Negative priming and stimulus repetition: a reply to Neill and Joordens

Journal ArticleNegative priming is reliably obtained with repeated items, but not with novel items. Here, we review why these stimulus repetition effects raise problems for memory based theories of negative priming. Furthermore, we provide empirical evidence casting doubt on Neill and Joordens's (2002) claimthat perceptual facilitation masks the effects of episodic retrieval with novel items. Finally, we discuss several theoretical and methodological issues raised in the reply by Neill and Joordens. We conclude that a more straightforward interpretation of these stimulus repetition effects is one based on activation-sensitive inhibition

Telephone conversation impairs sustained visual attention via a central bottleneck

Recent research has shown that holding telephone conversations disrupts one's driving ability. We asked whether this effect could be attributed to a visual attention impairment. In Experiment 1, participants conversed on a telephone or listened to a narrative while engaged in multiple object tracking (MOT), a task requiring sustained visual attention. We found that MOT was disrupted in the telephone conversation condition, relative to single-task MOT performance, but that listening to a narrative had no effect. In Experiment 2, we asked which component of conversation might be interfering with MOT performance. We replicated the conversation and single-task conditions of Experiment 1 and added two conditions in which participants heard a sequence of words over a telephone. In the shadowing condition, participants simply repeated each word in the sequence. In the generation condition, participants were asked to generate a new word based on each word in the sequence. Word generation interfered with MOT performance, but shadowing did not. The data indicate that telephone conversation disrupts attention at a central stage, the act of generating verbal stimuli, rather than at a peripheral stage, such as listening or speaking

Essay: Making the most of recent advances in freshwater mussel propagation and restoration

Propagating and releasing freshwater mussels (Unionida) into the wild can contribute substantially to conservation and perhaps ecosystem restoration, but poorly conceived projects can waste money and public good will, and harm mussel populations and ecosystems. Moving from vague, emotional reactions about mussel restoration to more rigorous discussions and analyses can help focus efforts to where they do the most good. We suggest that: (i) projects to restore mussels for conservation goals to sites where known environmental problems have been eliminated or mitigated have good prospects for success; (ii) projects to restore mussels for conservation goals to sites where known environmental problems have not been eliminated or mitigated have poor prospects for success; (iii) projects to restore mussels for conservation goals to sites in the common situation in which the status of environmental problems is unknown have unknown prospects for success, but may be valuable as scientific experiments, if project performance is monitored properly; (iv) the value of population augmentation as a conservation tool is uncertain, and needs better theoretical and empirical analysis; (v) assisted migration of mussels as a conservation tool is controversial, and should be discussed thoroughly before we reach crises in which it is rejected or carried out carelessly; (vi) projects to restore ecosystem services face more stringent criteria for success than conservation projects, and some such projects being discussed seem unlikely to succeed. Monitoring data on how restoration projects perform typically are inadequately collected, reported, disseminated, and used to improve practice. This could be improved by setting up a clearinghouse to collect, hold, and disseminate data; providing training to restorationists; and opening conversations between restorationists and data managers and statisticians.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149722/1/csp253.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149722/2/csp253_am.pd

Evaluation of a Graphical Anesthesia Drug Display for Space Travel

As the frequency and duration of space travel increase, the potential need for emergency medical care in space grows, and with it the need for patient monitoring devices supporting therapeutic treatment. Providing emergency care to an injured astronaut may necessitate immediate surgery. During such events, the timely administration of anesthetic agents will need to be performed by someone who is not a formally trained anesthesiologist. The availability of usable real-time displays of intravenous anesthetic concentrations and effects could significantly enhance intraoperative clinical decision-making both in space and on earth. The effectiveness of the real-time anesthesia display on the management of total intravenous anesthesia was determined by 31 anesthesiologists participating in a simulation study. In the presence of the anesthesia drug display, clinicians maintained physiologic indicators such as blood pressure and heart rate closer to baseline levels. Participants also reported an increase in perceived performance when using the drug display. The results indicate that surgeries on earth and in orbit would benefit from the implementation of this display

Quantum dots in magnetic fields: thermal response of broken symmetry phases

We investigate the thermal properties of circular semiconductor quantum dots in high magnetic fields using finite temperature Hartree-Fock techniques. We demonstrate that for a given magnetic field strength quantum dots undergo various shape phase transitions as a function of temperature, and we outline possible observable consequences.Comment: In Press, Phys. Rev. B (2001

