Search

The monk seal is the most endangered pinniped in the world and the only one found in the Mediterranean, where its distribution and abundance have suffered a drastic decline in the last few decades. Data on its status are scattered due to both its rarity and evasiveness and records are biased towards occasional, mostly coastal encounters. Nowadays, molecular techniques allow us to detect and quantify minute amounts of DNA traces released into the environment (eDNA) by any organism. A species-specific molecular assay is now available for detecting the recent presence of the monk seal in the water column through the analysis of sea-water samples collected from the sea surface. The project “Spot the Monk” uses this non-invasive detection tool to monitor monk seal occurrence in Mediterranean waters by means of eDNA analysis. The simplicity in the acquisition of samples together with the need to collect samples in multiple points simultaneously made the project well suited to the involvement of the general public. Up to today, about 350 samples have been collected and analysed in the central-western Mediterranean by researchers and a multifarious range of citizen scientists - from recreational sailing organisations, both amateur and competitive sportsmen, to fishermen. This work announces the launch of an open-source Observatory (https://www.spot-themonk- observatory.com/) where the project outcomes are publicly accessible as soon as they are produced. Embracing the principles of Open Science, we believe that such an approach can contribute to filling the knowledge gap about the distribution of this charismatic species in our seas, providing, at the same time, a proof of concept on how data collected by a variety of actors can be returned to the scientific and non-scientific communities in an innovative format for immediate consultation.

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.

Over the last few years, the use of social media has been increasing exponentially. At the same time, several studies have reported an intensification of materialistic tendencies, especially among the youth, those who use social media the most. Although several studies have already investigated the consequences of their use, more is needed to know about the association between social media and materialism. Instagram is one of the most widely used social media in the world, not only to share personal content but also to advertise products and services, enabling users themselves to earn money through the publication of commercial content. Through a correlational study (N = 480), we verified the link between the use of Instagram and materialism. Additionally, we proposed the existence of a connection between Instagram, materialism, the objectification of others, and system justification beliefs. Furthermore, the analysis of the direct and indirect effects showed that the link between the use of Instagram and both the objectification of others and system justification beliefs is mediated by materialism. Moreover, using Instagram to achieve economic benefits can play a fundamental role. Finally, the implications of these results are discussed. Given the negative impact of materialism, objectification of others, and system justification in perpetuating socioeconomic inequalities, this study provides significant new insights into examining the relationship between these factors and social media usage.

Coral reefs are suffering from both natural and anthropogenic stressors which are posing threats to the survival of countries that completely rely on them for their ecosystem services, such as the Republic of Maldives. In the last years, Maldivian reefs have undergone severe mass bleaching such as the 2016 event which impacted 73% of the corals. This couples with threats posed by corallivore outbreaks, coral diseases, human activities, and pollution. In this context, billions of coral colonies, potentially including the most enigmatic, resistant, and ancient ones—colonies over 5m, likely centennial—such as the giant corals, are at risk. These individuals hold unique information from biological, genetic, and paleoclimatic perspectives, having withstood environmental perturbations. They might hold the key to coral reef resilience. We present preliminary findings of giant coral colonies in the Maldives, located with the assistance of citizen scientists. The data provided was collected based on two levels of complexity, dependent on participants' level of expertise. Colonies have been identified across multiple atolls, with a seemingly higher abundance in the southern part of the archipelago. As expected, Porites sp. is the most common genus identified, with colonies exhibiting various growth forms, often found on slopes of channels and reaching lengths of over 10 m. The objective of this work is to raise awareness about the importance and fragility of these organisms, moreover to provide the Maldivian government with a map of potentially sensitive areas worthy of protection. Additionally, the data serve as the foundation for future studies by experts in different fields.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly developing technology that has the potential to create previously unimaginable chances for our societies. Still, the public's opinion of AI remains mixed. Since AI has been integrated into many facets of daily life, it is critical to understand how people perceive these systems. The present work investigated the perceived social risk and social value of AI. In a preliminary study, AI's social risk and social value were first operationalized and explored by adopting a correlational approach. Results highlighted that perceived social value and social risk represent two significant and antagonistic dimensions driving the perception of AI: the higher the perceived risk, the lower the social value attributed to AI. The main study considered pretested AI applications in different domains to develop a classification of AI applications based on perceived social risk and social value. A cluster analysis revealed that in the two-dimensional social risk × social value space, the considered AI technologies grouped into six clusters, with the AI applications related to medical care (e.g., assisted surgery) unexpectedly perceived as the riskiest ones. Understanding people's perceptions of AI can guide researchers, developers, and policymakers in adopting an anthropocentric approach when designing future AI technologies to prioritize human well-being and ensure AI's responsible and ethical development in the years to come.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a rapidly expanding field that aims to develop machines capable of performing tasks that were previously considered unique to humans, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making. The recent release of several tools based on AI (e.g. ChatGPT) has sparked debates on the potential of this technology and garnered widespread attention in the mainstream media. Using a socio-psychological approach, in three studies (total N = 410), we demonstrate that when faced with Generative AI’s ability to reproduce the complexity of human cognitive capabilities, participants reported significantly higher negative emotions than those in the control group. In turn, negative emotions elicited by a specific type of AI (e.g. generative AI) were associated to the perception of threat extended to AI technologies as a whole, understood as a threat to various aspects of human life, including jobs, resources, identity, uniqueness, and value. Our findings emphasise the importance of considering emotional and societal impacts when developing and deploying advanced AI technologies and implementing responsible guidelines to minimise adverse effects. As AI technology advances, addressing public concerns and regulating its usage is crucial for the benefit of society. To achieve this goal, collaboration between experts, policymakers, and the public is necessary.

