Carlo Chiorri
University of Genova, Anthropological Sciences, Faculty Member
- Education, Research Methodology, Statistics, Data Analysis, Psychometrics, Learning Styles, and 10 moreQuantitative Research, Personality Disorders, Individual Differences, Body Image, Multivariate Data Analysis, Personality Assessment, Eating Disorders and Body Image, Cross-Cultural Assessment, Cognitive Styles And Learning Differences In Design Education, and Cognitive Stylesedit
It is an handbook that explains the main psychometric theories and the statistical techniques needed to develop a sound psychological test. Chapter 1 is a historical and theoretical review about measurement of psychological variables.... more
It is an handbook that explains the main psychometric theories and the statistical techniques needed to develop a sound psychological test. Chapter 1 is a historical and theoretical review about measurement of psychological variables. Chapter 2 deals with the paramount importance of defining the content domain of the construct, its operationalizations and the target population as first steps to develop a psychological test, and considers the main approaches to scaling (classical test theory and item response theory). Chapter 3 explains how to develop items avoinding biases due to poor wording and technical shorcomings. Chapter 4 deals with the investigation of content and face validity and with item analysis. Chapter 5 describes factor analysis and the assessment of construct and criterion validity. Chapter 6 deals with score standardization and norms development. Online materials are also provided on the publisher's website: "Approfondimenti" (additional material about topics not covered in the book, more detailed descriptions of statistical models, etc.), and "Strumenti Informatici" (how to perform the statistical analyses described in the book and in the supplemental material with SPSS, Excel, R, Mplus, FACTOR).
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It is an handbook of introductory statistics for psychologists. Chapter 1 introduces the basic concepts of psychometrics (measurement in psychology, tests, items, reliability, validity, etc.), Chapter 2 presents basic descriptive... more
It is an handbook of introductory statistics for psychologists. Chapter 1 introduces the basic concepts of psychometrics (measurement in psychology, tests, items, reliability, validity, etc.), Chapter 2 presents basic descriptive statistics, Chapter 3 introduces probability, combinatorics and the logic of hypothesis testing, Chapter 4, 5 and 6 explain how to perform analysis with one, two and three or more samples, respectively, for nominal, ordinal and metric dependent variables, Chapter 7 deals with methods for assessing bivariate association. Exercises and questions are provided at the end of each chapter to help readers test their understanding of concepts and statistical procedures. Online materials are also provided on the publisher's website: there are solutions to exercises, "Approfondimenti" (additional material about history of psychology and psychometrics and more detailed statistical tests, like post-hoc tests, power analysis, etc.), and "Strumenti Informatici" (how to perform the statistical tests described in the handbook with Excel and SPSS).
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L'articolo di Tylka e Wilcox (2006), del quale in questo volume è stata presentata, almeno in parte, la traduzione italiana, ha mostrato come gli aspetti adattivi del comportamento alimentare non rappresentino l'esatto opposto... more
L'articolo di Tylka e Wilcox (2006), del quale in questo volume è stata presentata, almeno in parte, la traduzione italiana, ha mostrato come gli aspetti adattivi del comportamento alimentare non rappresentino l'esatto opposto di quelli potenzialmente patologici, ma qualcosa di qualitativamente diverso. Anche quando è stata rimossa statisticamente la quota di variabilità delle misure di benessere spiegata dalla sintomatologia dei disturbi del comportamento alimentare (DCA), infatti, i punteggi di Intuitive Eating riuscivano a ...
The definition of Intuitive Eating as a psychological construct was developed in opposition to dieting movements that proposed controlled meal plans, avoidance of taboo foods and restricted intake of fat grams and calories. An eating... more
The definition of Intuitive Eating as a psychological construct was developed in opposition to dieting movements that proposed controlled meal plans, avoidance of taboo foods and restricted intake of fat grams and calories. An eating behavior more consistent with one's internal physiological hunger and satiety cues was thus suggested in order to achieve both an adequate body weight and psychophysical well-being. Tylka (2006) developed the Intuitive Eating Scale (IES), a questionnaire that assesses three main facets of intuitive ...
