Individual Differences Research Articles

Trajectories of depressive symptoms in Korean adults with diabetes: Individual differences and associations with life satisfaction and mortality.

We examined trajectories of depressive symptoms and their predictors in adults with diabetes. We assessed whether these trajectories were related to life satisfaction and mortality. Longitudinal, prospective observational study. We analysed data from 1217 adults with diabetes (aged ≥45 years) in the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (2006-2018). Three trajectories of depressive symptomology were identified in growth mixture models: low/stable (i.e., low and stable levels of symptoms; 85.56%), high/decreasing (i.e., high levels of symptoms with a decreasing trajectory; 7.47%), and moderate/increasing (i.e., moderate levels of symptoms with an increasing trajectory; 6.98%). Participants with poor perceived health status at baseline were more likely to be in the moderate/increasing or high/decreasing classes than in the low/stable class. The moderate/increasing class had the lowest satisfaction with quality of life, followed by the high/decreasing and low/stable classes. The moderate/increasing and the high/decreasing classes had lower satisfaction with relationships with spouse and children than the low/stable class. The high/decreasing class had a higher mortality risk than the low/stable class. Long-term monitoring of depressive symptoms in adults with diabetes is warranted given their potential adverse impact on life satisfaction and mortality.

The Ubiquity of Time in Latent-cause Inference.

Humans have an outstanding ability to generalize from past experiences, which requires parsing continuously experienced events into discrete, coherent units, and relating them to similar past experiences. Time is a key element in this process; however, how temporal information is used in generalization remains unclear. Latent-cause inference provides a Bayesian framework for clustering experiences, by building a world model in which related experiences are generated by a shared cause. Here, we examine how temporal information is used in latent-cause inference, using a novel task in which participants see "microbe" stimuli and explicitly report the latent cause ("strain") they infer for each microbe. We show that humans incorporate time in their inference of latent causes, such that recently inferred latent causes are more likely to be inferred again. In particular, a "persistent" model, in which the latent cause inferred for one observation has a fixed probability of continuing to cause the next observation, explains the data significantly better than two other time-sensitive models, although extensive individual differences exist. We show that our task and this model have good psychometric properties, highlighting their potential use for quantifying individual differences in computational psychiatry or in neuroimaging studies.

Revisiting Jerome Kagan and his research legacy: An introduction to a special issue of Developmental Psychology.

This special issue of Developmental Psychology is dedicated to the legacy of Jerome Kagan, whose pioneering work profoundly shaped the field of developmental psychology. Kagan's groundbreaking research on temperament, emotional development, and the role of biology in shaping human behavior provided a foundation for understanding individual differences across the lifespan. The 20 articles featured in this issue reflect the breadth and depth of Kagan's influence, spanning topics such as the biological underpinnings of temperament, the interplay between genetics and environment, and the implications of early temperament for later emotional and social outcomes. These contributions come from leading scholars who build on, critique, and reframe Kagan's work. Each article offers a unique perspective, using diverse methodologies and theoretical approaches. This special issue not only pays tribute to a luminary in the field but also seeks to contribute new insights into the fundamental processes of development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Behavioral and neural correlates of diverse conditioned fear responses in male and female rats

Pavlovian fear conditioning is a widely used tool that models associative learning in rodents. For decades the field has used predominantly male rodents and focused on a sole conditioned fear response: freezing. However, recent work from our lab and others has identified darting as a female-biased conditioned response, characterized by an escape-like movement across a fear conditioning chamber. It is also accompanied by a behavioral phenotype: Darters reliably show decreased freezing compared to Non-darters and males and reach higher velocities in response to the foot shock (“shock response”). However, the relationship between shock response and conditioned darting is not known. This study investigated if this link is due to differences in general processing of aversive stimuli between Darters, Non-darters and males. Across a variety of modalities, including corticosterone measures, the acoustic startle test, and sensitivity to thermal pain, Darters were found not to be more reactive or sensitive to aversive stimuli, and, in some cases, they appear less reactive to Non-darters and males. Analyses of cFos activity in regions involved in pain and fear processing following fear conditioning identified discrete patterns of expression among Darters, Non-darters, and males exposed to low and high intensity foot shocks. The results from these studies further our understanding of the differences between Darters, Non-darters and males and highlight the importance of studying individual differences in fear conditioning as indicators of fear state.

