Yulia Kovas

• BA, MA, BSc, MSc, PhD
• Professor at Goldsmiths University of London

The first year of parenthood is considered to be a challenging period, associated with the transformation of family relations. The links between family relations and parenting are widely studied. However, in most research only a limited number of indicators is investigated, and there is a lack of data on the agreement between mothers' and fathers'...

The assessment of creativity in education is important because it allows educators to recognize and nurture students’ creative potential. Many measures tap into Individual differences, such as cognitive tests; estimates of one’s own individual characteristics (self-reported creativity); and inventories of previous creative behaviours. Such measures...

Objective: The birth of a baby is a time of great change. Changes in parents’ mood and sleep are considerably higher during pregnancy and after the birth of the child, which can put a strain on the health of parents and infants. This study aimed to examine the associations between Stressful Life Events (SLEs), sleep and mood in mothers and addition...

Recently, more effort has been devoted to ensuring that scientific knowledge can be mobilised to make a positive impact on individuals and society. Scientists are encouraged, and even required, to communicate their findings beyond academic circles – to inform interested groups. However, there can be challenges with language use and communicating co...

Genetic advances have brought new opportunities to society, with new powers of polygenic prediction, genetic engineering and gene-based environmental interventions. Judges and lawyers influence interpretations and attitudes towards complex societal issues and develop regulation. Therefore, their genetic literacy and views are an important part of s...

Mindfulness witnessed a substantial popularity surge in the past decade, especially as digitally self-administered interventions became available at relatively low costs. Yet, it is uncertain whether they effectively help reduce stress. In a preregistered (OSF https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/UF4JZ; retrospective registration at ClinicalTrials.gov N...

Multiple studies show that reading in hard-to-read (dysfluent) fonts can enhance memory and comprehension of learnt material, but it is unclear if this effect extends to second language (L2) learning. This study investigated the impact of dysfluent fonts on L2 text memorisation and comprehension, accounting for learners’ individual differences (gen...

The current study explores anxiety-academic performance associations across eight domain-general and domain-specific (e.g. maths) anxiety measures and 13 school subjects in a large (N= ~800) sample of schoolchildren (Mage =15.26), selected for high achievement in STEM and other domains. Our data showed that all anxiety measures load onto single gen...

The study examines how intensive hockey training is linked with spatial ability and academic performance. Participants were hockey players from top junior teams (N = 225, mean age = 14.25, all boys) and their unselected peers (N = 278, mean age = 15.47, all boys). Compared to the unselected group, hockey players showed lower results in 10 small-s...

Introduction: Recent studies showed an association between personality traits and individual patterns of visual behaviour in laboratory and other settings. The current study extends previous research by measuring multiple personality traits in natural settings; and by comparing accuracy of prediction of multiple machine learning algorithms. Method...

Previous research has focused on understanding when, why, and how sex differences in creativity occur, as results vary across samples, measures, and methodologies. In the current study we investigated sex differences in creativity among 984 high achieving adolescents in three expertise areas: Sciences, Arts, and Sports. Eight creativity indicators...

Understanding reasons for why people choose to have or not to have a genetic test is essential given the ever-increasing use of genetic technologies in everyday life. The present study explored the multiple drivers of people’s attitudes towards genetic testing. Using the International Genetic Literacy and Attitudes Survey (iGLAS), we collected data...

Introduction. Multiple studies advocate an importance of spatial abilities (SA) for educational and occupational success, especially in STEM. Recently an Online Short Spatial Ability Battery (OSSAB) was developed and normed for SA testing in adolescents. The battery includes mechanical reasoning, paper folding, pattern assembly, and shape rotation...

Children's development in the early years is significantly linked to further wellbeing. Among many factors involved in early development are mother’s attachment to the fetus and her emotional state during pregnancy. The current study prospectively explores mothers’ characteristics during the third trimester of pregnancy and their newborn children o...

Over the past decade, self-administered mindfulness interventions, such as those administered via phone apps, have become increasingly popular. However, their effectiveness for regulating stress is unclear. In a multi-site study (Nsites = 37, Nparticipants = 2,239; all fluent English speakers) we experimentally investigated the efficacy of four sin...