Oltre alle competenze effettivamente possedute, le credenze e gli atteggiamenti degli insegnanti relativamente all’impiego delle Tecnologie dell’Informazione e della Comunicazione (TIC) giocano un ruolo fondamentale nell’integrazione di... more
Oltre alle competenze effettivamente possedute, le credenze e gli atteggiamenti degli insegnanti relativamente all’impiego delle Tecnologie dell’Informazione e della Comunicazione (TIC) giocano un ruolo fondamentale nell’integrazione di questi strumenti nei diversi contesti educativi. Questi atteggiamenti possono essere misurati mediante la Intrapersonal Techonology Integration Scale (ITIS) di Niederhauser e Perkmen (2008). Il presente studio ha l’obiettivo di adattare in italiano lo strumento e di valutarne le proprietà psicometriche. 144 insegnanti (%F = 85,4, età media 46,63±8,70 anni) appartenenti a scuole di ogni ordine e grado hanno compilato lo strumento insieme a una breve scheda socio-demografica e a un questionario di auto-valutazione delle proprie competenze nell’uso delle tecnologie; un sottoinsieme di questi insegnanti (n=61) ha compilato anche una scala per la valutazione dell’efficacia personale percepita in ambito scolastico. I risultati hanno mostrato che, per quanto riguarda la struttura fattoriale e l’attendibilità delle sotto-scale, la versione italiana della ITIS presenta proprietà psicometriche sovrapponibili a quelle della versione originale e hanno fornito supporto empirico alla validità di costrutto della scala, che si propone quindi come uno strumento in grado di fornire informazioni valide e attendibili circa gli atteggiamenti degli insegnanti verso le TIC.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Change detection performance is influenced by a number of factors, among which is the informativeness of targets. It has not been clarified, yet, whether the highly informative regions have a processing priority as a result of resource... more
Change detection performance is influenced by a number of factors, among which is the informativeness of targets. It has not been clarified, yet, whether the highly informative regions have a processing priority as a result of resource deployment from other tasks or whether it results from a better resource management. In this paper, we adopted a change detection paradigm in which thirty participants were randomly assigned to two groups: single (change detection task) and dual task [change detection and a simplified version of the Paced Auditory Serial Oppository Task (PASOT, Gow and Deary in J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 26:723-736, 2004), which implies a verbal effort]. Stimulus informativeness was defined as social relevance, that is, changing targets were people (high relevance) versus objects (low relevance), all other aspects (i.e., salience and position in the scene) kept constant. As hypothesized, data analyses showed a significant main effect of social relevance and task condition, i.e., better change detection performance and lower change detection times for people versus objects and for single than for dual task condition. Interestingly, the PASOT accuracy remained stable across the person versus object trials, thus implying that the better performance with socially relevant targets could not be explained by a resources withdrawal from the secondary task.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Perception, Cognition, and 18 moreVisual perception, Attention, Resource Allocation, Social Perception, Time Perception, Space perception, Vision, Humans, Change detection, Female, Male, Reaction Time, Young Adult, Cognitive Processing, Dual Task, Adult, Psychomotor Performance, and Neuropsychological Tests
Sexual Orientation-Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (SO-OCD) is characterized by intrusive thoughts, images, and urges related to one's sexual orientation, and by consequent avoidance, reassurance seeking, and... more
Sexual Orientation-Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (SO-OCD) is characterized by intrusive thoughts, images, and urges related to one's sexual orientation, and by consequent avoidance, reassurance seeking, and overt and covert compulsions. Currently there is no short self-report measure that assesses SO-OCD symptoms. The current article describes two studies that develop and evaluate the first version of the Sexual Orientation Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (SO-OCS), a 14-item Italian self-report measure targeted towards heterosexual individuals. In Study 1, the SO-OCS was developed and refined through item analysis and exploratory factor analysis from an initial pool of 33 items administered to 732 Italian nonclinical participants. The SO-OCS showed a unidimensional structure and an acceptable internal consistency. In Study 2, the factor structure, internal consistency, temporal stability, construct and criterion validity, and diagnostic sensitivity of the SO-OCS were investigated in three samples of Italian participants (294 from the general population, 52 OCD patients who reported sexual orientation-related symptoms or concerns as a primary complaint, and 51 OCD patients who did not report these symptoms as primary complaint). The SO-OCS was again found to have a unidimensional structure and good internal consistency, as well as to exhibit strong construct validity. Specifically, the SO-OCS showed an excellent criterion validity and diagnostic sensitivity, as it successfully discriminated between those with SO-OCD and all other groups of participants. Finally, evidence of temporal stability of the SO-OCS in a nonclinical subsample was found. The SO-OCS holds promise as a measure of SO-OCD symptoms in heterosexual individuals.
