Previous binocular rivalry studies with younger adults have shown that emotional stimuli dominate perception over neutral stimuli. Here we investigated the effects of age on patterns of emotional dominance during binocular rivalry. Participants performed a face/house rivalry task where the emotion of the face (happy, angry, neutral) and orientation (upright, inverted) of the face and house stimuli were varied systematically. Age differences were found with younger adults showing a general emotionality effect (happy and angry faces were more dominant than neutral faces) and older adults showing inhibition of anger (neutral faces were more dominant than angry faces) and positivity effects (happy faces were more dominant than both angry and neutral faces). Age differences in dominance patterns were reflected by slower rivalry rates for both happy and angry compared to neutral face/house pairs in younger adults, and slower rivalry rates for happy compared to both angry and neutral face/house pairs in older adults. Importantly, these patterns of emotional dominance and slower rivalry rates for emotional-face/house pairs disappeared when the stimuli were inverted. This suggests that emotional valence, and not low-level image features, were responsible for the emotional bias in both age groups. Given that binocular rivalry has a limited role for voluntary control, the findings imply that anger suppression and positivity effects in older adults may extend to more automatic tasks.

AimsThe aim of the study was to investigate teachers’ and pupils’ perceptions about the effect of the SafeSpot mental health curriculum on the well‐being of young people and on their knowledge of mental health conditions. This trial intends to determine the acceptability and benefits of web and mobile technology in delivering emotional well‐being in schools, through use of the SafeSpot programme.BackgroundWith 10% of young people aged 5 to 16 diagnosed with a mental disorder, there is pressure for schools to address their pupils’ emotional well‐being. However, many educators report that their schools have insufficient provisions and feel inadequately equipped to support pupils’ mental health.MethodsThis qualitative analysis was embedded within a randomly allocated stepped‐wedge design, conducted in six West of Scotland secondary schools. A total of 2320 pupils (aged 11 to 14 years) and 90 teachers were included. Young people’s understanding of health‐seeking, and teacher’s confidence in delivering and accessing well‐being information was assessed qualitatively.ResultsQualitative analysis revealed themes highlighting the beneficial nature of SafeSpot, including pupil engagement, content of tutorials, perceived impact of SafeSpot and level of training provided for teachers.ConclusionsWeb technology could potentially offer a more structured way for staff to support their pupils’ mental health, whilst reducing stigma. SafeSpot was perceived, by pupils and teachers, to be engaging.

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This paper examines the response of 10 typical and 10 autism spectrum participants in their reaction to a set of uniand multisensory warning signals designed to indicate different levels of urgency. The warnings were composed of auditory, visual and tactile signals that were presented alone or in combination. Two experiments were conducted, a first that examined perceived urgency and annoyance with the warnings and a second that used a driving simulator scenario to explore recognition of the level of urgency and the speed of response. Results of Experiment 1 showed that there was no difference between groups in the perceived urgency of the warning signals, though the autism spectrum group reported less annoyance with the signals. Results of Experiment 2 showed that while both groups showed high accuracy in correctly reporting urgency level, the autism spectrum group performed better. Moreover, the fastest overall reaction times obtained were by the autism spectrum group when the warning included a visual component, with vision alone producing the quickest response. These results provide novel empirical insights on behaviour of drivers with autism when exposed to multimodal driver displays. They also highlight how consideration of characteristics of individual differences can contribute to the design of effective warning signals.