Capuchin monkeys' (Sapajus [Cebus] apella) categorization of photos of unknown male conspecifics suggests attention to fWHR and a dominance bias

The ability to quickly perceive others' rank minimizes costs by helping individuals behave appropriately when interacting with strangers. Indeed, humans and at least some other species can quickly determine strangers' rank or dominance based only on physical features without observing others' interactions or behavior. Nonhuman primates can determine strangers' ranks by observing their interactions, and some evidence suggests that at least some cues to dominance, such as facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR), are also present in other primates. However, it is unknown whether they can determine strangers' rank simply by looking at their faces, rather than observing their interactions. If so, this would suggest selective pressure across the primates on both cues to dominance and the ability to detect those cues accurately. To address this, we examined the ability of male and female tufted capuchin monkeys (Sapajus [Cebus] apella) to categorize images of the faces of unknown conspecifics (Sapajus from different colonies) and humans (computer-generated and real) as dominant or nondominant based only on still images. Capuchins' categorization of unknown conspecific faces was consistent with fWHR, a cue to dominance, although there was a strong tendency to categorize strangers as dominant, particularly for males. This was true despite the continued correct categorization of known individuals. In addition, capuchins did not categorize human strangers in accordance with external pre-ratings of dominance by independent human raters, despite the availability of the same cue, fWHR. We consider these results in the context of capuchin socio-ecology and what they mean for the evolution of rapid decision-making in social contexts.

Not Everybody Has an Inner Voice: Behavioral Consequences of Anendophasia

It is commonly assumed that inner speech-the experience of thought as occurring in a natural language-is a human universal. Recent evidence, however, suggests that the experience of inner speech in adults varies from near constant to nonexistent. We propose a name for a lack of the experience of inner speech-anendophasia-and report four studies examining some of its behavioral consequences. We found that adults who reported low levels of inner speech (N = 46) had lower performance on a verbal working memory task and more difficulty performing rhyme judgments compared with adults who reported high levels of inner speech (N = 47). Task-switching performance-previously linked to endogenous verbal cueing-and categorical effects on perceptual judgments were unrelated to differences in inner speech.

Childhood poisonings: Effects of ambiguous product characteristics on preschool children's categorization of household chemicals

This study investigated preschool children's categorization and risk perception of products with ambiguous product characteristics (e.g., food-like packaging). These characteristics make it difficult for preschool children to categorize household chemicals correctly. This, therefore, increases the risk of unintentional poisoning. We hypothesized that ambiguity arises from different product characteristics, such as the type of packaging, the products' scent, or the packaging's color and transparency. In four behavioral tasks, N = 108 preschool children (M = 43 months, SD = 3) categorized different products and household chemicals with various types of packaging, colors, and scents. Individually wrapped dishwasher tablets were more likely to be categorized as edible than unwrapped ones. Furthermore, children who had interacted with any type of dishwasher tablet in the last 6 months performed better in identifying dishwasher tablets, regardless of packaging type. Household chemicals with a fruity scent were more likely to be categorized as drinkable than those with a chlorine scent. Finally, the children considered black bottles more dangerous and preferred them less than bottles of a different color. In contrast, bottle transparency generally did not seem to affect risk perception and preference. These findings confirm that ambiguous product characteristics influence children's categorization of unknown products and, thus, their risk perception and decision-making. Manufacturers and caregivers are advised to reduce the ambiguity of household chemicals by designing more neutral product packaging and choosing products with more neutral elements, respectively.

Auditory discrimination learning and acoustic cue weighing in female zebra finches with localized FoxP1 knockdowns

Rare disruptions of the transcription factor FOXP1 are implicated in a human neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by autism and/or intellectual disability with prominent problems in speech and language abilities. Avian orthologues of this transcription factor are evolutionarily conserved and highly expressed in specific regions of songbird brains, including areas associated with vocal production learning and auditory perception. Here, we investigated possible contributions of FoxP1 to song discrimination and auditory perception in juvenile and adult female zebra finches. They received lentiviral knockdowns of FoxP1 in one of two brain areas involved in auditory stimulus processing, HVC (proper name) or CMM (caudomedial mesopallium). Ninety-six females, distributed over different experimental and control groups were trained to discriminate between two stimulus songs in an operant Go/Nogo paradigm and subsequently tested with an array of stimuli. This made it possible to assess how well they recognized and categorized altered versions of training stimuli and whether localized FoxP1 knockdowns affected the role of different features during discrimination and categorization of song. Although FoxP1 expression was significantly reduced by the knockdowns, neither discrimination of the stimulus songs nor categorization of songs modified in pitch, sequential order of syllables or by reversed playback were affected. Subsequently, we analyzed the full dataset to assess the impact of the different stimulus manipulations for cue weighing in song discrimination. Our findings show that zebra finches rely on multiple parameters for song discrimination, but with relatively more prominent roles for spectral parameters and syllable sequencing as cues for song discrimination.NEW & NOTEWORTHY In humans, mutations of the transcription factor FoxP1 are implicated in speech and language problems. In songbirds, FoxP1 has been linked to male song learning and female preference strength. We found that FoxP1 knockdowns in female HVC and caudomedial mesopallium (CMM) did not alter song discrimination or categorization based on spectral and temporal information. However, this large dataset allowed to validate different cue weights for spectral over temporal information for song recognition.

Categorization of continuous covariates and complex regression models - friends or foes in intersectionality research

OBJECTIVE

To reduce health inequities it is important to identify intersections in characteristics of individuals subject to privilege or disadvantage. Different proposals for that have recently been published. One approach (1) considers models specified with 1st and all 2nd-order effects and another (2) the stratification based on multiple covariates; both categorize continuous covariates. A simulation study was conducted in order to review both methods with regard to identification of intersections showing true differences, rate of false positive results, and generalizability to independent data compared to an established approach (3) of backward variable elimination according to Bayesian information criterium (BE-BIC) combined with splines.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING

R software has been used to simulate the covariates age, sex, body mass index, education, and diabetes to examine their association with a continuous frailty score for osteoporosis using multiple linear regression. In setting 1, none of the covariates was associated with the frailty score, i.e. only noise is present in the data. In setting 2, the covariates age, sex, and their interaction were associated with the frailty score, such that only females above 55 years formed an intersection associated with an increased frailty score. All approaches were compared under varying sample sizes (N=200-3000) and signal-to-noise ratios (SNR, 0.5-4) in 1000 replications. For model evaluation, bootstrap resampling was used. The models were fitted in internal learning data and then used to predict outcomes in the internal validation data. The mean squared error (MSE) was used for comparison and the frequency of false positive findings calculated.

RESULTS

In setting 1, approaches 1 and 2 generated spurious effects in more than 90% of simulations across all sample sizes. In smaller sample size, approach 3 (BE-BIC) selected 36.5% the correct model, in larger sample size in 89.8% and always had a lower number of spurious effects. MSE in independent data was generally higher for approaches 1 and 2 when compared to 3. In setting 2, approach 1 selected most frequently the correct interaction but frequently showed spurious effects (>75%). Across all sample sizes and SNR, approach 3 generated least often spurious results and had lowest MSE in independent data.

