Blanuša double

A snark is a non-trivial cubic graph admitting no Tait coloring. We examine the structure of the two known snarks on 18 vertices, the Blanuša graph and the Blanuša double. By showing that one is of genus 1, the other of genus 2, we obtain maps on the torus and double torus which are not 4-colorable. The Blanuša graphs appear also to be a counter example for the conjecture that the orientable genus of a dot product of n Petersen graphs is n-1 (Tinsley and Watkins, 1985). We also prove that the 6 known snarks of order 20 are all of genus 2

Voice cues are used in a similar way by blind and sighted adults when assessing women’s body size

Humans’ ability to gauge another person’s body size from their voice alone may serve multiple functions ranging from threat assessment to speaker normalization. However, how this ability is acquired remains unknown. In two experiments we tested whether sighted, congenitally blind and late blind adults could accurately judge the relative heights of women from paired voice stimuli, and importantly, whether errors in size estimation varied with task difficulty across groups. Both blind (n = 56) and sighted (n = 61) listeners correctly judged women’s relative heights on approximately 70% of low difficulty trials, corroborating previous findings for judging men’s heights. However, accuracy dropped to chance levels for intermediate difficulty trials and to 25% for high difficulty trials, regardless of the listener’s sightedness, duration of vision loss, sex, or age. Thus, blind adults estimated women’s height with the same degree of accuracy, but also the same pattern of errors, as did sighted controls. Our findings provide further evidence that visual experience is not necessary for accurate body size estimation. Rather, both blind and sighted listeners appear to follow a general rule, mapping low auditory frequencies to largeness across a range of contexts. This sound-size mapping emerges without visual experience, and is likely very important for humans

Validation of the short version (TLS-15) of the triangular love scale (TLS-45) across 37 languages

Love is a phenomenon that occurs across the world and affects many aspects of human life, including the choice of, and process of bonding with, a romantic partner. Thus, developing a reliable and valid measure of love experiences is crucial. One of the most popular tools to quantify love is Sternberg’s 45-item Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45), which measures three love components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. However, our literature review reveals that most studies (64%) use a broad variety of shortened versions of the TLS-45. Here, aiming to achieve scientific consensus and improve the reliability, comparability, and generalizability of results across studies, we developed a short version of the scale—the TLS-15—comprised of 15 items with 5-point, rather than 9-point, response scales. In Study 1 (N = 7,332), we re-analyzed secondary data from a large-scale multinational study that validated the original TLS-45 to establish whether the scale could be truncated. In Study 2 (N = 307), we provided evidence for the three-factor structure of the TLS-15 and its reliability. Study 3 (N = 413) confirmed convergent validity and test–retest stability of the TLS-15. Study 4 (N = 60,311) presented a large-scale validation across 37 linguistic versions of the TLS-15 on a cross-cultural sample spanning every continent of the globe. The overall results provide support for the reliability, validity, and cross-cultural invariance of the TLS-15, which can be used as a measure of love components—either separately or jointly as a three-factor measure.2-s2.0-8517840985238038856Aralı

Predictors of enhancing human physical attractiveness: Data from 93 countries

People across the world and throughout history have gone to great lengths to enhance their physical appearance. Evolutionary psychologists and ethologists have largely attempted to explain this phenomenon via mating preferences and strategies. Here, we test one of the most popular evolutionary hypotheses for beauty-enhancing behaviors, drawn from mating market and parasite stress perspectives, in a large cross-cultural sample. We also test hypotheses drawn from other influential and non-mutually exclusive theoretical frameworks, from biosocial role theory to a cultural media perspective. Survey data from 93,158 human participants across 93 countries provide evidence that behaviors such as applying makeup or using other cosmetics, hair grooming, clothing style, caring for body hygiene, and exercising or following a specific diet for the specific purpose of improving ones physical attractiveness, are universal. Indeed, 99% of participants reported spending >10 min a day performing beauty-enhancing behaviors. The results largely support evolutionary hypotheses: more time was spent enhancing beauty by women (almost 4 h a day, on average) than by men (3.6 h a day), by the youngest participants (and contrary to predictions, also the oldest), by those with a relatively more severe history of infectious diseases, and by participants currently dating compared to those in established relationships. The strongest predictor of attractiveness-enhancing behaviors was social media usage. Other predictors, in order of effect size, included adhering to traditional gender roles, residing in countries with less gender equality, considering oneself as highly attractive or, conversely, highly unattractive, TV watching time, higher socioeconomic status, right-wing political beliefs, a lower level of education, and personal individualistic attitudes. This study provides novel insight into universal beauty-enhancing behaviors by unifying evolutionary theory with several other complementary perspectives.Scopus - Affiliation ID: 60105072Eylü

