Exploring modality switching effects in negated sentences: further evidence for grounded representations

Theories of embodied cognition (e.g., Perceptual Symbol Systems Theory; Barsalou, 1999, 2009) suggest that modality specific simulations underlie the representation of concepts. Supporting evidence comes from modality switch costs: participants are slower to verify a property in one modality (e.g., auditory, BLENDER-loud) after verifying a property in a different modality (e.g., gustatory, CRANBERRIES-tart) compared to the same modality (e.g., LEAVES-rustling, Pecher et al., 2003). Similarly, modality switching costs lead to a modulation of the N400 effect in event-related potentials (ERPs; Collins et al., 2011; Hald et al., 2011). This effect of modality switching has also been shown to interact with the veracity of the sentence (Hald et al., 2011). The current ERP study further explores the role of modality match/mismatch on the processing of veracity as well as negation (sentences containing “not”). Our results indicate a modulation in the ERP based on modality and veracity, plus an interaction. The evidence supports the idea that modality specific simulations occur during language processing, and furthermore suggest that these simulations alter the processing of negation

The theory of planned behaviour, self-identity, and moral disengagement: what predicts sustainability at work?

Objectives: On the occasion of the Green Impact sustainability initiative at our university, we sought to identify predictors of sustainability-related behaviours (recycling, energy saving and sustainable transport choices) among staff. Design: A quantitative on-line survey was conducted among university staff. In line with the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), we measured intentions (to recycle, to save energy, and to choose sustainable transport), attitudes, subjective norm, and perceived control. Self-identity was added as a popular extension to the TPB. Additionally, we took one of the first measurements of moral disengagement in a sustainability-related study. Methods: All staff participating in the initiative were contacted, 130 responses were received. Correlational methods were used to analyse the survey data. Results: The TPB was broadly supported; however, perceived control was not significant in predicting recycling intentions, subjective norm did not contribute to the prediction of energy saving intentions, and attitude did not predict transport intentions. Self-identity, conversely, made a substantial additional contribution for all target behaviours. The moral disengagement measures were all correlated with sustainability intentions, but there were multicollinearity issues with the TPB variables and between sub-scales. Conclusions: The TPB is useful in predicting workplace sustainability intentions, but different predictors apply to different behaviours. Moral disengagement is another useful explanatory concept, but difficult to incorporate in the TPB. The consistently significant contribution of self-identity suggests that sustainability at work can be promoted by making staff feel like sustainability champions

Sustainability in the workplace and the theory of planned behaviour: Norms and identity predict environmentally friendly intentions

Social psychology offers an insightful perspective on the psychological processes underlying sustainability-related intentions and actions, at universities and elsewhere. Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour (TPB) is a well-supported model, positing that attitudes alone will rarely predict intentions and behaviour accurately. Rather, individuals are sensitive to social norms (the perceived requirements of a setting and/or a group to which the actor belongs) and perceived control (the sense that the actor is capable of the behaviour and the environment offers the opportunity). Recently, it has been suggested to include self-identity (the notion that the behaviour is part of who you are). This paper summarises previous research linking the TPB to sustainability, and then reports a quantitative survey of 130 staff members at Canterbury Christ Church University. An online questionnaire measured attitudes, social norms, perceived control, self-identity, and intentions relating to office waste recycling, energy saving, and transport choice. Overall, only self-identity and norms reliably predicted intentions to act in environmentally sustainable ways. Follow-up analyses suggest that different predictors were significant for different intentions, but self-identity always improved prediction over and above the original TPB variables. In conclusion, universities can best cultivate sustainability intentions by promoting favourable norms and self-identities

Modality switching and negation: ERP evidence for modality-specific simulations during negation processing

