Maria Guarnera

Attention and aging

Background and aims: Aging is a condition characterized by a general decline in many types of physical and psychological performance, but its effects on various cognitive functions are still controversial. When viewed along a time-course, several abilities clearly differ in their stability or decline with aging. Among psychological functioning in the elderly, changes in attention are not fully understood. The aim of our research was to analyze attentive performance in a sample of subjects aged 55–65, evaluating various aspects of attentive functioning with respect to the gender variable and to verify if aging affects all attentive functions equally. Methods: The sample included 80 subjects (44 men, 36 women) of 55–65 years of age. Attentional abilities were evaluated by means of multitask computerized assessment. The test involved seven tasks assessing simple reaction times and choice reaction times, visual, visual-spatial and auditory selectivity, digit span, divided attention, resistance to distraction, and attentive shifting. Results: Significant differences related to gender were found in attention shifting. To test possible decline in attentive function with age, performances among two age groups (55–59 and 60–65 yrs) were compared. Significant differences were shown in simple immediate attention span, selectivity, capacity to inhibit interference of non-pertinent signals, and attentive shifting. Conclusions: This study demonstrates an age-related reduction in attentive efficiency but, notably, this decline does not involve all components of attention. Subjects over 60 years of age show progressive slowing in processing of complex tasks and a reduced capacity to inhibit irrelevant stimuli.

Effects of basic human values on host community acculturation orientations

Although literature provides evidence for the relationship between values and acculturation, the relationship between host community acculturation orientations has not yet been investigated. In this study we tested the effects of four high-order values (openness to change, self-transcendence, conservation, and self-enhancement, devised according to Schwartzs model) on host community acculturation orientations towards immigrants (devised according the interactive acculturation model) in the public domain of employment and the private domain of endogamy/exogamy. Participants were 264 Italian University students, who completed a questionnaire containing the Portrait Values Questionnaire, a measure of personal values, and the Host Community Acculturation Scale, aimed at measuring Italian acculturation strategies towards three groups of immigrants: Immigrants (the general category), Chinese (the valued immigrant group), and Albanians (the devalued immigrant group). Results showed that personal values are related to the adoption of acculturation orientations: In particular, the values that mostly impacted on acculturation orientations were self-transcendence and conservation. Values concerning self-transcendence encourage the adoption of integrationism, integrationism-transformation, and individualism and reduce the adoption of assimilationism, segregationism, and exclusionism. Values concerning conservation encourage the adoption of assimilation, segregation and exclusion orientations and reduce the adoption of both types of integrationism and individualism. Minor effects were found regarding self-enhancement and openness to change.

Facial expressions and ability to recognize emotions from eyes or mouth in children

This research aims to contribute to the literature on the ability to recognize anger, happiness, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust and neutral emotions from facial information. By investigating children’s performance in detecting these emotions from a specific face region, we were interested to know whether children would show differences in recognizing these expressions from the upper or lower face, and if any difference between specific facial regions depended on the emotion in question. For this purpose, a group of 6-7 year-old children was selected. Participants were asked to recognize emotions by using a labeling task with three stimulus types (region of the eyes, of the mouth, and full face). The findings seem to indicate that children correctly recognize basic facial expressions when pictures represent the whole face, except for a neutral expression, which was recognized from the mouth, and sadness, which was recognized from the eyes. Children are also able to identify anger from the eyes as well as from the whole face. With respect to gender differences, there is no female advantage in emotional recognition. The results indicate a significant interaction ‘gender x face region’ only for anger and neutral emotions.

Rotation and generation of mental imagery in children with specific language impairment.

To investigate the relationship between mental imagery and specific language impairment (SLI) and explore the assumption that children with SLI are less able to generate mental images and/or convert them, when compared to typical development (TD) children of the same age.

Vividness and transformation of mental images in karate and ballet.

While imagery research has become popular in recent years, little research has specifically investigated differences in imagery ability between open- and closed-skill sport activities. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the type of task, open or closed, affects vividness and controllability differently. Thirty female classic dancers (closed skill), 30 female karate athletes (open skill), and 30 female non-athlete students, between 14 and 20 years of age (M = 17.0, SD = 1.6), participated. They completed the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire, the Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire, and the Subtraction of Parts Task. There was no difference in imagery ability between open- and closed-skill sport groups. Furthermore, dancers and karatekas had higher mean scores on imagery ability than the non-athlete group. A positive correlation was observed between the two questionnaires, supporting findings on the componential basis of imagery. This study contributed to increase the research in the specific area of open- and closed-skill sports and imagery ability.

