The effects of alcohol consumption in adults are well described in the literature, while knowledge about the effects of alcohol consumption in children is more limited and less systematic. The present review shows how alcohol consumption may negatively influence the neurobiological and neurobehavioral development of humans. Three different periods of life have been considered: the prenatal term, childhood, and adolescence. For each period, evidence of the short-term and long-term effects of alcohol consumption, including neurodevelopmental effects and associations with subsequent alcohol abuse or dependence, is presented.

Do children and adults engage in spontaneous Theory of Mind (ToM)? Accumulating evidence from anticipatory looking (AL) studies suggests that they do. But a growing body of studies failed to replicate these original findings. This paper presents the first step of a large-scale multi-lab collaboration dedicated to testing the robustness of spontaneous ToM measures. It examines whether 18-27-month-olds and adults’ anticipatory looks distinguish between knowledgeable and ignorant agents. In a pre-registered study with toddlers [anticipated N = 440, 50% female] and adults [anticipated N = 360, 50% female] from diverse ethnic backgrounds, we found that [DESCRIBE RESULT AND EFFECT SIZE FOR MAIN CONFIRMATORY ANALYSIS]. This provides [SUPPORT/SOME SUPPORT/NO SUPPORT] for spontaneous, epistemic state-based action anticipation in an AL paradigm.

Openness has been identified as one of the personality traits with stronger association to creativity into the Five-Factor Model of personality. But what are the psychological mechanisms that relate Openness and creative performance? The present paper aims at responding to this question, exploring in particular whether the attentional processing of apparently irrelevant information (irrelevance processing) can act as a moderator within the relation between Openness and creativity. To this aim, a visual version of the Unusual Uses Task was developed and, using an eye-tracker methodology, the attentional processing of both information that is central to the task, and information that is ''apparently'' irrelevant for its execution was measured. The results showed a moderating effect of irrelevance processing on the role of Openness in both creative achievement and originality of the uses produced by the participants, with creativity reaching higher levels in individuals who gave attention to irrelevant information and were characterized by a high level of Openness. These findings establish attentive processing as a central psychological mechanism to explain the relationship between Openness and creativity.We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious . . . and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

No abstract

No abstract

BackgroundThe hypothesis underlying this work is that the social network of a child might have an impact on the alimentary behaviors, in particular for what concerns snack consumption patterns.Methods1215 Italian children 6-10 ys old were interviewed using a CATI facility in January 2010. 608 "snackers" and 607 "no-snackers" were identified. Information regarding family composition, child and relatives BMI, mother perception of child weight, child, father and mother physical activity, TV watching, social network, leisure time habits and dietary habits of peers, were collected. Association of variables with the status of snacker was investigated using a multivariable logistic regression model.ResultsSnackers children seem to be part of more numerous social network (1.40 friends vs 1.14, p = 0.042) where the majority of peers are also eating snacks, this percentage being significantly higher (89.5 vs 76.3, p < 0.001) than in the "no-snacker" group. The snacking group is identified by the fact that it tends to practice at least 4 hours per week of physical activity (OR: 1.36, CI: 1.03-1.9). No evidence of an association between snacking consumption and overweight status has been shown by our study.ConclusionsThe snacking child has more active peer-to-peer social relationships, mostly related with sport activities. However, spending leisure time in sportive activities implies being part of a social environment which is definitely a positive one from the point of view of obesity control, and indeed, no increase of overweight/obesity is seen in relation to snack consumption.

In the present work, we used the eye-tracking methodology to investigate how affective reactions influence investment decision making. In addition, we looked at individual differences in terms of people's sensitivity to affective information and how efficiently they regulate it, that is, trait emotional intelligence. We demonstrated that people who are more sensitive to affective information have larger pupil dilation when looking at the past performance of a stock fund. In addition, we also found that participants' larger pupil dilation had an impact on their investment decisions (whether people were more likely to sell their shares, hold on to the investment, or buy more shares). A larger pupil dilation led people to be more consistent and willing to invest more money on a fund regardless from its past performance (positive or negative). We also tested the hypothesis that individuals with a larger pupil dilation should be more influenced by a fund's past performance (e.g., selling their shares more often when the past performance of the fund was negative and buying additional shares more often when the past performance was positive). However, results did not support this explanation. Finally, our data revealed that the effect of individual differences in trait emotional intelligence on investment decisions was significantly mediated by pupil dilation. In the discussion, we explored the relationship between our results and previous evidence on the role of pupil dilation in processing information under uncertainty and the role of affect in decision making.

Previous research showed that infants and toddlers are inclined to help prosocial agents and assign a positive valence to fair distributions. Also, they expect that positive and negative actions directed toward distributors will conform to reciprocity principles. This study investigates whether toddlers are selective in helping others, as a function of others’ previous distributive actions. Toddlers were presented with real-life events in which two actresses distributed resources either equally or unequally between two puppets. Then, they played together with a ball that accidentally fell to the ground and asked participants to help them to retrieve it. Participants preferred to help the actress who performed equal distributions. This finding suggests that by the second year children’s prosocial actions are modulated by their emerging sense of fairness.HighlightsToddlers (mean age = 25 months) are selective in helping distributors.Toddlers prefer helping a fair rather than an unfair distributor.Toddlers’ selective helping provides evidence for an early sense of fairness.