The effect of interstimulus interval on sequential effects in absolute identification

In absolute identification experiments, the participant is asked to identify stimuli drawn from a small set of items which differ on a single physical dimension (e.g., 10 tones which vary in frequency). Responses in these tasks show a striking pattern of sequential dependencies: The current response assimilates towards the immediately preceding stimulus but contrasts with the stimuli further back in the sequence. This pattern has been variously interpreted as resulting from confusion of items in memory, shifts in response criteria, or the action of selective attention, and these interpretations have been incorporated into competing formal models of absolute identification performance. In two experiments, we demonstrate that lengthening the time between trials increases contrast to both the previous stimulus and the stimulus two trials back. This surprising pattern of results is difficult to reconcile with the idea that sequential dependencies result from memory confusion or from criterion shifts, but is consistent with an account that emphasizes selective attention. </jats:p

The effect of stimulus range on two-interval frequency discrimination

It has traditionally been thought that performance in two-interval frequency discrimination tasks decreases as the range over which the standard tone varies is increased. Recent empirical evidence and a reexamination of previous results suggest that this may not be the case. The present experiment found that performance was significantly better when the standard roved over a wide range (1500 Hz) than a narrow range (30 Hz). This pattern cannot readily be accommodated by traditional models of frequency discrimination based on memory or attention, but may be explicable in terms of neural plasticity and the formation of perceptual anchors

Psychophysics and the judgment of price: judging complex objects on a non-physical dimension elicits sequential effects like those in perceptual tasks

When participants in psychophysical experiments are asked to estimate or identify stimuli which differ on a single physical dimension, their judgments are influenced by the local experimental context — the item presented and judgment made on the previous trial. It has been suggested that similar sequential effects occur in more naturalistic, real-world judgments. In three experiments we asked participants to judge the prices of a sequence of items. In Experiment 1, judgments were biased towards the previous response (assimilation) but away from the true value of the previous item (contrast), a pattern which matches that found in psychophysical research. In Experiments 2A and 2B, we manipulated the provision of feedback and the expertise of the participants, and found that feedback reduced the effect of the previous judgment and shifted the effect of the previous item’s true price from contrast to assimilation. Finally, in all three experiments we found that judgments were biased towards the centre of the range, a phenomenon known as the “regression effect” in psychophysics. These results suggest that the most recently-presented item is a point of reference for the current judgment. The findings inform our understanding of the judgment process, constrain the explanations for local context effects put forward by psychophysicists, and carry practical importance for real-world situations in which contextual bias may degrade the accuracy of judgments

Fabrication and Electrical Characterization of Fully CMOS Si Single Electron Devices

We present electrical data of silicon single electron devices fabricated with CMOS techniques and protocols. The easily tuned devices show clean Coulomb diamonds at T = 30 mK and charge offset drift of 0.01 e over eight days. In addition, the devices exhibit robust transistor characteristics including uniformity within about 0.5 V in the threshold voltage, gate resistances greater than 10 G{\Omega}, and immunity to dielectric breakdown in electric fields as high as 4 MV/cm. These results highlight the benefits in device performance of a fully CMOS process for single electron device fabrication.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

Atrial fibrillation and survival in colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND: Survival in colorectal cancer may correlate with the degree of systemic inflammatory response to the tumour. Atrial fibrillation may be regarded as an inflammatory complication. We aimed to determine if atrial fibrillation is a prognostic factor in colorectal cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A prospective colorectal cancer patient database was cross-referenced with the hospital clinical-coding database to identify patients who had underwent colorectal cancer surgery and were in atrial fibrillation pre- or postoperatively. RESULTS: A total of 175 patients underwent surgery for colorectal cancer over a two-year period. Of these, 13 patients had atrial fibrillation pre- or postoperatively. Atrial fibrillation correlated with worse two-year survival (p = 0.04; log-rank test). However, in a Cox regression analysis, atrial fibrillation was not significantly associated with survival. CONCLUSION: The presence or development of atrial fibrillation in patients undergoing surgery for colorectal cancer is associated with worse overall survival, however it was not found to be an independent factor in multivariate analysis

Using Adobe Flash Lite on mobile phones for psychological research: reaction time measurement reliability and inter-device variability

