Technostress and academic motivation: direct and indirect effects on university students' psychological health.

Introduction: Research has well demonstrated that the pandemic entailed several implications among university students worldwide in terms of increased use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), technostress, disruptions in academic goals and motivation processes, and growing psychological suffering. Responding to the new research need to go in-depth into the processes linking technostress and motivation dimensions to inform current research/interventions, the present study aimed to explore the direct effects of perceived Technostress dimensions (Techno-Overload, Work-Home Conflict, Pace of Change, Techno-Ease, Techno-Reliability, and Techno-Sociality) and Academic Motivation dimensions (Amotivation, Intrinsic, and Extrinsic Motivation dimensions) on students' perceived levels of Anxiety/Depression and test the potential indirect effect (mediating role) of Academic Motivation dimensions in the associations between Technostress and psychological health conditions. Methods: Overall, 1,541 students from five European countries (Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Serbia, United Kingdom) completed a survey comprising a Background Information Form, the Technostress Scale, the Academic Motivation Scale-College, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Hayes' PROCESS tool was used to test direct and indirect (mediating) effects. Results: Data revealed that Techno-Overload, Work-Home Conflict, Amotivation, and Extrinsic Motivation-Introjected had a direct negative effect, whereas Techno-Ease, Techno-Reliability, Techno-Sociality, all Intrinsic Motivation dimensions, and Extrinsic Motivation-Identified had a direct protective role for students' psychological health. The significant indirect role of motivation dimensions in the associations between Technostress dimensions and Anxiety/Depression was fully supported. Discussion: Findings allow gaining further insight into the pathways of relationships between technostress, motivation, and psychological health, to be used in the current phase, featured by the complete restoration of face-to-face contacts, to inform the development of tailored research and interventions, which address lights and shadows of the technology use, and which take into account the necessity to enhance its potentials yet without impairing students' motivation and psychological health.

Technostress, Coping, and Anxious and Depressive Symptomatology in University Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic raised many challenges for university staff and students, including the need to work from home, which resulted in a greater reliance on technology. We collected questionnaire data from university students (N = 894) in three European countries: Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Data were collected between 7th April 2020 and 19th June 2020, representing a period covering the first lockdown and university closures in these countries and across Europe generally. We tested the hypotheses that technology-related stressors (techno-overload, work-home conflict, techno-ease, techno-reliability, techno-sociality, and pace of change) would be associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms, and that coping styles (problem-focused, emotion-focused, and avoidance) would mediate these relationships. Results showed significant positive associations between techno-overload, work-home conflict and anxiety and depressive symptoms, and significant negative associations between techno-reliability, techno-ease and anxiety and depressive symptoms. A significant negative association was found between techno-sociality and depressive symptoms but not anxiety symptoms. No evidence was found for an association between pace of change and anxiety or depressive symptoms. Multiple mediation analyses revealed significant direct effects of techno-overload, work-home conflict and techno-ease on anxiety symptoms, and of work-home conflict and techno-ease on depressive symptoms. Work-home conflict had significant indirect effects on anxiety and depressive symptoms through avoidance coping. Techno-overload and techno-ease both had significant indirect effects on anxiety symptoms through problem- and emotion-focused coping. Techno-ease also had a significant indirect effect on depressive symptoms through problem-focused coping. The findings add to the body of evidence on technostress amongst university students and provide knowledge on how technostress translates through coping strategies into anxious and depressive symptoms during the disruption caused by the outbreak of a pandemic disease.

Cultural differences in visual perceptual learning.

Cultural differences in visual perceptual learning (VPL) could be attributed to differences in the way that people from individualistic and collectivistic cultures preferentially attend to local objects (analytic) or global contexts (holistic). Indeed, individuals from different cultural backgrounds can adopt distinct processing styles and learn to differentially construct meaning from the environment. Therefore, the present work investigates if cross-cultural differences in VPL can vary as a function of holistic processing. A shape discrimination task was used to investigate whether the individualistic versus collectivistic backgrounds of individuals affected the detection of global shapes embedded in cluttered backgrounds. Seventy-seven participants-including Asian (collectivistic background) and European (individualistic background) students-were trained to discriminate between radial and concentric patterns. Singelis's self-construal scale was also used to assess whether differences in learning could be attributed to independent or interdependent self-construal. Results showed that collectivists had faster learning rates and better accuracy performance than individualists following training-thereby reflecting their tendency to attend holistically when learning to extract global forms. Further, we observed a negative association between independent self-construal-which has previously been linked to analytic processing-with performance. This study provides insight into how socio-cultural backgrounds affect VPL.

Temporal Binding and Segmentation in Visual Search: A Computational Neuroscience Analysis.

