Flicker sensitivity as a function of the spectral density of external white temporal noise

Foveal flicker sensitivity at 0.5–30 Hz was measured as a function of the spectral density of external, white, purely temporal noise for a sharp-edged 2.5 deg circular spot (mean luminance 3.4 log phot td). Sensitivity at any given temporal frequency was constant at low powers of external noise, but then decreased in inverse proportion to the square root of noise spectral density. Without external noise, sensitivity as function of temporal frequency had the well-known band-pass characteristics peaking at about 10 Hz, as previously documented in a large number of studies. In the presence of strong external noise, however, sensitivity was a monotonically decreasing function of temporal frequency. Our data are well described (goodness of fit 90%) by a model comprising (i) low-pass filtering by retinal cones, (ii) high-pass filtering in the subsequent neural pathways, (iii) adding of the temporal equivalent of internal white spatiotemporal noise, and (iv) detection by a temporal matched filter, the efficiency of which decreases approximately as the power −0.58 of temporal frequency

Music, notation, and embodiment in early sixteenth-century Italian pictures

Music emphatically entered the repertoire of popular subjects for painting and printmaking in North Italy in the early sixteenth century. Musical scores often appear in such images, offering an interesting opportunity to reflect on the materiality of notation, not least because musical functionality cannot have been their primary purpose. From a practical perspective, these are bad scores: Upside-down, half-obscured, foreshortened, often simply illegible. And yet they are represented, and indeed both their material and their musical structure act powerfully to shape the actions and interactions of the figures in the image. This chapter begins with a brief review of the kinds of music scores found in Italian paintings in the early sixteenth century, highlighting their material features as books and noting the relationships between music books represented in paintings and those used in practice. Then, we identify three prevailing conventions governing how musical scores interact with and organise the figures appearing in an image, sketching out some of the ways in which they might relate to the dominant ideologies of contemporary musical culture. Our hypothesis is that these visual conventions reflect fundamental assumptions about music that were widely shared by those who commissioned, made, owned, and viewed musical images

Mind the gap! Gender differences in alcohol consumption among Swedish ninth graders 1989–2021

Introduction: To examine gender differences in drinking habits among Swedish ninth graders over the period 1989–2021. Methods: Annual school surveys with nationally representative samples of ninth-grade students in Sweden covering the period 1989–2021, total sample of 180,538 students. Drinking habits were measured with self-reports of frequency and quantity of use and frequency of heavy episodic drinking. Differences between genders were compared annually and differences were tested using logistic and ordinary least square regression models with cluster robust standard errors. Results: Small gender differences in the prevalence of alcohol use during the first part of the study period were followed by an increasing gap over the past decade with girls being more likely to drink alcohol than boys. Boys consumed larger amounts of alcohol than girls during the first three decades of the studied period but no gender differences were found in later years. Binge drinking was more prevalent among boys during 1989 to 2000 but no systematic gender difference was found during the past 15 years. Discussion and Conclusions: There used to be clear gender differences in drinking habits among ninth graders in Sweden with boys drinking more than girls. This gap has narrowed over the past three decades and among contemporary adolescents, no gender differences are found neither in binge drinking nor volume of drinking and the prevalence of drinking is even higher among girls