Search Results (1,706)

Learning and understanding of art are increasingly understood as dynamic processes in which emotion and cognition unfold over time. However, classroom-based evidence on how structured temporal intervals and guided prompts reshape students’ emotional experience remains limited. This study addresses these gaps by quantitatively examining changes in emotion over time in a higher education institution. Employing a comparative experimental design, third-year undergraduate art students participated in two structured courses, where emotional responses were captured using an emotion recognition approach (facial expression and self-reported text) during two sessions: initial impression and delayed impression (three days later). The findings reveal a high consistency in dominant facial expressions and substantial agreement in self-reported emotions across both settings. However, the delayed impression elicited greater emotional diversity and intensity, reflecting deeper cognitive engagement and emotional processing over time. These results reveal a longitudinal trajectory of emotion influenced by guided reflective re-view over time. Emotional dynamics extend medium theory by embedding temporal and affective dimensions into TBMA course settings. This study proposes an ethically grounded and technically feasible framework for emotion recognition that supports reflective learning rather than mere measurement. Together, these contributions redefine TBMA education as a temporal and emotional ecosystem and provide an empirical foundation for future research on how emotion fosters understanding, interest, and appreciation in higher media art education. Full article

Background: Engaging in physical activity (PA) is especially significant for adolescents, as this is a key developmental stage for establishing lifelong habits. While the physical, mental, and cognitive health benefits of PA are well-documented, less is known about its relationship with adolescents’ life satisfaction (LS). Most existing evidence often involves small sample sizes, focusing particularly on developed regions, and few studies use large-scale comparative data. Methods: This study examines the association between adolescents’ LS and PA using data from the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the world’s largest comparative education survey of adolescents. Our analysis included 399,794 adolescents from 64 high- and middle-income countries and economies. We used three-level multilevel regressions. Results: We found that, after controlling for individual, family, and school factors, PA is positively and significantly associated with LS. This finding holds for the pooled sample and across the 64 countries analysed. For most countries, we did not find a significant gender moderator effect, suggesting that the positive association between PA and LS did not vary by gender. Conclusions: The findings suggest a global health promotion strategy to promote PA amongst adolescents as a normative developmental process necessary for their well-being and mental health. Full article

E-commerce is quickly increasing purchasing behavior across the globe, but little is known about how psychological paradigms underscore online buying intentions for locally essential items as nomadic local foods. The primary goal of this research is to examine the effects of some important psychological constructs and motivational values on predicting consumers’ intention to purchase nomadic and local foods via online e-commerce platforms, such as Ashayershop. This study followed the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and looked at direct and mediated effects of attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms on intention to purchase. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was conducted, based on data collected from a representative sample of consumers who were familiar with online shopping for local foods. The results highlight that attitude towards online shopping for local foods was the strongest direct predictor of intention to purchase (β = 0.383, T = 9.487, p < 0.001). Perceived behavioral control (β = 0.220, T = 5.316, p < 0.001), hedonic value (β = 0.213, T = 4.907, p < 0.001), utilitarian value (β = 0.187, T = 3.719, p < 0.001), and subjective norms (β = 0.149, T = 3.493, p < 0.001), received a significant positive effect on intention. In addition, hedonic and utilitarian values bountifully mediated the relation between psychological antecedents (attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms) and purchase intention. For instance, attitude indirect effect via hedonic value was β = 0.080 (T = 3.783, p < 0.01), and indirect effect via utilitarian value was β = 0.040 (T = 3.058, p < 0.01), indicating the importance of these values as mediators. This research makes a contribution to the literature by showing that motivational values serve as not only an outcome but also as cognitive–affective mediators in the behavioral process thus expanding the TPB in the context of digital food markets. In general, these results provide valuable insights to e-commerce platforms and policymakers who desire to promote consumer engagement with products stemming from culture and tradition on line by developing new integrated strategies that address the cognitive, emotional, and social components. Full article

