The effects of effort on Stroop interference

Stroop interference was defined as the difference in time needed to name the ink colors of printed color and color-related words versus control plus signs. The effect of effort on Stroop interference was studied using an inter-subject competition procedure designed to manipulate effort. In experiment 1, subjects in the competition group were successful at inhibiting Stroop interference when compared to the performance of subjects in the no-competition group. This result is consistent with theories that postulate attentional effects on Stroop interference. In experiment 2, the significant decrease in Stroop interference was accompanied by a significant reduction in recognition memory for Stroop list items. Therefore. Stroop interference was reduced at a stage during the processing of word meaning. This result is consistent with theories that locate Stroop interference before response output. The purpose of this research is twofold: first, to investigate the effect of effort on Stroop interference; and second, to study the locus of the mechanism by which effort may influence Stroop interference

The enhanced cognitive interview: expressions of uncertainty, motivation and its relation with report accuracy

The Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI) is one of the most widely studied and used methods to interview witnesses. However, ECI research has mainly focused on increasing report size and somewhat overlooked how to improve and evaluate report accuracy. No study evaluated if witnesses’ spontaneous expressions of uncertainty are accurate metacognitive judgments, nor if witnesses’ motivation during the interview affects report accuracy. This study examined how witnesses’ judgments of recall ‘uncertainty’ and their motivation perception could relate to report accuracy. Forty-four psychology students watched a mock robbery video recording and were interviewed 48 hours later with either the Portuguese version of the ECI or a Structured Interview (SI). Afterward, participants’ motivation was assessed and items of information were classified as ‘certainties’ or ‘uncertainties’. Results suggest that our ECI protocol was effective, since participants interviewed with the ECI produced more information without compromising accuracy. ‘Uncertainties’ were less accurate than ‘certainties’, and their exclusion raised overall, ECI, and SI, accuracy. More motivated participants had better recall accuracy. Accounting for witnesses’ motivation and spontaneous verbal expressions of uncertainty may be effective and time-saving procedures to increase accuracy. These are key points that professionals and researchers should consider

Production of ent-kaurene from lignocellulosic hydrolysate in Rhodosporidium toruloides.

BACKGROUND:Rhodosporidium toruloides has emerged as a promising host for the production of bioproducts from lignocellulose, in part due to its ability to grow on lignocellulosic feedstocks, tolerate growth inhibitors, and co-utilize sugars and lignin-derived monomers. Ent-kaurene derivatives have a diverse range of potential applications from therapeutics to novel resin-based materials. RESULTS:The Design, Build, Test, and Learn (DBTL) approach was employed to engineer production of the non-native diterpene ent-kaurene in R. toruloides. Following expression of kaurene synthase (KS) in R. toruloides in the first DBTL cycle, a key limitation appeared to be the availability of the diterpene precursor, geranylgeranyl diphosphate (GGPP). Further DBTL cycles were carried out to select an optimal GGPP synthase and to balance its expression with KS, requiring two of the strongest promoters in R. toruloides, ANT (adenine nucleotide translocase) and TEF1 (translational elongation factor 1) to drive expression of the KS from Gibberella fujikuroi and a mutant version of an FPP synthase from Gallus gallus that produces GGPP. Scale-up of cultivation in a 2 L bioreactor using a corn stover hydrolysate resulted in an ent-kaurene titer of 1.4 g/L. CONCLUSION:This study builds upon previous work demonstrating the potential of R. toruloides as a robust and versatile host for the production of both mono- and sesquiterpenes, and is the first demonstration of the production of a non-native diterpene in this organism

The Use of Flight Progress Strips While Working Live Traffic: Frequencies, Importance, and Perceived Benefits

