Does personalized virtual try-on turn imagination into reality?

Consumer decision-making varies by levels of spatial processing perception

Sungkyunkwan University External Affairs Division (PR team)

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Personalized virtual try-on enhances consumers’ product imagination and strengthens psychological confidence in purchase decisions. Notably, these effects are more pronounced among consumers with lower levels of spatial processing perception.

When shopping for clothing online, how confident can we be without actually trying the product on? In digital shopping environments, consumers often experience uncertainty—such as “Will this really suit me?”—due to the inability to physically interact with products. To address this limitation, virtual try-on technology has emerged. More recently, beyond basic virtual fitting, personalized virtual try-on technologies that reflect individual body shapes and styles have been rapidly advancing.

Professor Seeun Kim of Sungkyunkwan University, in collaboration with a research team from Oklahoma State University, conducted an empirical study examining the impact of personalized virtual try-on on consumer decision-making. The research focused particularly on how easily consumers can imagine products and how this process contributes to psychological confidence in purchase decisions. The findings revealed that personalized virtual try-on significantly enhances product imagination. By viewing virtual images that closely resemble their own bodies, consumers are able to vividly imagine themselves wearing the product.

This imagination extends beyond a simple cognitive process and directly influences decision-making. The more vividly consumers can imagine a product, the more comfortable and confident they feel about their choices. This suggests that virtual try-on reduces uncertainty—such as “Will this product suit me?”—and facilitates more stable decision-making.

Interestingly, these effects were not uniform across all consumers. The study identified spatial processing perception—an individual cognitive trait—as a key moderating factor. The effects of virtual try-on were stronger among consumers with lower spatial processing ability. This can be explained by the fact that individuals who have difficulty mentally visualizing products rely more heavily on the visual information provided by virtual try-on. In contrast, consumers with higher spatial processing ability can already imagine products effectively, making the additional benefits of virtual try-on relatively limited.

In other words, personalized virtual try-on is not merely a “better technology,” but rather a technology that is more beneficial for certain consumers. This study is meaningful in that it uncovers the underlying mechanism through which virtual try-on goes beyond visual experience to influence consumers’ psychological decision-making processes. By identifying how product imagination translates into decision comfort, the research provides important implications for designing consumer experiences in online shopping environments.

Looking ahead, fashion and e-commerce companies should move beyond simply adopting new technologies and instead develop personalized strategies that align with consumers’ cognitive characteristics to deliver more effective shopping experiences.

The study has been published in the internationally recognized SSCI journal Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing.

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Journal

Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing

DOI

10.1108/JRIM-01-2024-0015 

 

Sharper brains switch to a ‘not what you know, but who you know’ mindset online and on social media, study shows

University of Bristol

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Dr Esther Kang, Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Bristol

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Credit: University of Bristol

Forming social connections online and via social media reduces how much people engage with and learn from the content posted but significantly boosts their networking performance, according to new research.

The study, led by the University of Bristol in the UK in partnership with the University at Buffalo, State University of New York in the US, found this shift of focus from learning about the actual content to concentrating on the related social connections is more marked among people with a better memory.

Lead author Dr Esther Kang, Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Bristol, said: “When you follow someone on LinkedIn, join a Facebook group, or become a member of an online community, you might assume you will learn more about the content they share. Paradoxically, our study suggests the opposite happens, as individuals channel their mental energy away from knowledge gathering to mapping the social landscape, noting people’s individual connections and the wider network.

“Interestingly, this shift was exhibited more among people with greater working memory capacity, so the sharper you are cognitively the more likely you are to tune that content out.”

The research involved around 1,000 adults aged between 18 and 77 across five experiments. In each study, participants engaged with simulated social media environments, such as joining groups, following pages, or becoming friends with others. Their exposure to content, as well as their memory for both content (“who knows what”) and social connections (“who knows who”), was then assessed.

