Multimodal travel behaviour, attitudes, and cognitive dissonance

Multimodal travel behaviour, also termed multimodality, refers to as the phenomenon of an individual using more than one mode of transport in a given period. Studies indicate that encouraging multimodality may provide a solution to induce modal shifts towards sustainable transport. In this research, we investigate the distribution of mode-specific attitudes and attitude-mode use incompatibilities across clusters and levels of multimodality using the Netherlands Mobility Panel. We find that the most positive attitude does not necessarily correspond to the mode with the highest level of use. Attitudes towards car use are most positive, independent of the cluster membership and levels of multimodality. We also find that multimodal public transport users (compared with car-dominant users) and those with a higher level of multimodality are more likely to be attitudinally incompatible with frequently-used modes and the composition of their existing mode sets of travelling. This suggests that multimodal individuals may tend to experience cognitive dissonance with their mode use. Our findings also help uncover the psychological mechanism underlying a recent important finding that multimodal individuals are inclined to change their mode use patterns over time

Motion Integration for Ocular Pursuit Does Not Hinder Perceptual Segregation of Moving Objects

When confronted with a complex moving stimulus, the brain can integrate local element velocities to obtain a single motion signal, or segregate the elements to maintain awareness of their identities. The integrated motion signal can drive smooth-pursuit eye movements (Heinen and Watamaniuk, 1998), whereas the segregated signal guides attentive tracking of individual elements in multiple-object tracking tasks (MOT; Pylyshyn and Storm, 1988). It is evident that these processes can occur simultaneously, because we can effortlessly pursue ambulating creatures while inspecting disjoint moving features, such as arms and legs, but the underlying mechanism is unknown. Here, we provide evidence that separate neural circuits perform the mathematically opposed operations of integration and segregation, by demonstrating with a dual-task paradigm that the two processes do not share attentional resources. Human observers attentively tracked a subset of target elements composing a small MOT stimulus, while pursuing it ocularly as it translated across a computer display. Integration of the multidot stimulus yielded optimal pursuit. Importantly, performing MOT while pursuing the stimulus did not degrade performance on either task compared with when each was performed alone, indicating that they did not share attention. A control experiment showed that pursuit was not driven by integration of only the nontargets, leaving the MOT targets free for segregation. Nor was a predictive strategy used to pursue the stimulus, because sudden changes in its global velocity were accurately followed. The results suggest that separate neural mechanisms can simultaneously segregate and integrate the same motion signals

When you are born matters: An age-period-cohort analysis of multimodality

Multimodality – the behavioural phenomenon of using multiple modes of transport – has been suggested to be a useful indicator of an individual’s willingness to adopt more sustainable transport alternatives. Analysing temporal patterns in multimodality provides the opportunity to understand the formation of multimodal practices. Yet the existing studies on this topic share one limitation: they fail to simultaneously incorporate into their analysis the three interconnected temporal dimensions: age, period, and (birth) cohort. Given that age, period, and cohort are mathematically intertwined, the omission of any of these three variables may lead to biased explanations. Using the National Travel Survey in England, from 2001 to 2017, this research explored the extent to which individual multimodality varied by age, period, and cohort. We adopted the hierarchical age-period-cohort model to estimate the net effects of age, period, and cohort on multimodality. Our analyses showed that travellers tend to be less multimodal as they get older. The age effects may be moderated by work or physical mobility constraints, which accelerate the decrease in multimodality before or after reaching 30 years old, respectively. Individual multimodality exhibited significant variation across periods and cohorts. The total variance in multimodality accounted for by cohorts was larger than that explained by periods. Multimodality reached the lowest level for cohorts born between 1945 and 1969. This may be partially explained by the joint influence of multiple spatial mobility constraints as well as by the distinctive early life conditions and formative experience of baby boomers in terms of driving during the post-war economic expansion

