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40 papers

Knowing How to Ask About Digital Culture in Youth Mental Health Care: A Co-Designed Tool.

Paquin V et al. · Jul 1, 2026

Background With the digital cultures that youth are exposed to and participating in come potential risks and protective factors for their mental health. However, despite clear need there is a lack of guidance to help mental health professionals evaluate the role of social media, artificial intelligence, and other technologies in young people's mental health. Aims To co-design with young people the Digital Culture Interview, an interview tool to support the clinical assessment of digital cultural factors in mental health care. Method We recruited a diverse group of 12 participants aged 16-35 years (mean age 22 years) from outpatient mental health clinics in Montreal, Canada. Using the nominal group technique, they identified topics they found most relevant for exploring in a clinical assessment the experiences and practices involving digital technologies. Based on the topics that received the most votes from participants, we co-developed a list of interview questions and written guidance for their administration. Results Participants identified and ranked 48 themes. Drawing from these, 14 questions were developed for inclusion in the Digital Culture Interview, covering four topics: identity and worldview, negative experiences online, coping, and understanding of mental health. Participants emphasised that exploring digital culture in mental health care requires patients' trust and a baseline of knowledge. If done sensitively, this may enhance the patient-clinician alliance and improve mutual understanding. Conclusions The Digital Culture Interview has the potential to enhance rapport and reveal risk and protective factors that are salient to and actionable in mental health care.

Psychology

Navigating Knowledge: Effects of State Curiosity on Children's Word Learning and Information Seeking.

Caunt A et al. · Jul 1, 2026

Early learning takes place within complex, multimodal environments where curiosity plays a critical role in guiding exploratory behaviors and supporting cognitive development. While trait curiosity shapes children's early learning experiences, state curiosity is context-dependent fostering early learning, in-part, through information seeking behaviors. Here, we explore whether state-induced curiosity can influence exploratory behaviors and facilitate word-learning within a multimodal search task that mirrors real-world learning environments. Children (2.5- to 4-year-olds) will be introduced to novel objects and labels via a storybook. After exposure to each novel object, participants will locate the target object (i.e., a sticker depicting the novel object), hidden within one of ten boxes uniformly distributed across a real-world space. Unbeknownst to participants, the target will only be hidden within a single hemispace. In the "High-Curiosity" condition, the storybook should elicit greater curiosity, whereas the "Low-Curiosity" condition will present novel words in a context that should invoke lower levels of curiosity. Following the search task, participants will complete a forced-choice word learning task. Findings will provide insights into whether and how curiosity facilitates word learning in rich, multimodal contexts and how this relationship can be impacted by children's explorative strategies, including their sensitivity to environmental statistics. SUMMARY: Curiosity drives early development, but the extent to which it facilitates learning within a multimodal environment remains underexplored. The study examines how high versus low induced curiosity states influence toddlers' exploratory behavior, including search efficiency and adaptation to spatial probability cues. The study assesses whether higher state-induced curiosity leads to stronger retention and recognition of novel word-object mappings compared to the lower curiosity condition. The study examines how curiosity-driven search strategies relate to novel word learning and whether learning is moderated by how children choose to search for information.

Psychology

How Uncertainty Affects Children's Exploration and Exploitation in Statistical Learning.

Tong SX et al. · Jul 1, 2026

Environmental input is inherently uncertain at both global and local levels. Depending on the level of uncertainty, cognitive systems dynamically adapt by shifting attention between exploiting learned regularities and exploring less predictable alternatives. While these dynamics are well documented in adults, how local and global uncertainty jointly influences children's exploration-exploitation strategies during statistical learning remains unclear. Combining eye-tracking with a probabilistic cueing task, this study quantified local and global uncertainty on a trial-by-trial basis to examine their effects on children's attentional preferences for cues differing in predictive value. Overall, 158 children aged 4 to 13 years passively viewed cue-target sequences in which target shapes were predicted by cues with high- and low-transitional probabilities. Results showed that under high global uncertainty, high local uncertainty biased attention toward high-predictive cues, indicating uncertainty-exploitation, whereas low local uncertainty biased attention toward low-predictive cues, suggesting certainty-exploration. Conversely, under low global uncertainty, attentional strategies reversed, shifting toward certainty-exploitation and uncertainty-exploration. These patterns were amplified in older children but attenuated in younger ones. These findings support a developmental dynamic model of exploration-exploitation in which children's attention strategies are jointly regulated by local and global uncertainty and undergo systematic change across childhood. SUMMARY: How local and global uncertainty jointly shapes the development of children's exploration-exploitation behavior during statistical learning across different ages remains poorly understood. Using eye-tracking in a probabilistic learning task, we showed that 4-13-year-olds adapt their information sampling and choices in response to overarching and trial-by-trial uncertainty. Under high global uncertainty, children relied on local uncertainty for exploitation and exploration; under low global uncertainty, they favored certainty-driven exploitation and uncertainty-driven exploration. These uncertainty-regulated strategies were amplified in older children but attenuated in younger children.