One of the experiments found participants engaging with an online community showed a notable drop in content learning. Overall, recall accuracy for “who knew what” decreased by around 40%. Conversely, their memory for social connections was significantly boosted, with accuracy in reporting ‘who knew whom’ increasing by around 65%.

“This pattern reflects a cognitive trade off. Rather than encoding information itself, individuals increasingly track who possesses the information. It indicates that people engage with and use the social network like an external hard drive for the brain. Once information is perceived as being stored ‘out there’ in the network, the mind reduces effort in remembering it independently,” Dr Kang explained.

“The strength of this switch also appears to be determined by working memory capacity. Individuals with higher working memory capacity showed a more than 50% reduction in  content recall, but a dramatic increase (over 150%) in accuracy in tracking social connections after forming connections to others. In contrast, individuals with lower working memory capacity performed more consistently. These high working memory individuals are not just being lazy. Rather, they are demonstrating efficiency, recognising they can retrieve content later through their network, so they invest their attention in understanding who is connected to whom rather than in absorbing content immediately.”

The results highlight a hidden trade off in digital environments. While social networks make information easier to access, they may also reduce deep learning and independent knowledge formation.

Study co-author Dr Arun Lakshmanan, Associate Professor of Marketing in the University at Buffalo, added: “For educators, marketers, and digital platforms, the message is clear. Simply increasing connectivity or follower counts may not enhance engagement with content. Instead, strategies that encourage active processing, such as time-sensitive content or interactive knowledge sharing, may be needed to sustain meaningful attention.”

Paper

‘Tracking Connections, Not Content: How Working Memory Shapes Content and Social Learning in Online Networks’ by E. Kang and A. Lakshmanan in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

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Dr Esther Kang, Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Bristol

Credit

University of Bristol

Journal

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

DOI

10.1016/j.jesp.2026.104925 

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Tracking connections, not content: How working memory shapes content and social learning in online networks

ECNU study in top journal resolves "seductive detail" debate in multimedia learning

ECNU Review of Education

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Recently, Associate Professor Wang Zhe and 2023 doctoral candidate Cheng Chao from the Institute of Curriculum and Instruction (ICI) at East China Normal University published a high-impact study in Educational Psychology Review, a premier international journal in education and psychology. The research systematically evaluates the overall effect of "seductive details" (interesting but irrelevant information) on learning outcomes and sheds new light on the underlying cognitive mechanisms.

The debate over seductive details

In multimedia learning, the inclusion of seductive details has long been controversial. Some argue that such elements boost learner interest and emotional engagement, while others contend that they distract attention and hinder academic performance. To resolve this controversy, the research team conducted a comprehensive systematic review following PRISMA guidelines and employed a methodology combining three‑level meta‑analysis with Meta‑Analytic Structural Equation Modeling (MASEM) .

Key findings

Based on 50 experimental studies involving 20,883 students, the meta‑analysis revealed:

Overall effect: Seductive details have a significant, albeit small, negative effect on academic performance (p = .018), particularly impacting memory and comprehension.

Moderating factors: The effect size varies depending on the language of the learning materials, the learning environment, and the sample size.

Cognitive mechanism: Using MASEM, the study provides the first cross‑study evidence that seductive details impair learning primarily by increasing extraneous cognitive load, offering robust empirical support for Cognitive Load Theory.

This research represents a methodological breakthrough by simultaneously handling multiple effect sizes and complex pathways. It provides a more stable empirical basis for multimedia instructional design and offers critical guidance for the development of digital educational resources.

Author profiles

Cheng Chao (First Author): A 2023 doctoral candidate at ICI under the supervision of Professor Liu Lianghua. His research focuses on the sociology of music education, teacher education, and meta‑analysis. He has published as first author in leading journals including Educational Research Review, Educational Psychology Review, and Teaching and Teacher Education. He currently serves as Student President of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) for the 2024–2026 term.

