Jorge Oliveira

Universidade Lusófona | ULHT · Escola de Psicologia e Ciências da Vida

In response to the growing cybersecurity problem, this study presents an innovative approach using virtual reality to train individuals in reducing the risk of cyberattacks. The research involved 70 adult participants with or enrolled in higher education studies, who participated in a virtual reality task that simulates a typical workday in a corpo...

Policing is a highly demanding and stressful profession. Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a promising tool for enhancing stress management programs, including for police officers. The use of VR in combination with biosensors enables measurement of psychophysiological responses such as peripheral temperature (PT) and skin conductance level (SCL)....

Ao longo da história foram vários os momentos que nortearam a criação de princípios éticos para a investigação científica com seres humanos, de forma a combater abusos. Iniciando- -se em 1947, o Código de Nuremberga foi desenvolvido após as atrocidades cometidas por médicos nazis durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial e protege a autonomia e o consentime...

Background Food aesthetics influences affective dimensions (valence and arousal) and subsequent emotional and behavioural responses in images presented in more traditional form, almost rustic in some cases, to the signature dishes of haute cuisine. However, the visual impact of images of haute cuisine dishes on consumers’ affective and emotional re...

Background: Personality theory based on affective neuroscience research suggest the presence of seven affective neurobiological systems. These dimensions have been identified using psychometric instruments as the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) and its brief version known as the Brief Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (BANP...

Introduction: The sexual life of a couple is a dynamic entity, in which the two influence each other mutually, thus the existence of female sexual dysfunction (FSD) can influence the treatment of the man who seeks clinical help. Identify sexual dysfunction in female partners of patients attending an andrology clinic may provide a therapeutic oppor...

The acquired brain injuries (ABI) have consequences that affect the patients’ autonomy, particularly regarding activities of daily living (ADL). To reduce the impact that these changes will have on the patient’s life, it is important to develop diversified tasks with which individuals can train and improve their impaired abilities and strengthen th...

Background Sedentary behavior (SB) has been linked to several negative health outcomes. Therefore, reducing SB or breaking up prolonged periods of SB improves functional fitness, food consumption, job satisfaction, and productivity. Reducing SB can be achieved by introducing a health-enhancing contextual modification promoted by a sit-stand desk in...

Background Sedentary behavior (SB) has been linked to several negative health outcomes. Therefore, reducing SB or breaking up prolonged periods of SB improves functional fitness, food consumption, job satisfaction, and productivity. Reducing SB can be achieved by introducing a health-enhancing contextual modification promoted by a sit-stand desk in...

Background Sedentary behavior (SB) has been linked to several negative health outcomes. Therefore, reducing SB or breaking-up prolonged periods of SB improves functional fitness, food consumption, job satisfaction and productivity. Reducing SB can be achieved by introducing a health-enhancing contextual modification promoted by a sit-stand desk in...

Throughout history, several moments guided the creation of ethical principles to combat abuses in scientific research with human beings. Starting in 1947, the Nuremberg Code was developed as an answer to the atrocities committed by nazi doctors during the Second World War and had the intention of protecting the autonomy and voluntary consent of the...

Background and aims: Substance use disorders (SUD) are associated with cognitive deficits that are not always addressed in current treatments, and this hampers recovery. Cognitive training and remediation interventions are well suited to fill the gap for managing cognitive deficits in SUD. We aimed to reach consensus on recommendations for develop...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.833136.].

Background and Aims Substance use disorders (SUD) are associated with cognitive deficits that are not always addressed in current treatments, and this hampers recovery. Cognitive training and remediation interventions are well suited to fill the gap for managing cognitive deficits in SUD. We aimed to reach consensus on recommendations for developin...

Recent studies have been investigating behavior (of approach and avoidance) toward the interaction with agents in virtual reality. This paper aims to explore the cognitive construction of a complementary relationship with agents in virtual reality through a brief interaction in a virtual task. A sample of 53 adult participants with or attending hig...

Virtual reality-based interventions have gained attention as innovative approaches in clinical settings. However, the use of virtual-based relaxation in reducing psychological distress and physiological activation, a common strategy in traditional interventions, is not well documented. This study aims at exploring the role of a non-familiar synthet...

Introduction Executive dysfunctions constitute a significant public health problem: their high impact on everyday life makes it a priority to identify early strategies for evaluating and rehabilitating these disorders in a real-life context. The ecological limitation of traditional neuropsychological tests and several difficulties in administering...

Health literacy entails the knowledge, motivation, and competencies to access, understand, appraise, and apply health information in order to make judgments and decisions in everyday life concerning health care, disease prevention, and health promotion to maintain or improve quality of life throughout the life course. It has become an essential con...

