Comparing online cognitive load on mobile versus PC-based devices.

Navigating the web represents a complex cognitive activity that requires effective integration of different stimuli and the correct functioning of numerous cognitive abilities (including attention, perception, and working memory). Despite the potential relevance of the topic, numerous limitations are present throughout the literature about the cognitive load during online activities. The main aim of this study is to investigate cognitive load during comprehension and information-seeking tasks. In particular, we here focus on the comparison of the cognitive load required while performing those tasks using mobile or PC-based devices. This topic has become even more crucial due to the massive adoption of smart working and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. A great effort is nowadays devoted to the detection and quantification of stressful states induced by working and learning activities. Continuous stress and excessive cognitive load are two of the main causes of mental and physical illnesses such as depression or anxiety. Cognitive load was measured through electroencephalography (EEG), acquired via a low-cost wireless EEG headset. Two different tasks were considered: reading comprehension (CO) of online text and online information-seeking (IS). Moreover, two experimental conditions were compared, administering the two tasks using mobile (MB) and desktop (PC) devices. Eleven participants were involved in each experimental condition, MB and PC, performing both the tasks on the same device, for a total of twenty-two people, recruited from students, researchers, and employees of the university. The following two research questions were investigated: Q1: Is there a difference in the cognitive load while performing the comprehension and the information-seeking tasks? Q2: Does the adopted device influence the cognitive load? The results obtained show that the baseline (BL) requires the lower cognitive load in both the conditions, while in IS task, the requirement reaches its highest value, especially using a mobile phone. In general, the power of all the brain wave bands increased in all conditions (MB and PC) during the two tasks (CO and IS), except for alpha, which is usually high in a state of relaxation and low cognitive load. People include website navigation into their daily routines, and for this, it is important to create an interaction that is as easy and barrier-free as possible. An effective design allows a user to focus on interesting information: many website architectures, instead, are an obstacle to be overcome; they impose a high cognitive load and poor user experience. All these aspects draw cognitive resources away from the user's primary task of finding and comprehending the site's information. Having information about how the cognitive load varies based on the device adopted and the considered task can provide useful indicators in this direction. This work suggests that using an EEG low-cost wearable device could be useful to quantify the cognitive load induced, allowing the development of new experiments to analyse these dependencies deeper, and to provide suggestions for better interaction with the web.

Linguistic Predictors of Psychological Adjustment in Healthcare Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

COVID-19 broke out in China in December 2019 and rapidly became a worldwide pandemic that demanded an extraordinary response from healthcare workers (HCWs). Studies conducted during the pandemic observed severe depression and PTSD in HCWs. Identifying early predictors of mental health disorders in this population is key to informing effective treatment and prevention. The aim of this study was to investigate the power of language-based variables to predict PTSD and depression symptoms in HCWs. One hundred thirty-five HCWs (mean age = 46.34; SD = 10.96) were randomly assigned to one of two writing conditions: expressive writing (EW n = 73) or neutral writing (NW n = 62) and completed three writing sessions. PTSD and depression symptoms were assessed both pre- and post-writing. LIWC was used to analyze linguistic markers of four trauma-related variables (cognitive elaboration, emotional elaboration, perceived threat to life, and self-immersed processing). Changes in PTSD and depression were regressed onto the linguistic markers in hierarchical multiple regression models. The EW group displayed greater changes on the psychological measures and in terms of narrative categories deployed than the NW group. Changes in PTSD symptoms were predicted by cognitive elaboration, emotional elaboration, and perceived threat to life; changes in depression symptoms were predicted by self-immersed processing and cognitive elaboration. Linguistic markers can facilitate the early identification of vulnerability to mental disorders in HCWs involved in public health emergencies. We discuss the clinical implications of these findings.

Does resilience mediate the association between mental health symptoms and linguistic markers of trauma processing? Analyzing the narratives of women survivors of intimate partner violence.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious issue for women from all cultures and backgrounds. Studies on the negative consequences of violence suggest that women with a history of abuse are more likely to display depressive and PTSD symptoms. However, recent research has focused on the mechanisms underpinning resilience and the processing of traumatic memories, including linguistic markers and how they may reflect the mental health of traumatized individuals. In this study, we analyzed trauma narratives to investigate whether resilience mediates the impact of PTSD and depression symptoms on five trauma-processing mechanisms (cognitive processing, emotional processing, perceived threat to life, self-perspective, and integration of traumatic memories). Forty-three abused women (mean age = 38.74 years; SD = 9.41) wrote about their traumatic experiences and completed instruments assessing their levels of PTSD, depression, and resilience. We used LIWC software to analyze the women's narratives in terms of linguistic markers of psychological processing. Mediation analysis indicated that resilience fully mediated the impact of mental health symptoms on emotional processing, perceived threat to life, and integration of traumatic memories and partially mediated cognitive processing and self-perspective. We discuss the clinical implications of these findings, emphasizing the need to focus on the resources and strengths of women survivors of abuse in designing targeted psychological interventions.

