The return trip effect: Why the return trip often seems to take less time

Three studies confirm the existence of the return trip effect: The return trip often seems shorter than the initial trip, even though the distance traveled and the actual time spent traveling are identical. A pretest shows that people indeed experience a return trip effect regularly, and the effect was found on a bus trip (Study 1), a bicycle trip (Study 2), and when participants watched a video of someone else traveling (Study 3). The return trip effect also existed when another, equidistant route was taken on the return trip, showing that it is not familiarity with the route that causes this effect. Rather, it seems that a violation of expectations causes this effect

An Ecological Approach to Prospective and Retrospective Timing of Long Durations: A Study Involving Gamers

To date, most studies comparing prospective and retrospective timing have failed to use long durations and tasks with a certain degree of ecological validity. The present study assessed the effect of the timing paradigm on playing video games in a “naturalistic environment” (gaming centers). In addition, as it involved gamers, it provided an opportunity to examine the effect of gaming profile on time estimation. A total of 116 participants were asked to estimate prospectively or retrospectively a video game session lasting 12, 35 or 58 minutes. The results indicate that time is perceived as longer in the prospective paradigm than in the retrospective one, although the variability of estimates is the same. Moreover, the 12-minute session was perceived as longer, proportionally, than the 35- and 58-minute sessions. The study also revealed that the number of hours participants spent playing video games per week was a significant predictor of time estimates. To account for the main findings, the differences between prospective and retrospective timing are discussed in quantitative terms using a proposed theoretical framework, which states that both paradigms use the same cognitive processes, but in different proportions. Finally, the hypothesis that gamers play more because they underestimate time is also discussed

Age-Related Attenuation of Dominant Hand Superiority

The decline of motor performance of the human hand-arm system with age is well-documented. While dominant hand performance is superior to that of the non-dominant hand in young individuals, little is known of possible age-related changes in hand dominance. We investigated age-related alterations of hand dominance in 20 to 90 year old subjects. All subjects were unambiguously right-handed according to the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. In Experiment 1, motor performance for aiming, postural tremor, precision of arm-hand movement, speed of arm-hand movement, and wrist-finger speed tasks were tested. In Experiment 2, accelerometer-sensors were used to obtain objective records of hand use in everyday activities

Multiple ATR-Chk1 Pathway Proteins Preferentially Associate with Checkpoint-Inducing DNA Substrates

The ATR-Chk1 DNA damage checkpoint pathway is a critical regulator of the cellular response to DNA damage and replication stress in human cells. The variety of environmental, chemotherapeutic, and carcinogenic agents that activate this signal transduction pathway do so primarily through the formation of bulky adducts in DNA and subsequent effects on DNA replication fork progression. Because there are many protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions proposed to be involved in activation and/or maintenance of ATR-Chk1 signaling in vivo, we systematically analyzed the association of a number of ATR-Chk1 pathway proteins with relevant checkpoint-inducing DNA structures in vitro. These DNA substrates included single-stranded DNA, branched DNA, and bulky adduct-containing DNA. We found that many checkpoint proteins show a preference for single-stranded, branched, and bulky adduct-containing DNA in comparison to undamaged, double-stranded DNA. We additionally found that the association of checkpoint proteins with bulky DNA damage relative to undamaged DNA was strongly influenced by the ionic strength of the binding reaction. Interestingly, among the checkpoint proteins analyzed the checkpoint mediator proteins Tipin and Claspin showed the greatest differential affinity for checkpoint-inducing DNA structures. We conclude that the association and accumulation of multiple checkpoint proteins with DNA structures indicative of DNA damage and replication stress likely contribute to optimal ATR-Chk1 DNA damage checkpoint responses

Do Changes in the Pace of Events Affect One-Off Judgments of Duration?

Five experiments examined whether changes in the pace of external events influence people’s judgments of duration. In Experiments 1a–1c, participants heard pieces of music whose tempo accelerated, decelerated, or remained constant. In Experiment 2, participants completed a visuo-motor task in which the rate of stimulus presentation accelerated, decelerated, or remained constant. In Experiment 3, participants completed a reading task in which facts appeared on-screen at accelerating, decelerating, or constant rates. In all experiments, the physical duration of the to-be-judged interval was the same across conditions. We found no significant effects of temporal structure on duration judgments in any of the experiments, either when participants knew that a time estimate would be required (prospective judgments) or when they did not (retrospective judgments). These results provide a starting point for the investigation of how temporal structure affects one-off judgments of duration like those typically made in natural settings

Sonification and Music as Support to the Communication of Alcohol-Related Health Risks to Young People : Study design and results

