Development of a self-report measure of GPS uses and its relationship with environmental knowledge and self-efficacy and pleasure in exploring.

The widely utilized Global Positioning System (GPS) plays a crucial role in everyday navigation. The literature has predominantly focused on GPS use for reaching destinations rather than exploring its various strategic applications and relations with individual factors. The current paper is intended to develop a GPS Uses Scale assessing a variety of GPS uses for wayfinding and other GPS uses (Study 1).

Visuospatial working memory and (free and cued) recall of survey knowledge after environment navigation.

Navigating environments is a fundamental ability of daily life, with survey knowledge playing a crucial role. Survey knowledge varies between individuals, and these variations may be related to individual differences in visuospatial working memory (VSWM) ability. However, other factors, such as the modalities of recall (cued vs.

Soft skills and their relationship with life satisfaction and cognitive reserve in adulthood and older age.

Soft skills are key factors for success in multiple contexts of daily life, as well as for life satisfaction, but little is known about their role in late adulthood and older age. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationships of soft skills, as defined by the World Economic Forum, with two indicators of successful/healthy aging: life satisfaction and cognitive reserve. A sample of 435 adults aged 50 and over completed self-reported measures of soft skills, life satisfaction, and cognitive reserve.

The Italian Behavioral, Emotional, and Social Skills Inventory (BESSI-I).

The importance of social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) skills is recognized worldwide, but their measurement has always been a challenge. The BESSI measures 32 SEB skills, divided into five domains (social engagement, cooperation, self-management, emotional resilience, and innovation), but its validity must be expanded to new languages and contexts. Across two studies ( = 990, = 824) we developed the Italian version of the BESSI, provided further support for its convergent and discriminant validity with the Big Five, and expanded its nomological network to procrastination, self-efficacy, and emotion regulation.

Trajectories across the healthy adult lifespan on sense of direction, spatial anxiety, and attitude in exploring places.

Introduction: Self-evaluations about orientation and navigation in the environment contribute to individual differences in spatial cognition. Evidence suggests that they may change, even slightly, with the progression of adulthood. It is necessary to improve the framing of environment-related subjective self-evaluations in adulthood and aging by examining how they change and the factors related to them.

Investigating the different domains of environmental knowledge acquired from virtual navigation and their relationship to cognitive factors and wayfinding inclinations.

When learning an environment from virtual navigation people gain knowledge about landmarks, their locations, and the paths that connect them. The present study newly aimed to investigate all these domains of knowledge and how cognitive factors such as visuospatial abilities and wayfinding inclinations might support virtual passive navigation. A total of 270 participants (145 women) were tested online.

Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills: Age and Gender Differences at 12 to 19 Years Old.

Individuals use social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) skills to build and maintain social relationships, regulate emotions, and manage goal-directed behaviors. A promising integrative framework of SEB skills was recently proposed, showing that they matter for positive outcomes during adolescence. Nothing is known about how and whether they differ between 12 and 19 years old and whether such differences depend on gender (males or females).

Keep going, keep growing: A longitudinal analysis of grit, posttraumatic growth, and life satisfaction in school students under COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted students' daily life, but grit could have sustained students' wellbeing by helping them work hard and stay goal-oriented over time despite adversity. Gritty students may also have interpreted COVID-19-related adversity as an opportunity to grow, thus displaying higher levels of post-traumatic growth. In this study, 445 students in grades 6-12 (160 males, Mage = 14.

Psychological impacts of intervention to improve a therapeutic garden for older adults with dementia: a case study conducted at a care facility.

Introduction: Exposure to nature is known to support psychological wellbeing, and can support People with Dementia (PwD). Here we describe a case study conducted at a care facility for PwD to examine the effect of their exposure to nature after intervention to renovate an existing Therapeutic Garden (TG). Changes in frequency of attendance and behavior in the TG were examined.

Men's and women's egocentric and allocentric knowledge: The involvement of mental rotation ability and spatial beliefs.

Individual factors can play a relevant role in explaining gender differences in environmental learning in terms of visuospatial abilities and beliefs about spatial abilities, such as stereotypes and growth mindset about navigation ability. In this study, we aim to investigate how mental rotation ability and spatial beliefs interact in the acquisition of egocentric and allocentric spatial knowledge. A sample of 244 participants (140 women) completed individual difference measures, including a mental rotation test (MRT) and questionnaires on gender stereotypes and growth mindsets about navigation ability.

The influence of individual characteristics on perceived restorativeness and benefits associated with exposure to nature in a garden.

This study newly explored the relationship between individual characteristics (i.e., connectedness to nature, a preference for natural rather than built environments, personality, visuospatial preferences) with perceived restorativeness, as well as affective and memory-related benefits of exposure to the nature.

Adapt, Explore, or Keep Going? The Role of Adaptability, Curiosity, and Perseverance in a Network of Study-Related Factors and Scholastic Success.

Soft skills are the key characteristics for students' success and wellbeing in the 21st century, but they were only rarely studied contemporarily or integrated into comprehensive models of self-regulated learning. This makes it difficult to understand the role that specific skills have above and beyond the others and how they work together to favor students' achievement and life satisfaction. For this reason, in a sample of 585 students (10-18 years old), we applied an exploratory network analysis and studied three crucial soft skills (i.