Social Environment and Attitudes toward COVID-19 Anti-Contagious Measures: An Explorative Study from Italy.

Social and cultural aspects (i.e., political decision making, discourses in the public sphere, and people's mindsets) played a crucial role in the ways people responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Framed with the Semiotic-Cultural Psychological Theory (SCPT), the present work aims to explore how individual ways of making sense of their social environment affected individuals' perception of government measures aimed at managing the pandemic and the adherence to such measures. An online survey was administered from January to April 2021 to the Italian population. Retrieved questionnaires (N = 378) were analyzed through a Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) to detect the factorial dimensions underpinning (dis)similarities in the respondents' ways of interpreting their social environment. Extracted factors were interpreted as markers of Latent Dimensions of Sense (LDSs) organizing respondents' worldviews. Finally, three regression models tested the role of LDSs in supporting the individual satisfaction with the measures adopted to contain the social contagion defined at national level, individual adherence to the containment measures and the perception of the population's adherence to them. Results highlight that all the three measures are associated with a negative view of the social environment characterized by a lack of confidence in public institutions (health system, government), public roles and other people. Findings are discussed on the one hand to shed light on the role of deep-rooted cultural views in defining personal evaluations of government measures and adherence capacity. On the other hand, we suggest that taking into account people's meaning-making can guide public health officials and policy makers to comprehend what favors or hinders adaptive responses to emergencies or social crises.

The Up-Side of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Are Core Belief Violation and Meaning Making Associated with Post-Traumatic Growth?

The negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health has been extensively documented, while its possible positive impact on the individual, defined as Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG), has been much less investigated. The present study examines the association between PTG and socio-demographic aspects, pre-pandemic psychological adjustment, stressors directly linked to COVID-19 and four psychological factors theoretically implicated in the change processes (core belief violation, meaning-making, vulnerability and mortality perception). During the second wave of the pandemic 680 medical patients completed an online survey on direct and indirect COVID-19 stressors, health and demographic information, post-traumatic growth, core belief violation, meaning-making capacity, feelings of vulnerability and perceptions of personal mortality. Violation of core beliefs, feelings of vulnerability and mortality, and pre-pandemic mental illness positively correlated with post-traumatic growth. Moreover, the diagnosis of COVID-19, stronger violation of core beliefs, greater meaning-making ability, and lower pre-existing mental illness predicted greater PTG. Finally, a moderating effect of meaning-making ability was found. The clinical implications were discussed.

Language and Intelligence: A Relationship Supporting the Embodied Cognition Hypothesis.

Cognitive science has gathered robust evidence supporting the hypothesis that cognitive processes do not occur in an amodal format but take shape through the activation of the sensorimotor systems of the agent body, which works as simulation system upon which concepts, words, and thought are based. However, studies that have investigated the relationship between language and cognitive processes, as both embedded processes, are very rare. In this study, we investigated the hypothesis that intelligence is associated with referential competence, conceived as the ability to find words to refer to our subjective and perceptual experience, and to evoke understanding of this experience in the listener. We administered the WAIS-IV test to 32 nonclinical subjects and collected autobiographical narratives from them through the Relationship Anecdotes Paradigm Interview. The narratives were analyzed linguistically by applying computerized measures of referential competence. Intelligence scores were found to correlate with the use in narratives of words related to somatic and sensory sensations, while they were not associated with other measures of referential competence related to more abstract domains of experience or based on vivid or reflective dimensions of language style. The results support the hypothesis that sensorimotor schemas have an intrinsic role in language and cognition.

Play-Based Activities with a CoderBot Robot on a Pediatric Ward: A Case Study.

Being hospitalized is a threatening and stressful experience for many children. From a psychological point of view, children may experience increased feelings of anxiety and fear that can negatively influence their behavioral, cognitive, and emotional outcomes. To mitigate such adverse effects on children's mental health and well-being, interventions that might contribute to protecting the emotional domain of hospitalized children are welcome. The present case study of a single-setting intervention allowed us to evaluate the impact, on children admitted to a pediatric short-term recovery ward (N = 61), of participating in play-based activities with a CoderBot robot. The methodology spanned multiple data sources (children, parents, nurses), field observation, and a sequential (quantitative-qualitative) mixed-method approach to data analysis. We found that robot-based activities are associated with enhanced well-being (particularly positive emotions). Both the participating children and their caregivers reported that the activity was enjoyable and interesting, especially thanks to its technologically innovative nature. We critically discuss these positive findings in relation to the strengths of our pilot study, as well as its contextual and methodological limitations, and outline possible future lines of development for this kind of project.