Positive and negative touch differentially modulate metacognitive memory judgements for emotional stimuli.

Touch plays a crucial role in providing humans with information from the external environment and can be perceived by humans as positively or negatively valenced. It is well documented that touch can differentially influence social functions, but very little is known about how touch can modulate (meta)cognition. Utilizing a within-subject design, participants were exposed to (a) positive, (b) negative, and (c) no touch, alongside encoding of emotionally valenced (positive and negative) images. After a 20-minute delay, participants completed a Yes/No recognition task to investigate how touch influenced memory-related decision components (e.g. criterion, confidence). Results showed that, compared to the control condition, both positive and negative touch were associated with overall lower confidence ratings, a less liberal response bias and slower response times. Interestingly, for correct recognitions, only negative touch (vs. no touch) led to inappropriately lower confidence and slower response times while both confidence and response time remained unaltered in positive touch. Our findings provide the first evidence that positive and negative touch differentially interact with metacognitive memory-related decisions. Altered metacognitive judgements after being touched could have significant consequences in applied settings, such as situations of eyewitness testimony.

Poly[tris-(2-amino-butan-1-ol)copper(II) [hexa-kis-µ2-cyanido-κ12 C:N-tetra-copper(I)] bis-(2-amino-butan-1-olato)aqua-copper(II) monohydrate].

The title structure, {[Cu(C4H11NO)3][Cu4(CN)6]·[Cu(C4H10NO)2(H2O)]·H2O} n , is made up of diperiodic honeycomb CuICN networks built from [Cu4(CN)6]2- units, together with two independent CuII complexes: six-coord-inate [Cu(CH3CH2CH(NH2)CH2OH)3]2+ cations, and five-coordinate [Cu(CH3CH2CH(NH2)CH2O)2·H2O] neutral species. The two CuII complexes are not covalently bonded to the CuICN networks. Strong O-H⋯O hydrogen bonds link the CuII complexes into pairs and the pairs are hydrogen bonded into chains along the crystallographic b axis via the hydrate water mol-ecule. In addition, O-H⋯(CN) and N-H⋯(CN) hydrogen bonds link the cations to the CuCN network. In the honeycomb polymeric moiety, all bridging cyanido ligands are disordered over two orientations, head-to-tail and tail-to-head, with occupancies for C and N atoms varying for each CN group.

Poor/rich dual electron reaction centers promoting photo-Fenton synergistic removal of organic pollutants: Graphite carbon-modified copper ferrite.

Controlling high recombination of photogenerated carriers and optimizing low cycling of metal valence states are the two key control steps in enhancing photo-Fenton oxidation. To achieve multiscale synergy of photo-Fenton degradation, graphite carbon-modified copper ferrite composites (C/CFO) with poor/rich dual electron reaction centers were synthesized through direct carbonization of Fe/Cu bimetallic organic frameworks. A novel photo-Fenton catalytic system was constructed by irradiating the Fenton reaction with visible light. The photo-Fenton degradation efficiency of C/CFO for tetracycline (100 mg‧L-1) was 93.69% ± 0.02%, and the degradation rate constant was 4.84 times higher than that of the control. Optimized preparation and catalytic conditions, ensured good cyclic stability and broad applicability of C/CFO. This excellent stability performance improvement can be attributed to the following main factors: (1) The introduction of graphite carbon not only increases the specific surface area of C/CFO, but also acts as a bridge between the dual electron reaction centers, facilitating the transfer of photogenerated electrons. (2) On the one hand, the electron-poor reaction centers Fe and Cu capture photogenerated electrons, accelerate the Fenton reaction, and realize the valence cycling of Fe and Cu. On the other hand, the electron-rich reaction centers (oxygen vacancies) act as active sites for H2O2 adsorption, which greatly accelerate the decomposition of H2O2. Overall, the synergy of dual electron reaction centers effectively promoted photo-Fenton oxidation.

