The present study aimed to explore if social judgments are influenced by concomitant somato-senso... more The present study aimed to explore if social judgments are influenced by concomitant somato-sensory stimulation. 40 participants were asked to judge 30 faces for trustworthiness in two different "comfort" conditions in both a between - and a within- subjects paradigm. Faces were presented very briefly and were specifically selected to look: trustworthy, untrustworthy or neutral. Findings suggest an overall higher tendency for participants to evaluate faces as trustworthy in the physically comfortable compared to the uncomfortable condition. Moreover, the increase in trustworthy responses was affected by the type of face, being larger for neutral than for untrustworthy and trustworthy faces. More generally, our findings provide evidence that prior sensory experience can influence unrelated social-emotional evaluations based on first impression. The possible mechanisms underlying this effect are discussed.
Ricerche di Pedagogia e Didattica. Journal of Theories and Research in Education, 2021
The Logical Intelligence Enhancement Program (LIEP) is a program specifically addressed to studen... more The Logical Intelligence Enhancement Program (LIEP) is a program specifically addressed to students aging from 6 to 12. It consists of a series of exercises of different types (verbal inferences, understanding of graphs and tables, series of digits, etc.) and increasing difficulty, properly devised to activate and train the abilities of logical reasoning. Hopefully, such an enhancement should result in an improvement of academic achievements, especially in low proficiency learner students. Here we report on a study carried out on a large cohort of fifth-grade students. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of LIEP in improving students’ cognitive abilities and abstract reasoning.
Despite its unquestionable interest from a theoretical and practical point of view, so far there ... more Despite its unquestionable interest from a theoretical and practical point of view, so far there has been little research on online reading and there is a lack of attention paid to this topic in most European educational institutions. In particular, primary and secondary school teachers are not adequately trained on how and when to intervene to support students’ proficiency in the online reading comprehension. After presenting a rationale demonstrating why students may struggle with online reading comprehension and the importance to adopt a self-regulated reading, this study proposes a Teacher’s Guide that could support late primary and secondary school teachers in planning online reading lessons with the ThinkAloud (TA) metacognitive technique.
The present study aimed to investigate the value of the teacher Think Aloud (TA) instructional te... more The present study aimed to investigate the value of the teacher Think Aloud (TA) instructional technique in providing young readers with effective strategies to enhance the comprehension of online texts. Eighty-nine participants from 10 to 14 years of age were sorted into two groups based on the type of training they had received: the experimental group (n = 47) had been taught with the TA strategies, while the control group (n = 42) had not received any specific training. Both the experimental and control groups were examined twice, before and after the period of training. Pupils had to find the correct answer to a specific question (Access) and to critically analyze online texts, expressing different opinions on a topic (Analysis). The findings indicate a positive effect of the TA technique, mainly in the transferal of strategies aimed at a more correct evaluation of the websites’ reliability. Indeed, while for the control group only a marginal, if any, improvement was recorded fr...
The present study aimed to explore how the sense of trustworthiness is in uenced by age and gende... more The present study aimed to explore how the sense of trustworthiness is in uenced by age and gender. Participants were to judge computer-generated faces for trustworthiness in two different experimental conditions according to the orientation of the virtual stimuli: canonical (i.e. upright) and inverted (i.e. upside down). Experimental stimuli were presented very brie y and were speci cally selected to look: trustworthy, untrustworthy or neutral. The results showed that the tendency to evaluate faces as trustworthy was modulated by both age and gender. In particular, young participants were more prone to judge faces as trustworthy than adult, elderly and child participants. In turn, males were more prone to evaluate faces as trustworthy than females, but this difference was not found among children.
The present investigation explores the role of bottom-up and top-down factors in the recognition ... more The present investigation explores the role of bottom-up and top-down factors in the recognition of emotional facial expressions during binocular rivalry. We manipulated spatial frequencies (SF) and emotive features and asked subjects to indicate whether the emotional or the neutral expression was dominant during binocular rivalry. Controlling the bottom-up saliency with a computational model, physically comparable happy and fearful faces were presented dichoptically with neutral faces. The results showed the dominance of emotional faces over neutral ones. In particular, happy faces were reported more frequently as the first dominant percept even in the presence of coarse information (at a low SF level: 2–6 cycle/degree). Following current theories of emotion processing, the results provide further support for the influence of positive compared to negative meaning on binocular rivalry and, for the first time, showed that individuals perceive the affective quality of happiness even i...
International Journal of Inclusive Education, 2018
ABSTRACT This paper describes the attitudes of pupils ranging from late childhood to adolescence ... more ABSTRACT This paper describes the attitudes of pupils ranging from late childhood to adolescence towards diversity expressed as disability, other gender and race in a context of full inclusion. For the study, two experiments were carried out asking a large sample (i.e. 764 + 160) of participants to choose a hypothetical classmate to share a series of different activities with. The hypothetical classmate could be chosen between: same gender pupil; other gender pupil; same gender pupil of the prototypical racial minority; same gender pupil using a wheelchair. In turn, activities included: an outdoor, highly motor demanding, game; an indoor board game; a purely social activity; a scholastic activity; and a gesture of solidarity and good-will. Results clearly demonstrate that pupils’ decisions are strongly modulated by the activity itself rather than by ethnic factors. Pupils aged 9–14 appear to have developed a finely tuned sense of ‘what works in which situations’. Accordingly, while a visible disability turns out to be very effective in gaining sympathy and eliciting pity, it results in a serious obstacle for the development of a close friendship between peers.