The Federal Aviation Administration's effort to automate air traffic control (ATC) requires that the functionality provided today be captured in future systems. We report the first quantitative naturalistic observation of paper flight progress strip interactions during operational use. Strip use was similar in a variety of situations, but some uses varied as a function of altitude, staffing, or the cooperative style used by controller teams. Design of automation should proceed by prioritizing changes based on frequency of use and importance and should ensure that an effective method of interacting with flight information is incorporated. In addition to applied relevance to the ATC domain, the results touch on several theoretical concerns relevant to dynamic environments. Actual and potential applications of this research include the establishment of a database of strip activity and an arsenal of information valuable to system designers.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Source Handler telephone interactions with covert human intelligence sources: An exploration of question types and intelligence yield

Law Enforcement Agencies gather intelligence in order to prevent criminal activity and pursue criminals. In the context of human intelligence collection, intelligence elicitation relies heavily upon the deployment of appropriate evidence‐based interviewing techniques (a topic rarely covered in the extant research literature). The present research gained unprecedented access to audio recorded telephone interactions (N = 105) between Source Handlers and Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) from England and Wales. The research explored the mean use of various question types per interaction and across all questions asked in the sample, as well as comparing the intelligence yield for appropriate and inappropriate questions. Source Handlers were found to utilise vastly more appropriate questions than inappropriate questions, though they rarely used open‐ended questions. Across the total interactions, appropriate questions (by far) were associated with the gathering of much of the total intelligence yield. Implications for practise are discussed

Drawing to Remember: External Support of Older Adults’ Eyewitness Performance

Although healthy aging is accompanied by a general decline in memory functioning, environmental support at retrieval can improve older adults’ (+65 years) episodic remembering. Despite those over the age of 65years representing a growing proportion of the population, few environmental retrieval support methods have been empirically evaluated for use with older witnesses and victims of crime. Here, the efficacy of a novel retrieval technique, the Sketch Mental Reinstatement of Context, is compared with a standard Mental Reinstatement of Context and a no support control (Control). Fifty-one participants witnessed an unexpected live event, and 48 hours later were interviewed using one of three aforementioned techniques. In line with predictions emanating from cognitive theories of aging and the environmental support hypothesis, participants in the Sketch Mental Reinstatement of Context condition recalled significantly more correct information and fewer inaccurate items. The Sketch Mental Reinstatement of Context technique appears to scaffold memory retrieval in an age-appropriate manner during a post-event interview, possibly by encouraging more effortful retrieval and reducing dual-task load. As such, this procedure offers an effective alternative to current approaches, adding to the toolbox of techniques available to forensic and other interviewers

The Missing Part of Seed Dispersal Networks: Structure and Robustness of Bat-Fruit Interactions

Mutualistic networks are crucial to the maintenance of ecosystem services. Unfortunately, what we know about seed dispersal networks is based only on bird-fruit interactions. Therefore, we aimed at filling part of this gap by investigating bat-fruit networks. It is known from population studies that: (i) some bat species depend more on fruits than others, and (ii) that some specialized frugivorous bats prefer particular plant genera. We tested whether those preferences affected the structure and robustness of the whole network and the functional roles of species. Nine bat-fruit datasets from the literature were analyzed and all networks showed lower complementary specialization (H2' = 0.37±0.10, mean ± SD) and similar nestedness (NODF = 0.56±0.12) than pollination networks. All networks were modular (M = 0.32±0.07), and had on average four cohesive subgroups (modules) of tightly connected bats and plants. The composition of those modules followed the genus-genus associations observed at population level (Artibeus-Ficus, Carollia-Piper, and Sturnira-Solanum), although a few of those plant genera were dispersed also by other bats. Bat-fruit networks showed high robustness to simulated cumulative removals of both bats (R = 0.55±0.10) and plants (R = 0.68±0.09). Primary frugivores interacted with a larger proportion of the plants available and also occupied more central positions; furthermore, their extinction caused larger changes in network structure. We conclude that bat-fruit networks are highly cohesive and robust mutualistic systems, in which redundancy is high within modules, although modules are complementary to each other. Dietary specialization seems to be an important structuring factor that affects the topology, the guild structure and functional roles in bat-fruit networks