Do Individual Differences in Perception Affect Awareness of Climate Change?

One significant obstacle to gaining a widespread awareness of the ongoing climate change is the nature of its manifestations in relation to our perception: climate change effects are gradual, distributed, and sometimes seemingly contradictory. These features result in a lag in collective climate action and sometimes foster climate skepticism and climate denial. While the literature on climate change perception and belief has thoroughly explored its sociocultural and sociopolitical aspects, research on the potential contribution of psychophysiological factors remains scarce. In this perspective paper, we outline evidence and arguments for the involvement of psychophysiological systems such as thermoception, hygroreception, and interoception in modulating climate change awareness. We discuss psychophysiological mechanisms of climate change awareness in animals and humans, as well as possible sources of individual variance in climate change perception. We conclude by suggesting novel research questions which would be worthwhile to pursue in future studies.

Understanding how personality traits, experiences, and attitudes shape negative bias toward AI-generated artworks.

The study primarily aimed to understand whether individual factors could predict how people perceive and evaluate artworks that are perceived to be produced by AI. Additionally, the study attempted to investigate and confirm the existence of a negative bias toward AI-generated artworks and to reveal possible individual factors predicting such negative bias. A total of 201 participants completed a survey, rating images on liking, perceived positive emotion, and believed human or AI origin. The findings of the study showed that some individual characteristics as creative personal identity and openness to experience personality influence how people perceive the presented artworks in function of their believed source. Participants were unable to consistently distinguish between human and AI-created images. Furthermore, despite generally preferring the AI-generated artworks over human-made ones, the participants displayed a negative bias against AI-generated artworks when subjective perception of source attribution was considered, thus rating as less preferable the artworks perceived more as AI-generated, independently on their true source. Our findings hold potential value for comprehending the acceptability of products generated by AI technology.

Best humans still outperform artificial intelligence in a creative divergent thinking task.

Creativity has traditionally been considered an ability exclusive to human beings. However, the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has resulted in generative AI chatbots that can produce high-quality artworks, raising questions about the differences between human and machine creativity. In this study, we compared the creativity of humans (n = 256) with that of three current AI chatbots using the alternate uses task (AUT), which is the most used divergent thinking task. Participants were asked to generate uncommon and creative uses for everyday objects. On average, the AI chatbots outperformed human participants. While human responses included poor-quality ideas, the chatbots generally produced more creative responses. However, the best human ideas still matched or exceed those of the chatbots. While this study highlights the potential of AI as a tool to enhance creativity, it also underscores the unique and complex nature of human creativity that may be difficult to fully replicate or surpass with AI technology. The study provides insights into the relationship between human and machine creativity, which is related to important questions about the future of creative work in the age of AI.

Development and validation of the AI attitude scale (AIAS-4): a brief measure of general attitude toward artificial intelligence.

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has generated an increasing demand for tools that can assess public attitudes toward AI. This study proposes the development and the validation of the AI Attitude Scale (AIAS), a concise self-report instrument designed to evaluate public perceptions of AI technology. The first version of the AIAS that the present manuscript proposes comprises five items, including one reverse-scored item, which aims to gauge individuals' beliefs about AI's influence on their lives, careers, and humanity overall. The scale is designed to capture attitudes toward AI, focusing on the perceived utility and potential impact of technology on society and humanity. The psychometric properties of the scale were investigated using diverse samples in two separate studies. An exploratory factor analysis was initially conducted on a preliminary 5-item version of the scale. Such exploratory validation study revealed the need to divide the scale into two factors. While the results demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency for the overall scale and its correlation with related psychometric measures, separate analyses for each factor showed robust internal consistency for Factor 1 but insufficient internal consistency for Factor 2. As a result, a second version of the scale is developed and validated, omitting the item that displayed weak correlation with the remaining items in the questionnaire. The refined final 1-factor, 4-item AIAS demonstrated superior overall internal consistency compared to the initial 5-item scale and the proposed factors. Further confirmatory factor analyses, performed on a different sample of participants, confirmed that the 1-factor model (4-items) of the AIAS exhibited an adequate fit to the data, providing additional evidence for the scale's structural validity and generalizability across diverse populations. In conclusion, the analyses reported in this article suggest that the developed and validated 4-items AIAS can be a valuable instrument for researchers and professionals working on AI development who seek to understand and study users' general attitudes toward AI.

Motion, Relation, and Passion in Brain Physiological and Cognitive Aging.