CONCLUSION

Categorization of continuous covariates is detrimental to studies on intersectionality. Due to high and unrestricted model complexity such approaches are prone to spurious effects and often lack interpretability. Approach 3 (BE-BIC) is considerably more robust against spurious findings, showed better generalizability to independent data, and can be used with most statistical software. For intersectionality research we consider it most important to describe relevant differences between intersections and to avoid non-reproducible and spurious findings.

Assessing Spontaneous Categorical Processing of Visual Shapes via Frequency-Tagging EEG

Categorization is an essential cognitive and perceptual process, which happens spontaneously. However, earlier research often neglected the spontaneous nature of this process by mainly adopting explicit tasks in behavioral or neuroimaging paradigms. Here, we use frequency-tagging (FT) during electroencephalography (EEG) in 22 healthy human participants (both male and female) as a direct approach to pinpoint spontaneous visual categorical processing. Starting from schematic natural visual stimuli, we created morph sequences comprising 11 equal steps. Mirroring a behavioral categorical perception discrimination paradigm, we administered a FT-EEG oddball paradigm, assessing neural sensitivity for equally sized differences within and between stimulus categories. Likewise, mirroring a behavioral category classification paradigm, we administered a sweep FT-EEG oddball paradigm, sweeping from one end of the morph sequence to the other, thereby allowing us to objectively pinpoint the neural category boundary. We found that FT-EEG can implicitly measure categorical processing and discrimination. More specifically, we could derive an objective neural index of the required level to differentiate between the two categories, and this neural index showed the typical marker of categorical perception (i.e., stronger discrimination across as compared with within categories). The neural findings of the implicit paradigms were also validated using an explicit behavioral task. These results provide evidence that FT-EEG can be used as an objective tool to measure discrimination and categorization and that the human brain inherently and spontaneously (without any conscious or decisional processes) uses higher-level meaningful categorization information to interpret ambiguous (morph) shapes.

Unconscious Integration of Categorical Relationship of Two Subliminal Numbers in Comparison with "5"

Many studies have shown that the brain can process subliminal numerals, i.e., participants can categorize a subliminal number into two categories: greater than 5 or less than 5. In the context of many studies on the unconscious integration of multiple subliminal stimuli, the issue of whether multiple subliminal numbers can be integrated is contentious. The same-different task is regarded as a perfect tool to explore unconscious integration. In the two experiments reported, we used a same-different task in which a pair of masked prime numbers was followed by a pair of target numbers, and participants were asked to decide whether the two target numbers were on the same (both smaller or larger than 5) or different sides (one smaller, the other larger than 5) of 5 in magnitude. The results indicated that the prime numbers could be categorized unconsciously, which was reflected by the category priming effect, and that the unconscious category relationship of the two prime numbers could affect the judgment on the category relationship of the two target numbers, as reflected by the response priming effect. The duration of the prime-to-target interstimulus interval (ISI) was also manipulated, showing a positive compatibility effect (PCE) of category priming and a negative compatibility effect (NCE) of response priming no matter whether the ISI was short (50 ms) or long (150 ms). The NCE, which occurred when the prime-to-target ISI was relatively short in this study, contradicted the conventional view but was consistent with previous results of unconscious integration based on an attention modulation mechanism. Importantly, this study provided evidence for the still-under-debate issue of numerical information integration.

Do They Look the Same Unless They Are Angry? Investigating the Other-Race Effect in the Presence of Angry Expressions

Ethnic out-group members are disproportionately more often the victim of misidentifications. The so-called other-race effect (ORE), the tendency to better remember faces of individuals belonging to one's own ethnic in-group than faces belonging to an ethnic out-group, has been identified as one causal ingredient in such tragic incidents. Investigating an important aspect for the ORE-that is, emotional expression-the seminal study by Ackerman and colleagues (2006) found that White participants remembered neutral White faces better than neutral Black faces, but crucially, Black angry faces were better remembered than White angry faces (i.e., a reversed ORE). In the current study, we sought to replicate this study and directly tackle the potential causes for different results with later work. Three hundred ninety-six adult White U.S. citizens completed our study in which we manipulated the kind of employed stimuli (as in the original study vs. more standardized ones) whether participants knew of the recognition task already at the encoding phase. Additionally, participants were asked about the unusualness of the presented faces. We were able to replicate results from the Ackerman et al. (2006) study with the original stimuli but not with more standardized stimuli.

Four- and six-year-old children track a single meaning with both familiar and unfamiliar referents when the referent is clear: More evidence for propose-but-verify

In word learning, learners need to identify the referent of words by leveraging the fact that the same word may co-occur with different sets of objects. This raises the question, what do children remember from "in the moment" that they can use for cross-situational learning? Furthermore, do children represent pictures of familiar animals versus drawings of non-existent novel objects as potential referents differently? This study examined these questions by creating learning scenarios with only two potential referents, requiring the least amount of memory to represent all co-present objects. Across three experiments (n > 250) with 4- and 6-year-old children, children reliably selected the intended referent from learning at test, though the learning of novel objects was better than familiar objects. When asked for a co-present object, children of all ages in the study performed at chance in all of the conditions. We discuss the developmental differences in cross-situational word learning capabilities with regard to representing different stimuli as potential referents. Importantly, all children used a propose-but-verify procedure for learning novel words even in the simplest of the learning scenarios given repeated exposure.

Quantifying Bias in Hierarchical Category Systems

Categorization is ubiquitous in human cognition and society, and shapes how we perceive and understand the world. Because categories reflect the needs and perspectives of their creators, no category system is entirely objective, and inbuilt biases can have harmful social consequences. Here we propose methods for measuring biases in hierarchical systems of categories, a common form of category organization with multiple levels of abstraction. We illustrate these methods by quantifying the extent to which library classification systems are biased in favour of western concepts and male authors. We analyze a large library data set including more than 3 million books organized into thousands of categories, and find that categories related to religion show greater western bias than do categories related to literature or history, and that books written by men are distributed more broadly across library classification systems than are books written by women. We also find that the Dewey Decimal Classification shows a greater level of bias than does the Library of Congress Classification. Although we focus on library classification as a case study, our methods are general, and can be used to measure biases in both natural and institutional category systems across a range of domains.

"Shape bias" goes social: Children categorize people by weight rather than race

Children tend to categorize novel objects according to their shape rather than their color, texture, or other salient properties-known as "shape bias." We investigated whether this bias also extends to the social domain, where it should lead children to categorize people according to their weight (their body shape) rather than their race (their skin color). In Study 1, participants (n = 50 US 4- and 5-year-olds) were asked to extend a novel label from a target object/person to either an object/person who shared the target's shape/weight, color/race, or neither. Children selected the shape-/weight-matched individual over the color-/race-matched individual (dobjects  = 1.58, dpeople  = 0.99) and their shape biases were correlated across the two domains. In Study 2, participants (n = 20 US 4- and 5-year-olds) were asked to extend a novel internal property from a target person to either a person who shared the target's weight, race, or neither. Again, children selected the weight-matched individual (d = 1.98), suggesting they view an individual's weight as more predictive of their internal properties than their race. Overall, results suggest that children's early shape bias extends into the social domain. Implications for weight bias and early social cognition are discussed. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Preschoolers extend novel labels based on people's weight rather than their race. Preschoolers infer internal features based on people's weight rather than their race. Shape biases are present, and correlated, across the social and object domains.

