Response inhibition is a multifaceted process involving either the ability to withhold a speeded motor response prior to its initiation, or the ability to cancel a response after it has been initiated (Wright et al., 2014). Individual differences in the ability to withhold inappropriate responses have been extensively investigated with different variants of the Go/No-Go task (e.g., Chowdhury...
Aim: The study aims to validate a revised version of the SCRAM questionnaire, called rSCRAM, which incorporates items to measure anxious mood alongside sleep quality, chronotype, and depressive symptomatology. Materials and Methods: Data from 486 Italian participants aged 18 to 77(343 F, Age M = 26.9 ± 10.1) underwent two distinct analyses. In Study 1, a principal component analysis (PCA) was...
In the verbal Stroop Task, the interference induced by irrelevant information was observed to have a graded impact on the Stroop Effect, dependent on the strength of semantic relationships between relevant and irrelevant stimulus dimensions (i.e., Semantic Gradient). While some studies have shown the predictive power of continuous similarity measures at the item level, others have...
Interoception, the perception of the body’s physiological condition, underlies fundamental emotional and cognitive processes. However, how the conscious representation of bodily signals influences the understanding of others' minds remains unclear. This study aims to investigate whether individual differences in the interoceptive processing, in terms of interoceptive accuracy (IAcc),...
Reading plays an important role in functional maintenance, preserving significantly cognitive functions in ageing individuals and allowing people to keep up to date, ensure continuous training for a complex task, and experience emotions.
To investigate the relationship between normal ageing and reading skills, we tested a novel experimental protocol that combines measures of visual crowding...
La Motivation to have a Child Scale (MCS; Brenning et al., 2015; Gauthier et al., 2007) rileva la motivazione ad avere un figlio nell’ottica della Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000). La scala comprende 20 item che valutano 5 tipi di motivazione. Vari studi hanno fornito evidenze empiriche a supporto di buone proprietà psicometriche della stessa, suggerendo che possa essere uno...
Forensic psychiatric evaluations are mandatory for the insanity assessment but face significant challenges related to their accuracy, accountability, and transparency. The lack of standardised methods makes it extremely difficult for experts to agree on insanity evaluations. A comprehensive understanding of the assessment processes and the biases influencing forensic psychologists and...
Theoretical models of autobiographical memory often describe two distinct retrieval modes which can be utilised to retrieve past events. Direct retrieval is considered effortless and immediate, whilst generative retrieval requires a deliberate search process to successfully access a memory. To our knowledge, no study has explored how these two retrieval modes differ in relation to their neural...
Our brain deals with visual impressions that change continually. Nonetheless, we experience the world as fairly stable. The neural basis of size constancy, i.e., the ability to achieve a stable experience of size even if the images projected onto the retina vary with viewing distance, remains largely unknown. In this study, we explored the temporal dynamics of the neural networks responsible...
The psychological perception of time can expand or contract based on various non-temporal dimensions, one of which is motion. Prior research has established that moving subjects are perceived to last longer than static ones, even when motion is implied through static images depicting dynamic scenes. This study further examines how implied motion and subject category - distinguishing between...
Individuals constantly exert inhibitory control over their thoughts and behaviors to plan actions that compete with habits and impulses. Cognitive inhibition enhances the selection of task-relevant stimuli and is closely related to neural changes that occur across the lifespan.
Since few studies have focused on the entire lifespan, this study aimed to assess cognitive inhibition abilities in...
Al giorno d’oggi siamo obbligati a interagire con la tecnologia per accedere a molti servizi essenziali come le operazioni bancarie, quelle amministrative e quelle anagrafiche. Mentre le nuove generazioni hanno acquisito la capacità di svolgere tali attività direttamente nel mondo digitale, le vecchie generazioni, abituate a eseguirle nel mondo fisico, si trovano costrette a adattarsi alla...
Un recente filone di ricerca si è focalizzato nella comprensione dei meccanismi e dei processi alla base dei bias cognitivi, all’interno di contesti sperimentali ove tali fenomeni risultano ridotti nella loro entità.
Con particolare riferimento all'euristica di causalità, per la quale le persone sono portate ad inferire una relazione causale anche quando questa non è presente, il nostro...
L’Affective Computing (AC) è una branca dell'Intelligenza Artificiale (IA) che si occupa di studiare e sviluppare sistemi e dispositivi in grado di riconoscere, interpretare, elaborare e simulare le emozioni umane, con l’aiuto di interfacce informatiche. Negli ultimi decenni, l’AC è stata adoperata in diversi ambiti applicativi, incluso il contesto bancario, per fornire migliori servizi...
All’interno dell’indagine scientifica sulle emozioni, si sta affermando un approccio che valorizza il ruolo della cultura e del contesto nel dare forma alle emozioni (es., il paradigma costruttivista). Tuttavia, l’influenza di cultura e contesto restano complessi da analizzare e tale impresa diviene ancora più ardua se ci si focalizza su concetti emotivi complessi. È il caso della nostalgia,...
Mixed transcortical aphasia (MTA) represents an uncommon aphasic syndrome, characterized by severe deficits in both comprehension and production across oral and written linguistic modalities. Individuals affected by MTA typically demonstrate retention of repetition abilities, often manifesting as echolalia. In the present single case study, we report the case of a woman who presented with MTA...
The field of dream engineering aims to develop techniques to modify nocturnal dreams systematically to investigate their significance and function. The so-called targeted memory reactivation (TMR) protocol involves pre-sleep associative conditioning, where a memory task is learned while sensory cues are presented. Presenting these cues during sleep has been shown to bias memory consolidation...
Evidence shows that physical exercise (PE) improves psychological wellbeing. PE induces the release of endorphins, which in turn increase the production of dopamine. This rising has been associated with increased risk-taking and reward-seeking behavior. However, some evidence points out that physical exercise acutely reduces risk-taking related to substances abuse, decreasing cravings.