The aim of the current paper was to present important factors for keeping the basic structures of a person's brain function, i.e., the grey and white matter, intact. Several lines of evidence have shown that motion, relation, and passion are central factors for preserving the neural system in the grey and white matter during ageing. An active lifestyle has shown to contribute to the development of the central nervous system and to contrast brain ageing. Interpersonal relationships, and interactions, have shown to contribute to complex biological factors that benefit the cognitive resilience to decline. Furthermore, the current scientific literature suggests that passion, strong interest, could be the driving factor motivating individuals to learn new things, thus influencing the development and maintenance of the neural functional network over time. The present theoretical perspective paper aims to convey several key messages: (1) brain development is critically affected by lifestyle; (2) physical training allows one to develop and maintain brain structures during ageing, and may be one of the keys for good quality of life as an older person; (3) diverse stimuli are a key factor in maintaining brain structures; (4) motion, relation, and passion are key elements for contrasting the loss of the grey and white matter of the brain.

Watching Nature Videos Promotes Physiological Restoration: Evidence From the Modulation of Alpha Waves in Electroencephalography.

Various lines of evidence have shown that nature exposure is beneficial for humans. Despite several empirical findings pointing out to cognitive and emotional positive effects, most of the evidence of these effects are correlational, and it has been challenging to identify a cause-effect relationship between nature exposure and cognitive and emotional benefits. Only few of the published studies use psychophysiological methods to assess the biological correlates of these positive effects. Establishing a connection between human physiology and contact with natural settings is important for identifying cause-effect relationships between exposure to natural environments and the positive effects commonly reported in connection to nature exposure. In the present study, we recorded physiological indexes of brain activity (electroencephalography) and sympathetic nervous system (electrodermal activity), while the participants were presented with a series of videos displaying natural, urban, or neutral (non-environmental, computerized) scenes. Participants rated the scenes for their perceived relaxing value, and after each experimental condition, they performed a cognitive task (digit span backward). Participants rated natural videos as the most relaxing. Spectral analyses of EEG showed that natural scenes promoted alpha waves, especially over the central brain. The results suggest that experiencing natural environments virtually produces measurable and reliable brain activity markers which are known to be related to restorative processes.

Virtual Reality Assisted Non-Pharmacological Treatments in Chronic Pain Management: A Systematic Review and Quantitative Meta-Analysis.

Virtual reality (VR) is a developing technology that has recently attracted the attention of healthcare practitioners. Recently, VR systems have been used to treat pain symptoms. The present study aims to evaluate the VR effectiveness on chronic pain management. A systematic literature search was performed following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Keywords were used to discover the potentially eligible studies. The primary focus of the present investigation was to evaluate the possible effect of VR-assisted treatments on chronic pain, especially in the commonly occurring low back and neck pain. Nine studies reporting randomized controlled trials were included in the present study. VR-mediated interventions demonstrated significant improvement for pain symptoms in patients experiencing chronic pain. In addition, VR-mediated therapy decreased pain intensity and disability in the case of chronic neck pain compared to control conditions. However, the VR interventions showed a statistically non-significant improvement in chronic low back pain when experimental groups were compared with controls. VR therapy positive effect on chronic pain did not differ from the one reported for other types of interventions for pain management, as physical exercise and laser therapy. Taken together, these findings showed that currently available lines of evidence on the effect of VR-mediated therapy in chronic pain management, despite pointing towards possible therapeutical benefits of the VR-based intervention, are overall inconclusive and that more research on VR-assisted therapy for chronic pain is needed.

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Nature Walk as an Intervention for Anxiety and Depression.

Scientific research has widely examined the therapeutic and health benefits of being in contact with natural environments. Nature walk have been proposed as a cost-effective and inclusive method for successfully exploiting nature for the promotion of health and well-being. Depression and anxiety symptoms have been shown to benefit from nature walk. Despite recent empirical findings published in the scientific literature, a summary quantitative work on the effect of nature walk on depression and anxiety does not yet exist. The present systematic review and meta-analysis quantitatively analyze and qualitatively discuss the studies published on the effect of nature walk on depression and anxiety published during the past decade. A database search as well as snowballing methods were used to retrieve eligible articles. The research question and literature search were based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. Based on screening and retrieval processes, seven studies met the eligibility criteria and were then included in the quantitative meta-analysis. Risk of bias (RoB) analysis was used to evaluate the quality of the included studies using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. After a qualitative evaluation of the studies, data from six experiments were included in the meta-analysis. The meta-analysis show that nature walk effectively improve mental health. The findings were confirmed for the experiments reporting the quantitative data within groups (pre- and post-test) and between groups (experimental vs. control group).

Evaluating the effect of multi-sensory stimulations on simulator sickness and sense of presence during HMD-mediated VR experience.

