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Abstract The causal role of the cerebral hemispheres in positive and negative emotion processing remains uncertain. The Right Hemisphere Hypothesis proposes right hemispheric superiority for all emotions, while the Valence Hypothesis suggests the left/right hemisphere's primary involvement in positive/negative emotions, respectively. To address this, emotional video clips were presented during dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) electrical stimulation, incorporating a comparison of tDCS and high frequency tRNS stimulation techniques and manipulating perspective-taking (first-person vs third-person Point of View, POV). Four stimulation conditions were applied while participants were asked to rate emotional video valence: anodal/cathodal tDCS to the left/right DLPFC, reverse configuration (anodal/cathodal on the right/left DLPFC), bilateral hf-tRNS, and sham (control condition). Results revealed significant interactions between stimulation setup, emotional valence, and POV, implicating the DLPFC in emotions and perspective-taking. The right hemisphere played a crucial role in both positive and negative valence, supporting the Right Hemisphere Hypothesis. However, the complex interactions between the brain hemispheres and valence also supported the Valence Hypothesis. Both stimulation techniques (tDCS and tRNS) significantly modulated results. These findings support both hypotheses regarding hemispheric involvement in emotions, underscore the utility of video stimuli, and emphasize the importance of perspective-taking in this field, which is often overlooked.

Abstract The potentially problematic use of the Internet is a growing concern worldwide, which causes and consequences are not completely understood yet. The neurobiology of Internet addiction (IA) has attracted much attention in scientific research, which is now focusing on identifying measurable biological markers. Aim of this study was to investigate epigenetic and genetic regulation of oxytocin receptor (OXTR), dopamine transporter (DAT1) and serotonin transporter (SERT) genes using DNA obtained from saliva samples of young university students: the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) was administered to evaluate the potential existence and intensity of IA. Significant changes in DNA methylation levels at OXTR, DAT1 and SERT genes were observed in the 30 50 subjects (considered as moderately addicted). Moreover, epigenetic markers were significantly correlated, either directly (for OXTR and DAT1) or inversely (OXTR and DAT1 versus SERT), to the psychometric properties. Our data confirmed the association of OXTR, DAT1 and SERT genes in processes related to behavioural addictions and might be of relevance to suggest possible biological predictors of altered behaviours and the eventual vulnerability to develop an IA. Different other genetic pathways have been suggested to play a role in IA and research is ongoing to better define them, in order to help in the early diagnosis as well as in the development of new potential treatments.

Abstract Activity scheduling represents a key process in daily life, involving the evaluation of the costs and benefits of the resources to be invested, but also a preference for when to engage in pleasant or unpleasant activities. Aging affects the evaluation processes and individual preferences due to changes in cognitive functioning and life perspectives. The present study investigated the differences between younger adults (age range 19–33) and older adults (age range 65–87) in a task assessing preferential scheduling of activities. Participants were asked to schedule thirty emotional activities (positive, negative, or neutral) within a 30-day time window, assigning one activity for each day. Results indicated that older adults, but not younger adults, planned positive activities closer in time, supporting the “positivity effect”. Also, both younger and older adults tended to postpone negative activities, scheduling them in the last days. Finally, for older adults only, negative affect was associated with the tendency to put positive activities closer in time. Present findings showed age-specific effects of emotional content on daily activity scheduling.

(1) Background: It is well-established that older persons compared with younger persons show a bias toward positive valence (a positivity effect), together with less pronounced hemispheric asymmetries, but these topics have been scarcely explored in auditory modality. (2) Methods: We presented auditory stimuli with positive, neutral, or negative emotional valence dichotically to 20 younger and 20 older participants and asked them to memorize the stimuli. In a following session, stimuli were presented binaurally, and participants had to decide whether they were new or already presented in the left/right ear. (3) Results: A higher performance by younger compared with older listeners emerged, but neither the expected Right Ear Advantage nor the positivity effect was confirmed. New stimuli were correctly categorized more frequently if they had neutral valence, whereas stimuli already presented were better recognized with negative rather than neutral or positive valence, without any age difference. (4) Conclusions: These results reveal no hemispheric asymmetries and no age difference in a memory task for auditory stimuli and suggest the existence of a bias to better encode negative content, possibly due to the crucial role of negative stimuli in everyday life.

Abstract Comprehending the teacher’s message when other students are chatting is challenging. Even though the sound environment is the same for a whole class, differences in individual performance can be observed, which might depend on a variety of personal factors and their specific interaction with the listening condition. This study was designed to explore the role of individual characteristics (reading comprehension, inhibitory control, noise sensitivity) when primary school children perform a listening comprehension task in the presence of a two-talker masker. The results indicated that this type of noise impairs children’s accuracy, effort, and motivation during the task. Its specific impact depended on the level and was modulated by the child’s characteristics. In particular, reading comprehension was found to support task accuracy, whereas inhibitory control moderated the effect of listening condition on the two measures of listening effort included in the study (response time and self-ratings), even though with a different pattern of association. A moderation effect of noise sensitivity on perceived listening effort was also observed. Understanding the relationship between individual characteristics and classroom sound environment has practical implications for the acoustic design of spaces promoting students’ well-being, and supporting their learning performance.

Internet addiction is an emerging issue, impacting people’s psychosocial functioning and well-being. However, the prevalence and the mechanisms underlying internet misuse are largely unknown. As with other behavioral addiction disorders, the increase and persistence of internet addiction may be favored by negative affect such as boredom. In this study, we examined the role of boredom susceptibility, as a personality trait, in predicting the risk of internet addiction. Furthermore, we analyzed the attentional mechanisms that may exacerbate dysfunctional internet behaviors. Specifically, we assessed the mediating role of attentional bias toward social media cues on the relation between boredom susceptibility and internet addiction. Sixty-nine young adults were administered a dot-probe task assessing internet-related attentional bias (AB) and questionnaires measuring internet addiction (IAT) and boredom susceptibility (BS-BSSS). Correlation and t-test analyses confirmed that the tendency to experience boredom and selective attention toward social network information was related to internet addiction. Furthermore, the mediation model indicated that AB fully explains the link between BS-BSSS and IAT. The study highlighted the crucial role of selective attentional processing behind internet addiction. The current results are useful for both researchers and clinicians as they suggest that intervention programs for internet addiction should include strategies to cope with dysfunctional cognitive processes.

