Exploring the relation between maternal mind-mindedness and children's symbolic play: A longitudinal study from 6 to 18 months.

Relations between mothers' mind-mindedness (appropriate attunement to their infants' internal states) at 6 and 12 months and infants' early symbolic play during infant-mother pretense at 12 and 18 months were investigated in a sample of 43 mothers and infants. Mothers' appropriate mind-related comments were associated with average level, length, complexity, and maturity level of symbolic play. Specific sub-categories of appropriate mind-related comments were identified as independent predictors of children's symbolic play. Appropriate comments about desires and cognitions at 6 months were associated with average level and length of episodes, as well as with maturity level of symbolic play at 12 months. Longitudinal stability in the appropriateness and content of mothers' mind-related comments was also investigated. The results are discussed in terms of the proposal that attunement to specific types of internal state should vary as a function of infant age in order to index mind-mindedness.

The role of sleep in aesthetic perception and empathy: A mediation analysis.

The ability to experience aesthetics plays a fundamental role in human social interactions, as well as the capacity to feel empathy. Some studies have shown that beauty perception shares part of the neural network underlying emotional and empathic abilities, which are also known to affect sleep quality and duration. In this study, we evaluated for the first time the effects of sleep on the relation between aesthetic perception and empathic abilities in healthy subjects using a mediation analysis approach. One-hundred and twenty-six subjects participated in this study. One-hundred and one subjects slept at home (Sleep Group). The remaining 25 subjects were tested as controls after 1 night of sleep deprivation to assess the effects of lack of sleep on aesthetic perception and empathy (Sleep-Deprived Group). All participants underwent one testing session in which they performed a battery of empathy tests and an aesthetic perception task (Golden Beauty). The results showed that sleep duration mediates the relationship between empathy and aesthetic perception in the sleep group. The mediation effect of sleep was more evident on the emotional empathy measures. Conversely, in the sleep deprivation group the lack of correlations among empathy, aesthetic perception and sleep variables did not allow to perform the mediation analysis. These results suggest that adequate sleep duration may play a significant role in improving cognitive and emotional empathic abilities as well as the capability to give accurate aesthetic judgements.

Cognitive Control Structures in the Imitation Learning of Spatial Sequences and Rhythms-An fMRI Study.

Imitation learning involves the acquisition of novel motor patterns based on action observation (AO). We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the imitation learning of spatial sequences and rhythms during AO, motor imagery (MI), and imitative execution in nonmusicians and musicians. While both tasks engaged the fronto-parietal mirror circuit, the spatial sequence task recruited posterior parietal and dorsal premotor regions more strongly. The rhythm task involved an additional network for auditory working memory. This partial dissociation supports the concept of task-specific mirror mechanisms. Two regions of cognitive control were identified: 1) dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) was found to be more strongly activated during MI of novel spatial sequences, which allowed us to extend the 2-level model of imitation learning by Buccino et al. (2004) to spatial sequences. 2) During imitative execution of both tasks, the posterior medial frontal cortex was robustly activated, along with the DLPFC, which suggests that both regions are involved in the cognitive control of imitation learning. The musicians' selective behavioral advantage for rhythm imitation was reflected cortically in enhanced sensory-motor processing during AO and by the absence of practice-related activation differences in DLPFC during rhythm execution.

Nature and Cognitive Perception of 4 Different Breakfast Meals Influence Satiety-Related Sensations and Postprandial Metabolic Responses but Have Little Effect on Food Choices and Intake Later in the Day in a Randomized Crossover Trial in Healthy Men.

Background: Regular breakfast consumption is associated with better health status and healthier food intake throughout the day, but this association is a complex interaction of several factors. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effect of nutritional and cognitive-perceived characteristics of breakfast on metabolic and behavioral variables related to food intake. Methods: The study was a randomized, crossover, controlled trial, with 4 experimental conditions consisting of 3 iso-energetic breakfasts and 1 energy-free control meal. Breakfasts had similar nutritional profiles but differed for glycemic index (GI), glycemic load (GL), and perceived healthiness, satiety, palatability, or energy content. Fifteen healthy normal-weight men [means ± SDs; age: 24 ± 2 y; body mass index (BMI; kg/m2) 23.4 ± 1.6] underwent each experimental condition in random order during 4 different weeks, separated by ≥1-wk washout. On the third day of each intervention week, postprandial blood variables (with insulin as primary outcome), satiety ratings, and food intake during an ad libitum lunch consumed 4 h after breakfast (secondary outcomes) were measured for each experimental condition. Results: A main effect of time, treatment, and time × treatment was found for postprandial insulin, glucose, and nonesterified fatty acids (P < 0.001 for all) after having the 3 iso-energetic breakfasts or the energy-free control one. Postprandial satiety was similar for the 3 energy-containing breakfasts, but higher when compared with the energy-free control (P < 0.001). No difference in energy intake was observed for the ad libitum lunch, whereas prolonged breakfast skipping was compensated by an increase (around +10%) in the average energy intake during the rest of the day, resulting in no differences in the total daily energy intake among the 4 conditions. Conclusions: Although other advantages might exist for breakfasts based on low-GI/low-GL foods, our findings support the hypothesis that minor differences in nutritional and perceived characteristics of breakfast are of limited importance regarding medium-term energy intake in healthy men. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as BRNN-014 NCT02516956.