The effects of family, culture and sex on linguistic development across 20 languages.

Languages vary in their complexity; caregivers vary in the way they structure their communicative interactions with children; and boys and girls can differ in their language skills. Using a multilevel modelling approach, we explored how these factors influence the path of language acquisition for young children growing up around the world (mean age 2-years 9-months; 56 girls). Across 43 different sites, we analysed 103 mother-child pairs who spoke 3,170,633 utterances, 16,209,659 morphemes, divided across 20 different languages: Afrikaans, Catalan, Cantonese, Danish, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, Hebrew, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. Using mean length of utterance (MLU) as a measure of language complexity and developmental skill, we found that variation in children's MLU was significantly explained by (a) between-language differences; namely the rate of child MLU growth was attuned to the complexity of their mother tongue, and (b) between-mother differences; namely mothers who used higher MLUs tended to have children with higher MLUs, regardless of which language they were learning and especially in the very young (<2.5 years-old). Controlling for family and language environment, we found no evidence of MLU sex differences in child speech nor in the speech addressed to boys and girls. By modelling language as a multilevel structure with cross-cultural variation, we were able to disentangle those factors that make children's pathway to language different and those that make it alike. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: The speech of 103 mother-child pairs from 20 different languages showed large variation in the path of early language development. Language, family, but not the sex of the child, accounted for a significant proportion of individual differences in child speech, especially in the very young. The rate at which children learned language was attuned to the complexity of their mother tongue, with steeper trajectories for more complex language. Results demonstrate the relative influence of culture, family, and sex in shaping the path of language acquisition for different children.

Jack of all trades, master of one: domain-specific and domain-general contributions to perceptual expertise in visual comparison

Perceptual expertise is typically domain-specific and rarely generalises beyond an expert’s domain of experience. Forensic feature-comparison examiners outperform the norm in domain-specific visual comparison, but emerging research suggests that they show advantages on other similar tasks outside their domain of expertise. For example, fingerprint examiners not only outperform novices in fingerprint comparison, but also in face comparison. Yet, the extent to which their skills generalise is poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the generalisability of perceptual expertise amongst forensic examiners by comparing their performance to novices and other examiners within and outside their area of expertise. We recruited 85 experts from three forensic disciplines (face, fingerprint, and firearms) and asked them to complete four different visual comparison tasks: faces, fingerprints, firearms, and novel-objects. Examiners displayed domain-specific expertise: they outperformed novices and other examiners within their domain of visual comparison expertise. Yet, some of their skill also generalised: examiners also outperformed novices outside their area of expertise. However, while individual differences in examiners’ performance within their domain of experience were associated with their performance in a novel comparison task, they were not related to their performance on tasks outside their expert domain. These results provide key insight into the domain-specific and domain-general contributions of forensic examiners’ perceptual expertise. Forensic expertise lends some generalisable skill to other visual comparison tasks, but best performance is still seen within examiners’ domain of expertise.

Moral Future-Thinking: Does the Moral Circle Stand the Test of Time?

Humanity's long-term welfare may lie in the hands of those who are presently living, raising the question of whether people today hold the generations of tomorrow in their moral circles. Five studies (NTotal = 1652; Prolific) reveal present-oriented bias in the moral standing of future generations, with greater perceived moral obligation, moral concern, and prosocial intentions for proximal relative to distal future targets. Yet, present-oriented bias appears stronger for socially close compared with socially distant targets and for human targets relative to non-human animals and entities in nature. Individual differences, including longtermism beliefs and subjective imaginative vividness, predict greater concern for and obligation to the future. Likewise, concern and obligation predict greater future-oriented generosity. Our studies are among the first to explore moral considerations for targets across deep temporal expanses, reconcile conflicting evidence in the extant literature on moral judgment and future-thinking, and offer practical implications for bettering the shared societal future.