The role of individual differences in emotional word recognition: Insights from a large-scale lexical decision study.

This work presents a large lexical decision mega-study in Spanish, with 918 participants and 7500 words, focusing on emotional content and individual differences. The main objective was to investigate how emotional valence and arousal influence word recognition, controlling for a large number of confounding variables. In addition, as a unique contribution, the study examined the modulation of these effects by individual differences. Results indicated a significant effect of valence and arousal on lexical decision times, with an interaction between these variables. A linear effect of valence was observed, with slower recognition times for negative words and faster recognition times for positive words. In addition, arousal showed opposite effects in positive and negative words. Importantly, the effect of emotional variables was affected by personality traits (extroversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience), age and gender, challenging the 'one-size-fits-all' interpretation of emotional word processing. All data collected in the study is available to the research community: https://osf.io/cbtqy . This includes data from each participant (RTs, errors and individual differences scores), as well as values of concreteness (n = 1690), familiarity (n = 1693) and age of acquisition (n = 2171) of the words collected exclusively for this study. This is a useful resource for researchers interested not only in emotional word processing, but also in lexical processing in general and the influence of individual differences.

Experimental and Theoretical Characterization of 4π-Electron Möbius Aromatic System of a 1,2-Digermacyclobutadiene†.

We present the visualization of the experimental valence electron-density distribution (EDD) in the isolated 1,2-digermacyclobutadiene ring system, revealing the unique 4π electron-delocalization on the four-membered Ge2C2 ring. A remarkably high Möbius 4π-electron aromatic character in the Ge2C2 ring can be suggested from theoretical calculations, in sharp contrast to the significant antiaromaticity of the all-carbon cyclobutadiene ring.

Hydrothermal Synthesis of a Valence State Constant High-Entropy Perovskite Sr(TiZrHfVNb)O3 with Improved Photoresponsiveness.

A vanadium ion valence state constant high-entropy perovskite system was synthesized using the hydrothermal method with a trivalent vanadium ion as the vanadium source. The B-site of the perovskite crystal lattice was loaded with five atoms in equal proportions. We tried to synthesize the Sr(TiZrHfVNb)O3 high-entropy system using different methods. However, the valence state of the vanadium ion could only be kept constant using the hydrothermal process in the valence balanced high-entropy composition system. There was significant vanadium element segregation and second phase in the Sr(TiZrHfVNb)O3 system prepared using the solid-state reaction process. Also, obvious vanadium ion valence state ascending from V3+ to V5+ appeared in this high-entropy system with an increase in calcination temperature. Inconspicuous vanadium element segregation appeared at 900 °C, the significant segregation phenomenon and second phase appeared at 1200 °C, and the particle size increased with the temperature. This meant that the high-entropy value could not only stabilize the crystal phase, but also stabilize the ionic valence state. Moreover, the constant trivalent vanadium ion valence state could provide coordinated performance with a wide optical response range and a low band gap for the high-entropy system. This suggests that the system might grow a potential ceramic material for optical applications.

Where the 'bad' and the 'good' go: A multi-lab direct replication report of Casasanto (2009, Experiment 1).

Casasanto (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 138, 351-367, 2009) conceptualised the body-specificity hypothesis by empirically finding that right-handed people tend to associate a positive valence with the right side and a negative valence with the left side, whilst left-handed people tend to associate a positive valence with the left side and negative valence with the right side. Thus, this was the first paper that showed a body-specific space-valence mapping. These highly influential findings led to a substantial body of research and follow-up studies, which could confirm the original findings on a conceptual level. However, direct replications of the original study are scarce. Against this backdrop and given the replication crisis in psychology, we conducted a direct replication of Casasanto's original study with 2,222 participants from 12 countries to examine the aforementioned effects in general and also in a cross-cultural comparison. Our results support Casasanto's findings that right-handed people associate the right side with positivity and the left side with negativity and vice versa for left-handers.