Expressing our internal states and understanding those of others.

Vitality form is a term that describes the style with which motor actions are performed (e.g., rude, gentle, etc.). They represent one characterizing element of conscious and unconscious bodily communication. Despite their importance in interpersonal behavior, vitality forms have been, until now, virtually neglected in neuroscience. Here, using the functional MRI (fMRI) technique, we investigated the neural correlates of vitality forms in three different tasks: action observation, imagination, and execution. Conjunction analysis showed that, in all three tasks, there is a common, consistent activation of the dorsocentral sector of the insula. In addition, a common activation of the parietofrontal network, typically active during arm movements production, planning, and observation, was also found. We conclude that the dorsocentral part of the insula is a key element of the system that modulates the cortical motor activity, allowing individuals to express their internal states through action vitality forms. Recent monkey anatomical data show that the dorsocentral sector of the insula is, indeed, connected with the cortical circuit involved in the control of arm movements.

Food perception at lunchtime does not depend on the nutritional and perceived characteristics of breakfast.

Breakfast consumption can entail nutritional advantages positively affecting food choices. This study investigated the effect of minor changes in breakfast composition on the perceived attributes of foods, both at breakfast and at lunchtime. Four breakfasts were defined considering nutritional and perceptual factors. Three breakfasts varied just for a single cereal-based chocolate-containing food item, while a control breakfast mimicked fasting conditions. Breakfast perception was assessed before and after consumption. Subjects rated breakfast energy content on the basis of single items, while judged breakfast healthiness as a whole, suggesting that the combination of different ingredients can modify the perceived health value of foods. Additionally, 4 h after breakfast, a perceptual evaluation of lunch-related food images was performed, without differences among breakfasts. This study extends current knowledge on the relationship between subjective perceptual attributes and objective energy value and food composition, as well as on breakfast impact on food perception at lunchtime.

Validation Study of the Spanish Version of the Measure of Happiness (MH) Questionnaire.

This study aims to validate the Spanish version of the Measure of Happiness (MH), a questionnaire that identifies the specific areas of an individual's life that are related to experienced happiness. The sample consisted of 458 Spanish native speakers (65.7% women, 34.3% men; mean age = 24.14, SD = 8.45) and was divided into two groups: Sample 1 (N = 226) underwent Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), and Sample 2 (N = 232) underwent Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The convergent and discriminant validity of the Spanish version of the MH and its subscales was assessed by calculating Pearson correlations between the MH factors and the Subjective Happiness Scale, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the WHOQOL-BREF. The EFA and CFA confirmed the original five-factor structure of the MH questionnaire. The only difference in the Spanish version of the MH is that Item 4, which was originally assigned to Factor 2 "Financial Status", was reallocated to Factor 1 "Psychophysical Status". The reliability of the Spanish version of the MH questionnaire was also confirmed, and the factors correlated in the expected direction with the constructs of quality of life, happiness, anxiety, and depression. The MH questionnaire demonstrated excellent psychometric properties among Spanish respondents.

The neural correlates of velocity processing during the observation of a biological effector in the parietal and premotor cortex.

