Incidental Affect, Facial Expressions, and Risk

Emotional facial expressions are potent social signals that can change people’s feeling states and shape judgments of targets that are unrelated to the expressions. Whether they originate from other individuals or advertisements in the environment, facial expressions are undoubtedly one of the most prominent emotional stimuli. Thus, there is a great need to examine how facial expressions can influence potentially consequential judgments and decisions that involve uncertain or risky prospects, as such decisions are greatly impacted by emotion. The domains of finance and health could particularly benefit from such an examination. In the financial domain, expressions of other individuals could shape investment behavior. For instance, facial expressions may trigger emotional reactions that can focus an individual on either the unwanted consequences or benefits of a risky option. In the health domain, individuals’ evaluations of the risks and benefits associated with a medical treatment could be guided by the emotionality depicted on the face of a doctor. This second domain has particular relevance to older individuals due to their greater preference for positively over negatively valenced stimuli and the importance of effectively promoting preventative health behaviors for older adults. Thus, two studies were conducted in order to examine the role of emotional facial expressions in judgments and decisions involving risk in the financial and health domains. The first study examined whether the posing of positive (happiness), negative (fear), and neutral facial expressions could influence participants’ affective responding and ultimately their sub-optimal risk-taking and risk-avoidant behavior in a financial investment task. In Study 1, the facial posing manipulation did not have the intended effect on participants’ changes in self-reported valence. Specifically, in the neutral-posing condition, participants reported the greatest increase in negative valence and demonstrated significantly greater sub-optimal risk aversion in comparison to the fear-posing condition. Furthermore, significant relations between participants’ facial responding and sub-optimal risk seeking behavior were discovered in the neutral posing condition. Specifically, decreased corrugator and increased zygomaticus activity in response to affectively neutral expressions in the neutral-posing condition was related to increased risk seeking. This relationship between fEMG activity and risk seeking was consistent with previously described relations between positive and negative affective and risk seeking. Thus, fEMG may be a useful tool when attempting to evaluate how individuals’ affective responses to stimuli relate to their risk seeking behavior in financial decision tasks. The second study explored whether spontaneous facial responses to emotional facial expressions presented during an influenza vaccine commercial could change participants’ evaluations (behavioral intentions, risk perceptions, and integral feelings) regarding the flu vaccine. Importantly, this study included older and younger adults to examine whether aging-related increases in the preference for positive over negative information could lead to differential influences of positive and negative facial expressions on the above-mentioned evaluations. Manipulating the facial expressions in the commercial had a significant, albeit unpredicted effect on participants’ evaluations. Relative to those who watched the smiling doctors, older and younger adults who watched the concerned doctors felt better about the vaccine. Furthermore, older adults who watched the smiling doctors reported greater increases in worry about contracting the flu in comparison to those who watched the concerned doctors. Overall, findings of Study 2 suggest that concerned rather than happy facial expressions should accompany messages that are aimed at increasing vaccination behavior

Spin-axis attitude estimation and magnetometer bias determination for the AMPTE mission

Algorithms were developed for magnetometer biases and spin axis attitude calculation. Numerical examples of the performance of the algorithm are given

Neon diffusion kinetics and implications for cosmogenic neon paleothermometry in feldspars

Observations of cosmogenic neon concentrations in feldspars can potentially be used to constrain the surface exposure duration or surface temperature history of geologic samples. The applicability of cosmogenic neon to either application depends on the temperature-dependent diffusivity of neon isotopes. In this work, we investigate the kinetics of neon diffusion in feldspars of different compositions and geologic origins through stepwise degassing experiments on single, proton-irradiated crystals. To understand the potential causes of complex diffusion behavior that is sometimes manifest as nonlinearity in Arrhenius plots, we compare our results to argon stepwise degassing experiments previously conducted on the same feldspars. Many of the feldspars we studied exhibit linear Arrhenius behavior for neon whereas argon degassing from the same feldspars did not. This suggests that nonlinear behavior in argon experiments is an artifact of structural changes during laboratory heating. However, other feldspars that we examined exhibit nonlinear Arrhenius behavior for neon diffusion at temperatures far below any known structural changes, which suggests that some preexisting material property is responsible for the complex behavior. In general, neon diffusion kinetics vary widely across the different feldspars studied, with estimated activation energies (Ea) ranging from 83.3 to 110.7 kJ/mol and apparent pre-exponential factors (D0) spanning three orders of magnitude from 2.4 × 10−3 to 8.9 × 10−1 cm2 s−1. As a consequence of this variability, the ability to reconstruct temperatures or exposure durations from cosmogenic neon abundances will depend on both the specific feldspar and the surface temperature conditions at the geologic site of interest

