Development and Maintenance of Self-Disclosure on Facebook: The Role of Personality Traits

This study explored the relationships between Facebook self-disclosure and personality traits in a sample of Italian users. The aim was to analyze the predictive role of Big Five personality traits on different parameters of breadth and depth of selfdisclosed behaviors online. Facebook users, aged between 18 and 64 years of age (Mage = 25.3 years, SD = 6.8; N = 958), of which 51% were female, voluntarily completed an online survey assessing personality traits and Facebook self-disclosure. Results at a series of hierarchical regression analyses significantly corroborated the hypotheses that high extroverted and openness people tend to disclose on Facebook a significant amount of personal information, whereas high consciousness and agreeableness users are less inclined to do it. Furthermore, more extroverts and agreeableness people develop less intimacy on Facebook, differently from those with high levels of openness. Results also corroborated the hypothesis of a full mediation of time usage in the relationship between personality factors such as extroversion and conscientiousness with breadth of Facebook self-disclosure. Overall, according to the findings of the current study, personality traits and Facebook self-disclosure become central both as predictive variables for depicting the different profiles of potential addicted and as variables to help educators, teachers, and clinicians to develop training or therapeutic programs aimed at preventing the risk of Internet addiction. Limitations of the study are discussed, and directions for future research are suggested

L’importanza dei prerequisiti e dello screening precoce nella scuola dell’infanzia

Este trabajo pretende subrayar la importancia de algunas competencias cognitivas, denominadas precursoras de aprendizaje, que participan en la adquisición de habilidades de lectura y escritura, tales como: conocimiento de letras, conciencia fonológica, nomenclatura automatizada rápida (RAN), memoria fonológica y procesamiento visual. Varias investigaciones demostraron cómo estas habilidades son importantes en el nivel preescolar, en particular para la prevención del desarrollo de dificultades escolares o discapacidades específicas de aprendizaje en la siguiente carrera académica de los niños. Además, la formación específica dirigida a mejorar los precursores cognitivos aumenta o recupera las capacidades de lectura y escritura. En este panorama, es muy importante reflexionar sobre la importancia de la proyección preescolar temprana y sobre las herramientas de evaluación relacionadas con ella. Por esta razón, la presente revisión describe los principales instrumentos psicométricos para la evaluación de precursores de lectura y escritura en niños de edad preescolar de 5 años, publicados en Italia desde 1999 hasta ahora.This paper aims to underline the importance of some cognitive competencies, called learning precursors that are involved in the acquisition of reading and writing abilities, such as: knowledge of letters, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological memory and visual processing. Several researches demonstrated how these abilities are important at pre-school level, in particular for the prevention of the development of scholastic difficulties or specific learning disabilities in the following academic career of children. Moreover, specific educational training aimed at enhancing cognitive precursors increase or retrieve reading and writing abilities. In this panorama, it is very essential to reflect on the importance of screening at early pre-school level and on assessment tools related to it. For this reason, the present review describes the main psychometric instruments for the evaluation of reading and writing precursors in preschoolers of 5 years, which were published in Italy from 1999 until now.Questo contributo si propone di sottolineare l’importanza di alcune competenze cognitive, detti prerequisiti, che sono implicate nell’acquisizione delle abilità di lettura e scrittura come ad esempio: la conoscenza dell’alfabeto; la consapevolezza fonologica; la denominazione rapida automática (RAN); la memoria fonologica e la processazione visiva. Numerose ricerche, anche internazionali, mostrano l’importanza dell’esercizio di tali abilità all’interno della scuola dell’infanzia anche ai fini della prevenzione dello sviluppo di difficoltà di apprendimento e/o di veri e propri disturbi nella successiva carriera accademica del bambino. Inoltre, la realizzazione di interventi didattici mirati allo sviluppo di tali prerequisiti cognitivi favorisce l’incremento e/o il recupero delle strumentalità della lettoscrittura. In tale scenario, diviene fondamentale riflettere sulle modalità di screening precoce che è possibile attivare all’interno della scuola dell’infanzia e sui relativi strumenti di assessment che è possibile utilizzare. Di conseguenza, sono passati in rassegna alcuni dei principali strumenti psicometrici editi in Italia, dal 1999 ad oggi, per la valutazione dei prerequisiti delle abilità di letto-scrittura in allievi a partire dai 5 anni di età.peerReviewe

The effectiveness of using LEGO® robotics kits as cognitive and social rehabilitative toys

The present article offers a theoretical contribution to the understanding of the effectiveness of using robotics as cognitive and social rehabilitative toys. Starting from the theoretical foundations of educational robotics in the framework of constructionism, it provides methodological indications related to game activities with robotics behaviour construction kits, such as LEGO® Ev3. Moreover, it discusses empirical studies that evaluated the effectiveness of the use of robotics behaviour construction kits in the field of intellectual disabilities. Practical implications of the present study might be useful for educators, school psychologists, or rehabilitative therapists in the field of special educational needs

The Interplay Between Artificial Intelligence and Users’ Personalities: A New Scenario for Human-Computer Interaction in Gaming

The latest business reports showed that Augmented Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are ranked among the top 10 strategic trends for 2018. For these reasons, in this paper, we provide an interdisciplinary focus on design and personality issues, trying to discuss the interplay between games with personality and Artificial Intelligence. First, we describe taxonomy models on personality in games and empirical studies aimed at exploring personality traits of Pokemon GO users. Second, we explore virtual humans employed in investigating chess personalities via simulating human chess players. In this research article, the term virtual human is used to describe a computer program that simulates a human in some aspects such as playing chess. The results of personality and gaming are sparse and mixed. It remains unclear whether personality traits would similarly predict adoption and usage in the context of AR mobile game. On the contrary, results about AI showed that virtual humans have characteristics similar to those of humans and helped researchers explore existing patterns in societies. In our discussion, we try to evidence the importance of personality in gaming also considering that an increasing sale for these technologies is forecasted in 2020 to be 21 times higher than in 2016 (from US $2.9 billion to US$61.3 billion; Superdata Research, 2017)