Extra-Legal Factors and Product Liability: The Influence of Mock Jurors’ Demographic Characteristics and Intuitions about the Cause of an Injury

Two experiments were performed to investigate the role of extra-legal factors in a simulated product liability trial. In cases where the factual evidence was identical, subjects’ liability judgments varied as a function of the case-specific factor of the alleged source of the plaintiff’s injury. In deciding cases differently depending on the alleged cause, subjects relied on intuitions about what injury sources are more or less likely to cause a certain kind of injury. Juror- specific factors also influenced subjects’ verdicts. There was no difference between students and non-students, but race and SES—factors that are often correlated with student status—did affect subjects’ verdicts. Low-SES and minority subjects were more likely to find the defendant liable than high-SES and white subjects. The results are considered in terms of general decision-making processes, and the implications for jury selection and mock jury research are discussed

Children’s and adults’ understanding of death: Cognitive, parental, and experiential influences

This study explored the development of understanding of death in a sample of 4- to 11-year-old British children and adults (N = 136). It also investigated four sets of possible influences on this development: parents’ religion and spiritual beliefs, cognitive ability, socioeconomic status, and experience of illness and death. Participants were interviewed using the “death concept” interview that explores understanding of the subcomponents of inevitability, universality, irreversibility, cessation, and causality of death. Children understood key aspects of death from as early as 4 or 5 years, and with age their explanations of inevitability, universality, and causality became increasingly biological. Understanding of irreversibility and the cessation of mental and physical processes also emerged during early childhood, but by 10 years many children’s explanations reflected not an improved biological understanding but rather the coexistence of apparently contradictory biological and supernatural ideas—religious, spiritual, or metaphysical. Evidence for these coexistent beliefs was more prevalent in older children than in younger children and was associated with their parents’ religious and spiritual beliefs. Socioeconomic status was partly related to children’s biological ideas, whereas cognitive ability and experience of illness and death played less important roles. There was no evidence for coexistent thinking among adults, only a clear distinction between biological explanations about death and supernatural explanations about the afterlife

Acute mountain sickness.

Acute mountain sickness (AMS) is a clinical syndrome occurring in otherwise healthy normal individuals who ascend rapidly to high altitude. Symptoms develop over a period ofa few hours or days. The usual symptoms include headache, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, lethargy, unsteadiness of gait, undue dyspnoea on moderate exertion and interrupted sleep. AMS is unrelated to physical fitness, sex or age except that young children over two years of age are unduly susceptible. One of the striking features ofAMS is the wide variation in individual susceptibility which is to some extent consistent. Some subjects never experience symptoms at any altitude while others have repeated attacks on ascending to quite modest altitudes. Rapid ascent to altitudes of 2500 to 3000m will produce symptoms in some subjects while after ascent over 23 days to 5000m most subjects will be affected, some to a marked degree. In general, the more rapid the ascent, the higher the altitude reached and the greater the physical exertion involved, the more severe AMS will be. Ifthe subjects stay at the altitude reached there is a tendency for acclimatization to occur and symptoms to remit over 1-7 days

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

She thinks in English, but she wants in Mandarin : differences in Singaporean bilingual English-Mandarin maternal mental-state-talk

Chinese-speaking parents are believed to use less cognitive mental-state-talk than their English-speaking counterparts on account of their cultural goals in socializing their children to follow an interdependence script. Here, we investigated bilingual English-Mandarin Singaporean mothers who associate different functions for each language as prescribed by their government: English for school and Mandarin for in-group contexts. English and Mandarin maternal mental-state-talk from bilingual English-Mandarin mothers with their toddlers was examined. Mothers produced more ''cognitive'' terms in English than in Mandarin and more ''desire'' terms in Mandarin than in English. We show that mental-state-talk differs between bilingual parents' languages, suggesting that mothers adjust their mental-state-talk to reflect the functions of each language.Ministry of Education (MOE)Nanyang Technological UniversityPublished versionThis research was supported by Nanyang Technological University Start-upGrant (M4081490), Singapore Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1 and Singapore Ministry of Education Social Science Research Thematic Grant (MOE2016-SSRTG-017) to P.S.; Nanyang Technological University Start-up Grant (M4081597) and Singapore Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1 to G.E., and the Intramural Research Program of the NIH/NICHD, USA, an International Research Fellowship at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London, UK, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No 695300-HKADeC-ERC-2015-AdG) to M.H.B