Interpersonal trust relies on positive expectations about other people. Social psychology distinguishes ingroup (individuals share social identity, e.g., family) from outgroup trust (individuals do not share social identity, e.g., strangers). We conducted an experimental study to test if divergent thinking, which relies on an inclusive processing mode, differently affected ingroup and outgroup trust during the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 114 healthy college students, with no prior or current COVID-19 infection (mean age = 23.66, sd = 2.53, 89% women) was recruited. Interpersonal trust was measured by three ingroup and three outgroup trust items. Divergent thinking was measured by the alternative uses task, which asked to find alternative uses for common objects. Divergent thinking was scored by two independent raters in terms of fluency and quality of ideas. To control for generalized anxiety and mood states, the generalized anxiety disorder scale and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule were administered, respectively. To control for the inclusiveness of divergent thinking performance, the alternative uses task was administered using three types of instructions. Thus, the sample was divided in three groups of 38 participants according to the divergent thinking task instructions: “be-fluent: find as many different uses for the objects”, “be-creative: find creative uses for the objects”, and “be fluent and creative: find as many different and creative uses of the objects”. The hierarchical regression analyses showed that the quality, but not the quantity of divergent thinking positively predicted only outgroup trust, whereas the mood positively predicted ingroup trust. Divergent thinking task instructions did not affect interpersonal trust. Thus, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the quality of divergent thinking supports only outgroup trust based on the inclusive processing mode, meaning that people showing high ability to produce uncommon, remote and clever ideas are more inclusive and by consequence more prone to trust strangers. Limitations and implications are discussed.

(1) Background: Space tourism (ST) is an emerging frontier in tourism, attracting considerable stakeholders in the era of the New Space Economy. Thus, understanding the intentions and the characteristics of future space travelers is crucial. (2) Methods: Here, we validated the brief 11-item Space Tourism Propensity Questionnaire (STP-Q) and administered it, along with sociodemographic and psychological questionnaires, to 333 undergraduates in order to explore ST propensity and predictive factors. (3) Results: Linear regression analysis revealed that STP-Q scores are influenced by personality traits, particularly sensation seeking, social distance, and conscientiousness. Sensation seeking predicts the intention to engage in future space travel, while trait anxiety negatively impacts it. Surprisingly, neither sociodemographic features nor pro-environmental behaviors predict ST propensity, as expected. (4) Conclusions: The STP-Q is a cost-effective self-report for assessing ST propensity and can contribute to the evolving field of space tourism when used in combination with other questionnaires.

Metacognition is the process of thinking about one's own thinking, learning, and problem-solving strategies. It involves being aware of one's own cognitive processes and knowing how to regulate and monitor them. Sustainability, instead, refers to the ability to maintain or preserve resources and ecosystems for future generations. Here, we draw from the classical metacognitive approach and propose that metacognition plays an important role in sustainability. The PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and MetaAnalyses) Statement was used to perform and recode this review. Given that metacognitive abilities develop early during childhood, metacognition can be viewed as a useful approach to teach pro-environmental behavior from early childhood. Although the interaction between metacognition and sustainability in preschoolers appears to be insufficiently explored, the final aim of this review is to offer a new education-based perspective about metacognition that can be implemented in early childhood to foster pro-environmental actions in the longterm.

Background: Cognitive biases are popular topics in psychology and marketing, as they refer to systematic cognitive tendencies in human thinking that deviate from logical and rational reasoning. The framing effect (FE) and the decoy effect (DE) are examples of cognitive biases that can influence decision making and consumer preferences. The FE involves how options are presented, while the DE involves the addition of a third option that influences the choice between the other two options. Methods: We investigated the interaction between the FE and the DE in the case of both incongruent (ID) and congruent (CD) decoys in a sample of undergraduates (n = 471). The study had a two (positive vs. negative valence) × three (original, congruent decoy, incongruent decoy) within-subject design. Results: The ID option reduces the FE in both positive- and negative-framed conditions compared to the controls, while adding the CD option increases the FE only in the positive-framed condition. Additionally, the inclusion of the CD option enhances the level of decision confidence, whereas no significant differences were found in the ID condition. Conclusions: Our findings gave new insights into the interplay between two of the most frequent cognitive biases.

Measurement(s) emotion - valence & arousal Technology Type(s) Self-Assessment Manikin scale (SAM) Factor Type(s) emotional video stimuli • age group Sample Characteristic - Organism Homo sapiens Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14992173

The COVID-19 pandemic tremendously impacted people’s day-to-day activities and mental health. This article describes the dataset used to investigate the psychological impact of the first national lockdown on the general Italian population. For this purpose, an online survey was disseminated via Qualtrics between 1 April and 20 April 2020, to record various socio-demographic and psychological variables. The measures included both validated (namely, the Impact of the Event Scale-Revised, the Perceived Stress Scale, the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire, the seven-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale, the Big Five Inventory 10-Item, and the Whiteley Index-7) and ad hoc questionnaires (nine items to investigate in-group and out-group trust). The final sample comprised 4081 participants (18–85 years old). The dataset could be helpful to other researchers in understanding the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related preventive and protective measures. Furthermore, the present data might help shed some light on the role of individual differences in response to traumatic events. Finally, this dataset can increase the knowledge in investigating psychological distress, health anxiety, and personality traits.

