Cognitive functions among healthy older adults using online social networking.

Online social network sites provide possibilities to enhance social relationships and engage in cognitive activities for older adults. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between the use of one social network site, Facebook, and cognitive functions in older adults considering different dimensions of Facebook use together with different cognitive functions. Seventy healthy older adults completed the use of Facebook form, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and Social Network Index. Their cognitive functions were measured with Digit Span Tasks, Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test, Letter and Category Fluency Tests, Stroop Test, Digit Symbol Substitution Test, and Trail Making Test (TMT-A and TMT-B). After controlling for age, gender, education level, we found that Facebook users performed better on TMT-A compared to non-users. Among Facebook users, the length of having an account, the network size, the daily duration of use, and the frequency of active and passive use correlated with cognitive performance after controlling offline sociality. These findings, which need confirmation by experimental and longitudinal studies, suggested that being connected to a larger network via more prolonged and active use of social media might be associated with higher cognitive functioning.

Social Contact, Academic Satisfaction, COVID-19 Knowledge, and Subjective Well-being Among Students at Turkish Universities: a Nine-University Sample.

Adverse effects of COVID-19 are seen not only on the physical health of infected individuals but also on their subjective well-being. Sudden changes in social lives, lockdowns, and shifts towards online education have had a negative impact on many people, especially university students. As part of an international study, the current study focused on the well-being of students at Turkish universities in relation to social contact, academic satisfaction, and COVID-19 knowledge. A total of 7363 students from nine universities (86.6% from state universities, 71.04% female, and 73.52% at bachelor's level) participated in an online survey. Results revealed that females had lower levels of subjective well-being and academic satisfaction. According to a mediation model in the study, the relationship between social contact and well-being was mediated by academic satisfaction and COVID-19 knowledge. Our findings can guide future researchers, mental health professionals, universities, and policymakers to understand and improve subjective well-being of university students.

The development of narrative skills in Turkish-speaking children: A complexity approach.

The present study examines the development of plot, evaluative and syntactic complexity in children's narratives and its relationship with gender, ToM, executive function and linguistic recursive ability. One hundred and five Turkish-speaking children distributed across 4 age groups (four-, five-, seven-eight-, and ten-eleven-year-olds) and 15 adults participated in (a) Elicitation of Narratives Task, (b) Emotional Stroop Task, (c) First- or Second-Order ToM Task (depending on their age), (d) Real-Apparent Emotion Task (four-year-olds), and (e) Comprehension of Complement Clauses Task. Among the three domains of complexity, only plot complexity was found to be related to gender and to develop significantly, in particular at 5 and 7 years of age. Evaluative complexity was low in children in all age groups and was not predicted by any factor. Syntactic complexity was predicted by executive function. These findings are discussed considering the cognitive, linguistic and sociocultural nature of narration.

Clause Chaining and Discourse Continuity in Turkish Children's Narratives.

The present study examines the development of complex sentences with non-finite clause combining with particular focus on clause chaining, in narratives of 40 Turkish-speaking 4- to 11-year-olds and six adults elicited by a wordless picture book. Results show a gradual increase by age in the variety of clauses combined, the length of the complex sentences and their frequency of use. Clause chains formed with converbal clauses are the earliest and most frequent type of clause combinations, already present in 4-year-olds' complex sentences with 1-non-finite clause. Older children's and adults' 2- or 3-non-finite clause complex sentences consist of some combinations of adverbial, complement, relative and converbal clauses. Developmentally, clause chains establish first, aspectual-temporal continuity, then temporal-causal continuity. Sentence-internal and cross-sentence-boundary referential continuities are present early, from age 4 onwards. These findings are discussed in terms of the demands of narrative organization as well as the syntactic and semantic complexity of the clause combination devices in Turkish.

Evidentials and source knowledge in Turkish.

Recent research has indicated that conceptual development in a specific domain may not be independent of the way it is mapped linguistically. We explore this claim in the semantic domain of evidentiality by considering various sets of data from Turkish-speaking children between one and a half to six years. We present evidence for (1) the appropriate use of grammaticalized markers of direct experience, inference, and linguistic report by age three, (2) the understanding of knowledge source ("theory of knowledge") around age four, (3) the understanding of linguistic form and knowledge source relationship ("theory of evidentiality") by age six, and (4) a predictive relationship between the use of the reported speech marker and memory for knowledge source around age four.