Executive functions (EF) are higher‐order cognitive processes present in the prefrontal cortex, and are fundamental in planning, executing, and monitoring goal‐oriented behaviors. Evaluating EF in early stages of child development is essential for identifying any cognitive alterations in young children, given that it allows for early intervention a...

Background/Research Topics/Partner Countries In Europe, interest has grown in measuring the health literacy (HL) of the adult population in relation to public health, disease prevention, and health promotion to inform health policy in the new millennium, partly building on a longer tradition of measuring HL, but with a focus on patients, in the US...

Prior research reveals that spatial navigation skills rely mostly in visual sensory abilities, but the study of how spatial processing operates in the absence of visual information is still incomplete. Therefore, a spatial navigation task in virtual reality using auditory cues was developed to study navigational strategies in blindfolded sighted in...

Research on pupillometry provides an increasing evidence for associations between pupil activity and memory processing. The most consistent finding is related to an increase in pupil size for old items compared with novel items, suggesting that pupil activity is associated with the strength of memory signal. However, the time course of these change...

In recent research, games have become an important reference with regards to learning skills with certain characteristics, as well as in promoting contemporary literacies. Games have similarly become highly relevant in the promotion of psychological well-being and mental health. Even considering this role in promoting learning in general, soft skil...

Anxiety disorders comprise different clinical conditions that affect individuals in their personal, professional and social domains. The development of new intervention approaches for the treatment of anxiety disorders is crucial. As a step forward into promoting the well-being through adaptive physiological responses, we developed an augmented rea...

The use of ecologically oriented approaches with virtual reality (VR) depicting instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) is a promising approach for interventions on acquired brain injuries. However, the results of such an approach on dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are still lacking. This research reports on a pilot randomized co...

Within the scope of the Health Literacy Action Plan 2019- 2021 and the collaboration with the WHO Action Network on Measuring Population and Organizational Health Literacy (M-POHL), the Directorate-General of Health assessed the health literacy levels of the Portuguese population in 2020 and 2021 to inform the promotion of the population ́s health....

Introduction. Experts on vaccine hesitancy recommend tailoring interventions to local contexts, which presents an opportunity for game-based interventions to reflect local demographics and make them central to the experience of the game. Experimental game design is a research method that has already been used in educational games. Board games are r...

Aim Our aim was to study the executive functioning, functionality, and quality of life of institutionalized old aged persons and to determine the potential roles of self-reported depression and satisfaction with social support on these domains. Method The sample comprised 36 volunteers (13 males and 23 females) aged between 71 and 94 years. The me...

Objectives: The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is a neuropsychological instrument that is widely used for assessment of executive functioning in both clinical and research settings. The aim of this study was to provide the normative scores for the WCST in a sample of Portuguese healthy adults. Methods: The data was collected from archival data...

Non-immersive VR environments are related to the least interactive application of VR techniques, such that interaction with the VR environment can occur commonly by 3D-TV without full immersion into the environment. This study presents how 3D-TV exposure combined with physiology recording can elicit fear of cockroaches among individuals with differ...

Purpose: Recent studies argue that the use of virtual reality tasks depicting activities daily living may be effective means for cognitive rehabilitation. The aim of this study was to test an ecologically oriented approach in virtual reality resembling the demands of everyday life activities for cognitive rehabilitation following stroke. Materials...

BACKGROUND Alcohol use disorder has been associated with diverse physical and mental morbidities. Among the main consequences of chronic and excessive alcohol use are cognitive and executive deficits. Some of these deficits may be reversed, with improvements in specific cognitive and executive domains, with behavioral approaches consisting in cogni...

Background Alcohol use disorder (AUD) has been associated with diverse physical and mental morbidities. Among the main consequences of chronic and excessive alcohol use are cognitive and executive deficits. Some of these deficits may be reversed in specific cognitive and executive domains with behavioral approaches consisting of cognitive training....

Se estudió el efecto de la valencia emocional y los tiempos de exposición en la consolidación de la memoria implícita mediante el uso del paradigma de priming perceptual enmascarado modificado, con reconocimiento de emociones bajo condiciones de consciencia limitada. Se presentaron rostros priming con expresiones emocionales de felicidad, rabia y n...

The advantages of using naturalistic virtual reality (VR) environments based on everyday life tasks for cognitive intervention in the elderly are not yet well understood. The literature suggests that the similarity of such exercises with real life activities may improve generalizability by extending the transfer of gains of training to everyday liv...

Os esquemas precoces mal-adaptativos e as dificuldades de processamento emocional são variáveis disfuncionais associadas à satisfação das necessidades psicológicas. Contudo, são necessários mais estudos para detalhar a natureza destas relações. No mesmo sentido o padrão de influência destas variáveis no processamento afetivo bottom-up permanece por...

