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<td><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;">PsyPost – Psychology News Daily Digest (Unofficial)</span></td>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/gaming-for-mental-health-new-study-links-playing-powerwash-simulator-to-mood-improvement/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Gaming for mental health? New study links playing PowerWash Simulator to mood improvement</a>
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<p><p>A longitudinal analysis of tens of thousands of gaming sessions involving nearly 9,000 players of the video game <em>PowerWash Simulator</em> indicated that players’ moods improve slightly when they start playing. The bulk of this improvement occurs during the first 15 minutes of play. The paper was published in <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3659464"><em>ACM Games</em></a>.</p>
<p>Millions of people around the world enjoy playing video games. Despite this, early research on the psychological effects of video games primarily focused on negative aspects and consequences of gameplay, such as problematic use of online games and gaming disorders. Other studies have noted that playing video games, particularly those that are cognitively challenging, can benefit training and maintaining cognitive performance.</p>
<p>But what about mood and emotions? Typical video game play appears to be motivated by relatively short-term goals, such as unwinding after a long day, escaping into a pleasant alternate reality, or engaging in uplifting interactions. These short-term dynamics that motivate gameplay and result from it might not necessarily accumulate to form long-term psychological consequences for individuals. Moreover, these dynamics are poorly studied and understood.</p>
<p>Study author Matti Vuorre and his colleagues sought to better understand how playing video games in a natural context might predict players’ moods. They analyzed a large longitudinal dataset containing data on players’ psychological experiences while playing <em>PowerWash Simulator</em>.</p>
<p><em>PowerWash Simulator</em> is a video game in which players run a small power-washing business, taking on jobs from a variety of clients in different locations presented as levels. The core mechanic involves aiming and using a pressure washer to clean dirt from various objects, ranging from Ferris wheels to skateparks. The game is commercially available on Steam.</p>
<p>The researchers were particularly interested in investigating whether players’ moods change when they start playing, how much these changes occur, whether this happens to all players or just some, and how these mood changes develop over the course of a game session.</p>
<p>The data were collected through a research edition of <em>PowerWash Simulator</em>, designed by the study authors in collaboration with the game’s developers, FuturLab. This version of the game recorded play events, game status, participants’ demographics, and players’ responses to a psychological survey. The research edition was made freely available on Steam for anyone who owned the original version of the game.</p>
<p>Participants in the study included 8,695 players of the research version of the game, who participated in 67,328 play sessions. During this time, they submitted 162,320 in-game mood reports. All participants were adults, with a median age of 27 years. Fifty-two percent were male. The participants came from 39 different countries, with 57% from the United States, 10% from the United Kingdom, and 5% each from Canada and Germany.</p>
<p>Results showed that the median gaming session lasted around 40 minutes, and a typical player submitted data from five gaming sessions. On average, players’ moods improved slightly when they started playing. On a visual analog scale ranging from 0 to 1, the average improvement was 0.034. Seventy-two percent of players experienced some improvement in mood.</p>
<p>When the researchers examined mood changes during a gaming session, they found that the observed increase in mood typically occurred early, usually within the first 15 minutes of gameplay. Afterward, mood tended to remain stable throughout the rest of the session.</p>
<p>“We found strong evidence for a small positive change in mood over the course of a play session. Our findings invite further research into the mechanisms governing who experiences the larger impacts of video game play on mood, which likely includes both psychological factors and in-game behavior.”, study authors concluded.</p>
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<p>This study contributes to the scientific understanding of the relationship between playing video games and mood. However, it is important to note that the study’s design does not allow for cause-and-effect conclusions to be drawn from the results. Additionally, the study included only a single video game with relatively simple gameplay. The dynamics of mood change may differ in more complex games.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3659464">Affective Uplift During Video Game Play: A Naturalistic Case Study,</a>” was authored by Matti Vuoree, Nick Ballou, Thomas Hakman, Kristoffer Magnusson, and Andrew K. Przybylski.</p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/changes-in-dysfunctional-attitudes-linked-to-improved-wellbeing-after-psychedelic-use/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Changes in dysfunctional attitudes linked to improved wellbeing after psychedelic use</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 21st 2024, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>Recent research published in the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02791072.2024.2421892"><em>Journal of Psychoactive Drugs</em></a> sheds light on the ways psychedelic experiences might influence mental wellbeing. The study suggests that while intense, subjective reactions during psychedelic use—such as emotional breakthroughs or mystical feelings—contribute to improvements in wellbeing, changes in dysfunctional attitudes after the experience play an even larger role.</p>
