmental pressures. However, the systemic effects of such a policy on housing and its potential drawbacks are at present understudied. This study explores the extent to which a moratorium on new construction in the housing sector would be an effective, desirable, and feasible policy to address the shortage of good quality social housing. We used existing causal loop diagrams (CLDs) to formulate qualitative hypotheses on the effects of a moratorium on the structures underpinning the construction and demolition of social housing estates. We then explored perceived obstacles or opportunities to its uptake in a workshop with four housing associations, the largest providers of social housing in England. Our CLDs suggest that a moratorium could help to address the growth-dependent mechanisms of social housing provision, with systemic benefits for both social tenants and housing associations. However, the workshop revealed that its adoption would depend on whether the maintenance, repair, and retrofit of the existing stock could offset the perceived advantages of new construction (e.g., quality, quantity, adequacy). Through the use of systems thinking tools, our findings support dialogue around alternatives to the growth-dependent paradigm undermining housing provision within planetary boundaries.
On the Origins of Belize
Angel Navidad
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We propose, use, and review a way of building minimal theories for the inherently vague problem of Belize's origins. The proposed method is strictly rejected, though it is further suggested that an acceptable one might resemble that proposed.
Interactions with Non-Linear Treatment Effects: Quantities of Interest and Interpretation
Josep Serrano-Serrat
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This paper addresses the critical challenges of analyzing interactions when treatment effects are non-linear. First, the paper argues that estimating models that assume linear treatment effects in interactive settings can lead to misleading interpretations. Second, it proposes a systematic approach for analyzing and presenting interaction effects when non-linear treatment effects are involved. Two examples are discussed to illustrate the problems considered in this paper, as well as the proposed solution. Moreover, the limitations of recent alternatives to deal with non-linear treatment effects are discussed. The paper concludes replicating a recent paper, showing the potential limitations of current practices in the literature.
Yao-Shunism: A New Approach to Politics
Dengsheng Zhang
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Most of the studies and debates on liberal democracy in literature are centred around what goes wrong with liberal democracy and how to remedy it. However, there is little attention on oriental practice of democracy or viable alternative to western democracy. In this paper, a study is made on ancient Chinese thinking and practice of democracy. It is found that the first democracy was born in China more than 4,000 years ago. As a result of the discovery, a practical framework called Yao-Shunism is formulated and presented. Yao-Shunism offers non-partisan politics and participatory governance. It is backed by major Chinese philosophies and provides a viable alternative to existing political practice. It is shown that the entire world can benefit from Yao-Shunism if implemented. We demonstrate the feasibility and practicality of Yao-Shunism with George Washington.
Relationships between Aggregates and Individual Behaviour: The Nature, Direction and Size of Aggregation Bias
John Ermisch
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Estimation of relationships between a dependent variable constructed by the aggregation of individual behaviour and aggregate independent variables such as mean income is common. The aim and contribution of the paper is to clarify when and how parameter estimates based on aggregates leads to bias and the likely degree of such bias. It demonstrates that use of aggregate data to estimate parameters associated with a model of individual behaviour when the outcome variable is binary (e.g. a birth) is not advisable. It only ‘works’ when the independent variables do not vary at the individual level (e.g. prices or the unemployment rate). Even then it requires prior distributional knowledge or assumptions. When the individual model also contains variables that vary across individuals, then the analysis in the paper suggests that all parameter estimates based solely on variation in the aggregates usually understate the size of their true value, even ones associated with variables which do not vary over individuals. Indeed, it is often the case that the 95% confidence interval of these latter parameter estimates never contains the parameter’s true value.
The Risk and Risk-free Rate of T-bills
George Y. Nie
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We argue that a payment’s risk approaches zero as maturity approaches zero, and that the central bank’s short-term rate best captures the risk-free rate of various assets. We employ two factors to model the expected risk-free rate that the market expects the current monetary policy to move towards the neutral rate over a certain period. Expecting that the T-bill risk (i.e., the macrorisk) largely reflects a country’s inflation risk, we measure the risk as a 5-year payment’s risk to be comparable across assets. To solve the model factors, we use repeated trials to minimize the prediction errors. Our models thus split US and Canada T-bill yields into the risk and risk-free rate, on average explaining 98.7% of the returns. The models assuming independence of the two returns show similar power in predicting T-bill returns, which can significantly simplify the formulas. We also find that the inclusion of a risk constant over maturity, which has a small value of several basis points, significantly reduces the prediction errors. The risk and the risk-free rate is the gateway to corporate the risk of various assets in the country.
Chokepoints: Identifying Economic Pressure
Christopher Clayton; Antonio Coppola; Matteo Maggiori; Jesse Schreger
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Economic pressure—the use of economic means by governments to achieve geopolitical ends—has become a prominent feature of global power dynamics. This paper introduces a methodology using large language models (LLMs) to systematically extract signals of geoeconomic pressure from large textual corpora. We quantify not just the direct effects of implemented policies but also the off-path threats that induce compliance without formal action. We systematically identify governments, firms, tools, and activities that are involved in this pressure. We demonstrate that firms respond differently to various forms of economic pressure, as well responding differently to policies that have been implemented versus the threat of future pressure.
