Acta Psychologica最新文献

Guided by the ecological systems theory, this study focuses on the effects of AI chatbot-assisted English practice and instructor facilitation on Chinese undergraduates' online English language learning motivation (i.e., communication SE) and whether the social English learning exposure exerts a moderating effect. A three-wave survey on 463 students (across Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Chengdu) was analyzed using the partial least squares method of structural equation modeling. Both AI chatbot practice and instructor facilitation independently had a positive impact on students' motivation to master English, and the relationships were each mediated by SE. Moreover, social media exposure to English enhanced the instructor-motivation pathway (by consolidating instructor-led improvements in self-efficacy) but did not moderate the chatbot-motivation pathway in any significant way. The model accounted for 54.9% variance in self-efficacy and 48.5% of variance in motivation. These results show the importance of integrating AI tools with sound teaching: this means in practice that teachers should incorporate chatbot tasks in their feedback and guidance, and carefully design informal digital English activities that are consistent with formal coursework, in order to maximize the motivation of students.

This study examines how emotion and music cultural preference (MCP) influence the relationship between background music (BM) and adolescent self-efficacy (SE), emphasizing the role of culturally congruent music in enhancing task-specific SE.

Methods: A within-subjects experimental design was employed with 415 secondary school students aged 13-18. Participants completed English reading comprehension tasks under three conditions: no music, Chinese classical music, and Western classical music. Emotional states were assessed using psychophysiological measures and self-report questionnaires, while SE was measured with an adapted scale.

Results: Background music conforming to cultural preference (BMCP) significantly enhanced self-efficacy (M = 3.76) compared to no music (M = 2.73). Culturally congruent music increased positive emotions and decreased negative emotions, with emotion serving as a significant mediator in the BM-SE relationship. MCP moderated these effects, such that culturally aligned music produced stronger benefits than culturally incongruent music.

Discussion: These findings underscore the importance of culturally aligned music in supporting adolescents' emotional regulation and task-related self-efficacy, offering practical implications for educational settings.

Introduction: Multiple screen addiction is a growing public health problem, especially among young people. Early detection and classification of screen addiction are important for the prevention of neurological complaints.

Objective: The current study aimed to determine the status of multiple screen addiction with machine learning and to identify the relationship between multiple screen addiction and neurological complaints.

Methods: This cross-sectional and correlational study was conducted with 406 participants. The data were collected from November 13, 2023, to March 4, 2024, in the neurology outpatient clinic of a training and research hospital. The dataset created in the study was trained with machine learning algorithms, and classification was provided. K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Ensemble, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Decision Tree machine learning algorithms, and Confusion Matrix were used for classification.

Results: In the study, KNN was the algorithm with the highest classification performance, while Decision Tree was the algorithm with the worst performance. Moreover, it was determined that multiple screen addiction and neurological complaints were related, and these complaints were successfully evaluated through machine learning classification.

Conclusions: Multi-screen addiction is closely linked to numerous neurological complaints, and machine learning can effectively uncover and analyze this association. As a foundational step, this study paves the way for family physicians and healthcare professionals to utilize machine learning in calculating individuals' addiction scores, monitoring addiction patterns, and providing personalized recommendations.

The COVID-19 pandemic affected everyone-far beyond the burden of infection. Because university students are vulnerable to stress-related diseases, we aimed to (a) explore the perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on university students' physical and mental health; (b) examine the perceived impact of pandemic-related changes in university studies and everyday life; and (c) identify key factors for health promotion and pandemic preparedness. Using a qualitatively driven mixed methods approach, in four studies during the COVID-19 pandemic, we cross-sectionally assessed German university students over four terms from the summer of 2020 to the winter of 2021-2022. Qualitative content analyses of responses from N = 1892 students revealed the pandemic's mainly negative impact on mental and physical health. Increased psychological burden and distress were mainly connected to overwhelming feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, paralysis, and uncertainty about the future under pandemic circumstances. In addition, students attributed negative health conditions to the shift to digital classes and social isolation. Some students also reported positive changes because of the pandemic, such as feeling less stressed or experiencing personal growth. Based on the qualitative results, we developed items to quantitatively assess the perceived health impacts of the pandemic. Analyses using data from N = 3197 students show correlational relationships between the perceived negative impacts of the pandemic on their health and life satisfaction. We derive implications for future pandemic preparedness and discuss the potential of the university setting for health promotion.

Research on emotion in Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies has expanded in recent years, with increasing attention to its role in cognitive processing. However, relatively few studies have examined the emotion-cognition relationship in emotionally charged simultaneous interpreting using multidimensional designs. This study adopts a multidimensional measurement framework to capture interpreters' emotional states and cognitive load elicited by emotionally charged source language. Fifty-one student interpreters participated in a controlled interpreting experiment. Cognitive load was assessed via eye-tracking and self-reports. Emotional states were assessed via skin conductance and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Results showed no significant correlations between overall emotional states and overall cognitive load or its subcomponents. However, the Negative Affect minus Positive Affect (NA - PA) dimension was positively correlated with overall cognitive load, while mean skin conductance level was negatively correlated with overall cognitive load and positively with NA - PA. These results suggest that different emotional dimensions may offset each other globally, yet a more negative emotional state is associated with increased subjective and objective cognitive demands. By contrast, higher physiological arousal coincided with lower perceived cognitive effort, indicating that certain levels of arousal may facilitate cognitive efficiency. These findings deepen understanding of the emotion-cognition interface in high-demand language tasks and offer practical implications for interpreter training and service delivery.

Switching between tasks impairs not only ongoing task performance (lower accuracy, slower responses for switch vs. repeat trials) but also for subsequent memory (poorer memory for stimuli on switch vs. repeat trials). This study examined developmental differences in memory switch costs in children (ages 7-13) and young adults (ages 19-31). Participants (N = 240) categorized trial-unique pictures of animals and objects using alternating size and animacy tasks. A subsequent incidental recognition test assessed memory for pictures from repeat and switch trials after a short filler task and again after one week. Both age groups showed switch costs on task performance. However, memory switch costs emerged only in adults - and only in the immediate test. These findings replicate previous research showing that the memory effect vanishes over time. Children's missing memory switch costs suggest that their encoding processes may differ qualitatively from adults' and are less hurt by task switching.

Subjective judgments of the duration of temporal intervals can deviate from their objective physical duration. A prominent example is that duration judgments are influenced by the temporal context. Central tendency effects indicate an attraction of duration judgments toward the mean of previously experienced durations, whereas adaptation effects indicate a repulsion of duration judgments from this mean. These two effects stand in apparent contrast and the question arises which (if either) of them can be attributed to an altered perception of time, and which is based on a response bias. In the present study, participants judged a target duration (2.4 s) in a short-duration versus a long-duration context, while both the target duration and the context durations were independently judged using either reproduction or estimation (the latter involving a click on a line representing 0 to 8 s). Although for both reproduction and estimation tasks central tendency effects were observed within short-duration and long-duration blocks, a between-block analysis shows that the attraction of the target duration toward the temporal context vanishes when the temporal context is induced by estimation (rather than reproduction), and even reverses to a repulsion from the temporal context when the target duration is judged by estimation (rather than reproduction). We conclude that central tendency effects in time reproduction tasks are largely based on the repetition of motor actions rather than on a genuine change in the perception of time. Our findings shed light on the important question of whether temporal context effects emerge at the level of perception or at the response level.

Scholars have emphasized the need for longitudinal research to investigate the reciprocal influence of personal belief in a just world (PBJW) and aggressiveness, yet such investigations remain limited. The current study aimed to examine the bidirectional associations between PBJW and four distinct facets of aggressiveness (hostility, anger, physical aggression, and verbal aggression), and to explore the moderating roles of gender and age group. We conducted a longitudinal survey with 1423 Chinese middle-school students (54.4% girls; M_age = 13.50, SD_age = 1.46 at Time 1) at two time points over a six-month interval. To determine the directional ordering of these constructs, we employed a cross-lagged panel model, which estimates the unique predictive effect of one variable on another over time while controlling for the autoregressive stability of each variable. The results showed that initial PBJW predicted subsequent decreases in anger, physical aggression, and verbal aggression, but did not predict hostility. Conversely, initial hostility predicted a later decline in PBJW, whereas anger, physical aggression, and verbal aggression did not predict subsequent PBJW. These associations were invariant across gender and age groups. These findings underscore the protective function of PBJW against the affective and behavioral aspects of aggressiveness while highlighting that hostility can erode adolescent PBJW.

Appearance anxiety is increasingly prevalent among young people in the context of social media use, but the sequential psychological processes involved and the role of physical activity intensity remain unclear. A cross-sectional survey of young social media users (N = 593) examined a moderated serial mediation model using Hayes' PROCESS (v3.5.3) Model 92 with 5000 bootstrap resamples and 95% confidence intervals, with effects probed at the mean and ± 1 standard deviation of physical activity intensity. Social media exposure was positively correlated with appearance anxiety, ideal beauty, and self-objectification. The indirect association via ideal beauty was statistically reliable at low, moderate, and high physical activity intensity and was larger at higher intensity. In contrast, the indirect association via self-objectification and the serial indirect association were observed at moderate and high intensity but not at low intensity. Physical activity intensity was associated with a weaker direct social media exposure-appearance anxiety link but a stronger self-objectification-appearance anxiety link, and moderation of the ideal beauty-appearance anxiety path was not supported. These findings indicate pathway-specific moderation and may help inform interventions that integrate media literacy with appropriately designed physical activity while considering exercise contexts that heighten appearance salience.