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Background Methods Findings Conclusions Medicine is recognised as a challenging course where exposure to potentially distressing content is inevitable. Some educators provide students with warnings before they encounter potentially upsetting content—trigger warnings. In this scoping review, we mapped the existing literature seeking to better understand how trigger warnings are implemented in medical schools and how they are influencing education within them.Bibliographic databases were searched to identify relevant literature, including searching for grey literature. Articles were included if they focussed on medical school education and were written in English. Data analysis was undertaken using both quantitative and qualitative approaches (thematic analysis).Searching generated 1284 potential records for inclusion. Articles not related to the primary research question were excluded. Abstracts of the remaining 841 articles were screened, and ultimately, 12 articles met criteria for full‐text review. Of these, there were three empirical research studies. Qualitative analysis identified five main themes: purpose, implementation, student distress, responsibility and problems with terminology.The use of trigger warnings within medical student education remains contentious. There is a lack of consensus as to their purpose and much diversity in how they are implemented. There was limited published empirical evidence to inform practice in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anselm described god as "something than which nothing greater can be thought" [1, p. 93], and Descartes viewed him as "a supreme being" [7, p. 122]. I first capture those characterizations formally in a simple language for monadic predicate logic. Next, I construct a model class inspired by Stoic and medieval doctrines of grades of being [8, 20]. Third, I prove the models sufficient for recovering, as internal mathematics, the famous ontological argument of Anselm, and show that argument to be, on this formalization, valid. Fourth, I extend the models to incorporate a modality fit for proving that any item than which necessarily no greater can be thought is also necessarily real. Lastly, with the present approach, I blunt the sharp edges of notable objections to ontological arguments by Gaunilo and by Grant. A trigger warning: every page of this writing flouts the old saw "Existence is not a predicate" and flagrantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to assess students' responses to a potentially triggering passage from literature using differing trigger warnings. 123 undergraduates read a passage which contained depictions of physical and sexual assault. Students were randomly assigned to differing trigger warning conditions prior to reading the passage that anticipated either neutral, positive, or negative emotional reactions. Measures of PTSD symptoms and distress were taken on Day 1, Day 2, and Day 14. Distress to the triggering passage did not vary as a function of either trauma history or trigger warning type. Those with higher PTSD scores to start did not experience more distress over time. The data suggest that instructors can assign challenging passages with the expectation that those with related traumas will not be disproportionately affected. In addition, the type of warning is not likely to impact on student emotional responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on a recent shift in the adaptation of taboo language and content that has been happening over the last few years in the dubbing and subtitling of audiovisual content for the entertainment industry. While previous research on the cross-cultural adaptation of taboo language and subjects has pointed out that blatant examples of manipulation and censorship often occurred in dubbed and subtitled dialogue, this paper argues that recent changes in the distribution of audiovisual content – such as the global presence of streaming and on-demand platforms and an increased awareness from audiences – now tend to make it less likely for major cases of cross-cultural taboo manipulation to happen without going unnoticed or generating pushback. By looking at the cases of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, the paper argues that the paratextual information available on the interfaces of streaming platforms – in the form of extra-textual tags and content advisories – reframes taboo content for global audiences in a less invasive way when compared to the heavy-handed, textual manipulation that was common in dubbing and subtitling in the age of (exclusively) linear TV. Examples from the Netflix and Amazon Prime Video English- and Italian-language interfaces are provided to support the idea that in these cases cultural and linguistic localization can play a crucial role in adapting taboo content for global audiences and in affecting their viewing choices.