Between Can’t and Won’t: The Relationship Between Trait Mindfulness, Stoic Ideology, and Alexithymia in Norway and New Zealand

Abstract Objectives The aim of the present study was to provide cross-cultural insight into the relationship between mindfulness, alexithymia, and stoic ideology. Method Using samples from New Zealand (n = 330) and Norway (n = 326), we estimated the facet-level network relationship of our target constructs, as well as the invariance of the estimated networks across cultural contexts. Results Across cultural contexts, we found a consistent pattern of relationships in which both stoic ideology and alexithymia were negatively related to mindfulness. Negative relationships were especially pronounced between alexithymia and the mindfulness facets of Describing, Non-Judgement, and Acting with Awareness. This indicates that individual differences in these mindfulness facets might be more firmly rooted in difficulties identifying and describing emotions, compared to beliefs related to emotional suppression, as captured by stoic ideology. While the mindfulness facets showed overall expected patterns of relationships with both alexithymia and stoic ideology, Non-Reacting showed a divergent pattern. Non-Reacting was positively related to a tendency of Externally Oriented Thinking, as well as with Death-Acceptance, in both countries. Thus, this facet not only might capture Non-reactivity within the context of mindfulness, but also could potentially capture aspects of emotional avoidance. Conclusions Overall, the study highlights that mindfulness could be influenced by both individual differences in emotion processing and cognitive beliefs about emotion processing. This accentuates the importance of examining both individual differences in, and cognitive beliefs about emotion regulation in research regarding mindfulness.

Individual differences in information demand have a low dimensional structure predicted by some curiosity traits

To understand human learning and progress, it is crucial to understand curiosity. But how consistent is curiosity's conception and assessment across scientific research disciplines? We present the results of a large collaborative project assessing the correspondence between curiosity measures in personality psychology and cognitive science. A total of 820 participants completed 15 personality trait measures and 9 cognitive tasks that tested multiple aspects of information demand. We show that shared variance across the cognitive tasks was captured by a dimension reflecting directed (uncertainty-driven) versus random (stochasticity-driven) exploration and individual differences along this axis were significantly and consistently predicted by personality traits. However, the personality metrics that best predicted information demand were not the central curiosity traits of openness to experience, deprivation sensitivity, and joyous exploration, but instead included more peripheral curiosity traits (need for cognition, thrill seeking, and stress tolerance) and measures not traditionally associated with curiosity (extraversion and behavioral inhibition). The results suggest that the umbrella term "curiosity" reflects a constellation of cognitive and emotional processes, only some of which are shared between personality measures and cognitive tasks. The results reflect the distinct methods that are used in these fields, indicating a need for caution in comparing results across fields and for future interdisciplinary collaborations to strengthen our emerging understanding of curiosity.

Impact of comorbid coronary artery disease on short and medium-term outcomes after carotid artery stenting

Abstract Background Current recommendations acknowledge carotid artery disease as a clinical criteria for very high cardiovascular risk and carotid artery stenting (CAS) as one of the main therapeutic options for carotid artery stenosis. Carotid artery disease is often present in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), presumably enhancing the cardiovascular risk of these patients. In this study, we aimed to appraise the prevalence and prognostic effects of comorbid CAD diagnosis in patients with significant carotid artery disease undergoing CAS. Methods We conducted a single-center retrospective analysis including consecutive patients that underwent CAS, between January 2007 and August 2023. Our main objective was to analyze the association of comorbid CAD in patients undergoing CAS, regarding 30-day major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), 30-day global mortality, 1-year global mortality and major periprocedural complications. On a second perspective, we strived to identify if there was any modifiable factor that influenced worse outcomes in these populations, addressed by a Chi-Square Test. Data was collected by the medical team in our Centre, over the years of follow-up. Results A total of 380 patients were enrolled in this study, with a mean age of 72.1±8.3 years and no major differences concerning demographic characteristics. Based on the presence of previous CAD diagnosis, there was no statistical significance in 30-days MACE (p=0.442), 30-days global mortality (p=0.161), 1-year mortality (p=0.658) or periprocedural complications (p=0.062). Despite these results, there was a statistically significant difference in individuals with CAD and comorbid hypertension in 30-days CV death (p=0.002), 30-days global mortality (p=0.007) and 1-year global mortality (p=0.036). Conclusions Comorbid CAD in patients undergoing CAS due to carotid stenosis does not seem to be significantly associated with medium-term adverse events. Nevertheless, the results of this casuistry support the importance of rigorous blood pressure control in patients with significant carotid artery disease.Baseline CharacteristicsStudy outcomes

