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Immersive virtual reality (IVR) and Metaverse applications are gaining attention in the educational field, showing potentials in transforming traditional learning methods by supporting active and experiential forms of learning. Our study, conducted within the context of an Italian university course, employs the Extended Expectation-Confirmation Model (EECM) as a theoretical framework to explore the key aspects of students' acceptance and continued intention to use IVR and Metaverse integrated learning environments in educational settings. The EECM, which bridges the gap between pre-adoption expectations and post-adoption experiences, provides a comprehensive perspective for exploring technology adoption in education. Students' attitudes were assessed before and after they completed an elective course offered by the university that delved into IVR and Metaverse applications. During the course, students explored the theoretical and practical applications of these technologies, engaging in a variety of experiences, from immersive relaxation exercises to immersive educational platforms in the emerging Metaverse. Contrary to common assumptions, pre-adoption factors like performance and effort expectancy had limited impact on expectancy confirmation. However, when students' initial expectations matched their experiences, their perceptions of the technology's usefulness, satisfaction, and confidence in its use were positively enhanced, influencing their continued intention to integrate these tools in education.

BackgroundTransformative experiences (TEs) have been conceptualized in many ways, contexts, magnitudes, and durations, but at their heart, they entail some manner of adjustment, which contributes to changing individuals’ worldviews, actions, views of others and/or their own feelings, personality, and identity. Among the many elicitors identified as being able to foster TEs, an emerging body of literature has suggested that TEs might be prevalent in aesthetics or emerged from encounters with human art. Beyond denoting ordinary moments characterizing our daily lives, art and aesthetics could occasionally represent profound changes, causing shifts in our perceptions, beliefs and understanding of the world. However, in the realm of psychological inquiry, the extent to which art and aesthetics can be considered potential catalysts for transformation remains a topic of debate. Furthermore, a comprehensive identification of the key psychological components that contribute to the process of transformation before, during, and after aesthetic engagement is still missing.AimsThis systematic review endeavors to address these gaps by synthesizing literature on aesthetic transformative experiences either from the field of psychology or explicitly delving into the psychological impact of transformative experiences within the realm of art and aesthetics. It encompasses both theoretical and empirical papers to determine key aspects and psychological components that characterize TEs.MethodsTwo major electronic databases were systematically searched. The review was conducted in accordance with Liberati et al. (2009) and PRISMA guidelines. All stages of the review were conducted independently by three researchers, and the protocol was published on PROSPERO (Registration no.: CRD42022298655).ResultsAlthough 39.440 studies were identified, only 23 peer-reviewed articles were included in this review, as most studies did not explicitly delve into the long-lasting psychological impact of art and aesthetics.DiscussionThe results confirm the potential of art and aesthetics as elicitors of transformation regardless of the type of artwork and the usage context. Moreover, it also identifies some psychological components necessary for transformation in the realm of art and aesthetics, including facilitating conditions/pre-expectations, cognitive discrepancy, epiphany and insight, and several after-effects on the recipient.ConclusionThe review aids in refining and enriching the concept of transformative experience, paving the way for further research and applications in various fields, including not only psychology but also education and therapeutic interventions.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier CRD42022298655.

Abstract Over the last two decades, awe has attracted the attention of an increasing number of researchers. The use of virtual reality has been identified as one of the most effective techniques for eliciting awe, in addition to more personalized methods for inducing emotion, such as autobiographical recall. However, previous measures of awe were unable to uncover the hidden structure of this experience. Awe experience scale (AWE-S) has been validated as a comprehensive measure of contingent awe in English, providing new opportunities for analysis. In this two-phases study, we investigated whether the latent structure of the experience of awe evoked by the autobiographical recall technique (Study 1) overlapped with that induced by exposing participants to a validated virtual reality awe-eliciting training (Study 2). The original English AWE-S structure held both in autobiographical recall induction and virtual reality-based elicitation. Despite evidence of overlap between English and Italian structures, low correlations were found between Italian trait measures used to test the concurrent validity of the AWE-S in the Italian sample and AWE-S state dimensions. This study highlights cultural differences in awe experience, trait, and state variations, and provides new insights into the standardized induction of this emotion through simulated environments.

