Beat the Bots: Exploring the Effects of Placebo Manipulation on Performance During Video Gameplay

This study investigates placebos and video games’ usefulness as psychological research tools. One proposed underlying mechanism of the placebo effect is participants’ expectations. Such expectation effects exist in sports psychology and healthcare domains, but inconsistent findings have emerged on whether similar effects impact a participants’ cognitive performance. Concurrently, using video games as task environments is an emerging methodology relating to expertise and large-scale behavioral data collection. Therefore, this study examines the expectancy effect induced by researcher instructions on in-game performance. The instructional expectancy condition for this study is in-game successes framed using emoting (e.g., emoting under the pretense of subsequent performance increases) versus a control group. Preliminary results showed no evidence of different in-game performance between expectancy conditions. Potential mechanisms that could have led to a lack of effect were discussed.

The Cross-Provincial Data of Life Expectancy Effect on Pension Fund in Indonesia

The data presented in this research is an observational cross-province study of life expectancy and pension funds. The data were extracted from the published database of Statistic Indonesia and Indonesia Financial Services Authority, covering a period of 2015 to 2019. The collected data were analyzed; using a panel data regression model on random effect assumptions with Generalized Least Squares. The finding of this research shows that there is a positive and significant effect of life expectancy on pension funds. This research paper data will assist in promoting the opportunity for pensions fund business or institution.

Lavender aromatherapy: a systematic review from essential oil extraction and administration to cognitive enhancing effects.

Modern society is reviving the practice of aromatherapy, and lavender is reported to be the most worldwide purchased plant for essential oils (EO) extraction. Since odors can modulate cognitive functions acting through specific neuroanatomical pathways, lavender EO inhalation can enhance cognition. Taking into account EO quality and diffusion devices, we conducted a systematic review on the effects of lavender EO inhalation on arousal, attention and memory in healthy subjects. Starting from this new multidisciplinary perspective, cognitive effects were revised to link outcomes to effective and reproducible aromatherapy protocols. A systematic search on MEDLINE database using Cognitive Atlas and plant authenticity-related keywords was performed. Among the 806 articles yielded, 11 articles met eligibility criteria. Subjects administered with lavender EO displayed arousal decrease and sustained attention increase. Puzzling results were obtained regarding memory. Lack of EO quality assessment and high heterogeneity in inhalation protocols did not allow assessing whether different EO composition differently modulates cognition and whether placebo or expectancy effect can be discerned from EO effect itself. However, GABAergic pathway modulation exerted by linalool, a major lavender EO constituent, explains arousal reduction and sustained attention enhancement. In conclusion, aromatherapy can be an innovative, practical and non-invasive tool to prevent cognitive lapses.

EMOTIVES OF SURPRISE IN MODERN ENGLISH POETRY

The paper focuses on linguistic manifestation of emotion of surprise in modern English poetic texts. The study is guided by the statement that emotions – psychosomatic processes – can be fixed in fictional texts (including the poetic ones) in the form of emotives – the linguistic units that manifest emotions and/or feelings of the addresser. The emotion of surprise differs from other basic emotions of a person due to its ambivalence and specific prerequisites to emergence. As surprise comes forth unexpectedly, the study looks for basic situations in the context of poetic texts when emotives of surprise appear. To study the phenomenon, the concept of emotional situation is employed. It marks the circumstances under which the persona experiences the emotion of surprise. The results obtained from the analysis of modern English poems distinguish several emotional situations in which emotives of surprise appear. They occur at the junction of image-bearing spaces of 1) dream and reality; 2) reality and fantasy; 3) expectations and their fulfilment; 4) two contrasting situations in reality. These image-bearing spaces may have either contrasting or complementing features. The defeated expectancy effect that occurs due their interaction manifests itself verbally via the emotives of surprise.