To...
This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a program specifically designed to address anxiety related to the practical driving test. A total of seventy candidates from a driving school course were selected from a larger group of 250 students based on their high test anxiety scores. These participants were randomly divided into two groups: the experimental group, which received training...
Metacognition, defined as the awareness and regulation of one's cognitive abilities, plays a crucial role in academic performance. Recent studies have highlighted how metacognition significantly influences academic outcomes through students' ability to monitor and regulate their own learning. Despite these insights, there remains a notable gap in the availability of psychometric tools...
Schizophrenia (SZ) is one of the most debilitating psychiatric disorder, in which the crucial role of cognitive deficits has been increasingly identified. However, the neural correlates underlying these impairments are still largely unknown. The cerebellum, conventionally tied to motor functions, is now recognized as a key region for cognition, and evidence of cerebellar abnormalities has been...
Introduction. Creativity is the capacity to conceive original ideas, solutions, and new concepts, this includes divergent thinking, defined as the ability to think outside of established patterns1. Previous studies had examined the connection between creativity and schizophrenia, but the results were heterogeneous and contradictory2.
In this study, we aim to explore the association between...
While a robust body of studies suggests that motor performance and imagery share similar cortical networks, it remains unclear whether they also share the same representational organization. A previous study investigated the representational structure of three hand-action types during execution or imagery in motor-related areas. The results showed distinguishable response patterns but a...
I deficit di memoria episodica hanno una elevata prevalenza nei pazienti con stroke.
Riportiamo i risultati di un trial che ha indagato gli effetti sulla memoria episodica di un dispositivo medico che combina adattamento prismatico con training cognitivo mediante serious games (Mindlenses Professional) in pazienti con stroke.
Il trial ha reclutato 60 pazienti con stroke focale unilaterale:...
Nelle relazioni di aiuto, i processi di regolazione emotiva rappresentano l’obiettivo terapeutico, influenzato dalla modalità di sincronizzazione tra terapeuta e paziente. Numerosi studi hanno esplorato i processi di sincronizzazione, integrando misure esplicite con indicatori fisiologici come battito cardiaco (HR) e conduttanza cutanea (SC). Il presente studio coinvolge studenti che accedono...
Interpersonal communication in the twenty-first century is increasingly taking place within digital media. This poses the problem of understanding the factors that may facilitate or hinder communication processes in virtual contexts. Digital media require a human-machine interface, and the analysis of human-machine interfaces traditionally focuses on the dimension of usability. However,...
Obiettivi. Nella letteratura scientifica esistono diverse misure di esito riportate dai pazienti (PROMs) che misurano la qualità della vita (QoL) e la qualità della vita associata alla salute (HRQoL) delle persone con sclerosi multipla (SM). Tuttavia, non si ha conoscenza di quali tra questi strumenti siano i migliori in termini di validità, attendibilità, responsiveness ed interpretabilità....
The term "additive bias" refers to the typically human tendency to favor choices or actions that involve adding new elements, rather than eliminating pre-existing elements. Previous research and historical anecdotes across multiple fields have demonstrated that this tendency toward addition can significantly impair decision-making and problem-solving abilities, often leading to suboptimal...
According to the Dual Mechanism of Control (DMC), two cognitive control mechanisms exist, proactive and reactive control. Nonetheless, our recent electrophysiological findings potentially pave the way to three mechanisms, with two of them falling under reactive control: an early one engaged before conflict based on stimulus-attention associations and a late one engaged after conflict detection...
Many studies suggest that numerical abilities develop through sensorimotor interaction with the environment. In line with this view, it has been shown that repeated execution of grasping or pointing action impacted the performance in a subsequent number magnitude task. Specifically, the distance effect, a typical numerical effect consisting in faster response times when comparing farer (e.g.,...
Background
Fibromyalgia is characterized by chronic, widespread pain that is often accompanied by fatigue, sleep disturbances, and cognitive and mood impairment. Pain is a complex and multidimensional experience that significantly impacts personal, social, and professional functioning. Psychological factors known to be associated with chronic pain include catastrophizing and self-efficacy in...
Cognitive impairment (CI) in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) affects between 40 and 65 percent of people with MS (pwMS), impacting memory, attention, information processing speed, and language (Amato et al., 2010). High levels of depression worsen cognitive symptoms: pwMS with depression perform poorly in working memory or information processing speed (van Geest et al., 2019). However, some studies...
Social media, an integral component of daily life, can affect psychological well-being and lead to a state known as social media fatigue (SMF). This study investigates the structure and psychometric properties of the Social Media Fatigue Scale (SMFS) and examines its relationships with related psychological constructs. Our sample comprised 329 individuals (Mage = 26, SD = 8.46; 26.1% males)...
Body representation is quite plastic and may even allow to incorporate external effectors, such as tools, prosthesis, or virtual avatars into our body representation. The process of representing these elements as parts of us is known as ‘embodiment’. Various factors can improve the possibility of embodying an effector to the upper limb: among these, tactile feedback is recently acquiring...
Depression, one of the most frequently diagnosed conditions, leads to significant cognitive deficits and comorbidity. In recent decades, scientific research has focused on biomarker identification and technological advancements like virtual reality (VR) for diagnosis support. This study evaluates the role of theta band power recorded through a Geodesic cup during 5 minutes of resting state,...
Could yoga, with its mind-body approach, improve cognitive and emotional well-being in young adults? Research indicates that yoga provides mental health benefits, but studies on young adults are still scarce. The growing popularity of yoga among young adults - a population undergoing significant cognitive and emotional changes and adaptations - supports the importance of studying its effects...