Facial Expressions and the Ability to Recognize Emotions from the Eyes or Mouth: A Comparison Between Children and Adults

ABSTRACT The authors sought to contribute to the literature on the ability to recognize anger, happiness, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, and neutral emotions from facial information. They aimed to investigate if—regardless of age—this pattern changes. More specifically, the present study aimed to compare the difference between the performance of adults and 6- to 7-year-old children in detecting emotions from the whole face and a specific face region, namely the eyes and mouth. The findings seem to indicate that, for both groups, recognizing disgust, happiness, and surprise is facilitated when pictures represent the whole face. However, with regard to a specific region, a prevalence for children was not found between the eyes and mouth. Meanwhile, for adults, would seem to detect a greater role of the eye region. Finally, regarding the differences in the performance of emotions recognition, adults are better only in a few cases, whereas children are better in recognizing anger from the mouth.

Imagery in Healthy and in Cognitively Impaired Aging

The aim of the study was to compare the performance of persons both with and without cognitive impairment in different imagery tasks and to correlate these tasks with others involving attention, memory, and spatial perception, but not requiring active generation and/or transformation of mental images. A battery of tests measuring mental imagery skills involving generation, maintenance, and manipulation of different categories of images was administered to 79 persons aged 65 to 89 years, subdivided in two paired groups based on the presence or absence of cognitive deterioration. In most tasks requiring both inspection and transformation of images, subjects with cognitive impairment showed significantly poorer performance. Relations among imagery and other cognitive functions in the two groups are analyzed and discussed.

Successfully aging. choice of life or life that choices

PETRALIA MARIA CRISTINA1, COCO MARINELLA2, MACI TIZIANA3, MINISSALE CHIARA4 , CONCETTA DE PASQUALE4, D’ORTO GIANLUCA4, MARIA SOFIA BASILE2, DONATO EZIO5, MANIACI MARIO5, COMMODARI ELENA6, DI NUOVO SANTO6, PERCIAVALLE VINCENZO2, DI CORRADO DONATELLA7, GUARNERA MARIA7, PIRRONE CONCETTA6, CASTELLANO SABRINA1, PLATANIA SILVIA2, RAMACI TIZIANA7, BELLOMO MARIA7, MAGGIO CLAUDIO4, SEHILI AMEL4, COCO LUCIO SALVATORE GIOVANNI4, NAPOLITANO SALVATORE8, ASCIONE ANTONIO8, PERCIAVALLE VALENTINA6, BUSCEMI ANDREA9 1Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences and Department of Educational Sciences, University of Catania 2Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania 3Department of Mental Health of ASP 3 in Catania Alzheimer Center Psychogeriatry 4University of Catania 5Virgin Active Catania 6Department of Educational Sciences, University of Catania 7Department of Human and Social Sciences, Kore University, Enna 8Department Physical Education and Wellness, University of Naples “Parthenope” 9Horus Cooperative Social, Ragusa

Mental Imagery and School Readiness

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between the skills that constitute school readiness, such as linguistic, phonological, logical-mathematical and psychomotor skills, and mental imagery processes in preschool children. The participants were 100 healthy children (50 boys and 50 girls) aged four to five. Two batteries of tests were used to assess school readiness and different aspects of the mental imagery processes. The mental imagery battery measured mental imagery generation, inspection, and rotation of images. The results showed a relationship between the generation and inspection processes and the level of skills that constitute school readiness. These findings emphasize the potential usefulness of screening all preschoolers and kindergarteners for imagery ability, with the aim of adopting effective measures to increase their mental imagery abilities.

Il mental imagery nell’anziano: quanto incide sul funzionamento cognitivo generale?

Viene passata in rassegna la letteratura sul Mental Imagery in eta anziana, con riferimento ai diversi processi implicati e agli stimoli proposti. Viene quindi posto un problema metodologico: se e quanto incidono le abilita specifiche di visualizzazione ed elaborazione delle immagini sulla prestazione ai test comunemente usati per la valutazione del decadimento mentale generale: Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) e Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). La verifica e stata compiuta in un campione di 199 persone, 90 maschi e 109 femmine, in eta fra 55 e 93 anni. E stata verificata la predittivita del test di immaginazione (punteggio totale del Mental Imagery Test, MIT) e di altre prove somministrate rispetto alla prestazione nel test MMSE e MoCA, mediante equazioni di regressione multipla che hanno confermato la preponderanza delle prove di immaginazione nel predire la prestazione cognitiva generale; questa predittivita e nettamente superiore rispetto alle altre prove cognitive ed anche alle variabili eta e scolarita.