Wang Zhe (Corresponding Author): Associate Professor at ICI, holding a PhD in Educational Psychology from Washington State University. His research interests include generative learning strategies, cognitive and motivational processes in multimedia learning, and quantitative experimental design. He has published nearly 20 papers in leading SSCI journals such as Contemporary Educational Psychology and the British Journal of Educational Technology, with over 1,000 Google Scholar citations.

About the journal

Educational Psychology Review is a top‑tier international journal in education and psychology. In 2023, it reported an Impact Factor of 8.8 and a five‑year Impact Factor of 14.2. It is ranked in JCR Q1 and categorized as a "Top Journal" by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The journal is globally renowned for leading the discourse in educational psychology.

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Journal

Educational Psychology Review

DOI

10.1007/s10648-025-10099-z 

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Seductive Details, Cognitive Load, and Learning Outcomes: A Multi-level Meta-analysis and MASEM

 

New heart disease risk prediction tool validated globally

NYU Langone Health / NYU Grossman School of Medicine

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A tool developed by the American Heart Association (AHA), proven to accurately predict heart disease risk for Americans, can be applied to the global population, a new study led by NYU Langone Health shows.

Accurate identification of those at high cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk enables targeted use of preventive therapies, such as lipid-lowering medications and intensive blood pressure targets, and can move patients to quit smoking, eat better, and exercise, the study authors say.

The study addresses the AHA’s risk-prediction tool, which is called Predicting Risk of Cardiovascular Disease EVENTs (PREVENT) and was developed in partnership with NYU Grossman School of Medicine investigators. Published in 2023, PREVENT was designed to predict a person’s 10- and 30-year total risk for CVD, time intervals long enough to include a meaningful amount of risk and treatment benefit. Total risk includes risk for heart failure along with the originally measured risks for heart attack and stroke because there are now effective therapies available that play into the prevention of all three conditions.

Use of the PREVENT tool to guide drug treatment, as well as in clinical trial design for people with hypertension and high cholesterol was recently incorporated for the first time into the treatment guidelines of several US medical societies based on studies that had included more than 6 million Americans. What was needed, say the authors, was strong evidence across a wide range of settings and clinical trials to support its adoption as part of clinical practice worldwide.

Publishing recently in Nature Medicine, the work found that the tool accurately predicted risk for cardiovascular disease among more than 6.4 million people from North America, Europe, Asia, and other regions. It was particularly effective for predicting heart failure and for patients at low-to-moderate risk, the group for whom flagging risk early can trigger treatment and lifestyle changes in time to avert severe disease. Adding a measure of kidney health made the predictions even more accurate.

“A key barrier to the international adoption of PREVENT is the uncertainty felt by physicians that the tool is generalizable across patient groups in different geographical areas,” said senior study author Josef Coresh, MD, PhD, the founding director of the Optimal Aging Institute at NYU Langone. He is also the Terry and Mel Karmazin Professor in the Departments of Population Health and Medicine.

Most Effective Where It Matters

The study authors analysed data from 6.8 million patients that did not have cardiovascular disease at the beginning of 62 studies including 44 cohorts from North America, Europe, Asia, and 18 multi-regional randomized trials including 53,002 patients. The team was able to see how well predictions made by the tool at the study’s start were borne out by comparing them with approximately 300,000 CVD events that participants experienced over the next 5.5 years.

For the study, researchers used discrimination and calibration, two fundamental metrics that evaluate the performance of disease risk prediction models. Discrimination measures how well a model separates patients who will go on to develop a disease from those who do not. In the current global analysis, PREVENT’s discrimination was “superior,” say the authors, in studies that focused on lower-risk patients, supporting the broader adoption of PREVENT in primary care populations, where some patients have very low risk and others have moderate-to-high risk leading to different treatment implications.

In terms of kidney health, the model’s prediction performance improved when it accounted for a person’s risk of albuminuria, a condition where urine protein levels are elevated due to kidney damage, often by high blood pressure or diabetes. In terms of discrimination, adding kidney risk to the PREVENT model brought about a statistically significant improvement in prediction accuracy.