The present study aimed to explore if social judgments are influenced by concomitant somato-senso... more The present study aimed to explore if social judgments are influenced by concomitant somato-sensory stimulation. 40 participants were asked to judge 30 faces for trustworthiness in two different "comfort" conditions in both a between - and a within- subjects paradigm. Faces were presented very briefly and were specifically selected to look: trustworthy, untrustworthy or neutral. Findings suggest an overall higher tendency for participants to evaluate faces as trustworthy in the physically comfortable compared to the uncomfortable condition. Moreover, the increase in trustworthy responses was affected by the type of face, being larger for neutral than for untrustworthy and trustworthy faces. More generally, our findings provide evidence that prior sensory experience can influence unrelated social-emotional evaluations based on first impression. The possible mechanisms underlying this effect are discussed.
Ricerche di Pedagogia e Didattica. Journal of Theories and Research in Education, 2021
The Logical Intelligence Enhancement Program (LIEP) is a program specifically addressed to studen... more The Logical Intelligence Enhancement Program (LIEP) is a program specifically addressed to students aging from 6 to 12. It consists of a series of exercises of different types (verbal inferences, understanding of graphs and tables, series of digits, etc.) and increasing difficulty, properly devised to activate and train the abilities of logical reasoning. Hopefully, such an enhancement should result in an improvement of academic achievements, especially in low proficiency learner students. Here we report on a study carried out on a large cohort of fifth-grade students. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of LIEP in improving students’ cognitive abilities and abstract reasoning.
Despite its unquestionable interest from a theoretical and practical point of view, so far there ... more Despite its unquestionable interest from a theoretical and practical point of view, so far there has been little research on online reading and there is a lack of attention paid to this topic in most European educational institutions. In particular, primary and secondary school teachers are not adequately trained on how and when to intervene to support students’ proficiency in the online reading comprehension. After presenting a rationale demonstrating why students may struggle with online reading comprehension and the importance to adopt a self-regulated reading, this study proposes a Teacher’s Guide that could support late primary and secondary school teachers in planning online reading lessons with the ThinkAloud (TA) metacognitive technique.
The present study aimed to investigate the value of the teacher Think Aloud (TA) instructional te... more The present study aimed to investigate the value of the teacher Think Aloud (TA) instructional technique in providing young readers with effective strategies to enhance the comprehension of online texts. Eighty-nine participants from 10 to 14 years of age were sorted into two groups based on the type of training they had received: the experimental group (n = 47) had been taught with the TA strategies, while the control group (n = 42) had not received any specific training. Both the experimental and control groups were examined twice, before and after the period of training. Pupils had to find the correct answer to a specific question (Access) and to critically analyze online texts, expressing different opinions on a topic (Analysis). The findings indicate a positive effect of the TA technique, mainly in the transferal of strategies aimed at a more correct evaluation of the websites’ reliability. Indeed, while for the control group only a marginal, if any, improvement was recorded fr...
The present study aimed to explore how the sense of trustworthiness is in uenced by age and gende... more The present study aimed to explore how the sense of trustworthiness is in uenced by age and gender. Participants were to judge computer-generated faces for trustworthiness in two different experimental conditions according to the orientation of the virtual stimuli: canonical (i.e. upright) and inverted (i.e. upside down). Experimental stimuli were presented very brie y and were speci cally selected to look: trustworthy, untrustworthy or neutral. The results showed that the tendency to evaluate faces as trustworthy was modulated by both age and gender. In particular, young participants were more prone to judge faces as trustworthy than adult, elderly and child participants. In turn, males were more prone to evaluate faces as trustworthy than females, but this difference was not found among children.
The present investigation explores the role of bottom-up and top-down factors in the recognition ... more The present investigation explores the role of bottom-up and top-down factors in the recognition of emotional facial expressions during binocular rivalry. We manipulated spatial frequencies (SF) and emotive features and asked subjects to indicate whether the emotional or the neutral expression was dominant during binocular rivalry. Controlling the bottom-up saliency with a computational model, physically comparable happy and fearful faces were presented dichoptically with neutral faces. The results showed the dominance of emotional faces over neutral ones. In particular, happy faces were reported more frequently as the first dominant percept even in the presence of coarse information (at a low SF level: 2–6 cycle/degree). Following current theories of emotion processing, the results provide further support for the influence of positive compared to negative meaning on binocular rivalry and, for the first time, showed that individuals perceive the affective quality of happiness even i...
International Journal of Inclusive Education, 2018
ABSTRACT This paper describes the attitudes of pupils ranging from late childhood to adolescence ... more ABSTRACT This paper describes the attitudes of pupils ranging from late childhood to adolescence towards diversity expressed as disability, other gender and race in a context of full inclusion. For the study, two experiments were carried out asking a large sample (i.e. 764 + 160) of participants to choose a hypothetical classmate to share a series of different activities with. The hypothetical classmate could be chosen between: same gender pupil; other gender pupil; same gender pupil of the prototypical racial minority; same gender pupil using a wheelchair. In turn, activities included: an outdoor, highly motor demanding, game; an indoor board game; a purely social activity; a scholastic activity; and a gesture of solidarity and good-will. Results clearly demonstrate that pupils’ decisions are strongly modulated by the activity itself rather than by ethnic factors. Pupils aged 9–14 appear to have developed a finely tuned sense of ‘what works in which situations’. Accordingly, while a visible disability turns out to be very effective in gaining sympathy and eliciting pity, it results in a serious obstacle for the development of a close friendship between peers.
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