Editorial: Mental Imagery in Clinical Disorders

status: publishe

Building an authentic listener: Applying a passive exposure-based training paradigm to detecting differences among compositional styles

Background in music history. Around 1600, there was a shift in compositional style whose most significant feature was the increasingly free use of unprepared and/or incorrectly resolved dissonance. It caused controversy at the time (Artusi vs. Monteverdi), and its proponents argued that it was justifiable as a means of text expression. It can be argued that, in order to be shocked at the "illegal" treatment of dissonances, a listener would have to be familiar with "legal" behaviour of dissonances. Modern audiences, when exposed to seconda pratica music, tend not to react with same degree of alarm. One can argue that this is because later developments in music, to which the audiences have been exposed, go much farther in their dissonance treatment than the music of the seconda pratica composers. Background in psychology. Previous studies have shown that participants can rapidly develop both knowledge and subjective preference for grammatical structure following only a limited exposure to unfamiliar musical systems. Familiarity with musical structure has been shown to play a role in influencing the degree of emotional engagement experienced by participants while listening to music. The differences among the musical stimuli used in these studies are often maximised; in some cases, an entirely artificial musical grammar is used. Aims. Can we, through exposure to a training set, build enough familiarity in modern listeners of the conventional rules of dissonance treatment, that they experience seconda pratica music as odd or alarming in some way? Our experiment is a pilot study to test the feasibility of such an approach to this problem. Main contribution. We constructed an experiment in which a group of participants, drawn from among undergraduate students in music and psychology, were asked to rate two different pieces of Monteverdi (to represent seconda pratica), both before and after being exposed to a training set composed of either Monteverdi or Palestrina (to represent prima pratica). All pieces were presented once only without repetition. The training sets were chosen to minimise the effect of performers' interpretation on the listener, in an attempt to isolate compositional style as the most salient difference. Our results showed a significant difference in the rating of the Monteverdi pieces as "familiar" between the different groups. Other variables did not have a significant impact. This finding implies a degree of internalisation of the differences in musical grammar, and suggests that this paradigm for study might profitably be extended in the future. Implications. Our research has implications for any situation in which a teacher, performer, or composer is attempting to communicate musical meaning to an audience that is unfamiliar with the style in question. If a fairly brief training period is sufficient to build an appreciation in a sample of untrained listeners, for differences that are as relatively subtle as those between Monteverdi and Palestrina, then a presenter of unfamiliar or new music might use such knowledge to consciously structure the listening experience

Building an authentic listener: Applying a passive exposure-based training paradigm to detecting differences among compositional styles

Background in music history. Around 1600, there was a shift in compositional style whose most significant feature was the increasingly free use of unprepared and/or incorrectly resolved dissonance. It caused controversy at the time (Artusi vs. Monteverdi), and its proponents argued that it was justifiable as a means of text expression. It can be argued that, in order to be shocked at the "illegal" treatment of dissonances, a listener would have to be familiar with "legal" behaviour of dissonances. Modern audiences, when exposed to seconda pratica music, tend not to react with same degree of alarm. One can argue that this is because later developments in music, to which the audiences have been exposed, go much farther in their dissonance treatment than the music of the seconda pratica composers. Background in psychology. Previous studies have shown that participants can rapidly develop both knowledge and subjective preference for grammatical structure following only a limited exposure to unfamiliar musical systems. Familiarity with musical structure has been shown to play a role in influencing the degree of emotional engagement experienced by participants while listening to music. The differences among the musical stimuli used in these studies are often maximised; in some cases, an entirely artificial musical grammar is used. Aims. Can we, through exposure to a training set, build enough familiarity in modern listeners of the conventional rules of dissonance treatment, that they experience seconda pratica music as odd or alarming in some way? Our experiment is a pilot study to test the feasibility of such an approach to this problem. Main contribution. We constructed an experiment in which a group of participants, drawn from among undergraduate students in music and psychology, were asked to rate two different pieces of Monteverdi (to represent seconda pratica), both before and after being exposed to a training set composed of either Monteverdi or Palestrina (to represent prima pratica). All pieces were presented once only without repetition. The training sets were chosen to minimise the effect of performers' interpretation on the listener, in an attempt to isolate compositional style as the most salient difference. Our results showed a significant difference in the rating of the Monteverdi pieces as "familiar" between the different groups. Other variables did not have a significant impact. This finding implies a degree of internalisation of the differences in musical grammar, and suggests that this paradigm for study might profitably be extended in the future. Implications. Our research has implications for any situation in which a teacher, performer, or composer is attempting to communicate musical meaning to an audience that is unfamiliar with the style in question. If a fairly brief training period is sufficient to build an appreciation in a sample of untrained listeners, for differences that are as relatively subtle as those between Monteverdi and Palestrina, then a presenter of unfamiliar or new music might use such knowledge to consciously structure the listening experience

A View not to be Missed: Salient Scene Content Interferes With Cognitive Restoration

Attention Restoration Theory (ART) states that built scenes place greater load on attentional resources than natural scenes. This is explained in terms of "hard" and "soft" fascination of built and natural scenes. Given a lack of direct empirical evidence for this assumption we propose that perceptual saliency of scene content can function as an empirically derived indicator of fascination. Saliency levels were established by measuring speed of scene category detection using a Go/No-Go detection paradigm. Experiment 1 shows that built scenes are more salient than natural scenes. Experiment 2 replicates these findings using greyscale images, ruling out a colour-based response strategy, and additionally shows that built objects in natural scenes affect saliency to a greater extent than the reverse. Experiment 3 demonstrates that the saliency of scene content is directly linked to cognitive restoration using an established restoration paradigm. Overall, these findings demonstrate an important link between the saliency of scene content and related cognitive restoration

