Examining attitudes to psilocybin: Should candidates for medical psilocybin be required to pass a contextual suitability test

Background: Due to increasing evidence of efficacy in treating mental health disorders, psilocybin may become a legal medicinal drug. This study tested the validity of Carhart-Harris & Nutt (2017) model of extra-pharmacological (EP) factors and examined whether such factors should be taken into account in any psychological suitability test for medicinally prescribed psilocybin. Method: 219 participants (101 self-identified females, 109 males, 7 non-binary people and 2 who preferred not to say), with an age range of 18 to 68, completed three online measures of ‘personality’; ‘set, setting and intention’, and the ‘Attitudes Towards Psilocybin’ (ATP) scale. The sample was equally divided between those who had used psychedelics (52.1%) and those who had no previous psychedelic use (47.5%). A series of stepwise linear regressions were run to examine of extra-pharmcological factor predictors of ATP. Results: The ATP scale was tested in terms of its reliability, construct validity, determinant validity and was deemed an appropriate measure. A model consisting of Set, Openness to Experience and Extraversion significantly predicted ATP scores. Conclusion: These findings supported the EP model and suggest that a suitability test may be a useful tool when determining whether a prescription of psilocybin is an appropriate course of treatment.

Definitely Islands? Experimental investigation of definite islands

Experimental work on islands has used formal acceptability judgment studies to quantify the severity of different island violations. This current study uses this approach to probe the (in-)violability of definite islands, an understudied island, in offline and online measures. We conducted two acceptability judgment studies and find a modest island effect. However, rating distributions appear bimodal across definites and indefinites. We also conducted a self-paced reading experiment, but found no sig- nificant effects. Overall, offline, definite islands differ from other uniform islands, but online, the results are more complicated.

Body weight perception outweighs body weight when predicting shame, criticism, depression and anxiety for lower BMI range and higher BMI range adults

This study examined the relationship between body weight shame, self-criticism and mental health for individuals across body weight ranges. In total 1695 participants completed a series of online measures and we used Structural Equation Modelling, to assess for the relationship between weight, perceived weight, social rank (social comparison, body weight shame, submissiveness) self-criticism (inadequate and self-hatred) and anxious and depressive symptoms. Results indicated that perceived body weight is more important than actual body weight in predicting body weight shame. Importantly, individuals classified in higher BMI ranges rely more on the self-hatred form of self-criticism which significantly predicts anxious and depressive symptoms.

Becoming Native-Like for Good or Ill: Online and Offline Processing of Case Forms in L2 Russian

One of the central questions in second language processing studies is whether native (L1) and second language (L2) readers process sentences relying on the same mechanisms or there are qualitative differences. As their proficiency grows, L2 readers become more efficient, but it is difficult to determine whether they develop native-like mechanisms or rely on different strategies. Our study contributes to this debate by focusing on constructions that were demonstrated to cause characteristic problems in L1 processing: a particular type of case errors in Russian was taken as an example. We investigated how beginner and intermediate learners of Russian process such errors, measuring reading times and grammaticality judgment accuracy. At the beginner level, we found non-native-like patterns both in online and in offline measures. But at the intermediate level, native-like problems emerged in offline measures. In our view, this is a strong indication that these readers are using the same underlying mechanisms as in L1 processing. In online measures, L2 readers at both levels were, in general, much slower than native participants and exhibited characteristic non-native-like patterns, which we explained by delayed morphosyntactic processing. We conclude that our results are compatible with approaches, assuming that the mechanisms for L1 and advanced L2 processing are the same, but L2 processing is more cognitively demanding and therefore slower.

