A link between social isolation during the coronavirus outbreak and social alignment in balcony parties.

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there is a growing need for assessing the psychological costs of social isolation (SI). We examine whether the balcony party during the first outbreak of the pandemic is associated with how individuals cope with SI as well as its causes and consequences during the COVID-19 outbreak. A total of 303 quarantined persons responded to a Web-based survey. We found that the effect of balcony parties on the psychological costs of SI is dependent on the self-reported levels of SI. Those who experienced high levels of causes of SI perceived the balcony parties as more beneficial in inducing positive affect and reducing negative affect in comparison to those who experienced low levels of causes of SI. The opposite pattern was observed when individuals were asked about their participation in these parties: individuals with high levels of consequences of SI experienced balcony parties as less beneficial than similar pre-outbreak gathering events, while individuals with low levels of consequences of SI showed an opposite pattern. Finally, for those with high levels of causes of SI and consequences of SI, balcony parties did not meet the expectation of creating feelings of communal solidarity. However, a discrepancy between high SI expectations and experience was not found for those with low SI. Our findings demonstrate that the balcony parties are beneficial in reducing the emotional cost of social isolation-but only for those who feel low levels of SI. The fact that individuals with high levels of SI expected more out of these parties suggests the need to develop interventions aimed at optimizing their expectations. As society enters a new period in which the costs of social distancing may be higher, our findings are valuable for understanding the psychological battle that individuals face while in social isolation.

Methylphenidate reduces orienting bias in healthy individuals.

BACKGROUND: Healthy individuals show subtle orienting bias, a phenomenon known as pseudoneglect, reflected in a tendency to direct greater attention toward one hemispace. Accumulating evidence indicates that this bias is an individual trait, and attention is preferentially directed contralaterally to the hemisphere with higher dopamine signaling. Administration of methylphenidate (MPH), a dopamine transporter inhibitor, was shown to normalize aberrant spatial attention bias in psychiatric and neurological patients, suggesting that the reduced orienting bias following administration of MPH reflects an asymmetric effect of the drug, increasing extracellular dopamine in the hemisphere with lower dopamine signaling. AIM: We predicted that, similarly to its effect on patients with brain pathology, MPH will reduce the orienting bias in healthy subjects. METHODS: To test this hypothesis, we examined the behavioral effects of a single dose (20 mg) of MPH on orienting bias in 36 healthy subjects (18 females) in a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled, within-subject design, using the greyscales task, which has been shown to detect subtle attentional biases in both patients and healthy individuals. RESULTS/OUTCOMES: Results demonstrate that healthy individuals vary in both direction and magnitude of spatial orienting bias and show reduced magnitude of orienting bias following MPH administration, regardless of the initial direction of asymmetry. CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATIONS: Our findings reveal, for the first time in healthy subjects, that MPH decreases spatial orienting bias in an asymmetric manner. Given the well-documented association between orienting bias and asymmetric dopamine signaling, these findings also suggest that MPH might exert a possible asymmetric neural effect in the healthy brain.

Impairments of interpersonal synchrony evident in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

In addition to well-known attention deficiencies, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is accompanied by deficiencies in social cognition. Both intentional and spontaneous interpersonal synchrony have been found to be an essential part of successful human interaction. Here, we used a novel paradigm to assess intentional and spontaneous interpersonal synchrony in adults with and without ADHD. Our data indicate that intentional interpersonal synchrony is reduced in ADHD, whereas spontaneous interpersonal synchrony remains intact. These results suggest that a dysfunctional pattern of interpersonal synchrony may account for interpersonal difficulties in ADHD.