Better Driving and Recall When In-car Information Presentation Uses Situationally-Aware Incremental Speech Output Generation

Kennington C, Kousidis S, Baumann T, Buschmeier H, Kopp S, Schlangen D. Better Driving and Recall When In-car Information Presentation Uses Situationally-Aware Incremental Speech Output Generation. In: AutomotiveUI 2014: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications. Seattle, Washington, USA; 2014: 7:1-7:7.It is established that driver distraction is the result of sharing cognitive resources between the primary task (driving) and any other secondary task. In the case of holding conversations, a human passenger who is aware of the driving conditions can choose to interrupt his speech in situations potentially requiring more attention from the driver, but in-car information systems typically do not exhibit such sensitivity. We have designed and tested such a system in a driving simulation environment. Unlike other systems, our system delivers infor- mation via speech (calendar entries with scheduled meetings) but is able to react to signals from the environment to interrupt when the driver needs to be fully attentive to the driving task and subsequently resume its delivery. Distraction is measured by a secondary short-term memory task. In both tasks, drivers perform significantly worse when the system does not adapt its speech, while they perform equally well to control conditions (no concurrent task) when the system intelligently interrupts and resumes

Protected areas and freshwater biodiversity: a novel systematic review distils eight lessons for effective conservation

Protected areas are a global cornerstone of biodiversity conservation and restoration. Yet freshwater biodiversity is continuing to decline rapidly. To date there has been no formal review of the effectiveness of protected areas for conserving or restoring biodiversity in rivers, lakes, and wetlands. We present the first assessment using a systematic review of the published scientific evidence of the effectiveness of freshwater protected areas. Systematic searches returned 2,586 separate publications, of which 44 provided quantitative evidence comprising 75 case studies. Of these, 38 reported positive, 25 neutral, and 12 negative outcomes for freshwater biodiversity conservation. Analysis revealed variable relationships between conservation effectiveness and factors such as taxa assessed, protected area size and characteristics, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) protected area category, and ecoregion. Lack of effectiveness was attributed to many anthropogenic factors, including fishing (often with a lack of law enforcement), water management (abstraction, dams, and flow regulation), habitat degradation, and invasive non‐native species. Drawing on the review and wider literature we distil eight lessons to enhance the effectiveness of protected areas for freshwater biodiversity conservation. We urge policymakers, protected area managers, and those who fund them to invest in well‐designed research and monitoring programs and publication of evidence of protected area effectiveness

Integrative Acoustic Mapping Reveals Hudson River Sediment Processes and Habitats

Rivers and estuaries around the world are the focus of human settlements and activities. Needs for clean water, ecosystem preservation, commercial navigation, industrial development, and recreational access compete for the use of estuaries, and management of these resources requires a detailed understanding of estuarine morphology and sediment dynamics. This article presents an overview of the first estuary-wide study of a heavily used estuary, the Hudson River, based on high-resolution acoustic mapping of the river bottom. The integration of three high-resolution acoustic methods with extensive sampling reveals an unexpected complexity of bottom features and allows detailed classification of the benthic environment in terms of riverbed morphology, sediment type, and sedimentary processes

Many-body perturbation calculation of spherical nuclei with a separable monopole interaction: I. Finite nuclei

We present calculations of ground state properties of spherical, doubly closed-shell nuclei from $^{16}$O to $^{208}$Pb employing the techniques of many-body perturbation theory using a separable density dependent monopole interaction. The model gives results in Hartree-Fock order which are of similar quality to other effective density-dependent interactions. In addition, second and third order perturbation corrections to the binding energy are calculated and are found to contribute small, but non-negligible corrections beyond the mean-field result. The perturbation series converges quickly, suggesting that this method may be used to calculate fully correlated wavefunctions with only second or third order perturbation theory. We discuss the quality of the results and suggest possible methods of improvement.Comment: 20 Pages, 11 figure

Electron capture on iron group nuclei

We present Gamow-Teller strength distributions from shell model Monte Carlo studies of fp-shell nuclei that may play an important role in the pre-collapse evolution of supernovae. We then use these strength distributions to calculate the electron-capture cross sections and rates in the zero-momentum transfer limit. We also discuss the thermal behavior of the cross sections. We find large differences in these cross sections and rates when compared to the naive single-particle estimates. These differences need to be taken into account for improved modeling of the early stages of type II supernova evolution