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BACKGROUND: A series of recent papers have reported normative data from the general adult population for commonly used self-report mood scales. AIMS: To bring together and supplement these data in order to provide a convenient means of obtaining percentile norms for the mood scales. METHOD: A computer program was developed that provides point and interval estimates of the percentile rank corresponding to raw scores on the various self-report scales. RESULTS: The program can be used to obtain point and interval estimates of the percentile rank of an individual's raw scores on the DASS, DASS-21, HADS, PANAS, and sAD mood scales, based on normative sample sizes ranging from 758 to 3822. The interval estimates can be obtained using either classical or Bayesian methods as preferred. CONCLUSION: The computer program (which can be downloaded at www.abdn.ac.uk/ psy086/dept/MoodScore.htm) provides a convenient and reliable means of supplementing existing cut-off scores for self-report mood scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. To evaluate the proxy-rating version of the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ) and provide norms and methods for score interpretation.Design. Cross-sectional and correlational.Methods. The PRMQ was administered to a large sample drawn from the general adult population (N=570). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test competing models of its latent structure. Various psychometric methods were applied to provide clinicians with tools for score interpretation.Results. The CFA model with optimal fit specified a general memory factor together with additional prospective and retrospective factors. The reliabilities of the PRMQ were acceptable (.83 to .92), and demographic variables did not influence ratings. Tables are presented for conversion of raw scores on the Total scale and Prospective and Retrospective scales to T scores. In addition, tables are provided to allow users to assess the reliability and abnormality of differences between proxy ratings on the Prospective and Retrospective scales. Finally, tables are also provided to compare proxy-ratings with self-ratings (using data from the present sample and self-rating data from a previous study).Conclusions. The proxy-rating version of the PRMQ provides a useful measure of everyday memory for use in clinical research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the reliability and validity of the PANAS (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988b) and provide normative data. DESIGN: Cross-sectional and correlational. METHOD: The PANAS was administered to a non-clinical sample, broadly representative of the general adult UK population (N = 1,003). Competing models of the latent structure of the PANAS were evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis. Regression and correlational analysis were used to determine the influence of demographic variables on PANAS scores as well as the relationship between the PANAS with measures of depression and anxiety (the HADS and the DASS). RESULTS: The best-fitting model (robust comparative fit index = .94) of the latent structure of the PANAS consisted of two correlated factors corresponding to the PA and NA scales, and permitted correlated error between items drawn from the same mood subcategories (Zevon & Tellegen, 1982). Demographic variables had only very modest influences on PANAS scores and the PANAS exhibited measurement invariance across demographic subgroups. The reliability of the PANAS was high, and the pattern of relationships between the PANAS and the DASS and HADS were consistent with tripartite theory. CONCLUSION: The PANAS is a reliable and valid measure of the constructs it was intended to assess, although the hypothesis of complete independence between PA and NA must be rejected. The utility of this measure is enhanced by the provision of large-scale normative data. Copyright 2004 The British Psychological Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older adults have a reduced capacity to take the perspective of another, and it has been suggested that disinhibition may be one mechanism contributing to this difficulty. To test this possibility, we had behavioral measures that were sensitive to inhibitory failure and to theory of mind (ToM) administered to younger and older adults. One of the measures of ToM directly manipulated inhibitory demands, involving either high or low levels of self-perspective inhibition. The results indicated that older adults were selectively impaired on the high-inhibition condition. Further, of the various aspects of cognitive functioning that we assessed, including memory, mental flexibility, and cognitive speed, only cognitive disinhibition mediated age-related differences in ToM. These results suggest that inhibitory control is an important mediator of ToM in late adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated age differences in the experience and expression of emotion in 64 younger and 62 older adults. By manipulating emotion-regulation instructions, we investigated the effects of age on the control of both the inner experience and the outward expression of emotion. We predicted that there would be age improvements in regulating the inner experience of emotion. Indeed, our results indicated that older adults were more effective than young adults in following instructions to reduce the early experience of negative emotion. There were no age differences in following another emotion-regulation strategy involving the suppression of emotional display. In contrast to the well-documented difficulties in cognitive regulation of other studies, these data suggest that the ability to control experience and expression of emotions operates effectively in older adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empathy plays a fundamental role in successful social interactions. However, most tasks currently available for measuring empathy have limited ecological validity and therefore may not elicit true emotional responses in observers. To address this gap, we developed the Empathic Measure of True Emotion (EMOTE), the first emotion stimuli set to include footage of genuine positive and negative emotions unfolding in naturalistic contexts. We validated the EMOTE in a sample of 216 participants. The EMOTE demonstrated acceptable internal consistency, construct validity, and alternate forms reliability for both cognitive and affective empathy. We also found that, relative to conventional empathy measures, the EMOTE elicited stronger affective empathy ratings in observers, and the stimuli were rated higher in both genuineness and emotional intensity. Together, these findings demonstrate that the EMOTE is a reliable and valid measure of cognitive and affective empathy with enhanced ecological validity, providing a valuable new tool for measuring empathy in both clinical and research settings.

