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Impulsive individuals exhibit abnormal reward processing (heightened preference for immediate rewards, i.e., impulsive choice, IC) and a penchant for maladaptive action (the inability to inhibit inappropriate actions, i.e., impulsive action, IA). Both impulsive choice and impulsive action are strongly influenced by emotions (emotional impulsivity); yet how emotions impact impulsive behavior remains unclear. The traditional theory suggests that emotions primarily exacerbate impulsive action and prompts impulsive choice. The alternative theory states that emotions disrupt attention (attentional impulsivity, AImp) and prompt impulsive choice. However, the empirical evidence supporting these theories is inconsistent—few correlations have been reported between self-report measures of emotional impulsivity and behavioral measures of impulsivity beyond clinical populations. In two studies, we probed the interplay among emotions, impulsive action (IA), attentional impulsivity (AImp), and impulsive choice (IC). We elicited positive and negative emotions using emotional pictures and examined the extent to which elicited emotions altered behavioral indices of impulsivity. Our findings suggest that, in a nonclinical population, emotions accentuate impulsive behavior by disrupting attentional control. In particular, Positive Urgency plays an important role in inhibitory control. Keywords : impulsivity, emotions, mouse-cursor tracking.

The accurate detection of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, such as inattentiveness and behavioral disinhibition, is crucial for delivering timely assistance and treatment. ADHD is commonly diagnosed and studied with specialized questionnaires and behavioral tests such as the stop-signal task. However, in cases of late-onset or mild forms of ADHD, behavioral measures often fail to gauge the deficiencies well-highlighted by questionnaires. To improve the sensitivity of behavioral tests, we propose a novel version of the stop-signal task (SST), which integrates mouse cursor tracking. In two studies, we investigated whether introducing mouse movement measures to the stop-signal task improves associations with questionnaire-based measures, as compared to the traditional (keypress-based) version of SST. We also scrutinized the influence of different parameters of stop-signal tasks, such as the method of stop-signal delay setting or definition of response inhibition failure, on these associations. Our results show that a) SSRT has weak association with impulsivity, while mouse movement measures have strong and significant association with impulsivity; b) machine learning models trained on the mouse movement data from \"known\" participants using nested cross-validation procedure can accurately predict impulsivity ratings of \"unknown\" participants; c) mouse movement features such as maximum acceleration and maximum velocity are among the most important predictors for impulsivity; d) using preset stop-signal delays prompts behavior that is more indicative of impulsivity.

Background This study aimed to examine the change in health status of the general public after starting the COVID-19 pandemic and its association with changes in workload and lifestyle. Methods A web-based survey was conducted in November 2020, about 9 months after starting the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan, among 8000 Japanese men and women aged 25–64 years. Participants asked for the changes after starting the COVID-19 pandemic in health status, workload, daily life, and health behavior. Ordinal logistic regression was performed to elucidate factors associated with deterioration in general health status. Results A deterioration in general health status was reported by 17.0% of male and 19.4% of female. There has been a clear shift to sedentary life with decreasing moderate activity and increasing screen time. The multivariate analysis revealed that deteriorated work style, increased burden of housework, decreased moderate activity, increased digital media exposure, and increased body weight were significantly associated with deteriorating health status. Conclusion Both men and women have experienced significant changes in workload and lifestyle since the COVID-19 pandemic started. People should be aware of the risks associated with their recent life changes and take self-care measures to prevent serious health consequences.

Recent evidence suggests that top-down attention facilitates unconscious semantic processing. To clarify the role of attention in unconscious semantic processing, we traced trajectories of the computer mouse in a semantic priming task and scrutinized the extent to which top-down attention enhances unconscious semantic processing in four different stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA: 50, 200, 500, or 1000ms) conditions. Participants judged whether a target digit (e.g., \"6\") was larger or smaller than five, preceded by a masked priming digit (e.g., \"9\"). The pre-prime duration changed randomly from trial to trial to disrupt participants' top-down attention in an uncued condition (in a cued condition, a green square cue was presented to facilitate participants' top-down attention). The results show that top-down attention modifies the time course of subliminal semantic processing, and the temporal attention window lasts more than 1000ms; attention facilitated by the cue may amplify semantic priming to some extent, yet the amplification effect of attention is relatively minor.

