In the context of the ongoing implementation of the Digital Village strategy, digital marketingincluding short video promotions and live commercehas exerted a notable influence on rural areas. However, this development does not necessarily correspond to a broad enhancement in educational quality. Instead, it has given rise to a dichotomy characterised as marketing prosperity versus educational stagnation, observable across multiple dimensions. To elucidate this paradox, this study develops a township-level indicator of digital marketing intensity. Using a fixed-effects panel regression model and incorporating mediating variablessuch as the degree of social attention and educational coveragealong with heterogeneity and robustness tests, this research draws on panel data from 372 counties spanning the period 2011 to 2022. It systematically investigates the impact of digital marketing on the urbanrural education gap and its underlying mechanisms. By empirically evaluating the effects of digital marketing on rural education in a comprehensive manner, this study offers a new paradigm for addressing the phenomenon of digital suspension, fostering the deeper integration of digital marketing and rural education, and advancing the soft infrastructure essential for rural revitalisation.

Personality and social attention: Trait-driven differences in neural engagement.

Dumb Money? Social Network Attention Herding, Sentiment, and Markets

The ability to attend to social stimuli is fundamental for processing social cues and shaping social behavior, yet cultural variability in this capacity remains relatively unexplored. Social attention is typically tested using preferential-looking paradigms in labs, which have demonstrated that autistic individuals attend less to social stimuli. Such studies are limited, by the fact that they have almost all been conducted in Western Europe and the USA. To address this gap, our objective was to test the cultural generalizability of these results by investigating whether autistic symptoms are negatively associated with social attention in a traditionally understudied sample: Indian adults. Additionally, we tested the specificity of this relation by investigating whether a similar association exists with the traits of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Our study involved 121 young adults from Kerala, India. Autistic and ADHD traits were evaluated using the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS), respectively. The participants’ gaze behavior was recorded during a preferential-looking task, where pairs of social and non-social images were presented simultaneously. Individuals with higher autistic traits exhibited a reduced preference for social stimuli. No such association of social attention was noted with ADHD traits. Follow-up analysis of AQ subscales indicated that the association between gaze duration and autistic traits was driven by the social, and not the attention to detail factor of autistic traits. Our results provide new evidence for the cultural generalizability of the social attention task and offer the potential for culture-agnostic phenotypic assessments for adults with autism.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-025-23676-7.

Introduction. Over the past decade, numerous global events have unfolded, spanning from migratory and humanitarian crises to health, political, and socio-economic challenges, culminating in a worsening of armed conflicts worldwide. Portugal has been marked by pronounced migratory inflows, mainly from communities in Portuguese-speaking countries, but also other regions. Yet, the growing phenomenon of political polarization, both globally and locally, has generated perceptions that challenge traditionally safeguarded rights. This study aims to analyze Portuguese public policies on access to healthcare, understanding how they have been operationalized to guarantee the migrant population's right to health. Methods. Against this backdrop, this article examines public policies related to healthcare access in Portugal through an analysis of Portuguese legislation, data from international organizations, and interviews with professionals from social organizations that provide support to migrants. Results. Concerning healthcare access in Portugal, the National Health Service (SNS) is founded on the Portuguese Constitution that guarantees the rights to healthcare for all. Notwithstanding the coexistence of private healthcare options, the SNS is universal, tends to be free of charge, and does not discriminate against citizens based on their socio-economic situation. Portuguese legislation ensures that foreign citizens are allowed access to healthcare under the same conditions as nationals, according to certain criteria. Conversely, even foreign citizens lacking proper documentation retain access to healthcare services within the SNS, regarding urgent situations, public health contexts, and other specified circumstances. However, testimonies from NGOs’ professionals report persistent barriers and limitations in the operationalization of healthcare legislation and reflect issues that hinder access to healthcare services. Discussion and conclusions. The findings highlight that Portugal’s public health policies are widely recognized, but a landscape of socio-political polarization could change this scenario. Bureaucratic and operational barriers persist, hindering access to healthcare for certain migrant populations, especially the most vulnerable. This study underscores the need for more equitable and inclusive policy strategies, aligned with the National Health Plan, and presents key aspects requiring Social Work attention to promote collective health.