How does emotional content influence visual word recognition? A meta-analysis of valence effects.

Research on the interplay between language and emotion has shown evidence that the affective content of words influences their recognition. However, the direction of the effects is not clear, as there are mixed findings regarding the role of positive and, especially, negative valence. We conducted a Bayesian multi-level meta-analysis to examine the role of valence in visual word recognition, focusing on the lexical decision task. The results revealed a facilitative effect of positive valence on lexical decision times. That is, positive words led to faster responses than both negative and neutral words. In contrast, negative valence did not have any effect, although the analysis of several moderator variables suggested that there might be a facilitative effect in some cases, specifically, when negative words elicit very strong and intense emotions. These results shed light on the complexities of emotional word processing. They also point to the need for psycholinguistic models to take affective information into account, and thus provide a complete view of visual word recognition.

Valence versus motivation: The different impact of emotion on space- and object-based attention.

Numerous studies have indicated that both the broaden-and-build model and the motivational dimensional model emphasize the impact of emotion on spatial attention by altering the attentional scope. However, no prior research has investigated the impact of emotional valence and motivational intensity on spatial attention within the same paradigm. Furthermore, object-based attention, characterized by distinct neural mechanisms from space-based attention and also susceptible to attentional scope, represents a major pattern of selective attention. Nevertheless, it is still unclear whether and how emotional valence and motivation play a role in object-based attentional selection. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore these areas. Using a two-rectangle paradigm, Experiment 1 found that motivational intensity modulated space-based effects, whereas emotional valence modulated object-based effects. Experiment 2 used a traditional spatial cueing paradigm to further study the stability of modulating effect of motivation intensity on space-based attention, yielding results consistent with those of Experiment 1. The present study indicated that the broaden-and-build model and motivational dimensional model were not either one or the other, but both played a role in object- and space-based attention. This study provides crucial empirical evidence for theoretical complementation and integration of emotional attention.

Unveiling the Cation Dependence in Alkaline Hydrogen Evolution by Differently-Charged Ruthenium/Molybdenum Sulfide Hybrids.

The sluggish kinetics of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) via water reduction limits the efficiency of alkaline water electrolysis. The HER kinetics is not only intimately related to the catalyst surface structure but also relevant to the cation identity of the electrolyte. The cation dependence also relies on the surface electronic structure and applied potential, but this interrelated effect and its underlying mechanism awaits elucidation. Herein, differently-charged molybdenum sulfide (MoSx) cluster supports ([Mo3S13]2- and [Mo3S7]4+) are utilized to hybridize with the identical metallic Ru centers. The specific electrostatic interaction between MoSx clusters and Ru precursors induces different Ru valences of the hybrids, with a higher valence state for Ru/Mo3S13 endowing a higher activity. The Ru/Mo3S13 and Ru/Mo3S7 exhibited drastically-different cation dependence, in which the charged support determines the local accumulation of cations and resulting water structures. The more negatively-charged Mo3S13 support induces the facile accumulation of cations, especially for less-hydrated K+ cations. The water activation capability by Ru valences and cation accumulation from the support effect in-together determine the cation-dependent alkaline HER activity. This work not only enriches the understanding about the cation-dependent HER mechanism but also shines a light on the rational optimization strategy of electrode/electrolyte interfaces.

Oxygen-doped FeP on Ti Foil with Ti3O Interlayer for Efficient and Durable Electrolysis.

