Contextual perception under active inference

Human social interactions depend on the ability to resolve uncertainty about the mental states of others. The context in which social interactions take place is crucial for mental state attribution as sensory inputs may be perceived differently depending on the context. In this paper, we introduce a mental state attribution task where a target-face with either an ambiguous or an unambiguous emotion is embedded in different social contexts. The social context is determined by the emotions conveyed by other faces in the scene. This task involves mental state attribution to a target-face (either happy or sad) depending on the social context. Using active inference models, we provide a proof of concept that an agent’s perception of sensory stimuli may be altered by social context. We show with simulations that context congruency and facial expression coherency improve behavioural performance in terms of decision times. Furthermore, we show through simulations that the abnormal viewing strategies employed by patients with schizophrenia may be due to (i) an imbalance between the precisions of local and global features in the scene and (ii) a failure to modulate the sensory precision to contextualise emotions

Swift UVOT Observations of Core-Collapse SNe

We review recent UV observations of core-collapse supernovae (SNe) with the Swift Ultra-violet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) during its first two years. Rest-frame UV photometry is useful for differentiating SN types by exploiting the UV-optical spectral shape and more subtle UV features. This is useful for the real-time classification of local and high-redshift SNe using only photometry. Two remarkable SNe Ib/c were observed with UVOT -- SN2006jc was a UV bright SN Ib. Swift observations of GRB060218/SN2006aj began shortly after the explosion and show a UV-bright peak followed by a UV-faint SN bump. UV observations are also useful for constraining the temperature and ionization structure of SNe IIP. Rest-frame UV observations of all types are important for understanding the extinction, temperature, and bolometric luminosity of SNe and to interpret the observations of high redshift SNe observed at optical wavelengths.Comment: Figures are enlarged and colorized from print versio

The Role of Relapse Prevention and Goal Setting in Training Transfer Enhancement

This article reviews the effect of two post-training transfer interventions (relapse prevention [RP] and goal setting [GS]) on trainees’ ability to apply skills gained in a training context to the workplace. Through a review of post-training transfer interventions literature, the article identifies a number of key issues that remain unresolved or underexplored, for example, the inconsistent results on the impact of RP on transfer of training, the lack of agreement on which GS types are more efficient to improve transfer performance, the lack of clarity about the distinction between RP and GS, and the underlying process through which these two post-training transfer interventions influence transfer of training. We offer some recommendations to overcome these problems and also provide guidance for future research on transfer of training

Mechanisms of airfoil noise near stall conditions

The focus of this paper is on investigating the noise produced by an airfoil at high angles of attack over a range of Reynolds number Re≈2×10⁵–4×10⁵. The objective is not modeling this source of noise but rather understanding the mechanisms of generation for surface pressure fluctuations, due to a separated boundary layer, that are then scattered by the trailing edge. To this aim, we use simultaneous noise and surface pressure measurement in addition to velocimetric measurements by means of hot wire anemometry and time-resolved particle image velocimetry. Three possible mechanisms for the so-called “separation-stall noise” have been identified in addition to a clear link between far-field noise, surface pressure, and velocity fields in the noise generation

Nonlinear dispersion of stationary waves in collisionless plasmas

A nonlinear dispersion of a general stationary wave in collisionless plasma is obtained in a non-differential form from a single-particle oscillation-center Hamiltonian. For electrostatic oscillations in nonmagnetized plasma, considered as a paradigmatic example, the linear dielectric function is generalized, and the trapped particle contribution to the wave frequency shift $\Delta\omega$ is found analytically as a function of the wave amplitude $a$. Smooth distributions yield $\Delta\omega\sim a^{1/2}$, as usual. However, beam-like distributions of trapped electrons result in different power laws, or even a logarithmic nonlinearity, which are derived as asymptotic limits of the same dispersion relation