Plans for upcoming activities are likely to be affected by the remembered durations for the to-be-planned activities. Such duration estimates in turn might be influenced by the emotional experiences associated with each activity. In the current work, we aimed to characterize how emotions can affect duration judgments. Participants (N = 204, data collection 2023-2024) completed 10 different real-world activities that varied in duration and made judgments of each activity's valence and arousal. Three days later, participants completed an online follow-up survey where they estimated how long each activity lasted and how they remember feeling about each activity (again in terms of valence and arousal). Generally, our results indicated that both low and high levels (relative to moderate levels) of arousal or valence prolonged remembered duration judgments. Also, remembered emotional judgments tended to be more important for duration estimates than emotions experienced during the activities themselves. Individual differences in self-report measures of self-control affect duration estimates indirectly: Higher levels of self-control appeared to mute emotional effects on duration estimates. We interpret our results in line with known attentional effects of emotions on memory and effects of memory accuracy on duration judgments. Our results also suggest that emotions reconstructed during retrieval are generally more important for temporal memories than the initially encoded emotional experiences. Generalizability of conclusions is limited by the range of activities, evaluated durations, the delay between encoding and retrieval, and our use of a student population. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
This study was designed to identify age-related differences in the ability to understand and remember Spanish-accented and non-accented speech while participants were sitting and while they were walking, and to examine how listening to Spanish-accented and non-accented speech influences walking mechanics. Groups of younger, middle-aged, and older adult participants (n = 20/group) listened to and repeated back non-accented and Spanish-accented sentences while they sat and while they walked. They were also asked to recall the last word of each sentence at the end of blocks of five sentences. Walking mechanics (gait speed, step width, and mediolateral head acceleration-a measure of body sway) were assessed using a 14-camera motion capture system. Participants recognized the non-accented sentences with greater accuracy than the accented sentences, with no significant effects of age group or sitting versus walking on speech recognition performance. Older participants' ability to remember accented speech was better when sitting than while walking. Middle-aged and older (but not younger) participants walked more slowly when listening to accented speech, as compared with when walking while not listening. Mediolateral head acceleration was greater for older adults when they were listening to accented speech while walking versus when they were just walking. Middle-aged and older adults were able to understand accented speech while walking with accuracy similar to younger listeners, but their walking mechanics changed in ways that were not noted in younger participants. This cohort of middle-aged and older individuals slowed their walking in response to the greater listening demands imposed by Spanish-accented speech. These results suggest that reaching a high level of speech recognition performance was more effortful for middle-aged and older adults than for younger adults and that, in situations where middle-aged and older people are walking while engaged in a challenging listening task, walking mechanics are changed.
People experience disgust during and following traumatic events, and like fear reactions-which have been the focus of posttraumatic stress disorder research-disgust reactions predict posttraumatic stress symptoms. Interestingly, emerging research suggests disgust reactions to traumatic events may persist more (i.e., linger longer) than fear reactions. Yet, this idea has not been explored experimentally. Here, we investigate whether feelings of disgust and fear in relation to a remembered trauma analogue persist differently over time. Across three experiments, participants viewed a trauma analogue (i.e., negative images) that elicited both disgust and fear. In Experiment 1 (n = 111), we aimed to elicit maximal (i.e., highly intense) ratings of disgust and fear at encoding, and in Experiment 2 (n = 112), we modified our trauma analogue to match the intensity of disgust and fear reactions more closely at encoding. In these experiments, participants rated their feelings of disgust and fear to the trauma analogue at encoding and at 24-hr delay (i.e., upon remembering the trauma analogue). In Experiment 3 (n = 118), we replicated our second experiment using a 1-week delay. Disgust and fear faded similarly when the intensity of emotional reactions was maximized at encoding, but when these emotional reactions were matched at an initial moderately intense level, disgust persisted more than fear over 24 hr and 1 week. Our findings suggest that disgust reactions to traumatic events are similarly-if not more-persistent over time than fear reactions, highlighting disgust as a trauma-relevant emotion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Visual cues play a central role in romantic attraction, yet individuals may not accurately recall what captured their attention. Drawing on dual-process models of cognition, this study examined the correspondence between measured gaze behavior and retrospective self-reported salience in women's romantic perception. Sixty-eight women viewed 10 romantic scenes portraying heterosexual couples while their eye movements were recorded. Five areas of interest (AOIs)-female face, male face, female body, male body, and background-were analyzed across key eye-tracking metrics: total dwell time, average fixation duration, fixation count, and first fixations. Participants then ranked these AOIs by perceived salience and reported up to three visual attraction cues (e.g., smile, hands, legs) per AOI. Women's sustained visual attention was preferentially directed toward same-sex targets. Faces served as attentional anchors, attracting both early attention and deeper processing, as reflected in longer fixation durations, whereas gender differences were more pronounced for bodies, with male bodies consistently receiving the least attention. Introspective access was metric-specific: Self-reports aligned most strongly with fixation duration, moderately with first fixation, weakly with total dwell time, and not with fixation count. At the cue level, early orienting showed only limited correspondence with the most salient self-reported cue, but stronger alignment when broader any-match criteria were applied. Self-reports prioritized expressive (e.g., smile, eyes) and grooming facial cues (e.g., hairstyle, beard), as well as sexually dimorphic and stylistic body-related cues (e.g., legs, breasts, outfit, and body shape for women; hands, outfit, shoulder width, and arm muscles for men). These findings indicate that romantic visual attention operates across distinct processing stages, with only partial overlap between what individuals look at and what they report. While sustained attention is partly accessible to introspection, early attentional processes remain largely automatic, highlighting limits in awareness during initial impression formation.
