Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking最新文献

Social performance situations often constitute one of the most challenging communication tasks across different cultures. In today's work environments, giving presentations and performing in front of others are often essential and expected. Therefore, public speaking anxiety can have a serious impact on an individual's job performance, career choice, and prospects. Contemporary consumer virtual reality hardware has made it possible to practice public speaking anywhere in a safe and private virtual reality environment (VRE). As VREs offer the means to practice real-life scenarios, they also make it possible to go beyond what is "real"; to replace simulations with more dynamic and innovative training environments. Furthermore, with occupational life undergoing a significant shift toward technology-mediated working conditions, innovative tools and methods could also be used during virtually implemented real-time social interactions. This research aimed to study the ways in which an illusion of height, that is, perceived tallness versus perceived shortness, without any visible virtual body or representation, influences state speech anxiety and emotional responses of participants during simulation of a stressful speech task. The experiment followed a strictly controlled between-subject procedure, and both self-reported and psychophysiological data were collected. Results indicate that participants perceiving the illusion of tallness felt less anxious and had lower self-reported arousal compared with participants with the illusion of shortness. This implies that even simple, visual, first-person perspective manipulation of the VRE could help individuals to reduce their stress responses during a task-oriented situation.

Meta-analyses have found that social cognition training (SCT) has large effects on the emotion recognition ability of people with a psychotic disorder. Virtual reality (VR) could be a promising tool for delivering SCT. Presently, it is unknown how improvements in emotion recognition develop during (VR-)SCT, which factors impact improvement, and how improvements in VR relate to improvement outside VR. Data were extracted from task logs from a pilot study and randomized controlled trials on VR-SCT (n = 55). Using mixed-effects generalized linear models, we examined the: (a) effect of treatment session (1-5) on VR accuracy and VR response time for correct answers; (b) main effects and moderation of participant and treatment characteristics on VR accuracy; and (c) the association between baseline performance on the Ekman 60 Faces task and accuracy in VR, and the interaction of Ekman 60 Faces change scores (i.e., post-treatment - baseline) with treatment session. Accounting for the task difficulty level and the type of presented emotion, participants became more accurate at the VR task (b = 0.20, p < 0.001) and faster (b = -0.10, p < 0.001) at providing correct answers as treatment sessions progressed. Overall emotion recognition accuracy in VR decreased with age (b = -0.34, p = 0.009); however, no significant interactions between any of the moderator variables and treatment session were found. An association between baseline Ekman 60 Faces and VR accuracy was found (b = 0.04, p = 0.006), but no significant interaction between difference scores and treatment session. Emotion recognition accuracy improved during VR-SCT, but improvements in VR may not generalize to non-VR tasks and daily life.

Virtual nature exposure has emerged as an effective method for promoting pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, also due to the increased emotional connection with nature itself. However, the role played by complex emotions elicited by virtual nature, such as awe, needs to be fully elucidated. Awe is an emotion stemming from vast stimuli, including nature, and virtual reality (VR) emerged as an effective medium to elicit it. One hundred nineteen participants were exposed to either one of four VR environments: (a) an awe-inspiring virtual nature, (b) a non-natural awe-inspiring virtual scenario, (c) a non-awe-inspiring virtual nature, (d) a non-natural non-awe-inspiring scenario. Pro-environmental attitudes, intentions, discrete emotions, and affect were measured and compared across the different conditions. Two ad hoc tasks were developed to measure two pro-environmental behaviors after each VR exposure. Participants were invited to sign a real petition against plastic production, consumption, and in favor of plastic recycling (a personally engaging behavior), and to take flyers to spread the word on the petition to friends and acquaintances (a socially engaging behavior). Awe-inspiring virtual nature resulted in a significantly increased number of flyers taken by participants (vs. control). Disposition toward the protection of the environment, positive emotional affect, and condition significantly correlated with the number of flyers taken. These results indicated that awe-inspiring virtual nature can influence socially engaging pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors but not personally engaging ones.

This study conducted a two-condition between-subjects laboratory experiment (N = 147) to examine the effects of textual disaster news combined with a 360° video in different modes (virtual reality [VR] vs. two dimensional screen) on cognitive/affective empathy and fear. Additionally, the mediating role of presence (social and spatial presence) was considered. Results indicated that the news article presented through an immersive VR mode directly led to greater levels of presence and cognitive empathy but not affective empathy and fear. The effects on social presence further resulted in greater cognitive and affective empathy, not fear. Meanwhile, spatial presence enhanced by VR led to greater levels of emotions (affective empathy and fear) but not cognitive empathy. These findings suggest the dynamic mechanisms of how an immersive VR modality can function as a complementary tool for traditional news to improve audience engagement, which centers on emotion-related outcomes in tandem with cognitive responses.