The development of electrocatalysts with low cost, high efficiency, and long-term durability is crucial for advancing green hydrogen production. Transition metal phosphides (TMPs) have been proved to be efficient electrocatalyst, while the improvement in the performance and durability of the TMPs remains a big challenge. Employing atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) and phosphorization, FeP/Ti electrodes are fabricated featuring controllable oxygen ingredients (O-FeP/Ti). This manipulation of oxygen content fine-tunes the electronic structure of the catalyst, resulting in improved surface reaction kinetics and catalytic activity. The optimized O-FeP-400/Ti exhibits outstanding HER activity with overpotentials of 142 and 159 mV at -10 mA cm-2 in 0.5 M H2SO4 and 1 M KOH, respectively. Notably, the obtained O-FeP/Ti cathode also displays remarkable durability of up to 200 h in acidic electrolyte with surface topography remaining intact. For the first time, the low-valence titanium oxide (Ti3O) interlayer is identified in the composite electrode and ascribed for the superior connection between Ti substrate and the surface O-FeP catalyst, as supported by experimental results and density functional theory (DFT) analysis. This work has expanded the potential applications of transition metal phosphides (TMPs) as a cost-effective, highly efficient and durable catalyst for water splitting.

Fluorine-lodged high-valent high-entropy layered double hydroxide for efficient, long-lasting zinc-air batteries.

Efficient and stable bifunctional oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts are urgently needed to unlock the full potential of zinc-air batteries (ZABs). High-valence oxides (HVOs) and high entropy oxides (HEOs) are suitable candidates for their optimal electronic structures and stability but suffer from demanding synthesis. Here, a low-cost fluorine-lodged high-valent high-entropy layered double hydroxide (HV-HE-LDH) (FeCoNi2F4(OH)4) is conveniently prepared through multi-ions co-precipitation, where F- are firmly embedded into the individual hydroxide layers. Spectroscopic detections and theoretical simulations reveal high valent metal cations are obtained in FeCoNi2F4(OH)4, which enlarge the energy band overlap between metal 3d and O 2p, enhancing the electronic conductivity and charge transfer, thus affording high intrinsic OER catalytic activity. More importantly, the strengthened metal-oxygen (M-O) bonds and stable octahedral geometry (M-O(F)6) in FeCoNi2F4(OH)4 prevent structural reorganization, rendering long-term catalytic stability. Furthermore, an efficient three-phase reaction interface with fast oxygen transportation was constructed, significantly improving the ORR activity. ZABs assembled with FeCoNi2F4(OH)4@HCC (hydrophobic carbon cloth) cathodes deliver a top performance with high round-trip energy efficiency (60.6% at 10 mA cm-2) and long-term stability (efficiency remains at 58.8% after 1050 charge-discharge cycles).

Physicians have feelings: illuminating the relationship between emotional valence, clinical reasoning and context specificity.

INTRODUCTION: Research demonstrates that emotions play an important role in clinical reasoning (CR); however, the relationship between emotional valence, CR, and the context in which reasoning takes place, remains to be empirically explored. While situated cognition has been used to investigate CR and context specificity (e.g. the presence of contextual factors, things other than the information directly related to establishing a diagnosis), it has not explicitly examined the role of emotional valence during CR encounters. Our research question was how do emotional valence and arousal emerge in CR, particularly in the presence or absence of contextual factors? METHODS: Physicians (n = 45) reviewed two video cases, one with contextual factors and one without. Immediately afterwards, participants completed a 'think-aloud' while reviewing cases. Thematic analysis was used to code transcribed think-alouds for CR activities, emotional valence (positive, neutral or negative) and arousal by three researchers. Frequencies and relationships between codes were compared, both in the presence or absence of contextual factors. RESULTS: The majority of emotional valence codes were neutral (85.2%), with negative valence more frequent (11.2%) than positive valence (3.5%). Five CR themes were consistently demonstrated: knowledge organization (with two sub-themes of linking and differential diagnosis formation), proceeding with caution, curiosity, assumption, and reflection. In the presence of contextual factors, there was an increase in negative valence with a decrease in positive valence, as well as a shift in CR from knowledge organization to curiosity and proceeding with caution. DISCUSSION: The complex interaction between clinical reasoning themes, emotional valence, and changes with contextual factors have important implications for clinical practice, education, and future research on CR.

Assessment of Valance Emotional State Using EEG-EDA Coupling and Explainable Classifiers.