Ageing, memory loss, and dementia are often framed through decline, dependency, and clinical deficit. Within arts and health scholarship, however, growing attention has been given to the role of artistic practice in sustaining dignity, identity, and relational connection in later life. This manuscript presents a poetic reflection on ageing, fading memory, and the enduring role of art in preserving personhood, recognition, and belonging beyond verbal recall. Through poetic expression, the manuscript explores how music, drawing, rhythm, and shared creative presence may evoke embodied memory and emotional continuity. Rather than treating art as mere ornament or therapeutic supplement, the poem positions artistic experience as a humane medium through which forgotten selves may still be encountered and affirmed. The poem highlights that even when language weakens, forms of recognition and connection may persist through artistic engagement. It suggests that art can sustain dignity, relational presence, and affective meaning in the lives of older adults experiencing memory loss. This manuscript contributes a reflective and affective perspective to discussions of arts-based care. It offers a humanistic response to concerns around ageing populations, social isolation, and care practices by emphasizing art's capacity to hold memory, connection, and personhood in later life.
Remembering the temporal context of events is difficult across the lifespan. Across many cultures and languages, people get around this problem by grounding representations of temporal events and temporal order in space. Spatial representations of time are ubiquitous, both as external tools such as calendars and in the form of a mental timeline, a linear projection of temporal order onto space. Recent research suggests that people spontaneously draw on the mental timeline to remember temporal order. However, it is unknown how the mental timeline is utilized during the encoding and retrieval of temporal information. Here, we probed how the mental timeline aids temporal memory by combining behavioral, eye-tracking, and pupillometry methods. Participants completed a visuospatial episodic memory task in which they encoded the spatial location and temporal order of images presented in sequences that were either congruent or incongruent with the mental timeline. Participants showed a strong temporal memory advantage for images presented congruent with the mental timeline compared to images presented incongruent with the mental timeline. Pupil dilation patterns revealed that information presented in congruent trials was more easily encoded and maintained in memory. Gaze movement patterns revealed that participants more accurately remembered and referenced the spatial locations of the images when recalling temporal order. Both gaze and error patterns suggested that the temporal memory benefit from congruent trials may be due to the salience of spatial memory. These findings suggest that engaging the mental timeline may allow people to leverage robust spatial memory abilities to support temporal memory.
Visual working memory (VWM) is key to many daily tasks, such as remembering visual information about traffic when crossing a busy street. Despite extensive research, the extent to which VWM abstracts out sensory properties not relevant to identification, such as object size, remains unclear. In three experiments, we examined how object size affects VWM, with size defined in two ways: retinal size, referring to the image's size on the screen (small or large photos), and canonical size, referring to the typical size of objects in the real world, from big (e.g., a tower) to small (e.g., an egg). Experiments 1 and 2 tested memory for real-world objects, classified into four types based on their photo size and canonical size. VWM was better for large rather than small photos-a retinal-size effect-and for canonically small than big objects-a canonical-size effect. These effects were stronger when participants remembered a mix of different-sized objects than when all objects in a display were of the same size. Experiment 3 tested memory for colored squares that were either big or small on the screen. Size had no effect when displays consisted of colored squares of the same size, but big squares were remembered better when mixed with small squares. These results suggest that seemingly irrelevant sensory properties affect VWM, favoring objects that stimulate more neurons. The effect is stronger when size conditions are mixed, indicating that retinally larger objects are better attended.