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In this study, three different subtypes of Space responses to the Rorschach test were hypothesized: S-fusion, S-reversal, and S-integration. The relationship between these subtypes and feelings of anger and aggression was investigated.... more
In this study, three different subtypes of Space responses to the Rorschach test were hypothesized: S-fusion, S-reversal, and S-integration. The relationship between these subtypes and feelings of anger and aggression was investigated. The Rorschach test, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-2 (STAXI-2), and the Aggression Questionnaire (AQ) were administered to 50 university students. Scores on the STAXI-2 were positively associated with S-fusion and negatively associated with S-integration. No significant associations of S subtypes with aggression were found. The findings support the hypothesis that different figure-ground relationships, shown in the subtypes of S responses, indicate different psychological processes.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Anger, Personality, Anxiety, and 8 moreHumans, Aggression, Female, Male, Young Adult, Adult, ANXIETY, and Psychological Reports
To provide plastic surgeons with more detailed information as to factors affecting the perception of female attractiveness, the present study was aimed to investigate whether the interaction effect of breast and body size on ratings of... more
To provide plastic surgeons with more detailed information as to factors affecting the perception of female attractiveness, the present study was aimed to investigate whether the interaction effect of breast and body size on ratings of female attractiveness is moderated by sociodemographic variables and whether ratings of shapeliness diverge from those of attractiveness.A community sample of 958 Italian participants rated the attractiveness and the shapeliness of 15 stimuli (5 breast sizes × 3 body sizes) in which frontal, 3/4, and profile views of the head and torso of a faceless woman were jointly shown.Bigger breast sizes obtained the highest attractiveness ratings, but the breast-by-body size interaction was also significant. Evidence was found of a moderator role of sex, marital status, and age. When the effects of breast and body size and their interaction had been ruled out, sex differences were at best very slight and limited to very specific combinations of breast and body ...