Estimating death rates in complex humanitarian emergencies using the network survival method
Casey Breen; Saeed Rahman; Christina Kay; Joeri Smits; Abraham Azar; Steve Ahuka-Mundeke; Dennis Feehan
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Reliable estimates of death rates in complex humanitarian emergencies are critical for assessing the severity of a crisis and for effectively allocating resources. However, in many humanitarian settings, logistical and security concerns make conventional methods for estimating death rates infeasible. We develop and test a new method for estimating death rates in humanitarian emergencies using reports of deaths in survey respondents’ social networks. To test our method, we collected original data in Tanganyika Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a setting where reliable estimates of death rates are in high demand. Qualitative fieldwork suggested testing two different types of personal networks as the basis for death rate estimates: deaths among immediate neighbors and deaths among kin. We benchmarked our network estimates against a standard retrospective household mortality survey, which estimated a crude death rate nearly twice as high as our network-based methods. Given both methods are equally plausible, our findings underscore the need for further validation and development of both methods.
Political Parties and The State in Civil Wars
VARUN KAREKURVE-RAMACHANDRA; Aidan Milliff; Drew Stommes
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Separatist conflicts pose enduring and acute challenges to state consolidation. Can democratically-elected legislators from nationally-dominant parties reduce violence in such conflicts? Existing theory remains unclear. Legislators from national parties might lack credibility among separatist insurgent sympathizers, limiting their ability to mitigate insurgent violence in their constituencies. Their symbolic affiliation with ``outsiders'' could also incite more violence. Alternatively, representatives from parties with a pan-national presence may benefit from superior influence over the security bureaucracy, rendering them more effective against insurgents than legislators from other parties. We test these competing explanations using a regression discontinuity design and granular conflict data from a decades-long separatist insurgency in Punjab, India. The findings suggest that legislators from the nationally-dominant party durably reduced insurgent violence within their constituencies. Mechanism analyses indicate that these reductions occurred through relatively stronger influence over security forces and in constituencies with above-average access to information and communication technology enabling selective counterinsurgency operations.
Social Mobility as Causal Intervention
Lai Wei; Yu Xie
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The study of mobility effects is an important subject of study for sociologists. Empirical investigations of individual mobility effects, however, have been hindered by one fundamental limitation, the unidentifiability of mobility effects when origin and destination are held constant. Given this fundamental limitation, we propose to reconceptualize mobility effects from the micro to the macro level. Instead of micro-level mobility effects, the primary focus of the past literature, we ask alternative research questions about macro-level mobility effects: what happens to the population distribution of an outcome if we manipulate the mobility regime, that is, if we alter the observed association between social origin and social destination? The proposed method bridges the macro and micro agendas in social stratification research, and has wider applications in social stratification beyond the study of mobility effects. We illustrate the method with two analyses that evaluate the impact of social mobility on average fertility and income inequality in the United States respectively.
The Impacts of Climate Activism
Laura Thomas-Walters; Eric Scheuch; Abby Ong; Matthew H. Goldberg
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We review 50 studies on the impacts of climate activism. We present the existing evidence in a map of what we know about climate activism and its impacts. There is strong evidence that climate activism shifts public opinion and media coverage in a pro-climate direction, but this varies by context and the tactics employed. There is more moderate evidence that activism can pressure policymakers to communicate more about climate change, encourage voters to vote in a more pro-climate direction, and financially pressure carbon intensive companies. We review suggestive evidence that protest can influence emissions and environmental policy. Although these studies cover a wide swath of outcome variables, a majority examine intermediate variables, rather than long term impacts. Generalizability is challenged by a bias towards the U.S. and Western Europe. We call for greater focus outside those geographic areas and more attention to activism's impact on public policy and emissions.
GERDA: The German Election Database
Vincent Heddesheimer; Hanno Hilbig; Florian Sichart; Andreas Wiedemann
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Elections are the key mechanism through which voters hold elected officials accountable. The partisan composition of local, state, and federal governments, in turn, shapes policy choices and public goods provision. Yet studying representation, government responsiveness, and partisan politics across multiple levels of government—especially at the local level—has been difficult due to inconsistently reported, incomplete, or insufficiently harmonized election data at small geographic scales. This paper introduces GERDA, a panel dataset of local, state, and federal election results in Germany at the municipality level spanning the past three decades. GERDA includes turnout and vote shares for all major parties and resolves challenges arising from municipal boundary changes and joint mail-in voting districts, yielding a consistent panel of municipalities in their 2021 boundaries. We also provide municipal and county boundary shapefiles to facilitate spatial analyses. Our dataset enables new research on partisan politics, policy responsiveness, and political representation at fine-grained geographic scales and over time.
