Hospital Greenspaces and the Impacts on Wayfinding and Spatial Experience: An Explorative Experiment Through Immersive Virtual Environment (IVE) Techniques

Background: Navigating large hospitals can be very challenging due to the functional complexity as well as the evolving changes and expansions of such facilities. Hospital wayfinding issues could lead to stress, negative mood, and poor healthcare experience among patients, staff, and family members. Objectives: A survey-embedded experiment was conducted using immersive virtual environment (IVE) techniques to explore people’s wayfinding performance and their mood and spatial experience in hospital circulation spaces with or without visible greenspaces. Methods: Seventy-four participants were randomly assigned to either group to complete wayfinding tasks in a timed session. Participants’ wayfinding performances were interpreted using several indicators, including task completion, duration, walking distance, stop, sign-viewing, and route selection. Participants’ mood states and perceived environmental attractiveness and atmosphere were surveyed; their perceived levels of presence in the IVE hospitals were also reported. Results: The results revealed that participants performed better on high complexity wayfinding tasks in the IVE hospital with visible greenspaces, as indicated by less time consumed and shorter walking distance to find the correct destination, less frequent stops and sign viewing, and more efficient route selection. Participants also experienced enhanced mood states and favorable spatial experience and perceived aesthetics in the IVE hospital with visible greenspaces than the same environment without window views. IVE techniques could be an efficient tool to supplement environment-behavior studies with certain conditions noted. Conclusions: Hospital greenspaces located at key decision points could serve as landmarks that positively attract people’s attention, aid wayfinding, and improve their navigational experience.

Microbiota and Metabolite Profiling as Markers of Mood Disorders: A Cross-Sectional Study in Obese Patients

Obesity is associated with an increased risk of several neurological and psychiatric diseases, but few studies report the contribution of biological features in the occurrence of mood disorders in obese patients. The aim of the study is to evaluate the potential links between serum metabolomics and gut microbiome, and mood disturbances in a cohort of obese patients. Psychological, biological characteristics and nutritional habits were evaluated in 94 obese subjects from the Food4Gut study stratified according to their mood score assessed by the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The fecal gut microbiota and plasma non-targeted metabolomics were analysed. Obese subjects with increased negative mood display elevated levels of Coprococcus as well as decreased levels of Sutterella and Lactobacillus. Serum metabolite profile analysis reveals in these subjects altered levels of several amino acid-derived metabolites, such as an increased level of L-histidine and a decreased in phenylacetylglutamine, linked to altered gut microbiota composition and function rather than to differences in dietary amino acid intake. Regarding clinical profile, we did not observe any differences between both groups. Our results reveal new microbiota-derived metabolites that characterize the alterations of mood in obese subjects, thereby allowing to propose new targets to tackle mood disturbances in this context. Food4gut, clinicaltrial.gov: NCT03852069.

Positive and negative mood states do not influence cross-modal auditory distraction in the serial-recall paradigm

The aim of this study was to examine whether positive and negative mood states affect auditory distraction in a serial-recall task. The duplex-mechanism account differentiates two types of auditory distraction. The changing-state effect is postulated to be rooted in interference-by-process and to be automatic. The auditory-deviant effect is attributed to attentional capture by the deviant distractors. Only the auditory-deviant effect, but not the changing-state effect, should be influenced by emotional mood states according to the duplex-mechanism account. Four experiments were conducted to test how auditory distraction is affected by emotional mood states. Mood was induced by autobiographical recall (Experiments 1 and 2) or the presentation of emotional pictures (Experiments 3 and 4). Even though the manipulations were successful in inducing changes in mood, neither positive mood (Experiments 1 and 3) nor negative mood (Experiments 2 and 4) had any effect on distraction despite large samples sizes (N = 851 in total). The results thus are not in line with the hypothesis that auditory distraction is affected by changes in mood state. The results support an automatic-capture account according to which the auditory-deviant effect and the changing-state effect are mainly stimulus-driven effects that are rooted in the automatic processing of the to-be-ignored auditory stream.

A neuroeconomic signature of opioid craving: How fluctuations in craving bias drug-related and nondrug-related value

How does craving bias decisions to pursue drugs over other valuable, and healthier, alternatives in addiction? To address this question, we measured the in-the-moment economic decisions of people with opioid use disorder as they experienced craving, shortly after receiving their scheduled opioid maintenance medication and ~24 h later. We found that higher cravers had higher drug-related valuation, and that moments of higher craving within-person also led to higher drug-related valuation. When experiencing increased opioid craving, participants were willing to pay more for personalized consumer items and foods more closely related to their drug use, but not for alternative “nondrug-related” but equally desirable options. This selective increase in value with craving was greater when the drug-related options were offered in higher quantities and was separable from the effects of other fluctuating psychological states like negative mood. These findings suggest that craving narrows and focuses economic motivation toward the object of craving by selectively and multiplicatively amplifying perceived value along a “drug relatedness” dimension.

Examination of the Predictability of Psychological and Sociodemographic Variables among Early Emerging Adulthood and Late Emerging Adulthood Seeking Mental Health Treatment

In this study, the relationship between psychiatric symptoms and the use of mental services among 18-29-year-old adults was examined. Data were collected from the 18-29 aged men and women whos participated in the TURBAHAR study. Psychological symptoms, attachment, alexithymia, personal well-being, and positive-negative mood levels of the participants were examined for the research. According to the regression analysis, it was found that smoking and alcohol use, depression, personal well-being, and hostility levels significantly predicted the psychiatric status of both women and men. In addition, it was found that negative self-esteem and somatization levels predicted the use of mental health services among women. The results showed that more psychological factors were affecting the use of mental health services for women compared to men. The findings are expected to contribute to the structuring of services for men and women in terms of the utilization of mental health services based on gender differences.

Social Encounters and Mood: The Moderating Role of Narcissism

Social contacts may lead to more positive and less negative emotions in late life, yet we know little about how narcissism influences such associations, and whether contacts with close and not-close social partners impact mood differently. This study examined associations between social contacts, narcissism, and mood on the within- and between- person level. Older adults aged 65 + (N = 303) completed ecological momentary assessments in which they reported social contacts and mood every 3 hours for 5 to 6 days. Older adults had higher positive mood after contacting either close or not-close social partners, but only not-close social partners reduced negative mood. Multilevel models found positive associations between average social contacts number and positive mood among people scored lower on narcissism, and positive associations between social contacts and negative mood for those who scored higher on narcissism. Findings suggest the necessity of considering interpersonal differences in interventions targeting well-being.

Daily Social Media Use, Social Ties, and Emotional Well-Being in Later Life

Research has seldom explored older adults’ daily social media use and its interface with ‘offline’ social ties. Using data from the Daily Experiences and Well-being Study (N = 310; Mage = 73.96), we investigated whether more daily social media use was associated with the same-day negative or positive mood in later life, and how these associations varied with older adults’ daily social encounters and social network structure. More daily social media use was associated with less same-day negative mood. Additionally, more daily social media use was associated with less negative mood on days with more in-person encounters, compared to the days with fewer in-person encounters. More daily social media use was also associated with more positive mood for individuals with a relatively small social network, but not for their counterparts. Post-hoc analyses supported a compensatory function of social media for those older adults lacking social connections in their daily lives.