Timely effective regulation of genetic advances presents a challenge for justice systems. We used a 51-item battery to examine views on major genetics-related issues of those at the forefront of regulating this area – Supreme Court judges (N = 73). We also compared their views with those of other justice stakeholders (N = 210) from the same country...

Background: Spatial ability (SA) shows wide variability. One proposed explanation for the observed individual difference in SA is variability in interest and engagement in activities that promote spatial ability. Research also robustly shown that males on average outperform females in most aspects of SA. Previous studies have identified a number of...

Knowledge of genetics is essential for understanding the results of genetic testing and its implications. Recent advances in genomic research have allowed us to predict the risk of onset of common diseases based on individual genomic information. It is anticipated that more people will receive such estimates of risks based on their genomic data. Ho...

Spatial ability (SA) was shown to be a robust predictor of success in various educational contexts, including STEM. Thus, ways to improve SA are of interest to educational psychology. There is some evidence that SA might be improved via learning character-based language, e.g. Chinese as a second language (CSL), however, the existing research is qui...

People who engage in musical activities may, on average, share certain personality features. For example, performing music in front of audiences may require greater extraversion. In contrast, long and solitary practice sessions may require greater introversion and conscientiousness. Research has established some links between dimensions of personal...

Retroelements play a key role in brain functioning in humans and other animals, since they represent dynamic regulatory elements controlling the expression of specific neuron types. The activity of retroelements in the brain is impaired under the influence of SARS-CoV-2, penetrating the blood-brain barrier. We propose a new concept, according to wh...

Research has shown that levels of the Dark Triad (i.e., traits of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) vary across sex and age, with males and younger people reporting higher scores. The Dark Triad has also been found to be associated with personal economic status. We investigated whether sex and age differences in the Dark Triad varied a...

Background: Spatial ability (SA) was shown to be important for success in different fields, including STEM. Recent research suggested that SA is a unitary construct, rather than a set of related skills. However, it is not clear how individual differences in different facets of SA emerge, and how they relate to variance in general cognitive ability...

Nonverbal intelligence represents one of the components of brain cognitive functions, which uses visual images and nonverbal approaches for solving required tasks. Interaction between the nervous and immune systems plays a specif ic role in individual differences in brain cognitive functions. Therefore, the genes encoding pro- and antiinflammatory...

Visuospatial working memory (VSWM) is essential to human cognitive abilities and is associated with important life outcomes such as academic performance. Recently, a number of reliable measures of VSWM have been developed to help understand psychological processes and for practical use in education. We sought to extend this work using Item Response...

According to the published data, the number of copies of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA copy-number) reflects the efficiency of mitochondria functioning and, hence, the amount of cell-produced energy (in the form of ATP), which is an important indicator of the normal functioning of an organism. Differences in mtDNA copy-number are caused by a complex eff...

p>As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions switched to distance learning in March 2020. The study focuses on how the sudden transition affected the level of teachers' anxiety and professional burnout. A total of 282 teachers from general education schools participated in the study. The results showed that the teachers successf...

This chapter explores insights into human behaviour, generated by behavioural genetics, illustrating genetic concepts with Sophocles’ text. The chapter examines adoption; blood relations and lineage; and similarities and differences of family members. It explores latest findings in behavioural genetics, focusing on gene-environment interplay, inclu...

This chapter delves into control, free will, attributional errors, judgement and punishment—major themes of Oedipus Rex. Through the actions of Oedipus and other characters, the chapter demonstrates confusions and delusions that people still hold about will, 25 centuries on from Sophocles’ exploration of these themes. The chapter examines Sophocles...

This chapter explores two conflicting forces in our psyche: the desire to know the future; and fear of this knowledge. The chapter follows Sophocles in his exploration of fate, and how it comes or does not come about through the processes of self-fulfilling and self-defeating prophesies. The Genomic Era has brought a new ‘pantheon of gods’, where p...

