The Psychological Science Accelerator's COVID-19 rapid-response dataset.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator coordinated three large-scale psychological studies to examine the effects of loss-gain framing, cognitive reappraisals, and autonomy framing manipulations on behavioral intentions and affective measures. The data collected (April to October 2020) included specific measures for each experimental study, a general questionnaire examining health prevention behaviors and COVID-19 experience, geographical and cultural context characterization, and demographic information for each participant. Each participant started the study with the same general questions and then was randomized to complete either one longer experiment or two shorter experiments. Data were provided by 73,223 participants with varying completion rates. Participants completed the survey from 111 geopolitical regions in 44 unique languages/dialects. The anonymized dataset described here is provided in both raw and processed formats to facilitate re-use and further analyses. The dataset offers secondary analytic opportunities to explore coping, framing, and self-determination across a diverse, global sample obtained at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be merged with other time-sampled or geographic data.

Mask wearing affects emotion perception.

To reduce the spread of COVID-19, mask wearing has become ubiquitous in much of the world. We studied the extent to which masks impair emotion recognition and dampen the perceived intensity of facial expressions by naturalistically inducing positive, neutral, and negative emotions in individuals while they were masked and unmasked. Two groups of online participants rated the emotional intensity of each presented image. One group rated full faces (N=104); the other (N=102) rated cropped images where only the upper face was visible. We found that masks impaired the recognition of and rated intensity of positive emotions. This happened even when the faces were cropped and the lower part of the face was not visible. Masks may thus reduce positive emotion and/or expressivity of positive emotion. However, perception of negativity was unaffected by masking, perhaps because unlike positive emotions like happiness which are signaled more in the mouth, negative emotions like anger rely more on the upper face.

Delivering the Multisensory Experience of Dining-Out, for Those Dining-In, During the Covid Pandemic.

In many parts of the world, restaurants have been forced to close in unprecedented numbers during the various Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns that have paralyzed the hospitality industry globally. This highly-challenging operating environment has led to a rapid expansion in the number of high-end restaurants offering take-away food, or home-delivery meal kits, simply in order to survive. While the market for the home delivery of food was already expanding rapidly prior to the emergence of the Covid pandemic, the explosive recent growth seen in this sector has thrown up some intriguing issues and challenges. For instance, concerns have been raised over where many of the meals that are being delivered are being prepared, given the rise of so-called "dark kitchens." Furthermore, figuring out which elements of the high-end, fine-dining experience, and of the increasingly-popular multisensory experiential dining, can be captured by those diners who may be eating and drinking in the comfort of their own homes represents an intriguing challenge for the emerging field of gastrophysics research; one that the chefs, restaurateurs, restaurant groups, and even the food delivery companies concerned are only just beginning to get to grips with. By analyzing a number of the high-end fine-dining home food delivery options that have been offered (in the UK and in the US) in this narrative review, we highlight a number of promising directions for those wanting to optimize the at-home multisensory dining experience, wherever in the world they might be.