The Weight of Precedent: Parties, Institutions, and Executive Norms
Daniel A. N. Goldstein; Collin Thomas Schumock
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Political executives often adhere to informal traditions established by their predecessors. Yet, without legal backing, elites have incentives to violate norms for political gain. Under what conditions do constraining executive norms persist and when are they abandoned? We address this question by using an infinite horizon formal model to analyze the maintenance of executive norms. We identify intra-party accountability and variation in patience among actors within the same party as significant for norm maintenance. We also detail how expectations about the expected behavior of out-of-power parties shape the willingness to violate norms while in office. The insights from the model enable us to classify a number of executive norms according to their fragility and to examine the trajectory of one norm in-depth: the two-term tradition of the American presidency. Our findings shed light on how informal institutions regulate executive behavior and advance our understanding of institutional stability and erosion.
Données, plateformes et frictions. La recomposition de la gouvernance de la mobilité à Mexico face à la numérisation des transports structurés et informels.
Laure Guimbail
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RĂ©sumĂ© : Les applications de calcul d'itinĂ©raire proposent aujourd'hui des informations de plus en plus prĂ©cises aux voyageurs. Dans le contexte de la ville de Mexico, elles ont rĂ©ussi Ă  cartographier l’ensemble du rĂ©seau de transport informel, ce qui constitue une prouesse technologique jugĂ©e jusqu'alors impossible. Comment cette numĂ©risation a-t-elle Ă©tĂ© rendue possible ? La numĂ©risation des transports affecte-t-elle les dynamiques des acteurs en place ? Plus spĂ©cifiquement, le numĂ©rique et l'utilisation des donnĂ©es ont-ils un impact sur la modernisation et l'intĂ©gration des diffĂ©rents rĂ©seaux de transport par le biais des donnĂ©es ? En s’inscrivant dans les travaux rĂ©cents de sociologie et de gouvernance urbaine, ce rapport vise Ă  examiner dans quelle mesure la production de donnĂ©es et les big data perturbent les arrangements existants et conduisent Ă  de nouvelles formes de gouvernance. Cette analyse compare les modalitĂ©s de production de donnĂ©es de l'administration publique et celles des applications de calcul d'itinĂ©raire. Elle s'appuie sur une enquĂȘte de terrain et des entretiens rĂ©alisĂ©s dans la ville de Mexico en mai 2023. L'enquĂȘte a permis de distinguer deux modalitĂ©s de production de donnĂ©es parallĂšles, mais aussi complĂ©mentaires, qui entraĂźnent deux doubles processus d'intĂ©gration et de rationalisation de la politique de transport. Abstract : The current generation of route planning applications provides travelers with an increasingly accurate source of information. In the context of Mexico City, these applications have been able to map the entire informal transport network, representing a significant technological advance that was previously considered impossible. How does the digitalisation of transport affect the dynamics of existing public and private actors? In particular, do digital technology and the use of data have an impact on the modernisation and integration of the different transport networks through data? Drawing on recent work in sociology and urban governance, this report aims to examine the extent to which data production and Big Data are disrupting existing arrangements and leading to new forms of governance. This analysis compares the ways in which data is produced by public authorities and by route planner applications. It is based on a field survey and interviews conducted in Mexico City in May 2023. The survey enabled us to distinguish two parallel, but also complementary, modes of data production, which give rise to two double processus of integration and rationalization of transport policy
Fiscal Austerity and the Decline of Liberal Democracy
Guilherme Klein Martins; Laura Carvalho
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This paper investigates the long-term effects of fiscal austerity on democratic institutions. While previous studies have established a link between economic crises, fiscal consolidations, and short-term electoral outcomes, our analysis extends this discussion by examining how austerity-induced economic insecurity undermines key dimensions of democracy over time. Using a comprehensive dataset of narrative fiscal shocks across 17 OECD economies (1978–2020) and 14 Latin American and Caribbean economies (1989–2020), we employ a semi-parametric estimation method to identify the causal impact of fiscal austerity on democratic backsliding. Our findings indicate that contractionary fiscal policies weaken institutional checks, reduce freedom of expression, and erode electoral integrity. These effects persist beyond immediate electoral cycles, leading to broader democratic erosion. The study highlights the importance of policy choices in shaping political institutions and suggests that alternative macroeconomic strategies, such as countercyclical fiscal policies and targeted social protection, may help mitigate the risks associated with austerity while preserving democratic governance.
Drivers of economic risk and scenarios for the EU
REGROUP project; Elvire Fabry; Sylvie Matelly
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Faced with unprecedented economic, technological and geopolitical challenges, the European Union (EU) must strengthen its resilience and influence to remain competitive in a rapidly changing world. This focus paper analyses the main economic risks that could affect the EU between now and 2035. The EU faces a combination of internal and external risks, including low productivity, an ageing population and technological backwardness, which are holding back its competitiveness. Its energy dependence, increasing geopolitical tensions and fragmented globalisation compound these vulnerabilities, affecting its economic security, consumer confidence and business value chains. These factors, exacerbated by climate and digital challenges, threaten economic growth and long-term stability. To summarise these risks, this focus paper identifies five drivers: (1) geopolitical instabilities, (2) globalisation dynamics, (3) environmental pressures and climate change, (4) social risks and human insecurities, and (5) technological and digital transformations.
