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Moral dilemmas are a useful tool to investigate empirically, which parameters of a given situation modulate participants' moral judgment, and in what way. In an effort to provide moral judgment data from a non-WEIRD culture, we provide the translation and validation of 48 classical moral dilemmas in Persian language. The translated dilemma set was submitted to a validation experiment with N = 82 Iranian participants. The four-factor structure of this dilemma set was confirmed; including Personal Force (Personal, Impersonal), Benefit Recipient (Self, Other), Evitability (Avoidable, Inevitable), and Intentionality (Accidental, Instrumental). When comparing moral judgments of Iranian participants to those of Spanish and Italian participants' from previous research with the same dilemma set, differences emerged. Iranian participants' moral judgments were more deontological (i.e., they refrained from harm), than Spanish and Italian participants. Religiosity made participants' moral judgments more deontological, and also dysphoric mood resulted in a more deontological response style.

Background: Obesity is a multifactorial disease reaching pandemic proportions with increasing healthcare costs, advocating the development of better prevention and treatment strategies. Previous research indicates that the gut microbiome plays an important role in metabolic, hormonal, and neuronal cross-talk underlying eating behavior. We therefore aim to examine the effects of prebiotic and neurocognitive behavioral interventions on food decision-making and to assay the underlying mechanisms in a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT). Method: This study uses a parallel arm RCT design with a 26-week intervention period. We plan to enroll 90 participants (male/diverse/female) living with overweight or obesity, defined as either a Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WHR) ≥ 0.9 (male)/0.85 (diverse, female) or a Body Mass Index (BMI) ≥ 25 kg/m2. Key inclusion criteria are 18–60 years of age and exclusion criteria are type 2 diabetes, psychiatric disease, and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) contraindications. The interventions comprise either a daily supplementary intake of 30 g soluble fiber (inulin), or weekly neurocognitive behavioral group sessions, compared to placebo (equicaloric maltodextrin). At baseline and follow-up, food decision-making is assessed utilizing task-based MRI. Secondary outcome measures include structural MRI, eating habits, lifestyle factors, personality traits, and mood. Further, we obtain fecal and blood samples to investigate gut microbiome composition and related metabolites. Discussion: This study relies on expanding research suggesting that dietary prebiotics could improve gut microbiome composition, leading to beneficial effects on gut-brain signaling and higher-order cognitive functions. In parallel, neurocognitive behavioral interventions have been proposed to improve unhealthy eating habits and metabolic status. However, causal evidence on how these "bottom-up" and "top-down" processes affect food decision-making and neuronal correlates in humans is still scarce. In addition, microbiome, and gut-brain-axis-related mediating mechanisms remain unclear. The present study proposes a comprehensive approach to assess the effects of these gut-brain-related processes influencing food decision-making in overweight and obesity. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05353504. Retrospectively registered on 29 April 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The law assumes that healthy adults are generally responsible for their actions and have the ability to control their behavior based on rational and moral principles. This contrasts with some recent neuroscientific accounts of action control. Nevertheless, both law and neuroscience acknowledge that strong emotions including fear and anger may "trigger" loss of normal voluntary control over action. Thus, "Loss of Control" is a partial defense for murder under English law, paralleling similar defenses in other legal systems. Here we consider the neuroscientific evidence for such legal classifications of responsibility, particularly focussing on how emotional states modulate voluntary motor control and sense of agency. First, we investigate whether neuroscience could contribute an evidence-base for law in this area. Second, we consider the societal impact of some areas where legal thinking regarding responsibility for action diverges from neuroscientific evidence: should we be guided by normative legal traditions, or by modern understanding of brain functions? In addressing these objectives, we propose a translation exercise between neuroscientific and legal terms, which may assist future interdisciplinary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results remain mixed regarding the effects of incubation tasks on divergent thinking, a type of creativity, generally assessed via the Unusual Uses Task (UUT). Using a within-subjects design, we compared 64 participants' performance on the UUT, after four different incubation tasks: copy a simple painting, copy a complex painting, 0-back-task, and rest. We