Configural and featural information in facial-composite images

Eyewitnesses are often invited to construct a facial composite, an image created of the person they saw commit a crime that is used by law enforcement to locate criminal suspects. In the current paper, the effectiveness of composite images was investigated from traditional feature systems (E-FIT and PRO-fit), where participants (face constructors) selected individual features to build the face, and a more recent holistic system (EvoFIT), where they ‘evolved' a composite by repeatedly selecting from arrays of complete faces. Further participants attempted to name these composites when seen as an unaltered image, or when blurred, rotated, linearly stretched or converted to a photographic negative. All of the manipulations tested reduced correct naming of the composites overall except (i) for a low level of blur, for which naming improved for holistic composites but reduced for feature composites, and (ii) for 100% linear stretch, for which a substantial naming advantage was observed. Results also indicated that both featural (facial elements) and configural (feature spacing) information was useful for recognition in both types of composite system, but highly-detailed information was more accurate in the feature-based than the holistic method. The naming advantage of linear stretch was replicated using a forensically more-practical procedure with observers viewing an unaltered ¬composite sideways. The work is valuable to police practitioners and designers of facial-composite systems

Working with challenging behaviour

This section offers some ways of thinking about behaviour, our immediate objective in managing that behaviour, and our primary task in working with young people; these ways of thinking can bring greater clarity and effectiveness. This section also addresses self and relationship as inextricable components of working with challenging behaviour. Physical restraint is briefly discussed as the extreme end of working with challenging behaviour, and finally, some practical advice and further reading are offered

A global experiment on motivating social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Finding communication strategies that effectively motivate social distancing continues to be a global public health priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-country, preregistered experiment (n = 25,718 from 89 countries) tested hypotheses concerning generalizable positive and negative outcomes of social distancing messages that promoted personal agency and reflective choices (i.e., an autonomy-supportive message) or were restrictive and shaming (i.e., a controlling message) compared with no message at all. Results partially supported experimental hypotheses in that the controlling message increased controlled motivation (a poorly internalized form of motivation relying on shame, guilt, and fear of social consequences) relative to no message. On the other hand, the autonomy-supportive message lowered feelings of defiance compared with the controlling message, but the controlling message did not differ from receiving no message at all. Unexpectedly, messages did not influence autonomous motivation (a highly internalized form of motivation relying on one’s core values) or behavioral intentions. Results supported hypothesized associations between people’s existing autonomous and controlled motivations and self-reported behavioral intentions to engage in social distancing. Controlled motivation was associated with more defiance and less long-term behavioral intention to engage in social distancing, whereas autonomous motivation was associated with less defiance and more short- and long-term intentions to social distance. Overall, this work highlights the potential harm of using shaming and pressuring language in public health communication, with implications for the current and future global health challenges

The economic tradeoffs and ecological impacts associated with a potential mesopelagic fishery in the California Current

© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Dowd, S., Chapman, M., Koehn, L., & Hoagland, P. The economic tradeoffs and ecological impacts associated with a potential mesopelagic fishery in the California Current. Ecological Applications, 32(4), (2022): e2578, https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2578.The ocean's mesopelagic zone (200–1000 m) remains one of the most understudied parts of the ocean despite knowledge that mesopelagic fishes are highly abundant. Apex predators from the surface waters are known to consume these fishes, constituting an important ecological interaction. Some countries have begun exploring the potential harvest of mesopelagic fishes to supply fishmeal and fish oil markets due to the high fish abundance in the mesopelagic zone compared with overfished surface waters. This study explored the economic and ecological implications of a moratorium on the harvest of mesopelagic fishes such as lanternfish off the US West Coast, one of the few areas where such resources are managed. We adapted a bioeconomic decision model to examine the tradeoffs between the values gained from a hypothetical mesopelagic fishery with the potential values lost from declines in predators of mesopelagic fishes facing a reduced prey resource. The economic rationale for a moratorium on harvesting mesopelagics was sensitive both to ecological relationships and the scale of the nonmarket values attributed to noncommercial predators. Using a California Current-based ecological simulation model, we found that most modeled predators of mesopelagic fishes increased in biomass even under high mesopelagic harvest rates, but the changes (either increases or decreases) were small, with relatively few predators responding with more than a 10% change in their biomass. While the ecological simulations implied that a commercial mesopelagic fishery might not have large biomass impacts for many species in the California Current system, there is still a need to further explore the various roles of the mesopelagic zone in the ocean.Sally Dowd acknowledges sponsorship from the WHOI Summer Student Fellowship and the Rausser College of Natural Resources Honors Program at UC Berkeley. This project would not have been possible without the guidance provided by Kama Thieler and Carl Boettiger. Porter Hoagland acknowledges funding from the Audacious Project, a collaborative endeavor, housed at TED and the J. Seward Johnson Fund in support of the Marine Policy Center at WHOI

Data from: Forage species in predator diets: synthesis of data from the California Current

Characterization of the diets of upper-trophic pelagic predators that consume forage species is a key ingredient in the development of ecosystem-based fishery management plans, conservation of marine predators, and ecological and economic modeling of trophic interactions. Here we present the California Current Predator Diet Database (CCPDD) for the California Current region of the Pacific Ocean over the past century, assimilating over 190 published records of predator food habits for over 100 predator species and 32 categories of forage taxa (species or groups of similar species). Literature searches targeted all predators that consumed forage species: seabirds, cetaceans, pinnipeds, bony and cartilaginous fishes, and a predatory invertebrate. Diet data were compiled into a relational database. Analysis of the CCPDD highlighted differences in predator diet data availability based on geography, time period and predator taxonomy, as well as prominent prey categories. The top 5 forage taxa with the most predators included juvenile rockfish, northern anchovy, euphausiid krill, Pacific herring and market squid. Predator species with abundant data included Pacific hake, common murre, and California sea lion. Most diet data were collected during the summer; the lack of winter data will restrict future use of the CCPDD to understand seasonal patterns in predator diet unless more such data become available. Increased synthesis of historical information can provide new resources to understand patterns in the role of forage species in predator diet. Increased publication and/or accessibility of long-term datasets and data-sharing will further foster the synthesis of information intended to inform the management, conservation and understanding of marine food webs

Fishing amplifies forage fish population collapses.

Forage fish support the largest fisheries in the world but also play key roles in marine food webs by transferring energy from plankton to upper trophic-level predators, such as large fish, seabirds, and marine mammals. Fishing can, thereby, have far reaching consequences on marine food webs unless safeguards are in place to avoid depleting forage fish to dangerously low levels, where dependent predators are most vulnerable. However, disentangling the contributions of fishing vs. natural processes on population dynamics has been difficult because of the sensitivity of these stocks to environmental conditions. Here, we overcome this difficulty by collating population time series for forage fish populations that account for nearly two-thirds of global catch of forage fish to identify the fingerprint of fisheries on their population dynamics. Forage fish population collapses shared a set of common and unique characteristics: high fishing pressure for several years before collapse, a sharp drop in natural population productivity, and a lagged response to reduce fishing pressure. Lagged response to natural productivity declines can sharply amplify the magnitude of naturally occurring population fluctuations. Finally, we show that the magnitude and frequency of collapses are greater than expected from natural productivity characteristics and therefore, likely attributed to fishing. The durations of collapses, however, were not different from those expected based on natural productivity shifts. A risk-based management scheme that reduces fishing when populations become scarce would protect forage fish and their predators from collapse with little effect on long-term average catches