Int J Environ Res Public Health
May 2023
In its early stage, the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent public health measures brought several challenges to people in general, with adolescents being one of the most affected groups. To assess the psychological reactions of Portuguese adolescents in that early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted an online survey that was filled by a sample of 340 (67.6% female and 32.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
November 2022
Mandatory home isolation caused by COVID-19 in professional contexts led to a situation that required work activities to be converted into a remote modality. The literature on this topic is very recent, given the pandemic and the uncertainty of virtual and face-to-face work modalities. This study aimed to examine the effects of adults' prolonged exposure to screens on sleep quality, the type of devices used according to age and gender, periods of access to such devices and the impact on performance in the context of telework due to COVID-19.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Individual differences in one's perceived vulnerability to infectious diseases are implicated in psychological distress, social and behavioral disease avoidance phenomena. The Perceived Vulnerability to Disease Questionnaire (PVD) is the most extensively used measure when it comes to assessing subjective vulnerability to infectious diseases. However, this measure is not yet accessible to the Portuguese population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has become one of the main international concerns regarding its impact on mental health. The present study aims to investigate the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms, and behavioral aspects amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in a Brazilian population. An online survey was administered from May 22 to June 5, 2020 using a questionnaire comprising of sociodemographic information, the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21), and the Coping Strategies Inventory.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLike previous pandemics, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has direct and indirect effects, including in mental health. To evaluate the immediate psychological impact of COVID-19, we conducted an online survey in Portugal (24-27 March 2020), using the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) and the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21). From the 10,529 participants (M = 31.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIndividuals of African and Caucasian descent show different chemical signatures in their body odors (BO). Does such biological difference have a perceptual correlate? We tested BO donors and raters of Afro-Portuguese (AP) and Caucasian (C) descent to investigate whether olfactory ratings reveal an ethnic bias and whether olfactory ethnic discrimination is possible. C (vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMany studies have indicated that the chemical cues from body odors (BOs) of donors experiencing negative emotions can influence the psychophysiological and behavioral response of the observers. However, these olfactory cues have been used mainly as contextual information for processing visual stimuli. Here, for the first time, we evaluate how emotional BO affects the emotional tone of a subsequent BO message.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere were 4 cells in the original Table 2 that reported SEM values instead of SDs. A corrected version of the table is provided below. In the Results section, the corresponding corrections are as follows.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConditions during information encoding and retrieval are known to influence the sensory material stored and its recapitulation. However, little is known about such processes in olfaction. Here, we capitalized on the uniqueness of body odors (BOs) which, similar to fingerprints, allow for the identification of a specific person, by associating their presentation to a negative or a neutral emotional context.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOlfaction is often linked to mating behavior in nonhumans. Additionally, studies in mating behavior have shown that women seem to be more affected by odor cues than men. However, the relationship between odor cues and sexual response-specifically, sexual arousal-has not been studied yet.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA recent study claimed face skin color as a sexually dimorphic variable that influences attractiveness preferences in mate choice. Thereby, skin color may assume the role of a mate quality signal influencing attractiveness preferences. As body odor is linked to attractiveness, this study aimed to explore whether the odors of men with more masculine facial skin color would be evaluated more positively than odors from less masculine men.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough canine identification of body odor (BO) has been widely used as forensic evidence, the concept of nosewitness identification by human observers was only recently put to the test. The results indicated that BOs associated with male characters in authentic crime videos could later be identified in BO lineup tests well above chance. To further evaluate nosewitness memory, we assessed the effects of lineup size (Experiment 1) and retention interval (Experiment 2), using a forced-choice memory test.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEvery individual has a unique body odor (BO), similar to a fingerprint. In forensic research, identification of culprit BOs has been performed by trained dogs, but not by humans. We introduce the concept of nosewitness identification and present the first experimental results on BO memory in witness situations involving violent crimes.
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