This chapter provides a guide to a journey into the Genomic era. This journey is into the unknown where our wildest wishes and worst fears may come true. By studying the themes raised in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex in the context of new knowledge about DNA—the text of life—the chapter explores the horrors, traps and joys that may lie ahead. The chapter...

This chapter explores the unique text we carry in our cells—the DNA: its incredible structure and function; its age and the way its meaning unravels over time, interacting with environments. The chapter examines how our DNA is linked to our mind and behaviour and how it may harbor information about our past, present and future. The chapter also dis...

Background. Spatial ability (SA) is a robust predictor of academic and occupational achievement. The present study investigated the psychometric properties of 10 tests for measuring of SA in a sample of talented schoolchildren. Objective. Our aim was to identify the most suitable measurements for SA for the purpose of talent identification, educat...

Background: Spatial ability (SA) is a robust predictor of academic and occupational achievement. The present study investigated the psychometric properties of 10 tests for measuring of SA in a sample of talented schoolchildren. Objective: Our purpose was to identify the most suitable measurements for SA for the purpose of talent identification,...

Parental personality has substantial implications for offspring developmental outcomes via direct and indirect pathways. We propose the Tri-Directional Framework of Parental Personality and Offspring Outcomes, an organizational framework which suggests that parental personality, offspring characteristics, and contextual factors interactively influe...

Background: Creativity is linked with educationally relevant constructs such as achievement, intelligence, and motivation. However, very few studies have explored longitudinal links between the constructs or the aetiology of individual differences in childhood creativity. Aims: The study addresses the gap in the literature of developmental studi...

Study Objectives Twin studies have provided data about the relative weight of genetic and environmental factors on sleep variables over the last few decades. However, heritability is a non-intuitive concept and it is often misunderstood even amongst the scientific community. This study aimed to analyze: (1) understanding of the meaning of heritabil...

The need for STEM specialists is growing in current technologically-oriented economy. This calls for new approaches in evaluation and development of relevant abilities and skills. However, the current educational systems might miss some students who have high potential for this field or who can develop such potential. For example, according to the...

“This wonderful book is enlightening and entertaining in equal measure. It makes a valuable contribution by bringing Oedipus to geneticists and genetics to lovers of literature, joining narratives from different times and disciplines and, in doing so, helping us to reflect on what it means to be human.” — Kathryn Asbury, University of York, UK “Thi...

The study is aimed to explore health and attachment to fetus in pregnant women with natural conception (NC) vs. in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Hypotheses. (1) There are average differences in diagnosed health problems between women with IVF pregnancy and women with NC pregnancy; (2) There are average differences in perceived health between women wit...

Performance in everyday spatial orientation tasks (e.g., map reading and navigation) has been considered functionally separate from performance on more abstract object-based spatial abilities (e.g., mental rotation and visualization). However, few studies have examined the link between spatial orientation and object-based spatial skills, and even f...

Background In England, all state‐funded schools are inspected by an independent government agency, the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted). Inspections aim to hold schools accountable and to promote the improvement of education, with the results made available to the public. Ofsted reports intend to index scho...

Genetic information is increasingly used in many contexts, including health, insurance, policing and sentencing—with numerous potential benefits and risks. Protecting from the related risks requires updates to laws and procedures by justice systems. These updates depend to a large extent on what the key stakeholders—the judiciary—know and think abo...

Математическая тревожность – один из видов эмоциональных реакций, связанных с обучением. Феномен негативно соотносится с математическими способностями и уровнем достижений в математике. В последнее время количество исследований тревожности, связанной с математикой, значительно возросло, что требует обобщенного методологического анализа полученных р...

Background Individual differences in personality, behavioural, and academic outcomes of gifted adolescents remain under‐explored. Aims The present study directly compared selected and unselected adolescents on multiple measures of personality, behavioural strengths and difficulties, and achievement. Sample Nine hundred seventy‐three adolescents s...

Individual variation in personality is related to differences in behavioral difficulties and achievement in unselected samples, and in samples selected for high achievement in various domains. This is the first study to explore and compare the connections between self-report measures of personality (Big Five and Dark Triad), behavioral strengths an...

