The plight of the sense-making ape

This is a selective review of the published literature on object-choice tasks, where participants use directional cues to find hidden objects. This literature comprises the efforts of researchers to make sense of the sense-making capacities of our nearest living relatives. This chapter is written to highlight some nonsensical conclusions that frequently emerge from this research. The data suggest that when apes are given approximately the same sense-making opportunities as we provide our children, then they will easily make sense of our social signals. The ubiquity of nonsensical contemporary scientific claims to the effect that humans are essentially--or inherently--more capable than other great apes in the understanding of simple directional cues is, itself, a testament to the power of preconceived ideas on human perception

What People Believe about How Memory Works: A Representative Survey of the U.S. Population

Incorrect beliefs about the properties of memory have broad implications: The media conflate normal forgetting and inadvertent memory distortion with intentional deceit, juries issue verdicts based on flawed intuitions about the accuracy and confidence of testimony, and students misunderstand the role of memory in learning. We conducted a large representative telephone survey of the U.S. population to assess common beliefs about the properties of memory. Substantial numbers of respondents agreed with propositions that conflict with expert consensus: Amnesia results in the inability to remember one's own identity (83% of respondents agreed), unexpected objects generally grab attention (78%), memory works like a video camera (63%), memory can be enhanced through hypnosis (55%), memory is permanent (48%), and the testimony of a single confident eyewitness should be enough to convict a criminal defendant (37%). This discrepancy between popular belief and scientific consensus has implications from the classroom to the courtroom

A Diverse and Flexible Teaching Toolkit Facilitates the Human Capacity for Cumulative Culture

© 2017, The Author(s). Human culture is uniquely complex compared to other species. This complexity stems from the accumulation of culture over time through high- and low-fidelity transmission and innovation. One possible reason for why humans retain and create culture, is our ability to modulate teaching strategies in order to foster learning and innovation. We argue that teaching is more diverse, flexible, and complex in humans than in other species. This particular characteristic of human teaching rather than teaching itself is one of the reasons for human’s incredible capacity for cumulative culture. That is, humans unlike other species can signal to learners whether the information they are teaching can or cannot be modified. As a result teaching in humans can be used to support high or low fidelity transmission, innovation, and ultimately, cumulative culture

Images of Eyes Enhance Investments in a Real-Life Public Good

A key issue in cooperation research is to determine the conditions under which individuals invest in a public good. Here, we tested whether cues of being watched increase investments in an anonymous public good situation in real life. We examined whether individuals would invest more by removing experimentally placed garbage (paper and plastic bottles) from bus stop benches in Geneva in the presence of images of eyes compared to controls (images of flowers). We provided separate bins for each of both types of garbage to investigate whether individuals would deposit more items into the appropriate bin in the presence of eyes. The treatment had no effect on the likelihood that individuals present at the bus stop would remove garbage. However, those individuals that engaged in garbage clearing, and were thus likely affected by the treatment, invested more time to do so in the presence of eyes. Images of eyes had a direct effect on behaviour, rather than merely enhancing attention towards a symbolic sign requesting removal of garbage. These findings show that simple images of eyes can trigger reputational effects that significantly enhance on non-monetary investments in anonymous public goods under real life conditions. We discuss our results in the light of previous findings and suggest that human social behaviour may often be shaped by relatively simple and potentially unconscious mechanisms instead of very complex cognitive capacities

CpG-ODN and MPLA Prevent Mortality in a Murine Model of Post-Hemorrhage-Staphyloccocus aureus Pneumonia

Infections are the most frequent cause of complications in trauma patients. Post-traumatic immune suppression (IS) exposes patients to pneumonia (PN). The main pathogen involved in PN is Methicillin Susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA). Dendritic cells () may be centrally involved in the IS. We assessed the consequences of hemorrhage on pneumonia outcomes and investigated its consequences on DCs functions. A murine model of hemorrhagic shock with a subsequent MSSA pneumonia was used. Hemorrhage decreased the survival rate of infected mice, increased systemic dissemination of sepsis and worsened inflammatory lung lesions. The mRNA expression of Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNF-α), Interferon-beta (IFN-β) and Interleukin (IL)-12p40 were mitigated for hemorrhaged-mice. The effects of hemorrhage on subsequent PN were apparent on the pDCs phenotype (reduced MHC class II, CD80, and CD86 molecule membrane expression). In addition, hemorrhage dramatically decreased CD8+ cDCs- and CD8- cDCs-induced allogeneic T-cell proliferation during PN compared with mice that did not undergo hemorrhage. In conclusion, hemorrhage increased morbidity and mortality associated with PN; induced severe phenotypic disturbances of the pDCs subset and functional alterations of the cDCs subset. After hemorrhage, a preventive treatment with CpG-ODN or Monophosphoryl Lipid A increased transcriptional activity in DCs (TNF-α, IFN-β and IL-12p40) and decreased mortality of post-hemorrhage MSSA pneumonia