Some lines of evidence have shown that sensory input, especially related to vestibular and somatosensory stimulation, may reduce the symptoms related to simulator sickness and increase the sense of presence in VR. The present study aims at understanding how mechanical vibration and auditory stimulation can be used to improve user experience in the context of VR mediated by head-mounted displays. Four different groups comprising a total of 80 participants were tested under different conditions of sensory input (visual and vibration, visual-auditory, combined visual-auditory and vibratory, and visual only), during a VR roller-coaster experience. No significant differences in simulator sickness were found between the groups exposed to seat vibration and/or audio. However, sense of presence showed to be increased when vibratory stimuli were included. Post-hoc analyses showed that female users but not male ones, experienced an increase of sense of presence when vibratory stimulation was used. Practitioner summary: The study showed that including sound or vibration stimulation during VR experience does not reduce simulator sickness. However, sense of presence is promoted by vibratory stimulation. Post-hoc analyses showed that female users experienced an increase of sense of presence by vibratory stimulation, but not male ones.

Using electrophysiological measures to evaluate the sense of presence in immersive virtual environments: An event-related potential study.

Sense of presence has been often explored in the context of virtual reality (VR) and immersive visual technologies; however, standardized and objective measures of the sense of presence have been difficult to find. Studies attempting to find physiological correlates of sense presence using electroencephalography (EEG) have reported mixed results. In the present study, we used brain event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by auditory stimuli to identify an objective physiological index of sense of presence during VR, attempting to replicate the findings of previous studies and explain the heterogeneity of results reported in the literature. Participants in our experiment were asked to experience an immersive virtual environment using a modern head-mounted display while passively hearing task-irrelevant frequent standard and infrequent deviant tones as in a classic auditory oddball paradigm. Subsequently, they were asked to complete a battery of questionnaires aimed to estimate their sense of presence during the VR. EEG and questionnaire data from three-seventh participants were analyzed. ERP components evoked by the auditory stimuli were then analyzed. Late ERP components (after 450 ms from stimulus onset) registered over central brain areas were associated with the sense of presence as measured with questionnaires, while earlier components were not associated with presence. The use of different questionnaires and the content of the VR environment may both be a plausible explanation for heterogeneous results as reported in previous studies. The present study showed that late ERP components recorded over the central brain may represent good electrophysiological correlates of the subjective sense of presence.

Are Modern Head-Mounted Displays Sexist? A Systematic Review on Gender Differences in HMD-Mediated Virtual Reality.

Modern head-mounted displays (HMDs) are a promising technology. Thanks to their affordable cost and versatility, HMDs are gaining attention from different sectors. However, the experience reported by the users of these technologies is sometimes negative. A number of people, when using an HMD, complain of various types of physical discomfort as well as symptoms like headache, disorientation, and nausea. These symptoms, developed during or after exposure to virtual environments, are commonly referred to with the term simulator sickness. Some scientific studies have shown that women are commonly more sensitive to simulator sickness. However, a gender imbalance in the susceptibility to simulator sickness has not been widely studied in the context of modern HMDs, and the studies that have been done have reported heterogeneous findings. The present systematic review aims to gather the pieces of evidence that support and oppose a gender difference in the susceptibility of simulator sickness in the framework of modern HMDs. We also aim to individuate other gender differences in the experience of the use of these technologies to establish whether there is sufficient evidence to support a gender discrepancy in the user experience.

The Use of Virtual Reality Alone Does Not Promote Training Performance (but Sense of Presence Does).

Virtual reality (VR) offers novel ways to develop skills and learning. This technology can be used to enhance the way we educate and train professionals by possibly being more effective, cost-efficient, and reducing training-related risks. However, the potential benefits from virtual training assume that the trained skills can be transferred to the real world. Nevertheless, in the current published scientific literature, there is limited empirical evidence that links VR use to better learning. The present investigation aimed to explore the use of VR as a tool for training procedural skills and compare this modality with traditional instruction methods. To investigate skill development using the two forms of training, participants were randomly divided into two groups. The first group received training through an instructional video, while the second group trained in VR. After the training session, the participants performed the trained task in a real setting, and task performance was measured. Subsequently, the user's experienced sense of presence and simulator sickness (SS) was measured with self-report questionnaires. There were no significant differences between groups for any of the performance measures. There was no gender effect on performance. Importantly, the results of the present study indicate that a high sense of presence during the VR simulation might contribute to increased skill learning. These findings can be used as a starting point that could be of value when further exploring VR as a tool for skill development.