The Pigeon as a Model of Complex Visual Processing and Category Learning

Over the past 30 years, behavioral, computational, and neuroscientific investigations have yielded fresh insights into how pigeons adapt to the diverse complexities of their visual world. A prime area of interest has been how pigeons categorize the innumerable individual stimuli they encounter. Most studies involve either photorealistic representations of actual objects thus affording the virtue of being naturalistic, or highly artificial stimuli thus affording the virtue of being experimentally manipulable. Together those studies have revealed the pigeon to be a prodigious classifier of both naturalistic and artificial visual stimuli. In each case, new computational models suggest that elementary associative learning lies at the root of the pigeon's category learning and generalization. In addition, ongoing computational and neuroscientific investigations suggest how naturalistic and artificial stimuli may be processed along the pigeon's visual pathway. Given the pigeon's availability and affordability, there are compelling reasons for this animal model to gain increasing prominence in contemporary neuroscientific research.

Posing biases in portraits of people that do not exist

We report posing biases in portraits of people that do not exist. Studies of painted or photographed portraiture have often reported such biases. However, whether these truly exist or are mere sampling artifacts remains open to question. A novel approach to such a question is provided by contemporary applications generating photo-realistic virtual portraits. Such applications are exposed to large datasets of portraits of real people. A neural network then maps the variation of the original input set to a huge-dimensional generative model capturing the variation in the original data, which is then used to synthesize the virtual portraits. We reasoned that, if posing biases exist in the original input, they should also be observable in the network output, and they did. This finding provides novel support for the reality of posing biases in portraiture-and helps us better understand what generative networks actually do.

Neural correlates tracking different aspects of the emerging representation of novel visual categories

Current studies investigating electroencephalogram correlates associated with categorization of sensory stimuli (P300 event-related potential, alpha event-related desynchronization, theta event-related synchronization) typically use an oddball paradigm with few, familiar, highly distinct stimuli providing limited insight about the aspects of categorization (e.g. difficulty, membership, uncertainty) that the correlates are linked to. Using a more complex task, we investigated whether such more specific links could be established between correlates and learning and how these links change during the emergence of new categories. In our study, participants learned to categorize novel stimuli varying continuously on multiple integral feature dimensions, while electroencephalogram was recorded from the beginning of the learning process. While there was no significant P300 event-related potential modulation, both alpha event-related desynchronization and theta event-related synchronization followed a characteristic trajectory in proportion with the gradual acquisition of the two categories. Moreover, the two correlates were modulated by different aspects of categorization, alpha event-related desynchronization by the difficulty of the task, whereas the magnitude of theta -related synchronization by the identity and possibly the strength of category membership. Thus, neural signals commonly related to categorization are appropriate for tracking both the dynamic emergence of internal representation of categories, and different meaningful aspects of the categorization process.

Transfer of strategic task components across unique tasks that share some common structures

Flexible, adaptive behaviour depends on the application of prior learning to novel contexts (transfer). Transfer can take many forms, but the focus of the present study was on "task schemas"-learning strategies that guide the earliest stages of engaging in a novel task. The central aim was to examine the architecture of task schemas and determine whether strategic task components can expedite learning novel tasks that share some structural components with the training tasks. Groups of participants across two experiments were exposed to different training regimes centred around multiple unique tasks that shared some/all/none of the structural task components (the kinds of stimuli, classifications, and/or responses) but none of the surface features (the specific stimuli, classifications, and/or responses) with the test task (a dot-pattern classification task). Initial test performance was improved (to a degree) in all groups relative to a control group whose training did not include any of the structural components relevant to the test task. The strongest evidence of transfer was found in the motoric, perceptual + categorization, and full schema training groups. This observation indicates that training with some (or all) strategic task components expedited learning of a novel task that shared those components. That is, task schemas were found to be componential and were able to expedite learning a novel task where similar (learning) strategies could be applied to specific elements of the test task.

Exploring the Potential of ChatGPT-4 in Predicting Refractive Surgery Categorizations: Comparative Study

BACKGROUND

Refractive surgery research aims to optimally precategorize patients by their suitability for various types of surgery. Recent advances have led to the development of artificial intelligence-powered algorithms, including machine learning approaches, to assess risks and enhance workflow. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT-4 (OpenAI LP) have emerged as potential general artificial intelligence tools that can assist across various disciplines, possibly including refractive surgery decision-making. However, their actual capabilities in precategorizing refractive surgery patients based on real-world parameters remain unexplored.

OBJECTIVE

This exploratory study aimed to validate ChatGPT-4's capabilities in precategorizing refractive surgery patients based on commonly used clinical parameters. The goal was to assess whether ChatGPT-4's performance when categorizing batch inputs is comparable to those made by a refractive surgeon. A simple binary set of categories (patient suitable for laser refractive surgery or not) as well as a more detailed set were compared.

METHODS

Data from 100 consecutive patients from a refractive clinic were anonymized and analyzed. Parameters included age, sex, manifest refraction, visual acuity, and various corneal measurements and indices from Scheimpflug imaging. This study compared ChatGPT-4's performance with a clinician's categorizations using Cohen κ coefficient, a chi-square test, a confusion matrix, accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and receiver operating characteristic area under the curve.

RESULTS

A statistically significant noncoincidental accordance was found between ChatGPT-4 and the clinician's categorizations with a Cohen κ coefficient of 0.399 for 6 categories (95% CI 0.256-0.537) and 0.610 for binary categorization (95% CI 0.372-0.792). The model showed temporal instability and response variability, however. The chi-square test on 6 categories indicated an association between the 2 raters' distributions (χ²5=94.7, P<.001). Here, the accuracy was 0.68, precision 0.75, recall 0.68, and F1-score 0.70. For 2 categories, the accuracy was 0.88, precision 0.88, recall 0.88, F1-score 0.88, and area under the curve 0.79.

CONCLUSIONS

This study revealed that ChatGPT-4 exhibits potential as a precategorization tool in refractive surgery, showing promising agreement with clinician categorizations. However, its main limitations include, among others, dependency on solely one human rater, small sample size, the instability and variability of ChatGPT's (OpenAI LP) output between iterations and nontransparency of the underlying models. The results encourage further exploration into the application of LLMs like ChatGPT-4 in health care, particularly in decision-making processes that require understanding vast clinical data. Future research should focus on defining the model's accuracy with prompt and vignette standardization, detecting confounding factors, and comparing to other versions of ChatGPT-4 and other LLMs to pave the way for larger-scale validation and real-world implementation.

Dynamics and maintenance of categorical responses in primary auditory cortex during task engagement

Grouping sets of sounds into relevant categories is an important cognitive ability that enables the association of stimuli with appropriate goal-directed behavioral responses. In perceptual tasks, the primary auditory cortex (A1) assumes a prominent role by concurrently encoding both sound sensory features and task-related variables. Here, we sought to explore the role of A1 in the initiation of sound categorization, shedding light on its involvement in this cognitive process. We trained ferrets to discriminate click trains of different rates in a Go/No-Go delayed categorization task and recorded neural activity during both active behavior and passive exposure to the same sounds. Purely categorical response components were extracted and analyzed separately from sensory responses to reveal their contributions to the overall population response throughout the trials. We found that categorical activity emerged during sound presentation in the population average and was present in both active behavioral and passive states. However, upon task engagement, categorical responses to the No-Go category became suppressed in the population code, leading to an asymmetrical representation of the Go stimuli relative to the No-Go sounds and pre-stimulus baseline. The population code underwent an abrupt change at stimulus offset, with sustained responses after the Go sounds during the delay period. Notably, the categorical responses observed during the stimulus period exhibited a significant correlation with those extracted from the delay epoch, suggesting an early involvement of A1 in stimulus categorization.