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Object imagery refers to the ability to construct pictorial images of objects. Individuals with high object imagery (high-OI) produce more vivid mental images than individuals with low object imagery (low-OI), and they encode and process... more
Object imagery refers to the ability to construct pictorial images of objects. Individuals with high object imagery (high-OI) produce more vivid mental images than individuals with low object imagery (low-OI), and they encode and process both mental images and visual stimuli in a more global and holistic way. In the present study, we investigated whether and how level of object imagery may affect the way in which individuals identify visual objects. High-OI and low-OI participants were asked to perform a visual identification task with spatially-filtered pictures of real objects. Each picture was presented at nine levels of filtering, starting from the most blurred (level 1: only low spatial frequencies--global configuration) and gradually adding high spatial frequencies up to the complete version (level 9: global configuration plus local and internal details). Our data showed that high-OI participants identified stimuli at a lower level of filtering than participants with low-OI, indicating that they were better able than low-OI participants to identify visual objects at lower spatial frequencies. Implications of the results and future developments are discussed.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Psychophysics, Philosophy, Perception, and 17 moreNonparametric Statistics, Cognition, Imagination, Adolescent, Space perception, Vision, Humans, Mental Imagery, Female, Male, Cognitive Processing, Spatial Frequency, Questionnaires, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Spatial Filtering, and Level
This study is aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of a physician-centered communication skills training program on cancer patient anxiety levels. In this quasi-experimental study, physicians from 9 units of 5 general hospitals and 1... more
This study is aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of a physician-centered communication skills training program on cancer patient anxiety levels. In this quasi-experimental study, physicians from 9 units of 5 general hospitals and 1 cancer research institute were recruited. The unit heads chose which physicians would attend the training program (treatment group) and which would not (control group). The effectiveness of the course was evaluated by assessing the evolution of state anxiety in a sample of cancer patients before and after clinical consultations. Thirty-eight physicians and 339 outpatients were assessed. Patients from the treatment and control groups did not differ in pre-examination anxiety or psychological distress levels. Patients examined by physicians from the treatment group displayed a higher decrease in state-anxiety levels compared with those examined by physicians from the control group. A higher proportion of high anxiety levels was found in women, in less educated patients, and in those with a high distress level. Our findings suggest the effectiveness of the communication skills training program with reference to patient anxiety levels. Given the potential gap between training and clinical impact, further studies investigating the effect of communication training on patient outcomes are needed.
Research Interests: Communication, Anxiety, Humans, Medical Oncology, Female, and 9 moreMale, Physicians, Aged, Middle Aged, Outpatients, Adult, Neoplasms, ANXIETY, and Clinical Competence
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Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) typically fail to support the a priori 5-factor structure of Big Five self-report instruments, due in part to the overly restrictive CFA assumptions. We show that exploratory structural equation... more
Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) typically fail to support the a priori 5-factor structure of Big Five self-report instruments, due in part to the overly restrictive CFA assumptions. We show that exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM), an integration of CFA and exploratory factor analysis, overcomes these problems in relation to responses to the 44-item Big Five Inventory (BFI) administered to a large Italian community sample. ESEM fitted the data better and resulted in less correlated factors than CFA, although ESEM and CFA factor scores correlated at near unity with observed raw scores. Tests of gender invariance with a 13-model taxonomy of full measurement invariance showed that the factor structure of the BFI is gender-invariant and that women score higher on Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness. Through ESEM one could address substantively important issues about BFI psychometric properties that could not be appropriately addressed through traditional approaches.
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ABSTRACT The present study revisited the unresolved issue of the long-term effects of part-time working intensity during high school on students’ achievement, participation in postsecondary education, time allocation, and work-related... more
ABSTRACT The present study revisited the unresolved issue of the long-term effects of part-time working intensity during high school on students’ achievement, participation in postsecondary education, time allocation, and work-related values and expectations. Using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (N = 14,654), the effects of part-time working in Year 12 on outcomes assessed at graduation from high school and 2 years later were studied with propensity score methods for categorical treatments. Three theoretical perspectives on the effects of part-time working intensity (subversion of academic goals, character building, threshold model) were contrasted. Substantively, there were negative linear effects of working intensity on achievement outcomes. Results for higher education participation partly supported a threshold model. Heterogeneous effects for self-reported time use and work-related values suggested that the negative effects on achievement outcomes were not due to a simple zero-sum game. Ironically, working with high intensity led students to value having a good job more strongly but might undermine their chances of achieving this goal. However, these effects were only recognized 2 years after high school graduation, when occupational expectations were negatively affected by working intensity in Year 12. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)
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Previous research has suggested that personality traits of the Five Factor Model play a role in worker's response to workload. The aim of this study was to... more
Previous research has suggested that personality traits of the Five Factor Model play a role in worker's response to workload. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of personality traits of first responders with their perceived workload in real-life tasks. A flying column of 269 police officers completed a measure of subjective workload (NASA-Task Load Index) after intervention tasks in a major public event. Officers' scores on a measure of Five Factor Model personality traits were obtained from archival data. Linear Mixed Modeling was used to test the direct and interaction effects of personality traits on workload scores once controlling for background variables, task type and workload source (mental, temporal and physical demand of the task, perceived effort, dissatisfaction for the performance and frustration due to the task). All personality traits except extraversion significantly interacted at least with one workload source. Perceived workload in flying column police officers appears to be the result of their personality characteristics interacting with the workload source. The implications of these results for the development of support measures aimed at reducing the impact of workload in this category of workers are discussed.