Contrasting lexical biases in bilingual English–Mandarin speech : verb-biased mothers, but noun-biased toddlers

Is noun dominance in early lexical acquisition a widespread or a language-specific phenomenon? Thirty Singaporean bilingual English–Mandarin learning toddlers and their mothers were observed in a mother-child play interaction. For both English and Mandarin, toddlers’ speech and reported vocabulary contained more nouns than verbs across book reading and toy playing. In contrast, their mothers’ speech contained more verbs than nouns in both English and Mandarin but differed depending on the context of the interaction. Although toddlers demonstrated a noun bias for both languages, the noun bias was more pronounced in English than in Mandarin. Together, these findings support early noun dominance as a widespread phenomenon in the lexical acquisition debate but also provide evidence that language specificity also plays a minor role in children’s early lexical development.Ministry of Education (MOE)Published versionThis research was supported by Singapore Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1 and Social Science Research Thematic Grant (MOE2016-SSRTG-017) to Peipei Setoh

Prevalence and correlation with sex, age, and dental status of bone apposition at the mandibular angle and radiographic alterations of the temporomandibular joints: a retrospective observational study in an adult Swiss population

Abstract Background The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of radiographic changes in the mandibular angle (bone apposition) and osseous alterations in the temporomandibular joints (TMJs) in the adult population of Switzerland. In addition, the study intended to investigate possible correlations between the two sites of contour bone changes (mandibular angle and TMJ) and to analyze various patient-related factors, including sex, age, dental status, and medical history. Methods Panoramic radiographs of 600 patients distributed into six age groups (283 females, 317 males, aged 20 to 79 years) were included to evaluate radiographic changes. The bone in the mandibular angle region and the shape of the condylar heads were examined for contour changes (bone apposition at the jaw angles and osseous changes of the TMJs). General estimating equations, binormal tests, and chi-squared tests were used for statistical analysis. Results Approximately half of the mandibular angles (47.8%) showed bone apposition, mostly bilateral. TMJ alterations were less common (27%), often unilateral, with flattening being the most frequent finding. No significant correlation was found between the two sites. Bone apposition at the mandibular angle showed a significant male predominance, whereas TMJ changes did not differ by sex. Alterations in both sites increased with age, and were not related to dental status or analgesic use. Conclusions Bone apposition at the mandibular angle should be interpreted as part of the natural functional adaptation of the bone associated with aging. Assuming that parafunctional habits may influence the development and progression of alterations in the mandibular angle or TMJs, the presence of radiographic changes in these areas should prompt dental clinicians to investigate further in this direction. Trial registration The study was approved by the Swiss Association of Research Ethics Committees (swissethics), BASEC reference number: 2020–00963 (25.05.2020)

Disapproval from romantic partners, friends and parents: Source of criticism regulates prefrontal cortex activity.

The prevalence of criticism in everyday social situations, and its empirically demonstrated association with psychopathology, highlight the importance of understanding neural mechanisms underlying the perception and response of individuals to criticism. However, neuroimaging studies to date have been limited largely to maternal criticism. The present study aims to investigate neural responses to observing criticism occurring in the context of three different relationship types: romantic partners, friends, and parents-from a third-party perspective. 49 participants were recruited and asked to rate the perceived criticism for these relationships. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy was used to measure changes in oxygenated haemoglobin levels in the prefrontal cortex when participants read vignettes describing three different scenarios of criticism. Participants were randomly assigned to 3 groups where the given description of the relationship of the protagonist to the source of criticism for each vignette was randomised. A significant interaction between relationship type and perceived criticism ratings for mothers was found in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Compared to low perceived criticism, high perceived criticism individuals showed increased activation reading vignettes describing criticism from romantic partners and parents but decreased activation for those from friends. Findings contribute to understanding neural responses to criticism as observed from a third-party perspective. Future studies can look into differentiating neural responses of personalised experiences of criticism and third-party observations