How strongly do word reading times and lexical decision times correlate? Combining data from eye movement corpora and megastudies

We assess the amount of shared variance between three measures of visual word recognition latencies: eye movement latencies, lexical decision times and naming times. After partialling out the effects of word frequency and word length, two well-documented predictors of word recognition latencies, we see that 7-44% of the variance is uniquely shared between lexical decision times and naming times, depending on the frequency range of the words used. A similar analysis of eye movement latencies shows that the percentage of variance they uniquely share either with lexical decision times or with naming times is much lower. It is 5 – 17% for gaze durations and lexical decision times in studies with target words presented in neutral sentences, but drops to .2% for corpus studies in which eye movements to all words are analysed. Correlations between gaze durations and naming latencies are lower still. These findings suggest that processing times in isolated word processing and continuous text reading are affected by specific task demands and presentation format, and that lexical decision times and naming times are not very informative in predicting eye movement latencies in text reading once the effect of word frequency and word length are taken into account. The difference between controlled experiments and natural reading suggests that reading strategies and stimulus materials may determine the degree to which the immediacy-of-processing assumption and the eye-mind assumption apply. Fixation times are more likely to exclusively reflect the lexical processing of the currently fixated word in controlled studies with unpredictable target words rather than in natural reading of sentences or texts

Multi-Omics Analysis Reveals MicroRNAs Associated With Cardiometabolic Traits

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding RNA molecules that regulate gene expression. Extensive research has explored the role of miRNAs in the risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D) and

Effect of the Task, Visual and Semantic Context on Word Target Detection

Abstract. Although being a daily task, the search for a word among others words is a new research domain we investigated in order to find the kinds contextual factors that can facilitate semantic oriented visual search. We report two experiments assessing task context, visual context and semantic context. Some of our results are found to be those of classical non-semantic visual search, while others show the impact of the semantic context. Basic recommendations can be find out for Human-Computer conception and cognitive chronometry methodology.

Expedition 361 summary

International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 361 drilled six sites on the southeast African margin (southwest Indian Ocean) and in the Indian-Atlantic Ocean gateway, from 30 January to 31 March 2016. In total, 5175 m of core was recovered, with an average recovery of 102%, during 29.7 days of on-site operations. The sites, situated in the Mozambique Channel at locations directly influenced by discharge from the Zambezi and Limpopo River catchments, the Natal Valley, the Agulhas Plateau, and Cape Basin, were targeted to reconstruct the history of the greater Agulhas Current system over the past ~5 My. The Agulhas Current is the strongest western boundary current in the Southern Hemisphere, transporting some 70 Sv of warm, saline surface water from the tropical Indian Ocean along the East African margin to the tip of Africa. Exchanges of heat and moisture with the atmosphere influence southern African climates, including individual weather systems such as extratropical cyclone formation in the region and rainfall patterns. Recent ocean model and paleoceanographic data further point at a potential role of the Agulhas Current in controlling the strength and mode of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) during the Late Pleistocene. Spillage of saline Agulhas water into the South Atlantic stimulates buoyancy anomalies that may influence basin-wide AMOC, with implications for convective activity in the North Atlantic and global climate change. The main objectives of the expedition were to establish the role of the Agulhas Current in climatic changes during the Pliocene–Pleistocene, specifically to document the dynamics of the Indian-Atlantic Ocean gateway circulation during this time, to examine the connection of the Agulhas leakage and AMOC, and to address the influence of the Agulhas Current on African terrestrial climates and coincidences with human evolution. Additionally, the expedition set out to fulfill the needs of Ancillary Project Letter number 845, consisting of high-resolution interstitial water sampling to help constrain the temperature and salinity profiles of the ocean during the Last Glacial Maximum. The expedition made major strides toward fulfilling each of these objectives. The recovered sequences allowed generation of complete spliced stratigraphic sections that range from 0 to between ~0.13 and 7 Ma. This sediment will provide decadal- to millennial-scale climatic records that will allow answering the paleoceanographic and paleoclimatic questions set out in the drilling proposal