Background : Older adults in residential aged care facilities (RACFs) experience disproportionate levels of poor oral health relative to other groups in the general population, affecting their physical and mental wellbeing. The Oral Health Assessment Tool (OHAT) is a validated and widely used dental assessment tool; however, recent systematic reviews have identified shortcomings with respect to its measurement properties. Objective : The objective of this protocol is to provide a detailed overview of a multidisciplinary qualitative study that aims to (a) co-design and develop a modified OHAT for RACFs and (b) inform the development of an OHAT training package and implementation strategies. Methods : This study will utilize a co-design methodology with aged care residents, caregivers, staff members, and health professionals. The co-design workshops will: (1) investigate the barriers to and enablers of optimal oral healthcare in RACFs; and (2) co-design a modified version of the Oral Health Assessment Tool and a referral to treatment pathway that is appropriate for use in RACFs. The co-design workshops will facilitate group discussion and involve interactive activities using, for example, mind mapping and Sticky Notes. Qualitative data (transcripts and artefacts from co-design activities) will be analyzed in NVivo using an inductive codebook thematic analysis, specifically a template analysis. Conclusion : The findings of this study will inform a modified OHAT (M-OHAT), as well as future study phases regarding training and implementation strategies. It is expected that the M-OHAT will have enhanced usability and relevance to RACFs, facilitating the identification of poor oral health and timely referral to dental treatment.

Frailty and sleep disturbances are two major concerns in late adulthood, that not only profoundly threaten health and wellbeing at the individual level but place enormous demands on our healthcare systems. Given that both constructs represent dynamic states that are preventable and reversible, understanding the potential pathways to and effects of these variables on one another is critical in providing effective and tailored support. However, despite growing interest in the relationship between sleep and frailty, only one study to date has directly explored their potential bidirectionality. Accordingly, this study was designed to extend the current understanding by investigating the reciprocal relationship of frailty and sleep quality at the multidimensional level. Specifically, the bidirectionality of these relationships was considered separately for physical, psychological, cognitive, and social frailty. Four random-intercept cross-lagged panel models with three time points were conducted, using 3192 older adults (M age  = 60.21; 46.37% female at baseline) from the UK Biobank. The results revealed that while physical, psychological, and cognitive frailty were neither predictive of, nor predicted by, sleep quality, social frailty and sleep share a reciprocal relationship. These data therefore offer important preliminary evidence for the efficacy of early intervention and prevention strategies aimed at enhancing sleep quality to reduce social frailty, and vice versa., (© 2024 The Author(s). Journal of Sleep Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Sleep Research Society.)