Abstract Background Virtual Reality (VR) has already emerged as an effective instrument for simulating realistic interactions, across various domains. In the field of User Experience (UX), VR has been used to create prototypes of real-world products. Here, the question is to what extent the users’ experience of a virtual prototype can be equivalent to that of its real counterpart (the real product). This issue particularly concerns the perceptual, cognitive and affective dimensions of users’ experiences. Methods This exploratory study aims to address this issue by comparing the users’ experience of a well-known product, i.e., the Graziella bicycle, presented either in Sumerian or Sansar VR platform, or in a physical setting. Participants’ Emotional Engagement, Sense of Presence, Immersion, and Perceived Product Quality were evaluated after being exposed to the product in all conditions (i.e., Sumerian, Sansar and Physical). Results The findings indicated significantly higher levels of Engagement and Positive Affect in the virtual experiences when compared to their real-world counterparts. Additionally, the sole notable distinction among the VR platforms was observed in terms of Realism. Conclusions This study suggests the feasibility and potential of immersive VR environments as UX evaluation tools and underscores their effectiveness in replicating genuine real-world experiences.

With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), the field of creativity faces new opportunities and challenges. This manifesto explores several scenarios of human--machine collaboration on creative tasks and proposes "fundamental laws of generative AI" to reinforce the responsible and ethical use of AI in the creativity field. Four scenarios are proposed and discussed: "Co-Cre-AI-tion," "Organic," "Plagiarism 3.0," and "Shut down," each illustrating different possible futures based on the collaboration between humans and machines. In addition, we have incorporated an AI-generated manifesto that also highlights important themes, ranging from accessibility and ethics to cultural sensitivity. The fundamental laws proposed aim to prevent AIs from generating harmful content and competing directly with humans. Creating labels and laws are also highlighted to ensure responsible use of AIs. The positive future of creativity and AI lies in a harmonious collaboration that can benefit everyone, potentially leading to a new level of creative productivity respecting ethical considerations and human values during the creative process.

The ubiquity of human art prompted evolutionary psychologists to explore its origins as a potential adaptation to the environment. Here we focus on emotionally charged art and posit that affective affordances embedded into some artworks play a pivotal role in explaining why these artworks are enjoyed from an evolutionary perspective. Such features, recurring in various art forms, are interpreted as cues to the emotional state of others, enabling art consumers to engage in empathetic experiences and vicarious emotions. We explore the adaptive value of deriving pleasure from vicarious emotions, while also addressing the seemingly counterintuitive enjoyment of artworks that evoke negative emotions. We discuss the appreciation of vicarious emotions irrespective of their valence and maintain this appreciation to hold adaptive significance for three key reasons. Firstly, it aids art consumers in refining their interpretational schemes of internal states, potentially enhancing emotional regulation skills. Secondly, it contributes to a deeper understanding of the emotions of others, thereby fostering emotional intelligence and empathy. Lastly, the enjoyment of affectively charged artworks reinforces social cohesion by harmonizing the emotions of group members. This perspective provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the evolutionary underpinnings of the human capacity for art appreciation and emotional engagement.

As ubiquitous technology is increasingly mediating our relationships with the world and others, we argue that the sublime is struggling to find room in product design primarily aimed at commercial and transactional goals such as speed and efficiency. We suggest a new category of products to promote deeper and more meaningful experiences, specifically those offering liminality, transcendence, and personal transformation. This paper introduces a conceptual framework and three-step design approach looking at narrative participation in design through abstractions to promote, hold and deepen more complex emotions. We explore implications from a theoretical point of view and suggest product examples for how the model might be applied in practice.