High Behavioral Reactivity to Novelty as a Susceptibility Factor for Memory and Anxiety Disorders in Streptozotocin-Induced Neuroinflammation as a Rat Model of Alzheimer’s Disease

Individual differences in responsiveness to environmental factors, including stress reactivity and anxiety levels, which differ between high (HR) and low (LR) responders to novelty, might be risk factors for development of memory and anxiety disorders in sporadic Alzheimer’s disease (sAD). In the present study, we investigated whether behavioral characteristics of the HR and LR rats, influence the progression of sAD (neuroinflammation, β-amyloid peptide, behavioral activity related to memory (Morris water maze) and anxiety (elevated plus maze, white and illuminated open field test) in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced neuroinflammation as a model of early pathophysiological alterations in sAD. Early (45 days) in disease progression, there was a more severe impairment of reference memory and higher levels of anxiety in HRs compared with LRs. Behavioral depression in HRs was associated with higher expression of β-amyloid deposits, particularly in the NAcS, and activation of microglia (CD68+ cells) in the hypothalamus, as opposed to less inflammation in the hippocampus, particularly in CA1, compared with LRs in late (90 days) sAD progression. Our findings suggest that rats with higher behavioral activity and increased responsivity to stressors show more rapid progression of disease and anxiety disorders compared with low responders to novelty in the STZ-induced sAD model.

Autistic Traits, Communicative Efficiency, and Social Biases Shape Language Learning in Autistic and Allistic Learners.

There is ample evidence that individual-level cognitive mechanisms active during language learning and use can contribute to the evolution of language. For example, experimental work suggests that learners will reduce case marking in a language where grammatical roles are reliably indicated by fixed word order, a correlation found robustly in the languages of the world. However, such research often assumes homogeneity among language learners and users, or at least does not dig into individual differences in behavior. Yet, it is increasingly clear that language users vary in a large number of ways: in culture, in demographics, and-critically for present purposes-in terms of cognitive diversity. Here, we explore how neurodiversity impacts behavior in an experimental task similar to the one summarized above, and how this behavior interacts with social pressures. We find both similarities and differences between autistic and nonautistic English-speaking individuals, suggesting that neurodiversity can impact language change in the lab. This, in turn, highlights the potential for future research on the role of neurodivergent populations in language evolution more generally.

Occupational Stress, Psychological Distress, and Coping Strategies of First-Level Judges in the Philippines: Examining the Influence of Demographics and Caseloads

Judges worldwide face intense pressure from heavy workloads, emotionally charged cases, and limited resources, leading to burnout and decreased public trust in the justice system. While individual coping is important, systemic change is crucial. This descriptive-correlational study investigated occupational stress, psychological distress, and coping strategies among 357 first-level judges in the Philippines. The study employed three standardized instruments: the Occupational Stress Scale, the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), and the Filipino Coping Strategies Scale (FCSS). This study revealed that first-level judges in the Philippines experience high levels of occupational stress and psychological distress. However, they also utilize a range of coping strategies to manage these challenges. The study found no significant relationship between occupational stress, psychological distress, and coping strategies and the demographic profile of the first-level judges. This suggests that these challenges are inherent to the judicial role itself rather than influenced by individual differences. The study concludes that interventions and support systems tailored to the specific demands of the profession are needed to address these challenges. The findings served as the basis for the Wellness Program for the first-level court judges in the Philippines.

