Ricerc@Sapienza

Distracted driving consists in performing a secondary task while driving, such as cell-phone conversation. Given the limited resources of the attentional system, engaging in a secondary task while driving increases the risk to have car accidents. The secondary task engagement while driving can depend on or be affected by different factors, including driver's individual characteristics, necessities, environmental conditions, and so forth.

This study is a direct replication of gaze-liking effect using the same design, stimuli and procedure. The gaze-liking effect describes the tendency for people to rate objects as more likeable when they have recently seen a person repeatedly gaze toward rather than away from the object. However, as subsequent studies show considerable variability in the size of this effect, we sampled a larger number of participants (N = 98) than the original study (N = 24) to gain a more precise estimate of the gaze-liking effect size.

Background. Hemispatial neglect is a complex syndrome associated with a reduced capability to orient attentional resources toward the contralateral side of space, that involves a collection of symptoms. We used three functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tasks (i.e., visual search, VS; line bisection, LB; extinction, EX), performed by 25 healthy subjects, to investigate the behavioral and neural correlates under these symptoms. Procedure. During fMRI, participants were presented with: 1.

fMRI investigations in healthy humans have documented phasic changes in the level of activation of the right temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) during cued voluntary orienting of spatial attention. Cues that correctly predict the position of upcoming targets in the majority of trials, i.e., predictive cues, produce higher deactivation of the right TPJ as compared with non-predictive cues. Since the right TPJ is the recipient of noradrenergic (NE) innervation, it has been hypothesised that changes in the level of TPJ activity are matched with changes in the level of NE activity.

Several studies in mindfulness and meditation research have used the Attentional Network Task (ANT) to assess changes in the efficiency of attentional networks. The approaches used for mental training, the experimental designs, and the results in such studies are however heterogeneous, and in most cases, do not involve an assessment of dispositional mindfulness in its different facets.

Previous studies demonstrated that both light intensity and spectral composition of light impact on brain functioning and regulate circadian rhythms. Further, several studies have shown that light exposure, especially blue light (about 460 nm), has positive effects on alertness, vigilance, mood, also increasing mental performance and work productivity. Unfortunately, results have not been always consistent.