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A series of studies evaluated the psychometric properties of Olatunji and co-workers (2007)'s Disgust Scale-Revised with items rated on a 5-point, Likert-type scale (DS-RL) in four non-clinical samples. In Study 1, the factor... more
A series of studies evaluated the psychometric properties of Olatunji and co-workers (2007)'s Disgust Scale-Revised with items rated on a 5-point, Likert-type scale (DS-RL) in four non-clinical samples. In Study 1, the factor structure of the DS-RL was investigated through exploratory factor analyses and the one-factor solution proved to be the most adequate. In Study 2, alternative measurement models for the DS-RL items were tested through confirmatory factor analysis, and again the results supported unidimensionality. In Study 3, DS-RL was administered together with measures of hypochondriasis, OCD symptomatology, need for cognitive closure, trait anxiety, orthorexia, emotional regulation and social desirability. Results showed support for the discriminant validity of the DS-RL since significant correlations with measures of fear of contamination preference for order, and discomfort with ambiguity were found. In Study 4, the DS-RL was administered twice at a 4-week interval an...
This study investigated the factors that affect reading ability and can play a substantial role in developmental dyslexia by testing Moscovitch and Umiltà (1990)’s comprehensive model. This model is multicomponential and takes into... more
This study investigated the factors that affect reading ability and can play a substantial role in developmental dyslexia by testing Moscovitch and Umiltà (1990)’s comprehensive model. This model is multicomponential and takes into account all the subcomponents (executive, attentional, linguistic, visual perceptual) of reading ability. Participants were 12 4th grade dyslexic children and a control group of 58 children of the same age, whose performance in the subcomponents of reading ability was assessed and compared through a battery of standardized tests. Multiple regression models were specified to investigate the relative contribution of each subcomponent to reading and comprehension performance. The results have highlighted the role played by language, visual perception, attentional processes and executive control in the comparison among the groups and in the search for text reading, writing and comprehension predictors. Overall, the results of the two studies appear to converg...
This study examines the association of some personal factors (perceived competence, resilience, and perfectionism) and a situational factor (motivational climate created by coaches) with burnout in a sample of Ligurian young athletes... more
This study examines the association of some personal factors (perceived competence, resilience, and perfectionism) and a situational factor (motivational climate created by coaches) with burnout in a sample of Ligurian young athletes practicing individual and team sports. The results showed that self-oriented perfectionism was negatively correlated with all the dimensions of burnout (psycho-physical exhaustion, reduced sense of personal accomplishment, and sport devaluation), whereas resilience seems to be a protective factor only for the reduced sense of personal accomplishment. Moreover, the three dimensions of burnout were positively correlated with performance climate and negatively correlated with mastery climate. The results of this study suggest that coaches should promote a mastery climate to prevent burnout in their athletes.
Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) typically fail to support the a priori 5-factor structure of Big Five self-report instruments, due in part to the overly restrictive CFA assumptions. We show that exploratory structural equation... more
Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) typically fail to support the a priori 5-factor structure of Big Five self-report instruments, due in part to the overly restrictive CFA assumptions. We show that exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM), an integration of CFA and exploratory factor analysis, overcomes these problems in relation to responses to the 44-item Big Five Inventory (BFI) administered to a large Italian community sample. ESEM fitted the data better and resulted in less correlated factors than CFA, although ESEM and CFA factor scores correlated at near unity with observed raw scores. Tests of gender invariance with a 13-model taxonomy of full measurement invariance showed that the factor structure of the BFI is gender-invariant and that women score higher on Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness. Through ESEM one could address substantively important issues about BFI psychometric properties that could not be appropriately addressed through ...