Background: The present study aimed to examine the association between the presence/absence of help-seeking behavior (ie, behavior aimed at obtaining assistance from others to improve a situation or problem) and psychological distress among private and public employees by age group using a nationally representative sample of the Japanese population. Methods: The present study analyzed data obtained from the 2016 Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions, a nationwide cross-sectional survey. Of 568,426 participants, 78,284 private and public employees aged 20 to 59 years, who were receiving no mental health services at the time of the survey and reported at least one stressor in daily life, were eligible. The primary outcome measure was self-rated psychological distress as measured by the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale. Multiple logistic regression analyses were carried out separately by age group, adjusting for sociodemographic and job/life-related factors. Results: The proportion of participants not showing help-seeking behavior was significantly higher among those aged 40–59 years compared to those aged 20–39 (30.5% and 22.7%, respectively; P < 0.001). Participants without help-seeking behavior had significantly higher odds ratios (ORs) for psychological distress, regardless of age group (OR = 1.9 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.6–2.0] and OR = 1.6 [95% CI, 1.4–1.7] for the age 20–39 years and 40–59 years groups, respectively), compared to those showing help-seeking behavior. Conclusions: Participants not showing help-seeking behavior were more likely to have severe psychological distress, and this trend appeared to be slightly stronger among those aged 20–39 years. These findings suggest that promoting help-seeking behavior is important for improving mental health among workers.

BackgroundAlthough various work-related adverse events affect workers’ mental health, the association between long working hours and mental disorders remains unclear. We investigated the characteristics of overtime work and work-related adverse events among all cases of compensated work-related suicide in Japan to empirically reveal the context of the serious consequences.MethodsWe analysed all 167 cases of mental disorders resulting in suicide that were compensated in fiscal year 2015–2016. Hierarchical clustering was applied to the overtime working history. Work-related adverse events were also evaluated as the qualitative aspects of their jobs.ResultsMore than half of the cases committed suicide within a month of developing a mental disorder. The Administrative and professional or engineering workers had a higher suicide rate. The clustering analysis revealed chronic long working hours (19%), gradual increase (27%), or rapid increase (25%) in working hours before the onset of a mental disorder. A group of cases with less overwork experienced more interpersonal conflicts.ConclusionThis is the first study to employ a clustering technique to objectively reveal the actual working patterns behind suicide. The patterns of working overtime before the onset of mental disorders varied considerably among the cases. Taking the transition of working overtime into account may provide clearer insight into the relationship between long working hours and workers’ mental health. These results highlight the need for countermeasures especially for causes of chronic overworking, drastic increases in working hours, and interpersonal conflicts to prevent work-related suicide.

Objectives The coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic has forced many employees to alter both their work style and lifestyle. This study aimed to examine how the combination of changes in overtime working hours and social interaction affects the full‐time employees’ mental well‐being, focusing on the difference in household composition. Methods In November 2020, we conducted a cross‐sectional Internet survey that included 4388 Japanese men and women aged 25–64 years, who continued the same full‐time job during the pandemic. We performed a logistic regression analysis using a combination of the changes in overtime working hours and social interaction as an independent variable, and the presence/absence of deterioration of mental well‐being as the dependent variable. Results Overall, 44% of participants reported the deterioration of mental well‐being compared to before the outbreak. The multivariate analysis revealed that the participants coded as “increased overtime/decreased interaction” were significantly associated with the deterioration of mental well‐being compared to those with “unchanged overtime/unchanged interaction” (odds ratio [OR] 2.14, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.59–2.89). Moreover, this association was relatively stronger among single‐person households (OR 2.66, 95% CI 1.50–4.69). Conclusions The negative combination of increasing overtime working hours and decreasing social interaction may have an impact on the deterioration of mental well‐being during the COVID‐19 pandemic, and this association was comparably strong among single‐person households. In the pandemic, it is necessary to pay close attention to both overtime working hours and the presence of social interaction to address the mental well‐being among employees.