Excessive consumption of alcohol has been recognised as a significant risk factor impacting the health of young people. Effective communication of such risk is considered to be one key step to improve behaviour. We evaluated an innovative multimedia intervention that utilised audio (sonification—using sound to display data—and music) and interactivity to support the visual communication of alcohol health risk data. A 3-arm pilot experiment was undertaken. The trial measures included health knowledge, alcohol risk perception and user experience of the intervention. Ninety-six subjects participated in the experiment. At 1 month follow-up, alcohol knowledge and alcohol risk perception improved significantly in the whole sample. However, there was no difference between the intervention groups that experienced (1) visual presentation with interactivity (VI-Exp group) and, (2) visual presentation with audio (sonification and music) and interactivity (VAI-Exp group), when compared to the control group which experienced a (3) visual only presentation (V-Cont group). Participants reported enjoying the presentations and found them educational. The majority of participants indicated that the audio, music and sonification helped to convey the information well, and, although a larger sample size is needed to fully establish the effectiveness of the different interventions, this study provides a useful model for future similar studies

Systematic review of influenza resistance to the neuraminidase inhibitors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Antivirals play a critical role in the prevention and the management of influenza. One class of antivirals, neuraminidase inhibitors (NAIs), is effective against all human influenza viruses. Currently there are two NAI drugs which are licensed worldwide: oseltamivir (Tamiflu^®) and zanamivir (Relenza^®); and two drugs which have received recent approval in Japan: peramivir and laninamivir. Until recently, the prevalence of antiviral resistance has been relatively low. However, almost all seasonal H1N1 strains that circulated in 2008-09 were resistant to oseltamivir whereas about 1% of tested 2009 pandemic H1N1 viruses were found to be resistant to oseltamivir. To date, no studies have demonstrated widespread resistance to zanamivir. It seems likely that the literature on antiviral resistance associated with oseltamivir as well as zanamivir is now sufficiently comprehensive to warrant a systematic review.</p> <p>The primary objectives were to systematically review the literature to determine the incidence of resistance to oseltamivir, zanamivir, and peramivir in different population groups as well as assess the clinical consequences of antiviral resistance.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We searched MEDLINE and EMBASE without language restrictions in September 2010 to identify studies reporting incidence of resistance to oseltamivir, zanamivir, and peramivir. We used forest plots and meta-analysis of incidence of antiviral resistance associated with the three NAIs. Subgroup analyses were done across a number of population groups. Meta-analysis was also performed to evaluate associations between antiviral resistance and clinical complications and symptoms.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We identified 19 studies reporting incidence of antiviral resistance. Meta-analysis of 15 studies yielded a pooled incidence rate for oseltamivir resistance of 2.6% (95%CI 0.7% to 5.5%). The incidence rate for all zanamivir resistance studies was 0%. Only one study measured incidence of antiviral resistance among subjects given peramivir and was reported to be 0%. Subgroup analyses detected higher incidence rates among influenza A patients, especially for H1N1 subtype influenza. Considerable heterogeneity between studies precluded definite inferences about subgroup results for immunocompromised patients, in-patients, and children. A meta-analysis of 4 studies reporting association between oseltamivir-resistance and pneumonia yielded a statistically significant risk ratio of 4.2 (95% CI 1.3 to 13.1, p = 0.02). Oseltamivir-resistance was not statistically significantly associated with other clinical complications and symptoms.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results demonstrate that that a substantial number of patients may become oseltamivir-resistant as a result of oseltamivir use, and that oseltamivir resistance may be significantly associated with pneumonia. In contrast, zanamivir resistance has been rarely reported to date.</p

Crossmodal duration perception involves perceptual grouping, temporal ventriloquism, and variable internal clock rates

Here, we investigate how audiovisual context affects perceived event duration with experiments in which observers reported which of two stimuli they perceived as longer. Target events were visual and/or auditory and could be accompanied by nontargets in the other modality. Our results demonstrate that the temporal information conveyed by irrelevant sounds is automatically used when the brain estimates visual durations but that irrelevant visual information does not affect perceived auditory duration (Experiment 1). We further show that auditory influences on subjective visual durations occur only when the temporal characteristics of the stimuli promote perceptual grouping (Experiments 1 and 2). Placed in the context of scalar expectancy theory of time perception, our third and fourth experiments have the implication that audiovisual context can lead both to changes in the rate of an internal clock and to temporal ventriloquism-like effects on perceived on- and offsets. Finally, intramodal grouping of auditory stimuli diminished any crossmodal effects, suggesting a strong preference for intramodal over crossmodal perceptual grouping (Experiment 5)

Does narrative drive dynamic attention to a prolonged stimulus?

Attention in the "real world" fluctuates over time, but these fluctuations are hard to examine using a timed trial-based experimental paradigm. Here we use film to study attention. To achieve short-term engagement, filmmakers make use of low-level cinematic techniques such as color, movement and sound design to influence attention. To engage audiences over prolonged periods of time, narrative structure is used. In this experiment, participants performed a secondary auditory choice reaction time (RT) task to measure attention while watching a film. In order to explore the role of narrative on attention, we manipulated the order that film segments were presented. The influence of narrative was then compared to the contribution of low-level features (extracted using a computer-based saliency model) in a multiple regression analysis predicting choice RT. The regression model successfully predicted 28% of the variance in choice RT: 13% was due to low-level saliency, and 8% due to the narrative. This study shows the importance of narrative in determining attention and the value of studying attention with a prolonged stimulus such as film