Psychology

Exploring Resilience in Mothers of Adolescents With Intellectual Disabilities in Thailand: A Qualitative Study.

Tejakum W et al. · Jul 1, 2026

Background Raising adolescents with intellectual disabilities in Thailand is challenging. Whilst some mothers show resilience, limited understanding exists of the factors within these cultural contexts that contribute to resilience. This qualitative study explores experiences of mothers caring for adolescent children with intellectual disabilities in Thailand. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 Thai mothers of adolescents with intellectual disabilities at the Rajanukul Institute in Thailand. Interview transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis, guided by Braun and Clarke (2006). Results Six themes were developed, detailing mothers' resilience journeys: becoming a mother of a child with intellectual disabilities, finding my way, navigating challenges, support systems, holding on to faith, and forward-thinking strategies. Conclusion This study reveals that resilience amongst mothers is a dynamic process shaped by personal attributes, coping strategies, social support, and cultural and spiritual beliefs. These findings highlight the need for culturally sensitive interventions to strengthen parental resilience.

Psychology

Decoding Preschool Social Dynamics: Automated Tracking of Spatial and Temporal Patterns to Investigate Social Interactions and Relationships in Peer Groups.

Markova G et al. · Jul 1, 2026

In this study, we applied machine learning tools to automatically track the positions of preschool children in a natural free play setting and derived spatial and temporal features from these data to identify social interactions between them. We observed a sample of 20 preschool children (10 female, 10 male; M ± SD = 3.95 ± 0.82 years) in groups of three children each. Friendship among children was assessed, and friend dyads were paired either with a mutual friend (n = 12 groups) or with a mutually disliked peer (n = 11 groups). We used a ceiling-mounted camera to record 10-min free play sessions of the 23 groups and used an automated keypoint tracking software to extract children's locations over time from the videos. From this data, we derived the following measures for each dyad within the group: distance, social orientation, and paired correlations of children's position and speed. Additionally, a human rater coded all occurrences of social interactions in the videos. Automated measures reliably predicted the occurrence of children's social interactions, validating our choice of spatial and temporal features. Friend dyads were closer, oriented more toward each other, and showed higher position and speed correlations than non-friends. Social orientation and speed correlation varied over time, and speed correlation increased in mixed-group contexts, especially among friends. These findings highlight the value of tracking-based approaches for detecting both fine-grained interactive behavior and affiliative ties, offering key insights into the spatial dynamics of young children's peer interactions.

Psychology

Analytical Robustness and Competing Interpretations in Violent Video Game Research: A Response to Teng and Bushman's (2026) Reanalysis of Lacko et al. (2024).

Lacko D et al. · Jul 1, 2026

Recent debates on violent video game (VVG) effects highlight the importance of analytical robustness and transparency in longitudinal research. Teng and Bushman reanalyzed our prior study, identifying several methodological concerns and arguing that our conclusions were unwarranted. In this response, we examine their reanalysis and assess whether their conclusions hold across alternative analytical specifications and operational decisions. Through comprehensive robustness checks available on OSF, we address concerns regarding model specification, missing data, measurement decisions, and time constraints. We further examine the unexpected empathy-aggression association and alternative VVG operationalizations. While some inconsistencies emerge across different specifications, the results do not consistently support General Aggression Model (GAM) interpretations in this dataset. We further identify inconsistencies and incomplete reporting in Teng and Bushman's presentation of results, data processing procedures, and interpretation of effect sizes. Finally, we argue that the current debate reveals a fundamental theoretical problem: without precise specifications of mechanisms, developmental patterns, and falsifiable predictions, GAM risks unfalsifiability when contradictory findings can all be accommodated as supporting evidence. We advocate for formal modeling approaches to enhance theoretical rigor and predictive specificity in violent media research.

Psychology

The Long-Term Impact of Adolescent Community Weapon-Related Violence Exposure on Depression: Insomnia as a Mediating Pathway.

Lee E et al. · Jul 1, 2026

Adolescents exposed to community weapon-related violence face increased mental health risks, including depression, with insomnia linked to negative mental health outcomes. Given the high rates of insomnia in this population, this study explores insomnia as a mediator between community weapon-related violence and adult depression. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we analyzed the association between adolescent weapon-related violence (Wave 1) and depression in adulthood (Wave 4), with insomnia (Wave 2) as a mediator (N = 3924). Community weapon-related violence was associated with higher levels of depression in adulthood, 13 years post-exposure, through insomnia (β = 0.01, p = 0.01). Insomnia accounted for 7% of the total effect of weapon-related violence on depressive symptoms, indicating a partial mediation effect. Our findings identify a pathway through which adolescent community weapon-related violence leads to depression in adulthood, underscoring the need for early interventions targeting insomnia to reduce long-term depression risk in this population.

