A fear reaction is fundamental for survival and naturally activates the adrenergic system, prompting an acute and vital flight-or-fight response. While sustained stress is associated with unhealthy low-grade inflammation, more acute and transient activation of the adrenergic system has been suggested to impact the immune system and subsequently attenuate low-grade inflammation, e.g. through cold exposure or hyperventilation. Voluntary exposure to frightening stimuli, such as scary entertainment, is another reliable activator of the adrenergic system, yet its impact on the immune system and low-grade inflammation is unknown. The objectives of this study are to i. assess proportional changes of participants with low-grade inflammation at and three days after a voluntary frightening event, and ii. explore mean value alterations in inflammatory markers and immune cells over time. We recruited adult participants among visitors to a real-life intense frightening haunted house attraction, located in Vejle, Denmark. The overall fright potential of the exposure was estimated through heart rate (HR) monitoring and self-reported levels of fear. Low-grade inflammation (defined as high sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) > 3 mg/L)) and immune cells (subtypes of leukocytes) were measured from blood samples immediately before, immediately after, and three days after the haunted house event. A total of 113 participants, 69 females (61.1 %), and 44 males (38.9 %), with a mean age of 29.7 (SD 10.1) were included in the analyses. The average duration of exposure was 50 min and 51 s, while the mean HR throughout the event was 111.1 BPM (mean SD 10.1), and the mean subjective reported scare level was 5.4 (SD 1.9) on a Likert scale ranging from 1 to 9. Twenty-two participants exhibited low-grade inflammation (hs-CRP > 3 mg/L) at the event, with 10 participants normalizing their hs-CRP levels three days post-event. Seven participants had normal hs-CRP levels at the event, but low-grade inflammation three days post-event. Thus, we found no proportional difference between participants with low-grade inflammation at the event (19.5 %) and three days after the event (16.8 %) (diff. -2.7 %; 95 % CI: -10.7 to 5.4, p = 0.47). For the 22 participants exhibiting low-grade inflammation at the event, 18 participants (82 %) decreased their hs-CRP levels, with a mean decrease in hs-CRP from 5.7 mg/L pre-event to 3.7 mg/L three days post-event (diff. -2.0, 95 % CI: -3.2 to -0.7, p = 0.003). Supporting an overall attenuation of inflammation, total leukocytes and lymphocytes decreased for both participants with low-grade inflammation and with normal inflammatory levels, when comparing levels pre- and three days post-event, although all mean levels remained within the normal range. Conclusively, we find no proportional differences in participants exhibiting low-grade inflammation (hs-CRP > 3) when comparing levels at and three days after exposure to a voluntary frightening event. However, explorative analyses suggest that recreational fear exposure may attenuate immune cells across the entire cohort (N =113) and decrease hs-CRP levels for participants who exhibit low-grade inflammation at the event (N = 22).

It is widely believed that play and curiosity are key ingredients as children develop models of the world. There is also an emerging consensus that children are Bayesian learners who combine their structured prior beliefs with estimations of the likelihood of new evidence to infer the most probable model of the world. An influential school of thought within developmental psychology, rational constructivism, combines these two ideas to propose that children learn intuitive theories of how the world works in part by engaging in play activities that allow them to gather new information for testing their theories. There are still, however, at least two pieces missing from rational constructivist theories of development. First, rational constructivism has so far devoted little attention to explaining why children's preferred form of learning, play, feels so fun, enjoyable, and rewarding. Rational constructivism may suggest that children are curious and like to play because reducing uncertainty and learning better theories of the causal workings of the world is enjoyable. What remains unclear, however, is why reducing uncertainty in play is interesting, fun, and joyful, while doing so in other forms of learning can be frustrating or boring. Second, rational constructivism may have overlooked how children, during play, will take control of and manipulate their environment, sometimes in an effort to create ideal niches for surprise-extraction, sometimes for developing strategies for making the world fit with their predictions. These missing elements from rational constructivism can be provided by understanding the contribution of play to development in terms of predictive processing, an influential framework in cognitive neuroscience that models many of the brain's cognitive functions as processes of model-based, probabilistic prediction.