Mental health problems are very common among university students, and the situation worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. The closure of universities, the restrictions imposed, and the reduction of social activities led to considerable changes in students' lives, thus posing new mental health and emotional challenges. Within this context, promoting university students' general well-being, in particular emotional and psychological well-being, becomes essential. In addition to the possibility of online interventions aimed at overcoming distance limitations and reaching people at their home, other advanced technologies such as virtual reality (VR) have demonstrated the potential to improve people's well-being, quality of life, and positive experiences. The study reported in this article is aimed at exploring the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of a self-help VR intervention lasting 3 weeks in promoting emotional well-being in university students. Forty-two university students voluntarily participated in a six-session intervention. In each session, a different virtual scenario was presented: two relaxing experiences and four transformative experiences based on metaphors or metaphoric ones aimed at encouraging students to be aware of their emotions and positive resources. Students were randomly allocated to an experimental group and to a waiting list group that started the intervention after 3 weeks. Before and after the six sessions, participants completed an assessment by completing online questionnaires. Results showed a significant increase in both emotional well-being and psychological well-being in the experimental group compared to the waiting list group. The majority of participants said that they would recommend the experience to other students.

Nowadays, adolescents have extensive access to Information and Communication Technologies, which allow them to engage in social networking activities that may expose them to Online Hate Speech (OHS). While there are few cross-sectional studies about the effects of OHS Exposure on attitudes and aggressive behavior, no study aims to analyze the tendency to Speak Up when exposed to certain content (e.g., reporting, etc.). In addition, no instruments have yet been validated to assess these constructs. The aim of the present study, focused on Online ethnic Hate Speech (OeHS), is double: (a) develop a scale to measure OeHS Exposure and the tendency to Speak Up and analyze its psychometric properties; (b) analyze the longitudinal association between Xenophobia (XEN), OeHS Exposure, and Speaking Up against OeHS, while taking into account gender differences and the nested nature of the data. Six hundred sixty-six Italian high school students (52.7 percent male; M_Age = 15[0.64]), nested in 36 ninth grade classes (10 schools), took part in the longitudinal study. The first wave of data collection occurred in early 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic. The second and third waves took place 12 and 15 months later, respectively. Findings suggest that the OeHS Scale has good psychometric properties. Moreover, according to the findings, while the three variables of interest are always cross-sectionally correlated, a longitudinal negative association have been found between XEN and both Exposure and Speaking Up. Regarding the impact of OeHS Exposure, the good news is related to the absence of a longitudinal association with both XEN and Speaking Up.

The objective of the present study was to compare the feasibility, safety, and satisfaction of an immersive virtual reality system developed specifically for cognitive-sensory-motor training among older adult fallers and nonfallers and adult individuals. This was a cross-sectional observational study, and 20 adults, 20 nonfaller older adults, and 20 faller older adults were assessed. The primary outcome was feasibility assessed with safety and satisfaction measures. Safety outcomes were associated with adverse events occurred during the experience with the immersive virtual reality system (IVRS), assessed through the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire and by registering the falls, pain, or any discomfort reported by the participants. Satisfaction was assessed with a structured questionnaire, answered after 10 minutes of experiencing the IVRS. The dates were assessed with one-way analysis of variance or the Kruskal-Wallis test and Bonferroni post hoc test. The results showed that the IVRS was safe and the participants related good satisfaction with the system. Most of participants related no symptoms (93.6 percent) or light cybersickness symptoms (6.0 percent). There were no occurrences of falls or pain associated with the IVRS. The IVRS was feasible for adults and nonfaller and faller older adults.

This study contributes to ongoing debates on the protection of teens' privacy on social media. While ample research is focused on teens' privacy management, less is known about their attitude toward data protection. Drawing from cross-sectional survey data, this study examines whether predictors of privacy management, namely privacy literacy, privacy concern, and perceptions of data control, also predict teens' attitude toward data protection. Structural equation modeling indicates that all three factors positively predict this facet of privacy. No significant differences were found in the strength of predictors for boys versus girls for privacy management, although the findings do suggest some gender differences for attitude toward data protection that call for further research.