Stroop interference:Aging effects assessed with the Stroop Color-Word test

A large, cross-sectional aging investigation of performance on the Stroop Color-Word Test (SCWT) was carried out. Subjects were 247 volunteers, ages 20–80 in seven age levels. Although all subjects thought themselves to be normal and healthy, a post hoc division could be made on the basis of biological life events (BLE). BLE are mild biological or environmental factors, such as repeated experiences of general anesthesia, that can hamper optimal brain functioning. Apart from the anticipated age effects, performance was poorer in subjects who had experienced one or more BLE: The slowing due to BLE was comparable to the effect of age, especially on the task involving language interference in color-naming. Education had a significant effect on performance: More highly educated subjects performed better than less educated subjects. No sex differences were observed. These findings replicate observations made with other tests in parallel studies. They are also in line with several other studies reporting interactions between the effects of aging and physical fitness. This study questions some of the validity of cognitive aging research, as our data suggest that screening for BLE as age-extrinsic factors in nondiseased subjects can reduce many of the performance deficits usually ascribed to aging per se

Rigorous health screening reduces age effect on memory scanning task

Eighty subjects participated in a study with five age groups (20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 years). Forty subjects showed evidence of factors related to brain dysfunction (risk factors). Their performance on a Sternberg-type memory scanning task was assessed. Age-related slowing of virtually all aspects of the memory scanning process was observed in the healthy group. However, the effect of the presence of risk factors was larger than that of biological age. The results of the present study make a reasonable case for the view that many age effects reported in the literature can be largely explained by suboptimal brain functioning, i.e., by other factors than aging per se

The Role of Individual Heterogeneity in Collective Animal Behaviour

Social grouping is omnipresent in the animal kingdom. Considerable research has focused on understanding how animal groups form and function, including how collective behaviour emerges via self-organising mechanisms and how phenotypic variation drives the behaviour and functioning of animal groups. However, we still lack a mechanistic understanding of the role of phenotypic variation in collective animal behaviour. Here we present a common framework to quantify individual heterogeneity and synthesise the literature to systematically explain and predict its role in collective behaviour across species, contexts, and traits. We show that individual heterogeneity provides a key intermediary mechanism with broad consequences for sociality (e.g., group structure, functioning), ecology (e.g., response to environmental change), and evolution. We also outline a roadmap for future research

Seasonal changes in neophobia and its consistency in rooks: the effect of novelty type and dominance position.

Neophobia, or the fear of novelty, may offer benefits to animals by limiting their exposure to unknown danger, but can also impose costs by preventing the exploration of potential resources. The costs and benefits of neophobia may vary throughout the year if predation pressure, resource distribution or conspecific competition changes seasonally. Despite such variation, neophobia levels are often assumed to be temporally and individually stable. Whether or not neophobia expression changes seasonally and fluctuates equally for all individuals is crucial to understanding the drivers, consequences and plasticity of novelty avoidance. We investigated seasonal differences and individual consistency in the motivation and novelty responses of a captive group of rooks, Corvus frugilegus, a seasonally breeding, colonial species of corvid that is known for being neophobic. We tested the group around novel objects and novel people to determine whether responses generalized across novelty types, and considered whether differences in dominance could influence the social risk of approaching unknown stimuli. We found that the group's level of object neophobia was stable year-round, but individuals were not consistent between seasons, despite being consistent within seasons. In contrast, the group's avoidance of novel people decreased during the breeding season, and individuals were consistent year-round. Additionally, although subordinate birds were more likely to challenge dominants during the breeding season, this social risk taking did not translate to greater novelty approach. Since seasonal variation and individual consistency varied differently towards each novelty type, responses towards novel objects and people seem to be governed by different mechanisms. Such a degree of fluctuation has consequences for other individually consistent behaviours often measured within the nonhuman personality literature.Gates-Cambridge Trust, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (Scholarship; David Phillips Fellowship (Grant ID: BB/H021817/1)), University of CambridgeThis is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.08.01

Repeatable group differences in the collective behaviour of stickleback shoals across ecological contexts.

Establishing how collective behaviour emerges is central to our understanding of animal societies. Previous research has highlighted how universal interaction rules shape collective behaviour, and that individual differences can drive group functioning. Groups themselves may also differ considerably in their collective behaviour, but little is known about the consistency of such group variation, especially across different ecological contexts that may alter individuals' behavioural responses. Here, we test if randomly composed groups of sticklebacks differ consistently from one another in both their structure and movement dynamics across an open environment, an environment with food, and an environment with food and shelter. Based on high-resolution tracking data of the free-swimming shoals, we found large context-associated changes in the average behaviour of the groups. But despite these changes and limited social familiarity among group members, substantial and predictable behavioural differences between the groups persisted both within and across the different contexts (group-level repeatability): some groups moved consistently faster, more cohesively, showed stronger alignment and/or clearer leadership than other groups. These results suggest that among-group heterogeneity could be a widespread feature in animal societies. Future work that considers group-level variation in collective behaviour may help understand the selective pressures that shape how animal collectives form and function

School achievement in early adolescence is associated with students’ self-perceived executive functions

Education and Child Studie

The emergence and development of behavioral individuality in clonal fish

Behavioral individuality is a ubiquitous phenomenon in animal populations, yet the origins and developmental trajectories of individuality, especially very early in life, are still a black box. Using a high-resolution tracking system, we mapped the behavioral trajectories of genetically identical fish (Poecilia formosa), separated immediately after birth into identical environments, over the first 10 weeks of their life at 3 s resolution. We find that (i) strong behavioral individuality is present at the very first day after birth, (ii) behavioral differences at day 1 of life predict behavior up to at least 10 weeks later, and (iii) patterns of individuality strengthen gradually over developmental time. Our results establish a null model for how behavioral individuality can develop in the absence of genetic and environmental variation and provide experimental evidence that later-in-life individuality can be strongly shaped by factors predating birth like maternal provisioning, epigenetics and pre-birth developmental stochasticity

Harnessing the Benefits of Open Electronics in Science

Freely and openly shared low-cost electronic applications, known as open electronics, have sparked a new open-source movement, with much un-tapped potential to advance scientific research. Initially designed to appeal to electronic hobbyists, open electronics have formed a global community of "makers" and inventors and are increasingly used in science and industry. Here, we review the current benefits of open electronics for scientific research and guide academics to enter this emerging field. We discuss how electronic applications, from the experimental to the theoretical sciences, can help (I) individual researchers by increasing the customization, efficiency, and scalability of experiments, while improving data quantity and quality; (II) scientific institutions by improving access and maintenance of high-end technologies, visibility and interdisciplinary collaboration potential; and (III) the scientific community by improving transparency and reproducibility, helping decouple research capacity from funding, increasing innovation, and improving collaboration potential among researchers and the public. Open electronics are powerful tools to increase creativity, democratization, and reproducibility of research and thus offer practical solutions to overcome significant barriers in science.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figure, 2 table