38,818 research outputs found
Is it a face of woman or a man? Visual mismatch negativity is sensitive to gender category.
The present study investigated whether gender information for human faces was represented by the predictive mechanism indexed by the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) event-related brain potential (ERP). While participants performed a continuous size-change-detection task, random sequences of cropped faces were presented in the background, in an oddball setting: either various female faces were presented infrequently among various male faces, or vice versa. In Experiment 1 the inter-stimulus-interval (ISI) was 400 ms, while in Experiment 2 the ISI was 2250 ms. The ISI difference had only a small effect on the P1 component, however the subsequent negativity (N1/N170) was larger and more widely distributed at longer ISI, showing different aspects of stimulus processing. As deviant-minus-standard ERP difference, a parieto-occipital negativity (vMMN) emerged in the 200–500 ms latency range (~350 ms peak latency in both experiments). We argue that regularity of gender on the photographs is automatically registered, and the violation of the gender category is reflected by the vMMN. In conclusion the results can be interpreted as evidence for the automatic activity of a predictive brain mechanism, in case of an ecologically valid category
The integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect in the AvERA cosmology
The recent AvERA cosmological simulation of R\'acz et al. (2017) has a
-like expansion history and removes the tension between
local and Planck (cosmic microwave background) Hubble constants. We contrast
the AvERA prediction of the integrated Sachs--Wolfe (ISW) effect with that of
. The linear ISW effect is proportional to the derivative
of the growth function, thus it is sensitive to small differences in the
expansion histories of the respective models. We create simulated ISW maps
tracing the path of light-rays through the Millennium XXL cosmological
simulation, and perform theoretical calculations of the ISW power spectrum.
AvERA predicts a significantly higher ISW effect than ,
times larger depending on the index of the spherical power
spectrum, which could be utilized to definitively differentiate the models. We
also show that AvERA predicts an opposite-sign ISW effect in the redshift range
, in clear contrast with . Finally,
we compare our ISW predictions with previous observations. While at present
these cannot distinguish between the two models due to large error bars, and
lack of internal consistency suggesting systematics, ISW probes from future
surveys will tightly constrain the models.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to MNRA
On the evolutionary form of the constraints in electrodynamics
The constraint equations in Maxwell theory are investigated. In analogy with
some recent results on the constraints of general relativity it is shown,
regardless of the signature and dimension of the ambient space, that the
"divergence of a vector field" type constraints can always be put into linear
first order hyperbolic form for which global existence and uniqueness of
solutions to an initial-boundary value problem is guaranteed.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure; The published version contains several updates of
former one. The introduction is extended, and new sections with an explicit
example and with concluding remarks had also been adde
On rigidity of spacetimes with a compact Cauchy horizon
Smooth spacetimes with a compact Cauchy horizon ruled by closed null
geodesics are considered. The compact Cauchy horizon is assumed to be
non-degenerate. Then, supporting the validity of Penrose's strong cosmic censor
hypothesis, the existence of a smooth Killing vector field in a neighbourhood
of the horizon on the Cauchy development side is shown.Comment: 2 pages, contribution to the 9th Marcel Grossmann meeting (MG9),
Rome, July 200
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