Twin precarities in the platform economy: An interdisciplinary perspective
Lutfun Nahar Lata
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With the rise of neoliberal globalised markets and large-scale irregular migration, temporary migrant labour has ensured the economic development of the global North as a node of growth in a changing global economy. However, the restructuring of national and regional economies has also brought about the informalisation of labour markets and the fragmentation of labour processes, with migrants being more exposed than other workers to the detrimental risks of wage squeezes and uncertainty associated with securing permanent jobs. Within this context, this review takes a critical look to explore the challenges migrant workers experience while using various digital labour platforms such as Uber, Uber Eats, DoorDash and Hungry Panda, to earn an income. After reviewing existing literature on migration, citizenship, precarious work and digital labour platforms, in this paper, I introduce ‘twin precarities’ as a concept to explore migrant workers’ vulnerabilities due to their non-citizenship status and their involvement in the platform economy where they often experience algorithmic management but they do not understand how an algorithm works. ‘Twin precarities’ is a new analytical frame for understanding the lived experience of migrant platform workers as well as for exploring the various and complex entanglements between precarious migrants’ emancipatory practices enabled by digital labour platforms and the constraints created by these platforms.
Mapping Organizational Theory
Jose Eos Trinidad
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Organizational theory has developed in numerous directions that have been difficult to integrate. This review synthesizes them into seven perspectives, with theories focused within and beyond the organization (i.e., intra- and extra-organizational dynamics). It proposes the acronym SCRIPTS: structure, culture, relations, institutions, professions, transformation, and social conflict. Within organizations, structure focuses on theories of bureaucracy, management, decision-making, and routines while culture focuses on shared values, identity, climate, and sensemaking. Relations involve studies of interpersonal and interorganizational networks. Institutions focus on the macro-dynamics of fields and isomorphism, and micro-dynamics of entrepreneurship and inhabited institutions. Professions refer to psychological factors shaping individual performance and sociological factors shaping work and occupations. Transformation involves episodic and gradual changes within organizations and across society. Social conflict involves power and competition, with key theories focused on gendered, racialized, and global inequalities. This paper introduces theories and concepts in the study of organizations by grouping similar perspectives, highlighting their domains within or beyond the organization, and underscoring their utility for researchers and leaders.
The Power and Pitfalls of Industrial Policy: Evidence from China
Hannah Yi Wei
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I study the impacts of industrial policy on innovation and industrial development by deciphering the landmark Chinese industrial policy - the Strategic and Emerging Industries initiative (SEI), from 2010 to 2018. Using differences-in-differences methods with staggered adoption and city-industry level data, I find that the policy significantly boosts patent counts, firm turnover, and output in targeted sectors, though gains in innovation quality and employment remain subdued. Additionally, I identify inefficiency in China’s top-down approach, where local governments prioritize alignment with national priorities over local comparative advantages. Sectors targeted with a pre-existing innovation advantage see at least double the gains in innovation and output compared to those without, underscoring the path-dependent nature of innovation. These findings emphasize the importance of aligning industrial policy with local strengths to foster quality-based growth. While the SEI initiative demonstrates China's ability to drive numerical growth, it also reveals the challenge of fostering widespread, quality-driven upgrading. These insights offer broader lessons for other developing economies navigating similar transitions.
Model of organisational competencies and capabilities for effective innovation management
Joaquim Jose Carvalho Proença
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Introduction / objective: Evaluating the effectiveness of innovation programmes, particularly in terms of their long-term impact on companies, is inherently complex. This study aims to develop a comprehensive measurement model that effectively captures the long-term innovation and sustainability outcomes of such programmes. By focusing on a broad spectrum of organisational competencies and capabilities, this model seeks to provide a holistic assessment of innovation effectiveness within participating companies. Methodology: To construct the measurement model, a thorough literature review was conducted. Relevant articles were analysed to identify patterns and themes, leading to the classification of essential dimensions, processes, tools, and indicators of organisational competencies and capabilities that are critical for fostering innovation. Results: The study proposes a reference model of organisational competencies, named the 8Cs, to evaluate companies’ innovation performance and potential. This model includes 27 indicators across key dimensions: Cognisance/Knowledge Management, Critical Thinking, Creativity, Innovation Capabilities, Collaboration, Innovative Culture, Change Management and Communication. Conclusions: The 8C model significantly enhances innovation management by providing a comprehensive assessment framework for companies’ innovation practices and their long-term impact. It highlights specific competencies and capabilities essential for sustained innovation and competitiveness, enabling companies to identify focus areas, assess innovation sustainability, and allocate resources effectively.
Benefits conditionality in the UK: is it common, and is it perceived to be reasonable?
