Cross-cultural color-odor associations

Colors and odors are associated; for instance, people typically match the smell of strawberries to the color pink or red. These associations are forms of crossmodal correspondences. Recently, there has been discussion about the extent to which these correspondences arise for structural reasons (i.e., an inherent mapping between color and odor), statistical reasons (i.e., covariance in experience), and/or semantically-mediated reasons (i.e., stemming from language). The present study probed this question by testing color-odor correspondences in 6 different cultural groups (Dutch, Netherlands-residing-Chinese, German, Malay, Malaysian-Chinese, and US residents), using the same set of 14 odors and asking participants to make congruent and incongruent color choices for each odor. We found consistent patterns in color choices for each odor within each culture, showing that participants were making non-random color-odor matches. We used representational dissimilarity analysis to probe for variations in the patterns of color-odor associations across cultures; we found that US and German participants had the most similar patterns of associations, followed by German and Malay participants. The largest group differences were between Malay and Netherlands-resident Chinese participants and between Dutch and Malaysian-Chinese participants. We conclude that culture plays a role in color-odor crossmodal associations, which likely arise, at least in part, through experience

Cross-cultural color-odor associations

Colors and odors are associated; for instance, people typically match the smell of strawberries to the color pink or red. These associations are forms of crossmodal correspondences. Recently, there has been discussion about the extent to which these correspondences arise for structural reasons (i.e., an inherent mapping between color and odor), statistical reasons (i.e., covariance in experience), and/or semantically-mediated reasons (i.e., stemming from language). The present study probed this question by testing color-odor correspondences in 6 different cultural groups (Dutch, Netherlands-residing-Chinese, German, Malay, Malaysian-Chinese, and US residents), using the same set of 14 odors and asking participants to make congruent and incongruent color choices for each odor. We found consistent patterns in color choices for each odor within each culture, showing that participants were making non-random color-odor matches. We used representational dissimilarity analysis to probe for variations in the patterns of color-odor associations across cultures; we found that US and German participants had the most similar patterns of associations, followed by German and Malay participants. The largest group differences were between Malay and Netherlands-resident Chinese participants and between Dutch and Malaysian-Chinese participants. We conclude that culture plays a role in color-odor crossmodal associations, which likely arise, at least in part, through experience

Evolution of cosmological perturbations in non-singular string cosmologies

In a class of non-singular cosmologies derived from higher-order corrections to the low-energy bosonic string action, we derive evolution equations for the most general cosmological scalar, vector and tensor perturbations. In the large scale limit, the evolutions of both scalar and tensor perturbations are characterised by conserved quantities, the usual curvature perturbation in the uniform-field gauge and the tensor-type perturbed metric. The vector perturbation is not affected, being described by the conservation of the angular momentum of the fluid component in the absence of any additional dissipative process. For the scalar- and tensor-type perturbations, we show how, given a background evolution during kinetic driven inflation of the dilaton field, we can obtain the final power spectra generated from the vacuum quantum fluctuations of the metric and the dilaton field during the inflation.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Erratum: Randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial of bevacizumab therapy for radiation necrosis of the central nervous system (International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics (2011) 79:5 (1487-95) DOI: 10.1016/j.ijrobp.2009.12.061)

Dr. Jai Grewal should be included as an author for the article “Randomized Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Trial of Bevacizumab Therapy for Radiation Necrosis of the Central Nervous System” (2011: 79(5):1487-95)

Color choices.

<p>36 colors were arranged in random order for each trial.</p

Odor representation by culture.

<p>One Representational Dissimilarity Matrix (RDM) for each of the six populations sampled. Both axes of each matrix represent the 14 odors. Each cell in the matrix indicates the degree of dissimilarity between the color-patterns of the respective odors in that row and column. Warmer colors indicate higher dissimilarity. The dark blue diagonal indicates the perfect similarity of the odors with themselves. The representational geometry, or the spatial configuration of clusters of high and low dissimilarities, shows differences and commonalities in each culture. Along the color legend, a line graph shows a bootstrapped null distribution of pattern dissimilarities.</p

Color congruency for each odor in each culture.

<p>Colors per odorant per country are ordered by frequency (most frequent are shown lowest on their respective y-axis). Frequency is represented by the height of each color box; the box on the right of the figure shows the height a given box must be for there to be 10, 9, 8 etc. ratings of that color for a given odorant. Boxes have been given a slight shadow to help with the perception of harder to see light colors. The background bars are only colored so as to help with reading the figure.</p

Crosscultural dissimilarity of representation.

<p>Representational Dissimilarity Matrix comparing cultures. Both axes represent the six cultures. Each cell in the matrix indicates the degree of dissimilarity between the respective cultures' odor representation geometry (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0101651#pone-0101651-g003" target="_blank">Figure 3</a>). The dark blue diagonal indicates the perfect similarity of the cultures with themselves.</p

Actions to halt biodiversity loss generally benefit the climate.

The two most urgent and interlinked environmental challenges humanity faces are climate change and biodiversity loss. We are entering a pivotal decade for both the international biodiversity and climate change agendas with the sharpening of ambitious strategies and targets by the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Within their respective Conventions, the biodiversity and climate interlinked challenges have largely been addressed separately. There is evidence that conservation actions that halt, slow or reverse biodiversity loss can simultaneously slow anthropogenic mediated climate change significantly. This review highlights conservation actions which have the largest potential for mitigation of climate change. We note that conservation actions have mainly synergistic benefits and few antagonistic trade-offs with climate change mitigation. Specifically, we identify direct co-benefits in 14 out of the 21 action targets of the draft post-2020&nbsp;global biodiversity framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, notwithstanding the many indirect links that can also support both biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. These relationships are context and scale-dependent; therefore, we showcase examples of local biodiversity conservation actions that can be incentivized, guided and prioritized by global objectives and targets. The close interlinkages between biodiversity, climate change mitigation, other nature's contributions to people and good quality of life are seldom as integrated as they should be in management and policy. This review aims to re-emphasize the vital relationships between biodiversity conservation actions and climate change mitigation in a timely manner, in support to major Conferences of Parties that are about to negotiate strategic frameworks and international goals for the decades to come