In this article, we argue that a predictive processing framework may provide elements for a proximate model of play in children and adults. We propose that play is a behavior in which the agent, in contexts of freedom from the demands of certain competing cognitive systems, deliberately seeks out or creates surprising situations that gravitate towards sweet-spots of relative complexity with the goal of resolving surprise. We further propose that play is experientially associated with a feel-good quality because the agent is reducing significant levels of prediction error (i.e. surprise) faster than expected. We argue that this framework can unify a range of well-established findings in play and developmental research that highlights the role of play in learning, and that casts children as Bayesian learners. The theory integrates the role of positive valence in play (i.e., explaining why play is fun); and what it is to be in a playful mood. Central to the account is the idea that playful agents may create and establish an environment tailored to the generation and further resolution of surprise and uncertainty. Play emerges here as a variety of niche construction where the organism modulates its physical and social environment in order to maximize the productive potential of surprise.

Why do people seek out frightening leisure activities such as horror films and haunted attractions, and does the experience benefit them in any way? In this article, we address these questions through two separate studies. In Study 1, we asked American horror fans (n = 256) why they like horror and identified three overall types of horror fans which we term “Adrenaline Junkies,” “White Knucklers,” and “Dark Copers.” In Study 2, we collected data from Danish visitors at a haunted house attraction (n = 258) and replicated the findings from Study 1 by identifying the same three types of horror fans. Furthermore, we show that these three types of horror fans report distinct benefits from horror experiences. Adrenaline Junkies reported immediate enjoyment, White Knucklers reported personal growth, and Dark Copers reported both. These results suggest that frightening leisure activities are not just an outlet for Adrenaline Junkies and sensation-seekers, but that the allure of horror has as much to do with its potential as a stimulus for personal growth as it has with enjoyment.

Principles of alignment, predictability and certainty have become cornerstones in modern day conceptions of high-quality education. Yet, in recent years, educational progressives who argue for the importance of uncertainty in formal learning environments are increasingly getting support from developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. In this chapter, we review evidence suggesting that play is characterised by agents naturally seeking or creating just-right amounts of uncertainty, which in turn has profound effects on their motivation, curiosity, enjoyment and learning. Extending on these findings, we argue for an increased focus on playful approaches in formal educational settings, placing emphasis on learners’ agency and natural tendency to optimise learning strategies through the creation of manageable niches of uncertainty. We draw on examples from existing educational settings to illustrate how such approaches could be realised and identify important implications for the role of the teacher in facilitating uncertain environments and supportive reflective practices.

Why do we seek out and enjoy uncertain success in playing games? Game designers and researchers suggest that games whose challenges match player skills afford engaging experiences of achievement, competence, or effectance-of doing well. Yet, current models struggle to explain why such balanced challenges best afford these experiences and do not straightforwardly account for the appeal of high- and low-challenge game genres like Idle and Soulslike games. In this article, we show that Predictive Processing (PP) provides a coherent formal cognitive framework which can explain the fun in tackling game challenges with uncertain success as the dynamic process of reducing uncertainty surprisingly efficiently. In gameplay as elsewhere, people enjoy doing better than expected, which can track learning progress. In different forms, balanced, Idle, and Soulslike games alike afford regular accelerations of uncertainty reduction. We argue that this model also aligns with a popular practitioner model, Raph Koster's Theory of Fun for Game Design, and can unify currently differentially modelled gameplay motives around competence and curiosity.

In creativity research it is often claimed that creativity pertains to persons and products as well as processes. However, most studies have focused on the creative potential of persons and their creative products in detriment of looking at the creative process itself or investigating all three facets of creativity in the same study. In this article, we report on a study that investigated children's creative potential, iterations in their creative process, and the effects of these factors on their creative products. Twenty-seven children aged 10-12 participated in a LEGO building task and were asked to build creative products in a five-step iterative process (for a total of 135 creative products). Children's creative potential was then assessed with an Alternative Uses Task. Finally, children's creative products were evaluated by six expert raters using a Consensual Assessment Technique. Results revealed statistically significant effects of iterations in the creative process on children's creative products. Specifically, iterations significantly increased originality but decreased task-appropriateness of the creative products. These results suggest that, in children, iterations in creative processes might facilitate exploration but inhibit exploitation. We found no statistically significant effects of children's creative potential on their creative products, supporting domain specificity in creativity. These findings represent some of the first empirical evidence showcasing the effects of iteration on originality and appropriateness in children's creative products, emphasizing the importance of investigating creative processes in children.