While existing research highlights a positive association between computational thinking (CT) and self-regulation (SR) skills, limited attention has been given to the embodied and social processes within CT activities that support young children’s executive functions (EFs)—key components of SR. This study investigates how preschoolers develop basic and higher-order EFs, such as focused attention, inhibitory control, causal reasoning, and problem-solving, through their engagement with a tangible programming toy in teacher-guided small groups in a university-affiliated preschool. Informed by a we-syntonicity framework that integrates Papert’s concepts of body/ego syntonicity and Schutz’s “we-relationship”, we conducted a multimodal microanalysis of video-recorded group sessions. Our analysis focuses on two sessions, the “Obstacle Challenge” and “Conditionals”, featuring four excerpts. Findings reveal that children leverage bodily knowledge and empathy toward the toy—named Rapunzel—to sustain attention, manage impulses, reason about cause-effect, and collaborate on problem-solving. Three agents shape these processes: the toy, fostering collective engagement; the teacher, scaffolding learning and emotional regulation; and the children, coordinating actions and sharing affective responses. These findings challenge traditional views of SR as an individual cognitive activity, framing it instead as an embodied, social, and situated practice. This study underscores the importance of collaborative CT activities in fostering SR during early childhood. Full article

Gamma-aminobutyric acid type A receptors (GABA_ARs) are pentameric ligand-gated ion channels essential for inhibitory neurotransmission in the central nervous system. Subtype-specific expression patterns of GABA_AR subunits underlie their diverse roles in regulating anxiety, motor function, and sedation. While non-selective GABA_AR positive allosteric modulators (PAMs), such as benzodiazepines, are clinically effective anxiolytic drugs, their non-selective activity across α1/2/3/5 subunit-containing GABA_ARs leads to sedation, cognitive impairment, and risk of dependence. To address this, we evaluated ENX-102, a novel GABA_AR PAM, which exhibits selectivity for α2/3/5 subunits. In rodents, ENX-102 demonstrated dose-dependent anxiolytic-like activity following acute and sub-chronic administration, without sedation. ENX-102 exhibited a dose-dependent quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG) spectral signature in rodents that was distinct from that of benzodiazepines. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, multiple-ascending dose study in healthy human volunteers, ENX-102 was evaluated using the NeuroCart, a CNS test battery including saccadic peak velocity (SPV), adaptive tracking, pupillometry, body sway, the Bond and Lader Visual Analog Scale (VAS), the Visual Verbal Learning Task (VVLT), and qEEG. ENX-102 produced reductions in SPV that were indicative of central target engagement, with minimal effects on alertness and motor coordination, which is consistent with subtype-selective GABA_AR targeting. Notably, qEEG revealed increased β-band power and decreased δ- and θ-band activity, which were distinct from the spectral profile of non-selective PAMs, supporting translational alignment with preclinical findings. Across dose levels, ENX-102 was well tolerated and exhibited favorable pharmacokinetics. These results support further clinical development of ENX-102 as a next-generation GABA_AR subtype-selective anxiolytic drug. Full article

In order to understand how health beliefs map onto health behaviors, a national survey, administered in the wake of the COVID-19 campus closures, was conducted to explore college students’ mind-body health beliefs and their health behaviors (across dimensions of physical exercise, diet/nutrition, and socialization). To this end, the Mind-Body Health Screener (MBHS), a five-item, Likert scale, brief measure, was developed. The present study applied an online survey design administered nationally to U.S. undergraduate students during the initial lockdowns with the pandemic (n = 557). To examine the psychometric properties of the MBHS, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were run as well as measures of reliability. Furthermore, linear regressions and effect sizes were computed to understand the connection between mind-body health beliefs and behaviors. While initial data supported the psychometric properties of the Mind-Body Health Screener (MBHS) developed for this purpose, substantive results suggested that mind-body health beliefs did not relate to mind-body health behaviors (either before or after the campus closures), aligning with the Cognitive Dissonance Theory. Post hoc analysis did, however, suggest a significant change in health behaviors from pre-campus closures to during the closures, suggesting students engaged in more physical exercise, eating behaviors, and socializing before campus closed, observed with small to large effects. Taken together, the findings of the present study illustrate how the Cognitive Dissonance Theory is a relevant perspective to consider the relation between health beliefs and behaviors during a period of immense stress, such as the COVID-19 initial campus closures. Full article