Aesthetic evaluation of body movements shaped by embodied and arts experience: Insights from behaviour and fNIRS

Aesthetic appreciation of full-body movements is likely shaped by our cumulative bodily experiences, yet most of the extant literature in this domain has focused on expertise and familiarity. We ran two experiments exploring individual differences in embodied experience and experience with the arts: In Study 1, we explored how participants’ (n = 41) abilities to learn a choreography shaped their aesthetic perceptions while viewing learned vs. unknown movements, using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure cortical activation over the Action Observation Network (i.e., inferior frontal gyrus [IFG], inferior parietal lobule, middle temporal gyrus [MTG]). Study 1 demonstrated that embodied experience enhanced ratings of enjoyment, familiarity, and reproducibility of movements, and that individual differences in participants’ performance of the learned choreography were not associated with aesthetic ratings, but rather cortical activation in IFG and right MTG while viewing learned choreography. In Study 2, we combined the behavioural data from Study 1 with data from additional participants (total n = 141) to examine the relationship between arts experience and aesthetic perceptions of movements robustly. Study 2 revealed that previous arts and sports experience correlated with aesthetic judgements of familiarity and reproducibility of movements. Our findings highlight the relevance of examining individual experiences to fill theoretical gaps in our understanding of action aesthetics.

Associations between school engagement and mental well-being among Finnish parent-child dyads

Abstract Background To understand how individual differences in mental well-being emerge for children and adolescents, it is important to understand the amenable factors in the context in which the development takes place - that is, for children, primarily in the family and in school. There is a notable gap in the research exploring the positive impacts of school factors on parent-child dyads and their mental well-being, and if there are any associations between school engagement and the mental well-being of parents and their children. Methods Data from 307 parent-child dyads were included in the study, the data stemming from a Finnish l research project (CONSENSUS) encompassing longitudinal survey data collection among both children in grades 4-6 and their parents. By exploring bivariate correlations and using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM), the present study aims to investigate actor and partner effects of school engagement and mental well-being among parents and their child in grade 4-6. Results Preliminary results show that there are statistically significant correlations between parents’ and their children’s mental well-being, but that there are no significant correlations between children’s school engagement and parental school engagement. Further, statistically significant actor effects emerge between children’s school engagement and mental well-being, and between parental school engagement and mental well-being. Conclusions By clarifying the interaction between school engagement and mental well-being in parent-child dyads, this study not only contributes to the theoretical understanding of these constructs but also offers insights that can inform future development of mental well-being promotion interventions aimed at families and educational settings in Finland and elsewhere. Key messages • This study offers an innovative exploration of the links between mental well-being and school engagement among 274 Finnish parent-child dyads. • Results show various interactions between school engagement and mental well-being among the parent-child dyads, with implications for interventions intended to support well-being in families.

