I want to be safe: understanding the main drivers behind vaccination choice throughout the pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Despite being a major advancement in modern medicine, vaccines face widespread hesitancy and refusal, posing challenges to immunization campaigns. The COVID-19 pandemic accentuated vaccine hesitancy, emphasizing the pivotal role of beliefs in efficacy and safety on vaccine acceptance rates. This study explores the influence of efficacy and safety perceptions on vaccine uptake in Italy during the pandemic. METHODS: We administered a 70-item questionnaire to a representative sample of 600 Italian speakers. Participants were tasked with assessing the perceived effectiveness and safety of each vaccine dose, along with providing reasons influencing their vaccination choices. Additionally, we conducted an experimental manipulation, exploring the effects of four framing messages that emphasized safety and/or efficacy on participants' willingness to receive a hypothetical fourth vaccine dose. Furthermore, participants were asked about their level of trust in the scientific community and public authorities, as well as their use of different information channels for obtaining COVID-19-related information. RESULTS: Our study reveals a dynamic shift in vaccine efficacy and safety perceptions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially influencing vaccination compliance. Initially perceived as more effective than safe, this assessment reversed by the time of the third dose. Beliefs regarding safety, rather than efficacy, played a significant role in anticipating future vaccinations (e.g., the booster dose). Safety-focused messages positively affected vaccination intent, while efficacy-focused messages showed limited impact. We also observed a changing trend in reasons for vaccination, with a decline in infection-related reasons and an increase in social related ones. Furthermore, trust dynamics evolved differently for public authorities and the scientific community. CONCLUSIONS: Vaccine perception is a dynamic process shaped by evolving factors like efficacy and safety perceptions, trust levels, and individual motivations. Our study sheds light on the complex dynamics that underlie the perception of vaccine safety and efficacy, and their impact on willingness to vaccinate. We discuss these results in light of bounded rationality, loss aversion and classic utility theory.

Beyond peripersonal boundaries: insights from crossmodal interactions.

We experience our self as a body located in space. However, how information about self-location is integrated into multisensory processes underlying the representation of the peripersonal space (PPS), is still unclear. Prior studies showed that the presence of visual information related to oneself modulates the multisensory processes underlying PPS. Here, we used the crossmodal congruency effect (CCE) to test whether this top-down modulation depends on the spatial location of the body-related visual information. Participants responded to tactile events on their bodies while trying to ignore a visual distractor presented on the mirror reflection of their body (Self) either in the peripersonal space (Near) or in the extrapersonal space (Far). We found larger CCE when visual events were presented on the mirror reflection in the peripersonal space, as compared to the extrapersonal space. These results suggest that top-down modulation of the multisensory bodily self is only possible within the PPS.

Prosocial behavior in emergencies: Evidence from blood donors recruitment and retention during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The impact of COVID-19 represents a specific challenge for voluntary transfusional systems sustained by the intrinsic motivations of blood donors. In general, health emergencies can stimulate altruistic behaviors. However, in this context, the same prosocial motivations, besides the personal health risks, could foster the adherence to social distancing rules to preserve collective health and, therefore, discourage blood donation activities. In this work, we investigate the consequences of the pandemic shock on the dynamics of new donors exploiting the individual-level longitudinal information contained in administrative data on the Italian region of Tuscany. We compare the change in new donors' recruitment and retention during 2020 with respect to the 2017-2019 period (we observe 9511 individuals), considering donors' and their municipalities of residence characteristics. Our results show an increment of new donors, with higher proportional growth for older donors. Moreover, we demonstrate that the quality of new donors, as proxied by the frequency of subsequent donations, increased with respect to previous years. Finally, we show that changes in extrinsic motivations, such as the possibility of obtaining a free antibody test or overcoming movement restrictions, cannot explain the documented increase in the number of new donors and in their performance. Therefore, our analyses indicate that the Tuscan voluntary blood donation system was effective in dealing with the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vaccine hesitancy and cognitive biases: Evidence for tailored communication with parents.

Background: Vaccine hesitancy (VH) remains worldwide a reason of concern. Most of the vaccination education strategies followed a "fact-based" approach, based on the assumption that decision making is a rational process, without considering the influence of cognitive biases and heuristics. Our study aimed at identifying factors involved in the parents' vaccination choice to inform and shape communication interventions. Methods: We conducted an online national survey among parents between November 2020 and April 2021. The questionnaire consisted of 42 items organised in 4 parts: (1) personal information, (2) cognitive biases and risk propension, (3) Analytic Thinking (Cognitive Reflection Test), (4) conspiracy mentality, health literacy, and VH. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to identify latent variables underlying the 19 items related to the 6 cognitive biases. Factors were categorised in quintiles and the corresponding pseudo-continuous variables used as predictors of the VH. Logistic regression model was applied to assess the association of the VH with factors, conspiracy mentality and risk propension. We adjusted for age, gender, economic status, and education levels. Results: The study included 939 parents, 764 women (81.4%), 69.8% had a degree or higher level of education. Considering cognitive biases, four factors explaining 54% of the total variance were identified and characterised as: fear of the side effects of vaccines (scepticism factor); carelessness of the risk and consequences of infections (denial factor); optimistic attitude (optimistic bias factor); preference for natural products (naturalness bias factor). All factors were positively associated to VH (p < 0.001) as were conspiracy mentality (p = 0.007) and risk propension (p = 0.002). Conclusions: This study confirmed the need to amplify the model used to analyse the VH considering cognitive biases as important factor affecting the parents' decision making. These results may be useful to design personalised communication interventions regarding vaccines and vaccination.