Self-compassion training has been shown to deliver mental health benefits and preliminary evidence suggests it might also be possible to deliver these benefits effectively via virtual reality (VR) technology. However, which features of the VR training environment influence these training benefits remains poorly understood. This study was designed to provide the first empirical test of the potential value of visual biofeedback during self-compassion training. It was theorised that the provision of biofeedback may increase the benefits of training by increasing mindfulness, a core component of self-compassion. Sixty participants were randomly allocated to one of two experimental conditions, both of which comprised VR-based self-compassion training, but only one of which included visual biofeedback (a red pulsating light representing heart rate). Relative to scores at baseline, participants reported greater self-compassion, and lower self-criticism, anxiety, and stress after VR self-compassion training. However, the provision of biofeedback did not influence the strength of these training effects. These data provide further evidence that VR administered self-compassion training may deliver potentially important mental health benefits, but also meaningfully extends this literature by proving the first evidence that visual biofeedback does not influence the strength of these benefits., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Background: Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are theorized to experience lower cognitive empathy but heightened affective empathy. Despite meta-analyses addressing cognitive empathy, affective empathy remains unexplored. This pre-registered systematic review and meta-analysis investigated affective empathy in individuals with BPD or high BPD traits relative to healthy comparisons, using a multidimensional approach including, early affective empathy, emotion contagion, and empathic concern., Methods: Systematic search of SCOPUS, PubMed, Medline COMPLETE, and PsycINFO (June 27, 2022, May 14, 2023, and July 1, 2024) was completed. Included studies compared affective empathy in those with BPD/high BPD traits with healthy comparisons, utilized experimental or self-report designs, and were peer-reviewed or PhD theses. Risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale., Results: Among 22 eligible studies identified, results revealed individuals with BPD/high BPD traits showed significantly higher emotion contagion (N pooled  = 1797, g = -1.10, 95 % CI [-1.57, -0.62]). No significant differences were found in empathic concern (N pooled  = 1545, g = 0.06, 95 % CI [-0.10, 0.22]), or early affective empathy for anger (N pooled  = 245, g = 0.28, 95 % CI [-0.0.53, 1.09]) and happiness, (N pooled  = 189, g = 0.34, 95 % CI [-0.1.50, 2.18])., Limitations: Few included studies for early affective empathy, methodological shortcomings in the broader literature and study heterogeneity suggest caution when interpreting these effects, emphasizing the need for targeted research., Conclusions: While individuals with BPD/high BPD traits are more likely to subjectively experience others' distress through emotion contagion, no differences were found in early affective empathy or ability to direct sympathy and concern towards others., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To study general and subdomain performance in measures of social cognition in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and dementia, and to explore associations between social cognitive and neuropsychological subdomains., Design: Cross-sectional study of participants from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study (MAS)., Setting: Current data was collected in 2016-2018., Participants: Community-dwelling older adults (n=321) aged 80 years and above, with no history of neurological or psychiatric conditions. Participants had dementia, MCI, or no cognitive impairment (NCI)., Measures: Social cognition was indexed using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index - Perspective Taking (IRI-PT) and Empathic Concern (IRI-EC) subscales, and the Emotion Recognition Task (ERT). These subdomain scores were used to make a composite social cognition score. Apathy was measured via the Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES). Neurocognitive function was indexed using the Addenbrooke Cognitive Examination v3 (ACE-3)., Results: Dementia was associated with poorer overall social cognitive composite performance. MCI and dementia participants performed poorer on RMET and recognition of anger, disgust and happiness on ERT. RMET and ERT disgust remained significant after controlling for relevant covariates. Dementia participants performed poorer than MCI and NCI on the IRI-PT, IRI-EC, and AES. AES remained significant after regression. RMET was correlated with ACE-3 Fluency and/or Language in all study groups., Conclusions: MCI is associated with poorer scores in specific social cognitive assessments. Dementia is somewhat associated with poorer scores in informant-rated social cognition scales, though this is no longer significant after accounting for apathy., Competing Interests: DISCLOSURES The Sydney MAS was supported by two National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia grants: Program Grant (350833) and Capacity Building Grant (568940). This study was also additionally supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant (DP170101239). J.D.H is currently supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT170100096). R.J.C. was supported by the University of New South Wales Scientia PhD Scholarship Program. The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors thank all current and former study team members of Sydney MAS for their invaluable work and guidance, as well as all study participants for volunteering their time and effort to take part in this study. We would also like to thank John Crawford for his guidance on this analysis. The authors report no conflicts with any product mentioned or concept discussed in this article., (Copyright © 2024 American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Metatarsal fractures are some of the most common fractures reported in the human body. Recent advances in surgical techniques and fixation have helped facilitate healing and improved outcomes for our patients. The treatment goals of metatarsal fractures are to maintain the metatarsal parabola, sagittal position of the metatarsal heads, and a congruent metatarsophalangeal joint. Most of these injuries can be treated nonoperatively, but displaced fractures require surgical intervention to preserve normal gait biomechanics., Competing Interests: Disclosure Dr J.R. Clements is a paid consultant for Stryker, but there are no conflicts within this publication and others have nothing to disclose., (Published by Elsevier Inc.)