An Evaluation System of Robotic End-Effectors for Food Handling

Owing to Japan's aging society and labor shortages, the food and agricultural industries are facing a significant demand for robotic food handling technologies. Considering the large variety of food products, available robotic end-effectors are limited. Our primary goal is to maximize the applicability of existing end-effectors and efficiently develop novel ones, and therefore, it is necessary to categorize food products and end-effectors from the viewpoint of robotic handling and establish their relationships through an effective evaluation approach. This study proposes a system for evaluating robotic end-effectors to identify appropriate ones and develop new ones. The evaluation system consists of food categorization based on food properties related to robotic handling, categorization of robotic end-effectors based on their grasping principles, a robotic system with visual recognition based on Robot Operating System 2 (ROS 2) to conduct handling tests, a scoring system for performance evaluation, and a visualization approach for presenting the results and comparisons. Based on food categorization, 14 real food items and their corresponding samples were chosen for handling tests. Seven robotic end-effectors, both commercialized and under development, were selected for evaluation. Using the proposed evaluation system, we quantitatively compared the performance of different end-effectors in handling different food items. We also observed differences in the handling of real food items and samples. The overall performance of an end-effector can be visualized and quantitatively evaluated to demonstrate its versatility in handling various food items.

Which factor affects the storage of real-world object information in visual working memory: perceptual or conceptual information?

Visual working memory (VWM) is a limited dynamic memory system where people temporarily store and process visual information. Previous research showed that real-world objects do not have a fixed capacity compared to simple ones. In konkle's study, they found that the conceptual information and perception information of real-world objects had different effects on visual long-term memory (VLTM) capacity. VLTM capacity was more dependent on conceptual information than the perceptual distinctiveness of real-world objects. However, we did not know how the intrinsic attribute of real-world objects affects VWM capacity yet. In the current research, we set five experiments to explore the comparative effects of conceptual vs. perceptual information of real-world objects in VWM capacity. Our results suggested that VWM capacity was more dependent on the perceptual distinctiveness of real-world objects than on conceptual structure. These data provide evidence that VWM capacity for real-world objects depends more on perceptual information than on conceptual structure.

From features to categories: The development of inductive generalization

Young children can generalize from known to novel, but the underlying mechanism is still debated. Some argue that from an early age generalization is category-based and undergoes little development, while others believe that early generalization is similarity-based, and the use of categories emerges over time. The current research brings new evidence to the debate. In Experiment 1 (N = 118), we presented 3- to 5-year-olds and adults with a category learning task followed by an exemplar generation task. Then, in Experiment 2 (N = 126), we presented the same tasks but provided participants with additional conceptual information about the category members. Our results indicate that early reasoning undergoes dramatic development: whereas young children rely mostly on salient features, adults rely on category information. These results challenge category-based accounts of early generalization while supporting similarity-based accounts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

[The benefits of PSI when dealing with large numbers of victims]

The Many Victims plan describes aims to organize evacuations in a coherent manner, to preserve the human and material resources capacity of the fire and rescue service. The aim is to avoid postponing the disaster on the ground to the hospital and to guarantee the continuity of response to the current risk and an over-event. In this device, the firefighter nurse is an asset by his ability to take care of serious victims without the physical presence of a doctor, in a context of crisis.

When Time Shifts the Boundaries: Isolating the Role of Forgetting in Children's Changing Category Representations

In studies of children's categorization, researchers have typically studied how encoding characteristics of exemplars contribute to children's generalization. However, it is unclear whether children's internal cognitive processes alone, independent of new information, may also influence their generalization. Thus, we examined the role that one cognitive process, forgetting, plays in shaping children's category representations by conducting three experiments. In the first two experiments, participants (NExp1=37, Mage=4.02 years; NExp2=32, Mage=4.48 years) saw a novel object labeled by the experimenter and then saw five new objects with between one and five features changed from the learned exemplar. The experimenter asked whether each object was a member of the same category as the exemplar; children saw the five new objects either immediately or after a five-minute delay. Children endorsed category membership at higher rates at immediate test than at delayed test, suggesting that children's category representations became narrower over time. In Experiment 3, we investigated forgetting as a key mechanism underlying the narrowing found in Experiments 1 and 2. We showed participants (NExp3=34, Mage=4.20 years) the same exemplars used in Experiments 1 and 2; then, either immediately or after a five-minute delay, we showed children seven individual object features and asked if each one had been part of the exemplar. Children's accuracy was lower after the delay, showing that they did indeed forget individual features. Taken together, these results show that forgetting plays an important role in changing children's newly-learned categories over time.

A source for category-induced global effects of feature-based attention in human prefrontal cortex

Global effects of feature-based attention (FBA) are generally limited to stimuli sharing the same or similar features, as hypothesized in the "feature-similarity gain model." Visual perception, however, often reflects categories acquired via experience/learning; whether the global-FBA effect can be induced by the categorized features remains unclear. Here, human subjects were trained to classify motion directions into two discrete categories and perform a classical motion-based attention task. We found a category-induced global-FBA effect in both the middle temporal area (MT+) and frontoparietal areas, where attention to a motion direction globally spread to unattended motion directions within the same category, but not to those in a different category. Effective connectivity analysis showed that the category-induced global-FBA effect in MT+ was derived by feedback from the inferior frontal junction (IFJ). Altogether, our study reveals a category-induced global-FBA effect and identifies a source for this effect in human prefrontal cortex, implying that FBA is of greater ecological significance than previously thought.

The language network is not engaged in object categorization

The relationship between language and thought is the subject of long-standing debate. One claim states that language facilitates categorization of objects based on a certain feature (e.g. color) through the use of category labels that reduce interference from other, irrelevant features. Therefore, language impairment is expected to affect categorization of items grouped by a single feature (low-dimensional categories, e.g. "Yellow Things") more than categorization of items that share many features (high-dimensional categories, e.g. "Animals"). To test this account, we conducted two behavioral studies with individuals with aphasia and an fMRI experiment with healthy adults. The aphasia studies showed that selective low-dimensional categorization impairment was present in some, but not all, individuals with severe anomia and was not characteristic of aphasia in general. fMRI results revealed little activity in language-responsive brain regions during both low- and high-dimensional categorization; instead, categorization recruited the domain-general multiple-demand network (involved in wide-ranging cognitive tasks). Combined, results demonstrate that the language system is not implicated in object categorization. Instead, selective low-dimensional categorization impairment might be caused by damage to brain regions responsible for cognitive control. Our work adds to the growing evidence of the dissociation between the language system and many cognitive tasks in adults.

