Abstract
During the COVID-19 lockdown, individuals were forced to remain at home, hence severely limiting the interaction within environmental stimuli, reducing the cognitive load placed on spatial competences. The effects of the behavioral restriction on cognition have been little examined. The present study is aimed at analyzing the effects of lockdown on executive function prominently involved in adapting behavior to new environmental demands. We analyze non-verbal fluency abilities, as indirectly providing a measure of cognitive flexibility to react to spatial changes. Sixteen students (mean age 20.75; SD 1.34), evaluated before the start of the lockdown (T1) in a battery of psychological tasks exploring different cognitive domains, have been reassessed during lockdown (T2). The assessment included the modified Five-Point Test (m-FPT) to analyze non-verbal fluency abilities. At T2, the students were also administered the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). The restriction of behaviors following a lockdown determines increased non-verbal fluency, evidenced by the significant increase of the number of new drawings. We found worsened verbal span, while phonemic verbal fluency remained unchanged. Interestingly, we observed a significant tendency to use the left part of each box in the m-FPT correlated with TAS-20 and with the subscales that assess difficulty in describing and identifying feelings. Although our data were collected from a small sample, they evidence that the restriction of behaviors determines a leftward bias, suggesting a greater activation of the right hemisphere, intrinsically connected with the processing of non-verbal information and with the need to manage an emotional situation.
Highlights
The lockdown imposed to contain the spreading of COVID-19 has made it difficult to maintain healthy habits, such as physical activity and social relations, with consequences on psychological well-being and efficient cognitive functioning
To a lesser extent, the effects of quarantine or social isolation on cognitive functioning are mainly documented in terms of behavioral strategies put into action to cope with the restriction period (Boss et al, 2015; for review, see Pera, 2020), recently, it was shown that social isolation determines a worsening of cognitive functioning in later life (Evans, 2019) and in clinical dementia (Tilvis et al, 2000)
We found a significant difference only for the forward digits test in which the participants exhibit a worsening in T2 (T1 = 6.5 ± 0.63; T2 = 5.9 ± 0.57)
Summary
The lockdown imposed to contain the spreading of COVID-19 has made it difficult to maintain healthy habits, such as physical activity and social relations (excluding virtual ones), with consequences on psychological well-being and efficient cognitive functioning. The scientific literature concerning similar pandemics, such as the SARS epidemic, demonstrated that quarantine negatively affects psychological well-being, leading to the development of post-traumatic stress symptoms (Reynolds et al, 2008; Castelli et al, 2020; Lardone et al, 2020) To this regard, there are many studies that document a strong relation between COVID19 quarantine and the onset of stress or stress-related behaviors (Brooks et al, 2020; Lardone et al, 2020; Pisano et al, 2020; Zurlo et al, 2020) among other things, more observed in females (Mazza et al, 2020) and in those who are younger (≤40 years) (Xiong et al, 2020). While isolation contributes to the acceleration of the aging processes and relates to global cognitive decline in the elderly, in young people, loneliness is correlated to the worsening of executive functions (Cacioppo and Hawkley, 2009), which are strongly affected by the environmental context (Montuori et al, 2019)
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