Social orienting (SO) and coordinated joint attention (CJA) are early-emerging social attention skills that are often challenging for young autistic children. Mutual gaze is increasingly recognized as a developmentally meaningful behavior that facilitates these social attention skills. This study examined the influence of mutual gaze-a core component of the Pathways Early Autism Intervention (Pathways)-on SO and CJA, both individually and combined within a unified measure. A secondary analysis was conducted using data from 47 autistic children (18-47 months) who participated in a prior randomized controlled trial evaluating Pathways. Parent-child interaction videos were coded for SO and CJA at baseline and post-intervention. Principal component analysis was used to combine SO and CJA into a unified measure. Hierarchical regression analyses assessed the effects of intervention group on the unified and individual measures of SO and CJA. Children receiving Pathways demonstrated significant gains on the unified measure of SO and CJA, as well as on SO individually, compared to children in the services-as-usual group. No significant intervention effect was found for individual measure of CJA. This study advances theoretical understanding of how mutual gaze interventions may differentially influence components of early social attention. The results suggest that short-term interventions implementing mutual gaze strategies may more readily support improvements in SO, an early-developing perceptual-affective skill, than in CJA, which may require more time or scaffolding to change. These findings underscore the clinical value of targeting mutual gaze to promote foundational social attention skills in young autistic children.

BackgroundAnxiety and depression as important factors affecting college students’ physical and mental health have received more and more social attention. Though a growing literature have confirmed significant correlations among perceived social support, Internet addiction, insomnia, anxiety and depressive symptom, there is a paucity of evidence focused on the sequential mediating roles of Internet addiction and insomnia in these relationships. This empirical study attempted to investigate the chain mediating role that Internet addiction and insomnia played together in the relationship between perceived social support and negative emotions in the population of college students.Methods3484 undergraduate students aged 18–23 were recruited with cluster sampling methods and investigated by the Perceived Social Support Scale, the Internet Addiction Test, the Insomnia Severity Index, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 items. Data were analyzed with SPSS 26.0 and Amos 24.0.ResultsPerceived social support was negatively correlated with Internet addiction (r=-0.156, p < 0.01), insomnia (r=-0.217, p < 0.01), anxiety (r=-0.251, p < 0.01), and depression (r=-0.276, p < 0.01). In contrast, Internet addiction was positively associated with insomnia (r = 0.441, p < 0.01), anxiety (r = 0.474, p < 0.01), and depression (r = 0.518, p < 0.01). Furthermore, insomnia was positively linked with anxiety (r = 0.658, p < 0.01) and depression (r = 0.707, p < 0.01).ConclusionBoth Internet addiction and insomnia partially mediated the relationship between social support and negative emotions among college students. Internet addiction and insomnia played a chain mediating role in the relationship between perceived social support and negative emotions. These findings highlight the importance of enhancing social support, promoting healthy Internet use and improving sleep quality in interventions targeting mental health in young adults.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40359-025-03195-w.

Students with autism spectrum disorder have an impact on their social, communication, and behavioral skills. Existing studies primarily focus on autism detection and diagnosis but lack effective approaches for predicting autism spectrum disorder levels and linking them to personalized educational strategies. This research aims to develop an autism-level categorization and a tailored education plan recommendation system for autistic students. The proposed methodology involves collecting a data set with attributes such as verbal ability, social interaction, sensory sensitivity, and attention span for students with autism spectrum disorder. These features are preprocessed and used to train a TabNet model to categorize the autism level. The system recommends a personalized education plan through a web application, based on prediction. This study uniquely integrates autism spectrum disorder-level prediction with education planning, achieving an accuracy of 99.37% and precision of 98.91% using the Autism Spectrum Classification for Education Planning data set. This shows the proposed model effectively categorizes autism levels and provides an education plan recommendation system for autistic students. Lay abstract Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a critical neurodevelopmental disorder affecting the social and communication skills of autistic students. People with autism spectrum disorder can have different levels of support needs in daily life; understanding these levels is important for providing a correct educational plan for autistic students. We develop a system that predicts the level of support needed for a student and then recommends a personalized educational plan. The system uses information such as the student’s verbal communication skills, social interaction abilities, sensory sensitivity, and attention span. After predicting the level, the system applies a predefined set of rules to suggest specific teaching methods. These are utilized in matching the abilities and needs of the autistic students to study effectively. We developed an interactive web application that enables parents or teachers to input a student’s details and obtain both the support level and personalized learning suggestions. The outcome indicates that the method combines early and correct autism spectrum disorder–level prediction with practical teaching methods, making education more personalized and effective for autistic students.