Efficient algorithms for single-axis attitude estimation

The computationally efficient algorithms determine attitude from the measurement of art lengths and dihedral angles. The dependence of these algorithms on the solution of trigonometric equations was reduced. Both single time and batch estimators are presented along with the covariance analysis of each algorithm

Further evidence for early lunar magnetism from troctolite 76535

The earliest history of the lunar dynamo is largely unknown and has important implications for the thermal state of the Moon and the physics of dynamo generation. The lunar sample with the oldest known paleomagnetic record is the 4.25 billion year old (Ga) troctolite 76535. Previous studies of unoriented subsamples of 76535 found evidence for a dynamo field with a paleointensity of several tens of microteslas. However, the lack of mutual subsample orientation prevented a demonstration that the magnetization was unidirectional, a key property of thermoremanent magnetization. Here we report further alternating field demagnetization on three mutually oriented subsamples of 76535, as well as new pressure remanent magnetization experiments to help rule out shock magnetization. We also describe new 40Ar/39Ar thermochronometry and cosmogenic neon measurements that better constrain the rock's thermal history. Although the rock is unbrecciated, unshocked, and slowly cooled, its demagnetization behavior is not ideal due to spurious remanence acquisition. Despite this limitation, all three subsamples record a high coercivity magnetization oriented in nearly the same direction, implying that they were magnetized by a unidirectional field on the Moon. We find no evidence for shock remanence, and our thermochronometry calculations show no significant reheating events since 4249 ± 12 million years ago (Ma). We infer a field paleointensity of approximately 20–40 μT, supporting the previous conclusion that a lunar dynamo existed at 4.25 Ga. The timing of this field supports an early dynamo powered by thermal or thermochemical core convection and/or a mechanical dynamo but marginally excludes a dynamo delayed by thermal blanketing from radiogenic element-rich magma ocean cumulates

Bateman Gradients and Alternative Mating Strategies in a Marine Isopod

The “Bateman gradient” provides a means for estimating the strength of sexual selection. Although widely used for this purpose, this approach has not been applied to examine the covariance between mate numbers and offspring numbers among alternative mating strategies. Differences in this covariance could exist if the average fitnesses of different mating phenotypes were unequal, as has been suggested for “alternative mating tactics.” We tested this hypothesis in Paracerceis sculpta, a sexually dimorphic marine isopod in which three male morphs coexist. We found no significant differences in sexual competency and no significant differences in Bateman gradients among morphs, that is, the average morph fitnesses were equivalent. However, with data pooled among morphs, we found a significant sex difference in Bateman gradients, as expected for dimorphic species; females gained no additional fitness from mating with multiple males, whereas male fitness increased with increasing mate numbers. In nature, the fitnesses of the three morphs are variable due to differences in the availability of receptive females. Our results suggest that differences in mate availability, not differences in sexual competency, are responsible for observed variance in fitness within, and for the equality of fitnesses among, the three male morphs in this species

Improved spatial resolution of elemental maps through inversion of LA-ICP-MS data

Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) provides the spatial distribution of elements within crystals and therefore can constrain the rates of geological processes. Spatial resolution of LA-ICP-MS is limited by the requirement to ablate sufficient material to surpass the detection limit of the instrument: too little material and the concentration cannot be measured; too much material from the same spatial location and the possibility of depth dependent variations in concentration increases. Because of this requirement and typical analytical setup, this commonly places a lower bound on the diameter of an ablation ‘spot’ size of approximately 20 μm for elements with ppm concentration. Here we present a means to achieve sub-spot size resolution using inverse methods. We discretize the space sampled in an analysis into pixels and note that the average concentration of the pixels sampled by a spot equals the measured concentration. As multiple overlapping spots sample some of the same pixels, we can combine discrete expressions for each spot as a system of linear equations. Through linear inversion with smoothness constraints we can solve for unknown pixel concentrations. We highlight this approach with two natural examples in which diffusive processes are important: magmatic ascent speeds and (U-Th)/He noble gas thermochronometry. In these examples, accurate results require that the true concentration gradients can be recovered from LA-ICP-MS data. We show that the ability to infer rapid rates of magma ascent is improved from months to weeks and that we are able to interpret previously un-interpretable thermochronometric data