Maria Pietronilla Penna

• Professor (Full) at University of Cagliari

The Digital Grey Divide (DGD) is a phenomenon that refers to the digital inequality existing among the elderly in using digital tools. DGD could generate social exclusion and hinder elderly well-being because today many aspects of life are online. The objective of the research is to compare the urban and rural group to see if a digital divide is pr...

Background The appropriate use of smartphones is closely related to individual well-being. However, excessive use of smartphones can have detrimental effects on users. This study explores the relationship between problematic smartphone use, smartphone distraction, and well-being across four different generations. Method A total of 430 Italian part...

The process of school digitalisation has been on the rise in recent years, but the relationship between technology and teachers has had a strong acceleration during the global pandemic due to the coronavirus disease 2019. 198 teachers from primary to high school fill a questionnaire about demographic variables (age, gender, education level, school...

Internet use can have both positive and negative impacts. Above all, risks are linked to immoderate use among adolescents. The importance of parental control over their children’s internet use is a key element in limiting the risk factors that such use may have. We investigated this perception by administering a self-report questionnaire to 236 Ita...

The aim of the article is to reveal the level of problematic smartphone use (PSU) among young people, with an additional aim being to diagnose the level of use of applications offering ready access to popular social networks (SNS—e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Pinterest). The text fills a gap related to the scale and mechanisms of PSUs...

Research in the field of pathological addiction has shown that craving is one of the factors contributing to continued substance use. Craving can be considered an urgent need to use substances and can be triggered by a prolonged period of abstinence or by external stimuli. Several studies have shown how the use of non-invasive neurostimulation tech...

The Italian education system is made up of subsystems that should interact with each other to ensure the student's learning and success. Sometimes something does not work, and once compulsory schooling is over, a phenomenon often arises, especially widespread in Italy: school dispersion or dropout. There is evidence of a blockage in the transitions...

This work aimed to validate the use of the Smartphone Distraction Scale (SDS) in Italy. The SDS was devised to assess distraction related to smartphone use in adult populations. A cross-sectional study was conducted among n = 609 adults (females = 76.4%; mean age = 30.26; SD age = 9.90). An assessment of the factorial structure of the Italian versi...

Well-being is a multidimensional construct that affects various areas of a person’s life. In the university context, a student’s well-being can influence not only their academic and professional success but also the future development of society. This study aimed to evaluate how the interactions of time perspective (assessed by the Stanford Time Pe...

Alongside the positive effects linked to the introduction of digital technologies into our lives, particular dysfunctional behaviors in the use of digital tools have appeared, through which the expression of conditions such as addiction, difficulties in affective and behavioral self-regulation and mental health problems have been channeled. The pre...

Preadolescence is a critical period, characterised by changes in physical, hormonal, cognitive, behavioural, and emotional development, as well as by changes in social and school relationships. These changes are accompanied by the transition from elementary school to middle school. The literature shows that this transition is one of the most stress...

Few studies have been conducted analyzing the experience of raising a gifted child. The present exploratory study focused on examining the profiles of a sample of 44 gifted children, exploring aspects related to health status, precociousness of development, and peculiarities of their potentiality and peculiar emotional profile. Through the administ...

Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) pose significant challenges to both individuals and society at large. The primary focus of existing research with clinical SUD populations has been on individual substances, but research is required to better understand the profiles of individuals who use different substances simultaneously. The purpose of the current...

The present study focuses on smartphone overuse and on problematic behaviors related to it, investigating possible differences at the intergenerational level among the variables considered. Through the administration of self-report questionnaires, the perception of smartphone distraction, smartphone problematic use, phubbing, and cognitive failures...

The Mobile Phone Problematic Use Scale (MPPUS) is a self-report measure developed to identify the problematic use of mobile phones (PSU) among adults. The purpose of this study was to create an Italian version. A sample of 568 Italian adults completed the MPPUS, presented in association with another validated scale for the assessment of smartphone...

The estimated number of Substance Users (SU) globally has currently reached a very high number and is still increasing. This aspect necessitates appropriate interventions for prevention and specific treatments. The literature shows that digital treatments can be useful in the context of health services and substance abuse. This systematic review fo...

Today, there is a considerable expansion in the number of new digital tools and systems for mental health assessment, intervention, support, prevention, and treatment [...].

Background Chronic Pain (CP) is a crucial determinant for disability in older adults. CP amplifies the impact of other common age-related diseases and increases cardiovascular risk. Physical exercise can improve CP. Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) with high-intensity exercise in older adults excluded people with Moderate Chronic Illness (MCI) a...

