The effect of information integration on team communication in a simulated submarine control room task.

Submarine control rooms are characterised by dedicated individual roles for information types (e.g. Sonar operator processes sound energy), with individuals verbally reporting the information that they receive to other team members to help resolve uncertainty in the operational environment (low information integration).

Examination of a Novel Intervention Strategy to Promote Sunscreen Use: A Feasibility Study.

Objective: Skin cancer remains prevalent despite numerous studies reporting the benefits of sunscreen for reducing risk of skin cancer and sunburn. While the risks of not wearing sunscreen are well-documented, there are no effective interventions to promote sunscreen use across populations, and existing interventions have modest outcomes. The current study investigated a novel intervention to increase sunscreen use.

Joint contributions of preview and task instructions on visual search strategy selection.

People tend to employ suboptimal attention control strategies during visual search. Here we question why people are suboptimal, specifically investigating how knowledge of the optimal strategies and the time available to apply such strategies affect strategy use. We used the Adaptive Choice Visual Search (ACVS), a task designed to assess attentional control optimality.

Examination of the effects of cannabidiol on menstrual-related symptoms.

Some individuals attempt to alleviate menstrual-related symptoms (MRS) by using cannabis and report having expectations that cannabis can improve MRS; however, no study has examined the effect of cannabinoids on MRS. The present study is a pre-post, randomized, open-label trial that aimed to examine the effects of oral cannabidiol (CBD) isolate for alleviating MRS. Participants were assigned randomly to one of two open-label dosing groups of CBD softgels (160 mg twice a day, BID, = 17; 320 mg BID, = 16) and completed a 1-month baseline period.

Initial Validity Evidence for a Measure of Transactional Sex in a U.S. College Student Sample.

The current study provides initial validity evidence for a measure of Transactional Sex (TS). Participants ( = 269) were recruited from a Northeastern University in the United States and consisted of undergraduate and graduate students. Participants completed an online survey through QuestionPro that contained the Transactional Sex Measure (TSM) as well as measures of depression, anxiety, and stress, condom use negotiation self-efficacy and sexual risk, alcohol and drug use, and materialism.

A preliminary investigation of the simultaneous effects of cannabidiol and caffeine.

Caffeine and cannabidiol (CBD) are commonly consumed by the general population, particularly among young adults; however, there is little research on the simultaneous effects of caffeine and CBD. The present study aimed to examine the simultaneous self-reported effects of caffeine and CBD in young healthy adults. Participants ( = 54) who reported daily caffeine use (> 200 mg) attended one experimental session via Zoom and were assigned randomly to receive caffeine (200 mg) combined with either a placebo or CBD (25, 50, 80, 160, or 240 mg).

Sharing imagery and analysis tools in a simulated submarine control room.

We examined the impact of sharing periscope imagery and analysis tools in eighteen five-member teams (Sonar, Periscope, 2xTrack Motion Analysts, Track Manager) who undertook simulated submarine patrol tasks. Compared to a baseline condition, sharing imagery to team members increased perceived individual workload, with no improvement to team performance (tactical picture accuracy). When both imagery and analysis tools were shared, perceived workload increased and tactical picture compilation was more accurate.

Neural and cognitive correlates of performance in dynamic multi-modal settings.

The endeavour to understand human cognition has largely relied upon investigation of task-related brain activity. However, resting-state brain activity can also offer insights into individual information processing and performance capabilities. Previous research has identified electroencephalographic resting-state characteristics (most prominently: the individual alpha frequency; IAF) that predict cognitive function.

A Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Test of the Effects of Cannabidiol on Experiences of Test Anxiety Among College Students.

Oral administration of cannabidiol (CBD) has shown to yield a variety of therapeutic benefits among humans, particularly regarding symptoms of anxiety. This study tested single oral administration doses of CBD (150, 300, or 600 mg), compared to placebo, for reducing test anxiety (TA) in a researcher-derived experimental analog. Our sample included 32 healthy college students who self-reported moderate-to-severe levels of TA.

The Cysteine Desulfurase IscS Is a Significant Target of 2-Aminoacrylate Damage in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa encodes eight members of the Rid protein superfamily. PA5339, a member of the RidA subfamily, is required for full growth and motility of P. aeruginosa.

Assessing the generality of strategy optimization across distinct attentional tasks.

Individuals vary substantially in the degree to which they optimize their performance in attentional tasks. How do such individual markers of attentional strategy relate across different tasks? Previous research has failed to observe significant correlations in strategy optimization between distinct visual search tasks (Clarke et al., 2022); suggesting that strategy optimization is not unitary, or determined by a single trait variable.

The Impact of Information Integration in a Simulation of Future Submarine Command and Control.

Objective: Examine the extent to which increasing information integration across displays in a simulated submarine command and control room can reduce operator workload, improve operator situation awareness, and improve team performance.