Students struggling with mathematics anxiety (MA) tend to show lower levels of mathematics self-efficacy and interest as well as lower performance. The current study addresses: (1) how MA relates to different aspects of mathematics attitudes (self-efficacy and interest), ability (understanding numbers, problem-solving ability, and approximate numbe...

The aim of the present study was to investigate hair essential trace elements and mineral levels in 105 pregnant normal-weight (control) and 55 overweight and obese women in the third trimester of pregnancy, as well as in their children at the age of 9 months. The hair essential trace elements and mineral levels were assessed using inductively coup...

Little is known about the public’s attitudes towards applying genetic information in the justice system. This study aimed to extend previous research to explore this among the general public and those with training in law. Data were collected from over 10,000 participants, including 486 lawyers and law students. We analysed eight available relevant...

The primary- to secondary-education transition is a substantive life event for many children. The transition can be associated with changes in the developmental trajectories of both emotional health and academic achievement. The current study looked at whether the trajectory of mathematical attainment and emotional health (anxiety) across this tran...

Background: In the UK, all state-funded schools are inspected by an independent government agency, the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). Inspections aim to hold schools accountable and to promote the improvement of education, with the results made available to the public. Ofsted reports intend to index school quality but their influence o...

Students struggling with mathematics anxiety (MA) tend to show lower levels of mathematics self-efficacy and interest as well as lower performance. The current study addresses: (1) how MA relates to different aspects of mathematics attitudes (self-efficacy and interest), ability (understanding numbers, problem-solving ability, and approximate numbe...

Students struggling with mathematics anxiety (MA) tend to show lower levels of mathematics self-efficacy and interest as well as lower performance. The current study addresses: (1) how MA relates to different aspects of mathematics attitudes (self-efficacy and interest), ability (understanding numbers, problem-solving ability, and approximate numbe...

Performance in everyday spatial orientation tasks (e.g. map reading and navigation) has been considered functionally separate from performance on more abstract object-based spatial abilities (e.g. mental rotation and visualization). However, evidence remains scarce and unsystematic. With a novel gamified battery, we assessed six tests of spatial or...

The Remote Associates Test (RAT) is a measure of associative ability, which is often regarded as essential for creative thinking. The most commonly used version of the test is the compound RAT. However, many RAT items do not translate directly in different languages. Additionally, a linguistic measure cannot be used to measure visual associative ab...

The Remote Associates Test (RAT) is a measure of associative ability, which is often regarded as essential for creative thinking. The most commonly used version of the test is the compound RAT. However, many RAT items do not translate directly in different languages. Additionally, a linguistic measure cannot be used to measure visual associative ab...

This study examines the associations between dysfunctional belief about sleep (DBAS), its subtypes and insomnia symptoms and estimates the relative contribution of genetic and environmental influences to these variables and the associations between them. The data came from G1219, a twin/sibling study that comprises 862 individuals (aged 22–32 years...

Study Objectives This study examines the associations between overall pre-sleep arousal, its cognitive and somatic subscales and insomnia symptoms. Furthermore, the relative contribution of genetic and environmental influences on overall pre-sleep arousal, cognitive pre-sleep arousal, somatic pre-sleep arousal and insomnia symptoms and the associat...

Background. Recent research has suggested a unifactorial structure of spatial ability (SA). However, further studies are needed to replicate this finding in different populations. Objective. This study aims to explore the factorial structure of SA in samples of 921 Russian and 229 Chinese university students. Design. A gamified spatial abilities...

Background. Mental fatigue is a state of tiredness, decreased motivation, and increased aversion to performing a task. Mental fatigue is associated with the length of engagement in an activity (time-on-task) and the degree of cognitive e ort required. In addition, mental fatigue can be affected by personality characteristics, such as trait or domai...

The study investigated methodological issues relating to the use of the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) for measuring creativity in children's written stories. The CAT is a commonly used measure to estimate creativity of a product, based on social recognition of creativity by independent judges. Across domains, the CAT has shown high inter-ra...