Since Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement about the development of new three-dimensional virtual worlds for social communication, a great debate has been raised about the promise of such a technology. The metaverse, a term formed by combining meta and universe, could open a new era in mental health, mainly in psychological disorders, where the creation of a full-body illusion via digital avatar could promote healthcare and personal well-being. Patients affected by body dysmorphism symptoms (i.e., eating disorders), social deficits (i.e. autism) could greatly benefit from this kind of technology. However, it is not clear which advantage the metaverse would have in treating psychological disorders with respect to the well-known and effective virtual reality (VR) exposure therapy. Indeed, in the last twenty years, a plethora of studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of VR technology in reducing symptoms of pain, anxiety, stress, as well as, in improving cognitive and social skills. We hypothesize that the metaverse will offer more opportunities, such as a more complex, virtual realm where sensory inputs, and recurrent feedback, mediated by a “federation” of multiple technologies - e.g., artificial intelligence, tangible interfaces, Internet of Things and blockchain, can be reinterpreted for facilitating a new kind of communication overcoming self-body representation. However, nowadays a clear starting point does not exist. For this reason, it is worth defining a theoretical framework for applying this new kind of technology in a social neuroscience context for developing accurate solutions to mental health in the future.

In a society where advances and innovations occur on a daily basis, outreach and meaningful engagement with the general public become more challenging. The amount of information produced and repackaged surpasses existing systems in place to ensure truthful and factual engagement with the public, especially with complex matters regarding health science. This perspective paper discusses the value of contextualization and optimization for creating transparent and engaging content. We reflect on the innovative Transformative Storytelling Technique as a new category creating hybrid content to guide the experience of audiences, starting with the case of informal caregivers helping individuals living with neurological conditions. Moreover, we share our perspective on the important considerations for current and future development of highly targeted content using this technique. We include reflexions around the risks and ethical principles needed in the utilization and dissemination of “guided” content for the general public.

BackgroundThe transformative storytelling technique is an innovative top-down approach to narrative therapy that aims to provide building blocks for creating flourishing narratives for target groups or populations. This approach acts as a facilitator for implementing the human-centered design in developing digital self-help tools for larger samples or target groups. ObjectiveThis study applied the transformative storytelling technique, as a new approach in mental health, to develop empowering audio narratives for informal caregivers. MethodsA narrative inquiry was conducted with 17 informal caregivers (16 women and 1 man) who completed a semistructured interview, “Caregiver Life Story,” acquiring information about the beginning of the role, rising action, and critical point of the role. The participants’ ages ranged from 41 to 84 years, with all participants providing care for at least a 6-month period. This inquiry was guided by the transformative storytelling technique, and aimed to collect data relevant to creating fictional stories based on real-life themes. ResultsTwenty-five overall themes were distinguished across three a priori–set categories, providing narrative building blocks for the informal caregiver life stories. The final empowering caregiver life story was created as an example for this study, demonstrating the application of the transformative storytelling technique in an informal care context. ConclusionsThe creation of empowering stories for populations or target groups in mental health care requires a unified and guided approach that will follow clear guidelines and storytelling principles. The transformative storytelling technique is a first of its kind in the mental health context, representing an initial step in enabling and supporting the creation of meaningful stories and the development of relatable, but productive, narratives. Such narratives have the potential to serve across media and digital platforms for supporting and improving well-being, and potentially triggering self-change in the target group or population.

The concept of transformative experience (TE) has been widely explored by several disciplines from philosophy to neurobiology, and in different domains, from the spiritual to the educational one. This attitude has engendered heterogeneous models to explain this phenomenon. However, a consistent and clear understanding of this construct remains elusive. The aim of this work is to provide an initial comprehensive interdisciplinary, cross-domain, up-to-date, and integrated overview on the concept of TEs. Firstly, all the models and theories on TEs were reviewed to extract and analyze TEs’ main components emerging from different disciplines. Then, this preliminary analysis was integrated with an in-depth examination of redundancies and particularities across domains and disciplines, to provide an integrated theoretical framework of TEs and a preliminary interdisciplinary operational definition of TEs. This examination, in turn, can help organize current research and theories, thus providing suggestions for operationalizing TEs as well as encouraging new interdisciplinary research endeavors.

Cognitive frailty is defined as a clinical condition characterized by both physical frailty and cognitive impairment, without reaching the criteria for dementia. The major goal of rehabilitation intervention is to assist patients in performing ordinary personal duties without the assistance of another person, or at the very least to remove the need for additional support, using adaptive approaches and facilities. In this regard, home-based rehabilitation allows patients to continue an intervention begun in a hospital setting while also ensuring support and assistance when access to healthcare systems is limited, such as during the present pandemic situation. We thus present Brain m-App, a tablet-based application designed for home-based cognitive rehabilitation of frail subjects, addressing spatial memory, attention, and executive functions. This app exploits the potential of 360° videos which are well-suited to home-based rehabilitation. The Brain m-app is made up of 10 days of activities that include a variety of exercises. The activities were chosen based on those patients used to do during their clinical practice in the hospital with the aim to improve their independence and autonomy in daily tasks. The preliminary usability test, which was conducted on five older people, revealed a sufficient level of usability, however, the sample size was modest. Results from the clinical study with 10 patients, revealed that Brain m-App improved especially executive functions and memory performances.