<p>Psychedelic-assisted therapy has gained attention for its potential to improve mental health, particularly in treating depression, anxiety, and trauma. However, many studies have focused on the immediate, subjective experiences induced by psychedelics, such as feelings of unity or emotional release. Less attention has been given to how these experiences might influence dysfunctional attitudes—rigid, negative thought patterns about oneself, others, and the future. These attitudes are known contributors to mental health challenges and are common targets in cognitive-behavioral therapies.</p>
<p>“Many traditional models of psychotherapy focus on helping people change overgeneralized, rigid thoughts known as dysfunctional attitudes. These dysfunctional attitudes tend to improve in clinical trials of both medication and psychotherapy,” said study author Genevieve S. Falabella, a clinical psychology doctoral student at the University at Albany.</p>
<p>“However, studies on psychedelic-assisted therapy rarely address these classic cognitive models. Instead, psychedelic-assisted therapy research typically focuses on the importance of the intense, subjective experiences that people have during a psychedelic “trip” (e.g., mystical, challenging, or emotional breakthrough experiences) and how these experiences affect outcome.</p>
<p>“Perhaps post-acute changes in dysfunctional attitudes are related to the impact of mystical, challenging, or emotional breakthrough experiences. Therefore, to bridge the gap between psychedelic-assisted therapy and standard cognitive interventions, we aimed to understand how these lasting changes in dysfunctional attitudes compare to the immediate, acute effects of the psychedelic experience in improving wellbeing.”</p>
<p>“This could help to inform and improve psychedelic-assisted therapy. We thought that psychotherapists who might not be fans of mystical ‘trip’ experiences might be more receptive to the idea that dysfunctional attitudes might underlie psychedelic-induced improvements.”</p>
<p>For their study, the researchers recruited 587 adults who had previously used psychedelics and asked them to reflect on their most meaningful psychedelic experience. Participants were sourced through an online research platform, known as Prolific, ensuring they passed attention-check questions to maintain data reliability. The sample predominantly consisted of White, non-Hispanic males, with ages ranging from 18 to 77 years old.</p>
<p>The researchers used a retrospective approach, relying on participants’ recollections of their experiences and subsequent changes. The participants completed several validated questionnaires designed to measure different aspects of their psychedelic experiences and their effects:</p>
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<li>Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ): Evaluated feelings of transcendence, unity, and sacredness during the psychedelic experience.</li>
<li>Emotional Breakthrough Inventory (EBI): Measured the degree of emotional release and personal insight gained during the experience.</li>
<li>Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ): Assessed distressing aspects of the experience, such as fear, paranoia, or feelings of isolation.</li>
<li>Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (DAS): Captured changes in rigid, negative thought patterns about oneself, others, and the future before and after the experience.</li>
<li>Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS): Assessed overall mental wellbeing before and after the psychedelic experience.</li>
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<p>The researchers found that both acute and post-acute factors were associated with improvements in mental wellbeing, but their relative contributions differed. (Acute factors refer to the immediate, subjective experiences that occur during the psychedelic session itself, such as feelings of unity, emotional breakthroughs, or challenging moments of distress. In contrast, post-acute factors relate to the changes that occur after the psychedelic experience.)</p>
<p>The most significant predictor of improved wellbeing was post-acute changes in dysfunctional attitudes. Participants who reported shifts in their rigid, negative thought patterns experienced the greatest enhancements in their mental health, suggesting that these cognitive changes are critical for long-term benefits.</p>
<p>Among the acute subjective experiences, emotional breakthroughs emerged as the strongest predictor of wellbeing. These moments, characterized by intense emotional release and new personal insights, were associated with significant improvements.</p>
<p>Mystical experiences, which involve feelings of unity and transcendence, also correlated with better wellbeing, though their impact was smaller compared to emotional breakthroughs. Challenging experiences, such as feelings of fear or paranoia, were linked to smaller improvements and sometimes negative outcomes, though they appeared to still play a role in the overall therapeutic process.</p>
<p>“We found that post-acute changes in dysfunctional attitudes had the strongest association with changes in wellbeing, but acute subjective reactions also played a role,” Falabella told PsyPost. “This result suggests that optimizing both subjective reactions and changes in dysfunctional attitudes might help improve the effectiveness of psychedelic-assisted therapy.”</p>