The amygdala is important for human fear processing. However, recent research has failed to reveal specificity, with evidence that the amygdala also responds to other emotions. A more nuanced understanding of the amygdala's role in emotion processing, particularly relating to fear, is needed given the importance of effective emotional functioning for everyday function and mental health. We studied 86 healthy participants (44 females), aged 18-49 (mean 26.12 ± 6.6) years, who underwent multiband functional magnetic resonance imaging. We specifically examined the reactivity of four amygdala subregions (using regions of interest analysis) and related brain connectivity networks (using generalized psycho-physiological interaction) to fear, angry, and happy facial stimuli using an emotional face-matching task. All amygdala subregions responded to all stimuli (p-FDR < .05), with this reactivity strongly driven by the superficial and centromedial amygdala (p-FDR < .001). Yet amygdala subregions selectively showed strong functional connectivity with other occipitotemporal and inferior frontal brain regions with particular sensitivity to fear recognition and strongly driven by the basolateral amygdala (p-FDR < .05). These findings suggest that amygdala specialization to fear may not be reflected in its local activity but in its connectivity with other brain regions within a specific face-processing network., (© 2024 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Ageism refers to prejudice, stereotypes or discrimination based on a person's actual or perceived chronological age. While ageism can affect people at all stages of the human lifespan, ageism against older adults has emerged as the most pervasive and potentially harmful. Much is now understood about how ageism can impact older people's health and wellbeing via structural, organisational, and provider level biases that threaten the provision of equitable and ethical healthcare. Negative attitudes about age and ageing also contribute to workforce shortages in aged care sectors, such as residential aged care and nursing. However, often underappreciated is how self-directed ageism, which refers to ageism turned against oneself, can also be an important determinant of health and wellbeing. Relative to external sources of ageism, negative internalised ageist beliefs are not only experienced more frequently in older adults' everyday lives, but are also more strongly linked to their health and wellbeing. Here we highlight how this understanding means that eliminating ageism requires a multifaceted approach that targets not only health care systems and aged care professionals, but older people themselves. Because normal age-related cognitive changes in how we think, perceive and reason increase the risk of older people viewing themselves through a negative and ageist lens, we provide a novel discussion of how broader insights from cognitive ageing literature must play a central role in any agenda focused on breaking the links between ageism and health., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Affect-sharing, the ability to vicariously feel another person's emotions, is the primary component of empathy that is typically thought to rely on the observer's capacity to feel the emotions of others. However, external signals, such as the target's physical characteristics, have been demonstrated to influence affect-sharing in the neuroscientific literature that speaks to the underappreciated role of external factors in eliciting affect-sharing. We consider factors that influence affect-sharing, including physical cues, emotional cues, situational factors, and observer-target relationships, as well as the neural circuits involved in these processes. Our review reveals that, while neural network activation is primarily responsible for processing affect-sharing, external factors also co-activate a top-down cognitive processing network to modulate the conscious process of affect-sharing. From this knowledge, an integrative framework of external factor interactions with affect-sharing are explained in detail. Finally, we identify critical areas for future research in social and affective neuroscience, including research gaps and incorporation of ecologically valid paradigms., Competing Interests: Declaration of interest None, (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Social cognitive function often declines in older age but the mechanisms underlying these declines are not completely clear. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and muscular strength are positively associated with broader cognitive function in older adults, yet surprisingly, no study has examined whether a similar relationship exists between CRF or muscular strength and social cognition in older age., Methods: We assessed whether higher CRF and muscular strength were associated with enhanced social cognitive function in a sample of fifty older adults (Mage = 70.08, standard deviation = 3.93). Participants completed a gold-standard cardiopulmonary exercise test to assess CRF, an isometric handgrip strength test to index muscular strength, and validated measures of social cognition to index emotion perception and theory of mind (ToM)., Results: The results showed that CRF and muscular strength did not explain any unique variance in older adults' social cognitive performance. Bayesian analyses confirmed that the evidence for the null hypothesis was moderate for all tested relationships, except for the relationship between CRF and cognitive ToM where the evidence for the null was anecdotal., Discussion: This study has provided the first evidence to suggest that CRF and muscular strength-two important modifiable lifestyle factors-are not associated with social cognition in healthy older adults. However, replication studies are now needed to cross-validate these findings and to clarify whether any moderating variables may be important for understanding the relationship between fitness and social cognition in older age., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.)