Are men’s perceptions of sexually dimorphic vocal characteristics related to their testosterone levels?

Feminine physical characteristics in women are positively correlated with markers of their mate quality. Previous research on men’s judgments of women’s facial attractiveness suggests that men show stronger preferences for feminine characteristics in women’s faces when their own testosterone levels are relatively high. Such results could reflect stronger preferences for high quality mates when mating motivation is strong and/or following success in male-male competition. Given these findings, the current study investigated whether a similar effect of testosterone occurs for men’s preferences for feminine characteristics in women’s voices. Men’s preferences for feminized versus masculinized versions of women’s and men’s voices were assessed in five weekly test sessions and saliva samples were collected in each test session. Analyses showed no relationship between men’s voice preferences and their testosterone levels. Men’s tendency to perceive masculinized men’s and women’s voices as more dominant was also unrelated to their testosterone levels. Together, the results of the current study suggest that testosterone-linked changes in responses to sexually dimorphic characteristics previously reported for men's perceptions of faces do not occur for men's perceptions of voices

Voice-based assessments of trustworthiness, competence, and warmth in blind and sighted adults

The study of voice perception in congenitally blind individuals allows researchers rare insight into how a lifetime of visual deprivation affects the development of voice perception. Previous studies have suggested that blind adults outperform their sighted counterparts in low-level auditory tasks testing spatial localization and pitch discrimination, as well as in verbal speech processing; however, blind persons generally show no advantage in nonverbal voice recognition or discrimination tasks. The present study is the first to examine whether visual experience influences the development of social stereotypes that are formed on the basis of nonverbal vocal characteristics (i.e., voice pitch). Groups of 27 congenitally or early-blind adults and 23 sighted controls assessed the trustworthiness, competence, and warmth of men and women speaking a series of vowels, whose voice pitches had been experimentally raised or lowered. Blind and sighted listeners judged both men’s and women’s voices with lowered pitch as being more competent and trustworthy than voices with raised pitch. In contrast, raised-pitch voices were judged as being warmer than were lowered-pitch voices, but only for women’s voices. Crucially, blind and sighted persons did not differ in their voice-based assessments of competence or warmth, or in their certainty of these assessments, whereas the association between low pitch and trustworthiness in women’s voices was weaker among blind than sighted participants. This latter result suggests that blind persons may rely less heavily on nonverbal cues to trustworthiness compared to sighted persons. Ultimately, our findings suggest that robust perceptual associations that systematically link voice pitch to the social and personal dimensions of a speaker can develop without visual input

Low is large: spatial location and pitch interact in voice-based body size estimation

The binding of incongruent cues poses a challenge for multimodal perception. Indeed, although taller objects emit sounds from higher elevations, low-pitched sounds are perceptually mapped both to large size and to low elevation. In the present study, we examined how these incongruent vertical spatial cues (up is more) and pitch cues (low is large) to size interact, and whether similar biases influence size perception along the horizontal axis. In Experiment 1, we measured listeners’ voice-based judgments of human body size using pitch-manipulated voices projected from a high versus a low, and a right versus a left, spatial location. Listeners associated low spatial locations with largeness for lowered-pitch but not for raised-pitch voices, demonstrating that pitch overrode vertical-elevation cues. Listeners associated rightward spatial locations with largeness, regardless of voice pitch. In Experiment 2, listeners performed the task while sitting or standing, allowing us to examine self-referential cues to elevation in size estimation. Listeners associated vertically low and rightward spatial cues with largeness more for lowered- than for raised-pitch voices. These correspondences were robust to sex (of both the voice and the listener) and head elevation (standing or sitting); however, horizontal correspondences were amplified when participants stood. Moreover, when participants were standing, their judgments of how much larger men’s voices sounded than women’s increased when the voices were projected from the low speaker. Our results provide novel evidence for a multidimensional spatial mapping of pitch that is generalizable to human voices and that affects performance in an indirect, ecologically relevant spatial task (body size estimation). These findings suggest that crossmodal pitch correspondences evoke both low-level and higher-level cognitive processes