Background The use of a substance is always accompanied by a motivation that pushes the subject to use and abuse the substance. This work reports the validation data of the MUS (Motivation to Use Substance), which measures and evaluates the motivation to use substances based on the dimension of resistance, confidence, pleasure, and relaxation. Met...

Background Physical activity in the elderly is recommended by international guidelines to protect against cognitive decline and functional impairment. Objective This Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) was set up to verify whether medium-intensity physical activity in elderly people living in the community is effective in improving cognitive perform...

Even if the use of distance learning and E-learning has a long tradition all over the world and both have been used to keep in contact with students and to provide lessons, support and learning materials, there is an open debate on the balance between advantages and disadvantages in the use of distance learning. This debate is even more central in...

The aim of this research was to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on teachers, particularly on their self-esteem and self-efficacy, their difficulty in the transition to distance learning, the difficulty of students, and specially of students with learning disabilities (LDs students), as perceived by teachers. 226 teachers were invite...

Studies on pathological addictions have shown how the need and the search for the substance are stimulated by environmental situations linked to the substance (trigger). This condition is determinant for the state of craving (Bonfiglio et al., Addict Behav Rep 9:100172, 2019). Craving is considered as a conditioning response linked to the search fo...

In the literature there are more and more works dealing with cyberbullying and adolescents’ perception of this phenomenon. In particular, we are interested in cyberbullying and the effects of cyberbullying on adolescent life. What is more, in 2020 the impact of COVID-19 has increased the digital presence of cyberbullying behaviours. This phenomenon...

The development of numerical abilities was examined in 73 pupils. Children were divided into five groups: four experimental groups, plus a control group. The experimental groups received different psychoeducational treatments (pencil-and-paper mathematical training: n = 14; computerized mathematical training: n = 15; combined pencil-and-paper visuo...

This study aimed to evaluate which aspects of moral disengagement (MD), empathy, and representations of the victim’s experience (VER) could be predictors of cyberbullying (CB). One hundred and eight-nine students (11–17 years old) completed 3 self-report questionnaires: An MD scale, an empathy scale, and a CB questionnaire. In relation to the perso...

What are the main learning difficulties or advantages encountered by students with learning disabilities (LDs) within e-environments? As a result of the Covid-19 emergency, e-learning is being increasingly used to support students’ learning processes. A number of countries closed their schools altogether, so face-to-face lessons were and have been...

22% worldwide will be over 65 in 2050. The amount of Disability-adjusted life year will increase with impact on social and health costs. Physical activity in old age contrasts the metabolic and cardiovascular diseases and cognitive impairment, improves biological rhythms and lows the risk of falls. The interest in the therapeutic effects of physi...

Cognitive flexibility (CF) is a fundamental human ability to adjust cognitive processing strategies to deal with new and unpredicted situations. In this sense, using valid and theoretically grounded measures of cognitive flexibility is critical. A new measure of CF, the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory, has recently been validated. This measure comp...

This study was conducted to determine whether age-related variance in social desirability mediates age trends in psychological health. Self-report measures assessing depressive symptoms, well-being and social desirability were administered to wide age range sample (158 participants aged 20–101 years) from Sardinia, an Italian region located in the...

This study emphasizes the importance of analyzing factors that contribute to student well-being, as a result of the multiplicity of factors that can affect their quality of life (QoL). The literature indicates that, among these factors, emotional intelligence and self-regulation play a central role in influencing adolescents’ psychological and scho...

Background Established measures of well-being rarely examine active lifestyle or religious behaviors. Though these could be assessed using individual measures, in older populations, the availability of a brief composite instrument with adequate psychometric properties would be desirable. Aims Two studies were conducted to assess the psychometric p...

A body of research documented that the study of mental health of the oldest individuals may contribute to understand the psychological characteristics of longevity. This study had two related aims. First, to fully characterize the psychological health of Sardinian elders in the very late adult span. Second, to determine the psychological health of...

This paper reports some experiments on probabilistic reasoning designed to investigate the impact of the probabilistic problem presentation format (verbal-numerical and graphical-pictorial) on subjects’ confidence in the correctness of their performance, other than the calibration between confidence and accuracy. To understand the potential effect...

This study investigated the relationship between numerical accuracy (i.e, number comprehension and mental calculation) and self-reported depression in late adulthood. Whether social context (i.e., marital status) and very early cognitive decline symptoms impacted numerical performance was also examined. Ninety-four community-dwelling elderly partic...

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of a shortened, specialized and digitally supported training program for enhancing numerical skills in primary and secondary school children with Mathematical Difficulty. The participants (n = 57) were randomly assigned to two groups: for the experimental group the tasks were differentiated and adapted...