Mobile telephones have significant potential for use in psychological research, possessing unique characteristics—not least their ubiquity—that may make them useful tools for psychologists. We examined whether it is possible to measure reaction times (RTs) accurately using Adobe Flash Lite on mobile phones. We ran simple and choice RT experiments on two widely available mobile phones, a Nokia 6110 Navigator and a Sony Ericsson W810i, using a wireless application protocol (WAP) connection to access the Internet from the devices. RTs were compared within subjects with those obtained using a Linux-based millisecond-accurate measurement system. Results show that measured RTs were significantly longer on mobile devices, and that overall RTs and distribution of RTs varied across device

How do Americans repay their debt? The balance-matching heuristic

In Gathergood et al. (forthcoming), we studied credit card repayments using linked data on multiple cards from the United Kingdom. We showed that individuals did not allocate payments to the higher interest rate card, which would minimize the cost of borrowing, but instead made repayments according to a balance-matching heuristic under which the share of repayments on each card is matched to the share of balances on each card. In this paper, we examine whether these results extend to the United States using a large sample of TransUnion credit bureau data. These data do not have interest rates, so we cannot examine the optimality of payments. However, we observe balances and repayments, so we can examine balance-matching behavior. We replicate our analysis and find that Americans also repay their debt in accordance with a balance-matching heuristi

Intravenous meloxicam for the treatment of moderate to severe acute pain: a pooled analysis of safety and opioid-reducing effects.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: To describe the safety and tolerability of intravenous meloxicam compared with placebo across all phase II/III clinical trials. METHODS: Safety data and opioid use from subjects with moderate to severe postoperative pain who received ≥1 dose of intravenous meloxicam (5-60 mg) or placebo in 1 of 7 studies (4 phase II; 3 phase III) were pooled. Data from intravenous meloxicam 5 mg, 7.5 mg and 15 mg groups were combined (low-dose subset). RESULTS: A total of 1426 adults (86.6% white; mean age: 45.8 years) received ≥1 dose of meloxicam IV; 517 (77.6% white; mean age: 46.7 years) received placebo. The incidence of treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) in intravenous meloxicam and placebo-treated subjects was 47% and 57%, respectively. The most commonly reported TEAEs across treatment groups (intravenous meloxicam 5-15 mg, 30 mg, 60 mg and placebo, respectively) were nausea (4.3%, 20.8%, 5.8% and 25.3%), headache (1.5%, 5.6%, 1.6% and 10.4%), vomiting (2.8%, 4.6%, 1.6% and 7.4%) and dizziness (0%, 3.5%, 1.1% and 4.8%). TEAE incidence was generally similar in subjects aged \u3e65 years with impaired renal function and the general population. Similar rates of cardiovascular events were reported between treatment groups. One death was reported (placebo group; unrelated to study drug). There were 35 serious adverse events (SAEs); intravenous meloxicam 15 mg (n=5), intravenous meloxicam 30 mg (n=15) and placebo (n=15). The SAEs in meloxicam-treated subjects were determined to be unrelated to study medication. Six subjects withdrew due to TEAEs, including three treated with intravenous meloxicam (rash, localized edema and postprocedural pulmonary embolism). In trials where opioid use was monitored, meloxicam reduced postoperative rescue opioid use. CONCLUSIONS: Intravenous meloxicam was generally well tolerated in subjects with moderate to severe postoperative pain. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBERS: NCT01436032, NCT00945763, NCT01084161, NCT02540265, NCT02678286, NCT02675907 and NCT02720692

The Measure Problem in Cosmology

The Hamiltonian structure of general relativity provides a natural canonical measure on the space of all classical universes, i.e., the multiverse. We review this construction and show how one can visualize the measure in terms of a "magnetic flux" of solutions through phase space. Previous studies identified a divergence in the measure, which we observe to be due to the dilatation invariance of flat FRW universes. We show that the divergence is removed if we identify universes which are so flat they cannot be observationally distinguished. The resulting measure is independent of time and of the choice of coordinates on the space of fields. We further show that, for some quantities of interest, the measure is very insensitive to the details of how the identification is made. One such quantity is the probability of inflation in simple scalar field models. We find that, according to our implementation of the canonical measure, the probability for N e-folds of inflation in single-field, slow-roll models is suppressed by of order exp(-3N) and we discuss the implications of this result.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures. Revised version with clarifying remarks on meaning of adopted measure, extra references and minor typographical correction