Academic Achievement and Satisfaction Among University Students With Specific Learning Disabilities: The Roles of Soft Skills and Study-Related Factors.

Understanding the individual qualities sustaining students with and without specific learning disabilities (SLDs) is key to supporting their academic achievement and well-being. In this study, we investigated the differences between students with and without SLDs in terms of intraindividual factors (soft skills and study-related factors), academic and nonacademic outcomes (achievement, academic and life satisfaction), and the relationships between such intraindividual factors and the three outcomes. A total of 318 students (79 males; = 22.

Adaptability and emotional, behavioural and cognitive aspects of self-regulated learning: Direct and indirect relations with academic achievement and life satisfaction.

Background: Adaptability regulates individuals' cognitive, behavioural and emotional responses to new, unexpected and uncertain situations, but to date no study has analysed whether adaptability contemporarily favours cognitive, behavioural and emotional aspects of learning.

Aims: This study aims to address this gap by examining (i) the direct relations between adaptability and achievement emotions, self-regulated learning strategies and academic self-efficacy and (ii) the direct and indirect relations between adaptability and academic achievement and life satisfaction through and over the other study-related factors.

Sample: A total of 1083 students (415 males, M  = 13.

Bioprotective potential of lactic acid bacteria and their metabolites against enterotoxigenic .

is one of the main pathogens that impacts swine production. Given the need for methods for its control, the effect of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and their metabolites against F4 was evaluated through cell culture and microbiological analysis. The strains 5.

Sport Practice, Fluid Reasoning, and Soft Skills in 10- to 18-Year-Olds.

Engaging in physical activity and sports has been associated with various cognitive abilities and other personal characteristics. The contemporary link between doing sports and personal attributes such as soft skills and an individual's cognitive abilities have yet to be investigated, however. This study aims to analyze the association between years of practicing a sport, cognitive abilities (in terms of fluid reasoning), and personal attributes (in terms of soft skills).

Individuals with Down Syndrome: Editorial.

Down syndrome (DS) is the most common syndromic cause of intellectual disability, so it has long been of interest to researchers [...

Orientation Experiences and Navigation Aid Use: A Self-Report Lifespan Study on the Role of Age and Visuospatial Factors.

Spatial orientation is essential for daily life, but it deteriorates with aging. The present study was aimed at investigating age changes across the adult lifespan in the self-reported use of navigation aids and everyday orientation experiences, as well as investigating to what extent these are related to visuospatial working memory (VSWM) and self-reported wayfinding inclinations. A sample of 456 people aged 25-84 years rated how much they use navigation aids (maps, GPS, verbal directions), how much they went out, and how much they reached or lost their way to unfamiliar destinations (in 2016).

The practice of speleology: What is its relationship with spatial abilities?

Given the evidence of motor and exploring activities being related to spatial abilities on different scales, the present study considers the case of speleology, a peculiar underground exploratory activity. The relation of this practice with spatial abilities was examined. The study compares a group of expert speleologists (18), a group with a reduced amount of experience in speleology (19 novice speleologists), and a group with a similar amount of practice but in the outdoors (19 experts mountaineers).

Developmental trajectories of spatial-sequential and spatial-simultaneous working memory in Down syndrome.

Background: Working memory (WM) is generally considered an area of weakness in the cognitive profile associated with Down syndrome (DS). The great majority of studies explored WM in this population through a comparison with typical development (TD) on the basis of mental age or developmental level. However, it is also relevant to understand how these skills develop and whether such development could be more related to chronological or developmental level.

Effectiveness of Therapeutic Gardens for People with Dementia: A Systematic Review.

This paper is a systematic review of quantitative studies conducted on the benefits of visiting gardens and gardening therapy for people with dementia (PWD) in an effort to assess the effectiveness of such treatments and obtain information on the most appropriate garden design for this population. This review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA) guidelines. Four databases were searched (PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, Scopus), with no time limits.

Spatial Learning in a Virtual Environment: The Role of Self-Efficacy Feedback and Individual Visuospatial Factors.

We examined the roles self-efficacy plays in environmental learning in terms of self-efficacy feedback and task-specific (navigation-based) self-efficacy. We manipulated self-efficacy using positive and neutral feedback to investigate the relationship between receiving positive feedback and environmental learning performance and subsequent recall. A total of 231 participants were administered visuospatial tasks, where 117 received positive feedback, and 114 received neutral feedback.

Map Learning in Aging Individuals: The Role of Cognitive Functioning and Visuospatial Factors.

Aging coincides with a decline in map learning ability, but it is unclear to what extent different aspects of the mental representation are susceptible. The present study aimed to investigate knowledge about landmarks, their positions and distances (categorical and distance relations, respectively) in relation to aging as well as cognitive functioning (measured with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment [MoCA]), visuospatial abilities, and self-reported wayfinding inclinations. Thirty young adults and 60 older adults (30 aged 63-74 and 30 aged 75-86) learned a map, freely recalled the landmarks and performed a map drawing task (considering the number of landmarks missing, position accuracy and distance accuracy).