In agreement with a systemic approach to mental illness, it is possible to detect five components in the pathogenesis of a psychiatric disorder: overload/subjective discomfort, relational disorders/social disorder, loss of emerging functions, appearance of less adaptable primary functions, activation of top-down reactions with the emergency of comp...

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a progressive neurological condition characterized by motor and non-motor symptoms impacting life quality. The main aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of PD on objective (i.e., working memory and semantic memory) and subjective memory (i.e., self-reported seriousness of forgetting, mnemonic usage and...

A cross-national comparison between Italy and Spain was conducted on probabilistic reasoning performance presented in verbal-numerical and graphical-pictorial formats. This study investigated the similarities and differences in Psychology undergraduates in these two countries (Italy n=290; Spain n=130) and attempted to identify aspects that might e...

Even in primary school, mathematics achievement depends upon the efficiency of cognitive, metacognitive and self-regulatory processes. Thus, for pupils to carry out a computation, such as a written calculation, metacognitive mechanisms play a crucial role, since children must employ self-regulation to assess the precision of their own thinking and...

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a neurological disorder characterized by motor symptoms and other clinical conditions, such as cognitive impairment, negative mood, anxiety. The present study explored the impact of PD on self-reported physical and mental health, objective cognition and postural control. The relationship among these variables was examine...

Background: This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Substance Craving Questionnaire (SCQ-NOW), extended version of the Cocaine Craving Questionnaire (CCQ-NOW), defined as a multidimensional measure assessing the craving about cocaine, as conceptualized by Tiffany, Singleton, Haertzen, and Henningfield (1993)....

The use of a mobile phone for texting purposes results in distracted walking which may lead to injuries. In particular, texting while walking has been shown to induce significant alterations in gait patterns. This study aimed to assess whether changes in the main spatio-temporal parameters of gait when simultaneously engaged in texting on a smartph...

This study aims to objectively quantify and describe the diurnal patterns of physical activity (PA) in people with Parkinson’s disease (pwPD) with mild-moderate disability. Eighteen pwPD wore a tri-axial accelerometer on their non-dominant wrist 24/h day for 3 months. Data was processed using three different algorithms previously validated for PD a...

Blue Zones are defined as regions of exceptional longevity. Emerging evidence also indicates the presence of several positive psychological characteristics amongst older inhabitants. No synthesis of this information is currently available. The current article focuses on psychological characteristics of successful ageing, including perceived well-be...

Introduction Aging leads to poorer neuromuscular control that may impact mobility. However, the specific decades when these changes occur, and whether these time-based changes are sex-specific, are unclear. Methods Adults aged 20–82 years (N = 93, 51 females) walked six gait trials at their preferred speed over a 10-m platform. Electromyography (E...

This study analyzes if motivation, academic self-concept, perception of the time perspective, self-regulation, and the attendance of specific online laboratory activities influence academic retention and achievement of two group of freshmen attending the first year of their Bachelor’s Degree. The freshmen were monitored along their first academic y...

Background: older adults from the Sardinian Blue Zone self-report low depressive symptoms and high psychological well-being. However, the role of dispositional resilience as a determinant of these characteristics is unknown. Objectives: the current study had three aims. First, to investigate associations among several putative predictors, including...

Background: There has been scientific interest in the Sardinia population for a number of years and for a variety of reasons, including its extreme longevity. This is especially prevalent in the central-eastern region of the island, where a blue zone region has been precisely delineated. Aims: The present study examines the influence of leisure...

Purpose: This study aimed to characterize age-related changes in Timed Up and Go (TUG) sub-phases (i.e., sit to stand, walking and turning) quantitatively assessed using an inertial sensor in healthy older adults and to verify the degree of correlation between TUG parameters and muscular strength (assessed by handgrip strength, HGS) in the differen...

The incidence of self-reported cognitive failures among older adults may be an index of successful cognitive aging. However, self-reported cognitive failures are biased by variation in depressive symptomatology. This study examined age-related and socio-cultural context effects on cognitive failures while controlling for depressive symptoms. Both o...

There are many unresolved issues concerning both the conceptual and practical aspects of measurement in the field of psychology. This situation persists despite its long-standing and fundamental role in the activities of the majority of psychologists and despite intense scientific enquiry. These issues concern, essentially, the role of qualitative...

Self-reported measures of psychological well-being and depressive symptoms were examined across differently aged family members, while controlling for the impact of marital status and personal satisfaction about family and non-family relations. Twenty-one grandchildren (i.e., ages 21-36 years) were recruited with their parents (i.e., 48-66 years ol...