Abstract Combining Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) with electroencephalography (EEG) offers the opportunity to study signal propagation dynamics at high temporal resolution in the human brain. TMS pulse induces a local effect which propagates across cortical networks engaging distant cortical and subcortical sites. However, the degree of propagation supported by the structural compared to functional connectome remains unclear. Clarifying this issue would help tailor TMS interventions to maximize target engagement. The goal of this study was to establish the contribution of functional and structural connectivity in predicting TMSinduced signal propagation after perturbation of two distinct brain networks. For this purpose, 24 healthy individuals underwent two identical TMS-EEG visits where neuronavigated TMS pulses were delivered to nodes of the default mode network (DMN) and the dorsal attention network (DAN). The functional and structural connectivity derived from each individual stimulation spot were characterized via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and Diffusion Weighted Imaging (DWI), and signal propagation across these two metrics was compared. Direct comparison between the signal extracted from brain regions either functionally or structurally connected to the stimulation sites, shows a stronger activation over cortical areas connected via white matter pathways, with a minor contribution of functional projections. This pattern was not observed when analyzing spontaneous resting state EEG activity. Overall, results suggest that structural links can predict network-level response to perturbation more accurately than functional connectivity. Additionally, DWI-based estimation of propagation patterns can be used to estimate off-target engagement of other networks and possibly guide target selection to maximize specificity.

Mental imagery can be used for recreating an extreme environment experience. Here we assessed whether microgravity effects over cognition, that typically occur during a space mission, may be reproduced via mental imagery. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions in which they were guided to imagine to be (1) in outer space or (2) in a nature scenario and subsequently estimate the weight of common objects. We found that only for those who engaged in a space scenario imagery, there was a decrease in object weight estimation compared with a prior rating. This finding is the first to indicate that the effects of weightlessness on cognition can be simulated via an imagery-based technique and add to the ongoing debate about the importance of trying to disentangle the effect of microgravity alone on human performance. Moreover, our findings ultimately suggest that imagery can be used as a less expensive simulated scenario for studying the impact of extreme environmental conditions over astronauts’ cognition and behavior.

Previous literature suggested that individuals increase temporal and risk discounting at the presence of a proposer whose face is perceived as untrustworthy, suggesting the activation of protective choice patterns. By the way, the COVID-19 pandemic has substantially transformed the way we interact with other people, even bringing us into situations where the face of the person making a proposal is not fully visible, because of the mask. With the current study, we aimed at verifying if the effect of proposer’s facial (un)trustworthiness on discounting behavior is modulated by mask wearing. In two different experiments, participants performed traditional delay and probability discounting tasks with masked proposers manipulated across trustworthiness levels. Results highlighted that, even after checking for subject-specific emotion recognition ability with masked faces, the presence of a masked untrustworthy proposer increases both delay and probability discounting parameters, although the effect is not statistically significant and smaller than the one detected at the presence of an untrustworthy proposer without a mask. These results suggest that the ability to perceive the proposer’s (un)trustworthiness is affected by the mask, with a consequent less strong effect of proposer’s (un)trustworthiness on choice behavior on both intertemporal and risky choices. Limits and possible implications are outlined and discussed.

Background: Space research is shifting attention toward interplanetary expeditions. Therefore, whether long-duration spaceflight may influence affective health is becoming an urgent issue. Method: To this end, we undertook a literature search and reviewed several behavioral simulation studies on Earth that focused on affective components in space. We concluded with studies showing how spaceflight can impact on affective health of astronauts with a positively laden trajectory. Results: By analyzing the multifaceted theoretical concept of affective health, we show that there is a variety of affective states (e.g., stress, coping, adaptation, and resilience) that can be differently affected by spaceflight. Conclusions: Countermeasures geared toward promoting positive emotions could play a key role in positive adaptation to extreme environments and thus during long-duration space missions may benefit. Subjective resilience plays a mediating role in adaptation, but its definition needs to be deepened in order to develop robust countermeasures that may prevent the onset of emotional disorders.

Abstract Background Numerous studies have reported that the repeated presentation of a stimulus leads to an increase in positive affect towards the stimulus itself (the so-called mere exposure effect). Here, we evaluate whether changes in liking due to repetition may have a differential impact on subsequent memories in younger and older adults. Method In two experiments, younger and older adults were asked to rate a series of nonwords (Experiment 1) or unfamiliar neutral faces (Experiment 2) in terms of how much they like them and then presented with a surprise yes–no recognition memory task. At study, items were repeated either consecutively (massed presentation) or with a lag of 6 intervening items (spaced presentation). Results In both experiments, participants rated spaced repeated items more positively than massed items, i.e. they liked them most. Moreover, older adults remembered spaced stimuli that they liked most better than younger adults. Conclusions The findings are discussed in accordance with the mechanisms underlying positivity effects in memory and the effect of repetition on memory encoding.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the obligation to wear surgical face masks have affected social interactions. Wearing a mask can cause impairments in face identification, emotion recognition, and trait impressions. The present study investigated, during the COVID-19 period, age-related differences in perceived trustworthiness (Study 1) and health (Study 2) when viewing faces with or without masks. Younger (YAs, 18–35 years) and older (OAs, over 65 years) adults’ ratings were compared. Through a web-based platform, a series of neutral younger and older faces (YFs vs. OFs) were presented, on a computer screen, with or without a mask (Mask vs. No-Mask), and participants were asked to rate them on a 7-point scale. Furthermore, data collected during the pandemic (Mask and No-Mask conditions) were compared with ratings obtained before it (Pre-COVID condition). Perceived trustworthiness was lower in the No-Mask condition for both age groups compared to Mask and Pre-COVID conditions, which did not differ. For health ratings, no differences emerged for OAs between the conditions, whereas YAs’ ratings were lower in both the Mask and No-Mask conditions compared to the Pre-COVID condition. The fear of contracting COVID-19 affected both trustworthiness and health ratings. Wearing a surgical face mask affects trait impressions for YAs and OAs, partly due to the fear of COVID-19. Trait impressions are also influenced by the age of the face to be evaluated.

The current study investigated mixed-emotional memories in groups of young, young-old, and old-old participants. We used a “word-suffix approach” to simulate the co-occurrence of positive and negative emotions. The participants engaged in a free-recall task for valenced words and mixed-emotional words (valenced words coupled with pejorative or endearment suffixes). Our results showed that the groups of older adults recalled higher numbers of suffixed words compared to their younger counterparts. Our findings highlighted older adults’ tendency to perceive and remember emotionally ambivalent words to a greater extent than younger adults and showed that the young-old participants were particularly good at solving ambivalence by focusing on positive-dominant ambivalent words.