Background: Depression and anxiety are common and debilitating mental disorders with severe negative repercussions at both individual and societal levels. Although virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a safe and effective tool for the treatment of anxiety disorders, studies of the therapeutic application of VR to treat depression are more limited., Objective: The purpose of this study was to test whether a novel type of individualized VR (iVR) can be used to improve self-compassion and decrease depressive symptoms and to evaluate the usability and acceptability of this approach, as rated by participants. The iVR system was designed and developed based on the feedback obtained from a previous study, with improved appearance and feel of the avatar and enhanced graphical quality., Methods: A total of 36 young adult participants were recruited from a university community social media site. Participants were aware that the study was investigating a treatment for depression but were not recruited based on depression diagnosis. Participants were asked to complete 2 iVR sessions, spaced 2 weeks apart. At baseline and upon completion of each iVR session, participants were asked to complete validated measures of self-compassion and depression. Upon completion of both iVR sessions, additional measures were administered to assess participants' perceptions about the perceived usability and system acceptability of the iVR approach., Results: Self-compassion was assessed at the beginning of session 1 (preintervention baseline) and at the end of session 1 (postintervention assessment). Owing to COVID-19 constraints, 36% (13/36) of the participants were unable to complete the follow-up iVR session. Self-compassion was assessed again for the remaining 64% (23/36) of the participants at the end of session 2 (postintervention assessment). Within-group analyses revealed that self-compassion was significantly increased at the end of both session 1 (P=.01) and session 2 (P=.03) relative to baseline. There was also a nonsignificant trend for depressive symptoms to be low at the end of session 2 relative to baseline. Both quantitative and qualitative participant data supported the iVR approach as being acceptable and usable., Conclusions: Although these data must be treated as preliminary owing to the small sample size and potential selection bias, the data provide encouraging initial evidence that iVR might be a useful tool to enhance self-compassion and reduce depressive symptoms, highlighting the need for randomized controlled trials in the future., (©Ilona Halim, Lehan Stemmet, Sylvia Hach, Richard Porter, Hai-Ning Liang, Atiyeh Vaezipour, Julie D Henry, Nilufar Baghaei. Originally published in JMIR Mental Health (https://mental.jmir.org), 02.10.2023.)

Age differences in emotion perception are now well documented. However, a key limitation of many studies in this literature is the reliance on highly artificial tasks that lack context and consequently have poor ecological validity. This study reports two separate experiments that investigated age differences in emotion perception abilities using a highly contextualised film-based assessment along with a traditional emotion perception task. Experiment 2 additionally included a middle-aged sample and an assessment of eye-gaze patterns to the emotional films. The inclusion of eye-tracking in Experiment 2 was motivated by the fact that older adults consistently show visual biases to static emotion stimuli, yet it remains unclear whether biases also emerge in response to dynamic contextualised emotion stimuli. Experiment 1 identified age effects recognising displays of anger in the traditional emotion perception task but no age differences emerged on the film-based task. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2 with significant group differences on the traditional emotion perception task but no age differences on the film-based task. Experiment 2 also showed that there were no age differences in gaze patterns to these stimuli, showing for the first time that age-related visual biases to emotion stimuli may be task dependent. These findings highlight the fact that task-related features play a key role in the evaluation of age effects in emotion perception.

This study provides an important extension to the growing literature on prospection in children by providing the first test of whether one's ability to engage in the functional (as opposed to the purely phenomenological) aspect of episodic foresight improves across middle childhood. Of the various forms of prospection, episodic foresight has been proposed to be one of the most flexible and functionally powerful, defined as the ability to not only imagine future events (simulative aspect) but also use those imaginings to guide behavior in the present (functional aspect). The current study tested 80 typically developing children aged 8 to 12 years using an extensive cognitive battery comprising Virtual Week Foresight, the Autobiographical Interview, and a series of crystallized and fluid intelligence measures. Whereas data indicated age-related improvements in detecting future-oriented problems and taking steps in the present in service of solving these, all children in this age bracket demonstrated a similar capacity for problem resolution (i.e., the ability to subsequently solve successfully identified problems). Results also revealed the importance of broader crystallized and fluid intelligence, but not episodic memory or episodic future thinking, in engaging in this capacity. Research is now required to understand the real-life consequences of episodic foresight during this developmental period as well as the ways in which parents and teachers can help to foster this capacity and consequently help to support children's growing desire for independence during this time., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Gaze following is a core social-cognitive capacity. Previous work has shown that older adults have reduced gaze following relative to younger adults. However, all previous studies have exclusively used stimuli with low ecological validity, leaving room for alternative explanations for the observed age effects. Motivational models suggest that, relative to younger adults, older adults expend cognitive resources more selectively, such that they are less motivated to engage in tasks that are not meaningful or personally relevant. This may explain why their gaze following is reduced when stimuli are low in ecological validity. An expertise-based account suggests that older adults will have enhanced gaze following owing to their greater experience with gaze cues but that this enhancement may only emerge when stimuli are naturalistic and match those that they have more experience with. In the present study, younger ( N = 63) and older adults ( N = 68) completed a standard gaze-cueing task (static images) and a gaze-cueing task with enhanced ecological validity (videos of shifting gaze). In contrast to past research, both groups showed equivalent gaze following. Notably, in line with motivational model theorizing and experience-based accounts, ecological validity was associated with enhanced gaze following for older but not younger adults. These findings highlight the importance of considering stimulus ecological validity in social-cognitive aging research and provide information regarding the specific types of gaze cues that may be most effective in producing the cognitive and perceptual benefits associated with gaze cues for older adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Empathy is a core component of social cognition that can be indexed via behavioral, informant-report, or self-report methods of assessment. However, concerns have been raised regarding the lack of convergence between these assessment approaches for cognitive empathy. Here, we provided the first comparison of all three measurement approaches for cognitive and affective empathy in a large adult sample ( N = 371) aged 18 to 101 years. We found that poor convergence was more of a problem for cognitive empathy than affective empathy. While none of the cognitive empathy measures correlated with each other, for affective empathy, self-report was significantly associated with both behavioral and informant-report assessments. However, for both cognitive and affective empathy, there was evidence for poor discriminant validity within the measures. Out of the three assessment approaches, only the informant-report measures were consistently associated with indices of social functioning. Importantly, age did not moderate any of the tested relationships, indicating that both the strengths and the limitations of these different types of assessment do not appear to vary as a function of age. These findings highlight the variation that exists among empathy measures and are discussed in relation to their practical implications for the assessment of empathy.

Ageism refers to prejudice or discrimination based on a person's age. When ageism is directed at older people, it is unique in two ways: it is socially condoned in a manner that other types of prejudice are not, and the animus is eventually self-directed. Of central interest here is why ageism becomes self-directed in late adulthood, despite its potentially harmful personal costs. We present a cognitive model in which negative ageist beliefs become increasingly accessible and difficult to eliminate owing to broader developmental shifts in mentation. Given that these effects are contingent on our social environment, systemic changes in societal conceptions of age and aging are needed if we are to reduce vulnerability to self-directed ageism., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests No interests are declared., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Individuals living with Alzheimer's disease (AD) demonstrate extensive deficits in social cognition. To date, no studies have investigated the feasibility of an intranasal oxytocin (INOT) treatment to improve social cognition in individuals living with AD., Objective: We conducted a pilot trial to determine recruitment feasibility, enrolment acceptability, and adherence to an INOT treatment to inform on the subsequent design of a future randomized controlled trial (RCT). We also estimated the effect sizes of potential social cognitive function outcome measures related to participants and their caregivers., Methods: Four individuals with AD were enrolled in a single-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial involving a one-week treatment period with both INOT (72 IU twice daily) and placebo., Results: All participants reported no treatment-causative or serious adverse events following repeated INOT administration. While enrolment acceptability (100%) and INOT adherence (placebo, 95%; INOT, 98%) were excellent, feasibility of recruitment was not acceptable (i.e., n  = 4/58 individuals screened met inclusion criteria). However, positive/large effects were associated with secondary outcomes of self-reported health and wellbeing, caregiver 'burden', intimacy and interpersonal-bonding, following repeated INOT administration. No positive effects were associated with participant outcomes of social cognition., Conclusion: This pilot RCT provides first evidence that INOT administration in individuals living with AD is safe and well-tolerated. Despite limitations in sample size, moderate-to-large effect size improvements were identified in participant health outcomes as well as core social cognitive functions and 'burden' as reported by a caregiver. This suggests potential broad-ranging beneficial effects of INOT which should be assessed in future RCTs., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflict of interest to report., (© 2023 – The authors. Published by IOS Press.)

It is well established that poor sleep directly increases stress and aggression, but potential mediators of this relationship remain poorly understood. The present study provided the first direct test of whether capacity for emotion regulation mediated the relationship between sleep with stress. It also aimed to extend current understanding of whether emotion regulation might mediate the association between sleep and aggression, by assessing four distinct subcomponents of aggression (anger, hostility, verbal aggression, and physical aggression). In service of these goals, 740 participants completed validated measures of sleep, stress, aggression, and emotion regulation. Results showed that emotion regulation partially mediated the relationship between sleep quality with stress, anger, hostility, and verbal aggression, and fully mediated the relationship between sleep with physical aggression. These data provide novel evidence that emotion regulation abilities may serve as a protective factor against the negative consequences of sleep disturbances., (© 2022 The Authors. Journal of Sleep Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Sleep Research Society.)

Objectives: This study aimed to test whether prospective memory (PM) was an early cognitive marker of future cognitive decline and incident dementia using longitudinal data spanning 8 years from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study., Methods: At baseline, 121 participants aged 72-91 years were tested in PM using a validated PM task, Virtual Week, which included time- and event-based tasks presented with varying regularity. Responses were scored "Correct" if completed accurately and "Missed" if the target was not remembered at any time. Measures of cognition were taken at baseline and 2-year intervals over 8 years. Dementia diagnoses were made by expert consensus panels using Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition criteria. Linear mixed models and Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to analyze the data, controlling for potential confounds., Results: Both decreased PM accuracy and missed PM responses were associated with rate of cognitive decline measured by Mini-Mental State Examination over 8 years and global cognitive decline over 4 years. Risk of incident dementia increased with poorer baseline PM ability and missed responses. These effects remained significant after controlling for baseline cognition and were strongest for event-based and regular PM tasks., Discussion: PM is a sensitive early marker of future cognitive decline and risk of incident dementia. PM tasks supported by spontaneous retrieval (event-based) and those with lower retrospective memory demands (regular tasks) function as particularly sensitive predictors. In other words, deficits in performing less effortful PM tasks best predicted cognitive decline. These findings may encourage clinicians to incorporate PM tasks in clinical assessments., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Objectives: While emotional responses experienced in-the-moment appear to remain intact in Parkinson's disease (PD), no study has tested whether this extends to the prediction of future emotional responses. The present study aimed to provide the first assessment of affective forecasting capacity in this cohort., Methods: A positively and negatively valenced affective forecasting task and broader clinical battery were completed by a PD group ( ns = 28 and 37, respectively) and a demographically matched neurotypical control group ( ns = 38 and 39, respectively)., Results: No group differences emerged on the two tasks, with the two groups underestimating their level of happiness and overestimating their level of negative affect to a similar degree. Affective forecasting error scores were unrelated to clinical characteristics., Conclusions: Given that affective forecasting relies on self-projection into the future, a skill shown to often be disrupted in this cohort, impairments were expected. However, this study provides initial evidence that this may not be the case. These findings are potentially important given that how we think about and envisage the future affectively is a major determinant of goal-directed behavior. Further work is now needed to establish whether these findings are robust and generalize to other types of affective stimuli.

Background: Alcohol intoxication disrupts many aspects of cognition, including the generation of phenomenological characteristics of future events (a component of episodic foresight), and the execution of directed preparatory behaviours (a component of prospective memory). However, no study has tested whether alcohol intoxication is also associated with deficits engaging episodic foresight to guide future-directed behaviour., Aims: This study was designed to provide the first test of how alcohol intoxication influences the functional application of episodic foresight. The secondary aim was to establish the degree to which any observed episodic foresight difficulties associated with alcohol use might reflect broader problems in retrospective memory and executive control. Sex differences were also examined., Methods: Healthy adult social drinkers randomly received either a moderate dose of 0.6 g/kg alcohol ( n  = 61) or a matched placebo drink ( n  = 63) and then completed a validated measure that met strict criteria for assessing the functional application of episodic foresight as well as a broader cognitive test battery., Results: Relative to the placebo condition, episodic foresight was impaired by acute alcohol consumption, with this impairment related to poorer retrospective memory, but not executive control. The negative effects of alcohol intoxication on episodic foresight did not differ as a function of sex., Conclusions: Even a moderate level of intoxication impairs the ability to use episodic foresight in a functionally adaptive way. These findings have implications for understanding many of the maladaptive behaviours that are often associated with acute alcohol use.