Joint perception: gaze and social context

We found that the way people looked at images was influenced by their belief that others were looking too. If participants believed that an unseen other person was also looking at what they could see, it shifted the balance of their gaze between negative and positive images. The direction of this shift depended upon whether participants thought that later they would be compared against the other person or would be collaborating with them. Changes in the social context influenced both gaze and memory processes, and were not due just to participants' belief that they are looking at the same images, but also to the belief that they are doing the same task. We believe that the phenomenon of joint perception reveals the pervasive and subtle effect of social context upon cognitive and perceptual processes

Individual differences in infant fixation duration relate to attention and behavioral control in childhood

Individual differences in fixation duration are considered a reliable measure of attentional control in adults. However, the degree to which individual differences in fixation duration in infancy (0–12 months) relate to temperament and behavior in childhood is largely unknown. In the present study, data were examined from 120 infants (mean age = 7.69 months, SD = 1.90) who previously participated in an eye-tracking study. At follow-up, parents completed age-appropriate questionnaires about their child’s temperament and behavior (mean age of children = 41.59 months, SD = 9.83). Mean fixation duration in infancy was positively associated with effortful control (β = 0.20, R2 = .02, p = .04) and negatively with surgency (β = −0.37, R2 = .07, p = .003) and hyperactivity-inattention (β = −0.35, R2 = .06, p = .005) in childhood. These findings suggest that individual differences in mean fixation duration in infancy are linked to attentional and behavioral control in childhood

Information processes of task-switching and modality-shifting across development

Developmental research on flexible attentional control in young children has often focused on the role of attention in task-switching in a unimodal context. In real life, children must master the art of switching attention not only between task demands, but also between sensory modalities. Previous study has shown that young children can be efficient at switching between unimodal tasks when the situation allows, incurring no greater task-switching costs than adults. However, young children may still experience a greater demand to shift attention between modalities than older participants. To address this, we tested 4-year-olds, 6-year-olds and adults on a novel cross-modal task-switching paradigm involving multisensory detection tasks. While we found age differences in absolute reaction time and accuracy, young children and adults both exhibited strikingly similar effects in task-switching, modality-shifting, and the interaction between them. Young children did not exhibit a greater attentional bottleneck on either the task level, or on the modality level; thus, the evidence suggests that young children engaged in similar cognitive operations in the current cross-modal tasks to adult participants. It appears that cognitive operations in multisensory task configuration are relatively mature between 4 and 6 years old

Individual Differences in Dealing With Classroom Noise Disturbances

Classrooms are noisy: when children are engaged in solo work, they also hear background babble, noise from outdoor, and people moving around. Few studies investigating the effects of noise on academic tasks use naturalistic stimuli. Questions also remain regarding why some children are more impaired by noise than others. This study compared primary school children's performance at three academic tasks (text recall, reading comprehension, mathematics) in silence, and while hearing irrelevant verbal noise (storytelling, n = 33) or mixed noise (outdoor noise, movement, babble, n = 31). We found that noise does not impair overall performance. Children might use compensatory strategies (e.g., re-reading) to reach the same level of performance in silence and noise. Individual differences in selective attention and working memory were not related to the impact of noise, with one exception: children with lower working memory were more impaired by noise when doing mathematics. Replication on a larger sample is needed

Disintermediation and Its Mitigation in Online Two-sided Platforms: Evidence from Airbnb

Disintermediation, where providers and customers transact bypassing an intermediary, has challenged the business model and dwindled profits of the multi-billion-dollar platform economy. Despite the platforms’ efforts to mitigate disintermediation, little is known regarding the extent of disintermediation or efficacy of the mitigation policies, largely due to unobservability of disintermediation. We tackle these challenges by designing a geo-analytic methodology to identify and quantify disintermediation by matching online Airbnb booking and offline granular mobile location data. We further leverage DiD with matching samples to causally examine the efficacy of four Airbnb policies; and finally propose a cost-and-benefit conceptual framework to interpret the findings and guide platform designs of mitigation policies. We find, for instance, a 5.4% of disintermediation in Austin, TX over Summer 2019; and Instant Bookable reduces disintermediation by 9%, with a stronger effect among the hosts without preference for long-term lease, with more repeated guests, and more hosting experience