Abstract After the COVID-19 worldwide spread, evidence suggested a vast diffusion of negative consequences on people's mental health. Together with depression and sleep difficulties, anxiety symptoms seem to be the most diffused clinical outcome. The current contribution aimed to examine attentional bias for virus-related stimuli in people varying in their degree of health anxiety (HA). Consistent with previous literature, it was hypothesized that higher HA would predict attentional bias, tested using a visual dot-probe task, to virus-related stimuli. Participants were 132 Italian individuals that participated in the study during the lockdown phase in Italy. Results indicated that the HA level predicts attentional bias toward virus-related objects. This relationship is double mediated by the belief of contagion and by the consequences of contagion as assessed through a recent questionnaire developed to measure the fear for COVID-19. These findings are discussed in the context of cognitive-behavioral conceptualizations of anxiety suggesting a risk for a loop effect. Future research directions are outlined.

Expressed Emotion (EE) describes the tone of a caregiver’s response to a patient with a mental disorder, and it is used to predict relapse. The Five-Minute Speech Sample (FMSS) is a 5-min interview with a caregiver that evaluates only two EE dimensions. The present study aimed at evaluating HEE (High Expressed Emotion) as a predictor of relapse in patients with schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. Six studies were selected for the meta-analysis. In total, the studies included 297 subjects. The analyses included a random effects model; a meta-analysis excluding the study with the smallest sample; a cumulative meta-analysis; a meta-regression with random effects, using patient age and duration of illness as moderators; a leave-one-out meta-analysis; and a funnel plot to estimate publication bias. The FMSS emerged as a valid and reliable tool for measuring EE as a predictor of relapse in patients with schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. Patient age and duration of illness had no significant effect on the results. Future meta-analyses should include more studies to reduce publication bias. EE may be a good predictor of relapse when examined through a fast measurement technique such as the FMSS, which may also be useful to analyze the psychopathological structure of caregivers.

Introduction: The study examined age-related differences between young and older adults’ emotional and psychological experience as well as cognitive functioning throughout different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.Materials and Methods: Participants were interviewed by phone when confined at home during the national lockdown (T1-May 2020; N = 138 young adults; N = 119 older adults) and after the first wave of contagions, when restrictions were discarded (T2-September 2020; N = 52 young adults; N = 59 older adults). A sub-sample also participated in a third assessment (T3-December 2020). Participants completed questionnaires assessing their emotional and psychological functioning (i.e., positive and negative affect, perceived social and emotional loneliness, resilience) along with memory tasks (Backward Digit Span task and words list recall).Results: Although individuals reported less positive and more negative emotions during the lockdown than at T2, results showed that older adults displayed overall fewer negative emotions and greater resilience than young adults. The latter were those who reported feeling more emotionally lonely when compared to their older counterpart during the lockdown than afterward. Older adults’ advantage in emotional and psychological functioning was also confirmed 7 months after the national lockdown. Only age-related differences in favor of young adults for the memory tasks were found. The measures of interest were also susceptible to mood and/or concerns of COVID-19 effects.Discussion: These findings further highlight the age-related advantage of older adults managing the emotional and psychological experience even when facing an unexpected, prolonged, and unpredictable, stressful life event such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

(1) Background: Psychological well-being (PWB) is a multidimensional construct which is a key protective factor against chronic diseases in older adults. Numerous psychological and cognitive factors can influence older people’s PWB. However, while most studies have explored the effect of general cognition, only a few investigated the role of specific cognitive functions such as the efficiency of executive functions. Thus, the present study aimed to directly explore the relationships between PWB, age, and the core executive functions (namely working memory, flexibility, and inhibition). (2) Methods: A sample of 51 healthy older adults (age range: 60–88) were enrolled and tested both for PWB (by Ryff’s psychological well-being scale) and the core executive functions (by the Digit span backward, the Trail Making Test, and the Stroop test). (3) Results: Age and inhibitory skills are negatively correlated to the personal growth subscale of the PWB scale. Moreover, a hierarchical regression analysis showed that inhibition, but not working memory and flexibility, predicted the sense of continued growth and development (personal growth) of older adults, even after controlling for age and educational levels. Limitations and implications for future research and prevention interventions are discussed.

Fighting stress-related effects during spaceflight is crucial for a successful mission. Emotional, motivational, and cognitive mechanisms have already been shown to be involved in the decrease of negative emotions. However, emerging evidence is pointing to a neurogenetic profile that may render some individuals more prone than others to focusing on positive information in memory and increasing affective health. The relevance for adaptation to the space environment and the interaction with other stressors such as ionizing radiations is discussed. In particular, to clarify this approach better, we will draw from the psychology and aging literature data. Subsequently, we report on studies on candidate genes for sensitivity to positive memories. We review work on the following candidate genes that may be crucial in adaptation mechanisms: ADRA2B, COMT, 5HTTLPR, CB1, and TOMM40. The final aim is to show how the study of genetics and cell biology of positive memory can help us to reveal the underlying bottom-up pathways to also increasing positive effects during a space mission.

The current study examines the association of individual hoarding levels with temporal discounting of different commodities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on their hoarding level, participants were assigned to the Hoarding Group (HG) or the Non-Hoarding Group (NHG). Participants performed two delay discounting tasks: a traditional task with monetary options and a modified task, where money was replaced with disposable surgical masks, a needed commodity during the pandemic. Results revealed a stronger preference for immediate commodity, therefore a higher discount rate, when evaluating surgical masks compared to money in the whole sample, and an overall higher tendency in discounting both type of rewards in the NHG compared to the HG. Moreover, non-hoarders discounted money significantly more than hoarders, while no significant differences were detected in the surgical mask version of the task. Possible explanations for this result are discussed in the light of a situational frame that makes salient the notion of scarcity, like the one induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The hoarding dimension of cluttering was found to be the only dimension to significantly correlate with the discount rate on surgical masks. Altogether, these findings shed light on the role of general hoarding level and specific hoarding dimensions on intertemporal preferences with different commodities by contributing to the theoretical debate about impulsivity in hoarders' behavior. Furthermore, the present results help to understand the general population's preferences during times of crisis, thus contributing to the investigation of the effects of COVID-19 on consumers' behavior.

