Identifying the Public’s Psychological Concerns in Response to COVID-19 Risk Messages in Singapore

Understanding the social-psychological processes that characterize communities’ reactions to a pandemic is the first step toward formulating risk communications that can lead to better health outcomes. This study examines comments on Facebook pages of five Singapore media outlets to understand what topics are being discussed by the public in reaction to the implemented precautionary measures in Singapore so as to infer their psychological concerns. Using Anchored Correlation Explanation as a topic modelling technique, this study examines around 10,000 comments and identifies 21 topics that are discussed. The 21 topics were categorized and organized into seven broad themes of psychological concerns. Implications for theory and practice are then discussed

The effects of parenting stress on father-child brain synchrony

Synchrony between a parent and child sets the foundation for the parent-child bond and has lasting effects on a child’s developmental outcomes. Greater synchrony is generally found to be associated with more positive parent-child relationships. However, when the stresses of parenthood extend beyond a parent’s coping resources, it can reduce parent-child synchrony, in turn negatively affecting their relationship. A recent study by Azhari et al. (2019) found that greater maternal stress was associated with reduced brain synchrony in the medial left cluster of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), a region implicated in mentalization processes. As mothers and fathers experience parenting stress differently, this study sought to find out how parenting stress in fathers affects brain synchrony between fathers and their children using similar experimental methodology. The fNIRS hyper-scanning technique was used to measure brain activity in the PFC in 29 father-child dyads while they watched three 1-minute animation clips together. Parenting stress was measured using the Parenting Stress Index – Short Form (PSI-SF) questionnaire. Results show that fathers who were more stressed due to perceived dysfunction in parent-child interactions showed higher synchrony in the medial rostral Brodmann Area 10 (BA10), a brain region is associated with stimulus-oriented attending. This suggests father-child dyads with more dysfunctional interactions may have an inclination towards focusing on stimuli during a joint activity rather than being attuned to each other’s emotional states. Future research could further explore how parenting stress affects the father-child relationship.Bachelor of Arts in Psycholog

A decade of infant neuroimaging research : what have we learned and where are we going?

The past decade has seen the emergence of neuroimaging studies of infant populations. Incorporating imaging has resulted in invaluable insights about neurodevelopment at the start of life. However, little has been enquired of the experimental specifications and study characteristics of typical findings. This review systematically screened empirical studies that used electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on infants (max. age of 24 months). From more than 21,000 publications, a total of 710 records were included for analyses. With the exception of EEG studies, infant studies with MEG, fNIRS, and fMRI were most often conducted around birth and at 12 months. The vast majority of infant studies came from North America, with very few studies conducted in Africa, certain parts of South America, and Southeast Asia. Finally, longitudinal neuroimaging studies were inclined to adopt EEG, followed by fMRI, fNIRS, and MEG. These results show that there is compelling need for studies with larger sample sizes, studies investigating a broader range of infant developmental periods, and studies from under- and less-developed regions in the world. Addressing these shortcomings in the future will provide a more representative and accurate understanding of neurodevelopment in infancy.Ministry of Education (MOE)Nanyang Technological UniversityAccepted versionThis research was supported by the Nanyang Technological University NAP SUG Grant (GE), Singapore Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1 (GE; PS), Social Science Research Thematic Grant (MOE2016-SSRTG-017, PS), Intramural Research Program of the NIH/NICHD, USA, (MHB) and an International Research Fellowship at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London, UK, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 695300-HKADeC-ERC-2015-AdG, MHB)