Calibration measures how accurately the predicted probabilities match the actual outcomes for each patient down the road. Calibration measures for PREVENT were much better than those of an older model called Pooled Cohort Equation (PCE), which predicted risk of about half what it turned out to be.

“Because PREVENT guidelines are typically form the basis for national policies that guide treatment decisions, painstaking validation of PREVENT across diverse populations was critical,” said Dr. Coresh. “Our large-scale study confirms that PREVENT is a reliable tool that can be used globally.”

Along with Dr. Coresh, study authors from NYU Langone were Morgan Grams, MD, PhD, Yingying Sang, MSc, Shoshana Ballew, PhD, and Aditya Surapaneni, PhD.

The study was conducted by The Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) Prognosis Consortium, which is funded in part by the grant R01DK100446 from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the Nationals Institutes of Health. Also providing support was the US National Kidney Foundation

About NYU Langone Health
NYU Langone Health is a fully integrated health system that consistently achieves the best patient outcomes through a rigorous focus on quality that has resulted in some of the lowest mortality rates in the nation. Vizient Inc. has ranked NYU Langone No. 1 out of 118 comprehensive academic medical centers across the nation for four years in a row, and U.S. News & World Report recently ranked four of its clinical specialties No. 1 in the nation. NYU Langone offers a comprehensive range of medical services with one high standard of care across seven inpatient locations, its Perlmutter Cancer Center, and more than 320 outpatient locations in the New York area and Florida. The system also includes two tuition-free medical schools, in Manhattan and on Long Island, and a vast research enterprise.

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Journal

Nature Medicine

DOI

10.1038/s41591-026-04437-z 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Multinational validation of the PREVENT and SCORE2 cardiovascular risk equations across 6.4 million individuals

Article Publication Date

7-May-2026

Digital therapy outperforms referrals to campus clinics among college students

Penn State

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — College students with anxiety, depression and eating disorders may be more likely to start and to respond more positively to therapy offered via a digital app compared to referrals to in-person campus clinics, according to a study led by Penn State researchers and published today (May 7) in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

Globally, an estimated 40% to 60% of college students experience a mental health disorder at some point, and the need for campus counseling services has increased faster than institutions’ capacity to provide these services, according to the researchers. The research team wanted to see if a proactive intervention using a digital therapy app could effectively treat anxiety disorders, depression and eating disorders, as well as address the increased need for psychological services. The commercially available app incorporates cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles that coach individuals through identifying negative thinking patterns and developing skills and behavioral changes to address these patterns.

The researchers found that students receiving the digital intervention were more likely to report being symptom free at the six-week, six-month and two-year marks, and that these students were more likely to engage these services compared to the campus referral group. Specifically, services uptake — or when a person actually receives a service — was seven times greater for college students assigned to a digital intervention than to on-campus clinic referrals. Approximately 74% of individuals given access to the digital intervention started the program, compared to 30% of individuals who were given a referral to a campus clinic and received at least one therapy session or a new medication prescription.

“One of the challenges with any digital intervention is that people sometimes download an app but then do not use it,” said lead author Michelle Newman, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Penn State. “We were also interested in learning the extent to which people actually received services after being randomized to the app or on-campus counseling center. We found that uptake was significantly better in the digital intervention than referral to the counseling center.”

To test the effectiveness of the digital intervention, the researchers worked with 26 colleges and universities across the U.S. to send an email to the entire student body — what researchers call a population-level approach — inviting them to take part in a mental health screening. Of the 39,194 individuals who completed the screening, 6,205 had clinical levels of or were at high risk for developing generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, depression or an eating disorder. Those individuals completed an additional baseline survey and were randomized into one of two groups. One group received access to the coached digital intervention for six months, while the other group received referrals to their campus counseling center.

The therapy app offered six to eight 20-minute-long modules for each mental health problem. Participants in the digital therapy group completed an average of 2.4 modules and received about 15 messages from a trained therapy coach. Newman explained that individuals in the digital therapy group began with modules addressing their main mental health concern and then worked with their coaches to receive additional modules that addressed co-occurring issues.