IntroductionThe present pilot study examined to what extent the COVID-19 lockdown affected the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) in people with dementia and worsened their family caregivers’ distress. The associations between changes in the BPSD of relatives with dementia (RwD) and in their caregivers’ distress, and sense of social and emotional loneliness, and resilience were also investigated.Materials and MethodsThirty-five caregivers of RwD attending formal healthcare services before the COVID-19 lockdown volunteered for the study, and were interviewed by phone during the lockdown. Caregivers completed the NeuroPsychiatric Inventory (NPI) to assess their care recipients’ BPSD and their own distress, and two questionnaires assessing their social and emotional loneliness, and their resilience.ResultsNo clear changes emerged in either the BPSD of the RwD or the caregivers’ distress during lockdown compared with before the pandemic. Caregivers reporting more frequent and severe BPSD in their RwD before the lockdown scored higher on emotional loneliness. Those reporting more frequent and severe BPSD under lockdown, especially men and those taking care of RwD with more advanced dementia, scored higher on both social and emotional loneliness. A significant negative correlation also emerged between caregivers’ resilience and changes in their level of distress due to the lockdown, with female caregivers reporting greater resilience.DiscussionOur findings offer preliminary insight on the effects of loneliness and resilience, and on the influence of individual characteristics on the experience and consequences of informal caregiving for RwD in times of restrictions imposed by a pandemic.

The worldwide spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has unpredictably changed the way people live, by influencing their behaviors and beliefs. This article presents the raw data that have been used to investigate how the pandemic affected people's beliefs and expectations about their future. A total of 3991 participants (18–85 years old) were recruited through an online survey using the Qualtrics platform. The data collection was carried out during the Italian lockdown, between April 1st and April 20th, 2020. This survey collected information about psychological and socioeconomic variables related to the COVID-19 emergency. Respondents filled out a battery of questionnaires that included five measures. Three of the measures were specifically developed by the authors: 1. Expected repercussions of COVID-19; 2. Forethought scale; and 3. Perceived financial resources. The two other measures were standardized questionnaires: the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory Short Version (ZTPI-short) and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Data from tailored measures on the COVID-19 pandemic reflect people's beliefs about the future, in terms of expectation about the pandemic's effect, estimation of the time needed for the pandemic to resolve, and estimation of how long people could endure the lockdown situation from a financial perspective. The ZTPI questionnaire was administered to measure people's differences in terms of Deviation from Balanced Time Perspective (DBTP). The PANAS questionnaire, instead, was administered to investigate people's differences in terms of emotional mood states. The provided dataset could be useful to other researchers, considering that the data were collected during the lockdown imposed on Italian citizens to face the unprecedented emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the collected data may help to understand how people coped with the pandemic, both from a psychological and socioeconomic perspective. Finally, this dataset can be included in the broad context of data, procedures, and experimental materials that have been used to expand our knowledge in the study of time perspective, beliefs, and emotions.

Anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccines appear to be the only escape from the COVID-19 pandemic. As healthcare workers were among the first in society to be vaccinated, understanding their emotional status post-vaccination is fundamental to the promotion of COVID-19 vaccines among the rest of society. The aims of this study were to investigate the predictors of positive and negative emotions experienced by healthcare workers after being vaccinated and to understand whether those emotions were related to the modalities of vaccine promotion within the community. A cohort of 5790 Italian healthcare workers completed an original online survey regarding their experience with anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and reported on a series of personal and environmental factors. The data obtained show that increased risk perception of COVID-19, vaccine confidence and receipt of greater quantities of information regarding vaccines are predictors of a more positive emotional state post-vaccination. Predictors of a more negative emotional state are older age, lower education, lower confidence and receipt of smaller quantities of information, in addition to neurotic personality traits and high risk perception of COVID-19. Importantly, vaccination promotion may be favoured by a happy emotional status after vaccination. This study can serve as a source of guidelines for the promotion of COVID-19 vaccination among healthcare workers and laypeople.

The COVID-19 pandemic is far more than a health crisis: it has unpredictably changed our whole way of life. As suggested by the analysis of economic data on sales, this dramatic scenario has also heavily impacted individuals' spending levels. To better understand these changes, the present study focused on consumer behavior and its psychological antecedents. Previous studies found that crises differently affect people's willingness to buy necessities products (i.e., utilitarian shopping) and non-necessities products (i.e., hedonic shopping). Therefore, in examining whether changes in spending levels were associated with changes in consumer behavior, we adopted a fine-grained approach disentangling between necessities and non-necessities. We administered an online survey to 3833 participants (age range 18-64) during the first peak period of the contagion in Italy. Consumer behavior toward necessities was predicted by anxiety and COVID-related fear, whereas consumer behavior toward non-necessities was predicted by depression. Furthermore, consumer behavior toward necessities and non-necessities was predicted by personality traits, perceived economic stability, and self-justifications for purchasing. The present study extended our understanding of consumer behavior changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results could be helpful to develop marketing strategies that consider psychological factors to meet actual consumers' needs and feelings.

Background and Objective: Currently, climate change represents an existential, physical, and psychological threat. Therefore, mitigation and adaptation actions and measures have become increasingly necessary to preserve individual and collective well-being. The psychological distance is one of the main psychological constructs that explains the most concrete or abstract perception of the objects and events surrounding people. The psychological distance is a multidimensional construct, and in accordance with the construal level theory (CLT), temporal, hypothetical, spatial, and social distance are considered the most critical dimensions. This systematic review aims to provide an update of the literature on the role of psychological distance in the commitment to engagement mitigation and adaptation attitudes toward climate change.Method: The review was carried out following PRISMA guidelines and a systematic search was performed on PubMed, Psycinfo, Web of Science, Cochrane, and Scopus databases.Results: Nineteen articles have been identified as being eligible for the final synthesis. Results showed, in general, that individuals have a higher propensity to perform pro-environmental and resilient behaviors against climate change when it is perceived as more proximal and concrete within the construct of psychological distance. However, not all studies show this result. Some studies showed that, despite people considering climate changes as real and tangible, they do not perform mitigation and adaptation behaviors. Other studies showed that people implement these behaviors despite perceiving climate changes as distal and abstract.Conclusions: The current literature shows the existence of a relation among psychological distance and pro-environmental and resilient behaviors applied to climate change. For a deeper understanding of the conflicting results that emerged, more studies are necessary to explore the possible presence of further psychological variables involved in the relation within psychological distance, mitigation, and adaptation in environmental contexts.