Human visual search operates not only over space but also over time, as old items remain in the visual field and new items appear. Preview search (where one set of distractors appears before the onset of a second set) has been used as a paradigm to study search over time and space [Watson, D. G., & Humphreys, G. W. Visual marking: Prioritizing selection for new objects by top-down attentional inhibition of old objects. Psychological Review, 104, 90-122, 1997], with participants showing efficient search when old distractors can be ignored and new targets prioritized. The benefits of preview search are lost, however, if a temporal gap is introduced between a first presentation of the old items and the re-presentation of all the items in the search display [Kunar, M. A., Humphreys, G. W., & Smith, K. J. History matters: The preview benefit in search is not onset capture. Psychological Science, 14, 181-185, 2003a], consistent with the old items being bound by temporal onset to the new stimuli. This effect of temporal binding can be eliminated if the old items reappear briefly before the new items, indicating also a role for the memory of the old items. Here we simulate these effects of temporal coding in search using the spiking search over time and space model [Mavritsaki, E., Heinke, D., Allen, H., Deco, G., & Humphreys, G. W. Bridging the gap between physiology and behavior: Evidence from the sSoTS model of human visual attention. Psychological Review, 118, 3-41, 2011]. We show that a form of temporal binding by new onsets has to be introduced to the model to simulate the effects of a temporal gap, but that effects of the memory of the old item can stem from continued neural suppression across a temporal gap. We also show that the model can capture the effects of brain lesion on preview search under the different temporal conditions. The study provides a proof-of-principle analysis that neural suppression and temporal binding can be sufficient to account for human search over time and space.

Bridging the gap between physiology and behavior: evidence from the sSoTS model of human visual attention.

We present the case for a role of biologically plausible neural network modeling in bridging the gap between physiology and behavior. We argue that spiking-level networks can allow "vertical" translation between physiological properties of neural systems and emergent "whole-system" performance-enabling psychological results to be simulated from implemented networks and also inferences to be made from simulations concerning processing at a neural level. These models also emphasize particular factors (e.g., the dynamics of performance in relation to real-time neuronal processing) that are not highlighted in other approaches and that can be tested empirically. We illustrate our argument from neural-level models that select stimuli by biased competition. We show that a model with biased competition dynamics can simulate data ranging from physiological studies of single-cell activity (Study 1) to whole-system behavior in human visual search (Study 2), while also capturing effects at an intermediate level, including performance breakdown after neural lesion (Study 3) and data from brain imaging (Study 4). We also show that, at each level of analysis, novel predictions can be derived from the biologically plausible parameters adopted, which we proceed to test (Study 5). We argue that, at least for studying the dynamics of visual attention, the approach productively links single-cell to psychological data.

The neural mechanisms of visual selection: the view from neuropsychology.

In this review, we discuss how neuropsychological impairments in visual selection can inform us about how selection normally operates. Using neuroanatomical and behavioral evidence on the disorders of neglect, extinction, and simultanagnosia, we propose functional and anatomical links between different aspects of visual selection and distinct sites in the posterior parietal cortex (PPC). This includes linking: (i) bottom-up attentional capture and the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ); (ii) top-down segmentation of displays and the medial PPC; (iii) grouping, individuation and identification, and the inferior intra-parietal sulcus (IPS) bilaterally; and (iv) the suppression of saliency and the left IPS. In addition, when neuropsychological studies are combined with fMRI, there is evidence that these regions of the PPC interact with striate and extra-striate cortical areas, which respond to specific properties of stimuli. Selection should be viewed as an emergent property of a network of areas involving both ventral and dorsal cortex.

Decomposing the neural mechanisms of visual search through model-based analysis of fMRI: top-down excitation, active ignoring and the use of saliency by the right TPJ.

Despite being studied intensively over the past 30 years, the neural processes underlying visual search are not yet fully understood. In the current study we extend prior work using model-based analysis to decompose fMRI data. fMRI data on human search were assessed using activation functions predicted from the spiking Search over Time and Space model (sSoTS; Mavritsaki et al., 2006). Going beyond previous work, we show for the first time that activity in a central location map in the model, which computes the saliency of a target relative to distractors, correlated with the BOLD response in the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ)--a key region implicated in clinical studies of unilateral neglect. This is consistent with the right TPJ responding to the relative saliency of visual stimuli. In addition, a re-analysis of search performance, with a larger participant set and a psychologically plausible response rule, showed distinct neural regions in parietal and occipital cortices linked to top-down excitation and the to active ignoring of distractors. The results indicate that excitatory and inhibitory circuits for visual selection can be separated, and that the right TPJ may be critical for responding to salient targets. The value of using a model-based approach is discussed.