Studies of cultural transmission—whether approached by archaeological or ethnographic means—have made great strides in identifying formal teaching and learning arrangements, which in turn can be closely aligned with models of social learning. While novices and apprentices are often in focus in such studies, younger children and their engagement with material culture have received less attention. Against the backdrop of a cross-cultural database of ethnographically documented object use and play in 54 globally distributed foraging communities, we here discuss the ways in which children make and use tools and toys. We provide a cross-cultural inventory of objects made for and by hunter–gatherer children and adolescents. We find that child and adolescent objects are linked to adult material culture, albeit not exclusively so. Toys and tools were primarily handled outside of explicit pedagogical contexts, and there is little evidence for formalised apprenticeships. Our data suggests that children’s self-directed interactions with objects, especially during play, has a critical role in early-age enskillment. Placed within a niche construction framework, we combine ethnographic perspectives on object play with archaeological evidence for play objects to offer an improved cross-cultural frame of reference for how social learning varies across early human life history and what role material culture may play in this process. While our analysis improves the systematic understanding of the role and relevance of play objects among hunter–gatherer societies, we also make the case for more detailed studies of play objects in the context of ethnographic, archival and archaeological cultural transmission research.

Learning to use, make, and modify tools is key to our species’ success. Researchers have hypothesized that play with objects may have a foundational role in the ontogeny of tool use and, over evolutionary timescales, in cumulative technological innovation. Yet, there are few systematic studies investigating children’s interactions with objects outside the post-industrialized West. Here, we survey the ethnohistorical record to uncover cross-cultural trends regarding hunter-gatherer children’s use of objects during play and instrumental activities. Our dataset, consisting of 434 observations of children’s toys and tools from 54 hunter-gatherer societies, reveals several salient trends: Most objects in our dataset are used in play. Children readily manufacture their own toys, such as dolls and shelters. Most of the objects that children interact with are constructed from multiple materials. Most of the objects in our dataset are full-sized or miniature versions of adult tools, reflecting learning for adult roles. Children also engage with objects related to child culture, primarily during play. Taken together, our findings show that hunter-gatherer children grow up playing, making, and learning with objects.

AbstractAims/IntroductionTreatment intensification is commonly delayed in people with type 2 diabetes, resulting in poor glycemic control for an unacceptable length of time and increased risk of complications.Materials and MethodsThis retrospective study investigated clinical inertia in 33,320 Japanese adults with type 2 diabetes treated with oral antidiabetic drugs (OADs) between 2009 and 2018, using data from the Computerized Diabetes Care (CoDiC®) database.ResultsThe median time from first reported glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) ≥7.0% (≥53 mmol/mol) to treatment intensification was considerably longer and HbA1c levels were higher the more OADs the patient was exposed to. For patients receiving three OADs, the median times from HbA1c ≥7.0% (53 mmol/mol) to intensification with OAD, glucagon‐like peptide‐1 receptor agonist or insulin were 8.1, 9.1 and 6.7 months, with a mean HbA1c level at the time of intensification of 8.4%, 8.9% and 9.3%, respectively. The cumulative incidence for time since the first reported HbA1c ≥7.0% (≥53 mmol/mol) to intensification confirmed the existence of clinical inertia, identifying patients whose treatment was not intensified despite poor glycemic control. HbA1c levels ≥7.0% (≥53 mmol/mol) after ≥6 months on one, two or three OADs were observed in 42%, 51% and 58% of patients, respectively, showing that approximately 50% of patients are above HbA1c target regardless of how many OADs they take.ConclusionsReal‐world data here show clinical inertia in Japanese adults with type 2 diabetes from early diabetes stages when they are receiving OADs, and illustrate a need for earlier, more effective OADs or injectable treatment intensification and better communication around the existence of clinical inertia.

The automated evaluation of creative products promises both good-and-scalable creativity assessments and new forms of visual analysis of whole corpora. Where creative works are not ‘born digital’, such automated evaluation requires fast and frugal ways of transforming them into data representations that can be meaningfully assessed with common creativity metrics like novelty. In this paper, we report the results of training a Spatiotemporal DeepInfomax Variational Autoencoder (STDIM-VAE) on a digital photo pool of 162 LEGO ducks to generate a phenotypical landscape of clusters of similar ducks and dissimilarity scores for individual ducks. Visual inspection suggests that our system produces plausible results from image pixels alone. We conclude that under certain conditions, STDIM-VAEs may provide fast and frugal ways of automatically assessing corpora of creative works.

