Is music enriching for group-housed captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)?

Many facilities that house captive primates play music for animal enrichment or for caregiver enjoyment. However, the impact on primates is unknown as previous studies have been inconclusive. We conducted three studies with zoo-housed chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and one with group-housed chimpanzees at the National Centre for Chimpanzee Care to investigate the effects of classical and pop/rock music on various variables that may be indicative of increased welfare. Study one compared the behaviour and use of space of 18 animals when silence, classical or pop/rock music was played into one of several indoor areas. Overall, chimpanzees did not actively avoid the area when music was playing but were more likely to exit the area when songs with higher beats per minute were broadcast. Chimpanzees showed significantly fewer active social behaviours when music, rather than silence, was playing. They also tended to be more active and engage in less abnormal behaviour during the music but there was no change to either self-grooming or aggression between music and silent conditions. The genre of music had no differential effects on the chimpanzees’ use of space and behaviour. In the second study, continuous focal observations were carried out on three individuals with relatively high levels of abnormal behaviour. No differences in behaviour between music and silence periods were found in any of the individuals. The final two studies used devices that allowed chimpanzees to choose if they wanted to listen to music of various types or silence. Both studies showed that there were no persistent preferences for any type of music or silence. When taken together, our results do not suggest music is enriching for group-housed captive chimpanzees, but they also do not suggest that music has a negative effect on welfare

Abnormal neural responses to harmonic syntactic structures in congenital amusia

Harmonic syntactic structures are organized hierarchically through local and long-distance dependencies. The present study investigated whether the processing of harmonic syntactic structures is impaired in congenital amusia, a neurodevelopmental disorder of pitch perception. Harmonic sequences containing two phrases were used as stimuli, in which the first phrase ended with a half cadence and the second with an authentic cadence. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the ending chord in the authentic cadence to be either syntactically regular or irregular. Sixteen amusics and 16 controls judged the expectedness of these chords while their EEG waveforms were recorded. In comparison to the regular endings, irregular endings elicited an ERAN, an N5 and a late positive component in controls but not in amusics, indicating that amusics were impaired in perceiving harmonic syntactic structures induced by local dependencies. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the half cadence of the harmonic sequences to examine the processing of harmonic syntactic structures induced by long-distance dependencies. An ERAN-like response and an N5 were elicited in controls but not in amusics, suggesting that amusics were impaired in processing long-distance syntactic dependencies. Furthermore, for controls, the neural processing of local and long-distance syntactic dependencies was correlated in the late (as indexed by the N5) but not in the early stage. These findings indicate that amusics are impaired in the detection of syntactic violations and subsequent harmonic integration. The implications of these findings in terms of hierarchical music-syntactic processing are discussed

Correlates of women's cancer screening and contraceptive knowledge among female emergency department patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Lack of knowledge regarding preventive health services for women might impede campaigns to expand these services in the emergency department setting. For 18–55-year-old English-speaking women visiting an urban emergency department, we aimed to: (1) Ascertain their knowledge regarding the applicability, purpose, and recommended intervals of three women's cancer screening and three contraceptive methods; and (2) Determine if patient age, race/ethnicity, medical insurance status, and current or recent usage of these methods are associated with greater or lesser knowledge about them.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Emergency department-based survey on recent or current usage and knowledge about Pap smears, breast self-examinations, mammograms, condoms, birth control, and emergency contraception. Analyses included calculation of summary statistics and creation of multivariable logistic regression models.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of 1,100 patients eligible for the study, 69.9% agreed to participate. Most of the participants were < age 35, white, single (never married and no partner), Catholic, and had private medical insurance. Participant's recent or current usage of a particular cancer screening or contraceptive method varied by type of method: Pap smear within the past year (69.1%), breast self-exam within the past month (45.5%), mammogram within the past year (65.7% for women age 45–55), condom usage during every episode of sexual intercourse (15.4%), current usage of birth control pills (17.8%), and ever use of emergency contraception (9.3%). The participants correctly answered 87.9% of all survey questions about condoms, 82.5% about birth control pills, 78.5% about breast self-exams, 52.9% about Pap smears, 35.4% about mammograms, and 25.0% about emergency contraception. In multivariable logistic regression models, survey participants who had private medical insurance and those who recently or currently used a given screening or contraceptive method had a greater odds of correctly answering all questions about each cancer screening or contraceptive method.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Although these female ED patients demonstrated strong knowledge on some women's cancer screening and contraceptive methods, there were several areas of knowledge deficit. Women without private medical insurance and those who have not used a particular cancer screening or contraceptive method demonstrated less knowledge. Reduced knowledge about women's cancer screening and contraceptive methods should be considered during clinical encounters and when instituting or evaluating emergency department-based initiatives that assess the need for these methods.</p

Evaluación del uso del preservativo femenino promovido desde un programa de educación para la salud: un enfoque cualitativo