Humans are highly adept at utilizing various social signals, such as eye gaze and biological motion (BM), to detect important events (e.g. threat, reward) in the environment, a phenomenon termed social attention. Here we investigated whether the affective information carried by the contextual event would modulate this social attention behaviour. By introducing natural emotional pictures (negative, neutral and positive) as peripheral probing targets within the modified central cueing paradigm, we found that central BM induced a stronger attentional orienting effect towards negative targets than neutral and positive ones. Moreover, this modulation was observed in attentional effects induced by another well-known social cue (i.e. eye gaze), whereas no such effect was obtained with the non-social arrow cues. Importantly, this negativity bias persisted at the subliminal level, as shown by the significant attentional effects towards negative targets induced by unconscious social cues (i.e. BM, eye gaze). In contrast, no attentional effects were obtained with non-conscious arrow cues. Overall, these findings reveal a general enhancement of negative targets on conscious and unconscious social attention induced by different types of social signals (i.e. BM, eye gaze) and highlight the distinction of social attention compared to non-social attention in detecting potentially detrimental events.

Abstract In virtual reality (VR), people can transform both who and where they are with the touch of a button. While many studies have examined each of these factors individually, few have examined how they interact. Person-environment (P-E) effects are critical to investigate because they can help scholars understand meaningful social and behavioral dynamics like group cohesion (e.g., entitativity), non-verbal social behaviors (e.g., social attention), and simulator sickness. We analyzed participant data from a large university course conducted in VR to understand how the interaction of individual level variables (e.g., personality) and environment level variables (e.g., the setting, spaciousness of the virtual environment) associated with such dynamics. A limited number of P-E effects emerged, including the idea that people high on extraversion in a panoramic environment reported the greatest entitativity. Implications of this interactionist perspective for exploratory social VR research, plus practical implications for collaboration in VR, are discussed.

IntroductionChildren with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often find it difficult to maintain eye contact, which is vital for social communication. Eye tracking (ET) technology helps determine how long children with ASD focus on someone, how frequently they do so, and in which direction their gaze moves. ET provides insights into social attention by enabling precise, real-time tracking of gaze patterns as individuals process social information visually. It is a dependable method for identifying and developing social attentional biomarkers, particularly in challenging conditions like ASD.ObjectiveThis study aims to implement deep learning (DL) algorithms using eye-tracking data from social attention tasks involving children with ASD.MethodsThe approach was tested using standard datasets collected from individuals with and without ASD through eye-tracking technology. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and long short-term memory (LSTM) models were used to analyze data from children with ASD. Data preprocessing techniques addressed missing data and converted categorical features into numerical values. Mutual information-based feature selection was employed to reduce the feature set by identifying the most relevant features, thereby improving system performance. These features were then analyzed using LSTM and CNN-LSTM models to evaluate their potential for diagnosing ASD.ResultsThe experimental results showed that the highest accuracy achieved was 99.78% with the CNN-LSTM model. Furthermore, the findings indicated that the proposed method outperformed previous studies.ConclusionThe system successfully diagnosed ASD using the ET dataset. This approach shows promise for clinical application, assisting healthcare professionals in diagnosing ASD more accurately through advanced artificial intelligence technology.

Evidence shows that social exclusion motivates to paying attention to the situation to reconnect with others or to protect oneself from further exclusion. However, it is unclear how social attention is affected by who offers an opportunity to reconnect. Two studies filled this gap by assessing whether being excluded affects our propensity to share attention with another individual (seen or novel) with a happy or a neutral expression. Findings show a significant three-way interaction with differences in gaze cueing between groups only for seen faces with a neutral expression. Gaze-cueing effects for seen (excluders) faces with a neutral expression occurred in 73% of socially excluded individuals - this was 33% for seen (includers) faces for socially included. There were no differences in gaze cueing for novel faces with happy or neutral expressions. In Study 2, social information about faces was learned without direct exclusion. Here, the proportion of participants showing the effect observed in Study 1 and the associations between gaze cueing and emotional expressions differed. In line with the social monitoring system theory, individuals in the immediate aftermath of exclusion remain socially engaged, displaying a dual attentional strategy: vigilance towards the excluder and openness to affiliative signals from novel others.

Using eye tracking to evaluate cognitive and visual outcomes of early life phenol exposure.