Being fluent and keeping looking

The complexities of the many concepts and models around information literacy are considered, and some personal views given as to how they may best be clarified, both theoretically and practically. A slightly adapted idea of the concept of information fluency can serve as a main general purpose for the promotion of information literacy, expressed as a more specific meta-model for the prevailing technological environment, and as still more specific components for a particular context. The focus of this relatively stable general formulation is on understanding, rather than skills or competences. It can incorporate the need for education, advice and counseling, as well as information provision, and with domain-specific literacies, as well as supporting personal information literacy

Predictors of enhancing human physical attractiveness: Data from 93 countries

People across the world and throughout history have gone to great lengths to enhance their physical appearance. Evolutionary psychologists and ethologists have largely attempted to explain this phenomenon via mating preferences and strategies. Here, we test one of the most popular evolutionary hypotheses for beauty-enhancing behaviors, drawn from mating market and parasite stress perspectives, in a large cross-cultural sample. We also test hypotheses drawn from other influential and non-mutually exclusive theoretical frameworks, from biosocial role theory to a cultural media perspective. Survey data from 93,158 human participants across 93 countries provide evidence that behaviors such as applying makeup or using other cosmetics, hair grooming, clothing style, caring for body hygiene, and exercising or following a specific diet for the specific purpose of improving one physical attractiveness, are universal. Indeed, 99% of participants reported spending >10 min a day performing beauty-enhancing behaviors. The results largely support evolutionary hypotheses: more time was spent enhancing beauty by women (almost 4 h a day, on average) than by men (3.6 h a day), by the youngest participants (and contrary to predictions, also the oldest), by those with a relatively more severe history of infectious diseases, and by participants currently dating compared to those in established relationships. The strongest predictor of attractiveness-enhancing behaviors was social media usage. Other predictors, in order of effect size, included adhering to traditional gender roles, residing in countries with less gender equality, considering oneself as highly attractive or, conversely, highly unattractive, TV watching time, higher socioeconomic status, right-wing political beliefs, a lower level of education, and personal individualistic attitudes. This study provides novel insight into universal beauty-enhancing behaviors by unifying evolutionary theory with several other complementary perspectives.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sex stereotypes influence adults' perception of babies' cries

Background: Despite widespread evidence that gender stereotypes influence human parental behavior, their potential effects on adults’ perception of babies’ cries have been overlooked. In particular, whether adult listeners overgeneralize the sex dimorphism that characterizes the voice of adult speakers (men are lower-pitched than women) to their perception of babies’ cries has not been investigated. Methods: We used playback experiments combining natural and re-synthesised cries of 3 month-old babies to investigate whether the interindividual variation in the fundamental frequency (pitch) of cries affected adult listeners’ identification of the baby’s sex, their perception the baby’s femininity and masculinity, and whether these biases interacted with their perception of the level of discomfort expressed by the cry. Results: We show that low-pitched cries are more likely to be attributed to boys and high-pitched cries to girls, despite the absence of sex differences in pitch. Moreover, low-pitched boys are perceived as more masculine and high-pitched girls are perceived as more feminine. Finally, adult men rate relatively low-pitched cries as expressing more discomfort when presented as belonging to boys than to girls. Conclusion: Such biases in caregivers’ responses to babies’ cries may have implications on children’s immediate welfare and on the development of their gender identity