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.

Artificial intelligence’s (AI) progress holds great promise in tackling pressing societal concerns such as health and climate. Large Language Models (LLM) and the derived chatbots, like ChatGPT, have highly improved the natural language processing capabilities of AI systems allowing them to process an unprecedented amount of unstructured data. However, the ensuing excitement has led to negative sentiments, even as AI methods demonstrate remarkable contributions (e.g. in health and genetics). A key factor contributing to this sentiment is the misleading perception that LLMs can effortlessly provide solutions across domains, ignoring their limitations such as hallucinations and reasoning constraints. Acknowledging AI fallibility is crucial to address the impact of dogmatic overconfidence in possibly erroneous suggestions generated by LLMs. At the same time, it can reduce fear and other negative attitudes toward AI. This necessitates comprehensive AI literacy interventions that educate the public about LLM constraints and effective usage techniques, i.e. prompting strategies. With this aim, a pilot educational intervention was performed in a high school with 21 students. It involved presenting high-level concepts about intelligence, AI, and LLMs, followed by practical exercises involving ChatGPT in creating natural educational conversations and applying established prompting strategies. Encouraging preliminary results emerged, including high appreciation of the activity, improved interaction quality with the LLM, reduced negative AI sentiments, and a better grasp of limitations, specifically unreliability, limited understanding of commands leading to unsatisfactory responses, and limited presentation flexibility. Our aim is to explore AI acceptance factors and refine this approach for more controlled future studies.

Educational chatbots come with a promise of interactive and personalized learning experiences, yet their development has been limited by the restricted free interaction capabilities of available platforms and the difficulty of encoding knowledge in a suitable format. Recent advances in language learning models with zero-shot learning capabilities, such as ChatGPT, suggest a new possibility for developing educational chatbots using a prompt-based approach. We present a case study with a simple system that enables mixed-turn chatbot interactions and discuss the insights and preliminary guidelines obtained from initial tests. We examine ChatGPT's ability to pursue multiple interconnected learning objectives, adapt the educational activity to users' characteristics, such as culture, age, and level of education, and its ability to use diverse educational strategies and conversational styles. Although the results are encouraging, challenges are posed by the limited history maintained for the conversation and the highly structured form of responses by ChatGPT, as well as their variability, which can lead to an unexpected switch of the chatbot's role from a teacher to a therapist. We provide some initial guidelines to address these issues and to facilitate the development of effective educational chatbots.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to several changes in academic teaching practices. Although educational digital technologies have been crucial during the initial phases of the pandemic, their forced adoption has led to negative consequences. In the present study, we aimed to integrate the Technology Acceptance Model theoretical framework (Davis, 1989) by exploring the effects of some possible factors that influence the willingness to adopt digital learning tools in the future when the pandemic is over. Among them, technostress was considered one of the external factors that could have adversely affected digital teaching technology adoption in the future. In contrast, the perception of technical support offered by the university was considered a potential protective factor. A total of 463 Italian university faculty completed an online questionnaire at the end of the first semester (a.y. 2020–21). The frequency of distance teaching technologies usage behavior was measured objectively by extracting teachers' activities from the University's e-learning databases. Key findings indicated that distance teaching technologies' frequency of use increased technostress, which in turn negatively impacted the perception of ease of use. The latter influences - both directly and indirectly through perceived usefulness - the intentions to adopt distance learning tools after the pandemic. Organizational support negatively predicted technostress. Implications to help public institutions develop functional strategies to cope with the technological changes brought by the pandemic are discussed.

The previous industrial revolutions have profoundly changed the world we live in, bringing prosperity but also affecting workers’ well-being. Today, the advent of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence has enabled what scholars call datafication, and experts posit that these technologies will reduce inequalities and make work effortless. However, other authors have opposite positions. In the present theoretical work, modern forms of labor, increasingly relying on data analysis, are interpreted through the framework of objectification. Integrating different disciplinary perspectives, we propose that workers can be seen as raw material from which to extract information, leading to the rise of Digital Taylorism. Therefore, it is necessary to question the psychological costs of adopting these technologies in the workplace: will workers feel more like data than persons? The present paper attempts to answer this question, anticipating the consequences of a digital revolution that is changing work environments and providing insights for future research.