We live in an age of rapidly advancing genetic research. This research is generating new knowledge that has implications for personal health and well-being. The present study assessed the level of genetic knowledge and personal engagement with genetics in a large sample (N = 5404) of participants. Participants received secondary education in 78 cou...

Background The number line task assesses the ability to estimate numerical magnitudes. People vary greatly in this ability, and this variability has been previously associated with mathematical skills. However, the sources of individual differences in number line estimation and its association with mathematics are not fully understood. Aims This l...

Background. Exams such as the SAT, ACT, and GCSE are used to give an account of educational outcomes and provide a unifed criterion for university admission. Te Unifed State Exam (USE) aims to fulfll these functions in Russia.All Russian students take two compulsory USE exams, mathematics and Russian, at the end of their school education. Objective...

Background. Behavioral genetic fndings suggest that complex traits, such as mathematical ability, general cognitive ability (intelligence; g), and spatial ability, are infuenced by many common genetic variants of very small efects that operate across the ability continuum. Common genetic variants may also be responsible for cognitive defcits associ...

Previous studies showed inconsistent results with regards to the levels of spatial anxiety and its associations with spatial performance in males and females. In the current study, we recruited two samples from China and Russia to assess males and females on three different spatial dimensions (spatial perception, mental rotation, and spatial visual...

The present study investigated the extent to which creative expressiveness in writing at age 9 could be predicted by early human figure drawing ability and general cognitive ability, measured at age 4. Participants (N=277) were members of the Twins Early Development Study, for whom measures of human figure drawing and general cognitive ability were...

Research into test-retest stability of emotional and cognitive responses has focused on behavioural and ERP components in relation to very well-established paradigms (such as oddball, mismatch negativity, continuous performance task, etc.). However, there is a lack of evidence for more integrative paradigms that contain a variety of tasks in a sing...

This study investigated associations between mindfulness and symptoms of insomnia, depression and anxiety. Mindfulness was disaggregated into five subscales: ‘nonreactivity to inner experience’ ‘observing’ ‘acting with awareness’ ‘describing’ and ‘nonjudging of inner experience’. Twin models were used to examine genetic and environmental influences...

The objective of the present study was to assess toxic and nutritional trace element and mineral status in hair of women with IVF pregnancy and their children. Inductively-coupled plasma mass-spectrometry was used to assess hair trace element levels of 50 women with IVF pregnancy and 158 controls with spontaneous pregnancy and their children. Women...

The most consistent sex differences in cognition are found for spatial ability, in which males, on average, outperform females. Utilizing a twin design, two studies have shown that females with male co-twins perform better than females with female co-twins on a mental rotation task. According to the Twin Testosterone Transfer hypothesis (TTT) this...

Two types of number magnitude processing – semantic and spatial – are significantly correlated with children’s arithmetic performance. However, it remains unclear whether these abilities are independent predictors of symbolic approximate arithmetic performance. The current study addressed this question by assessing 86 kindergartners (mean age of 5...

Theoretical accounts of the visual number sense (VNS), i.e., an ability to discriminate approximate numerosities, remain controversial. A proposal that the VNS represents a process of numerosity extraction, leading to an abstract number representation in the brain, has been challenged by the view that the VNS is non-numerical in its essence and amo...

Little is known about the development of number knowledge (NK) and the antecedents of low-persistent NK profiles in early childhood. We documented the developmental trajectories of NK across the transition from preschool to elementary school, their predictive validity with respect to later math achievement, and the child and family early-life facto...

The study investigated cross‐cultural differences in variability and average performance in arithmetic, mathematical reasoning, symbolic and non‐symbolic magnitude processing, intelligence, spatial ability, and mathematical anxiety in 890 6‐ to 9‐year‐old children from the United Kingdom, Russia, and China. Cross‐cultural differences explained 28%...

Table S2. Descriptive statistics on raw scores for all tasks ‐ UK, Russian & Chinese samples.

Table S1. The Revised Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (RMARS) in English.

Table S4. ANOVA results on raw (uncorrected) scores.

Table S3. Sex differences for all tasks per country.

Table S5. ANOVA results on scores corrected for Mental rotation.