Subjective ratings of fear are associated with frontal late positive potential asymmetry, but not with early brain activity over the occipital and centro-parietal cortices.

The human frontal cortex is asymmetrically involved in motivational and affective processing. Several studies have shown that the left-frontal hemisphere is related to positive and approach-related affect, whereas the right-frontal hemisphere is related to negative and withdrawal-related affect. The present study aimed to investigate whether evolutionarily threatening stimuli modulate asymmetrical frontal activity. We examined hemispheric differences in frontal late positive potentials (f-LPP asymmetry) and frontal alpha power activation (frontal alpha asymmetry, FAA) in response to images depicting snakes, spiders, butterflies, and birds. Results showed that the late component of f-LPP asymmetry, but not FAA, was modulated by the category of stimuli. Specifically, threatening stimuli (snakes and spiders) evoked a relatively large late f-LPP over the right-frontal hemisphere than non-threatening stimuli (birds and butterflies). Moreover, this relatively great right-frontal activity was positively associated with the subjective ratings of fear. Importantly, the subjective ratings of fear were not associated with early brain activity over the occipital or centro-parietal cortices. These results suggest that late f-LPP asymmetry may reflect higher order affective processes, specifically the subjective appraisal of threatening stimuli and the subjective experience of fear, that are independent of the fast and automatic processing of evolutionarily significant and affectively arousing stimuli.

Questionnaire Measures and Physiological Correlates of Presence: A Systematic Review.

The published literature has produced several definitions for the sense of presence in a simulated environment, as well as various methods for measuring it. The variety of conceptualizations makes it difficult for researchers to interpret, compare, and evaluate the presence ratings obtained from individual studies. Presence has been measured by employing questionnaires, physiological indices, behavioral feedbacks, and interviews. A systematic literature review was conducted to provide insight into the definitions and measurements of presence in studies from 2002 to 2019, with a focus on questionnaires and physiological measures. The review showed that scholars had introduced various definitions of presence that often originate from different theoretical standpoints and that this has produced a multitude of different questionnaires that aim to measure presence. At the same time, physiological studies that investigate the physiological correlates of the sense of presence have often shown ambiguous results or have not been replicated. Most of the scholars have preferred the use of questionnaires, with Witmer and Singer's Presence Questionnaire being the most prevalent. Among the physiological measures, electroencephalography was the most frequently used. The conclusions of the present review aim to stimulate future structured efforts to standardize the use of the construct of presence, as well as inspire the replication of the findings reported in the published literature.

Pattern matters: Snakes exhibiting triangular and diamond-shaped skin patterns modulate electrophysiological activity in human visual cortex.

The neural and perceptual mechanisms that support the efficient visual detection of snakes in humans are still not fully understood. According to the Snake Detection Theory, selection pressures posed by snakes on early primates have shaped the development of the visual system. Previous studies in humans have investigated early visual electrophysiological activity in response to snake images vs. various alternative dangerous or non-dangerous stimuli. These studies have shown that the Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) component is selectively elicited by snake or snake-like images. Recent findings yielded the complementary/alternative hypothesis that early humans (and possibly other primates) evolved an aversion especially for potentially harmful triangular shapes, such as teeth, claws or spikes. In the present study we investigated the effect of triangular and diamond-shaped patterns in snake skins on the ERP correlates of visual processing in humans. In the first experiment, we employed pictures of snakes displaying either triangular/diamond-shaped patterns or no particular pattern on their skins, and pictures of frogs as control. Participants observed a random visual presentation of these pictures. Consistent with previous studies, snakes elicited an enhanced negativity between 225 and 300 ms (EPN) compared to frogs. However, snakes featuring triangular/diamond-shaped patterns on their skin produced an enhanced EPN compared to the snakes that did not display such patterns. In a second experiment we used pictures displaying only skin patterns of snakes and frogs. Results from the second experiment confirmed the results of the first experiment, suggesting that triangular snake-skin patterns modulate the activity in human visual cortex. Taken together, our results constitute an important contribution to the snake detection theory.

Visual features and perceptual context modulate attention towards evolutionarily relevant threatening stimuli: Electrophysiological evidence.