Developmental changes in the categorization of speech and song

Music and language are two fundamental forms of human communication. Many studies examine the development of music- and language-specific knowledge, but few studies compare how listeners know they are listening to music or language. Although we readily differentiate these domains, how we distinguish music and language-and especially speech and song- is not obvious. In two studies, we asked how listeners categorize speech and song. Study 1 used online survey data to illustrate that 4- to 17-year-olds and adults have verbalizable distinctions for speech and song. At all ages, listeners described speech and song differences based on acoustic features, but compared with older children, 4- to 7-year-olds more often used volume to describe differences, suggesting that they are still learning to identify the features most useful for differentiating speech from song. Study 2 used a perceptual categorization task to demonstrate that 4-8-year-olds and adults readily categorize speech and song, but this ability improves with age especially for identifying song. Despite generally rating song as more speech-like, 4- and 6-year-olds rated ambiguous speech-song stimuli as more song-like than 8-year-olds and adults. Four acoustic features predicted song ratings: F0 instability, utterance duration, harmonicity, and spectral flux. However, 4- and 6-year-olds' song ratings were better predicted by F0 instability than by harmonicity and utterance duration. These studies characterize how children develop conceptual and perceptual understandings of speech and song and suggest that children under age 8 are still learning what features are important for categorizing utterances as speech or song. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Children and adults conceptually and perceptually categorize speech and song from age 4. Listeners use F0 instability, harmonicity, spectral flux, and utterance duration to determine whether vocal stimuli sound like song. Acoustic cue weighting changes with age, becoming adult-like at age 8 for perceptual categorization and at age 12 for conceptual differentiation. Young children are still learning to categorize speech and song, which leaves open the possibility that music- and language-specific skills are not so domain-specific.

Individualizing the burnout problem: Health professionals' discourses of burnout and recovery in the context of rehabilitation

This discourse analytical study explores how health professionals (HPs) construct burnout as a form of mental distress in the context of Finnish burnout rehabilitation framed with a particular rehabilitation ethos. Burnout is a fuzzy concept and lacks a disease status. Therefore, it calls for context-specific definition and justification. By highlighting the socially and interactionally produced character of categories of mental distress, the study investigates the kinds of discourses HPs use to formulate "the problem" and its solutions, and how people dealing with burnout are categorized in these discourses. The data consists of field notes from the observation of group discussion sessions in two 1-year burnout rehabilitation courses. As a result of the analysis, five partly overlapping discourses were identified: psychological, evolutionary, healthy lifestyle, biomedical, and welfare. Within these discourses, people who experience burnout were categorized as over-conscientious employees, "good girls," "primitive people," self-responsible rehabilitees, patients, and (aging) employees with social and legal rights. Burnout rehabilitation and HPs' views reproduce a cultural and clinical discourse around burnout in which work-related problems are treated as individual-level problems and individuals are responsibilized for the management of mental distress. Based on the results, it is concluded that the hybrid type of interventions that attempt to influence both individual- and work-related problems behind burnout would help to prevent people dealing with burnout from being over-responsibilized for solving problems at the workplace.

Exploration of Categorization and Category-Based Induction on Waste Sorting: A Follow-Up Observation by NeuroSky MindWave

Waste sorting, as an embodiment of behavioral cognition, is regulated by two cognitive processes, namely, Categorization (C) and Category-Based Induction (CBI). This study employed the event-related potential (ERP) technique to assess whether there is a transformation between C and CBI in waste sorting cognition, in order to help individuals establish a correct waste sorting behavior. We reported a case of intervention in waste sorting education with a 58-year-old Chinese woman to discriminate whether such intervention facilitates the transition between C and CBI. The results showed that the waste sorting cognition follows a developmental model as C-CBI-C, where education may help the subject build a cognitive framework for waste sorting by altering inherent misperceptions and filling gaps in classification knowledge. The results also noticed that FN400 is identified as a characteristic waveform in the CBI process, by which it is indicated that the first 4 to 7 days of education is a critical period for establishing the cognitive framework. Through a comparison of the ERP waveforms at different stages of intervention, the results are insightful to help individuals improve their cognition of waste sorting.

Intergroup Context Moderates the Impact of White Americans' Identification on Racial Categorization of Ambiguous Faces

We examined how the number of groups in a categorization task influences how White Americans categorize ambiguous faces. We investigated the strength of identity-driven ingroup overexclusion-wherein highly identified perceivers overexclude ambiguous members from the ingroup-proposing that, compared with dichotomous tasks (with only the ingroup and one outgroup), tasks with more outgroups attenuate identity-driven ingroup overexclusion (a dilution effect). Fourteen studies (n = 4,001) measured White Americans' racial identification and their categorizations of ambiguous faces and manipulated the categorization task to have two groups, three groups, or an unspecified number of groups (open-ended). In all three conditions, participants overexcluded faces from the White category on average. There was limited support for the dilution effect: identity-driven ingroup overexclusion was absent in the three-group task and only weakly supported in the open-ended task. The presence of multiple outgroups may dampen the impact of racial identity on race perceptions among White Americans.

Objects sharpen visual scene representations: evidence from MEG decoding

Real-world scenes consist of objects, defined by local information, and scene background, defined by global information. Although objects and scenes are processed in separate pathways in visual cortex, their processing interacts. Specifically, previous studies have shown that scene context makes blurry objects look sharper, an effect that can be observed as a sharpening of object representations in visual cortex from around 300 ms after stimulus onset. Here, we use MEG to show that objects can also sharpen scene representations, with the same temporal profile. Photographs of indoor (closed) and outdoor (open) scenes were blurred such that they were difficult to categorize on their own but easily disambiguated by the inclusion of an object. Classifiers were trained to distinguish MEG response patterns to intact indoor and outdoor scenes, presented in an independent run, and tested on degraded scenes in the main experiment. Results revealed better decoding of scenes with objects than scenes alone and objects alone from 300 ms after stimulus onset. This effect was strongest over left posterior sensors. These findings show that the influence of objects on scene representations occurs at similar latencies as the influence of scenes on object representations, in line with a common predictive processing mechanism.

Survey of Time Series Data Generation in IoT

Nowadays, with the rapid growth of the internet of things (IoT), massive amounts of time series data are being generated. Time series data play an important role in scientific and technological research for conducting experiments and studies to obtain solid and convincing results. However, due to privacy restrictions, limited access to time series data is always an obstacle. Moreover, the limited available open source data are often not suitable because of a small quantity and insufficient dimensionality and complexity. Therefore, time series data generation has become an imperative and promising solution. In this paper, we provide an overview of classical and state-of-the-art time series data generation methods in IoT. We classify the time series data generation methods into four major categories: rule-based methods, simulation-model-based methods, traditional machine-learning-based methods, and deep-learning-based methods. For each category, we first illustrate its characteristics and then describe the principles and mechanisms of the methods. Finally, we summarize the challenges and future directions of time series data generation in IoT. The systematic classification and evaluation will be a valuable reference for researchers in the time series data generation field.

Defining piscine endpoints: Towards score sheets for assessment of clinical signs in fish research

The seminar 'Severity and humane endpoints in fish research' organized by the University of Bergen, the Industrial and Aquatic Laboratory, together with Fondazione Guido Bernadini, took place on 4 October 2019 in Bergen, Norway. The seminar was followed by a workshop, 'Establishing score sheets and defining endpoints in fish experiments', held on 28 January 2020, also in Bergen. The purpose of the seminar was to raise awareness about fish ethics together with severity classification and humane endpoints in fish studies, using examples from farmed fish, mainly salmonids and lumpfish. The overall aim of the workshop was to better define humane endpoints in fish experiments, as well as to discuss suggestions for development and use of score sheets for assessing clinical signs related to endpoints. Endpoints for fish should not only be based on what we know about fish diseases and the lesions they induce but should also take into consideration knowledge about fish species and life stage, fish anatomy, physiology and the general state and behaviour of the fish. For this reason, to reinforce that endpoints should come from the animal's perspective and needs, we renamed humane endpoints for fish to piscine endpoints. This paper reports the main messages from the workshop sessions including advice on development and use of score sheets.