The Perceptual Symbol System Theory of cognition (Barsalou, 1999) suggests that modality-specific simulations underlie representation of concepts. This is evidenced by processing costs for switching modalities. That is, participants are slower to verify a property in the auditory modality (e.g., BLENDER-loud) after verifying a property in a different modality (e.g., CRANBERRIES-tart) and faster when verifying a property in the same modality (e.g., LEAVES-rustling). The modality switch cost has also been shown to lead to a modulation of the N400 event-related potential (ERP) (Collins, Pecher, Zeelenberg & Coulson, 2011 using a property verification task; Hald, Marshall, Janssen & Garnham, 2011 using a sentence verification task). In a separate line of research, ERP studies have indicated that without a discourse context, negated sentences are more difficult to process than affirmative sentences, leading to a different N400 pattern for negative sentences than for affirmative sentences (e.g., Fischler, Bloom, Childers, Roucos, & Perry, 1983.) Unlike affirmative sentences, sentences containing negation show a larger N400 for correct, semantically coherent single sentences (i.e., factually true sentences) than for semantically incorrect sentences (i.e., false sentences). However, Nieuwland and Kuperberg (2008,) found that the pragmatics of the sentence can change this N400 pattern to one closer to affirmative sentences. The goal of the current study was to explore whether the processing of negation could be aided by modality matching information. Other evidence suggests that comprehenders create a simulation of negative sentences (Kaup, Yaxley, Madden, Zwaan, & Lüdtke, 2007), but it is unclear whether modality matching information could modulate the processing cost of negation. Essentially, can modality matching information as reported by Collins et al., (2011) and Hald et al., (2011) lead to a modulation of the N400 for true negated sentences similar to that seen when discourse pragmatics supports negation? Furthermore, we were interested in whether the modality switch effect would lead to a similar pattern in the ERPs as that found with affirmative sentences (Collins et al., 2011 & Hald et al., 2011). Using a within-subjects design we used 160 pairs of experimental pairs which were either of the same or of a different modality. All experimental items were either visual or tactile modality and were drawn from existing sets of materials (Pecher, et al., 2003; Van Dantzig, et al., 2008). For example, a different modality pair was “A light bulb is very hot” followed by “Rice isn’t black” versus a same visual modality pair “A giraffe is spotted” followed by “Rice isn’t black”. We predicted that the underlined word is where a modulation in the N400 may be seen. Additionally, we explored veracity by making half of the experimental target sentences false (“Rice isn’t white”). Participants were asked to judge whether each sentence was typically true or false. Our initial results indicate a modulation in the ERP based on both modality and veracity. For true (“Rice isn’t black”) and false target statements (“Rice isn’t white”) different modality pairs elicit a larger frontal-central N400 like effect compared to same modality pairs (Figure 1), replicating Hald et al., (2011). When comparing true versus false, the different modality pairs elicit a large posterior N400 for true compared to false sentences (replicating the effect for negated sentences, i.e., Fischler et al., 1983). However for same modality pairs there is a reduction in the N400 to true statements; no difference is seen between true and false statements in the ERP (Figure 2). These results replicate and extend previous ERP findings using the modality switch paradigm. The evidence suggests that not only do modality-specific simulations occur but they can even aid the processing of negation

Topological constraints on spiral wave dynamics in spherical geometries with inhomogeneous excitability

We analyze the way topological constraints and inhomogeneity in the excitability influence the dynamics of spiral waves on spheres and punctured spheres of excitable media. We generalize the definition of an index such that it characterizes not only each spiral but also each hole in punctured, oriented, compact, two-dimensional differentiable manifolds and show that the sum of the indices is conserved and zero. We also show that heterogeneity and geometry are responsible for the formation of various spiral wave attractors, in particular, pairs of spirals in which one spiral acts as a source and a second as a sink -- the latter similar to an antispiral. The results provide a basis for the analysis of the propagation of waves in heterogeneous excitable media in physical and biological systems.Comment: 5 pages, 6 Figures, major revisions, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Particle size segregation in granular flow in silos

Segregation and layering of alumina in storage silos are investigated, with a view to predicting output quality versus time, given known variations in input quality on emplacement. A variety of experiments were conducted, existing relevant publications were reviewed, and the basis for an algorithm for predicting the effect of withdrawing from a central flowing region, in combination with variations in quality due to geometric, layering and segregation effects, is described in this report

Many quantitative trait loci for feather growth in an F broiler × layer cross collocate with body weight loci

