Studying and Learning Psychology During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed-Methods Approach on Students' Perspectives of Psychological Well-being and Adjustment to Studying Online.

Background: The challenges presented by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in higher education pressured learners and instructors to incorporate online emergent learning which presented several well-being and academic challenges to students. Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of studying online to students' well-being. Methods: A mixed methods approach was followed for this study. Eighty students completed an online survey that measured their stress level of studying online, and 13 semistructured interviews were conducted at Queen's University Belfast. Results: Findings suggest that online learning under such circumstances increased students' level of stress due to a number of perceived factors. Our findings also reveal the journey of student adjustment to online learning, reflecting the flexibility of blended learning as a long-term pedagogical strategy in universities, necessary for University's survival. Conclusion: As demonstrated in this study, after the initial difficulties of moving to online learning which had negative impacts on students learning and well-being, students subsequently adjusted to the online learning environment documenting students' adaptability to a new learning environment and highlighting student resilience.

Investigating Gaze Behaviour of Children Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders in a Classroom Setting.

A defining feature of ASD is atypical gaze behaviour, however, eye-tracking studies in 'real-world' settings are limited, and the possibility of improving gaze behaviour for ASD children is largely unexplored. This study investigated gaze behaviour of ASD and typically developing (TD) children in their classroom setting. Eye-tracking technology was used to develop and pilot an operant training tool to positively reinforce typical gaze behaviour towards faces. Visual and statistical analyses of eye-tracking data revealed different gaze behaviour patterns during live interactions for ASD and TD children depending on the interaction type. All children responded to operant training with longer looking times observed on face stimuli post training. The promising application of operant gaze training in ecologically valid settings is discussed.

Individuals with Psychopathic Traits and Poor Attitudes towards Animals Can Recognise Infant Features But Give Them Reduced Attentional Priority.

Infant features are physical traits that are characteristic of human infants and include facial features such as large and low-lying eyes, and a small nose and mouth. Animals possessing high levels of infant features elicit care-giving responses in humans. Despite this, animal cruelty is a common occurrence. The aim of this research was to determine whether the ability to recognise and/or attend to infant features is linked to subclinical psychopathic traits and attitudes towards animals. Using a community sample, participants (n = 387) completed a cuteness forced-choice task. Self-reported psychopathy and attitude towards animals were not related to the participants' ability to detect cues of cuteness in human infants and animals. In a second study, participants (n = 142) were screened for low versus high primary psychopathy and low versus high animal attitude scores. A Psychopathy-Attitude Composite score was created and a subset of participants (n = 50) from the upper and lower quartiles completed a free-viewing eye-tracking task where 'Cute', 'Neutral, 'Monetary' and 'Control' images were presented in pairs. Higher levels of psychopathic traits and an anti-animal welfare attitude were associated with decreased attention to 'Cute' images in terms of decreased dwell time, mean fixation duration and mean fixation count, measures of voluntary attention. There were a number of interactions between Psychopathy-Attitude Composite classification and attention to each image category in terms of dwell time, first fixation duration, mean fixation duration and fixation count. These findings support the theory that individuals with psychopathic traits recognise facial cues of vulnerability but choose to give them reduced attentional priority. This may have implications for animal welfare.