Research Interests:
In the present study we examined whether higher levels of object imagery, a stable characteristic that reflects the ability and preference in generating pictorial mental images of objects, facilitate involuntary and voluntary retrieval of... more
In the present study we examined whether higher levels of object imagery, a stable characteristic that reflects the ability and preference in generating pictorial mental images of objects, facilitate involuntary and voluntary retrieval of autobiographical memories (ABMs). Individuals with high (High-OI) and low (Low-OI) levels of object imagery were asked to perform an involuntary and a voluntary ABM task in the laboratory. Results showed that High-OI participants generated more involuntary and voluntary ABMs than Low-OI, with faster retrieval times. High-OI also reported more detailed memories compared to Low-OI and retrieved memories as visual images. Theoretical implications of these findings for research on voluntary and involuntary ABMs are discussed.
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The present study investigates the relationship between violent false memories and delinquent and aggressive behavior in a sample of adolescents. Two hundred eleven participants completed measures of aggressive and delinquent behavior and... more
The present study investigates the relationship between violent false memories and delinquent and aggressive behavior in a sample of adolescents. Two hundred eleven participants completed measures of aggressive and delinquent behavior and performed a modified version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, a false memory task for lists of associated words. Participants were presented with a list of ambiguously violent words and three lists of neutral words. For each list a free recall task was performed. Violent false memories were significantly associated with delinquent behaviors in both genders, whereas a significant correlation with aggressive behaviors was found only in males. A multilevel multiple regression showed that the prediction of delinquent behaviors was improved by entering violent false memories into the model as a further predictor, whereas no effect was found for aggressive behaviors. These findings indicate a significant association of violent false memori...
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Research Interests: Psychology, Personality, Life Style, Body Image, Adolescent, and 17 moreItaly, Self Efficacy, Students, Humans, Female, Male, Cluster Analysis, Body Mass Index, Feeding Behavior, Eating, Clinical Sciences, Self Concept, Questionnaires, Food habits, Analysis of Variance, Adolescent Behavior, and Motor activity
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Italian adaptation of the Intrapersonal Technology Integration Scale, a measure of teachers' attitudes towards Information and Communication Technology (ICT) | Adattamento italiano della Intrapersonal Technology Integration Scale, uno strumento per misurare gli atteggiamenti degli insegnanti nei ...more
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Research Interests:
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Visual information is imperative when developing a concrete and context-sensitive understanding of how music performance is perceived. Recent studies highlight natural, automatic, and nonconscious dependence on visual cues that ultimately... more
Visual information is imperative when developing a concrete and context-sensitive understanding of how music performance is perceived. Recent studies highlight natural, automatic, and nonconscious dependence on visual cues that ultimately refer to body expressions observed in the musician. The current study investigated how the social context of a performing musician (eg playing alone or within an ensemble) and the musical expertise of the perceivers influence the strategies used to understand and decode the visual features of music performance. Results revealed that both perceiver groups, nonmusicians and musicians, have a higher sensitivity towards gaze information; therefore, an impoverished stimulus such as a point-light display is insufficient to understand the social context in which the musician is performing. Implications for these findings are discussed.