While there have been several studies investigating the neural correlates of action observation associated with hand grasping movements, comparatively little is known about the neural bases of observation of reaching movements. In two experiments, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we defined the cortical areas encoding reaching movements and assessed their sensitivity to biological motion and to movement velocity. In the first experiment, participants observed video-clips showing either a biological effector (an arm) or a non-biological object (rolling cylinder) reaching toward a target with a biological and a non-biological motion, respectively. In the second experiment, participants observed video-clips showing either a biological effector (an arm) or a non-biological object (an arrow) reaching toward a target with the same biological motion profiles. The results of the two experiments revealed activation of superior parietal and dorsal premotor sites during observation of the biological motion only, independent of whether it was performed by a biological effector (reaching arm) or a non-biological object (reaching arrow). These areas were not activated when participants observed the non-biological movement (rolling cylinder). To assess the responsiveness of parietal and frontal sites to movement velocity, the fMRI repetition-suppression (RS) technique was used, in which movement was shown with same or different velocities between consecutive videos, and observation of identical stimuli was contrasted with observation of different stimuli. Regions of interest were defined in the parietal and frontal cortices, and their response to stimulus repetition was analyzed (same vs. different velocities). The results showed an RS effect for velocity only during the observation of movements performed by the biological effector and not by the non-biological object. These data indicate that dorsal premotor and superior parietal areas represent a neural substrate involved in the encoding of reaching movements and that their responsiveness to movement velocity of a biological effector could be instrumental to the discrimination of movements performed by others.

Virtual agents and risk-taking behavior in adolescence: the twofold nature of nudging.

Peer pressure can influence risk-taking behavior and it is particularly felt during adolescence. With artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly present in a range of everyday human contexts, including virtual environments, it is important to examine whether AI can have an impact on human's decision making processes and behavior. By using the balloon analogue risk task (BART) evaluating propensity to take risk, in this study 113 adolescents' risk-taking behavior was measured when playing alone and in the presence of either a robot avatar or human avatar. In the avatar conditions, participants performed the BART while the avatars either (1) verbally incited risk-taking or (2) discouraged risk-taking (experimental tasks). Risk-taking behavior in the BART was assessed in terms of total number of pumps, gain and explosions. Tendency to impulsivity was also evaluated, as well as the effects of age and gender on risky behavior. The main finding showed a significant effect of both avatars on risk-taking tendency, with riskier behavior during incitement than discouragement conditions, the latter being also substantially different from the playing-alone condition. The results of this study open up new questions in a very sensitive and timely topic and offer various insights into the effect of nudging on adolescents' behavior in virtual contexts.

Happiness and Socio-Demographic Factors in an Italian Sample: A Propensity-Matched Study.

Happiness is receiving more and more interest both as a determinant of health and a measure of outcome in biomedical and psychological sciences. The main objective of this study was to assess how the levels of happiness vary in a large sample of Italian adults and to identify the socio-demographic conditions which impair happiness domains the most. The participants of this survey consisted of 1695 Italian adults (85.9% women; 14.1% men) who completed the Measure of Happiness (MH) questionnaire online. In this study, the differences between groups in total and single domain (life perspective, psychophysical status, socio-relational sphere, relational private sphere, and financial status) happiness levels were examined through a propensity score matching analysis with respect to socio-demographic conditions, including gender, age, annual income, relationship status, having children, and education level. The results show that low income has a negative impact on happiness levels, whereas being in a relationship has a positive effect. Having children appears to have a negative impact on male happiness. Males appear to be happier than females, especially with regard to the psychophysics status. This evidence emphasizes the urgency for Italian policymakers to take actions on removing obstacles to people's happiness, especially with regard to financial distress, parenthood, and gender gaps.

Development and validation of the Attribution of Mental States Questionnaire (AMS-Q): A reference tool for assessing anthropomorphism.

Attributing mental states to others, such as feelings, beliefs, goals, desires, and attitudes, is an important interpersonal ability, necessary for adaptive relationships, which underlies the ability to mentalize. To evaluate the attribution of mental and sensory states, a new 23-item measure, the Attribution of Mental States Questionnaire (AMS-Q), has been developed. The present study aimed to investigate the dimensionality of the AMS-Q and its psychometric proprieties in two studies. Study 1 focused on the development of the questionnaire and its factorial structure in a sample of Italian adults (N = 378). Study 2 aimed to confirm the findings in a new sample (N = 271). Besides the AMS-Q, Study 2 included assessments of Theory of Mind (ToM), mentalization, and alexithymia. A Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and a Parallel Analysis (PA) of the data from Study 1 yielded three factors assessing mental states with positive or neutral valence (AMS-NP), mental states with negative valence (AMS-N), and sensory states (AMS-S). These showed satisfactory reliability indexes. AMS-Q's whole-scale internal consistency was excellent. Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) further confirmed the three-factor structure. The AMS-Q subscales also showed a consistent pattern of correlation with associated constructs in the theoretically predicted ways, relating positively to ToM and mentalization and negatively to alexithymia. Thus, the questionnaire is considered suitable to be easily administered and sensitive for assessing the attribution of mental and sensory states to humans. The AMS-Q can also be administered with stimuli of nonhuman agents (e.g., animals, inanimate things, and even God); this allows the level of mental anthropomorphization of other agents to be assessed using the human as a term of comparison, providing important hints in the perception of nonhuman entities as more or less mentalistic compared to human beings, and identifying what factors are required for the attribution of human mental traits to nonhuman agents, further helping to delineate the perception of others' minds.