Psychology

Hemodynamic Responses to Word Forms in Japanese Infant-Directed Vocabulary in 5- and 9-Month-Old Infants: Early Sensitivity to Prosodic Structure and Emergence of Prosodic Representations.

Akimoto Y et al. · Jul 1, 2026

The prosodic characteristics of a native language greatly influence early language acquisition. Yet, Japanese mothers are known to use a specific prosodic structure in infant-directed vocabulary (IDV)-specifically, three-mora, two-syllable words with a heavy-light pattern-which, crucially, differs from the standard prosodic rhythm of adult vocabulary. This study used near-infrared spectroscopy to examine hemodynamic responses to the Japanese IDV form in 5-month-old (n = 31) and 9-month-old (n = 34) Japanese infants, targeting the period before and during the emergence of this preference. The results revealed that oxygenated hemoglobin was greater for the IDV form than for the non-IDV form in the left superior temporal gyrus (STG) for both age groups, consistent with the advantage of the IDV form observed in previous behavioral studies. Furthermore, this effect was localized to the left middle and left posterior STG in 5- and 9-month-old infants, respectively, highlighting early sensitivity to its prosodic structure followed by the emergence of phonological representation. This cortical shift, along with an observed trend toward adult-like patterns, may suggest a broader transition from perceptually accessible IDV structures to the more diverse patterns of standard adult vocabulary. Although 5-month-old infants who have not yet exhibited a preference for the IDV form may not have developed specific phonological representations, their brains' ability to process its prosodic pattern could serve as a foundation for subsequent learning. These findings demonstrate that the specific structure of Japanese IDV acts as a foundational scaffold, guiding the transition from initial prosodic tuning to mature word-level processing. SUMMARY: Early sensitivity to prosodic structure was observed in 5-month-old Japanese infants. Emerging phonological representation was observed in 9-month-old Japanese infants. Japanese infant-directed vocabulary form serves as a prosodic template.

Psychology

Understanding the Associations Between Attachment Insecurity, Emotional Flooding, and Conflict Behaviors in Prenatal Couples.

Morgan SD et al. · Jul 1, 2026

The transition to parenthood is a period of heightened vulnerability for many couples, often marked by increased conflict. Attachment insecurity is a known risk factor, linked to dysfunctional conflict dynamics in couples more broadly. Yet, the emotional processes driving these patterns remain underexplored, especially from a dyadic perspective. This study examined emotional flooding-a form of dyadic emotion dysregulation-as a potential intermediary variable linking attachment to conflict behaviors. Ninety-six mixed-sex couples completed questionnaires on attachment and emotional flooding before engaging in observationally coded conflict discussions during the third trimester of pregnancy. Actor partner interdependence models extended to mediation (APIMeM) revealed that men's attachment anxiety was positively associated with observed conflict withdrawal indirectly through their own emotional flooding. Women's attachment anxiety was positively associated with observed conflict hostility through their own emotional flooding. Findings highlight emotional flooding as a pathway through which attachment shapes mixed-sex couples' vulnerability to gendered conflict patterns.

Psychology

Perinatal interventions for parents with exposure to adverse childhood experiences: A narrative review of suitability for implementation in primary care.

Chen JJ et al. · Jul 1, 2026

Children of parents exposed to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) face elevated risk of experiencing biopsychosocial challenges. Primary care screening for parental ACEs is increasing, and routine primary care touchpoints may reach parents with exposure to ACEs during the critical perinatal period. This review seeks to 1) evaluate existing perinatal interventions-including those not designed for primary care-for suitability for primary care implementation and 2) identify implementation factors missing from existing interventions that may enhance their implementation in primary care. The PubMed database was searched for articles in English reporting on randomized controlled trials of perinatal interventions among parents with exposure to ACEs. Fourteen articles detailing 14 unique interventions were included in the qualitative synthesis. Data were extracted on intervention characteristics identified by implementation research as relevant to primary care: evidence of benefit, applicability and relevance, complexity, clarity, practicality and utility, costs, and adaptability. Ten interventions were found to be effective for parents with greater exposure to ACEs; however, the variability within the interventions and relevant settings suggests nuanced decision-making is required to match interventions to settings. The current review offers primary care providers a framework for matching and adapting such interventions.

Psychology