Search results for "Alien"
showing 10 items of 553 documents
Invasion of Finnish inland waters by the alien moss animal Pectinatella magnifica Leidy, 1851 and associated potential risks
2018
Introduced alien species bring potential adverse impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functions. International shipping is an important vector for such unintentional introductions in aquatic environments. Therefore, in addition to climate change and eutrophication, increasing international shipping may enhance the spread of alien species into areas which have not previously been considered prone to alien invasions. One example of such development might be the recent invasion of the moss animal Pectinatella magnifica into Finnish inland waters, which are generally considered to be hostile to alien species. We took advantage of observations made by the general public and recorded by environm…
Cortical Recruitment Determines Learning Dynamics and Strategy
2018
AbstractSalience is a broad and widely used concept in neuroscience whose neuronal correlates, however, remain elusive. In behavioral conditioning, salience is used to explain various effects, such as stimulus overshadowing, and refers to how fast and strongly a stimulus can be associated with a conditioned event. Here, we show that sounds of diverse quality, but equal intensity and perceptual detectability, can recruit different levels of population activity in mouse auditory cortex. When using these sounds as cues in a Go/NoGo discrimination task, the degree of cortical recruitment matches the salience parameter of a reinforcement learning model used to analyze learning speed. We test an …
Did you hear? Auditory prospective memory cues are more beneficial for autistic than for non-autistic children and adolescents
2021
Item does not contain fulltext Background: The transition from primary to secondary school is particularly difficult for autistic children, a transition underpinned by an increase in prospective memory (PM) demands. Aims: To better understand PM in autistic children of the relevant age range and its underlying processes, the current study investigated the impact of cue salience (distinctiveness) on PM in autistic and non-autistic children and adolescents. The study was unique in manipulating the visual and auditory salience of PM cues. Salient cues are assumed to put lower demands on executive control resources as compared to cues that blend in with the ongoing activity. Methods and procedu…
The Causal Influence of Life Meaning on Weight and Shape Concerns in Women at Risk for Developing an Eating Disorder
2021
Background: Although previous studies have shown an inverse relation between life meaning and eating disorder symptoms, the correlational nature of this evidence precludes causal inferences. Therefore, this study used an experimental approach to test the causal impact of life meaning on individuals' weight and shape concerns.Methods: Female students at risk for developing an eating disorder (N = 128) were randomly assigned to the control or the meaning condition, which involved thinking about and committing to pursue intrinsically valued life goals. A color-naming interference task was used to assess the motivational salience of body-related stimuli, and self-report measures were used to as…
Le Dictionnaire de l’Académie française source des dictionnaires bilingues franco-italiens de 1871 à nos jours
2017
L'articolo si propone di sondare l'influenza del Dictionnaire de l'Académie française sulla lessicografia bilingue franco-italiana in un arco cronologico compreso tra il 1871 e il 2000. In particolare, si passano in rassegna le prefazioni dei principali dizionari bilingui pubblicati nel periodo considerato, al fine di valutare se il Dictionnaire de l'Académie venga citato tra le fonti e qual uso il lessicografo intenda farne. The article aims to explore the influence of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française on French-Italian bilingual lexicography in a chronological arc between 1871 and 2000. In particular, the prefaces of the main bilingual dictionaries published in the period considere…
Gap perception in bumblebees
2018
ABSTRACT A number of insects fly over long distances below the natural canopy, where the physical environment is highly cluttered consisting of obstacles of varying shape, size and texture. While navigating within such environments, animals need to perceive and disambiguate environmental features that might obstruct their flight. The most elemental aspect of aerial navigation through such environments is gap identification and ‘passability’ evaluation. We used bumblebees to seek insights into the mechanisms used for gap identification when confronted with an obstacle in their flight path and behavioral compensations employed to assess gap properties. Initially, bumblebee foragers were train…
Fremmede arter i Norge: resultater fra kvantitative økologiske risikovurderinger
2020
1. Due to globalisation, trade and transport, the spread of alien species is increasing dramatically. Some alien species become ecologically harmful by threatening native biota. This can lead to irreversible changes in local biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and, ultimately, to biotic homogenisation. 2. We risk-assessed all alien plants, animals, fungi and algae, within certain delimitations, that are known to reproduce in Norway. Mainland Norway and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard plus Jan Mayen were treated as separate assessment areas. Assessments followed the Generic Ecological Impact Assessment of Alien Species (GEIAA) protocol, which uses a fully quantitative set of criteria.…
Power and language in a multicultural workplace
2015
Today’s work markets are increasingly shaped by the multilingual reality. The present research offers an intercultural communication perspective on language diversity and power relations at modern work environment. Study investigates how young professionals and their foreign colleagues perceive diversity affecting in their communicative behaviours in culturally heterogeneous workplace. Analysis of data from participants has been conducted through an analysis of open ended self‐report questionnaire in a multinational company where English is used daily as a corporate language. In particular, results of present study indicate that more diverse language skills are attributed to perception of p…
Thinking of future as an older individual increases perceived risks for age‐related diseases but not for COVID‐19
2022
Actively thinking of one's future as an older individual could increase perceived risk and risk aversion. This could be particularly relevant for COVID-19, if we consider the common representation of the risk of being infected by COVID-19 as associated with being older. Increased perceived risk could bear consequences on the adoption of preventive behaviours. Thus, we investigated whether increasing the salience of individuals' future as an older adult would impact on their perceived risk for COVID-19 and medical conditions varying for age-relatedness. One hundred and forty-four Italian adults (Mage = 27.72, range: 18–56) were randomly assigned to either a future as older adult thinking or …
Can colours be used to segment words when reading?
2015
Rayner, Fischer, and Pollatsek (1998, Vision Research) demonstrated that reading unspaced text in Indo-European languages produces a substantial reading cost in word identification (as deduced from an increased word-frequency effect on target words embedded in the unspaced vs. spaced sentences) and in eye movement guidance (as deduced from landing sites closer to the beginning of the words in unspaced sentences). However, the addition of spaces between words comes with a cost: nearby words may fall outside high-acuity central vision, thus reducing the potential benefits of parafoveal processing. In the present experiment, we introduced a salient visual cue intended to facilitate the process…