Stereotypes and the public acceptability of shared micromobility

Understanding the public's views and acceptability of shared micromobility (SMM) is crucial for uncovering barriers to incorporating SMM into sustainable urban mobility. This research studies stereotypes of SMM and their impacts on SMM's public acceptability. We focus on shared e-scooters and shared bikes/e-bikes in England, the Netherlands, and Sweden. We conceptualise stereotypes of SMM, developing a scale for their measurement. Factor analysis reveals that stereotypes of SMM are structured around two cognitive dimensions, namely, warmth and competence, which aligns with the stereotype content model. Warmth captures individuals' stereotyped SMM user images regarding how the users interact with other road users; competence reflects individuals' stereotyped SMM's capabilities to improve existing transport systems. Overall, stereotypes of SMM, characterised by low levels of warmth and high levels of competence, are ambivalent. Yet, they are also variable. Analysis of covariance unveils variations in SMM stereotypes across countries, sociodemographics, and travel patterns. Swedish residents, older adults, individuals from households without children, SMM users, and car-oriented individuals hold lower levels of warmth (for both types of SMM) and competence (for shared e-scooters) than their counterparts. Finally, the public acceptability of shared e-scooters is neutral, whilst that of shared bikes/e-bikes is mildly positive. Multivariate analyses show that stereotypes' warmth and competence are positively associated with individuals' acceptability of SMM, cumulatively accounting for over 50% of the variation in acceptability. Our findings help inform policies and planning on SMM. The developed scale holds the potential for evaluating stereotypes of SMM in particular and emerging transport services in general

Nonlinear Markov Random Fields Learned via Backpropagation

Although convolutional neural networks (CNNs) currently dominate competitions on image segmentation, for neuroimaging analysis tasks, more classical generative approaches based on mixture models are still used in practice to parcellate brains. To bridge the gap between the two, in this paper we propose a marriage between a probabilistic generative model, which has been shown to be robust to variability among magnetic resonance (MR) images acquired via different imaging protocols, and a CNN. The link is in the prior distribution over the unknown tissue classes, which are classically modelled using a Markov random field. In this work we model the interactions among neighbouring pixels by a type of recurrent CNN, which can encode more complex spatial interactions. We validate our proposed model on publicly available MR data, from different centres, and show that it generalises across imaging protocols. This result demonstrates a successful and principled inclusion of a CNN in a generative model, which in turn could be adapted by any probabilistic generative approach for image segmentation.Comment: Accepted for the international conference on Information Processing in Medical Imaging (IPMI) 2019, camera ready versio

First proton-transfer study of 18F+p resonances relevant for novae

The 18F(p,α)15O reaction is the predominant destruction mechanism in novae of the radionuclide F18, a target of γ-ray observatories. Thus, its rate is important for understanding F18 production in novae. We have studied resonances in the 18F+p system by making a measurement of a proton-transfer reaction 18F(d,n). We have observed 15 Ne19 levels, 5 of which are below the proton threshold, including a subthreshold state, which has significant l p=0 strength. Our data provide a direct determination of the spectroscopic strength of these states and new constraints on their spins and parities, thereby resolving a controversy, which involves the 8- and 38-keV resonances. The 18F(p,α)15O reaction rate is reevaluated, which takes the subthreshold resonance and other new information determined in this experiment into account. © 2011 American Physical Society

Single-nucleon transfer reactions on \u3csup\u3e18\u3c/sup\u3eF

Simultaneous measurement of the proton-transfer 18F(d,n) 19Ne and neutron-transfer 18F(d,p)19F reactions were performed with a 18F radioactive beam at the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The experiments clarify the nuclear structure of 19Ne near the proton threshold, which is relevant for understanding the rates of proton-induced reactions on 18F in novae. Analogs for several states in the mirror nucleus 19F have not yet been identified in 19Ne, indicating that the level structure of 19Ne in this region is incomplete. We observed 15 levels in 19Ne from the 18F(d,n) 19Ne measurement and 18 levels in 19F from the 18F(d,p)19F measurement. Angular distributions were extracted for all strongly populated states and compared to distorted-wave Born approximation calculations. The angular distributions for all the known states in the two nuclei determined in this work are consistent with their previously assigned spins and parities. The spectroscopic factors determined for these levels in the two nuclei are reported. © 2011 American Physical Society