Background The advent of COVID-19 worldwide has led to consequences for people's health, both physical and psychological, such as fear and anxiety.Methods The sample comprised 250 Italian participants who were administered Italian versions of the FCV-19S, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and the Severity Measure for Specific Phobia-Adult (SMSP-A). Several psychometric tests were performed to investigate the validity and reliability of the test including confirmatory factor analysis. Results Analysis of the data showed satisfactory psychometric characteristics and confirmed the scale's unidimensional properties. The seven FCV-19S items had acceptable correlations with the test total (from .443 to .784). Furthermore, the loadings on the factor were significant and strong (from .684 to .897). The internal consistency was very good (α = .871). Construct validity for the FCV-19S was supported by significant and positive correlations with the HADS (r=.649) and SMSP-A (r=.703).

Neurocomputational models of cognition have framed aesthetic appreciation within the domain of knowledge acquisition and learning, suggesting that aesthetic appreciation might be considered as a hedonic feedback on successful perceptual learning dynamics. Such hypothesis, however, has never been empirically demonstrated yet. In order to investigate the relationship between aesthetic appreciation and learning, we measured the EEG mismatch negativity (MMN) response to more or less appreciated musical intervals, which is considered as a reliable index of perceptual learning. To this end, we measured the MMN to frequency (Hz) standard and frequency deviant musical intervals (Experiment 1) while participants were asked to judge their beauty. For each single stimulus, we also computed an information-theoretic index of perceptual learning (Bayesian surprise). We found that more appreciated musical intervals were associated with a larger MMN responses, which, in turn, correlated with trial-by-trial fluctuations in Bayesian surprise (Experiment 1). Coherently with previous results, Bayesian surprise was also found to correlate with slower RTs in a detection task of the same stimuli, evidencing that motor behavior is inhibited in presence of surprising sensory states triggering perceptual learning (Experiment 2). Our results provide empirical evidence of the existence of a positive correlation between aesthetic appreciation and EEG indexes of perceptual learning. We argue that the sense of beauty might have evolved to signal the nervous system new sensory knowledge acquisition and motivate the individual to search for informationally profitable stimuli.

Can preferred music listening improve following attentional and learning performances? Here we suggest that this may be the case. In Experiment 1, following preferred and non-preferred musical-piece listening, we recorded electrophysiological responses to an auditory roving-paradigm. We computed the mismatch negativity (MMN – the difference between responses to novel and repeated stimulation), as an index of perceptual learning, and we measured the correlation between trial-by-trial EEG responses and the fluctuations in Bayesian Surprise, as a quantification of the neural attunement with stimulus informational value. Furthermore, during music listening, we recorded oscillatory cortical activity. MMN and trial-by-trial correlation with Bayesian surprise were significantly larger after subjectively preferred versus non-preferred music, indicating the enhancement of perceptual learning. The analysis on oscillatory activity during music listening showed a selective alpha power increased in response to preferred music, an effect often related to cognitive enhancements. In Experiment 2, we explored whether this learning improvement was realized at the expense of self-focused attention. Therefore, after preferred versus non-preferred music listening, we collected Heart-Beat Detection (HBD) accuracy, as a measure of the attentional focus toward the self. HBD was significantly lowered following preferred music listening. Overall, our results suggest the presence of a specific neural mechanism that, in response to aesthetically pleasing stimuli, and through the modulation of alpha oscillatory activity, redirects neural resources away from the self and toward the environment. This attentional up-weighting of external stimuli might be fruitfully exploited in a wide area of human learning activities, including education, neurorehabilitation and therapy.

E-learning activities are becoming more and more common. Whilst it is well known that the physical presence of others motivates individuals to engage in perceptual and learning tasks, systematic investigations comparing the effects of physical and virtual co-presence of others on knowledge acquisition are still scarce. Here we investigate the effects of physical and virtual co-presence of others on explicit and implicit learning. In Experiment 1 (discovery sample), retrieval accuracy in a spatial memory task and EEG indexes (mismatch negativity-MMN) of implicit perceptual learning were recorded when participants were alone or in presence of another individual. In Experiment 2 (replicating sample), we added a “virtual” condition, where the same tasks were performed during a video-conference call. In both experiments, MMN was demonstrated to encode for perceptual learning as revealed by the significant correlation with Bayesian Surprise (a consolidated information-theoretic index of Bayesian learning). Furthermore, In Experiments 1 and 2 physical co-presence systematically ameliorated memorization performances and increased MMN indexes related to implicit learning. These positive effects were absent in the virtual condition, thus suggesting that only physical, but not virtual co-presence is effective in potentiating learning dynamics.

Social media use, and specifically Facebook use, has become increasingly popular over the past decade. Despite the many benefits of social networking, a small minority of individuals appear to develop issues surrounding social media use, and more specifically Facebook use. It has, therefore, led some scholars to describe such problematic activity as a behavioral addiction. Such problematic behaviors have been reported in many countries including Italy. The present study validated and examined the reliability and validity of the Italian version of the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS) by conducting a psychometric examination among an Italian sample of adults (n = 217; aged 18 to 68 years). Internal reliability was examined using various indicators, including Cronbach's α, which was excellent (α = 0.94). Results indicated that Facebook addiction was significantly correlated with social media addiction, smartphone addiction, narcissism, depression, and self-esteem. The results of the present study support the use of the Italian version of the BFAS in research and confirms the uni-dimensional nature of the single factor proposed by the original authors.Keywords Behavioral addiction . Social networking site addiction . Social media addiction . Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale . BFAS Social networking sites (SNSs), such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, are virtual communities whose main objective is for users to be able to interact with other people from all over the world, sharing opinions and passions via direct messages or in public virtual spaces such as comments, statuses, and groups (Boyd and Ellison 2007;Kuss and Griffiths 2017). Besides being beneficial to individuals for the diffusion of shared knowledge and potential academic and professional opportunities, connecting with people allows the satisfaction of several basic human needs, such as social support or being able to express one's skills (or some aspects of one's self) with as many people as possible (e.g., Li 2010). The search for friends, social