Cognition is often modeled in terms of abstract reasoning and neural computation, yet a growing body of theoretical and experimental work suggests that the roots of cognition lie in fundamental embodied regulatory processes. This article presents a theory of cognition grounded in sensing, feeling, and affect—capacities that precede neural systems and are observable in even the simplest living organisms. Based on the info-computational framework, this entry outlines how cognition and proto-subjectivity co-emerge in biological systems. Embodied appraisal—the system’s ability to evaluate internal and external conditions in terms of valence (positive/negative; good/bad)—and the capacity to regulate accordingly are described as mutually constitutive processes observable at the cellular level. This concept reframes cognition not as abstract symbolic reasoning but as value-sensitive, embodied information dynamics resulting from self-regulating engagement with the environment that spans scales from unicellular organisms to complex animals. In this context, information is physically instantiated, and computation is the dynamic, self-modifying process by which organisms regulate and organize themselves. Cognition thus emerges from the dynamic coupling of sensing, internal evaluation, and adaptive morphological (material shape-based) activity. Grounded in findings from developmental biology, bioelectric signaling, morphological computation, and basal cognition, this account situates intelligence as an affect-driven regulatory capacity intrinsic to biological life. While focused on biological systems, this framework also offers conceptual insights for developing more adaptive and embodied forms of artificial intelligence. Future experiments with minimal living systems or synthetic agents may help operationalize and test the proposed mechanisms of proto-subjectivity and affect regulation. Full article

The rapid evolution of human–technology interaction necessitates continuous sensorimotor adaptation to new digital interfaces and tasks. Mobile typing, defined as text entry on smartphone touchscreens, offers a compelling example of this process, requiring users to adapt fine motor control and coordination to a constrained virtual environment. Aligned with the embodied cognition framework, understanding these digital sensorimotor experiences is crucial. A key theoretical question is whether these skills primarily involve adaptation of existing motor patterns or necessitate de novo learning, a distinction particularly relevant across generations with differing early sensorimotor experiences. This narrative review synthesizes current understanding of the sensorimotor aspects of smartphone engagement and typing skill evaluation methods. It examines touchscreen competence, skill acquisition, diverse strategies employed, and the influence of interface constraints on motor performance, while also detailing various sophisticated performance metrics and analyzing different data collection methodologies. Research highlights that analyzing typing behaviors and their underlying neural correlates increasingly serves as a potential source of behavioral biomarkers. However, while notable progress has been made, the field is still developing, requiring stronger methodological foundations and crucial standardization of metrics and protocols to fully capture and understand the dynamic sensorimotor processes involved in digital interactions. Nevertheless, mobile typing emerges as a compelling model for advancing our understanding of human sensorimotor learning and cognitive function, offering a rich, ecologically valid platform for investigating human-world interaction. Full article

Adolescents’ sustained engagement in STEM fields is critical for cultivating future scientific talent. While school belonging—a key form of emotional support perceived by students within the school environment—has been widely studied, its specific influence on STEM career interest, particularly within non-Western educational systems, remains insufficiently understood. Drawing on Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), this study examines how school belonging, as a contextual affordance, shapes STEM career interest among Chinese high school students, and whether science identity, as a person input, mediates this relationship. Utilizing data from 451 students in a science-focused Chinese high school, multiple regression analyses demonstrated that school belonging significantly predicts higher STEM career interest. Science identity partially mediated this relationship, with science interest emerging as the strongest mediating component, followed by competence/performance beliefs; external recognition had a comparatively weaker effect. These findings suggest that fostering school belonging in science-oriented environments may support adolescents’ interest in STEM careers, both directly and indirectly through the development of science identity. From a cultural perspective, the study further sheds light on the mechanisms underlying students’ interest in STEM careers, and highlights the potential of inclusive environments that support the development of students’ sense of belonging and identity in promoting their long-term engagement in STEM fields. Full article

The P300 evoked potential, recorded via electroencephalography, serves as a relevant marker of attentional allocation and cognitive workload. This work extracts and analyzes event-related potentials that reflect variations in the cognitive state of military pilots during a complex simulated flight scenario coupled with simultaneous mental arithmetic tasks. The experiment was conducted at the Academia General del Aire (Spain) with 14 military pilots using a high-fidelity flight simulator. The experimental protocol involved dynamic flight instructions combined with arithmetic tasks designed to elicit varying cognitive loads. The results revealed a significant decrease in P300 amplitude across successive sessions, indicating a progressive reduction in attentional engagement due to task habituation and increased cognitive automaticity. Concurrently, P300 latency for correct responses decreased significantly, demonstrating enhanced efficiency in cognitive stimulus evaluation over repeated exposure. However, incorrect responses failed to yield robust results due to an insufficient number of trials. These findings validate the use of P300 as an objective indicator of cognitive workload variations in realistic aviation contexts. Full article