The snake detection hypothesis claims that predatory pressure from snakes has shaped the primate visual system, but we still know very little about how the brain processes evolutionarily important visual cues, and which factors are crucial for quick detection of snakes. We investigated how visual features modulate the electrophysiological markers of early attentional processes. In Experiment 1, we compared snake, rope, gun, and bird images to isolate the effects due to curvilinearity of the stimuli. The results showed that both snake and rope images elicited enhanced P1 and N1 event-related potential components as well as early posterior negativity (EPN). In Experiment 2, we studied whether nonthreatening curvilinear images (i.e., ropes) still elicit the enhanced electrophysiological responses when snake images are not presented as stimuli, and therefore the context does not provoke top-down attention to curvilinear shapes. Rope images still evoked an enhanced EPN, suggesting that curvilinear shapes are preferably captured by attentional processes. However, this effect was smaller than in Experiment 1, in which snake images were present. Thus, our results hint to the possibility that the perceptual context may interact with processing of shape information, drawing attention to curvilinear shapes when the presence of snakes is expectable. Furthermore, we observed that spatial frequency of the visual stimuli modulated especially the early electrophysiological responses, and decreased the differences between stimulus categories in EPN without completely eliminating them. The findings suggest that low-level and high-level mechanisms interact to give an attentional priority to potentially threatening stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Neural correlates of visual awareness at stimulus low vs. high-levels of processing.

A crucial view in the graded vs. dichotomous debate on visual awareness proposes that its graded or dichotomous nature may depend on the depth of stimulus processing (or level of processing) associated to the experimental task. In the present study, we explored the behavioral patterns and neural correlates of different degrees of awareness associated to different depths (i.e. low vs. high) of stimulus processing. The low-level stimulus condition consisted of detecting the location of the target based on its brightness characteristics, whereas the high-level stimulus condition consisted of identifying which of four possible targets (numbers/letters) had appeared. Behavioral results showed that both subjective ratings of awareness and accuracy levels increased linearly as a function of awareness and independently of the level of stimulus processing. Additionally, the electrophysiological recordings revealed two correlates of visual awareness: enhanced posterior negativity in the N200 time window (VAN, visual awareness negativity) and enhanced positivity in the P3 time window (LP, late positivity). Interestingly, we found evidence of awareness levels modulating N200/VAN amplitudes in a graded manner only for the low-level task, whereas P3/LP amplitudes were modulated in a graded manner for both low and high-level tasks. The finding that the early posterior correlate of visual awareness (VAN at 150-250 ms) was sensitive to level of processing is consistent with task effects occurring in the visual cortex and supports the view that it is mediated by attention to task-relevant features. The amplitudes of P3/LP in both tasks correlate more directly with graded awareness and behavioral accuracy.

Unconscious response priming during continuous flash suppression.

Continuous flash suppression (CFS) has become a popular tool for studying unconscious processing, but the level at which unconscious processing of visual stimuli occurs under CFS is not clear. Response priming is a robust and well-understood phenomenon, in which the prime stimulus facilitates overt responses to targets if the prime and target are associated with the same response. We used CFS to study unconscious response priming of shape: arrows with left or right orientation served as primes and targets. The prime was presented near the limen of consciousness and each trial was followed by subjective rating of visibility and a forced-choice response concerning the orientation of the prime in counterbalanced order. In trials without any reported awareness of the presence of the prime, discrimination of the prime's orientation was at chance level. However, priming was elicited in such unconscious trials. Unconscious priming was not influenced by the prime-target onset-asynchrony (SOA)/prime duration, whereas conscious processing, as indicated by the enhanced discriminability of the prime's orientation and conscious priming, increased at the longest SOAs/prime durations. These results show that conscious and unconscious processes can be dissociated with CFS and that CFS-masking does not completely suppress unconscious visual processing of shape.

TMS-EEG reveals hemispheric asymmetries in top-down influences of posterior intraparietal cortex on behavior and visual event-related potentials.

Clinical data and behavioral studies using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) suggest right-hemisphere dominance for top-down modulation of visual processing in humans. We used concurrent TMS-EEG to directly test for hemispheric differences in causal influences of the right and left intraparietal cortex on visual event-related potentials (ERPs). We stimulated the left and right posterior part of intraparietal sulcus (IPS1) while the participants were viewing and rating the visibility of bilaterally presented Gabor patches. Subjective visibility ratings showed that TMS of right IPS shifted the visibility toward the right hemifield, while TMS of left IPS did not have any behavioral effect. TMS of right IPS, but not left one, reduced the amplitude of posterior N1 potential, 180-220ms after stimulus-onset. The attenuation of N1 occurred bilaterally over the posterior areas of both hemispheres. Consistent with previous TMS-fMRI studies, this finding suggests that the right IPS has top-down control on the neural processing in visual cortex. As N1 most probably reflects reactivation of early visual areas, the current findings support the view that the posterior parietal cortex in the right hemisphere amplifies recurrent interactions in ventral visual areas during the time-window that is critical for conscious perception.