Several studies report that basic motor abilities, including muscular strength and static and dynamic balance influence the risk of falls in elderly people. However, the relationship between these features is not fully clear. In this study, we measured static posturography and TUG (performed using force platform and wearable inertial sensors) with...

The higher cognitive processes cannot be explained by processes of sequential neural activation and new systemic approaches to the study of electroencephalographic correlates of cognition are presently proposed. As the mental activity appears to be the result of a systemic integration of different neural network activities (brain networks, BNet), t...

The aim of this study was to verify the efficacy of two pencil-and-paper trainings empowering numerical and visuo-spatial abilities in Italian five-year-old kindergarteners. Specifically, the trainings were respectively carried out by the curricular teacher or by an external trainer. The former received a specific training in order to use the psych...

Many studies have investigated the features of probabilistic reasoning developed in relation to different formats of problem presentation, showing that it is affected by various individual and contextual factors. Incomplete understanding of the identity and role of these factors may explain the inconsistent evidence concerning the effect of problem...

Research on the graphical facilitation of probabilistic reasoning has been characterised by the effort expended to identify valid assessment tools. The authors developed an assessment instrument to compare reasoning performances when problems were presented in verbal-numerical and graphical-pictorial formats. A sample of undergraduate psychology st...

The purpose of this study was to understand the role played by several individual and contextual variables in accounting for the subjects' performance in probabilistic reasoning problems, presented in verbal–numerical and graphical–pictorial formats, respectively. Structural equation models linking these variables were proposed. Three samples of ps...

Endometriosis is a chronic disease that affects women of reproductive age. Chronic pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea, and dyspareunia are its main symptoms; pain alters the quality of life of the patient and affects her health. Since pain is a highly subjective experience, the purpose of this study is to assess the sensory component of pain perception in e...

Brain Dynamics seems to be the most actual approach to the brain responses to external stimuli. Even if Event Related Potentials can be detected, the EEG band power perturbation and the Phase Amplitude Coupling (PAC) seems to be the most appropriate way to assess such a brain dynamics. In this study 13 borderline subject with a child maltreatment h...

The present study aims to explore the mechanisms underpinning forward and backward immediate serial recall in young (i.e., 20–30 years), old (i.e., 65–74 years), and very old (i.e., 75–84 years) adults. Participants had to retrieve verbal lists from forward and backward perspectives where position-item and item-item pairings were reiterated from th...

This contribution is devoted to assess whether a basic hypotheses underlying the connectionist approach is firmly grounded and useful for the research activities concerning the Psychology. The hypothesis asserts that the observed macroscopic consequences of cognitive processing are nothing but collective effects emergent from the interactions betwe...

Background/Purpose: This study was mainly aimed at investigating the impact of institutionalization on working-memory and self-referent metamemory abilities in a sample of cognitively healthy Italian elders. Methods: Fifteen participants (70–91 years old) were recruited from several nursing homes located in Ogliastra, the central eastern area of Sa...

A body of literature shows the significant role of visual-spatial skills played in the improvement of mathematical skills in the primary school. The main goal of the current study was to investigate the impact of a combined visuo-spatial and mathematical training on the improvement of mathematical skills in 146 second graders of several schools loc...

The aim of this study was to verify whether fiveyear-old children (attending the last year of kindergarten) could have different enhancements to their abilities to accomplish two homologous trainings on numerical intelligence: pencil-and-paper format and computerized format. We have evaluated the effects of two types of training, observing that bot...

THIS PAPER IS AVAILABLE FOR FREE AT: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ygRJjPMrMxYteqzKeZxY/full This study was mainly aimed at exploring the relationship between psychological well-being and lifestyle, religion, perceived physical health and social desirability of Italian elders. Four hundred and six cognitively healthy 65-99 years old participan...

This study aims to investigate about the existence of a graphical facilitation effect on probabilistic reasoning. Measures of undergraduates' performances on problems presented in both verbal-numerical and graphical-pictorial formats have been related to visuo-spatial and numerical prerequisites, to statistical anxiety, to attitudes towards statist...

The current research was aimed mainly at exploring the reliability of a short-screening tool developed to self-evaluate visuospatial abilities in children. We presented 290 Italian third, fourth, and fifth graders with the 16-item Shortened Visuospatial questionnaire and several objective measures of intellectual efficiency, such as Raven's Coloure...

Background Cross-frequency modulation (CfM) supports the synchronization and the coordination of the high-frequency activity of large brain areas and it may represent a generalized mode of systems communication and integration (Canolty and Knight, 2010). CfM, therefore, it is likely to be a key element of the brain integration (He et al, 2010), fea...