Background: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) affects up to 40% of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), yet conventional rehabilitation often lacks engagement. The OPERA project developed a novel Bio-cooperative Robotic Platform (PRoBio), integrating a service robot and a virtual reality-based rehabilitation for personalized cognitive training. This work presents two preliminary user-centred studies aimed to assess PRoBio usability and acceptability. Methods: to gather qualitative feedback on robotic and virtual reality technologies, through ad hoc questionnaires, developed according to participatory design principles and user-centered evaluation literature, Study 1 (Focus group) involved 23 participants: 10 PD patients (F = 6; mean age = 68.9 ± 8.2 years), 5 caregivers (F = 3; mean age = 49.0 ± 15.5), 8 healthcare professionals (F = 6; mean age = 40.0 ± 12.0). Study 2 (Living Lab) tested the final version of PRoBio platform with 6 healthy volunteers (F = 3; mean age = 50.3 ± 11.0) and 8 rehabilitation professionals (F = 3; mean age = 32.8 ± 9.9), assessing usability and acceptability through validated questionnaires. Results: The focus group revealed common priorities across the three groups, including ease of use, emotional engagement, and personalization of exercises. Living Lab unveiled PRoBio as user-friendly, with high usability, hedonic quality, technology acceptance and low workload. No significant differences were found between groups, except for minor concerns on system responsiveness. Discussion: These preliminary findings support the feasibility, usability, and emotional appeal of PRoBio as a cognitive rehabilitation tool. The positive convergence among the groups suggests its potential for clinical integration. Conclusions: These preliminary results support the feasibility and user-centred design of the PRoBio platform for cognitive rehabilitation in PD. The upcoming usability evaluation in a pilot study with patients will provide critical insights into its suitability for clinical implementation and guide further development. Full article

Different sports require elevated visual-spatial and related cognitive abilities, which are increasingly recognized as crucial not only for athletic performance but also for broader public health implications. Sex-related differences in these abilities have often been explained through both biological and sociocultural factors, with males traditionally described as having superior visual-spatial skills. However, fewer studies have investigated how targeted physical training can enhance these abilities in women. This study aimed to analyze the influence of two different cycling interval training exercises on visual-spatial ability in women. Seventy-two healthy, active, and young women engaged in (1) a High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) session followed by a cognitive training (CT); or (2) a Low-Volume Interval Training (LVIT) session followed by a CT; or (3) a cognitive (COG) session, consisting of listening to music followed by a CT; or (4) a control (CTRL) session, consisting of solely listening to music. Cognitive performance was assessed at baseline and after the training sessions using the Metzler and Shepard Test (MS), the Paper Folding and Cutting Test (PFC), and the Mental Rotation Test (MRT). No significant between-group differences were observed. However, in all groups the time to complete the PFC and MRT tests was significantly lower and the number of errors was significantly smaller for the PFC test in the post-test compared with the pre-test. These findings expand the current literature by demonstrating that interval training, whether high intensity or low volume, when combined with cognitive training, may improve certain aspects of visual-spatial cognitive performance in healthy, active, young women. These findings highlight the potential of combining structured exercise with cognitive challenges. Such interventions may promote cognitive health in women and contribute to long-term public health outcomes. Full article

This study examines how cognitive biases may shape ethical decision-making in AI-mediated environments, particularly within education and research. As AI tools increasingly influence human judgment, biases such as normalization, complacency, rationalization, and authority bias can lead to ethical lapses, including academic misconduct, uncritical reliance on AI-generated content, and acceptance of misinformation. To explore these dynamics, we developed an LLM-generated synthetic behavior estimation framework that modeled six decision-making scenarios with probabilistic representations of key cognitive biases. The scenarios addressed issues ranging from loss of human agency to biased evaluations and homogenization of thought. Statistical summaries of the synthetic dataset indicated that 71% of agents engaged in unethical behavior influenced by biases like normalization and complacency, 78% relied on AI outputs without scrutiny due to automation and authority biases, and misinformation was accepted in 65% of cases, largely driven by projection and authority biases. These statistics are descriptive of this synthetic dataset only and are not intended as inferential claims about real-world populations. The findings nevertheless suggest the potential value of targeted interventions—such as AI literacy programs, systematic bias audits, and equitable access to AI tools—to promote responsible AI use. As a proof-of-concept, the framework offers controlled exploratory insights, but all reported outcomes reflect text-based pattern generation by an LLM rather than observed human behavior. Future research should validate and extend these findings with longitudinal and field data. Full article