Extensive possibilities of applications have rendered emotion recognition ineluctable and challenging in the fields of computer science as well as in human-machine interaction and affective computing. Fields that, in turn, are increasingly requiring real-time applications or interactions in everyday life scenarios. However, while extremely desirable, an accurate and automated emotion classification approach remains a challenging issue. To this end, this study presents an automated emotion recognition model based on easily accessible physiological signals and deep learning (DL) approaches. As a DL algorithm, a Feedforward Neural Network was employed in this study. The network outcome was further compared with canonical machine learning algorithms such as random forest (RF). The developed DL model relied on the combined use of wearables and contactless technologies, such as thermal infrared imaging. Such a model is able to classify the emotional state into four classes, derived from the linear combination of valence and arousal (referring to the circumplex model of affect’s four-quadrant structure) with an overall accuracy of 70% outperforming the 66% accuracy reached by the RF model. Considering the ecological and agile nature of the technique used the proposed model could lead to innovative applications in the affective computing field.

Individual differences in temporal and probabilistic discounting are associated with a wide range of life outcomes in literature. Traditional approaches have focused on impulsiveness and cognitive control skills, on goal-oriented personality traits as well as on the psychological perception of time. More recently, literature started to consider the role of social and contextual factors in discounting behavior. Between others, higher generalized trust in human beings and specific trust in people who will deliver the future/probabilistic rewards have been related to a stronger willingness to wait and to assume risk. Moreover, the tendency to trust others has been associated with the oxytocin receptor gene regulation that can be modified by life experiences. In this perspective, we hypothesized that differences in the tendency to wait and to take risks for a more desirable reward according to the proposer’s trustworthiness could be related to a different level of DNA methylation at the oxytocin receptor gene. Findings confirmed that participants are less willing to wait and to risk when the proposer is considered highly untrustworthy and revealed how higher oxytocin receptor gene DNA methylation is associated with a stronger effect due to the presence of an untrustworthy proposer. Limits and future directions are outlined.

On January 30th 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 pandemic a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). Italy has been one of the most affected countries in the world. To contain further spread of the virus, the Italian government has imposed an unprecedented long-period lockdown for the entire country. This dramatic scenario may have caused a strong psychological distress, with potential negative long-term mental health consequences. The aim of the present study is to report the prevalence of high psychological distress due to the COVID-19 pandemic on the general population, especially considering that this aspect is consistently associated with PTSD symptoms. Furthermore, the present study aims to identify the risk factors for high PTSD symptoms, including individual differences and subjective perception of both economic and psychological aspects. We administered an online survey to 1253 participants during the peak period of the contagion in Italy. A logistic regression on the Impact of Event Scale – Revised (IES-R) scores was used to test the risk factors that predict the possibility to develop PTSD symptoms due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gender (female), lower perceived economic stability, higher neuroticism, and fear and consequences of contagion were predictors of high PTSD symptomatology. The results, highlighted in the present study, extend our understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the population’s mental health, by identifying individuals at high-risk of developing PTSD. This may help with the implementation of specific protocols to prevent the possibility of developing symptoms of PTSD in target populations.

Interrogative suggestibility (IS) describes the extent to which an individual behavioral response is affected by messages communicated during formal questioning within a closed social interaction. The present study aimed at improving knowledge about IS in the elderly (aged 65 years and older), in particular about its association with both emotive/affective and cognitive variables. The sample (N = 172) was divided into three groups on the basis of age: late adult (aged 55-64, N = 59), young elderly (aged 65-74, N = 63), and elderly (aged 75 and older, N = 50). Cognitive (i.e., Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test-2, Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test), emotive/affective (i.e., Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, Penn State Worry Questionnaire) and suggestibility measures (i.e., Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale-2) were administered. In order to identify differences and associations between groups in IS, cognitive and emotive/affective variables, ANOVAs tests and Pearson's correlations were run. Furthermore, moderation analyses and hierarchical regression were set to determine whether age, cognitive and emotive/affective variables predicted IS components (i.e., Yield and Shift). Finally, machine learning models were developed to highlight the best strategy for classifying elderly subjects with high suggestibility. The results corroborated the significant link between IS and age, showing that elderly participants had the worst performance on all suggestibility indexes. Age was also the most important predictor of both Yield and Shift. Results also confirmed the important role of non-verbal intelligence and memory impairment in explaining IS dimensions, showing that these associations were stronger in young elderly and elderly groups. Implications about interrogative procedures with older adults were discussed.