Emotion influences human life and impacts daily life activities. During emotional processes, physiological signals interact with each other instead of functioning separately. Although unimodal and multimodal approaches have been explored for emotion classification, there is a lack of inclusion of central and peripheral nervous system signal interaction-based approaches. In this study, an attempt has been made to characterize valance emotional states using Electroencephalogram (EEG)- Electrodermal activity (EDA) based coupling. For this, multimodal signals are obtained from the publicly available DEAP database (n=32 subjects). The EEG signals are decomposed into θ, α, ß, and bands and EDA signals are decomposed into phasic and tonic components. Then two EEG, three EDA, and two EEG-EDA coupling-based features are extracted and applied to three classifiers namely Random Forest (RF), Linear discriminant analysis, and Adaptive boosting. In addition, SHAP analysis is performed to explain classifiers' performance with respect to features. The result shows that the proposed approach is able to classify valence emotional states. The feature combination of EEG, EDA, and EEG-EDA coupling-based features with an RF classifier performs best with an F1-score of 68.21%. SHAP analysis in frontal electrodes with γ band obtained better discrimination among different valance states. This study underscores the significance of the coupling studies of EEG with EDA in classifying emotion. Therefore, the proposed approach can be extended to emotional state assessment in clinical settings.

Sensing emotional valence and arousal dynamics through automated facial action unit analysis.

Information about the concordance between dynamic emotional experiences and objective signals is practically useful. Previous studies have shown that valence dynamics can be estimated by recording electrical activity from the muscles in the brows and cheeks. However, whether facial actions based on video data and analyzed without electrodes can be used for sensing emotion dynamics remains unknown. We investigated this issue by recording video of participants' faces and obtaining dynamic valence and arousal ratings while they observed emotional films. Action units (AUs) 04 (i.e., brow lowering) and 12 (i.e., lip-corner pulling), detected through an automated analysis of the video data, were negatively and positively correlated with dynamic ratings of subjective valence, respectively. Several other AUs were also correlated with dynamic valence or arousal ratings. Random forest regression modeling, interpreted using the SHapley Additive exPlanation tool, revealed non-linear associations between the AUs and dynamic ratings of valence or arousal. These results suggest that an automated analysis of facial expression video data can be used to estimate dynamic emotional states, which could be applied in various fields including mental health diagnosis, security monitoring, and education.

Emerging Mixed-Valence Porous Materials.

The development and applications of porous materials have been revolutionized over the past decades. To fine-tune their fascinating behaviors such as charge-transport, magnetic, and catalytic properties, one of the most effective strategies is incorporating mixed valency into the structures. This Concept provides recent progress on emerging crystalline porous materials, namely, metal-organic frameworks, metal-organic polyhedra, covalent organic frameworks, and hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks, where their mixed valency is either intrinsic or postsynthetically induced via an external stimulus. We further highlight the investigation of mixed valency and potential applications, which sheds light on the design and exploitation of mixed-valence crystalline porous materials.

Norms for 718 Persian Words in Emotional Dimensions, Animacy, and Familiarity.

Research frequently uses words as stimuli to assess cognitive and psychological processes. However, various attributes of these words, such as their semantic and emotional aspects, could potentially confound study results if not properly controlled. This study aims to establish a reliable foundation for the semantic and emotional aspects of words for research in Persian. To this end, the present study provided norms for 718 Persian nouns in arousal, valence, familiarity, and animacy dimensions. The words were selected from a previous English dataset (Warriner et al. in Behav Res Methods 45(4):1191-1207, 2013), translated into Persian, and rated by a total of 463 native Persian-speaking participants. The ratings were obtained through an online questionnaire using a 9-point Likert scale for emotional dimensions (i.e., valence and arousal) and a 5-point Likert scale for semantic dimensions (i.e., familiarity and animacy). The reliability of the ratings was measured using the split-half method, and the result indicated a high consistency of ratings in all dimensions. To assess the relationship between the emotional and semantic dimensions, Pearson correlation coefficient was conducted. Gender differences were investigated through the Mann-Whitney U test, and significant differences were observed in all dimensions. These results are compared with findings from previous studies that were conducted in various languages.