The article examines how, within the attention economy, media advertising has evolved from a classical promotional instrument into a component of human capital that shapes economic opportunities, social status, and trust in both brands and the individuals behind them. The ability to attract, retain, and monetize attention is becoming a resource comparable to education and professional skills, while media visibility generates symbolic and communicative capital for market actors. This necessitates identifying mechanisms to enhance the resilience and effectiveness of media advertising as an element of human capital while minimizing ethical devaluation so as to ensure authentic interaction, drawing on a combination of system and comparative analyses, statistical approaches, content analysis, case studies, and critical analysis. Based on a comparative analysis of the markets of the United States, the European Union, and Ukraine, the study records a growing role for video, audio, and podcast formats as carriers of “deep attention” and trust, despite differences in market scale and structure. The study identifies systemic shortcomings in all compared countries, including dependence on platform algorithms, unstable audience reach, commercialization of privacy, risks of loss of authenticity, and related ethical dilemmas. Together, these factors significantly undermine the long-term robustness of advertising strategies. As a standard of trust and verifiability in communications, the article proposes the concept of an “advertisement passport” with a QR link to official web pages providing full details, guarantees, and transparent terms. It recommends a shift from purely quantitative indicators to “trust and attention metrics” (time in contact, depth of engagement, share of traffic to official sites), and prioritizing product-centric content over influencers’ emotional self-presentation. The practical significance lies in outlining an updated model of media advertising as a human-capital asset, in which the combination of attention metrics, transparency, and authenticity reduces sensitivity to algorithmic volatility, improves the predictability of return on investment (ROI), and legitimizes advertising as an ethically acceptable form of public communication. The findings may be useful for entrepreneurs, individual entrepreneurs (sole proprietors), opinion leaders, and organizations seeking to combine economic efficiency with social responsibility amid information overload and attention scarcity.

BackgroundChina has entered an aging society, and the mental health of the aged has gradually attracted social attention. This study aimed to model the mediating effect of social activities on the relationship between incapacitation and depression in the aged and to explore the moderating effect of community support on the mediating role.MethodsThis paper used the latest data from The Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS). A moderated mediation effect model was constructed with the degree of incapacity as the independent variable, depressive symptoms as the dependent variable, socialization as the mediator, and community support as the moderator.ResultsSocialization was a partial mediating variable in the relationship between incapacitation and depression in the aged, and its mediating effect accounted for 13.29% of the total effect. The moderating effect of community support on the mediating role of socialization was significant (B = -0.006, SE = 0.003, 95% CI: -0.014 ~ -0.001), but it moderated only the second half of the model, which is the relationship between social activities and depression.Conclusions(1) There was a significant positive correlation between disability and depression in the aged. (2) Socialization partially mediated the relationship between disability and depression in the aged. (3) Community support moderated only the relationship between social activities and depressive symptoms, whereas it did not affect the relationship between disability and social activities.

Mutual gaze and later social attention development in infants at typical and elevated familial likelihood for ASD and/or ADHD.

This article examines the phenomenon of Wanghong City (literally ‘internet-famous city’) as a distinctive model of tourism-led urban transformation and digital placemaking in China. Focusing on the cases of Tianjin and Harbin, the most prominent Wanghong destinations in 2023–2024, the study explores how social media attention reshapes urban branding, institutional practices, and governance strategies in post-industrial contexts. While existing studies often treat social media as a tool for tourism marketing or visitor engagement, this research develops a spatial–institutional–affective framework to conceptualize Wanghong City as a digitally mediated and tourism-oriented placemaking phenomenon. The framework highlights three interrelated dimensions: urban branding, governance improvisation, and emotional capital. Drawing on qualitative research methods, including social media content analysis, fieldwork, and semi-structured interviews, the study shows how local governments respond to viral digital trends by adapting infrastructure, curating cultural narratives, and engaging emotionally with residents and visitors, thereby creating hybrid spaces that balance spectacle with governance. Wanghong City thus functions not only as a promotional device but also as a policy arena for tourism-driven innovation in urban development. Beyond the Chinese context, the analysis contributes to global debates on digital tourism, platform urbanism, and affective geographies by demonstrating how attention economies reshape placemaking and governance through tourism. In doing so, the study advances tourism geographies by framing Wanghong City as a novel form of tourism-led place-making, linking digital spectacle with spatial reconfigurations, institutional adaptation, and affective attachments in contemporary urban environments.