El trabajo aquí recogido se aborda desde un estudio de caso, a través del enfoque cualitativo, mediante la técnica del grupo de discusión con la participación de 9 grupos, conformados por un total de 83 estudiantes universitarios del noroeste de España, con edades entre 19 y 42 años. Los objetivos principales de este trabajo son conocer la satisfacción de los y las participantes con el uso del preservativo femenino, así como las ventajas y obstáculos encontrados en su utilización que ha sido promovida a través de un programa de promoción de la salud. Como resultados y conclusiones destacar que las mujeres enfatizan en mayor medida que los varones la satisfacción y ventajas obtenidas con la utilización del método. Como puntos fuertes sobre el uso del preservativo femenino los y las participantes destacan la alta resistencia a la rotura y entre las debilidades apuntan los problemas ligados a su colocación y estética. El estudio sobre el uso del preservativo femenino revela la necesidad de continuar desarrollando intervenciones de formación encaminadas a la promoción de este método, sin excluir el empleo de otros, así como de reforzar la incorporación de estrategias educativas que permitan avanzar en la eliminación de estereotipos de género.This study is concerned with the promotion of the female condom. It is a qualitative study that was carried out by means of discussion groups, with the participation of nine groups. The study's sample was formed by 83 university students aged 19-42 years, from Galicia (Spain). The main objective of this study is to know the degree of satisfaction of the participants, and the advantages/drawbacks of using the female condom, which was promoted by a health programme. With regard to the conclusions of the study, it should be pointed out that the female participants focused more on the advantages of using the female condom, whereas the male participants primaly emphasised its drawbacks. The main point mentioned in favour of the female condom was its resistance to breakage, and its insertion and appearance were the most common complaints. The evaluation of the use of the female condom reveals the need to continue developing health programmes aimed at its promotion, without ruling out the utilization of other methods, and also to reinforce the incorporation of educational strategies which foster the elimination of gender stereotypes

Preliminary evidence for selective cortical responses to music in one‐month‐old infants

Prior studies have observed selective neural responses in the adult human auditory cortex to music and speech that cannot be explained by the differing lower-level acoustic properties of these stimuli. Does infant cortex exhibit similarly selective responses to music and speech shortly after birth? To answer this question, we attempted to collect functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 45 sleeping infants (2.0- to 11.9-weeks-old) while they listened to monophonic instrumental lullabies and infant-directed speech produced by a mother. To match acoustic variation between music and speech sounds we (1) recorded music from instruments that had a similar spectral range as female infant-directed speech, (2) used a novel excitation-matching algorithm to match the cochleagrams of music and speech stimuli, and (3) synthesized "model-matched" stimuli that were matched in spectrotemporal modulation statistics to (yet perceptually distinct from) music or speech. Of the 36 infants we collected usable data from, 19 had significant activations to sounds overall compared to scanner noise. From these infants, we observed a set of voxels in non-primary auditory cortex (NPAC) but not in Heschl's Gyrus that responded significantly more to music than to each of the other three stimulus types (but not significantly more strongly than to the background scanner noise). In contrast, our planned analyses did not reveal voxels in NPAC that responded more to speech than to model-matched speech, although other unplanned analyses did. These preliminary findings suggest that music selectivity arises within the first month of life. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Responses to music, speech, and control sounds matched for the spectrotemporal modulation-statistics of each sound were measured from 2- to 11-week-old sleeping infants using fMRI. Auditory cortex was significantly activated by these stimuli in 19 out of 36 sleeping infants. Selective responses to music compared to the three other stimulus classes were found in non-primary auditory cortex but not in nearby Heschl's Gyrus. Selective responses to speech were not observed in planned analyses but were observed in unplanned, exploratory analyses

Recent trends in pay equity: Beyond the aggregate statistics

The earnings gap between men and women has remained comparatively stable at an aggregate level over the 1990s in Australia. From one perspective, this is a reminder of the considerable difficulty of addressing wage differentials once the most overt forms of wage discrimination have been removed, and of the limited impact of most policy initiatives. From another, it may be seen as evidence that dire predictions about the effects of decentralisation on the earnings gap have failed to materialise. In this paper, I use Australian Bureau of Statistics data to show that a number of different trends are evident underneath the relatively static picture shown by the aggregate statistics, particularly as wage dispersion has increased. The data suggest not only that the prospects for pay equity are far from benign, but also that in the current labour market the issue of gender pay inequality cannot be effectively addressed separately from wage inequality more generally

Expanding our reach: The potential for youth development professionals in community-based organizations to provide sexuality information

Adolescents in the United States continue to face sexual health issues. While community-based organizations (CBOs) have a long history of addressing the sexual health needs of those they serve, little attention has been given to CBOs focused on adolescent populations and the role youth development professionals (YDPs) might play in the advancement of sexual health. The purpose of this study was to assess the potential of YDPs to provide sexuality information to youth by 1) determining the frequency and type of questions YDPs receive from youth on sexuality and 2) ascertaining the perceived comfort, confidence, skills, and knowledge of YDPs in answering questions from youth and characteristics that might be predictive of increased levels of perceived comfort, confidence, skills, and knowledge. Utilizing a community-based participatory research process that engaged the researchers with leaders, key stakeholders, and youth development professionals from community-based organizations throughout the state, data were collected from 169 YDP in Indiana. YDPs received questions from youth on a broad array of sexuality-related topics with personal skills and relationships being the most frequent topics. YDPs had high perceived levels of comfort, confidence, skills, and knowledge (CCSK) in addressing questions from youth about sexuality. Training, both formal classroom-type training and more informal practices such as advice-seeking from a professional, was the only factor predictive of higher levels of CCSK. Results indicate that YDPs might play an important role in providing sexuality information to youth. Communities interested in ameliorating disparities among youth might want to consider including CBOs and YDPs in an ecological approach to sexual health education. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC