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Empathy, a cornerstone of social interaction, involves shared representation, eliciting vicarious emotions. However, its influence on shared perceptual representations, particularly in foundational domains such as distance perception, remains unexplored. In this study, we introduce a novel adaptation of the empathy for pain task to investigate empathy's influence on distance perception. We also examine how two personality traits, trait empathy and alexithymia, modulate this relationship. Utilizing eye-tracking technology, we examine how attention allocation to different facial and bodily features affects empathy's impact on distance perception. Our findings indicate that empathy biases individuals to perceive targets as closer, with trait empathy reinforcing this effect and alexithymia attenuating it. Furthermore, we demonstrate that heightened attention to eyes and face correlates with perceiving targets as closer, while attention to hand shows the opposite trend. These results underscore the broader influence of empathy beyond shared emotions, revealing its capacity to alter perceptual processes. By elucidating the interplay between personality traits and visual inputs in shaping these alterations, our study offers valuable insights for future research exploring the role of shared representation in empathy across various perceptual domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social exclusion is a painful yet ubiquitous experience that modulates affect, behavior, and cognition. Decision-making is an essential cognitive ability that some forms of it are altered following social exclusion. However, how intertemporal decision-making is influenced by social exclusion is scarcely studied. Here, using Future Life Alone paradigm we demonstrated that experiencing social exclusion increases temporal discounting. We further tested whether the increased temporal discounting is mediated by either time perception or risk-taking. Our results revealed that although time perception is influenced by social exclusion, neither time perception nor risk-taking mediated the changes in temporal discounting. Our results are providing further evidence corroborating that social exclusion evokes cognitive deconstruction and therefore alters temporal discounting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We conceptualize self-control development as analogous to building deep attractors. • We use a simulation model to explore building goal-related attractors in adolescence. • Simulation shows that medium rule-setting results in higher self-control scores. • Building deep goal-related attractors requires volitional action persistence. • Adolescents need flexible external structures to persist in adaptive goals. • Parents can provide these structures with rules that maintain the youth's autonomy. The significance of self-control for essential life outcomes necessitates the study of its developmental pathways. In other words, other than discussions of the factors associated with self-control in different developmental periods, investigating the processes that lead to self-control development is also essential. To address this need, in this article, we present a conceptualization of trait self-control and its development using dynamic systems concepts and explore the aspects of this conceptualization by systematic simulation experiments of an agent-based model. Moreover, our focus in this article is on the adolescence period, which despite being a period of lasting changes, has received less attention on the subject of self-control development. Using an agent-based model of the parent-adolescent dyad, we show how moderate rule-setting can enhance self-control development. By simulating the processes that shape the adolescent's trait self-control in the context of family, we provide a framework that could guide future theoretical and empirical studies of this critical ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social exclusion is an emotionally painful experience that leads to various alterations in socio-emotional processing. The perceptual and emotional consequences that may arise from experiencing social exclusion can vary depending on the paradigm used to manipulate it. Exclusion paradigms can vary in terms of the severity and duration of the leading exclusion experience, thereby classifying it as either a short-term or long-term experience. The present study aimed to study the impact of exclusion on socio-emotional processing using different paradigms that caused experiencing short-term and imagining long-term exclusion. Ambiguous facial emotions were used as socio-emotional cues. In study 1, the Ostracism Online paradigm was used to manipulate short-term exclusion. In study 2, a new sample of participants imagined long-term exclusion through the future life alone paradigm. Participants of both studies then completed a facial emotion recognition task consisting of morphed ambiguous facial emotions. By means of Point of Subjective Equivalence analyses, our results indicate that the experience of short-term exclusion hinders recognising happy facial expressions. In contrast, imagining long-term exclusion causes difficulties in recognising sad facial expressions. These findings extend the current literature, suggesting that not all social exclusion paradigms affect socio-emotional processing similarly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review focuses on facial emotion recognition (FER) in individuals with attention- deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Behavioral studies of FER in ADHD have resulted in inconsistent findings. Here, we discuss the factors that vary across studies and the way that they influence FER processes in ADHD. Across reviewed studies, fear was the most deficient facial expression to be recognized. Our review suggested that FER deficit in ADHD does not alleviate across development and is partially distinct from ADHD symptoms. In conclusion, assessment of FER in ADHD and targeting that in interventional plans could lead to social skills improvement in ADHD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alexithymia is a personality trait involving deficits in emotional processing. The personality construct has been extensively validated, but the underlying neural and physiological systems remain controversial. One theory suggests that low-level somatosensory mechanisms act as somatic markers of emotion, underpinning cognitive and affective impairments in alexithymia. In two separate samples (total N = 100), we used an established Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) battery to probe multiple neurophysiological submodalities of somatosensation, and investigated their associations with the widely-used Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). Experiment one found reduced sensitivity to warmth in people with higher alexithymia scores, compared to individuals with lower scores, without deficits in other somatosensory submodalities. Experiment two replicated this result in a new group of participants using a full-sample correlation between threshold for warm detection and TAS-20 scores. We discuss the relations between low-level thermoceptive function and cognitive processing of emotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sense of agency--a feeling of control over one's actions and their outcomes--might include at least two components: free choice over which outcome to pursue and motoric control over the action causing the outcome. We orthogonally manipulated locus of outcome choice (free or instructed choice) and motoric control (active or passive movement), while measuring the perceived temporal attraction between actions and outcomes (temporal binding) as an implicit marker of agency. Participants also rated stimulus intensity so that we could measure sensory attenuation, another possible implicit marker of agency. Actions caused higher or lower levels of either painful heat or mild electrotactile stimulation. We found that both motoric control and outcome choice contributed to outcome binding. Moreover, free choice, relative to instructed choice, attenuated the perceived magnitude of high-intensity outcomes, but only when participants made an active movement. Thus, choosing, not just doing, influences temporal binding and sensory attenuation, though in different ways. Our results show that these implicit measures of agency are sensitive to both voluntary motor commands and instrumental control over action outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Body postures convey emotion and motion-related information useful in social interactions. Early visual encoding of body postures, reflected by the N190 component, is modulated both by motion (i.e., postures implying motion elicit greater N190 amplitudes than static postures) and by emotion-related content (i.e., fearful postures elicit the largest N190 amplitude). At a later stage, there is a fear-related increase in attention, reflected by an early posterior negativity (EPN) (Borhani et al., 2015). Here, we tested whether difficulties in emotional processing (i.e., alexithymia) affect early and late visual processing of body postures. Low alexithymic participants showed emotional modulation of the N190, with fearful postures specifically enhancing N190 amplitude. In contrast, high alexithymic participants showed no emotional modulation of the N190. Both groups showed preserved encoding of the motion content. At a later stage, a fear-related modulation of the EPN was found for both groups, suggesting that selective attention to salient stimuli is the same in both low and high alexithymia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human body postures convey useful information for understanding others' emotions and intentions. To investigate at which stage of visual processing emotional and movement-related information conveyed by bodies is discriminated, we examined event-related potentials elicited by laterally presented images of bodies with static postures and implied-motion body images with neutral, fearful or happy expressions. At the early stage of visual structural encoding (N190), we found a difference in the sensitivity of the two hemispheres to observed body postures. Specifically, the right hemisphere showed a N190 modulation both for the motion content (i.e. all the observed postures implying body movements elicited greater N190 amplitudes compared with static postures) and for the emotional content (i.e. fearful postures elicited the largest N190 amplitude), while the left hemisphere showed a modulation only for the motion content. In contrast, at a later stage of perceptual representation, reflecting selective attention to salient stimuli, an increased early posterior negativity was observed for fearful stimuli in both hemispheres, suggesting an enhanced processing of motivationally relevant stimuli. The observed modulations, both at the early stage of structural encoding and at the later processing stage, suggest the existence of a specialized perceptual mechanism tuned to emotion- and action-related information conveyed by human body postures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generic descriptions (e.g., 'girls are emotional') are argued to play a major role in the development of essentialist reasoning about social categories. Although generics are prevalent across languages, studies exploring if and how generic language leads to essentialism have almost exclusively been conducted in English‐speaking communities and among Western samples. This is a significant limitation as scholars posit that generic language is a universal cue that signals which categories are culturally relevant. However, without research asking whether generics have similar consequences across diverse cultural and linguistic contexts, it is impossible to make a claim of universality. Here, we will fill this gap, by replicating and extending a previous U.S.‐based study assessing the effects of generic language in a sample of Persian‐speaking 6 to 9‐year‐old children (N = 160) and adults (N = 160) in Iran. Participants will hear generic ('Foolies') or specific ('This Foolie') statements (between subjects) that ascribe biological or cultural features to the novel social category of Foolies. We will measure the degree to which exposure to these statements leads to kindhood reasoning (i.e., offering formal explanations for category features) and essentialist reasoning in terms of inheritability. Identifying similar patterns in the Iranian sample as in prior US‐based work will support the hypothesis that generic language signals category importance and licences kindhood but does not contribute directly to reasoning about social categories as biologically inheritable. This work contributes to diversifying the field and critically informs theories of social essentialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People express essentialist beliefs about social categories from an early age, but essentialist beliefs about specific social categories vary over development and in different contexts. Adapting two paradigms used with Western samples to measure social essentialism, we examined the development of essentialist beliefs about seven social categories (gender, race, nationality, religion, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and team fan bases) among 5- to 10-year-old children (N = 88) and adults (N = 273) in Iran, a population that is underrepresented in psychology research. Focusing on natural-kind reasoning, we investigated the relative contribution of biological perception of social categories as well as cultural and motivational factors in the development of essentialist beliefs about these categories. Our findings suggest that biological perception of social categories plays a key role and that cultural and motivational factors become more relevant in essentialist reasoning about social categories that are not perceived as biologically marked. The developmental patterns of essentialist reasoning in our study also closely parallel those found in other cultures, namely the United States and Turkey, further suggesting the primary role of biological perception of social categories in natural-kind reasoning about the social world. Public Significance Statement: Social essentialist bias contributes to negative attitudes and behaviors such as prejudice and discrimination. This article investigates factors, including biological perception of social categories, cultural input, and motivational factors, in the development of social essentialism in Iran, an understudied population in psychology research. The article also compares this bias among Iranian adults and children to adults and children in the United States and Turkey. The findings show that across all three cultures, biological perception of social categories plays a prominent role in essentialism, but cultural and motivational factors add interesting nuance to patterns of social essentialism, especially with respect to social categories that are not perceived as biologically underpinned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People differ in their responsiveness to aesthetic experiences. It is important to understand the role of culture in such individual differences, yet existing tools for assessing aesthetic responsiveness largely focus on North American and European cultures. We created a Farsi translated and culturally adapted version of the Aesthetic Responsiveness Assessment (AReA) and evaluated its psychometric properties. Construct validity and internal consistency were evaluated in a sample of 1,586 participants. Moreover, convergent and discriminant validity were investigated using the Behavioral Avoidance/Inhibition Scales (BIS-BAS), Big Five Inventory-2, Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ), and the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS). Further, the test–retest reliability of AReA was examined for the first time in a subsample of participants (n = 160) who answered the questionnaire again after 6 months. In addition to an acceptable structural validity (comparative fit index, CFI =.905), the Farsi version of AReA showed good internal consistency. Cronbach's α for the overall score was.848 and varied between.64 and.81 for subscales. Concerning convergent and discriminant validity, AReA subscales were positively correlated with subscales of TEPS, the Emotion Evocation subscale of BMRQ, Behavioral Avoidance, and Openness, and were unrelated to Behavioral Inhibition, Conscientiousness, and Negative Emotionality. Moreover, AReA subscales showed different patterns of correlations with other questionnaires. Finally, all subscales of AReA showed high test–retest reliability, ranging from.715 to.778. Our results confirm the validity of the Farsi version of AReA and provide a new measure of aesthetic responsiveness, useful in Farsi-speaking communities, which facilitates cross-cultural research in empirical aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity research commonly involves recruiting human raters to judge the originality of responses to divergent thinking tasks, such as the alternate uses task (AUT). These manual scoring practices have benefited the field, but they also have limitations, including labor-intensiveness and subjectivity, which can adversely impact the reliability and validity of assessments. To address these challenges, researchers are increasingly employing automatic scoring approaches, such as distributional models of semantic distance. However, semantic distance has primarily been studied in English-speaking samples, with very little research in the many other languages of the world. In a multilab study (N = 6,522 participants), we aimed to validate semantic distance on the AUT in 12 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Polish, Russian, and Spanish. We gathered AUT responses and human creativity ratings (N = 107,672 responses), as well as criterion measures for validation (e.g., creative achievement). We compared two deep learning-based semantic models—multilingual bidirectional encoder representations from transformers and cross-lingual language model RoBERTa—to compute semantic distance and validate this automated metric with human ratings and criterion measures. We found that the top-performing model for each language correlated positively with human creativity ratings, with correlations ranging from medium to large across languages. Regarding criterion validity, semantic distance showed small-to-moderate effect sizes (comparable to human ratings) for openness, creative behavior/achievement, and creative self-concept. We provide open access to our multilingual dataset for future algorithmic development, along with Python code to compute semantic distance in 12 languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: By evaluating the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Internet Addiction Test-Social Networking Sites version (IAT-SNS) in a sample of Iranian university students, this study investigated the dimensionality of SNS addiction for the first time. Methods: A total of 620 SNS users (414 women) participated in the study. The study questionnaire comprised demographic information, SNS usage patterns, the IAT-SNS, and the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS). Findings: Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) identified the 3-factor structure of the IAT-SNS, namely 'Lack of Control', 'Emotional and Relational Conflict', and 'Preference for online relationships' that explained 54% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) verified the current model. Problematic users on average exhibited higher scores on the whole IAT-SNS and each of the 3 factors as compared to non-problematic users. The IAT-SNS and its factors showed good internal consistency, and strong convergent and concurrent validity. Conclusion: The Persian version of the IAT-SNS is valid and reliable, and is applicable for measuring the 3 dimensions of SNS addiction among students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]