Eysenck’s PEN model is one of the most relevant and fruitful models with empirical support, and continues eliciting a large research corpus. Nevertheless, the systematic limitations regarding the psychoticism dimension and questionable inclusion of social desirability as a personality dimension have limited the model. The current research aimed to estimate an alternativePEN model including social desirability as a control and test its validity and reliability. This sample consists of 2969 Spanish young adults. Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out to test the fitting of four different models tothe data. Once the best-fitting model was obtained, multiple-group analyses were carried out to assess the configural, metric, and scalar invariance of themodel across sexes. The results showed that the three-dimension PEN model and two-dimension EN model controlling social desirability best fit the dataand were invariant across sexes. Despite the apparent appropriateness of both models, the EN model controlling for social desirability is more appropriate due to the weakness of the P dimension.

The role of affective states on the creative process has been receiving the attention of researchers and has led to contradictory results. Most research in creativity has emphasized the role of affective states, mainly positive ones, on creativity levels, namely those resulting from divergent thinking tasks that reveal the unconventional way of thinking in the creative process. However, there are no studies to date that focus on the impact of affective states on conventional and unconventional thinking, during the same creative process, which consider a single creative assessment task. The aim of this experimental study was to analyze the effect of induced affective states on both conventional and unconventional thinking of creativity in adults by using the TCT-DP (Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production). Seventy-five university students, mostly female, with a mean age of 26.95 years, were randomly assigned into three affect elicitation conditions (pleasant vs. unpleasant vs. neutral). Results indicated that the negative affective state led to higher levels of conventional thinking when compared to positive and neutral affective states. However, no significant differences were found on unconventional thinking across the three conditions. Our results do not support the assumption that the negative affect has a hindering effect on creativity nor the positive affect increases creativity. Negative affect seems to promote conventional thinking, perhaps due to its cognitive correlates, which can be manifested in focusing attention and analytic thinking. Practical and theoretical implications for future research on the role of affective states on creativity are discussed.

High variation in the low-level proprieties of visual stimuli and varying degrees of familiarity with famous faces may have caused a bias in the results of investigations that tried to disentangle the processes involved in familiar and unfamiliar face processing (e.g., temporal differences in the detection of the first event-related potentials specialized in face processing may have been caused by different methods of controlling variance in the low-level proprieties of visual stimuli). To address these problems, we developed a freely available database of 183 famous faces whose low-level proprieties (brightness, size, resolution) have been homogenized and the level of familiarity established. The brightness of the stimuli was standardized by a custom-developed algorithm. The size and the resolution of the pictures were homogenized in Gimp. The familiarity level of the famous faces was established by a group of 48 Portuguese college students. Our results suggest that the brightness of each image did not differ significantly from the mean brightness value of the stimuli set, confirming the standardizing ability of the algorithm. Forty-one famous faces were classified as highly familiar. This study provides two important resources, as both the algorithm and the database are freely available for research purposes. The homogenization of the low-level features and the control of the level of familiarity of the famous faces included in our database should ensure that they do not elicit confounding effects such as the ones verified in past studies.

Stress is fundamental for health and adaptation; it is an evolutionarily conserved response that involves several systems in the organism. The study of the stress response could be traced back to the end of the nineteenth century with George Beard's or Claude Bernard's work and, from that moment on, several studies that have allowed the elucidation of its neurobiology and the consequences of suffering from it were consolidated. In this theoretical review, we discuss the most relevant researches to our knowledge on the study of stress response, from the concept of stress, its neurobiology, the hormonal response during stress, as well as its regulation, the effects of acute and chronic stress, stress from cognition, the different stress responses during life, as well as its relationship with different psychiatric disorders. Taken together, the reviewed research updates the classic perspective on stress, increasing the factors that should be considered in research to explore the effects of stress on health.

Provide new validity evidence of the Spanish version of the Massachusetts General Hospital-Sexual Functioning Questionnaire (MGH-SFQ) by associating its scores with measures of sexual arousal. In a sample of 48 men, using a quasi-experimental design, sexual functioning, propensity for sexual inhibition/excitation, subjective sexual arousal, and genital response (penile plethysmography recorded with Biopac MP150 equipment) were evaluated. Arousal and erection scores correlated with sexual inhibition due to the threat of performance failure (r = .29; p < .05) and genital response (r = .31; p < .05), respectively. Participants with difficulties in sexual functioning indicated greater sexual inhibition due to the threat of performance failure (p = .04) and lower intensity in their genital response (p = .05). The validity of the measures obtained with the Spanish version of the MGH-SFQ is supported, showing the erection item to be useful for the detection of possible erectile disorders.