1. A genome-wide scan of 467 F progeny of a broiler x layer cross was conducted to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) affecting the rate of growth of the tail, wing and back feathers, and the width of the breast feather tract, at three weeks of age. 2. Correlations between the traits ranged from 0·36 to 0·61. Males had longer tail and wing feathers and shorter back feathers than females. Breast feather tract width was greater in females than males. 3. QTL effects were generally additive and accounted for 11 to 45% of sex average feather lengths of the breeds, and 100% of the breast feather tract width. Positive and negative alleles were inherited from both lines, whereas the layer allele was larger than the broiler allele after adjusting for body weight. 4. A total of 4 genome-significant and 4 suggestive QTL were detected. At three or 6 weeks of age, 5 of the QTL were located in similar regions as QTL for body weight. 5. Analysis of a model with body weight at three weeks as a covariate identified 5 genome significant and 6 suggestive QTL, of which only two were coincident with body weight QTL. One QTL for feather length at 148 cM on GGA1 was identified at a similar location in the unadjusted analysis. 6. The results suggest that the rate of feather growth is largely controlled by body weight QTL, and that QTL specific for feather growth also exist

Quantitative trait loci for bone traits segregating independently of those for growth in an F-2 broiler X layer cross

An F broiler-layer cross was phenotyped for 18 skeletal traits at 6, 7 and 9 weeks of age and genotyped with 120 microsatellite markers. Interval mapping identified 61 suggestive and significant QTL on 16 of the 25 linkage groups for 16 traits. Thirty-six additional QTL were identified when the assumption that QTL were fixed in the grandparent lines was relaxed. QTL with large effects on the lengths of the tarsometatarsus, tibia and femur, and the weights of the tibia and femur were identified on GGA4 between 217 and 249 cM. Six QTL for skeletal traits were identified that did not co-locate with genome wide significant QTL for body weight and two body weight QTL did not coincide with skeletal trait QTL. Significant evidence of imprinting was found in ten of the QTL and QTL x sex interactions were identified for 22 traits. Six alleles from the broiler line for weight- and size-related skeletal QTL were positive. Negative alleles for bone quality traits such as tibial dyschondroplasia, leg bowing and tibia twisting generally originated from the layer line suggesting that the allele inherited from the broiler is more protective than the allele originating from the layer

The essence of nationhood: how ordinary people make sense of nationality, and how essentialist beliefs create acculturative problems

Objectives: Two studies (one qualitative, one quantitative) introduce new conceptual and methodological angles on national identity. Design and Methods: The qualitative study used a focus group approach in order to examine how nationality operates as an individual as well as collective experience. British, German and French volunteers talked about their national identities in six nationally homogeneous groups (3-6 participants each) and in their native language. The quantitative study asked a British opportunity sample (N = 90) to complete an online questionnaire on the relationship between acculturation attitudes, national essentialism, and rejection of immigrants. Results: The qualitative study shows how conversations between ordinary nationals can serve as a valuable method for researchers to understand the everyday meanings and feelings involved in national identity. People individually made sense of their nationality and their affective relationship with it; but they did so with reference to shared experience of how it feels to belong to a particular nation. We argue that this allows insights into the individual and systemic levels of national identity and productively joins discursive notions with a phenomenological approach. Meanwhile, the quantitative study brings together ideas from the literature on acculturation, essentialism and prejudice in showing that essentialist beliefs relate to feelings of cultural adaptation among immigrants being at once highly desirable and extremely difficult. This discrepancy, in turn, was associated with rejection of immigrants. Conclusions: Our work adds new conceptual and methodological perspectives to a genuinely social-psychological analysis of complex national identities, to complement less empirically based, interdisciplinary accounts

Urea Applied to Puccinellia-Based Pastures Increases Pasture and Sheep Production

In the 1950\u27s large areas of native vegetation in the upper south east of South Australia (SA) were replaced with highly productive Hunter River lucerne. This maintained groundwater recharge at near pre-clearing levels. The area of lucerne was reduced dramatically in the late 1970\u27s by a combination of lucerne aphids, wingless grasshoppers and drought. In 1981 severe flooding inundated large areas of the region, causing the saline groundwater to rise to the soil surface. Since that time, dryland salinity has been a feature of the local farming system and salt-tolerant pastures based on puccinellia (Puccinellia ciliata) were widely established. Despite this, few agronomic studies have been conducted on puccinellia to enable management guidelines to be determined. The aim of this experiment was to compare animal and pasture production on volunteer saline pasture and improved saline pasture with and without fertiliser inputs