This article explores how legal academics approach sensitive topics in human rights law, specifically how content is chosen, curated and discussed with students. It draws on data collected as part of a small pilot study which looked at how human rights academics approach "controversial" topics and how their views on controversy and sensitivity may be reflected in their curriculum. It focuses on the wider debate around trigger warnings in higher education and explores how academics use them. It concludes that, despite their negative reputation, "trigger warnings" can play a necessary and welcome role in navigating sensitive material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trigger warnings, statements alerting readers, listeners, or viewers to the presence of content that might revive distressing memories, have become a flash point in recent discussions about the US academy. Providing a genealogy of the concept and practice in US colleges and universities, this article situates the trigger warning's growing cultural prominence within twined changes in computer-mediated communication and legal understandings of embodied consent. Seen against this backdrop of racialized, gendered struggles over the meanings of free, voluntary action, the trigger warning debate helps illuminate how the normative regimes of the contemporary university reflect the long afterlife of US racial slavery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychiatric mental health (PMH) nursing education covers topics that some students find potentially distressing and anxiety-producing. Trigger warnings are commonly found in entertainment and social media venues, but there is little research to explore the use of trigger/content warnings in undergraduate nursing education. This current research surveyed PMH nursing instructors (n = 48) and found that most give trigger warnings and believe them to be helpful. However, there is no consistency on how and when warnings are provided, nor their content. Overall, results indicate that trigger warnings may be one aspect of implementing supportive and trauma-informed pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article outlines various approaches to developing a fuzzy decision algorithm designed for monitoring and issuing warnings about driver drowsiness. This algorithm is based on analyzing EOG (electrooculography) signals and eye state images with the aim of preventing accidents. The drowsiness warning system comprises key components that learn about, analyze and make decisions regarding the driver's alertness status. The outcomes of this analysis can then trigger warnings if the driver is identified as being in a drowsy state. Driver drowsiness is characterized by a gradual decline in attention to the road and traffic, diminishing driving skills and an increase in reaction time, all contributing to a higher risk of accidents. In cases where the driver does not respond to the warnings, the ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) system should intervene, assuming control of the vehicle's commands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the debate surrounding trigger warnings in educational settings, specifically in college and law school classrooms. It presents arguments both in favor of and against trigger warnings, acknowledging the diverse perspectives on the topic. Scientific studies are discussed, suggesting that trigger warnings may not necessarily reduce student anxiety and could even increase anxiety for trauma survivors and students with PTSD. The article concludes by proposing a compromise, suggesting that a subtle warning at the beginning of the semester without using the word "trigger" may be beneficial, and emphasizes the importance of creating a welcoming and trusting class atmosphere to support students. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines trigger warnings, particularly the call for trigger warnings on university campuses, and from a Levinasian and Kantian ethical perspective, and addresses the question: When, if ever, are trigger warnings helpful to student's learning? The nursing curriculum is developed with key stakeholders and regulatory bodies to ensure graduate nurses are competent to deliver a high standard of care to patients and clients. Practical teaching practice and published research has uncovered an increasing use of 'Trigger Warnings' before a topic is discussed, or used as warnings on core module texts. It is appreciated that some students have personal experience of psychological or physical trauma. However, apart from identifying these students through Mitigating Circumstances committees, or when the student feels confident to share this information with a personal tutor, this information remains strictly confidential. There is the potential for covert skills such as critical analysis and skilful discussion not being attained by the student. With the assistance of Kants moral theory, an argument will develop that the insidious use of Trigger warnings and the embargo of recommended reading, requires critical discussion with the public. This would involve the rationale and pedagogical justification for the use of texts, and the necessity within nursing education to address challenging clinical topics. To support students with PTSD this may involve the research discussed on personal educational needs analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trigger warnings alert readers that upcoming themes may serve as trauma reminders. They have been proposed as an accommodation for individuals diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the context of higher education. Previous research has raised the concern that deploying and using trigger warnings can increase one's sense of trauma centrality, which in turn impedes