The Role of Network Embeddedness in Film Success

In the early stage of film development when producers assemble a development team, it is important to understand the means by which different team members may contribute to the film\u27s box office. Building upon theories from marketing and sociology, we propose that these contributions arise from team members\u27 positions, or embeddedness, in a social network weaved through past film collaborations. These collaborations provide team members with opportunities to draw knowledge and skills from the network for new film projects. Our conceptual framework accentuates two aspects of network embeddedness: positional embeddedness (PE)—how well a person is tied to well-connected others, and junctional embeddedness (JE)—the extent to which a person bridges sub-communities in the industry. We examine how the importance of PE and JE varies by functional role (cast versus crew), and is moderated by the film\u27s studio affiliation. Analyzing more than 15,000 industry professionals over nearly two decades of film collaborations, this research reveals crucial and divergent relationships: while high PE is more valuable for the cast, high JE is critical for the crew. This role distinction also depends on a film\u27s studio affiliation. Managerially, these findings provide guidance to film executives and producers in revenue maximization through strategic team assembly, and to talents in career management

Interaction and cellular uptake of surface-modified carbon dot nanoparticles by J774.1 macrophages

Carbon dot (Cdot) nanoparticles are an emerging class of carbon nanomaterials with a promising potential for drug delivery and bio imaging applications. Although the interaction between Cdots and non-immune cell types has been well studied, Cdot interactions with macrophages have not been investigated. Exposure of Cdot nanoparticles to J774.1 cells, a murine macrophage cell line, resulted in minimal toxicity, where notable toxicity was only seen with Cdot concentrations higher than 0.5 mg/ml. Flow cytometric analysis revealed that Cdots prepared from citric acid were internalized at significantly higher levels by macrophages compared with those prepared from bamboo leaves. Interestingly, macrophages preferentially took up phenylboronic acid (PB)-modified nanoparticles. By fluorescence microscopy, strong blue light-specific punctate Cdot fluorescence resembling Cdot structures in the cytosolic space was mostly observed in J774.1 macrophages exposed to PB-modified nanoparticles and not unmodified Cdot nanoparticles. PB binds to sialic acid residues that are overexpressed on diseased cell surfaces. Our findings demonstrate that PB-conjugated Cdots can be taken up by macrophages with low toxicity and high efficiency. These modified Cdots can be used to deliver drugs to suppress or eliminate aberrant immune cells such as macrophages associated with tumors such as tumor-associated macrophages

Iron supplement use in pregnancy – are the right women taking the right amount?

Objectives: To examine the prevalence and determinants of iron supplement use and the amount of iron consumed from iron-containing supplements. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was performed in antenatal clinics in two tertiary hospitals in Sydney, Australia between January and March 2014. Results: Of 612 (91% response rate) pregnant women, 589 with complete data were analysed. The overall prevalence of iron-containing supplement use was 88.0%, of which 70.1% was MV only, 7.2% was iron-only and 22.2% was both. Use of iron-containing supplements was associated with increased gestational age, a diagnosis of anaemia or iron deficiency (ID) in the current pregnancy and pre-pregnancy use of an iron-containing supplement. Several risk factors for ID or anaemia such as on-red meat eating and previous miscarriage were not associated with current iron supplement use. About 65% of women diagnosed with ID, and 62.3% of women diagnosed with anaemia were taking an iron-only supplement, with or without a MV. The proportion of women consuming low (<30), preventative (30-99) and treatment (≥100) mg/day doses were 36.8%, 45.4%, and 17.8%, respectively. Only 46.7% of women diagnosed with ID were taking ≥100 mg/day iron from supplements, while 23.3% were taking <30 mg/day. Conclusion: Women are consuming varying doses of iron and some high-risk women are taking inadequate doses of iron to prevent or treat ID or iron deficiency anaemia. Healthcare professionals are best positioned to advise women on iron supplement use in pregnancy and should educate women individually about the type and dose of supplement best suited to their needs.NHMR