Different Vocal Parameters Predict Perceptions of Dominance and Attractiveness

Low mean fundamental frequency (F0) in men’s voices has been found to positively influence perceptions of dominance by men and attractiveness by women using standardized speech. Using natural speech obtained during an ecologically valid social interaction, we examined relationships between multiple vocal parameters and dominance and attractiveness judgments. Male voices from an unscripted dating game were judged by men for physical and social dominance and by women in fertile and non-fertile menstrual cycle phases for desirability in short-term and long-term relationships. Five vocal parameters were analyzed: mean F0 (an acoustic correlate of vocal fold size), F0 variation, intensity (loudness), utterance duration, and formant dispersion (Df, an acoustic correlate of vocal tract length). Parallel but separate ratings of speech transcripts served as controls for content. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine the independent contributions of each of the predictors. Physical dominance was predicted by low F0 variation and physically dominant word content. Social dominance was predicted only by socially dominant word content. Ratings of attractiveness by women were predicted by low mean F0, low Df, high intensity, and attractive word content across cycle phase and mating context. Low Df was perceived as attractive by fertile-phase women only. We hypothesize that competitors and potential mates may attend more strongly to different components of men’s voices because of the different types of information these vocal parameters provide

Food supplements increase adult tarsus length, but not growth rate, in an island population of house sparrows (Passer domesticus)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Variation in food supply during early development can influence growth rate and body size in many species. However, whilst the detrimental effects of food restriction have often been studied in natural populations, how young individuals respond to an artificial increase in food supply is rarely investigated. Here, we investigated both the short-term and long-term effects of providing house sparrow chicks with food supplements during a key period of growth and development and assessed whether providing food supplements had any persistent effect upon adult size (measured here as tarsus length).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Male nestlings tended to reach higher mass asymptotes than females. Furthermore, brood size was negatively associated with a chick's asymptotic mass. However, providing food supplements had no influence upon the growth rate or the asymptotic mass of chicks. Adults that received food supplements as chicks were larger, in terms of their tarsus length, than adults that did not receive extra food as chicks. In addition, the variation in tarsus length amongst adult males that were given food supplements as chicks was significantly less than the variance observed amongst males that did not receive food supplements.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results demonstrate that the food supply chicks experience during a critical developmental period can have a permanent effect upon their adult phenotype. Furthermore, providing extra food to chicks resulted in sex-biased variance in a size-related trait amongst adults, which shows that the degree of sexual size dimorphism can be affected by the environment experienced during growth.</p

Brain injury-associated biomarkers of TGF-beta1, S100B, GFAP, NF-L, tTG, AbetaPP, and tau were concomitantly enhanced and the UPS was impaired during acute brain injury caused by Toxocara canis in mice

BACKGROUND: Because the outcomes and sequelae after different types of brain injury (BI) are variable and difficult to predict, investigations on whether enhanced expressions of BI-associated biomarkers (BIABs), including transforming growth factor beta1 (TGF-beta1), S100B, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), neurofilament light chain( NF-L), tissue transglutaminases (tTGs), beta-amyloid precursor proteins (AbetaPP), and tau are present as well as whether impairment of the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) is present have been widely used to help delineate pathophysiological mechanisms in various BIs. Larvae of Toxocara canis can invade the brain and cause BI in humans and mice, leading to cerebral toxocariasis (CT). Because the parasitic burden is light in CT, it may be too cryptic to be detected in humans, making it difficult to clearly understand the pathogenesis of subtle BI in CT. Since the pathogenesis of murine toxocariasis is very similar to that in humans, it appears appropriate to use a murine model to investigate the pathogenesis of CT. METHODS: BIAB expressions and UPS function in the brains of mice inoculated with a single dose of 250 T. canis embryonated eggs was investigated from 3 days (dpi) to 8 weeks post- infection (wpi) by Western blotting and RT-PCR. RESULTS: Results revealed that at 4 and 8 wpi, T. canis larvae were found to have invaded areas around the choroid plexus but without eliciting leukocyte infiltration in brains of infected mice; nevertheless, astrogliosis, an indicator of BI, with 78.9~142.0-fold increases in GFAP expression was present. Meanwhile, markedly increased levels of other BIAB proteins including TGF-beta1, S100B, NF-L, tTG, AbetaPP, and tau, with increases ranging 2.0~12.0-fold were found, although their corresponding mRNA expressions were not found to be present at 8 wpi. Concomitantly, UPS impairment was evidenced by the overexpression of conjugated ubiquitin and ubiquitin in the brain. CONCLUSION: Further studies are needed to determine whether there is an increased risk of CT progression into neurodegenerative disease because neurodegeneration-associated AbetaPP and phosphorylated tau emerged in the brain. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2334-8-8

The mismeasure of ape social cognition

In his classic analysis, The Mismeasure of Man, Gould (1981) demolished the idea that intelligence was an inherent, genetic trait of different human groups by emphasizing, among other things, (a) its sensitivity to environmental input, (b) the incommensurate pre-test preparation of different human groups, and (c) the inadequacy of the testing contexts, in many cases. According to Gould, the root cause of these oversights was confirmation bias by psychometricians, an unwarranted commitment to the idea that intelligence was a fixed, immutable quality of people. By virtue of a similar, systemic interpretive bias, in the last two decades, numerous contemporary researchers in comparative psychology have claimed human superiority over apes in social intelligence, based on two-group comparisons between postindustrial, Western Europeans and captive apes, where the apes have been isolated from European styles of social interaction, and tested with radically different procedures. Moreover, direct comparisons of humans with apes suffer from pervasive lapses in argumentation: Research designs in wide contemporary use are inherently mute about the underlying psychological causes of overt behavior. Here we analyze these problems and offer a more fruitful approach to the comparative study of social intelligence, which focuses on specific individual learning histories in specific ecological circumstances