posttraumatic adjustment. The current study tests the hypothesis that trauma centrality moderates the relationship between self-reported PTSD symptoms and positive trigger warning attitudes, such that those reporting comparatively high centrality and high symptomatology are most receptive to trigger warnings. Participants (n = 161) were trauma-exposed undergraduates who completed measures of trigger warning attitudes, PTSD symptoms, and trauma centrality. Results showed a significant moderating effect. Participants reporting the greatest levels of PTSD severity reported the most receptivity to trigger warnings. For those reporting the highest levels of trauma centrality, we saw high levels of trigger warning acceptability, regardless of PTSD levels reported. Even those who were experiencing few symptoms, but nevertheless understood their trauma as highly central to their identity, were highly receptive to trigger warnings. The finding adds empirical data to the understanding of the relationship between PTSD symptoms and trigger warning attitudes. Results have implications for the use of trigger warnings for trauma survivors in the context of higher education, indicating more research on how to address trauma on campus in a trauma-sensitive and evidence-based way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online platforms like Instagram cover potentially distressing imagery with a sensitive-content screen (blurred imagery plus a content warning). Previous research suggests people typically choose to "uncover" and view screened content. In three studies, we investigated whether the presence of screens mitigates the negative emotional impact of viewing content. In Study 1, participants viewed positive and neutral images, and screens (with an option to view the negative images beneath) for a 5-minute period. In Study 2, half the participants saw a grey mask in place of the typical sensitive-content screen. In addition, each image appeared for a fixed period (5 s) and participants had no option to uncover it. Study 3 was like Study 2 except half the participants saw negative images preceded by a sensitive-content screen and half saw negative images without screens. Overall, participants reported a significant increase in state anxiety and negative affect from pre-to post task when they were exposed to sensitive-content screens, whether or not they were also exposed to the negative imagery beneath. Our data suggest sensitive-content screens cause negative responses – state anxiety and negative affect – that do not translate to an emotional benefit when people view negative content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In the academic context, trigger warnings can be defined as explicit statements that alert a group of learners that certain content explored or discussed in a learning environment may contain potentially distressing material. Extant research highlights a relationship between traumatization and trigger warnings; however, the extent to which trigger warnings constitute a method of best practice for reducing traumatization in higher education has not been addressed. Thus, a systematic literature review was conducted to explore this relationship. A search conducted across academic databases to locate peer-reviewed articles published between November 2010 and November 2020, combined three areas of interest: (1) "trigger warnings," (2) "best practice," and (3) "higher education." Database searches and further manual searches yielded a total of 194 journal articles. Of these, 20 studies satisfied all inclusion criteria. Following the data extraction process, thematic analysis was employed to identify, analyze, and report patterns within data. The key themes identified through the review include trigger warnings as inclusive practice, as part of trauma-informed pedagogy, as ineffectual practice, and as harmful practice. The evidence suggests that when embedded as part of a broader, holistic, and trauma-informed approach, trigger warnings can be a valuable tool for assisting with the effective reduction of traumatization in the higher education context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few measures are more emblematic of the desire to curb uncertainty than trigger warnings issued in the literary classroom. But do they establish more certainty? A growing body of empirical research is showing that trigger warnings are "functionally inert." Furthermore, in some studies they have been shown to increase PTSD symptoms. Against this background, this paper takes the rise in demand for trigger warnings as a window into Gen Z reader's relationship to uncertainty and directs attention to the problem that trigger warnings aim to mitigate but are failing to alleviate – an "epidemic of trauma" in the classroom, as identified by the US National Council of State Education Association (NCSEA). Illuminating trauma as a neglected issue in narrative studies, this paper takes an intersectionally situated perspective to reappraise general propositions about the Reader in order to move towards a trauma-informed approach to teaching narrative in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Trigger warnings have been at the heart of a heated debate within academic circles since they burst into higher education in 2013. Using an intersectional feminist disability studies pedagogy, this article traces