A preliminary investigation to establish conceptual behavior in gray wolves (Canis lupus)

Conceptual behavior represents a type of complex stimulus control where an organism differentially responds to examples and nonexamples of instances within a stimulus class. Different species have demonstrated conceptual behavior both in their natural environments and through experimental investigations. The current paper investigates preliminary methods to teach conceptual behavior to gray wolves (Canis lupus). The researchers used a match-to-sample arrangement to teach three shapes: a triangle, square, and cross varying in size, color, and positions. Probe trials used a novel set of stimuli to test for the emergence of conceptual behavior. Although the wolves did not show an immediate transfer to novel stimuli following initial match-to-sample training, they did show improvement after explicit discrimination training. We discuss the implications of these results as well as future methods that may enhance experimental procedures investigating concept learning in canids.

Predictive saccades and decision making in the beetle-predating saffron robber fly

Internal predictions about the sensory consequences of self-motion, encoded by corollary discharge, are ubiquitous in the animal kingdom, including for fruit flies, dragonflies, and humans. In contrast, predicting the future location of an independently moving external target requires an internal model. With the use of internal models for predictive gaze control, vertebrate predatory species compensate for their sluggish visual systems and long sensorimotor latencies. This ability is crucial for the timely and accurate decisions that underpin a successful attack. Here, we directly demonstrate that the robber fly Laphria saffrana, a specialized beetle predator, also uses predictive gaze control when head tracking potential prey. Laphria uses this predictive ability to perform the difficult categorization and perceptual decision task of differentiating a beetle from other flying insects with a low spatial resolution retina. Specifically, we show that (1) this predictive behavior is part of a saccade-and-fixate strategy, (2) the relative target angular position and velocity, acquired during fixation, inform the subsequent predictive saccade, and (3) the predictive saccade provides Laphria with additional fixation time to sample the frequency of the prey's specular wing reflections. We also demonstrate that Laphria uses such wing reflections as a proxy for the wingbeat frequency of the potential prey and that consecutively flashing LEDs to produce apparent motion elicits attacks when the LED flicker frequency matches that of the beetle's wingbeat cycle.

Microglia morphotyping in the adult mouse CNS using hierarchical clustering on principal components reveals regional heterogeneity but no sexual dimorphism

Microglia are the resident macrophages of the central nervous system (CNS) and play a pivotal role in immune surveillance and CNS homeostasis. Morphological transitions in microglia are indicative for local changes in the CNS microenvironment and serve as a proxy for the detection of alterations in the CNS, both in health and disease. Current strategies to 'measure' microglia combine advanced morphometrics with clustering approaches to identify and categorize microglia morphologies. However, these studies are labor intensive and clustering approaches are often subject to relevant feature selection bias. Here, we provide a morphometrics pipeline with user-friendly computational tools for image segmentation, automated feature extraction and morphological categorization of microglia by means of hierarchical clustering on principal components (HCPC) without the need for feature inclusion criteria. With this pipeline we provide new and detailed insights in the distribution of microglia morphotypes across sixteen CNS regions along the rostro-caudal axis of the adult C57BL/6J mouse CNS. Although regional variations in microglia morphologies were evident, we found no evidence for male-female dimorphism at any CNS region investigated, indicating that - by and large - microglia in adult male and female mice are morphometrically indistinguishable. Taken together, our newly developed pipeline provides valuable tools for objective and unbiased identification and categorization of microglia morphotypes and can be applied to any CNS (disease) model.

Posterior Parietal Cortex Plays a Causal Role in Abstract Memory-Based Visual Categorical Decisions

Neural activity in the lateral intraparietal cortex (LIP) correlates with both sensory evaluation and motor planning underlying visuomotor decisions. We previously showed that LIP plays a causal role in visually-based perceptual and categorical decisions, and preferentially contributes to evaluating sensory stimuli over motor planning. In that study, however, monkeys reported their decisions with a saccade to a colored target associated with the correct motion category or direction. Since LIP is known to play a role in saccade planning, it remains unclear whether LIP's causal role in such decisions extend to decision-making tasks which do not involve saccades. Here, we employed reversible pharmacological inactivation of LIP neural activity while two male monkeys performed delayed match to category (DMC) and delayed match to sample (DMS) tasks. In both tasks, monkeys needed to maintain gaze fixation throughout the trial and report whether a test stimulus was a categorical match or nonmatch to the previous sample stimulus by releasing a touch bar. LIP inactivation impaired monkeys' behavioral performance in both tasks, with deficits in both accuracy and reaction time (RT). Furthermore, we recorded LIP neural activity in the DMC task targeting the same cortical locations as in the inactivation experiments. We found significant neural encoding of the sample category, which was correlated with monkeys' categorical decisions in the DMC task. Taken together, our results demonstrate that LIP plays a generalized role in visual categorical decisions independent of the task-structure and motor response modality.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Neural activity in the lateral intraparietal cortex (LIP) correlates with perceptual and categorical decisions, in addition to its role in mediating saccadic eye movements. Past work found that LIP is causally involved in visual decisions that are rapidly reported by saccades in a reaction time based decision making task. Here we use reversible inactivation of LIP to test whether LIP is also causally involved in visual decisions when reported by hand movements during delayed matching tasks. Here we show that LIP inactivation impaired monkeys' task performance during both memory-based discrimination and categorization tasks. These results demonstrate that LIP plays a generalized role in visual categorical decisions independent of the task-structure and motor response modality.

Categorical representation of abstract spatial magnitudes in the executive telencephalon of crows

The ability to group abstract continuous magnitudes into meaningful categories is cognitively demanding but key to intelligent behavior. To explore its neuronal mechanisms, we trained carrion crows to categorize lines of variable lengths into arbitrary "short" and "long" categories. Single-neuron activity in the nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) of behaving crows reflected the learned length categories of visual stimuli. The length categories could be reliably decoded from neuronal population activity to predict the crows' conceptual decisions. NCL activity changed with learning when a crow was retrained with the same stimuli assigned to more categories with new boundaries ("short", "medium," and "long"). Categorical neuronal representations emerged dynamically so that sensory length information at the beginning of the trial was transformed into behaviorally relevant categorical representations shortly before the crows' decision making. Our data show malleable categorization capabilities for abstract spatial magnitudes mediated by the flexible networks of the crow NCL.

Inferring the decision rules that drive co-foraging affiliations in wild mixed-species parrot groups

Animals gathered around a specific location or resource may represent mixed-species aggregations or mixed-species groups. Patterns of individuals choosing to join these groups can provide insight into the information processing underlying these decisions. However, we still have little understanding of how much information these decisions are based upon. We used data on 12 parrot species to test what kind of information each species may use about others to make decisions about which mixed-species aggregations to participate in. We used co-presence and joining patterns with categorization and model fitting methods to test how these species could be making grouping decisions. Species generally used a simpler lower-category method to choose which other individuals to associate with, rather than basing these decisions on species-level information. We also found that the best-fit models for decision-making differed across the 12 species and included different kinds of information. We found that not only does this approach provide a framework to test hypotheses about why individuals join or leave mixed-species aggregations, it also provides insight into what features each parrot could have been using to make their decisions. While not exhaustive, this approach provides a novel examination of the potential features that species could use to make grouping decisions and could provide a link to the perceptive and cognitive abilities of the animals making these minute-by-minute decisions. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mixed-species groups and aggregations: shaping ecological and behavioural patterns and processes'.