Multimodal perception can often evoke performance that is greater than the sum of its unimodal parts in cognitive tasks. For example, choice reaction time research has found responses to multimodal stimuli that are faster than could be explained by responses to its individual unimodal components. This has led to a growth in multimodal perceptual research to explain behavioural observations, but less is known about multimodal influences on more cognitively demanding tasks such as semantic activation and memory. Across 3 well-powered pre-registered memory experiments (total n = 792), this study tested if multimodal encoding could reduce perceptual demands, evoke semantic processing, and encourage episodic recollection. In Experiment 1 the presence of congruent visual information aided later unimodal auditory retrieval (e.g., a dog picture and a barking sound), but multimodal manipulations had similar effects across young and older adults. Experiment 2 equated auditory only and visual only memory for picture-sound items by utilising blurring of the visual pictures, generating a novel shared stimulus set. Here there was no benefit to multimodal encoding, and identifiability of a given stimulus was more strongly related to memory following multimodal encoding than memory following unimodal encoding. Experiment 3 utilised the remember-know paradigm and found no specific multimodal encoding effects on episodic remembering, but did find that item identifiability was more strongly linked to recollection than to familiarity. Our data highlight how multimodal processing is nuanced and supports a general need for multimodal research to explain wholistic sensory processing.
The subsequent memory effect (SME) refers to neural patterns (e.g., in EEG or fMRI) at encoding that predict later memory performance. In N400-based SMEs, for example, items later remembered elicit less negative N400 amplitudes at encoding compared to items later forgotten. These effects have traditionally been interpreted as reflecting idiosyncratic neural states during encoding-in the case of the N400, states related to semantic activation-that influence episodic encoding success. However, recent work on memorability, a stable, item-level property indicating the population-level likelihood that an image will be remembered, has shown that high (compared to low) memorability images elicit less negative N400 amplitudes, suggesting that memorability is linked to more targeted semantic mapping. This raises the question of whether encoding-related effects are more tied to intrinsic stimulus properties or in-the-moment encoding variability. The present study examined both factors in tandem: ERPs were recorded while participants viewed images varying in memorability and were later classified by recognition outcome (hit vs. miss). Analyses revealed that N400 amplitudes were significantly predicted by memorability scores even when controlling for subsequent memory performance. Memorability also predicted Late Positive Complex SMEs. These findings suggest that neural activity traditionally associated with later memory success may capture item-level properties rather than transient encoding states. Consequently, memorability appears to be a key driver of differences in memory performance, challenging interpretations of SMEs as purely state-dependent and highlighting the importance of considering intrinsic stimulus characteristics when evaluating effects correlated with memory success.
Human observers remember some images more reliably than others, a phenomenon known as image memorability, a stimulus-driven property that predicts relatively consistent memory outcomes across individuals. Although memorability has been studied primarily in long-term memory, recent evidence suggests that it also benefits visual working memory (VWM). However, this behavioral advantage could reflect differences in formation processes or in stimulus comparison at test, rather than processes specific to VWM, and behavioral measures alone cannot resolve this distinction because performance in change-detection tasks is influenced by both test-phase comparison and decision-related factors. To determine when memorability influences VWM, we combined a lateralized change-detection task with time-resolved electrophysiological measures indexing memory-related activity during the retention interval, relatively independent of test-related processing. Participants remembered faces with high or low image memorability while scalp EEG was recorded. Behaviorally, we replicated the memorability benefit in VWM performance. Neurally, we examined contralateral delay activity (CDA) over posterior electrodes as an index of VWM retention. Memorability modulated CDA amplitude during an early retention period (i.e., the rising phase of the CDA), with weak or no reliable differences later in the delay interval. Importantly, variation in early CDA amplitude directly predicted improved task performance, and this pattern held even though memorability was defined using a predominantly White-face database and tested in Chinese-speaking participants, providing converging electrophysiological evidence for cross-cultural generalizability. Together, these findings suggest that image memorability strengthens the transformation of perceptual inputs into durable VWM representations before stable retention is established. Yet, this transient advantage during the early formation stage does not appear to significantly change the total amount of information maintained at a fixed set size. Thus, memorability likely shapes how VWM is formed, rather than how much is ultimately retained.