the ableist assumptions underscoring anti-trigger warning concerns around avoidance, coddling of students, and “overcoming” impairment language. It also examines the misconstructions in anti-trigger warning arguments centered on academic freedom, and agency, mapping out ambiguous trigger warning definitions. I argue that trigger warnings are vital accommodations necessary for creating inclusive academic spaces for trauma-affected students and students with disabilities to prepare themselves to engage with distressing materials. Academics must heed caution in distinguishing between discomfort and emotional harm to avoid devaluing the lived experiences of trauma-affected students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers' decision-making about resource selection is made more complex when resources are appraised for their potential to raise controversial issues or cause offence to others within school communities. Debates around the use of trigger warnings, freedom of speech and the impact of exclusionary practices further complicate these processes. In this article, Bacchi's (Bacchi, 2012 ; Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016) What's the problem represented to be? (WPR) approach is applied to the critical policy analysis of five Australian policy texts that deal with resource selection and controversial issues in schools. By comparing the ways these policies represent certain kinds of 'problems', it highlights the tendency of government departments to problematise this as a process that must be managed for the purpose of mitigating contestation. An examination of dominant and alternative policy constructions also prompts reflection on the discursive effects of policy and why resource selection should be re-problematised as a pedagogical opportunity and inclusionary practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the mHealth Predictive Outbreak for COVID-19 (mPOC) framework, an autonomous platform based on wearable Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices for outbreak prediction and monitoring. It utilizes real-time physiological and environmental data to assess user risk. The framework incorporates the analysis of psychological and user-centric data, adopting a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches. The mPOC mechanism utilizes the bidirectional Mobile Health (mHealth) Disaster Recovery System (mDRS) and employs an intelligent algorithm to calculate the Predictive Exposure Index (PEI) and Deterioration Risk Index (DRI). These indices trigger warnings to users based on adaptive threshold criteria and provide updates to the Outbreak Tracking Center (OTC). This paper provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the framework's mechanisms and algorithms, complemented by the performance accuracy evaluation. By leveraging wearable IoMT devices, the mPOC framework showcases its potential in disease prevention and control during pandemics, offering timely alerts and vital information to healthcare professionals and individuals to mitigate outbreaks' impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotion is an integral part of the knowledge production process, yet is rarely acknowledged within research methods teaching or textbooks. As educators, preparing students for fieldwork is essential, and should go beyond skill-learning, towards building confidence in their ability to react both ethically and appropriately during fieldwork. This paper reflects on supporting students to manage the disruptiveness of learning about their role within the research process while acknowledging research as an emotionally-driven practice. We outline why learning opportunities on emotion are essential within the context of a pan-social-science methods course for postgraduates. Consideration is given to how space is provided for students to consider their motivations, emotions, and subjective engagement with their research, and the broader consequences for knowledge production in action. Two examples are shared as a means to create space for careful consideration of emotions, and of potentially delivering a strategy for implementing a pedagogy of emotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the US, recent disputes about the literary canon are sometimes seen as a continuation of the culture wars that inflamed the last decades of the 20th century. There is however a crucial difference: contemporary debates are no longer propelled by scholars and intellectuals. Thanks to the impact of social media activism, it is now up to students to inspire new protocols and priorities, such as the possibility to be excused from reading texts or authors that could trigger traumatic memories. This essay argues that the compliance with which many American universities have embraced these demands should be examined within the field of institutional development that Shoshana Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism. The dissemination of concepts like trigger warning and safe space is thus analyzed as a downstream effect of infocracy, a digital information regime incompatible with the discursive expression of dissent which is essential to a democratic society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trigger warnings are defined as alerts presented before media to warn that the content may represent a trauma reminder. Their usefulness in