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Research Interests:
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ABSTRACT The present study revisited the unresolved issue of the long-term effects of part-time working intensity during high school on students’ achievement, participation in postsecondary education, time allocation, and work-related... more
ABSTRACT The present study revisited the unresolved issue of the long-term effects of part-time working intensity during high school on students’ achievement, participation in postsecondary education, time allocation, and work-related values and expectations. Using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (N = 14,654), the effects of part-time working in Year 12 on outcomes assessed at graduation from high school and 2 years later were studied with propensity score methods for categorical treatments. Three theoretical perspectives on the effects of part-time working intensity (subversion of academic goals, character building, threshold model) were contrasted. Substantively, there were negative linear effects of working intensity on achievement outcomes. Results for higher education participation partly supported a threshold model. Heterogeneous effects for self-reported time use and work-related values suggested that the negative effects on achievement outcomes were not due to a simple zero-sum game. Ironically, working with high intensity led students to value having a good job more strongly but might undermine their chances of achieving this goal. However, these effects were only recognized 2 years after high school graduation, when occupational expectations were negatively affected by working intensity in Year 12. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)
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Object imagery refers to the ability to construct pictorial images of objects. Individuals with high object imagery (high-OI) produce more vivid mental images than individuals with low object imagery (low-OI), and they encode and process... more
Object imagery refers to the ability to construct pictorial images of objects. Individuals with high object imagery (high-OI) produce more vivid mental images than individuals with low object imagery (low-OI), and they encode and process both mental images and visual stimuli in a more global and holistic way. In the present study, we investigated whether and how level of object imagery may affect the way in which individuals identify visual objects. High-OI and low-OI participants were asked to perform a visual identification task with spatially-filtered pictures of real objects. Each picture was presented at nine levels of filtering, starting from the most blurred (level 1: only low spatial frequencies--global configuration) and gradually adding high spatial frequencies up to the complete version (level 9: global configuration plus local and internal details). Our data showed that high-OI participants identified stimuli at a lower level of filtering than participants with low-OI, indicating that they were better able than low-OI participants to identify visual objects at lower spatial frequencies. Implications of the results and future developments are discussed.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Psychophysics, Philosophy, Perception, and 17 moreNonparametric Statistics, Cognition, Imagination, Adolescent, Space perception, Vision, Humans, Mental Imagery, Female, Male, Cognitive Processing, Spatial Frequency, Questionnaires, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Spatial Filtering, and Level
Parent ratings of their children’s behavioral and emotional difficulties are commonly collected via the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). For the first time, this study addressed the issue of interparent agreement using a... more
Parent ratings of their children’s behavioral and emotional difficulties are commonly collected via the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). For the first time, this study addressed the issue of interparent agreement using a measurement invariance approach. Data from 695 English couples (mothers and fathers) who had rated the behavior of their 4.25-year-old child were used. Given the inconsistency of previous results about the SDQ factor structure, alternative measurement models were tested. A five-factor Exploratory Structural Equation Model allowing for nonzero cross-loadings fitted data best. Subsequent invariance analyses revealed that the SDQ factor structure is adequately invariant across parents, with interrater correlations ranging from .67 to .78. Fathers reported significantly higher levels of child conduct problems, hyperactivity, and emotional symptoms, and lower levels of prosocial behavior. This suggests that mothers and fathers each provide unique information across a range of their child’s behavioral and emotional problems.
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While the use of social networks (SNs) and social media is increasingly permeating all sectors of the global society, in Italy there is an ongoing debate about its advantages and drawbacks for learning, especially within formal... more
While the use of social networks (SNs) and social media is increasingly permeating all sectors of the global society, in Italy there is an ongoing debate about its advantages and drawbacks for learning, especially within formal educational contexts. In order to contribute to such a debate, a study has been conducted, aimed to investigate the Italian university students' beliefs about the positive and negative effects of social networking on their learning and to identify any correlation between such beliefs and the students' characteristics. This chapter reports and discusses the results of the study, which was based on the data collected through a survey to 336 Italian university students (F = 63.6, 83.8 % aged below 32). Results revealed that Italian university students perceive social networks as useful tools for both improving their learning and connecting with their peers, but also that they are aware of their undesirable consequences, such as experiencing negative emotions, losing concentration and being prevented from engaging in extra-academic activities.