Every day, people plan to do something at some point in the future-with varying success remembering to do it. This challenge has inspired decades of research on prospective memory (PM), or how organisms are able to set an intention in the present and successfully execute it later in the future. Dominant theories of PM rely on representational, computational accounts and propose dual-process systems of attentional monitoring and spontaneous retrieval, which we refer to as cue and capacity (C&C) models. We present an alternative grounded in ecological psychology and argue for a more parsimonious account for PM performance through ecological concepts. We propose that directly perceiving information from the environment allows people to move from intention-in-the-present to realization-in-the-future as part of an extended action via nested affordances (or how taking advantage of existing opportunities for action scaffold to reveal opportunities for goal execution). We demonstrate the utility of this approach by drawing on research from skill acquisition in sports, where successful performance depends on coordinating action over time in dynamic environments. Grounded in nested affordances and the tenets of ecological psychology, we will propose a spatiotemporal specificity model and present a future research agenda to explore.
The efficacy of endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) procedures and subsequent treatment is predominantly reliant on precise pathologic evaluation, intricately linked to specimen sampling and paraffin sectioning. Despite established guidelines in China for ESD specimen processing, the postsampling process remains intricate and error-prone. This study investigates the impact of various placement and labeling methods following ESD sampling on the quality of paraffin slides and the precision of pathologic diagnoses, with the ultimate goal of identifying the most effective approach. We selected 45 ESD specimens and used 3 distinct postsampling placement and labeling methods: the conventional method, the sponge sandwich placement method, and the sponge interstitial vertical embedding method. Routine HE, IHC, and specific staining were performed to evaluate the effect. Our findings demonstrated that both the sponge sandwich placement and sponge interstitial vertical embedding methods resulted in superior HE preparation quality compared with the conventional method, with no discernible difference in HE preparation quality between the sponge sandwich and sponge interstitial vertical embedding methods. It was also verified by IHC and special staining. Nevertheless, the sponge sandwich placement method resulted in irregular marking of the dehydration box, making it challenging for technicians to determine the embedding direction of the specimens without a bulge or without remembering the embedding phenomenon. In contrast, the sponge interstitial vertical placement and labeling embedding method obviates the need to recognize the embedding direction of the specimen and tissues to be embedded; embedding is guided solely by the morphology and direction of the doctor-placed sponge. Based on our laboratory experience, we advocate for the sponge interstitial vertical embedding method.
Guidelines recommend shared decision-making (SDM) about lung cancer screening (LCS) to ensure choices about LCS are informed and consistent with patient goals. Telehealth may increase access to SDM, but its quality compared to in-person delivery remains unclear. How does modality (in-person or telehealth) affect patients' perceptions of quality of SDM for LCS, associated best practices, and outcomes? We administered a mail survey to patients from 7 Veterans Affairs hospitals who underwent SDM for LCS within the prior month. Surveys assessed demographics, SDM modality (primary exposure), occurrence of best practices for LCS counseling and SDM (provision of educational materials, alignment with decision-making preferences, smoking cessation counseling), and decision-making outcomes (perceived quality, provider empathy, satisfaction, LCS decisions). Adherence to initial LCS scan was determined from the Corporate Data Warehouse. Our primary outcome was perceived SDM quality measured using the CollaboRATE score (top-score of 27 indicates high quality). Of 1033 patients surveyed, 320 responded (31.0%); 121 were excluded due to not remembering the LCS conversation or missing primary exposure or outcome data. LCS conversations were evenly split between in-person (101/199) and telehealth (98/199). Overall, 34.2% (68/199) reported high-quality SDM, with no significant difference by modality (adjusted OR=0.76, 95% CI [0.398-1.448] for telehealth vs in-person). Educational materials were supplied significantly more often during in-person than telehealth discussions (40.6% vs 22.6% p=.008). Comparing in-person to telehealth, we found no significant difference in secondary outcomes including decision satisfaction, perceived provider empathy, alignment of decision-making with the patient's preferred style, provision of smoking cessation counseling to those currently smoking, LCS decisions, or adherence to initial LCS scan. Outcomes were similar regardless of modality of LCS SDM conversations. Telehealth for LCS SDM may be a useful option to improve equity and access, potentially reducing barriers to LCS uptake.