higher education has been at the center of debate. While originally created to help individuals with posttraumatic stress symptoms decide whether or not to engage with material that could elicit, or "trigger" symptoms, trigger warnings have been implicated in perpetuating the avoidant behaviors that maintain the posttraumatic stress syndrome. Much of the literature thus far describes trigger warnings as creating a nocebo effect (fostering negative expectations), but these studies use only self-report measures. The present study aimed to build upon the nocebo hypothesis to assess psychophysiological responses (heart rate, respiration rate, skin conductance) to the phrase "trigger warning" as compared to alternative warning phrases and to examine whether PTSD symptoms or receptivity of trigger warnings influence this reactivity. Students (N = 106) were randomly assigned to see either the phrase "trigger warning" a PG-13 movie rating, or no warning before watching a movie clip. Viewing the trigger warning increased heart rate, respiration rate, and skin conductance measures more than viewing either the PG-13 or control stimuli. Moreover, posttraumatic stress symptoms and receptivity towards trigger warnings did not account for the relationship between warning exposure and reactivity. Ideas for future research and future trigger warning deployment are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harmful content warning statements, which alert the public that materials with harmful language or images are present, may be considered to have their roots in the film industry and are beginning to be utilized in library archives as an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion initiative. This paper will provide an historical overview of those roots. Its main thrust is to serve as a case study or model of the implementation of harmful content warning statements for Irvine Sullivan Ingram Library at the University of West Georgia in order to help other librarians and archivists who desire to craft similar statements for their institutions. The paper will also introduce examples at other institutions and close with a discussion of the opportunities and difficulties that harmful content warning statements present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an anxious survey of factors inducing boredom or indifference in the readership of environmental writing and criticism. The first is the inertia of limited assumptions in writers and critics about how to engage readers' attention, with inadequate ideas of what 'genuine reading' would be. Secondly and more insidiously, modern readers are usually now immersed in consumerist cultural contexts actively geared to encourage boredom as a market force. Reduced thresholds of attention become effectively a political agent, usually a reactionary one. Next the question is asked: is 'the reader' a unified subject? That is, how far are environmental texts and fears unwittingly appealing to unacknowledged fantasies of violence and harm? A final threat to readerly engagement with environmental criticism in particular is that, as the conditions of the 'Anthropocene' worsen, just to engage more reading and readers on environmental issues comes to seem less and less adequate, even evasive, an academic theatre only of performing opinions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay ponders over the dismissal of reading practices and theories that were linked to the modernist shift from 'literature' to 'writing' (écriture) in the second half of the twentieth century. It provides an intellectual genealogy of the rise and fall of the writing/reading couple, before going on to consider the cultural effects – as well as the educational and institutional consequences in academia – of the challenge to literature's 'cultural difference' mounted by both cognitivist and culturalist approaches to literature, in their turn away from or against 'language'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about the difficulties inherent in using the racist tropes resulting from the transatlantic slave trade to address the chronic persistence of systemic racism. The problem with revealing horrific material – such as the fugitive slave ads I cite from early nineteenth-century Barbados newspapers – is that they raise the risk of causing offence. Yet the point of speaking the unspeakable is to move towards telling truths revealing both the brutality of enslavers and the ingenuity and courage of enslaved individuals who resisted. By focusing on the heroism of people in the fugitive slave ads I shift attention away from the White legislators typically credited with abolition and towards people who consistently resisted enslavement. My account of navigating the treacherous territory of speaking the unspeakable resolves as a cautionary tale about making sure that unspeakable, long concealed material is buffered with trigger warnings and careful explanations as to why it is being revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mind wandering is a state in which our mental focus shifts toward task-unrelated thoughts. Although it is known that mind wandering has a detrimental effect on concurrent task performance (e.g., decreased accuracy), its effect on executive functions is poorly studied. Yet the latter question is relevant to many real-world situations, such as rapid