Simulating posterior parietal damage in a biologically plausible framework: neuropsychological tests of the search over time and space model.

The search over time and space (sSoTS) model attempts to simulate both the spatial and the temporal aspects of human visual search using spiking level neurons, which incorporate some biologically plausible aspects of neuronal firing. The model contains pools of units that (a) code basic features of objects, presumed to reside in the ventral visual stream, and (b) respond in a feature-independent way to stimulation at their location, presumed to operate in the posterior parietal cortex. We examined the effects of selective lesioning neurons responding to one side of the location map. Unilateral damage introduced spatial biases into selection that affected conjunction more than single-feature search. In addition, there was an impaired ability to segment stimuli over time as well as space (e.g., in preview search). These results match previously reported data on patients with posterior parietal lesions. In addition we show that spatial biases in selection increase under conditions in which there is decreased activity from excitatory neurotransmitters, mimicking effects of reduced arousal. Further simulations explored the effects of time and of visual grouping on extinction, generating predictions that were then tested empirically. The model provides a framework for linking behavioural data from patients with neural-level determinants of visual attention.

Using biologically plausible neural models to specify the functional and neural mechanisms of visual search.

We review research from our laboratory that attempts to pull apart the functional and neural mechanisms of visual search using converging, inter-disciplinary evidence from experimental studies with normal participants, neuropsychological studies with brain lesioned patients, functional brain imaging and computational modelling. The work suggests that search is determined by excitatory mechanisms that support the selection of target stimuli, and inhibitory mechanisms that suppress irrelevant distractors. These mechanisms operate through separable though overlapping neural circuits which can be functionally decomposed by imposing model-based analyses on brain imaging data. The chapter highlights the need for inter-disciplinary research for understanding complex cognitive processes at several levels.

Response linearity determined by recruitment strategy in detailed model of nictitating membrane control.

Many models of eyeblink conditioning assume that there is a simple linear relationship between the firing patterns of neurons in the interpositus nucleus and the time course of the conditioned response (CR). However, the complexities of muscle behaviour and plant dynamics call this assumption into question. We investigated the issue by implementing the most detailed model available of the rabbit nictitating membrane response (Bartha and Thompson in Biol Cybern 68:135-143, 1992a and in Biol Cybern 68:145-154, 1992b), in which each motor unit of the retractor bulbi muscle is represented by a Hill-type model, driven by a non-linear activation mechanism designed to reproduce the isometric force measurements of Lennerstrand (J Physiol 236:43-55, 1974). Globe retraction and NM extension are modelled as linked second order systems. We derived versions of the model that used a consistent set of SI units, were based on a physically realisable version of calcium kinetics, and used simulated muscle cross-bridges to produce force. All versions showed similar non-linear responses to two basic control strategies. (1) Rate-coding with no recruitment gave a sigmoidal relation between control signal and amplitude of CR, reflecting the measured relation between isometric muscle force and stimulation frequency. (2) Recruitment of similar strength motor units with no rate coding gave a sublinear relation between control signal and amplitude of CR, reflecting the increase in muscle stiffness produced by recruitment. However, the system response could be linearised by either a suitable combination of rate-coding and recruitment, or by simple recruitment of motor units in order of (exponentially) increasing strength. These plausible control strategies, either alone or in combination, would in effect present the cerebellum with the simplified virtual plant that is assumed in many models of eyeblink conditioning. Future work is therefore needed to determine the extent to which motor neuron firing is in fact linearly related to the nictitating membrane response.

A computational model of visual marking using an inter-connected network of spiking neurons: the spiking search over time & space model (sSoTS).

In the real world, visual information is selected over time as well as space, when we prioritise new stimuli for attention. Watson and Humphreys [Watson, D., Humphreys, G.W., 1997. Visual marking: prioritizing selection for new objects by top-down attentional inhibition of old objects. Psychological Review 104, 90-122] presented evidence that new information in search tasks is prioritised by (amongst other processes) active ignoring of old items - a process they termed visual marking. In this paper we present, for the first time, an explicit computational model of visual marking using biologically plausible activation functions. The "spiking search over time and space" model (sSoTS) incorporates different synaptic components (NMDA, AMPA, GABA) and a frequency adaptation mechanism based on [Ca(2+)] sensitive K(+) current. This frequency adaptation current can act as a mechanism that suppresses the previously attended items. We show that, when coupled with a process of active inhibition applied to old items, frequency adaptation leads to old items being de-prioritised (and new items prioritised) across time in search. Furthermore, the time course of these processes mimics the time course of the preview effect in human search. The results indicate that the sSoTS model can provide a biologically plausible account of human search over time as well as space.