Ben Baumberg Geiger; Lisa Scullion; Daniel Edmiston; Robert de Vries; K Summers; Jo Ingold; David Young
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Programme-level data suggests that increasing numbers of claimants are subject to work-related behavioural requirements in countries like the UK. Likewise, academic qualitative research has suggested that conditionality is pervasive within the benefits system, and often felt to be unreasonable. However, there is little quantitative evidence on the extent or experience of conditionality from claimants’ perspectives. We fill this gap drawing on a purpose-collected survey of UK benefit claimants (n=3,801). We find the stated application of conditionality was evident for a surprisingly small proportion of survey participants – even lower than programme-level data suggest. Unreasonable conditionality was perceived by many of those subject to conditionality but not a majority, with e.g. 26.2% believing that work coaches do not fully take health/care-related barriers into account. Yet alongside this, a substantial minority of claimants (22.4%) not currently subject to conditionality report that conditionality has negatively affected their mental health. We argue that reconciling this complex set of evidence requires a more nuanced understanding of conditionality, which is alert to methodological assumptions, the role of time and implementation, and the need to go beyond explicit requirements to consider implicit forms of conditionality. Concluding, we recommend a deeper mixed-methods agenda for conditionality research.
Wrapped Up in the Cis-Tem: Trans Liveability in the Age of Algorithmic Violence
Christoffer Koch Andersen
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Algorithms pervade our reality and promise to universally enhance our lives, but what happens when this promise is reserved for cisgender people while subjecting trans people to legacies of anti-trans violence that implicate trans liveability? Despite this key question, existing critiques engage only sparingly with the violent legacies perpetu ated by algorithms that trans people encounter, rarely go beyond notions of bias, and therefore fail to centre trans ex periences. In this article, I extend scholarship on critical algorithm studies, trans studies, and necropolitics through three accounts of lived trans experiences to show the vicious algorithmic operations on trans lives. Centrally, this art icle argues that algorithms are not neutral, distinct, or progressive. Rather, as a vicious “cis-tem” (playing on the word system), algorithms enact forms of violence towards the possibility of transness, violence that is rooted in legacies of capitalist, colonial, and cisheteronormative power that violate trans lives and radicalise transphobia. Contrasting trans voices against the algorithmic machines, this article offers a novel perspective on the entanglement between al gorithms and trans liveability through the lens of algorithmic violence. I demonstrate how algorithms embody racial ised and gendered ideals of the human that target trans people through engineered transphobic feedback-loops, cis normative default, and capitalist profit based on fear. I conclude by reimagining liberatory digital futures.
Lack of peer reviewer diversity advantages scientists from wealthier countries
James M. Zumel Dumlao; Misha Teplitskiy
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Authors from low- and middle-income countries often have lower acceptance rates in academic journals, leading to their ideas receiving less attention. One hypothesized contributor to this disparity is the limited geographical diversity of peer reviewers. If reviewers favor submissions from their own country (i.e. homophily), and authors from certain countries are disproportionately reviewed by same-country reviewers, this creates a “geographical representation bias” favoring those authors. Using administrative data from the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP), encompassing metadata on 204,718 submissions to 60 STEM journals between 2018-2022, we find strong evidence of this bias. Comparing different reviewers of the same manuscript, we find that those from the same country as the corresponding author are 4.78 percentage points more likely to review positively, and authors from countries well-represented in the reviewer pool (e.g., USA, China, India) are 8-9 times more likely to be evaluated by same-country reviewers. An instrumental variables analysis using an exogenous policy change that created variation in which submissions were anonymized shows that anonymizing submissions does not significantly reduce homophily. These findings provide support for efforts to diversify reviewer pools, and suggest that there are no “quick fixes” for geographical representation bias.
From Opposition to Opportunity: Enhancing the Acceptance of Carbon Taxes Through Effective Policy Design
Hamid Bulut; Robin Samuel
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An increasing number of countries are considering implementing domestic carbon taxes to achieve the carbon-reduction targets set in the Paris Agreement. However, introducing such taxes presents significant challenges for policymakers worldwide. Despite their effectiveness, carbon taxes remain the least popular policy instrument. Furthermore, few studies focus on public support for carbon taxation in low- and middle-income countries, a crucial area of research given the global significance of their emissions. Therefore, we conducted a pre-registered full factorial survey experiment involving more than 13,000 evaluations of policy designs in China, Germany, India, and the UK to address the most prevalent barriers to the popularity of carbon taxes, as discussed in academic research, policy analysis, and public discourse: perceived effectiveness, average household costs, the types of revenue recycling schemes implemented, and the extent of international cooperation. Our findings revealed striking differences in how the countries responded to carbon tax policies. The key findings included the following: cost transparency unexpectedly reduced support, whereas communicating the effectiveness of the policy increased it; preferences for revenue recycling schemes varied significantly across the four countries, highlighting the need for tailored approaches; and, surprisingly, international cooperation increased support only in Germany, challenging assumptions about global climate policy. These findings have profound implications for policymakers, suggesting that an effective carbon tax design must be carefully calibrated in the national context. This study provides a roadmap for designing carbon tax policies that are environmentally effective and politically viable for diverse global economies.