hypothesized that an arts-related activity during incubation (here: copy a painting) would boost subsequent creativity. Five different creativity scores were computed from the raw UUT data, and we provide a step-by-step guide for how to compute these: fluency, flexibility, originality, subjective creativity, and usefulness. Creativity was only modulated by sex; women outperformed men on creative fluency. No other variables, nor the incubations, modulated any of participants' creativity scores. A within-group comparison showed that the unusual uses of our all-Iranian participants were more useful than unique, echoing previous work suggesting differences between Eastern and Western conceptions of creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grouping research participants by culture or language proficiency may no longer suffice to investigate cognitive universals and differences cross-culturally, due to the interconnectedness of our multicultural world. Based on immigration psychology research, we provide a 'proof of principle' for three culture screening tools. Across five online experiments (total N = 440), we developed (1) The Cultural Traditions Questionnaire (CTQ), (2) the Arts Engagement in Childhood Questionnaire (AECQ), and (3) the Enculturation and Acculturation Quiz (EAQ). While these screening tools are tailored to Iranian and English cultures, the procedures provided here are expandable to other cultures. The screening scores predicted emotional attachment to a culture better than traditional variables used in cross-cultural research (self-ascribed culture group, country of residence during formative years, mother tongue). Continuous measures of enculturation and acculturation are potentially better predictors for downstream variables of interest, due to their finer granularity and capability to capture multifaceted cultural identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of human emotion, including some emotion embodiment theories, suggest that our moods and affective states are reflected in the movements of our bodies. We used the reverse process for mood regulation; modulate body movements to regulate mood. Dancing is a type of full‐body movement characterized by affective expressivity and, hence, offers the possibility to express different affective states through the same movement sequences. We tested whether the repeated imitation of a dancer performing two simple full‐body dance movement sequences with different affective expressivity (happy or sad) could change mood states. Computer‐based systems, using avatars as dance models to imitate, offer a series of advantages such as independence from physical contact and location. Therefore, we compared mood induction effects in two conditions: participants were asked to imitate dance movements from one of the two avatars showing: (a) videos of a human dancer model or (b) videos of a robot dancer model. The mood induction was successful for both happy and sad imitations, regardless of condition (human vs. robot avatar dance model). Moreover, the magnitude of happy mood induction and how much participants liked the task predicted work‐related motivation after the mood induction. We conclude that mood regulation through dance movements is possible and beneficial in the work context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People differ in their responsiveness to aesthetic experiences. It is important to understand the role of culture in such individual differences, yet existing tools for assessing aesthetic responsiveness largely focus on North American and European cultures. We created a Farsi translated and culturally adapted version of the Aesthetic Responsiveness Assessment (AReA) and evaluated its psychometric properties. Construct validity and internal consistency were evaluated in a sample of 1,586 participants. Moreover, convergent and discriminant validity were investigated using the Behavioral Avoidance/Inhibition Scales (BIS-BAS), Big Five Inventory-2, Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ), and the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS). Further, the test–retest reliability of AReA was examined for the first time in a subsample of participants (n = 160) who answered the questionnaire again after 6 months. In addition to an acceptable structural validity (comparative fit index, CFI =.905), the Farsi version of AReA showed good internal consistency. Cronbach's α for the overall score was.848 and varied between.64 and.81 for subscales. Concerning convergent and discriminant validity, AReA subscales were positively correlated with subscales of TEPS, the Emotion Evocation subscale of BMRQ, Behavioral Avoidance, and Openness, and were unrelated to Behavioral Inhibition, Conscientiousness, and Negative Emotionality. Moreover, AReA subscales showed different patterns of correlations with other questionnaires. Finally, all subscales of AReA showed high test–retest reliability, ranging from.715 to.778. Our results confirm the validity of the Farsi version of AReA and provide a new measure of aesthetic responsiveness, useful in Farsi-speaking communities, which facilitates cross-cultural research in empirical aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]