Ariel - Volume 10 Number 5

Executive Editors Madalyn Schaefgen David Reich Business Manager David Reich News Editors Medical College Edward Zurad CAHS John Guardiani World Mark Zwanger Features Editors Meg Trexler Jim O\u27Brien Editorials Editor Jeffrey Banyas Photography and Sports Editor Stuart Singer Commons Editor Brenda Peterso

Ovarian Carcinoma‐Associated Mesenchymal Stem Cells Arise from Tissue‐Specific Normal Stroma

Carcinoma‐associated mesenchymal stem cells (CA‐MSCs) are critical stromal progenitor cells within the tumor microenvironment (TME). We previously demonstrated that CA‐MSCs differentially express bone morphogenetic protein family members, promote tumor cell growth, increase cancer “stemness,” and chemotherapy resistance. Here, we use RNA sequencing of normal omental MSCs and ovarian CA‐MSCs to demonstrate global changes in CA‐MSC gene expression. Using these expression profiles, we create a unique predictive algorithm to classify CA‐MSCs. Our classifier accurately distinguishes normal omental, ovary, and bone marrow MSCs from ovarian cancer CA‐MSCs. Suggesting broad applicability, the model correctly classifies pancreatic and endometrial cancer CA‐MSCs and distinguishes cancer associated fibroblasts from CA‐MSCs. Using this classifier, we definitively demonstrate ovarian CA‐MSCs arise from tumor mediated reprograming of local tissue MSCs. Although cancer cells alone cannot induce a CA‐MSC phenotype, the in vivo ovarian TME can reprogram omental or ovary MSCs to protumorigenic CA‐MSCs (classifier score of >0.96). In vitro studies suggest that both tumor secreted factors and hypoxia are critical to induce the CA‐MSC phenotype. Interestingly, although the breast cancer TME can reprogram bone marrow MSCs into CA‐MSCs, the ovarian TME cannot, demonstrating for the first time that tumor mediated CA‐MSC conversion is tissue and cancer type dependent. Together these findings (a) provide a critical tool to define CA‐MSCs and (b) highlight cancer cell influence on distinct normal tissues providing powerful insights into the mechanisms underlying cancer specific metastatic niche formation. Stem Cells 2019;37:257–269Ovarian cancer reprograms normal tissue derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) into ovarian cancer promoting carcinoma‐associated mesenchymal stem cells (CA‐MSCs) in a tissue specific manner. Ovarian cancer cells convert ovary and omental MSCs into CA‐MSCs but fail to reprogram bone marrow (BM)‐MSCs whereas breast cancer cells convert BM‐MSCs into breast cancer supporting CA‐MSCs.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147827/1/stem2932_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147827/2/stem2932.pd

Generated randomly and selected functionally? The nature of enterovirus recombination

FA was supported by a PhD studentship from the Ministry of Education, Government of Saudi Arabia and KB was supported by Biological Sciences Research Council award BB/M009343/1to D.J.E and an ISSF award from The Wellcome Trust to the BSRC, University of St Andrews.Genetic recombination in RNA viruses is an important evolutionary mechanism. It con-tributes to population diversity, host/tissue adaptation and compromises vaccine efficacy. Both the molecular mechanism and initial products of recombination are relatively poorly understood. We used an established poliovirus-based in vitro recombination assay to investigate the roles of se-quence identity and RNA structure, both implicated or inferred from analysis of circulating recom-binant viruses, in the process. In addition, we used next generation sequencing to investigate the early products of recombination after cellular co-infection with different poliovirus serotypes. In independent studies we find no evidence for a role for RNA identity or structure in determining recombination junctions location. Instead, genome function and fitness are of greater importance in determining the identity of recombinant progeny. These studies provide further insights into this important evolutionary mechanism and emphasise the critical nature of the selection process on a mixed virus population.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Identification of furfural resistant strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces paradoxus from a collection of environmental and industrial isolates

Background Fermentation of bioethanol using lignocellulosic biomass as a raw material provides a sustainable alternative to current biofuel production methods by utilising waste food streams as raw material. Before lignocellulose can be fermented it requires physical, chemical and enzymatic treatment in order to release monosaccharides, a process that causes the chemical transformation of glucose and xylose into the cyclic aldehydes furfural and hydroxyfurfural. These furan compounds are potent inhibitors of Saccharomyces fermentation, and consequently furfural tolerant strains of Saccharomyces are required for lignocellulosic fermentation. Results This study investigated yeast tolerance to furfural and hydroxyfurfural using a collection of 71 environmental and industrial isolates of the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its closest relative Saccharomyces paradoxus. The Saccharomyces strains were initially screened for growth on media containing 100 mM glucose and 1.5 mg ml-1 furfural. Five strains were identified that showed a significant tolerance to growth in the presence of furfural and these were then screened for growth and ethanol production in the presence of increasing amounts (0.1-4 mg ml-1) of furfural. Conclusions Of the five furfural tolerant strains S. cerevisiae NCYC 3451 displayed the greatest furfural resistance, and was able to grow in the presence of up to 3.0 mg ml-1 furfural. Furthermore, ethanol production in this strain did not appear to be inhibited by furfural, with the highest ethanol yield observed at 3.0 mg ml-1 furfural. Although furfural resistance was not found to be a trait specific to any one particular lineage or population, three of the strains were isolated from environments where they might be continually exposed to low levels of furfural through the on-going natural degradation of lignocelluloses, and would therefore develop elevated levels of resistance to these furan compounds. Thus these strains represent good candidates for future studies of genetic variation relevant to understanding and manipulating furfural resistance and in the development of tolerant ethanologenic yeast strains for use in bioethanol production from lignocellulose processing