<p>“However, since the psychedelic experience can be unpredictable and hard to control, focusing on dysfunctional attitudes may be more straightforward. Combining psychedelic-assisted therapy with traditional cognitive therapies could be a simpler and more reliable way to enhance its benefits. In a sense, this work supports other findings that suggest that those who benefit most from psychedelic-assisted therapy are the ones who have the experiences as part of ongoing psychotherapy.”</p>
<p>The study highlights the importance of addressing both the immediate and lasting effects of psychedelic experiences. However, as with all research, it has limitations to consider. In particular, participants were asked to recall past experiences, which introduces the potential for memory bias.</p>
<p>“Our findings are based on data from online self-report surveys, so they should be interpreted with caution,” Falabella said. “To confirm these results, future research should replicate the study in controlled clinical settings and include more diverse groups of participants. We hope our colleagues running clinical trials will consider measuring dysfunctional attitudes as part of their procedures.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2024.2421892">Acute Psychedelic Reactions, Post-Acute Changes in Dysfunctional Attitudes, and Psychedelic- Associated Changes in Wellbeing</a>,” was authored by Mitch Earleywine, Genevieve S. Falabella, Alyssa B. Oliva, and Fiona Low.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/chronic-alcohol-consumption-reduces-sperm-quality-by-altering-testicular-proteins/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Chronic alcohol consumption reduces sperm quality by altering testicular proteins</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 20th 2024, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>Researchers have uncovered troubling effects of alcoholic beer consumption on sperm production and testicular health in rodents. The study, published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alcohol.2023.10.040" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alcohol</a></em>, found that very high levels of alcoholic beer consumption reduced sperm quality and production by increasing oxidative stress and disrupting cellular processes. These changes were linked to decreased expression of a protein critical for cell division (cyclin D1) and increased expression of a protein that inhibits cell growth (p21).</p>
<p>Infertility can significantly affect individuals’ mental health, causing stress, anxiety, and depression. Chronic alcohol consumption has long been associated with reproductive problems, including reduced libido, infertility, and testicular atrophy. Previous research has shown that alcohol-induced oxidative stress can impair sperm production, but little is known about the specific cellular and genetic mechanisms involved.</p>
<p>The new study aimed to explore how alcoholic beer affects the process of spermatogenesis—the development of sperm cells—and how it influences the expression of two important proteins, cyclin D1 and p21, in testicular tissue. Cyclin D1 is essential for cell division, while p21 inhibits this process under certain conditions. By examining these proteins, the researchers sought to understand how alcohol consumption disrupts normal testicular function.</p>
<p>The study involved 24 adult male mice, all housed in standard laboratory conditions. These mice were divided into four groups: a control group receiving saline and three experimental groups receiving alcoholic beer for varying durations—7, 15, and 35 days. The alcoholic beer contained 20% ethanol and was administered in a dose equivalent to 3 grams per kilogram of body weight.</p>
<p>The researchers found that alcoholic beer reduced cyclin D1 expression while increasing p21 levels in the testicular tissue of mice. This imbalance disrupted the normal progression of cell division, impairing the production and maturation of sperm cells.</p>
<p>Oxidative stress emerged as another significant factor contributing to the observed damage. Oxidative stress occurs when harmful molecules called free radicals overwhelm the body’s natural defense mechanisms, leading to cellular damage.</p>
<p>The researchers measured markers of oxidative stress and found a clear pattern: levels of malondialdehyde, an indicator of oxidative damage, increased in beer-exposed mice, particularly after 35 days. At the same time, levels of protective enzymes like superoxide dismutase and catalase, which neutralize free radicals, decreased steadily over time. This heightened oxidative stress likely exacerbated the cellular damage in testicular tissue.</p>
<p>The structural integrity of the testes was also compromised. Histological analysis revealed notable reductions in the number of germinal cell layers, increased cellular swelling (edema), and severe atrophy of seminiferous tubules, which are the structures responsible for sperm production. The diameter of these tubules and the thickness of the germinal epithelium both decreased in beer-exposed mice. These structural abnormalities corresponded to a marked decline in sperm production and quality.</p>
<p>Another important finding was the time-dependent nature of the effects. The negative impact of alcoholic beer worsened with longer exposure. For instance, changes in protein expression, oxidative stress markers, and testicular structure were all more pronounced after 35 days of beer consumption compared to 7 or 15 days. This suggests that prolonged alcohol exposure progressively amplifies the damage to reproductive tissues.</p>
<p>But the study has some important limitations that should be considered when interpreting the findings. First, the research was conducted on mice, which, although commonly used as models for human biology, are not perfect analogs. The physiological and metabolic responses to alcohol in rodents may differ from those in humans, and this could influence the applicability of the results to human populations.</p>
<p>Second, the doses of alcoholic beer administered to the mice were significantly higher than what is typical for human consumption. For context, a “standard drink” in the United States contains approximately 14 grams of pure ethanol (e.g., 12 ounces of beer at 5% alcohol by volume, 5 ounces of wine at 12%, or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits at 40%). For a person weighing 70 kilograms (about 154 pounds), consuming one standard drink equates to an alcohol dose of approximately 0.2 grams per kilogram of body weight. By contrast, the mice in the study received a dose of 3 grams per kilogram of body weight, which is roughly 15 times higher than the dose delivered by a single standard drink in humans.</p>
<p>Such a high dose is more representative of extreme or toxic levels of alcohol consumption rather than moderate or typical drinking patterns. Therefore, while the study provides valuable insights into the potential cellular and molecular impacts of alcohol, the conditions under which the findings were observed probably do not reflect the average human experience with alcohol consumption.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0741832923003208" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alcoholic beer consumption permutes P21 and cyclin D1 expression, oxidative stress factors, and histomorphometric parameters in rat testis</a>,” was authored by Touraj Zamir-Nasta, Ardeshir Abbasi, Komail Amini, Elaheh Mohammadi, and Cyrus Jalili.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/emophilia-the-psychology-of-falling-in-love-quickly/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Emophilia: The psychology of falling in love quickly</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 20th 2024, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent paper in <em><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886924000114" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Personality and Individual Differences</a></em> argues that the concept of “emophilia”—the tendency to fall in love both quickly and often—deserves greater attention in psychology and relationship studies. Written by Daniel Jones, an associate professor at the University of Nevada Reno, the paper highlights emophilia as a distinct trait that influences how people approach romantic relationships.</p>
<p>Emophilia, first introduced by Jones in 2011, describes a pattern of seeking out and thriving on the emotional high of falling in love. Unlike those driven by a deep need for connection or fear of loneliness, people high in emophilia are motivated by the excitement, novelty, and euphoria of new romantic connections. They are more likely to develop intense feelings for a romantic partner very quickly and often experience these emotions repeatedly with different people.</p>
<p>Emophilia isn’t inherently negative. It represents a natural variation in how people experience romantic attraction. However, it may come with specific risks.</p>
<p>“Some of my early research interests surrounded relationships, infidelity, and jealousy. I especially felt that not enough attention had been paid to jealousy over past sexual and emotional experiences,” explained Jones, the author of a forthcoming book on the topic that is titled <em>Emophilia: The Science of Serial Romance</em>.</p>
<p>“So, I designed several studies to examine how past sexual and emotional connections may interfere with current relationships. Although that research did not go anywhere, through the process I realized that people vary greatly in how many past partners with whom they had fallen in love. Much like sexual history, emotional history was quite different across different people. Thus, I began to explore emophilia as an individual difference trait.”</p>
<p>Emophilia has faced challenges in gaining recognition as a legitimate area of study. Early research by Jones and his collaborators struggled to differentiate emophilia from similar traits like anxious attachment, leading to resistance in academic circles. Despite this, Jones persisted in establishing emophilia as a unique personality trait with specific characteristics and outcomes.</p>
<p>“My first surprise was not related to my findings, but to the pushback I received in the field of romantic relationships,” Jones told PsyPost. “I was surprised how many insisted that emophilia is just a form of anxious attachment, and that I am studying disordered behavior rather than a unique individual difference. With respect to the findings, colloquially, we all assumed to this point that love takes time or love is a process. What I am learning through my research is that although love is a process, that process can move at warp speed.”</p>
<p>“Up to this point, many dismiss the declarations of love by someone high in emophilia as immature, fanciful, or imaginary. Similarly, some suggest that someone high in emophilia must be emotionally damaged or unaware of what real love is because of how quickly they feel it. From what my research shows, the love they feel is real, and the feelings that come along with that love are also real.”</p>
<p>“The behaviors, perceptions, and attitudes that those high in emophilia hold towards their relationship and partner are the same as someone who may have taken years to fall in love,” Jones said. “When in love, people will lie to protect their partners, sacrifice for them, see them in an unrealistically positive fashion, and include their partner as part of how they define the self. The difference between someone who is high vs. low in emophilia is that the person high in emophilia feels all that love much sooner, so they engage in all these love-related behaviors much sooner as well.”</p>
<p>Research on emophilia has uncovered several intriguing patterns. For example, people high in emophilia tend to idealize their partners early in relationships, often viewing them through “rose-colored glasses.” They may bypass the typical screening processes most people use when evaluating potential partners, instead leaping into relationships with minimal caution. This impulsivity can lead to both positive and negative consequences. Individuals with high emophilia tend to have more romantic relationships and <a href="https://www.psypost.org/emophilia-is-a-distinct-psychological-trait-and-linked-to-infidelity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">higher instances of unfaithfulness</a>.</p>
<p>On the one hand, emophilic individuals often experience profound joy and fulfillment in their relationships. On the other, they are at a higher risk for infidelity, unhealthy partnerships, and emotional distress when relationships inevitably fail.</p>
<p>Jones also explored how emophilia relates to other traits, such as sociosexuality. While there is some overlap—both traits are associated with a higher number of lifetime partners—emophilia remains distinct. It prioritizes the emotional aspects of love over purely physical attraction. Similarly, emophilia differs from romantic idealism, which focuses on long-term, almost fairy-tale-like beliefs about love, whereas emophilia centers on the immediate emotional rush.</p>
<p>“Emophilia is an individual difference trait that affects our relationships,” Jones explained. “Like any personality or individual difference trait (such as extraversion) there are situations when it can facilitate happiness and life satisfaction, and other times when it might hinder those things. People too low in emophilia may also struggle with loneliness through not falling in love soon enough.”</p>
<p>“Self-awareness is the key to working with your level of emophilia. If you are high in emophilia, knowing the red flags to screen for, pay attention to, and act on when you find them can save you not only heartache, but help you avoid real physical or psychological danger. People high in emophilia enjoy a beautiful thing: which is the repeated rush and excitement and connection of the feeling of love. But, just like any emotion, it can lead to excellent or poor decisions depending on the situation. So, knowing yourself is a major part of making good choices.”</p>
<p>As with any area of research, emophilia studies face limitations. Much of the current evidence relies on self-reported data, which, while common in psychological research, has its drawbacks. Future studies could explore physiological and neurological markers of emophilia to deepen our understanding. For example, measuring oxytocin levels—often called the “love hormone”—before and after emophilic individuals meet a potential romantic partner could shed light on the biological processes underlying their experiences.</p>
<p>“Most of the research I have done measures emophilia through <a href="https://acsurvey.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bHlu61DcFNVQpjE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the 10-item EP Scale</a> (which can be found at www.darktriad.co),” Jones said. “It is important to know that, although self-report is the industry gold standard, it would be great to have some hormonal and neurological studies conducted on emophilia. For example, I would love to measure people’s emophilia scores, and then tell them that they are about to meet someone determined to be their soulmate. Right before they meet, we could measure their current oxytocin levels. Such research would go a long way to providing objective evidence that emophilia affects physiological processes as well as psychological ones.”</p>
<p>Another avenue for future research involves investigating how emophilia interacts with cognitive biases. Jones speculates that people high in emophilia may focus disproportionately on the positive qualities of new partners while ignoring potential red flags. Understanding these cognitive processes could lead to interventions that help emophilic individuals make more balanced relationship decisions.</p>
<p>“In the long term I would like to raise awareness about this trait and let people know it is natural to fall in love extremely quickly and often, or extremely slowly and rarely (if ever),” Jones said. “These are natural individual variations that occur in the real world. They do not make you broken, or somehow deficient. That said, there are sometimes behaviors such as premature commitment or ignoring red flags that could be problematic if unchecked. We know that people high in emophilia are at higher risk for antisocial partners and premature sacrifices that can get them into trouble early in a relationship. So, I would also like to help those who are high in emophilia to build boundaries and awareness to avoid negative life outcomes.”</p>
<p>“If you are interested in learning more about emophilia, please visit our website: <a href="https://www.darktriad.co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.darktriad.co</a>. I would love it if more researchers would collaborate on this topic, and I am open to collaboration as well as consulting on this topic. If emophilia has interfered in your life, please see a trained and licensed therapist. It is important to get the help you need to navigate some of the feelings you have in the service of creating boundaries and healthy screening of potential partners.”</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2024.112551" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Emophilia: An overlooked (but not forgotten) construct in relationships and individual differences</a>,” was published in April 2024.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-uncover-surprising-difference-in-the-cognitive-cost-of-reading-numbers-vs-words/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Scientists uncover surprising difference in the cognitive cost of reading numbers vs. words</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 20th 2024, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>An eye-tracking study in Switzerland found that adults make 2.5 times more fixations (focusing their eyes on a single point) when reading short numbers compared to short words. For long numbers and long words, the number of fixations was seven times higher when reading numbers. The findings were published in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000169182300118X"><em>Acta Psychologica</em></a>.</p>
<p>Reading is a skill that everyone needs and frequently uses in daily life. This includes reading words and sentences, as well as numbers. Reading numbers is also commonly assessed in tests designed to measure mathematical abilities.</p>
<p>However, reading numbers is fundamentally different from reading words. These two activities engage different cognitive processes due to the distinct nature of language and numerical symbols. Reading words primarily relies on language-based regions of the brain, mostly in the left hemisphere, where familiar words are recognized and decoded using phonetic and semantic cues. In contrast, reading numbers involves additional or distinct brain regions, including those associated with numerical cognition and quantity processing.</p>
<p>Numbers are typically interpreted based on symbolic value rather than phonetics. This requires readers to recognize numerical relationships and quantities. Studies suggest that reading numbers can be more taxing for the brain, especially when dealing with larger or more complex sequences, as it demands greater working memory and attention to detail.</p>
<p>Study author Anne-Françoise de Chambrier and her colleagues investigated the eye movements of normal-reading adults while reading short and long Arabic numerals (i.e., numbers). They compared this to reading words and pseudowords of equal length. Pseudowords are strings of letters that follow a given language’s structure and phonetic rules but lack any actual meaning.</p>
<p>The study included 36 psychology students from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, 27 of whom were women. Their average age was 21 years. All participants were native French speakers with normal or corrected-to-normal vision. They received course credit and 15 CHF (approximately $17) for their participation.</p>
<p>Participants were asked to read a total of 96 items in a single session lasting approximately 10 minutes. These items included 12 short numbers without separators (four digits), 12 long numbers with separators (8–11 digits), and 12 long numbers without separators. They also read words and pseudowords: 12 short words, 12 long words, 12 short pseudowords, and 12 long pseudowords. The words used were frequent French nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The researchers tracked participants’ eye movements using specialized equipment.</p>
<p>The results showed that participants were 99% accurate in reading both words and numbers, with only 35 instances of misreading (out of 3,456 reads). These errors occurred most often with long numbers without separators.</p>
<p>Overall, participants made 2.5 times more fixations when reading short numbers compared to words of equal length. They made seven times more fixations when reading long numbers compared to long words. Additionally, participants made three times more saccades when reading short numbers compared to short words and nine times more saccades when reading long numbers compared to long words.</p>
<p>Fixation duration and saccade amplitude were similar when reading short words and short numbers. However, reading long numbers resulted in longer fixation durations than reading long words (300 ms vs. 250 ms), and saccade amplitude was lower when reading long numbers.</p>
<p>Saccades are rapid eye movements that shift focus from one point to another. Saccade amplitude refers to the angular distance or extent of each saccadic movement, indicating how far the eyes travel between fixations. Fixation duration is the length of time the eyes remain relatively still and focused on a single point, allowing for detailed visual processing and information encoding.</p>
<p>“The pattern of findings for long numerals—more and shorter saccades as well as more and longer fixations—shows the extent to which reading long Arabic numerals is a cognitively costly task. Within the phonographic writing system, this pattern of eye movements stands for the use of the sublexical print-to-sound correspondence rules. The data highlight that reading large numerals is an unautomatized activity and that Arabic numerals must be converted into their oral form by a step-by-step process even by expert readers,” study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study sheds light on the cognitive processes underpinning reading numbers. However, it should be noted that the study was conducted on a small number of participants who were all psychology students. Studies on different age and demographic groups might not yield identical results.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103942">Reading numbers is harder than reading words: An eye-tracking study,</a>” was authored by Anne-Françoise de Chambrier, Marco Pedrotti, Paolo Ruggeri, Jasinta Dewi, Myrto Atzemian, Catherine Thevenot, Catherine Martinet, and Philippe Terrier.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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