Haunted attractions are illustrative examples of recreational fear in which people voluntarily seek out frightening experiences in pursuit of enjoyment. We present findings from a field study at a haunted-house attraction where visitors between the ages of 12 and 57 years ( N = 110) were equipped with heart rate monitors, video-recorded at peak scare points during the attraction, and asked to report on their experience. Our results show that enjoyment has an inverted-U-shaped relationship with fear across repeated self-reported measures. Moreover, results from physiological data demonstrate that the experience of being frightened is a linear function of large-scale heart rate fluctuations, whereas there is an inverted-U-shaped relationship between participant enjoyment and small-scale heart rate fluctuations. These results suggest that enjoyment is related to forms of arousal dynamics that are “just right.” These findings shed light on how fear and enjoyment can coexist in recreational horror.

Previous research on credibility-enhancing displays (CREDs) suggests that long-term exposure to religious role models "practicing what they preach" aids the acceptance of religious representations by cultural learners. Likewise, a considerable amount of anecdotal evidence implicates its opposite, perceived "religious hypocrisy" (forthwith credibility-undermining displays or CRUDs), as a factor in the rejection of religion. However, there is currently little causal evidence on whether behaviors of either kind displayed by religious authorities directly affect pre-existing religious belief. The current study investigated this question by priming Irish self-identified "Catholic Christian" participants with either a clerical CRED or CRUD and subsequently measuring levels of explicit and implicit belief. Our results revealed no effects of immediate CRED or CRUD exposure on either implicit religious belief or three different measures of explicit religiosity. Instead, explicit (but not implicit) religiosity was predicted by past CRED exposure. Prospects and limitations of experimental approaches to CREDs and CRUDs are discussed.

Since its inception, explaining the cognitive foundations governing sensory experiences of supernatural agents has been a central topic in the cognitive science of religion. Following recent developments in perceptual psychology, this pre-registered study examines the effects of expectations and sensory reliability on agency detection. Participants were instructed to detect beings in a virtual forest. Results reveal that participants expecting a high probability of encountering an agent in the forest are much more likely to make false detections than participants expecting a low probability of such encounters. Furthermore, low sensory reliability increases the false detection rate compared to high sensory reliability, but this effect is much smaller than the effect of expectations. While previous accounts of agency detection have speculated that false detections of agents may give rise to or strengthen religious beliefs, our results suggest that the reverse direction of causality may also be true. Religious teachings may first produce expectations in believers, which in turn elicit false detections of agents. These experiences may subsequently work to confirm the teachings and narratives upon which the values of a given culture are built.

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We investigate approaches to horror entertainment from two common consumer stances: 'the thrill-seeking stance' in which adrenaline junkies seek maximal fear arousal and 'the fear-avoidance stance' in which so-called white-knucklers seek minimal fear arousal. Visitors of a haunted house attraction (n = 280) were invited to focus on either maximizing or minimizing their fear. Open-ended participant interviews and questionnaire data were used to map how adrenaline junkies and white-knucklers regulate fear, and also how reported fear experience and consumer satisfaction compare across the two groups. A host of antecedent and response-focused strategies, including cognitive, behavioral, and social strategies, were used to up- and down-regulate fear arousal. Notably, the results reveal hitherto uncharted strategies employed by adrenaline junkies to support and maximize their fear experience. Although adrenaline junkies report stronger fear experiences than white-knucklers, consumer satisfaction remains relatively similar across the two groups, indicating that both stances can lead to satisfying consumer experiences. The study thus helps explain the paradoxical appeal of frightening entertainment by illuminating how consumers deliberately up- and down-regulate fear arousal in pursuit of the optimal experience.

Ouija board sessions are illustrious examples of how subjective feelings of control – the Sense of Agency (SoA) - can be manipulated in real life settings. We present findings from a field experiment at a paranormal conference, where Ouija enthusiasts were equipped with eye trackers while using the Ouija board. Our results show that participants have a significantly lower probability at visually predicting letters in a Ouija board session compared to a condition in which they are instructed to deliberately spell out words with the Ouija board planchette. Our results also show that Ouija board believers report lower SoA compared to sceptic participants. These results support previous research which claim that low sense of agency is caused by a combination of retrospective inference and an inhibition of predictive processes. Our results show that users in Ouija board sessions become increasingly better at predicting letters as responses unfold over time, and that meaningful responses from the Ouija board can only be accounted for when considering interactions that goes on at the participant pair level. These results suggest that meaningful responses from the Ouija board may be an emergent property of interacting and predicting minds that increasingly impose structure on initially random events in Ouija sessions.