The visual encoding of graspable unfamiliar objects.

We explored by eye-tracking the visual encoding modalities of participants (N = 20) involved in a free-observation task in which three repetitions of ten unfamiliar graspable objects were administered. Then, we analysed the temporal allocation (t = 1500 ms) of visual-spatial attention to objects' manipulation (i.e., the part aimed at grasping the object) and functional (i.e., the part aimed at recognizing the function and identity of the object) areas. Within the first 750 ms, participants tended to shift their gaze on the functional areas while decreasing their attention on the manipulation areas. Then, participants reversed this trend, decreasing their visual-spatial attention to the functional areas while fixing the manipulation areas relatively more. Crucially, the global amount of visual-spatial attention for objects' functional areas significantly decreased as an effect of stimuli repetition while remaining stable for the manipulation areas, thus indicating stimulus familiarity effects. These findings support the action reappraisal theoretical approach, which considers object/tool processing as abilities emerging from semantic, technical/mechanical, and sensorimotor knowledge integration.

The Area Prostriata may play a role in technical reasoning.

Most recent research indicated how technical reasoning (TR), namely, a specific form of causal reasoning aimed at understanding the physical world, may support the development of tools and technologies of increasing complexity. We have recently identified the Area PF of the left inferior parietal lobe (PF) as a critical structural correlate of TR, as assessed by using two ad-hoc psycho-technical tests evaluating the two main aspects of TR, i.e., physical world's understanding and visuospatial imagery. Here, we extended our findings by implementing new ad-hoc analyses of our previous data by using a whole-brain approach. Results showed that the cortical thickness (CT) of the left Area Prostriata of the visual cortex, alongside the left Area PF CT, predicts TR performance.

Psychometric properties of the STAI-Y scales and normative data in an Italian elderly population.

BACKGROUND: Early detection of anxiety symptoms in older people is capital as it may be linked to increased physical/functional disabilities, onset and progression of neurodegenerative disorders, and poor cognitive functioning. Nonetheless, there is a paucity of psychometrically validated anxiety measures in the elderly. AIMS: This study aimed at assessing the psychometric properties of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Form Y (STAI-Y) and providing the first normative data for the Italian elderly population. METHODS: The sample included 361 individuals aged 65-94. All subjects underwent the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and the state (S-Anxiety) and trait anxiety (T-anxiety) scales of the STAI-Y. RESULTS: The S-Anxiety and T-Anxiety scales showed reliable internal consistency and, overall, good item characteristics. Divergent validity was "apparently" threatened, with S-Anxiety scale correlating with MMSE and GDS, and T-Anxiety scale only with GDS. The principal component analysis revealed a three-factor solution for both scales, i.e., presence and absence of state (or trait) anxiety, and performance anxiety. Since no effect of sociodemographic variables was found, unadjusted cutoffs were provided. CONCLUSIONS: Although some questions on the psychometric properties of the STAI-Y remain unanswered, this normative study can help clinicians and researchers to monitor anxiety levels in the Italian elderly population.

The fear of COVID-19 contagion: an exploratory EEG-fMRI study.

Pandemics have the potential to change how people behave and feel. The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception; thus, it may serve as a "challenging context" for understanding how pandemics affect people's minds. In this study, we used high-density electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural correlates of fear of contagion during the most critical moments of COVID-19 in Italy (i.e., October 2020-May 2021). To do that, we stimulated participants (N = 17; nine females) with artificial-intelligence-generated faces of people presented as healthy, recovered from COVID-19, or infected by SARS-CoV-2. The fMRI results documented a modulation of large bilateral fronto-temporo-parietal functional brain networks. Critically, we found selective recruitment of cortical (e.g., frontal lobes) and subcortical fear-related structures (e.g., amygdala and putamen) of the so-called social brain network when participants observed COVID-19-related faces. Consistently, EEG results showed distinct patterns of brain activity selectively associated with infected and recovered faces (e.g., delta and gamma rhythm). Together, these results highlight how pandemic contexts may reverberate in the human brain, thus influencing most basic social and cognitive functioning. This may explain the emergence of a cluster of psychopathologies during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this study underscores the need for prompt interventions to address pandemics' short- and long-term consequences on mental health.

On the functional brain networks involved in tool-related action understanding.