Feeling connected to nature: validation of the connectedness to nature scale in the Italian context.

Environmental issues are at the center of the political and cultural debate, representing one of the greatest challenges of our century. Sustainability and pro-environmental conducts are recognized as increasingly urgent to address the decay of ecosystems. To support the acquisition of attitudes that give greater consideration to environmental issues, experiencing a sense of connection with nature has been acknowledged in psychology as a particularly relevant individual component. Among the most commonly used scales in Anglo-Saxon context to analyses this feeling is the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS) assessing the emotional and experiential bond between humans and nature. To examine the reliability and validity of this scale in the Italian context, a study including 271 Italian adults (44,3% female; 55% males; Mean age = 34.70; SD = 13.584; age-range = 18-65 years) was conducted to establish evidence supporting the internal consistency of the CNS, as well as its ability to measure convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis showed that CNS in Italian has a single-factor structure as reported in the original version by Mayer and Frantz. Furthermore, as expected, positive correlations were observed between the CNS and pro-environmental attitudes and negative correlations with civic moral disengagement. Finally, as assumed, the CNS positively correlated with mental well-being. A broad vision of this study concerns the idea that individuals who have a stronger connection with nature are likely to exhibit reduced tendencies to cause harm to it.

The Risk-Taking and Self-Harm Inventory for Adolescents: Validation of the Italian Version (RTSHIA-I).

The aim of the present paper is to establish the factorial validity and reliability of the Risk-Taking and Self-Harm Inventory for Adolescents (RTSHIA), proposed by Vrouva and colleagues in 2010, in an Italian sample. The RTSHIA measures both Risk-Taking and Self-Harm behavior in adolescents. We administered the scale to a total of 1292 Italian adolescents from 9th to 12th grade; to verify the validity of the scale, we also assessed emotion regulation and psychopathological traits. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (N = 638) and the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (N = 660) confirmed the original two-factor structure of the RTSHIA (Risk-Taking and Self-Harm). The only differences in the Italian version of the RTSHIA (RTSHIA-I) were that one item was moved from the original Risk-Taking factor to the Italian Self-Harm factor, and another item that was not included in the original RTSHIA is now part of the Risk-Taking factor in the Italian version. The reliability of the RTSHIA-I is also confirmed, and both factors correlate with emotion regulation and externalizing/internalizing traits. Our results suggest that the RTSHIA-I is a useful tool for assessing Risk-Taking and Self-Harm behaviors in Italian adolescents, and the correlational patterns indicate that these behaviors may be related to difficulties in mentalization skills.

Are You Happy? A Validation Study of a Tool Measuring Happiness.

This study aims at evaluating the psychometric properties of a new scale to measure experienced happiness-the Measure of Happiness (MH)-in a nonclinical sample composed of Italian adults from the general population. The MH was developed not only to provide a global measure of happiness, but also and more importantly to identify the specific areas of the individual's life that are related to the experienced happiness. A total of 787 adults filled the MH and other self-report questionnaires, in order to assess the factor structure, reliability and external validity of the measure. The factorial analysis identified the following five dimensions: Psychophysics Status, Financial Status, Relational Private Sphere, Socio-Relational Sphere, and Life Perspective. The scale so defined was administered to a second independent group of 421 participants for the (multigroup) confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). A multigroup factor analysis based on gender confirmed the MH structure. The convergent validity of the MH was assessed by comparing the MH scores with a previously validated test of happiness and quality of life, as well as with dispositional constructs with which happiness is known to be negatively correlated, namely, anxiety and depression. The MH showed satisfactory psychometric properties and a strong significant positive relationship between the two measures of happiness, and a substantial negative association with the measures of anxiety and depression, supporting the validity of the MH to assess the construct of experienced happiness. The implications and possible applications of the MH are then discussed.