Symptoms of psychological distress and disorder have been widely reported in people under quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic; in addition to severe disruption of peoples’ daily activity and sleep patterns. This study investigates the association between physical-activity levels and sleep patterns in quarantined individuals. An international Google online survey was launched in April 6th, 2020 for 12-weeks. Forty-one research organizations from Europe, North-Africa, Western-Asia, and the Americas promoted the survey through their networks to the general society, which was made available in 14 languages. The survey was presented in a differential format with questions related to responses “before” and “during” the confinement period. Participants responded to the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire and the short form of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. 5056 replies (59.4% female), from Europe (46.4%), Western-Asia (25.4%), America (14.8%) and North-Africa (13.3%) were analysed. The COVID-19 home confinement led to impaired sleep quality, as evidenced by the increase in the global PSQI score (4.37 ± 2.71 before home confinement vs. 5.32 ± 3.23 during home confinement) (p < 0.001). The frequency of individuals experiencing a good sleep decreased from 61% (n = 3063) before home confinement to 48% (n = 2405) during home confinement with highly active individuals experienced better sleep quality (p < 0.001) in both conditions. Time spent engaged in all physical-activity and the metabolic equivalent of task in each physical-activity category (i.e., vigorous, moderate, walking) decreased significantly during COVID-19 home confinement (p < 0.001). The number of hours of daily-sitting increased by ~2 hours/days during home confinement (p < 0.001). COVID-19 home confinement resulted in significantly negative alterations in sleep patterns and physical-activity levels. To maintain health during home confinement, physical-activity promotion and sleep hygiene education and support are strongly warranted.

Although recognised as effective measures to curb the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak, social distancing and self-isolation have been suggested to generate a burden throughout the population. To provide scientific data to help identify risk factors for the psychosocial strain during the COVID-19 outbreak, an international cross-disciplinary online survey was circulated in April 2020. This report outlines the mental, emotional and behavioural consequences of COVID-19 home confinement. The ECLB-COVID19 electronic survey was designed by a steering group of multidisciplinary scientists, following a structured review of the literature. The survey was uploaded and shared on the Google online survey platform and was promoted by thirty-five research organizations from Europe, North Africa, Western Asia and the Americas. Questions were presented in a differential format with questions related to responses “before” and “during” the confinement period. 1047 replies (54% women) from Western Asia (36%), North Africa (40%), Europe (21%) and other continents (3%) were analysed. The COVID-19 home confinement evoked a negative effect on mental wellbeing and emotional status (P < 0.001; 0.43 ≤ d ≤ 0.65) with a greater proportion of individuals experiencing psychosocial and emotional disorders (+10% to +16.5%). These psychosocial tolls were associated with unhealthy lifestyle behaviours with a greater proportion of individuals experiencing (i) physical (+15.2%) and social (+71.2%) inactivity, (ii) poor sleep quality (+12.8%), (iii) unhealthy diet behaviours (+10%), and (iv) unemployment (6%). Conversely, participants demonstrated a greater use (+15%) of technology during the confinement period. These findings elucidate the risk of psychosocial strain during the COVID-19 home confinement period and provide a clear remit for the urgent implementation of technology-based intervention to foster an Active and Healthy Confinement Lifestyle AHCL).

Despite a rapidly ageing world population, ageism – particularly in its implicit form – is widespread in society. In this article, we propose that a paradigm shift is needed in how we approach ageing-related design research and practice in areas such as assistive technologies. We also put forward the idea of using the Healthy Ageing (HA) framework of the WHO as the basis for new lines actions that can be taken by design researchers and practitioners to address implicit ageism in society through their work.