The role of familiarity with the experimenter on cognitive performance, metacognition, pro-social behaviors, and the well-being of adults with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities

BACKGROUND

Few studies have evaluated the explanatory factors of poor performance and the effects of context in adults with intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study is to assess the role of a familiar experimenter on their cognitive performance, well-being, metacognitive experiences, and social behaviors.

METHOD

Participants with moderate to severe intellectual disability were recruited into two groups, one with a familiar and one with an unfamiliar experimenter. They carried out a categorization task. Before and after they reported their metacognitive experiences and level of well-being. The experimenter observed their pro-social behavior.

RESULTS

Performance and some social behaviors were better when the participant knew the experimenter. However, he did not affect the level of well-being. The participants' metacognitive experiences were poor, whether or not they knew the experimenter.

CONCLUSIONS

The familiarity of the experimenter plays a determining role, both on the participants' performance, and on their compliance with certain pro-social behavior.

Sheltering difference: (un)doing the migrant/volunteer divide through sheltering practices in Mexico and the Netherlands

While acknowledging the important role of shelter organizations in protecting migrant rights, recent debates point to the thin line between care and control practices within shelters. This study seeks to deepen this observation by approaching shelters as spaces defined by a constant inward/outward mobility of people. From this starting point, we use the de-migranticization framework to understand and question the normalization of difference that divides migrant people (being reproduced as the typical guest) from international volunteers (being reproduced as the typical host) through sheltering practices in two rather different geopolitical contexts (Mexico and the Netherlands). We use our ethnographic insights to not only illustrate how difference is reproduced but also to analyze the practices that seek to transgress and undo these divides. We argue that highlighting the conviviality and interconnectedness between these differentiated actors in the broader context of cross-border mobility is of vital importance to question and overcome the coloniality of contemporary border regimes. However, we do not imply that these aspects have the potential to completely undo difference, as they are a constant struggle embedded in the relational practices of the people composing such a divide.

The pandemic not only increased depression and PTSD in college students, but also changed how they categorize emotions

Objective: In March 2020, the emergence of COVID-19 as a pandemic prompted large scale, social lockdowns internationally. Participants/Method: Here, we compared the mental health symptoms and social functioning of pre-pandemic college students collected during the Spring 2020 semester to those of a pandemic group collected during the Fall 2020 semester. Results: Results reveal that students assessed during the pandemic reported more severe symptoms of posttraumatic stress and depression, yet no difference in anxiety symptoms, relative to students assessed before the pandemic. Furthermore, students assessed during the pandemic conceptualized and categorized their emotions with significantly more neutral emotions and significantly fewer positive emotions, yet no difference in negative emotions, relative to students assessed before the pandemic. Despite these mental health effects, we found no difference between the two groups in self-reported social functioning. Conclusion: Overall, these results suggest young adults' mental health was significantly impacted by the pandemic, with the potential for long lasting effects.

No intrinsic number bias: Evaluating the role of perceptual discriminability in magnitude categorization

Accumulating evidence suggests that there is a spontaneous preference for numerical, compared to non-numerical (e.g., cumulative surface area), information. However, given a paucity of research on the perception of non-numerical magnitudes, it is unclear whether this preference reflects a specific bias towards number, or a general bias towards the more perceptually discriminable dimension (i.e., number). Here, we found that when the number and area of visual dot displays were matched in mathematical ratio, number was more perceptually discriminable than area in both adults and children. Moreover, both adults and children preferentially categorized these ratio-matched stimuli based on number, consistent with previous work. However, when number and area were matched in perceptual discriminability, a different pattern of results emerged. In particular, children preferentially categorized stimuli based on area, suggesting that children's previously observed number bias may be due to a mismatch in the perceptual discriminability of number and area, not an intrinsic salience of number. Interestingly, adults continued to categorize the displays on the basis of number. Altogether, these findings suggest a dominant role for area during childhood, refuting the claim that number is inherently and uniquely salient. Yet they also reveal an increased salience of number that emerges over development. Potential explanations for this developmental shift are discussed. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Previous work found that children and adults spontaneously categorized dot array stimuli by number, over other magnitudes (e.g., area), suggesting number is uniquely salient. However, here we found that when number and area were matched by ratio, as in prior work, number was significantly more perceptually discriminable than area. When number and area were made equally discriminable ('perceptually-matched'), children, contra adults, spontaneously categorized stimuli by area over number (and other non-numerical magnitudes). These findings suggest that area may be uniquely salient early in childhood, with the previously-observed number bias not emerging until later in development.

Intracerebral Electrophysiological Recordings to Understand the Neural Basis of Human Face Recognition

Understanding how the human brain recognizes faces is a primary scientific goal in cognitive neuroscience. Given the limitations of the monkey model of human face recognition, a key approach in this endeavor is the recording of electrophysiological activity with electrodes implanted inside the brain of human epileptic patients. However, this approach faces a number of challenges that must be overcome for meaningful scientific knowledge to emerge. Here we synthesize a 10 year research program combining the recording of intracerebral activity (StereoElectroEncephaloGraphy, SEEG) in the ventral occipito-temporal cortex (VOTC) of large samples of participants and fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS), to objectively define, quantify, and characterize the neural basis of human face recognition. These large-scale studies reconcile the wide distribution of neural face recognition activity with its (right) hemispheric and regional specialization and extend face-selectivity to anterior regions of the VOTC, including the ventral anterior temporal lobe (VATL) typically affected by magnetic susceptibility artifacts in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Clear spatial dissociations in category-selectivity between faces and other meaningful stimuli such as landmarks (houses, medial VOTC regions) or written words (left lateralized VOTC) are found, confirming and extending neuroimaging observations while supporting the validity of the clinical population tested to inform about normal brain function. The recognition of face identity - arguably the ultimate form of recognition for the human brain - beyond mere differences in physical features is essentially supported by selective populations of neurons in the right inferior occipital gyrus and the lateral portion of the middle and anterior fusiform gyrus. In addition, low-frequency and high-frequency broadband iEEG signals of face recognition appear to be largely concordant in the human association cortex. We conclude by outlining the challenges of this research program to understand the neural basis of human face recognition in the next 10 years.

A context-sensitive and non-linguistic approach to abstract concepts

Despite the recent upsurge in research on abstract concepts, there remain puzzles at the foundation of their empirical study. These are most evident when we consider what is required to assess a person's abstract conceptual abilities without using language as a prompt or requiring it as a response-as in classic non-verbal categorization tasks, which are standardly considered tests of conceptual understanding. After distinguishing two divergent strands in the most common conception of what it is for a concept to be abstract, we argue that neither reliably captures the kind of abstraction required to successfully categorize in non-verbal tasks. We then present a new conception of concept abstractness-termed 'trial concreteness'-that is keyed to individual categorization trials. It has advantages in capturing the context-relativity of the degree of abstraction required for the application of a concept and fittingly correlates with participant success in recent experiments. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences'.