Is Aesthetic Good? A Study on the Aesthetic and Vitality Judgment of Pictorial Representations of the Dead, Saints and Non-Saints.

In the history of the Western world, there has always been an association between good and beautiful. Starting from a brief history of beauty, two questions arise: is beauty linked to good even in art? How important are people's religious beliefs in aesthetic and vitality judgments? The psychology of art could answer these questions by studying people's reactions to the images of Saints as testimonials of goodness. Moreover, the study of Saints' paintings would allow us to investigate vitality, understood as one's perception of a living being. The research aimed to investigate the aesthetic and vitality judgments of faces representing the dead, Saints and non-Saints. More than a hundred participants were asked to evaluate the aesthetics and vitality of these paintings; moreover, two tests assessing spirituality and religiosity were administered. Overall, these data suggest Saints were judged more beautiful than non-Saints, and non-Saints were judged more vital than Saints. This might suggest a relationship between ethics and aesthetics, also in the perception of art, and offers reflections on the theme of vitality. The religion and spirituality of participants are not correlated to aesthetic or vitality judgments; this fact could support that these judgments are linked to the basic bottom-up reactions to images.

Discrepancies between explicit and implicit evaluation of aesthetic perception ability in individuals with autism: a potential way to improve social functioning.

BACKGROUND: The capacity to evaluate beauty plays a crucial role in social behaviour and social relationships. It is known that some characteristics of beauty are important social cues that can induce stereotypes or promote different behavioural expectations. Another crucial capacity for success in social interactions is empathy, i.e. the ability to understand and share others' mental and emotional states. Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have an impairment of empathic ability. We showed in a previous study that empathy and aesthetic perception abilities closely related. Indeed, beauty can affect different aspects of empathic behaviour, and empathy can mediate the aesthetic perception in typically developing (TD) individuals. Thus, this study evaluates the ability of aesthetic perception in ASD individuals compared to TD individuals, using the Golden Beauty behavioural task adapted for eye-tracking in order to acquire both explicit and implicit evidences. In both groups, the relationship between empathic and aesthetic perception abilities was also evaluated. METHODS: Ten ASD individuals (age ± SD:20.7 ± 4.64) and ten TD individuals (age ± SD:20.17 ± 0.98) participated in the study. Participants underwent empathy tasks and then the Golden Beauty task. To assess differences in the participants' performance, we carried out a repeated measures general linear model. RESULTS: At the explicit level, our behavioural results show an impairment in aesthetic perception ability in ASD individuals. This inability could have relevance for their ability to experience pleasure during social interactions. However, at the implicit level (eye-tracking results), ASD individuals conserved a good ability to feel aesthetic pleasure during the Golden Beauty task, thus indicating a discrepancy between the explicit and implicit evaluation of the beauty task. Finally, beauty perception appears to be linked to empathy when neither of these capacities is compromised, as demonstrated in the TD group. In contrast, this link is missed in ASD individuals. CONCLUSION: Overall, our results clearly show that individuals with autism are not completely blind to aesthetic pleasure: in fact, they retain an implicit ability to experience beauty. These findings could pave the way for the development of new protocols to rehabilitate ASD social functioning, exploiting their conserved implicit aesthetic perception.

A Robot Is Not Worth Another: Exploring Children's Mental State Attribution to Different Humanoid Robots.

Recent technological developments in robotics has driven the design and production of different humanoid robots. Several studies have highlighted that the presence of human-like physical features could lead both adults and children to anthropomorphize the robots. In the present study we aimed to compare the attribution of mental states to two humanoid robots, NAO and Robovie, which differed in the degree of anthropomorphism. Children aged 5, 7, and 9 years were required to attribute mental states to the NAO robot, which presents more human-like characteristics compared to the Robovie robot, whose physical features look more mechanical. The results on mental state attribution as a function of children's age and robot type showed that 5-year-olds have a greater tendency to anthropomorphize robots than older children, regardless of the type of robot. Moreover, the findings revealed that, although children aged 7 and 9 years attributed a certain degree of human-like mental features to both robots, they attributed greater mental states to NAO than Robovie compared to younger children. These results generally show that children tend to anthropomorphize humanoid robots that also present some mechanical characteristics, such as Robovie. Nevertheless, age-related differences showed that they should be endowed with physical characteristics closely resembling human ones to increase older children's perception of human likeness. These findings have important implications for the design of robots, which also needs to consider the user's target age, as well as for the generalizability issue of research findings that are commonly associated with the use of specific types of robots.