We investigated the impact of incorporating quantitative reasoning for deeper sense-making in a Quantum Interactive Learning Tutorial (QuILT) on students’ conceptual performance using a framework emphasizing integration of conceptual and quantitative aspects of quantum optics. In this investigation, we compared two versions of the QuILT that were developed and validated to help students learn various aspects of quantum optics using a Mach Zehnder Interferometer with single photons and polarizers. One version of the QuILT is entirely conceptual while the other version integrates quantitative and conceptual reasoning (hybrid version). Performance on conceptual questions of upper-level undergraduate and graduate students who engaged with the hybrid QuILT was compared with that of those who utilized the conceptual QuILT emphasizing the same concepts. Both versions of the QuILT focus on the same concepts, use a scaffolded approach to learning, and take advantage of research on students’ difficulties in learning these challenging concepts as well as a cognitive task analysis from an expert perspective as a guide. The hybrid and conceptual QuILTs were used in courses for upper-level undergraduates or first-year physics graduate students in several consecutive years at the same university. The same conceptual pre-test and post-test were administered after traditional lecture-based instruction in relevant concepts and after student engaged with the QuILT, respectively. We find that the post-test performance of physics graduate students who utilized the hybrid QuILT on conceptual questions, on average, was better than those who utilized the conceptual QuILT. For undergraduates, the results showed differences for different classes. One possible interpretation of these findings that is consistent with our framework is that integrating conceptual and quantitative aspects of physics in research-based tools and pedagogies should be commensurate with students’ prior knowledge of physics and mathematics involved so that students do not experience cognitive overload while engaging with such learning tools and have appropriate opportunities for metacognition, deeper sense-making, and knowledge organization. In the undergraduate course in which many students did not derive added benefit from the integration of conceptual and quantitative aspects, their pre-test performance suggests that the traditional lecture-based instruction may not have sufficiently provided a “first coat” to help students avoid cognitive overload when engaging with the hybrid QuILT. These findings suggest that different groups of students can benefit from a research-based learning tool that integrates conceptual and quantitative aspects if cognitive overload while learning is prevented either due to students’ high mathematical facility or due to their reasonable conceptual facility before engaging with the learning tool. Full article

Background/Objectives: Decision-making under socially evaluative stress engages a dynamic interplay between cognitive control, emotional appraisal, and motivational systems. Contemporary models of multi-level co-regulation posit that these systems operate in reciprocal modulation, redistributing processing resources to prioritise either rapid socio-emotional alignment or deliberate evaluation depending on situational demands. Methods: Adopting a neurofunctional approach, a novel dual-task protocol combining the MetaCognition–Stress Convergence Paradigm (MSCP) and the Social Stress Test Neuro-Evaluation (SST-NeuroEval), a simulated social–evaluative speech task calibrated across progressive emotional intensities, was implemented. Twenty professionals from an HR consultancy firm participated in the study, with concurrent recording of frontal-temporoparietal electroencephalography (EEG) and bespoke psychometric indices: the MetaStress-Insight Index and the TimeSense Scale. Results: Findings revealed that decision contexts with higher socio-emotional salience elicited faster, emotionally guided choices (mean RT difference emotional vs. cognitive: −220 ms, p = 0.026), accompanied by oscillatory signatures (frontal delta: F(1,19) = 13.30, p = 0.002; gamma: F(3,57) = 14.93, p ≤ 0.001) consistent with intensified socio-emotional integration and contextual reconstruction. Under evaluative stress, oscillatory activity shifted across phases, reflecting the transition from anticipatory regulation to reactive engagement, in line with models of phase-dependent stress adaptation. Across paradigms, convergences emerged between decision orientation, subjective stress, and oscillatory patterns, supporting the view that cognitive–emotional regulation operates as a coordinated, multi-level system. Conclusions: These results underscore the importance of integrating behavioural, experiential, and neural indices to characterise how individuals adaptively regulate decision-making under socially evaluative stress and highlight the potential of dual-paradigm designs for advancing theory and application in cognitive–affective neuroscience. Full article