Shaping Environmental Attitudes Through Social Justice: Evidence from the 2021 European Floods and Implications for Youth
Hamid Bulut; Robin Samuel
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In the face of climate change, the principles of distributive social justice have become paramount in addressing the implications of resource allocation and the unequal impacts of environmental degradation. Our study explores the relationship between distributive social justice and environmental attitudes among young people in the context of climate change. Using a natural experimental design, we examine how the 2021 European Floods influenced social justice and environmental attitudes. Our results indicate significant shifts in attitudes, particularly regarding social justice, following the flooding. We found a strong and robust relationship between social justice and environmental attitudes. A causal mediation analysis revealed that floods affected environmental attitudes indirectly through social justice attitudes beyond direct effects. Our results emphasise the importance of integrating the principles of justice in addressing climate change and suggest that young people’s perspectives on social justice play a crucial role in shaping environmental policies and responses to climate crises.
Forging Better Axes: Evaluating and Improving the Reliability of Semantic Dimensions in Word Embeddings
Andrei Boutyline; Ethan Johnston
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Word embeddings are a powerful tool for measuring cultural meaning using large text corpora. In sociology, common applications estimate the meanings of concepts by projecting keywords onto latent semantic axes constructed from pairs of opposing anchor terms. This task requires researchers to identify anchor pairs that reliably operationalize the semantic dimension. However, the methodological toolkit for doing this remains underdeveloped—there are no established metrics for assessing anchor set reliability from embedding data, and indeed no clear theoretical understanding of what this reliability entails. We address this gap by investigating three forms of reliability potentially relevant to anchor sets: parallelism between offset vectors, synonymy between anchors at the same endpoint, and antonymy between opposed anchors. Using an original N=1750 survey dataset of respondents’ ratings of several hundred terms along 36 semantic dimensions, plus existing ratings for 3 additional dimensions, we evaluate how well these reliability metrics predict the accuracy of 39,000 axes that operationalize these dimensions in embedding space. We find that parallelism robustly outperforms the other metrics in predicting accuracy. We demonstrate several ways researchers can use parallelism to improve their anchor sets, including identifying problematic anchors and suggesting promising antonyms. We conclude with broader recommendations for semantic axis construction.
The BrainWaves study of adolescent wellbeing and mental health: methods development and pilot data
Ryan Parsons; Sarah Bauermeister; Julian Turner; Natalie Coles; Simon Thompson; Emma Squires; Tracey Riseborough; Joshua Bauermeister; Abbie Simpkin; Naomi French
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Adolescent mental health and wellbeing are of growing concern globally with increased incidence of mental health disorders in young people. BrainWaves provides a framework for relevant and diverse research programmes into adolescent mental health and wellbeing that can translate into practice and policy. The research programme is a partnership with schools centred on establishing a large (n>50,000) cohort and trials platform. Reported here is the BrainWaves cohort pilot study. This was designed as proof-of-concept for our recruitment and data capture pipelines, and for cost-modelling. A network of research schools was recruited and a computer-driven questionnaire administered. The eligible population was 16+ year olds who were attending the research schools. Of 41 research schools, 36 (88%) participated over one three-week and one four-week data collection period. From an eligible population of 33,531 young people, 16,010 (48%) attended the study lesson and created an account. Of the 16,010 (100%) who created an account, 15,444 (96%) consented to participate, 9,321 (60%) consented to linkage of research data with educational records, and 6,069 (39%) consented to linkage of research with school/college attendance data. Participants were aged 16-19 years, 59% female, and 76% White. Higher levels of anxiety and depression were found in girls than boys. Higher levels of media-based social networking were found in girls, whereas higher levels of media-based gaming were found in boys. Girls were more likely to report insufficient sleep whilst boys were more likely to report high levels of exercise. This study confirmed an ability to recruit at pace and scale. Whilst the response-rate does not indicate a representative sample, the demographics describe an inclusive and diverse sample. Data collected confirmed findings from previous studies indicating that the electronic data collection methods did not materially bias the findings. Initial cost-modelling suggests these data were collected for around ÂŁ20 per participant.
The academic impact of Open Science: a scoping review
Thomas Klebel; Vincent Traag; Ioanna Grypari; Lennart Stoy; Tony Ross-Hellauer
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Open Science seeks to make research processes and outputs more accessible, transparent, and inclusive, ensuring that scientific findings can be freely shared, scrutinised, and built-upon by researchers and others. To date, there has been no systematic synthesis of the extent to which Open Science reaches these aims. We use the PRISMA scoping review methodology to partially address this gap, scoping evidence on the academic (but not societal or economic) impacts of OS. We identify 485 studies related to all aspects of OS, including Open Access (OA), Open/FAIR Data (OFD), Open Code/Software, Open Evaluation, and Citizen Science (CS). Analysing and synthesising findings, we show that the majority of studies investigated effects of OA, CS, and OFD. Key areas of impact studied are citations, quality, efficiency, equity, reuse, ethics, and reproducibility, with most studies reporting positive or at least mixed impacts. However, we also identified significant unintended negative impacts, especially those regarding equity, diversity and inclusion. Overall, the main barrier to academic impact of OS is lack of skills, resources, and infrastructure to effectively reuse and build on existing research. Building on this synthesis we identify gaps within this literature and draw implications for future research and policy.