“A unique aspect of the work was that we screened for five disorders — generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, depression and eating disorders — and measured all disorders at every point in the treatment, because we know that disorders like depression and anxiety often co-occur, but that co-occurrence doesn’t necessarily happen simultaneously,” Newman said. “The digital intervention overall had a significantly larger number of individuals who had no disorders at every timepoint in the study. We did not just treat individuals with clinical levels of these disorders, but we also prevented the onset in more of those in the digital intervention who screened to be at risk.” 

For example, compared to the campus referral group, those who used the digital intervention had a 4.3% lower prevalence of having any mental health disorder at the six-week mark, 4.9% lower prevalence at the six-month mark and 3.8% lower prevalence at the two-year follow-up. This result showed that the coached digital intervention both prevented the development of new disorders as well as treated disorders that were present before the intervention.

The researchers conducted the study during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, recruiting participants from October 2019 to November 2021 and completing their data collection by October 2023. The results, they said, highlight the effectiveness of digital interventions at times when access to traditional, in-person services may have been constrained. 

The population-level screening and digital therapy approach can complement existing in-person services beyond college campuses, Newman said.

“This approach could potentially be used anywhere where you have access to a full population in terms of email addresses, like at a company, to help disseminate mental health services that people might not think about seeking,” she said, explaining that the proactive screening process taken in the study helped individuals prevent disorders for which they were at high risk of developing and treated disorders for which they may not have sought face-to-face services.

Next steps will make use of work led by Penn State graduate student Adam Calderon and Newman, who will use data from the current study and previous work by Newman’s lab to examine which individual characteristics may predict who would benefit from digital interventions, Newman said.

The National Institute of Mental Health supported this work. In addition to Newman, other study co-authors include Penn State doctoral candidates Seung Yeon Baik and Adam Calderon; Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft, Washington University in St. Louis and Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; Nur Hani Zainal, National University of Singapore; Gavin Rackoff, Boston University; Marie-Laure Firebaugh, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; Elsa Rojas-Ashe, Palo Alto University and Stanford University School of Medicine; Yan Leykin, Palo Alto University; Daphne Lew, Washington University in St. Louis; Daniel Eisenberg, University of California-Los Angeles; C. Barr Taylor, Palo Alto University and Stanford University School of Medicine; and Denise Wilfley, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis.

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Journal

Nature Human Behaviour

DOI

10.1038/s41562-026-02454-z 

Article Title

Population-based RCT of a digital cognitive-behavioural guided self-help intervention for anxiety, depression and eating disorders in college students

Article Publication Date

7-May-2026

COI Statement

Dr. Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft receives royalties from UpToDate, is a consultant for Kooth, and is on the Clinical Advisory Board for Beanbag Health. No other authors declare any conflicts of interest.

 

From e-waste to energy storage: Recycled phone batteries and lignin power a high-performance sodium-ion anode

Maximum Academic Press

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The resulting material, NiCo₂S₄/Co₉S₈@LC50, combines electroactive metal sulfides with lignin-derived carbon in a honeycomb-like architecture that improves conductivity, structural stability, and ion transport. The study suggests a practical route to lower-cost, more sustainable battery materials while reducing waste and creating new value from discarded consumer electronics and industrial biomass residues.

Discarded mobile phone batteries are growing rapidly and can release hazardous substances while wasting recoverable metals if not properly recycled. At the same time, industrial lignin is produced in huge quantities, yet only a small fraction is converted into high-value products, with most still burned or discarded. Sodium-ion batteries are attracting attention as alternatives to lithium-ion systems because sodium is more abundant and potentially cheaper, but their anode materials still need better cycling stability, rate capability, and cost effectiveness. Although NiCo₂S₄ is a promising anode candidate, its performance is limited in its pure form, and previous carbon modifications have usually relied on conventional industrial carbon sources rather than waste-derived ones. This created the need for a “waste-to-waste” strategy that could upgrade both e-waste and lignin into a better-performing sodium storage material.