Shall I Trust You? From Child-Robot Interaction to Trusting Relationships.

Studying trust in the context of human-robot interaction is of great importance given the increasing relevance and presence of robotic agents in the social sphere, including educational and clinical. We investigated the acquisition, loss, and restoration of trust when preschool and school-age children played with either a human or a humanoid robot in vivo. The relationship between trust and the representation of the quality of attachment relationships, Theory of Mind, and executive function skills was also investigated. Additionally, to outline children's beliefs about the mental competencies of the robot, we further evaluated the attribution of mental states to the interactive agent. In general, no substantial differences were found in children's trust in the play partner as a function of agency (human or robot). Nevertheless, 3-year-olds showed a trend toward trusting the human more than the robot, as opposed to 7-year-olds, who displayed the reverse pattern. These findings align with results showing that, for 3- and 7-year-olds, the cognitive ability to switch was significantly associated with trust restoration in the human and the robot, respectively. Additionally, supporting previous findings, we found a dichotomy between attributions of mental states to the human and robot and children's behavior: while attributing to the robot significantly lower mental states than the human, in the Trusting Game, children behaved in a similar way when they related to the human and the robot. Altogether, the results of this study highlight that similar psychological mechanisms are at play when children are to establish a novel trustful relationship with a human and robot partner. Furthermore, the findings shed light on the interplay - during development - between children's quality of attachment relationships and the development of a Theory of Mind, which act differently on trust dynamics as a function of the children's age as well as the interactive partner's nature (human vs. robot).

Theory of mind network in multiple Sclerosis: A double disconnection mechanism.

The relationship between cognitive and affective theory of mind (ToM), clinical variables, and brain tissue injury is still a subject of debate in multiple sclerosis (MS). By adopting a ToM Networks model, we investigated ToM performance, and brain imaging correlates in relapsing-remitting (RR) and progressive (Pr) MS. 16RR, 19Pr, and 21 healthy controls were assessed with both cognitive (CToM) and affective ToM (AToM) tests and neuropsychological tools and were evaluated with MRI. Cortical thickness, sub-cortical volumetry, and tract-based-spatial-statistics were analyzed. Our results reported a CToM deficit in Pr, correlated with attention. While no relation between gray matter and CToM was observed, a widespread correlation between CToM and normal-appearing white matter was found. In particular, we registered a significant positive correlation between CToM and fractional anisotropy in Superior and Inferior Longitudinal Fasciculus and right thalamic radiation tracts. Moreover, an inverse correlation between CToM and mean diffusivity of the right fronto-occipital fasciculus, bilateral superior longitudinal fasciculus, cortico-spinal, left uncinate, corpus callosum, and forceps minor tracts was also observed. This work highlighted a double disconnection mechanism in Pr MS affecting communication both (1) inside the ToM network and (2) between the ToM network and cognitive execution areas, likely explaining the deficit in cognitive ToM.

Beauty in life: An eye-tracking study on young adults' aesthetic evaluation and vitality judgment of pictorial representations of sleeping and dead subjects.

Preferring life to death is deeply rooted in our biology. With the present study, we explored two questions: (1) Can this inclination be transposed to aesthetics, so that a living being is valued as more beautiful than a non-living being? and (2) Are there any differences in the visual exploration of portrayals of a living compared to a dead human? In particular, are there any specific facial features representing the vitality status of a living or dead subject? By answering both questions, young adults' eye gazing was analyzed while they observed, aesthetically judged, and judged the vitality status of faces extracted from paintings representing a sleeping or dead subject. The aesthetic preference for the stimuli as a function of vitality (living, dead) was assessed both during the eye-tracking study and during a follow-up priming behavioral experiment. The analysis of the responses given during the aesthetic judgment task in the eye-tracking study revealed preference for the sleeping compared to the dead subjects, supporting proclivity to attribute greater aesthetic value to living beings. This evidence was substantially confirmed by the follow-up priming behavioral study, which further showed a significant effect of explicit vitality labeling on the aesthetic evaluation of the portrayals of sleeping subjects. As far as the visual exploration of the stimuli is concerned, the main eye-tracking results revealed great attention to the eye region of both sleeping and dead subjects, which was particularly enhanced for the sleeping compared to the dead subjects. For the latter stimuli, focused attention was also found to the mouth region. These results are discussed in light of different theoretical proposals, including the "embodied" theory of aesthetic perception based on the existence of mirror systems.