This N = 173,426 social science dataset was collected through the collaborative COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey – an open science effort to improve understanding of the human experiences of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic between 30th March and 30th May, 2020. The dataset allows a cross-cultural study of psychological and behavioural responses to the Coronavirus pandemic and associated government measures like cancellation of public functions and stay at home orders implemented in many countries. The dataset contains demographic background variables as well as measures of Asian Disease Problem, perceived stress (PSS-10), availability of social provisions (SPS-10), trust in various authorities, trust in governmental measures to contain the virus (OECD trust), personality traits (BFF-15), information behaviours, agreement with the level of government intervention, and compliance with preventive measures, along with a rich pool of exploratory variables and written experiences. A global consortium from 39 countries and regions worked together to build and translate a survey with variables of shared interests, and recruited participants in 47 languages and dialects. Raw plus cleaned data and dynamic visualizations are available.

The dynamics of perceptual bistability, the phenomenon in which perception switches between different interpretations of an unchanging stimulus, are characterised by very similar properties across a wide range of qualitatively different paradigms. This suggests that perceptual switching may be triggered by some common source. However, it is also possible that perceptual switching may arise from a distributed system, whose components vary according to the specifics of the perceptual experiences involved. Here we used a visual and an auditory task to determine whether individuals show cross-modal commonalities in perceptual switching. We found that individual perceptual switching rates were significantly correlated across modalities. We then asked whether perceptual switching arises from some central (modality-) task-independent process or from a more distributed task-specific system. We found that a log-normal distribution best explained the distribution of perceptual phases in both modalities, suggestive of a combined set of independent processes causing perceptual switching. Modality- and/or task-dependent differences in these distributions, and lack of correlation with the modality-independent central factors tested (ego-resiliency, creativity, and executive function), also point towards perceptual switching arising from a distributed system of similar but independent processes.

Divergent thinking as a creative ability and perceptual switching between different interpretations of an unchanging stimulus (known as perceptual multistability) are thought to rely on similar processes. In the current study, we investigate to what extent task instructions and inherent stimulus characteristics influence participants' responses. In the first experiment, participants were asked to give as many interpretations for six images as possible. In the second experiment, participants reported which of two possible interpretations they saw at any moment for the same line drawings. From these two experiments, we extracted measures that allow us direct comparison between tasks. Results show that instructions have a large influence over the perception of images traditionally used in two different paradigms and that these images can be perceived in appropriate ways for both tasks. In addition, we suggest that the connection between the two phenomena can be explored interchangeably through three experimental manipulations: a) using a common set of images across both experiments, b) giving different task instructions for the two tasks, and c) extracting comparable metrics from both experimental paradigms.

The Remote Associates Test (RAT) is a classical creativity test developed by Mednick and Mednick in 1967. RAT problems and their norms so far exist only in a few languages, including English, Dutch, Japanese and Italian. In this paper, we describe our process of constructing a set of Remote Associates Test problem in Romanian. 63 native speaking Romanian participants have solved this set. The set of items shows high internal consistency. Normative data pertaining to each problem is provided, together with a description of RAT problems peculiarities in Romanian.

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