When Words Disappear, So Do Scientists: How the DEI Backlash Threatens Science and Its Future
Paulette Vincent-Ruz
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The scientific community is facing a critical juncture. The growing backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in STEM is not merely a shift in discourse—it is a targeted effort to redefine the boundaries of scientific participation and knowledge production. This paper examines how the removal of DEI language from policies, funding frameworks, and academic institutions serves as a mechanism for reinforcing exclusionary structures that have long marginalized underrepresented groups in science. Through a historical and policy-based analysis, this paper demonstrates how previous waves of ideological resistance to inclusivity in academia have led to detrimental outcomes for scientific progress. The perspective argues that the erasure of DEI is not just a rhetorical shift but a fundamental restructuring of power in STEM, one that threatens the very foundation of scientific inquiry.
Multilevel Intersectionality and the Deployment of Disability in Schools
Rachel Elizabeth Fish
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Teacher perceptions of and decisions about students’ academic ability and behavior are key to the micro-level production and maintenance of inequality at the intersection of gender, race, and disability in schools, yet we know little about how these micro-level processes relate to meso-level features. Using an experimental survey design of 369 factorial vignettes, I tested for racial and gender differences in 276 teachers’ ratings of referral to begin disability evaluations—what I call the deployment of disability—across 115 Wisconsin schools with varying racial compositions. Findings show that teachers in schools with low proportions of White students were less likely to deploy disability for White girls than all other students; these disparities closed or reversed as teachers’ schools increased in proportion White. Results also suggest that White boys with academic difficulties were perceived as more likely disabled than their male peers of color – only in schools with more Black students. These results provide mixed evidence that "racial distinctiveness" triggers teachers' racialized and gendered deployment of disability. School composition effects provide empirical evidence of the social construction of disability, its intersection with race and gender, and that this construction emerges as an aspect of context as well as through individual teachers’ behaviors.
Class, Subjective Status, and Turnout in Europe.
Giacomo Melli
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Inspired by Weber’s distinction between class and status, the paper explores the independent and joint role of social class and subjective social status in shaping electoral participation in contemporary European democracies. While social class has long been established as a predictor of political behaviour, less attention has been paid to the influence of subjective status, an individual’s self-assessed position within the social hierarchy. Drawing on nineteen waves of data from the International Social Survey Program from 2002 to 2021 across twenty-five European countries, this paper examines how social class and subjective status independently and jointly influence voter turnout. The findings indicate that while social class remains a significant determinant of voting behaviour, subjective status introduces additional complexity. Individuals with higher subjective status are more likely to vote, regardless of their social class. Moreover, within social classes, particularly the working class, participation rates are stratified by subjective status, with a notable gap between individuals with high and low subjective status. By employing Linear Probability Models with Country-Year Fixed Effects, the study accounts for cross-national differences and provides a robust analysis of electoral participation trends. These results contribute to a deeper understanding of political inequality, suggesting that subjective aspects of social stratification should be considered alongside traditional class-based analyses to fully grasp the factors influencing voter turnout in European democracies.
Collective Memory and Racial Politics: Media Coverage of Black Resistance to Police Violence in New York, 1997-2000
Erin Gaede; Pamela Elaine Oliver
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Academic research on Black protests often relies on elite mainstream White-centric news sources and neglects events between the 1960s and the 2010s. We compare the coverage by the New York Times and two Black newspapers of four episodes of protests about police violence in New York in the late 1990s: the killing of Amadou Diallo in 1999, which led to many protests over two years and was discussed in hundreds of news articles, and three overlapping episodes about the torture of Abner Louima in 1997 and the killings of Malcolm Ferguson and Patrick Dorismond in 2000. We find that the New York Times emphasized partisan politics as protest motivations, quoted police extensively and often printed material sympathetic to police, and typically portrayed protesters as angry or motivated by politics. Black newspapers emphasized long-term systemic problems with police, moral condemnation of police violence, the connection of current protests with past oppression and struggles, the involvement of youth, and Black immigrants’ growing awareness of anti-Blackness. Our findings elucidate that centering a “Black gaze” provides an important balance to White-centric sources and demonstrates the continuity of the Black movement in its opposition to police violence.
RELATION BETWEEN TEMPERAMENT, ABILITY TO COPE WITH SOCIAL SITUATIONS, TYPE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL GENDER AND THE READINESS TO SHOW PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR
Ita Robakiewicz
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The aim of this study was to investigate if people who show prosocial behavior (volunteers who are engaged in palliative care) differ in their personality traits from those who do not express such a behavior. Psychological gender roles, social competences and temperament features were measured with the questionnaires. Sixty eight individuals took part in this study (35 palliative volunteers and 33 controls). Volunteers were expected to be more androgynous, have more feminine stereotype characteristics, have a higher social competences and a lower level of emotional reactiveness than participants from the control group. Results: The study results have showed that the volunteers scored higher on feminine scale than participants from the control group. This was valid for both women and men, and resulted in higher number of androgynous individuals among men and a higher number of feminine gender typed individuals among women. Additionally it was also found that emotional reactiveness in volunteers depends on the biological sex: the volunteer women have lower level of this characteristic than the volunteer man and also than the control men. No difference in social competences between the volunteers and the control group was found. In summary this study shows that decision about engagement in palliative care depends on the level of stereotypical feminine characteristics, the level of emotional reactiveness and the level of endurance.