Mathematical models have played an essential role in interface design. This study focused on “mindsets”—people’s tacit beliefs about attributes—and investigated the extent to which: (1) mindsets can be extracted in a motion trajectory in target selection, and (2) a dynamic state-space model, such as the Kalman filter, helps quantify mindsets. Participants were experimentally manipulated to hold fixed or growth mindsets in a “mock” memory test, and later performed a concept-learning task in which the movement of the computer cursor was recorded in every trial. By inspecting motion trajectories of the cursor, we observed clear disparities in the impact of mindsets; participants who were induced with a fixed mindset moved the cursor faster as compared to those who were induced with a growth mindset. To examine further the mechanism of this influence, we fitted a Kalman filter model to the trajectory data; we found that system-level error-covariance in the Kalman filter model could effectively separate motion trajectories gleaned from the two mindset conditions. Taken together, results from the experiment suggest that people’s mindsets can be captured in motor trajectories in target selection and the Kalman filter helps quantify mindsets. It is argued that people’s personality, attitude, and mindset are embodied in motor behavior underlying target selection and these psychological variables can be studied mathematically with a feedback control system.

Background Failure and delay in initial treatment contact for mental disorders has been recognized as an important public health problem. According to the concept of mental health literacy, recognition of symptoms is crucial to making decisions to seek or not seek professional help. The aims of this study were to investigate the types of health problems for which Japanese adults intend to seek help, their preferred sources of help, and the factors associated with help-seeking intentions. Methods A cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted in June 2014 among Japanese adults aged 20–59 years. A total of 3308 eligible respondents were included in this study. Help-seeking intentions were measured by listing potential sources of help (including ‘would not receive help’) and asking which ones would be chosen in four health conditions indicated by irritability, dizziness, insomnia, and depressed mood, respectively. Results In the case of dizziness, 85.9 % of the participants reported a positive help-seeking intention and 42.7 % gave first priority to seeking help from formal sources. These percentages were smaller in the cases of insomnia (75.4 and 25.0 %), depressed mood (74.9 and 18.7 %), and irritability (72.9 and 0.9 %). Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that the factors significantly associated with help-seeking intentions were almost identical across the four health problems. In particular, perception of family and friends regarding help-seeking, psychiatric history, contact with people with mental illness, better health literacy, and neighborhood communicativeness were significantly associated with the overall help-seeking intention and also the help-seeking intention from formal sources for all the problems of dizziness, insomnia, and depressed mood. Conclusions The majority of participants indicated their intentions to seek help, but psychological problems (insomnia and depressed mood) were less likely to induce help-seeking intentions than a physical problem (dizziness). Besides developing health literacy skills, community-based interventions for creating a friendly approachable atmosphere and facilitating daily interactions with family, friends, and neighbors may be worth considering as a possible public health strategy for encouraging help-seeking whether for psychological or physical problems.

Human emotions vary with temperature factors. However, most studies on emotion recognition based on physiological signals overlook the influence of temperature factors. This article proposes a video induced physiological signal dataset (VEPT) that considers indoor temperature factors to explore the impact of different indoor temperature factors on emotions. This database contains skin current response (GSR) data obtained from 25 subjects at three different indoor temperatures. We selected 25 video clips and 3 temperatures (hot, comfortable, and cold) as motivational materials. Using SVM, LSTM, and ACRNN classification methods, sentiment classification is performed on data under three indoor temperatures to analyze the impact of different temperatures on sentiment. The recognition rate of emotion classification under three different indoor temperatures showed that anger and fear had the best recognition effect among the five emotions under hot temperatures, while joy had the worst recognition effect. At a comfortable temperature, joy and calmness have the best recognition effect among the five emotions, while fear and sadness have the worst recognition effect. In cold temperatures, sadness and fear have the best recognition effect among the five emotions, while anger and joy have the worst recognition effect. This article uses classification to recognize emotions from physiological signals under the three temperatures mentioned above. By comparing the recognition rates of different emotions at three different temperatures, it was found that positive emotions are enhanced at comfortable temperatures, while negative emotions are enhanced at hot and cold temperatures. The experimental results indicate that there is a certain correlation between indoor temperature and physiological emotions.