Intermolecular Anionic Mixed-Valence and π-Dimer Complexes of Ortho-Pentannulated BisAzaCoroneneDiimides.

This study reports the serendipitous discovery of intermolecular anionic mixed-valence (MV) and π-dimer species in ortho-pentannulated BisAzaCoroneneDiimides (BACDs) during their electrochemical reduction in a non-aqueous solvent. A library of nitrogen-containing extended PDIs was synthesized via an aza-benzannulation reaction followed by a Pd-catalysed ortho-pentannulation reaction. Ortho-pentannulated BACDs revealed strong aggregation abilities in solution. Concentration-dependent UV-vis absorption spectra, variable temperature 1H NMR experiments, and atomic force microscopy coupled to molecular dynamics support their self-assembly into columnar aggregates. Cyclic voltammetry experiments in dichloromethane reveal prominent splitting of the first reduction wave, attributed to the formation of unprecedented intermolecular anionic MV and π-dimers in organic solvent. These species were thoroughly characterized by real-time spectroelectrochemistry, electrochemical simulations and theoretical calculations. Remarkably, this work underscores the tuneable nature of AzaBenzannulatedPerylene Diimides (AzaBPDIs) and BACDs, emphasizing their potential as a promising scaffold for designing supramolecular materials with long-range radical anion delocalization. The observation of this phenomenon provides insights into the fundamental behaviour of supramolecular organic semiconductors, thereby paving the way for the development of novel electronic devices and electron-deficient materials.

Affective, semantic, frequency, and descriptive norms for 107 face emojis.

We introduce a novel dataset of affective, semantic, and descriptive norms for all facial emojis at the point of data collection. We gathered and examined subjective ratings of emojis from 138 German speakers along five essential dimensions: valence, arousal, familiarity, clarity, and visual complexity. Additionally, we provide absolute frequency counts of emoji use, drawn from an extensive Twitter corpus, as well as a much smaller WhatsApp database. Our results replicate the well-established quadratic relationship between arousal and valence of lexical items, also known for words. We also report associations among the variables: for example, the subjective familiarity of an emoji is strongly correlated with its usage frequency, and positively associated with its emotional valence and clarity of meaning. We establish the meanings associated with face emojis, by asking participants for up to three descriptions for each emoji. Using this linguistic data, we computed vector embeddings for each emoji, enabling an exploration of their distribution within the semantic space. Our description-based emoji vector embeddings not only capture typical meaning components of emojis, such as their valence, but also surpass simple definitions and direct emoji2vec models in reflecting the semantic relationship between emojis and words. Our dataset stands out due to its robust reliability and validity. This new semantic norm for face emojis impacts the future design of highly controlled experiments focused on the cognitive processing of emojis, their lexical representation, and their linguistic properties.

Theta oscillations underlie the interplay between emotional processing and empathy.

Emotional reactions to salient stimuli are well documented in psychophysiological research. However, some individual variables that can influence how people process emotions (i.e., empathy traits) have received little consideration. The present study investigated the relationship between emotions and empathy. Forty participants completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, a questionnaire that measure general and specific empathy dimensions. Then, emotional (erotic and mutilation) and non-emotional pictures were presented, during electroencephalographic recording. Valence and arousal were evaluated for each stimulus. Behavioral results revealed a positive correlation between the arousal induced by mutilation pictures and personal distress (i.e., feeling discomfort in emergency situations). At the electrophysiological level, theta activity elicited by positive and negative emotion processing in the superior frontal gyrus was associated with personal distress. Moreover, erotic-related theta in the middle frontal gyrus was associated with subjective judgement of erotic stimulus valence. Overall, theta activity modulated the interplay between emotions and empathy.