stopping during driving. Here, we studied how mind wandering would affect the requirement to subsequently stop an incipient motor response. In healthy adults, we tested whether mind wandering affected stopping and, if so, which component of stopping was affected: the triggering of the inhibitory brake or the implementation of the brake following triggering. We observed that during mind wandering, stopping latency increased, as did the percentage of trials with failed triggering. Indeed, 67% of the variance of the increase in stopping latency was explained by increased trigger failures. Thus, mind wandering primarily affects stopping by affecting the triggering of the brake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Content and trigger warnings give information about the content of material prior to receiving it. Different typologies of content warnings have emerged across multiple sectors, including health, social media, education and entertainment. Benefits arising from their use are contested, with recent empirical evidence from educational sectors suggesting they may raise anxiety and reinforce the centrality of trauma experience to identity, whilst benefits relate to increased individual agency in making informed decisions about engaging with content. Research is hampered by the absence of a shared inter-sectoral typology of warnings. The aims of this systematic review are to develop a typology of content warnings and to identify the contexts in which content warnings are used. The review was pre-registered (ID: CRD42020197687, URL: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display%5frecord.php?ID=CRD42020197687) and used five sources: electronic databases covering multiple sectors (n = 19); table of contents from multi-sectoral journals (n = 5), traditional and social media websites (n = 53 spanning 36 countries); forward and backward citation tracking; and expert consultation (n = 15). In total, 6,254 documents were reviewed for eligibility and 136 documents from 32 countries were included. These were synthesised to develop the Narrative Experiences Online (NEON) content warning typology, which comprises 14 domains: Violence, Sex, Stigma, Disturbing content, Language, Risky behaviours, Mental health, Death, Parental guidance, Crime, Abuse, Socio-political, Flashing lights and Objects. Ten sectors were identified: Education, Audio-visual industries, Games and Apps, Media studies, Social sciences, Comic books, Social media, Music, Mental health, and Science and Technology. Presentation formats (n = 15) comprised: education materials, film, games, websites, television, books, social media, verbally, print media, apps, radio, music, research, DVD/video and policy document. The NEON content warning typology provides a framework for consistent warning use and specification of key contextual information (sector, presentation format, target audience) in future content warning research, allowing personalisation of content warnings and investigation of global sociopolitical trends over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avoidance is one of the purported benefits and harms of trigger warnings-alerts that upcoming content may contain traumatic themes. Yet, previous research has focused primarily on emotional responses. Here, we used a trauma analogue design to assess people's avoidance behavior in response to stimuli directly related to an analogue trauma event. University undergraduates (n = 199) watched a traumatic film and then viewed film image stills preceded by either a trigger warning or a neutral task instruction. Participants had the option to "cover" and avoid each image. Apart from a minor increase in avoidance when a warning appeared in the first few trials, we found that participants did not overall avoid negative stimuli prefaced with a trigger warning any more than stimuli without a warning. In fact, participants were reluctant overall to avoid distressing images; only 12.56% (n = 25) of participants used the option to cover such images when given the opportunity to do so. Furthermore, we did not find any indication that trigger warning messages help people to pause and emotionally prepare themselves to view negative content. Our results contribute to the growing body of literature demonstrating that warnings seem trivially effective in achieving their purported goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tetikleyici kavramı, travma yaşamış kişilerde kişiyi zihninde travmanın yaşandığı anın anısına geri götüren uyaranları ifade eder. Eğitim ortamlarında, travma yaşantısı olan kişileri bu uyaranların ortaya çıkarabileceği olumsuz deneyimlerden korumak ya da bu uyaranlara maruz kalıp kalmamak konusunda karar noktasında kontrol sahibi olabilmelerini kolaylaştırmak adına tetikleyici uyarılarının kullanılması gerektiği öne sürülmektedir. Bu çalışmada tetikleyici uyarılarıyla ilgili alan yazın ve tartışmalar örneklerle incelenmiştir. Yapılan incelemede “tetikleyici uyarıları” üzerine oluşan literatürde “tetikleyici” ve “travma” kavramlarının psikoloji literatüründe kullanıldığından daha farklı ve daha geniş bir anlamda kullandığı görülmüştür. Alandaki az sayıda görgül çalışma incelenmiştir. Bu çalışmanın amacı Türkçe yazılı materyal üreten ve eğitim veren kurumları ve kişileri kavramla tanıştırmak ve ileride yapılabilecek yerel görgül çalışmalar için zemin hazırlamaktır.