Background: In control rooms, the volume and number of sources of information are increasing, with the potential to overwhelm operator cognitive capacity. It is proposed that by distributing information to maximize relevance to each operator role (increasing information integration), it is possible to not only reduce operator workload but also improve situation awareness and team performance.

An investigation of the reinforcing value of video game playing relative to concurrently available monetary alternatives.

Objective: Video game playing (VGP) has received recent attention as a result of sharing many similarities with other addictive behaviors. Behavioral economic models are commonly used to understand drug use and other addictive behaviors and may similarly inform conceptual models of VGP.

Method: The present study employed behavioral economic principles to conceptualize relative reinforcing value for playing video games compared to concurrently available alternative potential monetary reinforcers.

RidA Proteins Protect against Metabolic Damage by Reactive Intermediates.

The Rid (YjgF/YER057c/UK114) protein superfamily was first defined by sequence homology with available protein sequences from bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes (L. Parsons, N. Bonander, E.

Stable individual differences in strategies within, but not between, visual search tasks.

A striking range of individual differences has recently been reported in three different visual search tasks. These differences in performance can be attributed to strategy, that is, the efficiency with which participants control their search to complete the task quickly and accurately. Here, we ask whether an individual's strategy and performance in one search task is correlated with how they perform in the other two.

Putative Horizontally Acquired Genes, Highly Transcribed during Yersinia pestis Flea Infection, Are Induced by Hyperosmotic Stress and Function in Aromatic Amino Acid Metabolism.

While alternating between insects and mammals during its life cycle, , the flea-transmitted bacterium that causes plague, regulates its gene expression appropriately to adapt to these two physiologically disparate host environments. In fleas competent to transmit , low-GC-content genes , and are highly transcribed, suggesting that these genes have a highly prioritized role in flea infection. Here, we demonstrate that , and are transcribed as part of a single polycistronic mRNA comprising the , , and genes.

Cj1388 Is a RidA Homolog and Is Required for Flagella Biosynthesis and/or Function in .

is the leading bacterial cause of acute gastroenteritis worldwide and thus significant to public health. primarily lives in the gastrointestinal tracts of poultry and can contaminate meat during processing. Despite a small genome, the metabolic plasticity of allows proliferation in chicken ceca and mammalian host intestines, and survival in environments with a variety of temperatures, pH, osmotic conditions, and nutrient availabilities.

A methodological toolbox for investigating attentional strategy.

Strategy is a crucial determinant for how attention is controlled. In recent years, researchers have deployed a growing variety of manipulations and dependent measures in service of understanding strategy. This work has revealed a striking degree of diversity and suboptimality in the use of attention, and it prompts the realization that more research on strategy is needed in order to fully understand and explain how attention works.

The Effects of Alcohol Priming on the Subsequent Value of Alcohol.

Objective: Previous research has investigated the effects of substance priming (i.e., substance exposure or preload) on the subsequent value of alcohol.

Caricaturing can improve facial expression recognition in low-resolution images and age-related macular degeneration.

Previous studies of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) report impaired facial expression recognition even with enlarged face images. Here, we test potential benefits of caricaturing (exaggerating how the expression's shape differs from neutral) as an image enhancement procedure targeted at mid- to high-level cortical vision. Experiment 1 provides proof-of-concept using normal vision observers shown blurred images as a partial simulation of AMD.

Taking stock: The role of environmental appraisal in the strategic use of attentional control.

There are many strategies we can use to control attention when approaching a visual search task, but some are more effective than others. How do we choose the most optimal strategy? We have proposed that individuals must appraise the stimulus environment, taking in relevant statistical information about task-relevant features. In the present experiments, we examined whether interfering with the appraisal process via a secondary task decreases participants' use of the optimal strategy.

Caricaturing as a general method to improve poor face recognition: Evidence from low-resolution images, other-race faces, and older adults.

There are multiple well-established situations in which humans' face recognition performance is poor, including for low-resolution images, other-race faces, and in older adult observers. Here we show that caricaturing faces-that is, exaggerating their appearance away from an average face-can provide a useful applied method for improving face recognition across all these circumstances. We employ a face-name learning task offering a number of methodological advantages (e.

PA5339, a RidA Homolog, Is Required for Full Growth in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

The Rid protein superfamily (YjgF/YER057c/UK114) is found in all domains of life. The archetypal protein, RidA from , is a deaminase that quenches the reactive metabolite 2-aminoacrylate (2AA). 2AA deaminase activity is conserved in RidA proteins from humans, plants, yeast, archaea, and bacteria.

Characterizing individual variation in the strategic use of attentional control.

Goal-directed attentional control can substanially aid visual search, but only if it is recruited in an effective manner. Previously we found that strategies chosen to control attention vary considerably across individuals, and we proposed that effort avoidance may lead some individuals to choose suboptimal strategies. Here we present a more thorough analysis of individual differences in attentional control strategies.