Prospective Memory (PM) is the ability to remember intentions for future execution which plays an important role in communication and is vulnerable to age-related decline. Context-Based Prospective Memory (CBPM) task, a novel test in Indian scenario evaluated psychometric properties among young adults. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of CBPM task among the neurotypical middle-aged and older adults and to investigate its sensitivity to age-related changes. A total of 80 participants (40 middle-aged, 40 older adults) completed the CBPM task and the Memory for Intentions Screening Test (MIST). Psychometric properties like internal consistency, test-retest reliability and convergent validity were evaluated. Age-related differences were examined using previously established CBPM task data from young adults. CBPM task demonstrated strong internal consistency (Cronbach's α= 0.875 for middle-aged and 0.715 for older adults), Excellent test-retest reliability for total performance scores (ICC=0.93 and 0.81) for middle-aged and older adults respectively and error classification (ICC= 0.97 and 0.99). Similarly inter-rater reliability also indicated strong reliability for the total PM performance (ICC=0.91 and 0.85), and error classification (ICC=0.97 and 0.99). Significant convergent validity was also observed with MIST, suggesting that both the tasks perform similarly. On assessing the tool's sensitivity to age-related changes in PM abilities, significant declines were observed in middle-aged and older adults compared to young adults affirming the age-related cognitive deterioration. The CBPM task is an effective and reliable tool to measure PM across age groups, demonstrating strong psychometric properties and sensitivity to identify the age-related decline.
Emotional events are remembered better than neutral ones. While many human neuroimaging studies have identified brain regions involved, relatively few-and typically small-studies have disentangled how arousal and valence shape the neural substrates of this enhancement. We leveraged a large single-centre fMRI sample (n = 1,006) in which healthy young adults viewed negative, neutral, and positive pictures during scanning followed by an unannounced free-recall test. Using whole-brain subsequent-memory analyses (PFWE < 0.05), we contrasted successful encoding of emotional (negative + positive) vs neutral items, then tested valence-specific effects (successful encoding: negative > neutral; positive > neutral), and finally controlled for subjective arousal via serial parametric modulation. Behaviourally, recall was higher for emotional than for neutral pictures. Consistent with prior meta-analytic evidence, emotional > neutral successful encoding engaged occipito-temporal visual cortex, anterior cingulate, insula, and amygdala. Additionally, we observed an extensive temporoparietal network, while hippocampal/parahippocampal activations were absent. After controlling for arousal, amygdala and insula effects were no longer significant, indicating these regions were sensitive to arousal rather than valence. Overlap of negative- and positive-valence enhancement localised primarily to the occipito-temporal cortex. Negative-specific enhancement recruited the lateral occipital/fusiform and bilateral supramarginal regions; positive-specific enhancement involved the rostral/caudal anterior cingulate, superior frontal, and parietal cortex, as well as the precuneus. Successful neutral encoding preferentially engaged frontoparietal control regions and bilateral lingual/parahippocampal cortex. Together, these findings dissociate valence-dependent from arousal-dependent mechanisms and reveal both partially overlapping and distinct networks for negative and positive memory enhancement, refining neurocognitive models of emotional memory encoding.
Prior research has established that individuals tend to preferentially remember self-relevant information-a phenomenon known as the self-reference effect. This effect is often modulated by the emotional valence of stimuli, typically manifesting as a self-positivity bias. Despite the focus on collaboration, competitive contexts remain a critical yet overlooked avenue for investigation. This study examined how self-referential memory processes operate in ongoing and post-competitive social environments. Participants encoded personality trait adjectives-displayed in different colors and with varying emotional valences-using either self-referential or other-referential encoding strategies. They subsequently performed recall tasks individually or under competitive conditions, followed by a final individual recall phase. The data revealed a self-reference effect in item memory (but not source memory) under nominal conditions, which was moderated by word color: the effect emerged for words presented in red but was reversed for those in green. Moreover, the self-positivity bias was contingent upon both color and recall session. Notably, these effects diminished during social competition and its aftermath, a finding that diverges sharply from previous reports in collaborative settings. This suggests that collaboration and competition engage fundamentally distinct cognitive and motivational mechanisms, and that the self/other-reference effect is not merely a function of social interaction per se. These findings challenge existing assumptions about the universality of self-referential memory advantages and highlight the need for context-sensitive models of memory.
