Creativity in the Wild: Improving Creative Reasoning through Immersion in Natural Settings

A grant from the One-University Open Access Fund at the University of Kansas was used to defray the author’s publication fees in this Open Access journal. The Open Access Fund, administered by librarians from the KU, KU Law, and KUMC libraries, is made possible by contributions from the offices of KU Provost, KU Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Studies, and KUMC Vice Chancellor for Research. For more information about the Open Access Fund, please see http://library.kumc.edu/authors-fund.xml.Adults and children are spending more time interacting with media and technology and less time participating in activities in nature. This life-style change clearly has ramifications for our physical well-being, but what impact does this change have on cognition? Higher order cognitive functions including selective attention, problem solving, inhibition, and multi-tasking are all heavily utilized in our modern technology-rich society. Attention Restoration Theory (ART) suggests that exposure to nature can restore prefrontal cortex-mediated executive processes such as these. Consistent with ART, research indicates that exposure to natural settings seems to replenish some, lower-level modules of the executive attentional system. However, the impact of nature on higher-level tasks such as creative problem solving has not been explored. Here we show that four days of immersion in nature, and the corresponding disconnection from multi-media and technology, increases performance on a creativity, problem-solving task by a full 50% in a group of naive hikers. Our results demonstrate that there is a cognitive advantage to be realized if we spend time immersed in a natural setting. We anticipate that this advantage comes from an increase in exposure to natural stimuli that are both emotionally positive and low-arousing and a corresponding decrease in exposure to attention demanding technology, which regularly requires that we attend to sudden events, switch amongst tasks, maintain task goals, and inhibit irrelevant actions or cognitions. A limitation of the current research is the inability to determine if the effects are due to an increased exposure to nature, a decreased exposure to technology, or to other factors associated with spending three days immersed in nature

Effects of Cell Phone Conversations on Driver Performance While Driving Under Highway Monotony

It has often been suggested by individuals that engaging in a cell phone conversation would help keep them awake under monotonous conditions where task underload might lead to a decrease in arousal. To further extend laboratory findings of performance in vigilance type tasks while distracted, a monotonous highway driving scenario was designed to test the anecdotal hypothesis of improved performance. Driver performance related to lane keeping and recall memory were studied under distracted and non-distracted conditions. Results of the simulator study were consistent with laboratory findings of performance decrement when dual tasking indicating that the perceived benefits from the secondary conversational task does not outweigh its costs

Potential Benefits of a Concurrent Verbal Task when Feeling Fatigued Due to Monotonous Driving Conditions

Work by Atchley and Chan (2011) reported that engaging in a concurrent verbal task might serve to alleviate performance decrements in drivers when vigilance was low. Building on previous findings, the current study investigated the potential benefits of a concurrent verbal task when drivers were likely to be fatigued due to the extended duration and monotony of a driving task. Driver performance was studied under distracted and non-distracted conditions. Results indicated that strategically engaging in a concurrent verbal task led to improved driving performance when fatigue was at its highest

A Survey of Taxi Drivers’ Aberrant Driving Behavior in Beijing

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The original publication is available from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19439962.2013.799624#.VD_cxxYXNWs.Taxis are an important component in Beijing's urban integrated transport system. They provide passengers with convenient, comfortable, and efficient service. However, aberrant driving behaviors occur frequently among Beijing taxi drivers, leading to frequent violations and passenger complaints. This study explores Beijing taxi drivers’ aberrant driving behaviors and the factors influencing them. Questionnaires were designed to obtain different views of taxi drivers’ aberrant driving behaviors from taxi drivers, traffic police, and passengers, and to sample problems in the Beijing taxi industry. Responses from 52 professional taxi drivers, 40 traffic police officers, and more than 500 taxi passengers were obtained. The results show that taxi drivers generally under-report their own aberrant driving behaviors, whereas passengers and police appear to have a very negative impression of taxi drivers’ driving behaviors. Environmental influences such as economic pressure, ownership of taxi management, and the nature of the complaint system were found to contribute to taxi drivers’ aberrant driving behaviors. Some suggestions to increase the efficiency and safety of the taxi system in Beijing were proposed, such as improving drivers’ working and economic conditions, developing a better passenger loading system, establishing more effective license and termination policies for drivers, and improving the complaint system

Improving Highway Work Zone Safety

Highway work zones disrupt normal traffic flow and can create severe safety problems. Due to the rising needs in highway maintenance and construction in the United States, the number of work zones is increasing nationwide. With a total of 1,010 fatalities and more than 40,000 injuries occurring in 2006, improvements in work zone safety are necessary. The three primary objectives of this research project included: 1) to determine the effectiveness of a Portable Changeable Message Sign (PCMS) in reducing vehicle speeds on two-lane, rural highway work zones; 2) to determine the effectiveness of a Temporary Traffic Sign (TTS), (W20-1, “Road Work Ahead”); and 3) to determine motorists’ responses to the signage. To accomplish these objectives, field experiments were conducted at US-36 and US-73 in Seneca and Hiawatha, Kansas, respectively. During the field experiments, an evaluation of the effectiveness of the PCMS was conducted under three different conditions: 1) PCMS on; 2) PCMS off, but still visible; and 3) PCMS removed from the road and out of sight. The researchers also divided the vehicles into three classes (passenger car, truck, and semitrailer) and compared the mean speed change of these classes based on three different sign setups: PCMS on, PCMS off, and the use of the TTS (W20-1, “Road Work Ahead”). A survey was also conducted at the experimental work zones to obtain a general understanding of the motorists’ attitudes as they traveled through the construction areas. Based on the data analysis results, researchers concluded that the presence of the PCMS effectively reduced vehicle speeds on two-lane highway work zones. A slow speed is more likely to reduce the probability of a crash or the severity of a crash. In addition, researchers performed a univariate analysis of the variance test to determine if a significant interaction existed between motorists’ responses and the sign conditions. The results showed a significant interaction between the signs and passenger car vehicles

Career patterns of U.S. male academic social scientists

Seventy-four U.S. male academic social scientists provided career stage data. All were born between 1893 and 1903. The subjects were divided into four groups on the basis of their scholarly article productivity after age 59. Spilerman's conceptualization of work history guided the analysis. To a lesser extent, adult development theory (e.g., Hall and Nougaim, 1968) was also examined.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42843/1/10734_2004_Article_BF00139794.pd

Crystal Structure of the Minimalist Max-E47 Protein Chimera

Max-E47 is a protein chimera generated from the fusion of the DNA-binding basic region of Max and the dimerization region of E47, both members of the basic region/helix-loop-helix (bHLH) superfamily of transcription factors. Like native Max, Max-E47 binds with high affinity and specificity to the E-box site, 5′-CACGTG, both in vivo and in vitro. We have determined the crystal structure of Max-E47 at 1.7 Å resolution, and found that it associates to form a well-structured dimer even in the absence of its cognate DNA. Analytical ultracentrifugation confirms that Max-E47 is dimeric even at low micromolar concentrations, indicating that the Max-E47 dimer is stable in the absence of DNA. Circular dichroism analysis demonstrates that both non-specific DNA and the E-box site induce similar levels of helical secondary structure in Max-E47. These results suggest that Max-E47 may bind to the E-box following the two-step mechanism proposed for other bHLH proteins. In this mechanism, a rapid step where protein binds to DNA without sequence specificity is followed by a slow step where specific protein:DNA interactions are fine-tuned, leading to sequence-specific recognition. Collectively, these results show that the designed Max-E47 protein chimera behaves both structurally and functionally like its native counterparts