Editorial concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences

This theme issue aims to view the literature on concepts through a novel lens, that of social interaction and its influence on inner experiences. It discusses unsolved problems in literature on concepts, emphasizing the distinction between concrete versus abstract concepts and external versus internal grounding. This introductory article reflects the two research streams that the theme aims to bridge-in this area, the dimension of embodied interaction with others and how this influences the interaction with ourselves is still underexplored. In the first part, we discuss recent trends in social cognition, showing how interacting with others influences our concepts. In the second part, we address how social interactions become part of our inner world in a Vygotskian fashion. First, we illustrate how interoception, emotion and metacognition are connected with concepts and knowledge. Second, we deal with how language, in both its outer and inner form, can empower cognition and concepts. We also briefly describe how novel experimental and computational methods contribute to investigating the online use of concepts. Overall, this introductory article outlines the potentialities of an integrated and interactive approach that can give new, fresh life to a topic, that of concepts, which lies at the root of human cognition. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences'.

Everybody hurts (sometimes): The role of victim category accessibility in prosocial responses towards victimized outgroups

Collective victimization can lead to competitiveness and reduced willingness to act on behalf of other victimized groups, but in some cases increases prosocial responses. We propose the concept of victim category accessibility (VCA) as one explanation for different reactions to victimization. Assuming that 'victims' is one among many categories into which individuals classify themselves and others, high VCA should increase the common categorization of ingroup and outgroup members as victims and increase prosocial responses towards victimized outgroups. Conversely, low VCA should increase the difficulty of identifying commonalities between ingroup and outgroup victims and reduce prosocial responses. In three studies, we develop a novel measure of VCA based on the Indirect Category Accessibility Task and demonstrate its association with willingness to act on behalf of victimized outgroups, but not ingroup members, beyond self-reported beliefs about victimization. The findings suggest a key role for VCA in understanding prosocial responses towards victimized outgroups.

Speech as a Biomarker for Depression

BACKGROUND

Depression is a debilitating disorder that at present lacks a reliable biomarker to aid in diagnosis and early detection. Recent advances in computational analytic approaches have opened up new avenues in developing such a biomarker by taking advantage of the wealth of information that can be extracted from a person's speech.

OBJECTIVE

The current review provides an overview of the latest findings in the rapidly evolving field of computational language analysis for the detection of depression. We cover a wide range of both acoustic and content-related linguistic features, data types (i.e., spoken and written language), and data sources (i.e., lab settings, social media, and smartphone-based). We put special focus on the current methodological advances with regard to feature extraction and computational modeling techniques. Furthermore, we pay attention to potential hurdles in the implementation of automatic speech analysis.

CONCLUSION

Depressive speech is characterized by several anomalies, such as lower speech rate, less pitch variability and more self-referential speech. With current computational modeling techniques, such features can be used to detect depression with an accuracy of up to 91%. The performance of the models is optimized when machine learning techniques are implemented that suit the type and amount of data. Recent studies now work towards further optimization and generalizability of the computational language models to detect depression. Finally, privacy and ethical issues are of paramount importance to be addressed when automatic speech analysis techniques are further implemented in, for example, smartphones. Altogether, computational speech analysis is well underway towards becoming an effective diagnostic aid for depression.

Degrees of algorithmic equivalence between the brain and its DNN models

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have become powerful and increasingly ubiquitous tools to model human cognition, and often produce similar behaviors. For example, with their hierarchical, brain-inspired organization of computations, DNNs apparently categorize real-world images in the same way as humans do. Does this imply that their categorization algorithms are also similar? We have framed the question with three embedded degrees that progressively constrain algorithmic similarity evaluations: equivalence of (i) behavioral/brain responses, which is current practice, (ii) the stimulus features that are processed to produce these outcomes, which is more constraining, and (iii) the algorithms that process these shared features, the ultimate goal. To improve DNNs as models of cognition, we develop for each degree an increasingly constrained benchmark that specifies the epistemological conditions for the considered equivalence.

Abstract Encoding of Categorical Decisions in Medial Superior Temporal and Lateral Intraparietal Cortices

Categorization is an essential cognitive and perceptual process for decision-making and recognition. The posterior parietal cortex, particularly the lateral intraparietal (LIP) area has been suggested to transform visual feature encoding into abstract categorical representations. By contrast, areas closer to sensory input, such as the middle temporal (MT) area, encode stimulus features but not more abstract categorical information during categorization tasks. Here, we compare the contributions of the medial superior temporal (MST) and LIP areas in category computation by recording neuronal activity in both areas from two male rhesus macaques trained to perform a visual motion categorization task. MST is a core motion-processing region interconnected with MT and is often considered an intermediate processing stage between MT and LIP. We show that MST exhibits robust decision-correlated motion category encoding and working memory encoding similar to LIP, suggesting that MST plays a substantial role in cognitive computation, extending beyond its widely recognized role in visual motion processing.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Categorization requires assigning incoming sensory stimuli into behaviorally relevant groups. Previous work found that parietal area LIP shows a strong encoding of the learned category membership of visual motion stimuli, while visual area MT shows strong direction tuning but not category tuning during a motion direction categorization task. Here we show that the medial superior temporal (MST) area, a visual motion-processing region interconnected with both LIP and MT, shows strong visual category encoding similar to that observed in LIP. This suggests that MST plays a greater role in abstract cognitive functions, extending beyond its well known role in visual motion processing.

Frequency tagging with infants: The visual oddball paradigm

Combining frequency tagging with electroencephalography (EEG) provides excellent opportunities for developmental research and is increasingly employed as a powerful tool in cognitive neuroscience within the last decade. In particular, the visual oddball paradigm has been employed to elucidate face and object categorization and intermodal influences on visual perception. Still, EEG research with infants poses special challenges that require consideration and adaptations of analyses. These challenges include limits to attentional capacity, variation in looking times, and presence of artefacts in the EEG signal. Moreover, potential differences between age-groups must be carefully evaluated. This manuscript evaluates challenges theoretically and empirically by (1) a systematic review of frequency tagging studies employing the oddball paradigm and (2) combining and re-analyzing data from seven-month-old infants (N = 124, 59 females) collected in a categorization task with artifical, unfamiliar stimuli. Specifically, different criteria for sequence retention and selection of harmonics, the influence of bins considered for baseline correction and the relation between fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS) responses and looking time are analyzed. Overall, evidence indicates that analysis decisions should be tailored based on age-group to optimally capture the observed signal. Recommendations for infant frequency tagging studies are developed to aid researchers in selecting appropriate stimulation and analysis strategies in future work.

Characterization of Powder Cosmetics Based on Friction Dynamics

Frictional properties are one of the most important physical factors in the design of powder cosmetics. In this study, 21 powder cosmetics were applied to artificial skin, and their friction characteristics were evaluated using a sinusoidal motion friction evaluation system. Three friction profiles were observed that depended on the sliding velocity. Principal component analysis showed that the principal component (Z), which characterized the friction dynamics of powder cosmetics, included the static friction coefficient (μ _s), the kinetic friction coefficient (μ _k), the delay time (δ), and the viscosity coefficient (C). Furthermore, a cluster analysis on Z suggested that powder cosmetics can be classified into three groups according to their friction dynamics. These results may be helpful to understand the phenomena that occur during the application of powder cosmetics.