Background and Purpose: A psychological assessment of parents in post-divorce child custody disputes highlighted parents’ motivation to appear as adaptive and responsible caregivers. The study hypothesized that personality self-report measures completed by child custody litigants (CCLs) during a parental skills assessment would show underreporting, rendering the measures worthless. The study also analyzed gender differences in a CCL sample, general CCL profiles, and the implicit structure of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) in the CCL sample.Materials and Methods: The sample comprised 400 CCLs undergoing personality evaluation as part of a parenting skills assessment. The mean age of the 204 mothers was 41.31 years (SD = 6.6), with an overall range of 24–59 years. Mothers had a mean educational level of 14.48 years (SD = 3.2). The 196 fathers were aged 20–59 years (M = 42.31; SD = 7.8), with an average of 14.48 years (SD = 3.9) of education. The MMPI-2-RF was administered. To test the hypotheses, multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) and two-step cluster analyses were run.Results: CCL subjects reported higher scores in underreporting (L-r and K-r) and lower scores in overreporting [F-r, Fp-r, Fs-r, and response bias scale (RBS)] validity scales and restructured clinical (RC) scales, with the exception of RC2 and RC8. RC6 (Ideas of Persecution) was the most elevated. Intercorrelations within the RC scales significantly differed between CCL and normative samples. Women appeared deeply motivated to display a faking-good defensive profile, together with lower levels of cynicism and antisocial behaviors, compared to CCL men. Two-step cluster analyses identified three female CCL profiles and two male CCL profiles. Approximately 44% of the MMPI-2-RF profiles were deemed possibly underreporting and, for this reason, considered worthless.Discussion: The present study adds useful insight about which instruments are effective for assessing the personality characteristics of parents undergoing a parental skills assessment in the context of a child custody dispute. The results show that almost half of the MMPI-2-RF protocols in the CCL sample were worthless due to their demonstration of an underreporting attitude. This highlights the necessity to interpret CCL profiles in light of normative data collected specifically in a forensic setting and the need for new and promising methods of mainstreaming and administering the MMPI-2-RF.

Internet addiction (IA) has mostly been investigated with the fear of missing out and difficulties in emotional regulation. The present study examined the link between IA and variables related to problematic social media use (i.e., fear of missing out, social media addiction), together with emotional (dys)regulation and personality traits, providing new insights and an integrated assessment of IA. In total, 397 participants, aged 18–35 years (M = 22.00; SD = 3.83), were administered a set of questionnaires pertaining to IA, problematic social media use, emotional (dys)regulation, and personality traits. Pearson’s correlations showed significant associations between IA and the investigated variables, and the tested mediation model highlighted the crucial role played by emotional (dys)regulation in the fear of missing out and problematic use of social networks. Overall, the findings provide support for a new integrated model for understanding the features, predictors, and risk factors of IA.

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of type of noise, age, and gender on children’s speech intelligibility (SI) and sentence comprehension (SC). The experiment was conducted with 171 children between 11 and 13 years old in ecologically-valid conditions (collective presentation in real, reverberating classrooms). Two standardized tests were used to assess SI and SC. The two tasks were presented in three listening conditions: quiet; traffic noise; and classroom noise (non-intelligible noise with the same spectrum and temporal envelope of speech, plus typical classroom sound events). Both task performance accuracy and listening effort were considered in the analyses, the latter tracked by recording the response time (RT) using a single-task paradigm. Classroom noise was found to have the worst effect on both tasks (worsening task performance accuracy and slowing RTs), due to its spectro-temporal characteristics. A developmental effect was seen in the range of ages (11–13 years), which depended on the task and listening condition. Gender effects were also seen in both tasks, girls being more accurate and quicker to respond in most listening conditions. A significant interaction emerged between type of noise, age and task, indicating that classroom noise had a greater impact on RTs for SI than for SC. Overall, these results indicate that, for 11- to 13-year-old children, performance in SI and SC tasks is influenced by aspects relating to both the sound environment and the listener (age, gender). The presence of significant interactions between these factors and the type of task suggests that the acoustic conditions that guarantee optimal SI might not be equally adequate for SC. Our findings have implications for the development of standard requirements for the acoustic design of classrooms.

Emotional meta-memory can be defined as the knowledge people have about the strategies and monitoring processes that they can use to remember their emotionally charged memories. Although meta-memory per se has been studied in many cognitive laboratories for many years, fewer studies have explicitly focused on meta-memory for emotionally charged or valenced information. In this brief review, we analyzed a series of behavioral and neuroimaging studies that used different meta-memory tasks with valenced information in order to foster new research in this direction, especially in terms of commonalities/peculiarities of the emotion and meta-memory interaction. In addition, results further support meta-cognitive models that take emotional factors into account when defining meta-memory per se.

Previous studies have shown that higher levels of self-esteem are associated with better academic performance. However, there is no evidence if make-up can indirectly influence academic achievement and cognition through self-esteem. In this study, we examined the possibility that make-up can affect academic performance by asking 186 female undergraduate students to take a simulated university examination. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups, which consisted of wearing make-up, listening to positive music, and face coloring. Results showed that female students who had put make-up on received higher grades compared to those who did not. In addition, these students outperformed students with positive mood only and students who were engaged in a control activity. These findings underline the necessity of adopting a multidimensional approach to learning and memory and attest to the importance of studying further the interaction between physical self-esteem and cosmetics in cognition.

Studies have shown a direct link between memory for emotionally salient experiences and false memories. In particular, emotionally arousing material of negative and positive valence enhanced reality monitoring compared to neutral material since emotional stimuli can be encoded with more contextual details and thereby facilitate the distinction between presented and imagined stimuli. Individuals with schizophrenia appear to be impaired in both reality monitoring and memory for emotional experiences. However, the relationship between the emotionality of the-to-be-remembered material and false memory occurrence has not yet been studied. In this study, twenty-four patients and twenty-four healthy adults completed a false memory task with everyday episodes composed of 12 photographs that depicted positive, negative or neutral outcomes. Results showed how patients with schizophrenia made a higher number of false memories than normal controls (p0.05) resulting from erroneous inferences but did interact with plausible, script consistent errors in patients (i.e. neutral episodes yielded a higher degree of errors than positive and negative episodes. Affective information reduces the probability of generating causal errors in healthy adults but not in patients suggesting that emotional memory impairments may contribute to deficits in reality monitoring in schizophrenia when affective information is involved.

Memory for repeated items improves when presentations are spaced during study. Here, two experiments assessed the so-called spacing effect on a yes–no recognition memory task using affective and neutral words. In Experiment 1, a group of participants was asked to orient their attention to semantic features of target words (deep semantic analysis) that were consecutively repeated or spaced, while another group was engaged in a graphemic shallow analysis of words (Experiment 2). The depth of word processing approach was meant to highlight the role of repetition priming mechanisms in the generation of spacing effects. We found that spacing effects occurred for both affective and neutral words (Experiment 1). However, following shallow analysis of words, the spacing effect was reduced for both affective and neutral words (Experiment 2). No differences were detected in terms of positive versus negative words. These results suggest that spaced learning operates when the to-be-remembered material is also affectively charged and that, under certain circumstances, it may enhance recognition memory as affective connotation does.