Sex differences in sleep deficits in mice with an autism-linked Shank3 mutation

BackgroundInsomnia is more prevalent in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), can worsen core-symptoms and reduces quality of life of both individuals and caregivers. Although ASD is four times more prevalent in males than females, less is known about sex specific sleep differences in autistic individuals. Recent ASD studies suggest that sleep problems may be more severe in females, which aligns with the sex bias seen in insomnia for the general population. We have previously shown that male mice with a mutation in the high confidence ASD gene Shank3, Shank3∆C, recapitulate most aspects of the ASD insomnia phenotype. The objective of the present study was to leverage the Shank3∆C model to investigate sex-specific effects in sleep using polysomnography.MethodsAdult male and female Shank3∆C and wildtype (WT) littermates were first recorded for 24 h of baseline recordings. Subsequently, they were sleep deprived (SD) for five hours via gentle handling and allowed 19 h of recovery sleep to characterize the homeostatic response to SD. Vigilance states (rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and wake) were assigned by manual inspection using SleepSign. Data processing, statistical analysis and visualization were conducted using MATLAB.ResultsSex and genotype effects were found during baseline sleep and after SD. At baseline, male Shank3∆C mice sleep less during the dark period (active phase) while female Shank3∆C mice sleep less during the light period (rest phase) and sleep more during the dark period. Both male and female Shank3∆C mice show reduced spectral power in NREM sleep. We detect a significant effect of sex and genotype in sleep onset latency and homeostatic sleep pressure (sleepiness). In addition, while male Shank3∆C mice fail to increase sleep time following SD as seen in WT, female Shank3∆C mice decrease sleep time.ConclusionsOverall, our study demonstrates sex differences in sleep architecture and homeostatic response to SD in adult Shank3∆C mice. Thus, our study demonstrates an interaction between sex and genotype in Shank3∆C mice and supports the use of the Shank3∆C model to better understand mechanisms contributing to the sex differences in insomnia in ASD in clinical populations.

Predictors of social withdrawal among early adolescents in Korea: a latent growth class analysis

Abstract Background This study examines the trajectory of social withdrawal from the fourth grade of elementary school to the first grade of middle school in Korea. By classifying them, we identify individual differences such as individual, family, and school factors. Methods This study uses data from the Korean Youth Panel Survey (KYCPS) conducted by the Korea Youth Policy Research Institute, which includes data from the 1st-4th waves of KYCPS 2018, with a total of 2,607 participants (1,313 boys and 1,294 girls). A latent class growth analysis verifies the trajectory of youth social withdrawal, classifies latent classes, and identifies predictive. SPSS 24.0 was used to analyze the main variables’ characteristics, descriptive analysis, and reliability. Mplus 8.9 was used to test the research model. Results First, results indicated that three was the optimum number of latent classes. We identified three latent classes ‘high level of withdrawal continued (HL)’, ‘medium level of withdrawal increased (ML)’, and ‘low level of withdrawal increased (LL)’. Second, when compared the ‘LL’ and ‘HL’ groups, the higher the self-esteem, the higher the friendship, and the higher the dependence on smartphones, the more likely it was to be in the ‘HL’ group. Third, when comparing ‘LL’ and ‘ML’ groups, the more negative the parenting attitude, the more likely it was to be in the ‘ML’ group. On the other hand, higher self-esteem and more positive friend and teacher relationships were associated with a higher likelihood of being in the ‘LL’ group. Conclusions It is necessary to seek differentiated interventions to prevent social withdrawal among early adolescents. Parental education to understand the adolescent period and practical approaches to intervene in the negative psycho-emotional aspects of adolescents continuously are needed to enhance the healthy psychological development of early adolescents. Key messages • The higher the self-esteem, the higher the friendship, and the higher the dependence on smartphones, the more likely it was to be in the ‘high level of withdrawal continued’ group. • Higher self-esteem and more positive friend and teacher relationships were associated with a higher likelihood of being in the ‘low level of withdrawal increased’ group.

Creativity is in the mind of the beholder: hail the analytic thinker

Purpose While the extant literature establishes that creativity in advertisements enhances ad effectiveness, developing creative advertisements is costly and creativity perceptions are subjective varying from person to person. Therefore, it is important to study the factors that influence the creativity assessments of consumers. Accordingly, this paper aims to investigate the impact of thinking style on creativity assessments of advertisements. Design/methodology/approach Five studies (two surveys and three experiments) demonstrate that individuals with higher levels of analytic thinking style perceive creative advertisements as more creative. This result holds for a self-reported thinking style scale (Studies 1, 2 and 3) as well as for primed thinking styles (Studies 4 and 5) and for different product categories/ads (coffee in Study 1, furniture store in Study 2, and juice in Studies 3, 4 and 5). Findings The findings show that analytic thinkers perceive the same creative advertisement as more creative than holistic thinkers. In addition, the advanced creativity perception due to analytic thinking reflects positively on managerially important variables (willingness to pay a premium: Study 1, attitude toward ad: Study 2 and Study 4 post-test). Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to investigate an individual difference, namely, thinking style, that impacts creativity judgments, which in turn enhances advertising effectiveness.