Tool-use skills represent a significant cognitive leap in human evolution, playing a crucial role in the emergence of complex technologies. Yet, the neural mechanisms underlying such capabilities are still debated. Here we explore with fMRI the functional brain networks involved in tool-related action understanding. Participants viewed images depicting action-consistent (e.g., nail-hammer) and action-inconsistent (e.g., scarf-hammer) object-tool pairs, under three conditions: semantic (recognizing the tools previously seen in the pairs), mechanical (assessing the usability of the pairs), and control (looking at the pairs without explicit tasks). During the observation of the pairs, task-based left-brain functional connectivity differed within conditions. Compared to the control, both the semantic and mechanical conditions exhibited co-activations in dorsal (precuneus) and ventro-dorsal (inferior frontal gyrus) regions. However, the semantic condition recruited medial and posterior temporal areas, whereas the mechanical condition engaged inferior parietal and posterior temporal regions. Also, when distinguishing action-consistent from action-inconsistent pairs, an extensive frontotemporal neural circuit was activated. These findings support recent accounts that view tool-related action understanding as the combined product of semantic and mechanical knowledge. Furthermore, they emphasize how the left inferior parietal and anterior temporal lobes might be considered as hubs for the cross-modal integration of physical and conceptual knowledge, respectively.

The cortical thickness of the area PF of the left inferior parietal cortex mediates technical-reasoning skills.

Most recent research highlights how a specific form of causal understanding, namely technical reasoning, may support the increasing complexity of tools and techniques developed by humans over generations, i.e., the cumulative technological culture (CTC). Thus, investigating the neurocognitive foundations of technical reasoning is essential to comprehend the emergence of CTC in our lineage. Whereas functional neuroimaging evidence started to highlight the critical role of the area PF of the left inferior parietal cortex (IPC) in technical reasoning, no studies explored the links between the structural characteristics of such a brain region and technical reasoning skills. Therefore, in this study, we assessed participants' technical-reasoning performance by using two ad-hoc psycho-technical tests; then, we extracted from participants' 3 T T1-weighted magnetic-resonance brain images the cortical thickness (i.e., a volume-related measure which is associated with cognitive performance as reflecting the size, density, and arrangement of cells in a brain region) of all the IPC regions for both hemispheres. We found that the cortical thickness of the left area PF predicts participants' technical-reasoning performance. Crucially, we reported no correlations between technical reasoning and the other IPC regions, possibly suggesting the specificity of the left area PF in generating technical knowledge. We discuss these findings from an evolutionary perspective, by speculating about how the evolution of parietal lobes may have supported the emergence of technical reasoning in our lineage.

How the fear of COVID-19 changed the way we look at human faces.

Do we look at persons currently or previously affected by COVID-19 the same way as we do with healthy ones? In this eye-tracking study, we investigated how participants (N = 54) looked at faces of individuals presented as "COVID-19 Free", "Sick with COVID-19", or "Recovered from COVID-19". Results showed that participants tend to look at the eyes of COVID-19-free faces longer than at those of both COVID-19-related faces. Crucially, we also found an increase of visual attention for the mouth of the COVID-19-related faces, possibly due to the threatening characterisation of such area as a transmission vehicle for SARS-CoV-2. Thus, by detailing how people dynamically changed the way of looking at faces as a function of the perceived risk of contagion, we provide the first evidence in the literature about the impact of the pandemic on the most basic level of social interaction.

Effects of self-generated versus experimenter-provided cues on the representation of future events.

Most experimental studies of prospection focused on episodic forms of future events prompted by means of verbal cues. However, there is evidence suggesting that future events differ considerably according to whether they are produced in response to external, experimenter-provided verbal cues or they are self-generated. In the present study, we compared the quality, the phenomenal characteristics, the temporal distribution, and the content of imagined events prompted by experimenter-provided cues (i.e., cue-words and short verbal sentences) or elicited by means of verbal cues that were self-generated in an autobiographical fluency task. The results showed that future events prompted by means of self-generated cues contained fewer event-specific details than future events prompted by experimenter-provided cues. However, future events elicited by means of self-generated and by experimenter-provided cues did not differ with respect to their phenomenal characteristics. The temporal distribution and the thematic content of future representations were also affected by the type of cue used to elicit prospection. These results offer a holistic view of the properties of future thinking and suggest that the content and the characteristics of envisioned future events may be affected by the method used to elicit prospection.

Future thinking in Parkinson's disease: an executive function?

Contrary to what was originally thought (Hassabis, Kumaran, Vann, & Maguire, 2007) recent data have shown that imagining the future is not entirely dependent on the hippocampus (Squire et al., 2010) and neuroimaging studies have demonstrated a frontopolar activation during future thinking tasks (Okuda et al., 2003). The present study investigated whether the performance of people with Parkinson's disease (PD) on future simulation tasks was dependent on memory or executive control. Thirty-one PD patients, asked to imagine possible future scenarios, generated fewer future episodic details than matched controls. The seven patients who clearly performed below the range of controls in future thinking, were also significantly poorer on the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), a battery assessing executive control, but showed no deficits in immediate or delayed memory tests. These results suggest that poor performance in the future thinking task is associated with poor executive control and less so with memory impairment. Flexible searching activities of past details might be crucial capacities for envisaging one's own future.