While subcellular components of cognition and affectivity that involve the interaction between experience, environment, and physiology -such as learning, trauma, or emotion- are being identified, the physical mechanisms of phenomenal consciousness remain more elusive. We are interested in exploring whether ancient, simpler organisms such as nematodes have minimal consciousness. Is there something that feels like to be a worm? Or are worms blind machines? 'Simpler' models allow us to simultaneously extract data from multiple levels such as slow and fast neural dynamics, structural connectivity, molecular dynamics, behavior, decision making, etc., and thus, to test predictions of the current frameworks in dispute. In the present critical review, we summarize the current models of consciousness in order to reassess in light of the new evidence whether Caenorhabditis elegans, a nematode with a nervous system composed of 302 neurons, has minimal consciousness. We also suggest empirical paths to further advance consciousness research using C. elegans.

The study provides a comprehensive picture of the effect of subtitles on the gaze behavior of the participants while watching continuity editing and discontinuity editing style cinema. Three video clips (with English subtitles and without subtitles) of continuity editing and discontinuity editing styles were presented to participants. The video clips came from English movies and the participants were not native English speakers. Entry time, dwell time, first fixation time, scan path, and average fixation duration were taken as dependent variables in this within-group study. The eye-tracking data gathered were subjected to repeated measures of two-way ANOVA and paired t-test. Results revealed that the appearance of subtitles at the bottom of the screen changed the eye movement pattern of the participants during the shot changes. Timing of the subtitle starting point (before the cut or after the cut) also affected the gaze behavior. The editing style, however, did not make any difference in the gaze behavior of participants while watching subtitled video clips. Further, participants preferred reading subtitles to seeing visual images even if the subtitles were presented during the shot changes.

Identification of emotional facial expressions (EFEs) is important in interpersonal communication. Six 'universal' EFEs are known, though accuracy of their identification varies. EFEs involve anatomical changes in certain regions of the face, especially eyes and mouth. But whether other areas of the face are just as important in their identification is still debated. This study was conducted to compare the accuracy of identification of universal EFEs under full-face and partial face conditions (only showing the eyes and the mouth regions). An analytical cross-sectional study was conducted among 140 young Indian adults. They were divided into two equal groups and shown the six universal EFEs in two sets, one with full-face images, and the other with images showing just the eyes and the mouth regions on a computer screen. The participants were asked to identify each of the EFE and their responses were analyzed. Mean age was 21.3 1.7 years for full face group, and 21.2 1.6 years for the partial face group. Most were men, from rural areas and from upper socioeconomic status families, and many of them were students. EFE identification was significantly higher for part-face group compared to full-face group (p-value .0007). Participants of both groups identified happiness the best (100%). For other EFEs, part-face images were identified more accurately than full-face images, except for disgust. These differences were statistically significant except for anger and fear. Among young Indian adults, accuracy of identification of universal EFEs was high, which was significantly enhanced for all except disgust, when only combinations of eyes and mouth were shown, suggesting that other facial regions serve as distractors in EFE identification. 1. Identification of universal EFEs was higher from partial faces (combination of eyes and mouth) as compared to full-face EFEs for all emotions except disgust. 2. This suggests that other regions of face serve as potential distractors in the identification of emotions, except for disgust, where these regions provide more information.

Chronotype and Time of Day (ToD) can modulate several aspects of cognitive performance. However, there is limited evidence about the effect of these variables on face recognition performance, so the aim of the present study is to investigate this influence. For this, 274 participants (82.5% females; age 18-49 years old, mean = 27.2, SD = 1.82) were shown 20 short videoclips, each gradually morphing from a general identity unfamiliar face to a famous face. Participants should press the spacebar to stop each video as soon as they could identify the famous face, and then provide the name or an unequivocal description of the person. Analysis of response times (RT) showed that evening-types recognised the faces faster than morning-types. Considering different ToD windows, the effect of chronotype was only significant in the 13h-17h and in the 21h-6h time-windows. Altogether, results suggest an advantage of evening-types on famous face recognition using dynamic stimuli with morning-types, being particularly slower during their non-optimal period.

Sensory perception is one of the most fundamental brain functions, allowing individuals to properly interact and adapt to a constantly changing environment. This process requires the integration of bottom-up and topdown neuronal activity, which is centrally mediated by the basal forebrain, a brain region that has been linked to a series of cognitive processes such as attention and alertness. Here, we review the latest research using optogenetic approaches in rodents and in vivo electrophysiological recordings that are shedding light on the role of this region, in regulating olfactory processing and decisionmaking. Moreover, we summarize evidence highlighting the anatomical and physiological differences in the basal forebrain of individuals with autism spectrum disorder, which could underpin the sensory perception abnormalities they exhibit, and propose this research line as a potential opportunity to understand the neurobiological basis of this disorder.