Metacognition is a higher-order psychological construct that has been conceptualized as the ability to identify and describe mental states, beliefs, and intentions of self and others. The Metacognition Self-Assessment Scale (MSAS), was developed to assess different functions of metacognition, being a potential asset in fields such as psychotherapy...

Objectives: Group care for individuals with diabetes is a recognized educational practice, but techniques from narrative medicine using of literary works have never been incorporated in these programs. We designed a new educational model (i.e. the Close Reading and Creative Writing program) of group care for individuals with diabetes incorporating...

Loneliness is a serious concern in modern societies, particularly among older adults, while being imperative that clinicians use reliable instruments for an accurate assessment of this problem. This study aims to describe a mixed statistical approach to assess the psychometric properties of the UCLA Loneliness Scale - 16 in Portuguese old-aged indi...

Experimental paradigms of affective neurosciences may inform integrative clinical decision making. One of the ways is through the study of subliminal emotional processing and its associations with the difficulties of emotional processing, schematic domains and symptoms. Through a subliminal affective priming paradigm with positive, negative and neu...

Emotional automatic reaction in psychopathology have seldom been studied in experimental settings. Comparing three emotion conditions, positive, negative and neutral, we used a subliminal emotion priming paradigm to elicit emotions that the subject was not aware and observed their effects on behavioural reactions of approach/pleasure and avoidance/...

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is a widely used neuropsychological instrument to assess executive functions related to cognitive flexibility and abstract reasoning. However, there is a lack of studies investigating the diagnostic precision of this instrument in substance use disorders. In this study, we aimed at assessing the sensitivity an...

Comparing three emotion conditions, positive, negative and neutral, we used a subliminal emotion priming paradigm to elicit emotions that the subject was not aware and observed their effects on behavioural reactions of approach/pleasure and avoidance/displeasure expressed and also ERP waveforms elicited by each emotion condition. The experimental p...

Investigações têm reportado défices neuropsicológicos associados ao abuso de substâncias, nomeadamente, na memória, funções executivas, atenção complexa e metacognição. No entanto, a associação entre metacognição e a sintomatologia mantém-se pouco clara. A presente investigação pretende caracterizar de forma breve o perfil neuropsicológico e estuda...

The use of an adequate informed consent (IC) is a current concern in psychological research. A good understanding of the IC is an important step to certify that the participant’s decision to participate in research is informed and free. However, the number of pages in the IC may be a main hinder factor in both reading and understanding the IC. The...

O Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) é um instrumento neuropsicológico largamente utilizado para a avaliação da flexibilidade cognitiva e raciocínio abstrato. Contudo, a falta de estudos psicométricos e normas validadas para Portugal têm limitado a comparação e interpretação clinica da performance dos indivíduos no teste. Os objetivos da presente i...

The goal of this study was to understand the role of individual characteristics such as age, gender and education of healthy adults on working memory abilities, as conceptualized in the central executive, phonological loop, and visuospatial sketchpad. The sample comprised 302 adults aged from 18 to 65 with different educational backgrounds. Partici...

As the demographic structure in western societies ages, the prevalence and impact of cognitive decline rises. Thus, new solutions to tackle this problem are required. The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)-based cognitive exercises has emerged in the last few decades, though with inconsistent results. Hence, we conducted a pre-...

Background and Aims: Group dynamics in diabetes have positive outcomes. This study attempts to determine if a group dynamic using narrative and reading is non-inferior to a conventional group approach. Material and Methods: We studied 49 patients (32 - intervention, 17 - control) with type 2 diabetes, were randomized to two different Group Care dyn...

Academic motivation has been associated with important outcomes in different education contexts. The goal of the current study was to explore the psychometric properties of the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) based on the assumptions of the Rating Scale Model (RSM) to provide an effective instrument in assessing academic motivation in Portuguese st...

Ecological validity should be the cornerstone of any assessment of cognitive functioning. For this purpose, we have developed a preliminary study to test the Art Gallery Test (AGT) as an alternative to traditional neuropsychological testing. The AGT involves three visual search subtests displayed in a virtual reality (VR) art gallery, designed to a...

The impairment of basic cognitive functions such as attention and visual working memory can have a significant negative impact in our ability to adapt to the permanent changes in the environment. VR Serious Games are being used as a new tool for both assessment, stimulation and rehabilitation of such impaired functions. Even though the results of t...

Alcohol dependence syndrome has been associated to disfunctions of the pre-frontal cortex, with a negative impact on several areas of cognitive functioning, such as attention, memory and learning, visual-spatial synthesis, executive functions, and psychomotor functions. These changes in turn contribute to the perpetuation of the addictive behavior....

Heroin addiction has a negative impact on cognitive functions, which may also contribute to poorer treatment outcomes in drug addition. Traditional cognitive rehabilitation approaches suffer from limited motivational appeal and are relatively cumbersome to carry out. Thus, we report a study testing the efficacy of an alternative mHealth approach us...