BackgroundWith the increasing use of social media platforms for health communication, the quality of health educational short videos (HESVs) has become a key concern. However, no standardized framework exists to evaluate the quality of health videos on social media, highlighting the need for a comprehensive evaluation system.ObjectiveThis study aimed to develop a valid and structured evaluation tool for assessing the quality of HESVs on social media.MethodsThe initial evaluation indicators obtained from the literature review and brainstorming undertaken in the study group were provided to the nominal group reference Lasswell’s 5W communication model, and 2 rounds of nominal group technique (NGT) were carried out to screen, add, revise, and adjust indicators, and reach a consensus of evaluation system. The indicators were then ranked based on their significance, as scored by the experts using the analytic hierarchy process. The content validity was assessed by experts who rated the relevance of each indicator on a 4-point Likert scale.ResultsThe primary indicators include communicator, communication content, communication channel, and communication effect, along with 13 secondary indicators and 34 tertiary indicators. In total, 11 experts were enrolled in the NGT, 45% (5/11) of experts had a doctoral degree, and 80% (9/11) of them were ranked as an associate professor or professor. The average values of the expert judgment coefficient and authority coefficient were 0.93 (SD 0.08) and 0.85 (SD 0.10), respectively. In round 1 of NGT, the “communication target” of 5 primary indicators, 7 of 20 secondary indicators, and 66 of 94 tertiary indicators did not reach a consensus, and therefore, they were not deleted and proceeded to the next round of NGT. In round 2 of NGT, 1 primary indicator, 7 secondary indicators, and 59 tertiary indicators were deleted based on the consensus criteria. Among primary indicators, communication content was found to be the most influential, accounting for 45.68%. Among secondary indicators, credibility, scientificity, availability, and social attention were the most influential indicators, with priorities of 56.67%, 24.26%, 74.62%, and 39.89% in their respective categories. Among tertiary indicators, “become a hot search recommended by the platform” was the most influential indicator with a weight of 0.07. The content validity of all the evaluation indicators was 0.73-1.0, and the scale-level content validity index (average) was 0.87 (SD 0.15), which was indicated as acceptable.ConclusionsThe evaluation system for the quality of HESVs on social media (LassVQ; the Lasswell’s Video Quality scale) was developed, and its validity was acceptable. The proposed evaluation system can be used in conjunction with qualitative methods to gain a holistic perspective on the multidimensional quality of HESVs on social media.

Autism is a heterogeneous condition, and functional magnetic resonance imaging-based studies have advanced understanding of neurobiological correlates of autistic features. Nevertheless, little work has focused on the optimal brain states to reveal brain-phenotype relationships. In addition, there is a need to better understand the relevance of attentional abilities in mediating autistic features. Here, we used connectome-based predictive modelling to identify brain-behavior relationships. We analyzed four datasets to determine scanning conditions that can boost prediction of clinically relevant phenotypes and assess generalizability. Across all four samples, we observed successful prediction. Specifically, in dataset one, a sample of youth with autism and neurotypical participants (n = 63), we found that a sustained attention task (the gradual onset continuous performance task) resulted in high prediction performance of autistic traits compared to a free-viewing social attention task and a resting-state condition. In dataset two (n = 25), we observed the predictive network model of autistic traits generated from the sustained attention task generalized to predict measures of attention in neurotypical adults. In datasets three and four, we determined the same predictive network model of autistic traits from dataset one further generalized to predict measures of social responsiveness in data from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (n = 229) and the Healthy Brain Network (n = 643). We further generated predictive models of social responsiveness in the Healthy Brain Network sample, finding task-based models outperformed rest-based models. A consensus model from the Healthy Brain network subsequently generalized to predict ADOS scores in dataset one. In sum, our data suggest that an in-scanner sustained attention challenge can help delineate robust markers of autistic traits and support the continued investigation of the optimal brain states under which to predict phenotypes in psychiatric conditions.

In cluttered and complex natural scenes, selective attention enables the visual system to prioritize relevant information. This process is guided not only by perceptual cues but also by imagined ones. The current research extends the imagery-induced attentional bias to the unconscious level and reveals its cross-category applicability between different social cues (e.g., eye gaze and biological motion). Using a visual imagery task combined with an attentional bias paradigm, we showed that imagining a gaze cue biased selective attention toward the imagery-matching eye gaze. Removing the imagery task obliterated the attentional effect, emphasizing the pivotal role of mental imagery in driving the observed results. Furthermore, the attentional bias persisted even when the physically presented eye gazes were rendered invisible, suggesting the automaticity of the effect and a dissociation between attention and consciousness. When the imagery content involved biological motion cues, cross-categorical attentional bias toward imagery-matching eye gaze was evident. However, this cross-categorical effect did not extend to nonsocial arrow cues-imagining an arrow cue failed to bias attention toward imagery-matching eye gaze, though arrow cues induced within-categorical attentional biases for imagery-matching arrows. These findings point to the existence of shared mechanisms dedicated to processing different social cues rather than nonsocial cues. Taken together, the present study highlights a novel mechanism through which social cue-based imagery guides spatial attention, which operates independently of visual awareness and is supported by a dedicated social module, shedding light on the intricate interplay between the internal mental representations and the external physical world. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).