A study (DOI:10.48130/bchax-0026-0005) published in Biochar X on 10 February 2026 by Rui Liang’s & Yuebin Xi’s team, Henan Normal University & Qilu University of Technology, reports that controlled co-conversion of battery-derived NiCo₂S₄ and lignin produced a composite with a honeycomb-like structure, fast Na⁺ transport, and markedly improved capacity, rate performance, and cycling stability.

The researchers first recovered and synthesized NiCo₂S₄ from spent Nokia mobile phone batteries through a hydrothermal route. They then purified industrial lignin, mixed it with the recovered sulfide precursor at different ratios, and subjected the composites to alkaline treatment, precipitation, activation with K₂CO₃, and stepwise carbonization under nitrogen. This yielded three comparison samples with different lignin contents, among which NCS/CS@LC50 proved optimal. Structural analysis showed that lignin addition did more than provide carbon: during carbonization it also promoted partial formation of a new Co₉S₈ phase, creating a dual-sulfide composite wrapped by lignin-derived carbon. Raman, XRD, XPS, SEM, and TEM analyses together confirmed the coexistence of NiCo₂S₄, Co₉S₈, and carbon, as well as the formation of a mesoporous honeycomb-like morphology when the lignin ratio reached 50%. The material also achieved a favorable balance of specific surface area and pore size, which the authors linked to improved electrolyte access and sodium-ion movement. Electrochemical testing showed that this structure translated into strong battery behavior. NCS/CS@LC50 delivered an initial discharge specific capacity of 1,062.8 mAh g⁻¹ and retained 244.5 mAh g⁻¹ after 100 cycles, outperforming the comparison samples. It also showed an initial Coulombic efficiency of 65.61%, higher than that of the unmodified material. In rate tests, it maintained average discharge capacities of 548.2, 423.3, 328.1, 247.1, and 208.7 mAh g⁻¹ at 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, and 2 A g⁻¹, respectively, and still preserved 207 mAh g⁻¹ after 300 cycles at 0.5 A g⁻¹. Impedance analysis further showed that this sample had the lowest charge-transfer resistance and the highest Na⁺ diffusion coefficient among the tested materials. Additional pseudocapacitive analysis indicated that rapid surface-controlled storage contributed substantially to performance, while density functional theory calculations suggested that the NiCo₂S₄/Co₉S₈ heterostructure improved electronic conductivity and facilitated charge transfer.

Overall, the study presents a convincing example of circular materials design: one waste stream supplies metals, another supplies carbon, and together they form a high-performance sodium-ion battery anode. By showing that recycled feedstocks can produce competitive electrochemical performance, the work points toward greener and potentially more economical battery manufacturing for future grid storage, electric vehicles, and portable electronics.

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References

DOI

10.48130/bchax-0026-0005

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.48130/bchax-0026-0005

Funding information

This research was supported by the Postdoctoral Research Funds from Henan Province (Grant No. 5101039470652); collaborative scientific research projects with Henan Nuofei Biotechnology Co., Ltd (Grant Nos 5201039160188 and 5201039160224); National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 22108135); Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (Grant Nos ZR2024MB12 and ZR2020QB197); Shandong University youth innovation team (Grant No. 2023KJ137).

About Biochar X

Biochar X is an open access, online-only journal aims to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries by providing a multidisciplinary platform for the exchange of cutting-edge research in both fundamental and applied aspects of biochar. The journal is dedicated to supporting the global biochar research community by offering an innovative, efficient, and professional outlet for sharing new findings and perspectives. Its core focus lies in the discovery of novel insights and the development of emerging applications in the rapidly growing field of biochar science.

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DOI

10.48130/bchax-0026-0005 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Synergistic conversion of spent mobile phone batteries and industrial lignin into the NiCo2S4/Co9S8@LC composite with enhanced sodium storage performance