Self-face representation refers to an internal image of one's own face that does not necessarily match its physical properties. A previous study showed that remembered facial features located centrally or on the right side, such as the nose and right eye, tend to shift rightward. However, this rightward bias may result from using the right index finger to report locations. The present study examined whether the bias would occur when participants used the left index finger, following Mora et al.'s procedure in which participants, with their eyes closed, pointed to locations on a transparent acrylic board as if the designated facial features were projected in parallel in front of the board. Twenty-eight participants pointed to designated facial features using either their right or left index finger. The reported locations were recorded digitally and compared with the actual feature locations. When using the right finger, a rightward bias appeared for all central and right-side facial features. When using the left finger, all left-side facial features shifted leftward, indicating a leftward bias. Importantly, the rightward bias remained for all right-side facial features. These results suggest that the bias reflects both a general tendency toward rightward shifting and an artifact related to the side of the reporting finger.
Individuals with inborn errors of immunity often mount suboptimal responses to vaccination, yet the molecular determinants underlying their variable responses to mRNA vaccines remain poorly defined. The present study aimed to identify baseline immune transcriptional signatures predictive of humoral responses to the BNT162b2 (Comirnaty) mRNA vaccine in individuals with inborn errors of immunity. Twenty-one SARS-CoV-2-naïve participants with diverse inborn errors of immunity were stratified as high or low responders to the BNT162b2 vaccine based on anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike IgG titers at day 28 post-vaccination. Although vaccine-induced T cell responses were broadly comparable, low responders had significantly lower frequencies of switched memory B cells (p = .014). Transcriptional profiling revealed 41 differentially expressed genes between groups at baseline. Activated memory B cells and peripheral T follicular helper cells from high responders exhibited greater induction of activation and memory-related genes, including NFKB1, CD69, TIGIT, CD40L, and BATF, indicating greater intrinsic readiness to support coordinated antibody production. These findings demonstrate that distinct pre-vaccination gene expression patterns within specific immune subsets are associated with differential humoral responses to mRNA vaccination in individuals with inborn errors of immunity. More broadly, the study highlights that baseline molecular immune features substantially influence vaccine efficacy and suggests that pre-vaccination transcriptional profiling may enable more personalized vaccination strategies for individuals with impaired immunity. People with inborn errors of immunity do not gain the same level of protection from vaccines as others but the reasons underlying such phenomena are not fully understood. In this study, 21 participants with this condition, who had never had COVID-19, received the BNT162b2 (Comirnaty) mRNA vaccine. Participants were classified as “high responders” or “low responders” based on the amount of antibodies they produced 28 d after vaccination. While both groups showed similar T cell responses, which help fight infections, low responders had fewer switched memory B cells, a type of immune cell important for producing strong and long-lasting antibodies. To investigate why these differences occurred, researchers examined several immune cell types before vaccination. After stimulating these cells in the laboratory, 41 genes were identified as being different between high and low responders. High responders showed stronger activity in genes that help immune cells respond and remember infections. These results show that differences already present in the immune system before vaccination can influence how well people with inborn errors of immunity respond to an mRNA vaccine. Understanding these differences may help researchers find better ways to protect people with immune deficiencies and improve vaccine effectiveness for everyone.
To critically explore and synthesize the gaps in managing vital signs and patient deterioration competency and learning of these skills among final year nursing students. Mastering vital signs assessment, recognizing and managing deterioration are fundamental nursing competencies and essential for preventing incidents in clinical practice. Previous research has identified deficiencies in vital signs assessment competencies among both practicing registered nurses and nursing students. An Integrative literature review METHODS: The database search from CINAHL, MEDLINE, SCOPUS and ERIC covered the years 2010-2025. The MMAT tool was used for appraisal, and the data were synthesized thematically. The PRISMA guidelines were followed for reporting findings of the review. A total of 14 studies were selected from nine different countries. According to the findings, final year nursing students had difficulties in remembering and interpreting vital signs values, transferring knowledge to practice, adopting systematic practice in vital sings assessment and comprehending the situation. Gaining skills was supported by perceived effectiveness of the teaching, possibility to practice repeatedly in a safe and realistic learning environment with feedback and exposure to real life. Inconsistency in graduating nursing students' skills in vital signs and deterioration detection ought to be addressed more in collaboration between academic nursing education, curriculum development and clinical practice. The focus should be on exploring how the learning of these core skills is transferred to clinical practice more efficiently and how the students would have more opportunities practice their skills and better-quality learning experiences mimicking real life.