BackgroundThe worldwide increase in community-dwelling people with dementia underscores the need for innovative eHealth technologies that aim to provide support to both patients and their informal caregivers in the home setting. However, sustainable implementation of eHealth technologies within this target group can be difficult. ObjectiveThe goal of this study was to gain a thorough understanding of why it is often difficult to implement eHealth technologies in practice, even though numerous technologies are designed to support people with dementia and their informal caregivers at home. In particular, our study aimed to (1) provide an overview of technologies that have been used and studied in the context of informal dementia care and (2) explore factors influencing the implementation of these technologies. MethodsFollowing an umbrella review design, five different databases were searched (PubMed, PsycINFO, Medline, Scopus, and Cochrane) for (systematic) reviews. Among 2205 reviews retrieved, 21 were included in our analysis based on our screening and selection procedure. A combination of deductive and inductive thematic analyses was performed, using the Nonadoption, Abandonment, Scale-Up, Spread, and Sustainability (NASSS) framework for organizing the findings. ResultsWe identified technologies designed to be used “by informal caregivers,” “by people with dementia,” and “with people with dementia.” Within those groups, most of the represented technologies included, respectively: (i) devices for in-home monitoring of lifestyle, health, and safety; (ii) technologies for supporting memory, orientation, and day structure; and (iii) technologies to facilitate communication between the informal caregiver and person with dementia. Most of the identified factors influencing implementation related to the condition of dementia, characteristics of the technology, expected/perceived value of users, and characteristics of the informal caregiver. Considerably less information has been reported on factors related to the implementing organization and technology supplier, wider institutional and sociocultural context of policy and regulations, and continued adaptation of technology over time. ConclusionsOur study offers a comprehensive overview of eHealth technologies in the context of informal dementia care and contributes to gaining a better understanding of a broad range of factors influencing their implementation. Our results uncovered a knowledge gap regarding success factors for implementation related to the organizational and broader context and continuous adaptation over the long term. Although future research is needed, the current findings can help researchers and stakeholders in improving the development and implementation of eHealth technologies to support informal dementia care.

This research project has the goal to verify whether the application of neuromarketing techniques, such as implicit association test (IAT) techniques and emotional facial expressions analyses may contribute to the assessment of user experience (UX) during and after website navigation. These techniques have been widely and positively applied in assessing customer experience (CX); however, little is known about their simultaneous application in the field of UX. As a specific context, the experience raised by different websites from two well-known automotive brands was compared. About 160 Italian university students were enrolled in an online experimental study. Participants performed a Brand Association Reaction Time Test (BARTT) version of the IAT where the two brands were compared according to different semantic dimensions already used in the automotive field. After completing the BARTT test, the participants navigated the target website: 80 participants navigated the first brand website, while the other half navigated the second brand website (between-subject design). During the first 3 min of website navigation, emotional facial expressions were recorded. The participants were asked to freely navigate the website home page, look for a car model and its characteristics and price, use the customising tool, and in the end, look for assistance. After the website navigation, all the participants performed, a second time, the BARTT version of the IAT, where the two brands were compared again, this time to assess whether the website navigation may impact the Implicit Associations previously detected. A traditional evaluation of the two websites was carried on by means of the classic heuristic evaluation. Findings from this study show, first of all, the significant results provided by neuromarketing techniques in the field of UX, as IAT can provide a positive application for assessing UX played by brand websites, thanks to the comparison of eventual changes in time reaction between the test performed before and after website navigation exposure. Secondly, results from emotional facial expression analyses during the navigation of both brand websites showed significant differences between the two brands, allowing the researchers to predict the emotional impact raised by each website. Finally, the positive correlation with heuristic evaluation shows that neuromarketing can be successfully applied in UX.

The existing interventions for informal caregivers assist with managing health outcomes of the role burden. However, the deeper meaning-making needs of informal caregivers have been generally neglected. This paper reflects on the meaning-making needs of informal caregivers, through the theory of narrative identity, and proposes a new approach – the Transformative Video Design technique delivered via video storytelling. Transformative Video Design assists informal caregivers to re-create a cohesive caregiving story and incorporate it into the narrative identity. The technique is used as a stimulus for triggering the self-re-structure within the narrative identity and facilitating role transformation.