Objectives. While self-pain perception has been widely investigated in aging, the perception as well as memory of pain in others has received little attention. Methods. The study was designed as a cross-sectional behavioral study in which a group of 41 younger and a group of 41 older adults evaluated a series of valenced and pain-related pictures and were later required to recall them. Results. We found that older adults judge the stimuli as being less intense compared to their younger counterparts. However, older adults remembered a larger number of pictures with individuals expressing pain compared to pictures with individuals who have neutral or positive facial expressions. Conclusions. Older adults may underestimate emotional intensity in others, but they seem to remember painful information in others as well as younger adults. These data are discussed in terms of theories of pain perception and implications for hospitalization.

We measured activity in the dorsal system of the human cortex with magnetoencephalography (MEG) during a matching-to-sample plus cueing paradigm, where participants judged the occurrence of changes in either categorical or coordinate spatial relations (e.g., exchanges of left versus right positions or changes in the relative distances) between images of pairs of animals. The attention window was primed in each trial to be either small or large by using cues that immediately preceded the matching image. In this manner, we could assess the modulatory effects of the scope of attention on the activity of the dorsal system of the human cortex during spatial relations processing. The MEG measurements revealed that large spatial cues yielded greater activations and longer peak latencies in the right inferior parietal lobe for coordinate trials, whereas small cues yielded greater activations and longer peak latencies in the left inferior parietal lobe for categorical trials. The activity in the superior parietal lobe, middle frontal gyrus, and visual cortex, was also modulated by the size of the spatial cues and by the type of spatial relation change. The present results support the theory that the lateralization of each kind of spatial processing hinges on differences in the sizes of regions of space attended to by the two hemispheres. In addition, the present findings are inconsistent with the idea of a right-hemispheric dominance for all kinds of challenging spatial tasks, since response times and accuracy rates showed that the categorical spatial relation task was more difficult than the coordinate task and the cortical activations were overall greater in the left hemisphere than in the right hemisphere.

The present study investigates hemispheric asymmetries in the neural adaptation processes occurring during alternating auditory stimulation. Stimuli were two monaural pure tones having a frequency of 400 or 800 Hz and a duration of 500 ms. Electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded from 14 volunteers during the presentation of the following stimulus sequences, lasting 12 s each: 1) evoked potentials (EP condition, control), 2) alternation of frequency and ear (FE condition), 3) alternation of frequency (F condition), and 4) alternation of ear (E condition). Main results showed that in the central area of the left hemisphere (around C3 site) the N100 response underwent adaptation in all patterns of alternation, whereas in the same area of the right hemisphere the tones presented at the right ear in the FE produced no adaptation. Moreover, the responses to right-ear stimuli showed a difference between hemispheres in the E condition, which produced less adaptation in the left hemisphere. These effects are discussed in terms of lateral symmetry as a product of hemispheric, pathway and ear asymmetries.

BackgroundIn a previous study, we found that when required to imagine another person performing an action, participants reported a higher correspondence between their own handedness and the hand used by the imagined person when the agent was seen from the back compared to when the agent was seen from the front. This result was explained as evidence of a greater involvement of motor areas in the back-view perspective, possibly indicating a greater proneness to put oneself in the agent's shoes in such a condition. In turn, the proneness to put oneself in another's shoes could also be considered as a cue of greater identification with the other, that is a form of empathy. If this is the case, the proportion of lateral matches vs mismatches should be different for subjects with high and low self-reported empathy. In the present study, we aimed at testing this hypothesis.Methodology/principal findingsParticipants were required to imagine a person performing a single manual action in a back view and to indicate the hand used by the imagined person during movement execution. Consistent with our hypothesis, the proportion of matching between the handedness of participants and the handedness of agents imagined was higher for participants scoring high in a self-report measure of empathy. Importantly, this relationship was specific for females.Conclusions/significanceAt least for females, our data seem to corroborate the idea of a link between self-reported empathy and motor identification with imagined agents. This sex-specific result is consistent with neuroimaging studies indicating a stronger involvement of action representations during emotional and empathic processing in females than in males. In sum, our findings underline the possibility of employing behavioral research as a test-bed for theories deriving from functional studies suggesting a link between empathic processing and the activation of motor-related areas.

The present study investigated emotional memory following bilateral transcranial electrical stimulation (direct current of 1 mA, for 20 minutes) over fronto-temporal cortical areas of healthy participants during the encoding of images that differed in affective arousal and valence. The main result was a significant interaction between the side of anodal stimulation and image emotional valence. Specifically, right anodal/left cathodal stimulation selectively facilitated the recall of pleasant images with respect to both unpleasant and neutral images whereas left anodal/right cathodal stimulation selectively facilitated the recall of unpleasant images with respect to both pleasant and neutral images. From a theoretical perspective, this double dissociation between the side of anodal stimulation and the advantage in the memory performance for a specific type of stimulus depending on its pleasantness supported the specific-valence hypothesis of emotional processes, which assumes a specialization of the right hemisphere in processing unpleasant stimuli and a specialization of the left hemisphere in processing pleasant stimuli. From a methodological point of view, first we found tDCS effects strictly dependent on the stimulus category, and second a pattern of results in line with an interfering and inhibitory account of anodal stimulation on memory performance. These findings need to be carefully considered in applied contexts, such as the rehabilitation of altered emotional processing or eye-witness memory, and deserve to be further investigated in order to understand their underlying mechanisms of action.

Background: Lockdown due to Covid-19 pandemic brought deep changes to the daily lives of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), greatly increasing their amount of time spent at home. Methods: A cohort of 243 parents of children with ASD (2-15 years old) completed an original online survey regarding the child’s screen time and the modification of the ASD symptomatology during lockdown to investigate the relationship between them. Results: The data show that high solitary screen time is related with the worsening of ASD core symptoms. Conclusions: This study may help to increase awareness in the excessive use of screen in children with ASD during the lockdown, both during the pandemic as well as after it ends.