How does experienced behavior change normative expectations regarding socially beneficial actions?
Daniel Martinez-Felip; Steven G.M. Schilizzi; Chi Nguyen
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Social norms, understood as shared expectations of appropriate behavior, can help resolve collective action problems by making salient collectively beneficial equilibria. However, achieving long-lasting behavior of this type has so far challenged policymakers. To make progress, we need a deeper understanding of the dynamics of people’s normative expectations regarding collectively beneficial behaviors. This study employs a controlled laboratory experiment to collect panel data on individuals’ normative expectations regarding contributions in a public goods (PG) game. Using the Krupka & Weber’s 2013 method, we elicit participants’ normative expectations at three stages: before playing a repeated standard PG game, after completing the repeated PG game, and after playing a repeated PG game with social incentives activated through the threat of exclusion from non-financial group activities. By comparing these stages, we examine whether and how experienced group behavior in PG games within two distinct structured social contexts—one without and one with social incentives—shapes individuals’ normative expectations. Our findings indicate heterogeneity in how social norms are perceived and how normative expectations change in response to experienced group behaviors in the PG games. Normative expectations for socially beneficial actions tend to emerge when such group behavior conveys a normative signal (i.e., when non-financial social incentives lead to increased and sustained contributions), particularly when the social norm is initially perceived as being loose. This work contributes to the growing body of research on social norms by offering experimental evidence that advances our understanding of the factors that determine beneficial normative change.
Mapping subnational gender gaps in internet and mobile adoption using social media data
Casey Breen; Masoomali Fatehkia; Jiani Yan; Xinyi Zhao; Douglas R. Leasure; Ingmar Weber; Ridhi Kashyap
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The digital revolution has ushered in many societal and economic benefits. Yet access to digital technologies such as mobile phones and internet remains highly unequal, especially by gender in the context of low- and middle-income countries. While national-level estimates are increasingly available for many countries, reliable, quantitative estimates of digital gender inequalities at the subnational level are lacking. These estimates, however, are essential for monitoring gaps within countries and implementing targeted interventions within the global sustainable development goals, which emphasize the need to close inequalities both between and within countries. We develop estimates of internet and mobile adoption by gender and digital gender gaps at the subnational level for 2,158 regions in 118 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), a context where digital penetration is low and national-level gender gaps disfavoring women are large. We construct these estimates by applying machine-learning algorithms to Facebook user counts, geospatial data, development indicators, and population composition data. We calibrate and assess the performance of these algorithms using ground-truth data from subnationally-representative household survey data from 31 LMICs. Our results reveal striking disparities in access to mobile and internet technologies between and within LMICs, with implications for policy formulation and infrastructure investment. These disparities contribute to a global context where women are 21% less likely to use the internet and 17% less likely to own mobile phones than men, corresponding to over 385 million more men than women owning a mobile phone and over 360 million more men than women using the internet.
Does why we drink alcohol matter? A cross-sectional study investigating associations between alcohol drinking motives and alcohol-free and low-alcohol drink consumption amongst adults in Great Britain.
Lucy C Burke; Colin Angus; Jamie Brown; Inge Kersbergen
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Introduction The UK has promoted increasing the availability of alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks (no/lo, ≀1.2% ABV) as a public health strategy. To be effective, no/lo beverages must replace, and not supplement, standard alcoholic drinks. Emerging qualitative evidence suggests the reasons people drink alcohol may be important when investigating the potential public health impact of these drinks. This has not yet been explored quantitatively. This study aimed to determine whether alcohol drinking motives were associated with no/lo consumption after accounting for sociodemographic characteristics and alcohol consumption. Methods A cross-sectional sample of adults residing in Great Britain (aged 16-93) who had drunk alcohol in the past year were recruited via the Alcohol Toolkit Study (N = 2555; 49.0% female). The dependent variable was frequency of no/lo consumption (less than/ at least monthly). Five questions captured respondents’ alcohol drinking motives (enhancement, social, conformity, coping-anxiety, coping-depression). Sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, social grade, education, index of deprivation) and hazardous alcohol use (AUDIT-C) were included in the analyses. The proportion of respondents who reported drinking no/lo at high and low levels of endorsement of each drinking motive is presented. Quasibinomial regression modelling explored relationships between alcohol drinking motives and no/lo consumption, accounting for sociodemographic characteristics and hazardous drinking. Results Drinking alcohol to conform was the only drinking motive associated with no/lo consumption after accounting for sociodemographic characteristics and hazardous drinking (OR = 1.10, 95% CI 1.00-1.21, p=0.041). A higher frequency of drinking alcohol to conform was associated with an increased probability of drinking no/lo at least monthly. Conclusions No/lo drinks may be a useful substitute for those wishing to reduce their alcohol consumption whilst avoiding pressure to conform to social norms. Those drinking alcohol to conform were not typically higher-risk drinkers, which may limit the public health benefit of no/lo drinks.