A Pseudo-Labeling Multi-Screening-Based Semi-Supervised Learning Method for Few-Shot Fault Diagnosis

In few-shot fault diagnosis tasks in which the effective label samples are scarce, the existing semi-supervised learning (SSL)-based methods have obtained impressive results. However, in industry, some low-quality label samples are hidden in the collected dataset, which can cause a serious shift in model training and lead to the performance of SSL-based method degradation. To address this issue, the latest prototypical network-based SSL techniques are studied. However, most prototypical network-based scenarios consider that each sample has the same contribution to the class prototype, which ignores the impact of individual differences. This article proposes a new SSL method based on pseudo-labeling multi-screening for few-shot bearing fault diagnosis. In the proposed work, a pseudo-labeling multi-screening strategy is explored to accurately screen the pseudo-labeling for improving the generalization ability of the prototypical network. In addition, the AdaBoost adaptation-based weighted technique is employed to obtain accurate class prototypes by clustering multiple samples, improving the performance that deteriorated by low-quality samples. Specifically, the squeeze and excitation block technique is used to enhance the useful feature information and suppress non-useful feature information for extracting accuracy features. Finally, three well-known bearing datasets are selected to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The experiments illustrated that our method can receive better performance than that of the state-of-the-art methods.

Smart watch for the detection of exercise-induced transient ST segment changes

Abstract Background Smartwatches are largely used and allowed to perform electrocardiogram one lead, usually a modified DI, used to diagnose atrial fibrillation. It is unknown whether or not smartwatches could be used to identify electrocardiographic transient ST changes during exercise-induced myocardial ischemia. The present study assessed the feasibility and reliability of using an Apple watch to record V5 in subjects scheduled for standard ECG stress tests. Methods One hundred eighty-nine subjects were included in this study. The mean age was 61+9 years, and 21.6 % were women (41 subjects). A single thoracic lead V5 was obtained with an Apple watch, positioned at the fifth intercostal space anterior axillary line, by creating a circuit between the back of the watch and the right index resting on the crown for 30 seconds. Four subjects were excluded because of the poor quality of the Apple watch signal. Forty-nine patients (25,92%) had a positive stress test with standard 12 lead ECG, 136 (71,96 %) negative stress test, and 4 (2,12%) the ECGs were non-diagnostic. The mean difference or bias between the Apple Watch and standard exercise-induced ST changes was quantified as 0.054, suggesting a generally minimal discrepancy in their readings. This consistency is critically affirmed by Cohen's Kappa (k) coefficient of 0.665. 9-1.0) Results A total of 189 subjects were included in the study; the mean age was 61 years (SD 9), and 21.6 % were women (41 subjects). Insightful outcomes were gleaned from the Bland-Altman analysis, which probed the concordance between the smartwatch ECG and the conventional standard ECG in measuring ST-segment deviations (Bias 0,054; SD 0.31, from -0.56 to 0.67, 95% limits of agreement), as vividly depicted in Figure. The dashed blue lines in Figure demarcate the 95% limits of agreement, which span from -0.56 to 0.67, offering a tangible visualization of the range within which most individual differences resided. A notable harmony was unveiled in the intricate exploration of the concordance between the two diagnostic methodologies, substantiated by an agreement of 87.6%. This demonstrates that, in most instances, the methodologies provided analogous results, exhibiting a commendable consistency between them in a substantial proportion of cases. Assuming the results of standard ECGs as the reference values, Apple Watch ST deviation showed a sensitivity of 69% and specificity of 94 %. The positive predictive value was 0.80952381, and the negative predictive value was 0,8951049. Conclusions In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the Apple Watch could detect transient ST changes with a sensitivity of 69% and a specificity of 94 %. Further prospective studies should be performed to assess the potential role of detecting transient myocardial ischemia with a smartwatch in a general population at risk.