1,720,955 research outputs found
The impact of emotional stressors on distractor filtering
Full text linkHuman beings constantly deal with an enormous amount of information that cannot be processed at once. Given the limited cognitive resources available for the processing of incoming information, visual selective attention has the role to differentiate between competing stimuli in order to facilitate the processing of stimuli that are relevant for adaptive behaviours. From an evolutionary perspective, stimuli with emotional content, in particular those signalling danger or threat, are very powerful in attracting and holding attention even if they are task-irrelevant. Moreover, emotional stimuli get higher processing priority compared with other competing stimuli and their access to further processing and conscious perception is thought to be automatic, at least when sufficient cognitive resources are available. Therefore, avoiding emotional stimuli, especially those with negative content, requires a conspicuous amount of resources that, if engaged for a prolonged period of time in a highly demanding cognitive task, they can undergo depletion, and eventually lead to the mental fatigue phenomenon. We propose that the amount of resources specifically dedicated to selective attention are also limited, and that they can be depleted specifically, and possibly independently, from the resources available for other cognitive mechanisms. This work was planned in order to directly explore this possibility, assuming that the crucial resources necessary to overcome the impact of irrelevant emotional distractors are also involved in attentional processing, and – more specifically – in the filtering of distracting visual information. We expected that by heavily engaging these inhibitory mechanisms, providing conditions of heavy and persistent distraction, we would observe phenomena suggesting that they were being depleted during the course of the experimental session (i.e. one-hour session). In a series of visual search experiments, young adult participants had to discriminate a target stimulus, while ignoring a task-irrelevant distractor that could be present in a portion of trials. According to the aim of our research, in order to increase, on the one hand, the attentional load and, on the other, the need to filter out distracting information, task-irrelevant stimuli with emotional content were introduced prior to each visual search trial. I then measured performance to evaluate the overall impact of emotional stimuli, revealing that while the onset of all emotional stimuli affected attentional deployment in the subsequent trial, such impact was different according to the valence of the stimuli involved. Analysing the efficiency of distractor filtering processes over the experimental session, I observed changes in performance suggesting that the attentional resources specifically involved during the inhibition of distractors in the visual search task could indeed be depleted. By this new approach, in this series of studies I offered new evidence relative to the depletion of cognitive resources specific associated with selective attention. I demonstrated that these domain-specific resources can be depleted in a relatively short period of time (i.e., one-hour session). Moreover, I highlighted how emotional activation can either enhance or impair cognitive performance depending on the emotional valence of the stimuli involved, with negative emotions leading to detrimental effects and positive emotions leading to restorative effects on cognitive resources. I also provided evidence on the fact that under condition of high load on attentional processing, the active engagement of top-down behavioural control may limit, or even abolish, the detrimental effects of negative emotional stimuli
Qualiy of life in displaced earthquake survivors
Full text linkIntroduction: We investigated Quality of Life (QOL) in a sample of individuals (n = 341) who experienced different consequences in terms of displacement from their house after earthquake.
Methods: Three groups were studied: those who had been displaced but are no longer so, those still displaced, and those who were never displaced. QOL for four time points was assessed: pre-earthquake, during displacement, at the time of the survey, and in ten years.
Results: Different trajectories of QOL were observed in the three groups: not displaced individuals showed no significant variation, those who were displaced had a significant decline in QOL after the earthquake but a significant recovery after the displacement experience, and those who were still displaced at the time of the survey reported lowest QOL both after the earthquake and in the future, with no recovery. Predictors of perceived QOL decline were quality and type of temporary accommodation, place attachment, and perceived health impairment. Subsequent QOL perceived improvement was predicted by quality and type of temporary accommodation, risk awareness, and emotional well-being.
Discussion: Our findings highlight the importance of minimizing the duration of temporary displacement and providing high-quality temporary accommodations, considering individual needs in the local contexts and communities
Altering spatial priority maps via statistical learning of target selection and distractor filtering
Full text linkThe cognitive system has the capacity to learn and make use of environmental regularities - known as statistical learning (SL), including for the implicit guidance of attention. For instance, it is known that attentional selection is biased according to the spatial probability of targets; similarly, changes in distractor filtering can be triggered by the unequal spatial distribution of distractors. Open questions remain regarding the cognitive/neuronal mechanisms underlying SL of target selection and distractor filtering. Crucially, it is unclear whether the two processes rely on shared neuronal machinery, with unavoidable cross-talk, or they are fully independent, an issue that we directly addressed here. In a series of visual search experiments, participants had to discriminate a target stimulus, while ignoring a task-irrelevant salient distractor (when present). We systematically manipulated spatial probabilities of either one or the other stimulus, or both. We then measured performance to evaluate the direct effects of the applied contingent probability distribution (e.g., effects on target selection of the spatial imbalance in target occurrence across locations) as well as its indirect or "transfer" effects (e.g., effects of the same spatial imbalance on distractor filtering across locations). By this approach, we confirmed that SL of both target and distractor location implicitly bias attention. Most importantly, we described substantial indirect effects, with the unequal spatial probability of the target affecting filtering efficiency and, vice versa, the unequal spatial probability of the distractor affecting target selection efficiency across locations. The observed cross-talk demonstrates that SL of target selection and distractor filtering are instantiated via (at least partly) shared neuronal machinery, as further corroborated by strong correlations between direct and indirect effects at the level of individual participants. Our findings are compatible with the notion that both kinds of SL adjust the priority of specific locations within attentional priority maps of space
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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