EEG Correlates of Preparatory Orienting, Contextual Updating, and Inhibition of Sensory Processing in Left Spatial Neglect.

Studies with event-related potentials have highlighted deficits in the early phases of orienting to left visual targets in right-brain-damaged patients with left spatial neglect (N+). However, brain responses associated with preparatory orienting of attention, with target novelty and with the detection of a match/mismatch between expected and actual targets (contextual updating), have not been explored in N+. Here in a study in healthy humans and brain-damaged patients of both sexes we demonstrate that frontal activity that reflects supramodal mechanisms of attentional orienting (Anterior Directing Attention Negativity, ADAN) is entirely spared in N+. In contrast, posterior responses that mark the early phases of cued orienting (Early Directing Attention Negativity, EDAN) and the setting up of sensory facilitation over the visual cortex (Late Directing Attention Positivity, LDAP) are suppressed in N+. This uncoupling is associated with damage of parietal-frontal white matter. N+ also exhibit exaggerated novelty reaction to targets in the right side of space and reduced novelty reaction for those in the left side (P3a) together with impaired contextual updating (P3b) in the left space. Finally, we highlight a drop in the amplitude and latency of the P1 that over the left hemisphere signals the early blocking of sensory processing in the right space when targets occur in the left one: this identifies a new electrophysiological marker of the rightward attentional bias in N+. The heterogeneous effects and spatial biases produced by localized brain damage on the different phases of attentional processing indicate relevant functional independence among their underlying neural mechanisms and improve the understanding of the spatial neglect syndrome.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Our investigation answers important questions: are the different components of preparatory orienting (EDAN, ADAN, LDAP) functionally independent in the healthy brain? Is preparatory orienting of attention spared in left spatial neglect? Does the sparing of preparatory orienting have an impact on deficits in reflexive orienting and in the assignment of behavioral relevance to the left space? We show that supramodal preparatory orienting in frontal areas is entirely spared in neglect patients though this does not counterbalance deficits in preparatory parietal-occipital activity, reflexive orienting, and contextual updating. This points at relevant functional dissociations among different components of attention and suggests that improving voluntary attention in N+ might be behaviorally ineffective unless associated with stimulations boosting the response of posterior parietal-occipital areas.

Peripersonal space representation develops independently from visual experience.

Our daily-life actions are typically driven by vision. When acting upon an object, we need to represent its visual features (e.g. shape, orientation, etc.) and to map them into our own peripersonal space. But what happens with people who have never had any visual experience? How can they map object features into their own peripersonal space? Do they do it differently from sighted agents? To tackle these questions, we carried out a series of behavioral experiments in sighted and congenitally blind subjects. We took advantage of a spatial alignment effect paradigm, which typically refers to a decrease of reaction times when subjects perform an action (e.g., a reach-to-grasp pantomime) congruent with that afforded by a presented object. To systematically examine peripersonal space mapping, we presented visual or auditory affording objects both within and outside subjects' reach. The results showed that sighted and congenitally blind subjects did not differ in mapping objects into their own peripersonal space. Strikingly, this mapping occurred also when objects were presented outside subjects' reach, but within the peripersonal space of another agent. This suggests that (the lack of) visual experience does not significantly affect the development of both one's own and others' peripersonal space representation.

Neuroscience Evidence for Economic Humanism in Management Science: Organizational Implications and Strategy.

Globalization phenomena and Information Communication Technology (ICT) are producing deep changes worldwide. The economic environment and society where firms both cooperate and compete with each other are rapidly changing leading firms towards recognizing the role of intangible resources as a source of fresh competitive advantage. Experience, innovation and the ability to create new knowledge completely arise from the act of human resources inviting firms to focus on how to generate and shape knowledge. Therefore, the future of firms depends greatly on how managers are able to explore and exploit human resources. However, without a clear understanding of the nature of human beings and the complexity behind human interactions, we cannot understand the theory of organizational knowledge creation. Thus, how can firms discover, manage and valorize this "human advantage"? Neuroscience can increase the understanding of how cognitive and emotional processes work; in doing so, we may be able to better understand how individuals involved in a business organization make decisions and how external factors influence their behavior, especially in terms of commitment activation and engagement level. In this respect, a neuroscientific approach to business can support managers in decision-making processes. In a scenario where economic humanism plays a central role in the process of fostering firms' competitiveness and emerging strategies, we believe that a neuroscience approach in a business organization could be a valid source of value and inspiration for manager decision-making processes.