This investigation sought to understand whether performance in naturalistic virtual reality tasks for cognitive assessment relates to the cognitive domains that are supposed to be measured. The Shoe Closet Test (SCT) was developed based on a simple visual search task involving attention skills, in which participants have to match each pair of shoes...

Background: Despite the multisensory nature of perception, previous research on emotions has been focused on unimodal emotional cues with visual stimuli. To the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence on the extent to which incongruent emotional cues from visual and auditory sensory channels affect pupil size. Aims: To investigate the effect...

This study aims at assessing an online portal where patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) can carry on memory and attention exercises outside clinic premises. The training took place in a Virtual Reality setup where one TBI patient had to complete daily life activities such as hygiene, prepare food, buy products from a grocery shop and more. T...

Spiritual intelligence has gained increasing importance as an academic construct in the field of psychology. We present the psychometric properties for the Portuguese adaptation of the Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory-24, SISRI-24. The exploratory analysis showed a factorial structure different from the original scale, comprising three...

Background: An adequate behavioral response depends on attentional and mnesic processes. When these basic cognitive functions are impaired, the use of non-immersive Virtual Reality Applications (VRAs) can be a reliable technique for assessing the level of impairment. However, most non-immersive VRAs use indirect measures to make inferences about v...

Background: Heroin addiction has a negative impact on cognitive functions, and even recovering addicts suffer from cognitive impairment. Recent approaches to cognitive intervention have been taking advantage of what new technologies have to offer. Objectives: We report a study testing the efficacy of a serious games approach using tablets to sti...

Currently there are several neuropsychological computerized assessment instruments. However, despite the fact that the Toulouse-Piéron cancellation test (TP) is one of the most-used tools to assess attention, it can only be applied in an analog format. In addition, the TP does not assess how the visual tracking is performed during application. The...

Currently there are several neuropsychological computerized assessment instruments. However, despite the fact that the Toulouse-Piéron cancellation test (TP) is one of the most-used tools to assess attention, it can only be applied in an analog format. In addition, the TP does not assess how the visual tracking is performed during application. The...

The elderly population is growing fast mainly in the industrialized countries. Ageing is associated with different morbidities including cognitive impairments that limit the ability of these individuals to carry out their daily life activities. This study reports on the development of a computer-assisted approach for cognitive assessment in the eld...

The meta-analysis is a statistical procedure applied to a systematic review of the literature on a particular theme, combining data from several investigations. Its relevance to clinical practice and research is high, taking into account the need to assess, objectively, the effectiveness of several interventions. This study stems from the need to s...

There is a growing body of research focusing on the ecological validity of neuropsychological assessments. For some authors, the neurocognitive tests should be developed to assess the operation of cognitive functions in real-world activities. This subject is particularly important in the elderly, where dysfunctions in daily life activities may sign...

A good understanding of informed consent (IC) is a critical step to ensure that the participant's decision to participate in research is an informed and autonomous one. However, the IC is often a very complicated document, and sometimes difficult to be understood by lay people. The number of pages of the informed consent may be a factor that hinder...

The meta-analysis is a statistical procedure applied to a systematic review of the literature on a particular theme, combining data from several investigations. Its relevance to clinical practice and research is high, taking into account the need to assess, objectively, the effectiveness of several interventions. This study stems from the need to s...

This paper reports an exploratory analysis of the relation between Internet addiction and patterns of use among Portuguese adolescents (n = 2617) from the WHO 2010 Health Behavior in School-aged children study, with a short version of Young's Internet Addiction Test (the brief Internet Addiction Questionnaire – bIAQ) and self-reports on online beha...

A atenção e a memória de trabalho são funções cognitivas básicas humanas. Uma resposta comportamental adequada, face a um ambiente em constante mudança, depende da integridade destas funções. Quando estas funções estão comprometidas, a aplicação de ambientes de realidade virtual (ARV) pode ser uma técnica valida para avaliação e reabilitação dessas...

Immersive virtual reality is thought to be advantageous by leading to higher levels of presence. However, and despite users getting actively involved in immersive three-dimensional virtual environments that incorporate sound and motion, there are individual factors, such as age, video game knowledge, and the predisposition to immersion, that may be...

Attention and working memory are basic human cognitive abilities. An adequate behavioral response, due to constant changes in the environment, depends on the integrity of these abilities. When these cognitive functions are impaired, the use of virtual reality applications (VRAs) can be a reliable technique for assessing and rehabilitating these cog...

The Portuguese capital, Lisbon, is part of a metropolitan area consisting of troubled urban and suburban neighbourhoods. This area has characteristics which intensify and perpetuate the phenomenon of drug addiction, leading to a high number of drug addicts. The personal and social disturbances experienced by these individuals result in a lack of mo...