Online measures of looking and learning in infancy

Infants in laboratory settings look longer at impossible than possible events, learn better about objects that behave surprisingly, and match people’s utterances to the objects that likely elicited them. The paradigms that reveal these behaviors have become cornerstones of research on preverbal cognition. But less is known about whether these canonical behaviors generalize in naturalistic environments. Here we describe a series of online protocols that replicate classic laboratory findings, detailing our methods throughout. In Experiment 1, we found that 15-month-olds (N = 24) looked longer at an online impossible support event (an object appearing to defy gravity) than a possible support event. These infants did not, however, show the same success with an online solidity event. In Experiment 2, we found that 15-month-olds (N = 24) showed surprise-induced learning online—they were better able to learn a label for a novel object when the object had just behaved unexpectedly. Finally, in Experiment 3, we found that 16-month-olds (N = 20) who heard a valenced utterance (“Yum!”) showed preferential looking to the object most likely to have generated that utterance. Together, these results suggest that, with some adjustments, testing infants online is a feasible and promising approach for cognitive development research.

Differences in Body Appreciation and Functionality Appreciation Outside of and Directly Following Sport Among Collegiate Student-Athletes

The present study examined differences in body appreciation and functionality appreciation between student-athletes and nonathletes. Additionally, the present study assessed differences in these constructs among female and male athletes outside of their sport and directly following participation in their sport. Seventy-five student-athletes and 211 nonathletes from a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I university completed online measures, including the State-Based Body Appreciation Scale and Functionality Appreciation Scale. Student-athletes completed the same measures following a sport practice. Student-athletes reported higher levels of body appreciation and functionality appreciation compared to nonathletes. No differences in body appreciation were found among student-athletes outside of their sport compared to directly following participation in their sport; however, student-athletes reported higher levels of functionality appreciation after their sport practice. Implications for coaches and athletic staff are discussed, including placing a greater emphasis on body functionality rather than specific body ideals.

Relationship Between Odor Intensity Estimates and COVID-19 Prevalence Prediction in a Swedish Population

In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, countries have implemented various strategies to reduce and slow the spread of the disease in the general population. For countries that have implemented restrictions on its population in a stepwise manner, monitoring of COVID-19 prevalence is of importance to guide the decision on when to impose new, or when to abolish old, restrictions. We are here determining whether measures of odor intensity in a large sample can serve as one such measure. Online measures of how intense common household odors are perceived and symptoms of COVID-19 were collected from 2440 Swedes. Average odor intensity ratings were then compared to predicted COVID-19 population prevalence over time in the Swedish population and were found to closely track each other (r = −0.83). Moreover, we found that there was a large difference in rated intensity between individuals with and without COVID-19 symptoms and the number of symptoms was related to odor intensity ratings. Finally, we found that individuals progressing from reporting no symptoms to subsequently reporting COVID-19 symptoms demonstrated a large drop in olfactory performance. These data suggest that measures of odor intensity, if obtained in a large and representative sample, can be used as an indicator of COVID-19 disease in the general population. Importantly, this simple measure could easily be implemented in countries without widespread access to COVID-19 testing or implemented as a fast early response before widespread testing can be facilitated.

Relationship between odor intensity estimates and COVID-19 population prediction in a Swedish sample

ABSTRACTIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries have implemented various strategies to reduce and slow the spread of the disease in the general population. For countries that have implemented restrictions on its population in a step-wise manner, monitoring of COVID-19 prevalence is of importance to guide decision on when to impose new, or when to abolish old, restrictions. We are here determining whether measures of odor intensity in a large sample can serve as one such measure. Online measures of how intense common household odors are perceived and symptoms of COVID-19 were collected from 2440 Swedes. Average odor intensity ratings were then compared to predicted COVID-19 population prevalence over time in the Swedish population and were found to closely track each other (r=-0.83). Moreover, we found that there was a large difference in rated intensity between individuals with and without COVID-19 symptoms and number of symptoms was related to odor intensity ratings. Finally, we found that individuals progressing from reporting no symptoms to subsequently reporting COVID-19 symptoms demonstrated a large drop in olfactory performance. These data suggest that measures of odor intensity, if obtained in a large and representative sample, can be used as an indicator of COVID-19 disease in the general population. Importantly, this simple measure could easily be implemented in countries without wide-spread access to COVID-19 testing or implemented as a fast early response before widespread testing can be facilitated.