Gestures speed up responses to questions.

Most language use occurs in face-to-face conversation, which involves rapid turn-taking. Seeing communicative bodily signals in addition to hearing speech may facilitate such fast responding. We tested whether this holds for co-speech hand gestures by investigating whether these gestures speed up button press responses to questions.

Visual bodily signals and conversational context benefit the anticipation of turn ends.

The typical pattern of alternating turns in conversation seems trivial at first sight. But a closer look quickly reveals the cognitive challenges involved, with much of it resulting from the fast-paced nature of conversation. One core ingredient to turn coordination is the anticipation of upcoming turn ends so as to be able to ready oneself for providing the next contribution.

Hand Gestures Have Predictive Potential During Conversation: An Investigation of the Timing of Gestures in Relation to Speech.

During face-to-face conversation, transitions between speaker turns are incredibly fast. These fast turn exchanges seem to involve next speakers predicting upcoming semantic information, such that next turn planning can begin before a current turn is complete. Given that face-to-face conversation also involves the use of communicative bodily signals, an important question is how bodily signals such as co-speech hand gestures play into these processes of prediction and fast responding.

Dissolved organic matter enhances transport of PAHs to aquatic organisms.

In this study, the uptake of pyrene and benzo[b]fluoranthene by an aquatic worm (Lumbriculus variegatus) and a poly(dimethylsiloxane) coated glass fiber was studied at different humic acid concentrations. The accumulation of pyrene was not affected by the presence of the humic matrix. However, the accumulation rate of benzo[b]fluoranthene increased a factor of 3 for the fiber and a factor of 4 when 55 mg L(-1) dissolved organic carbon was added in the form of humic acid.

Functional differences between two Fc receptor ITAM signaling motifs.

Most Ig receptors exist as multi-subunit complexes with a unique ligand binding alpha chain and a common signaling FcR gamma-chain. The myeloid Fc gamma RIIa (CD32) appears unique among FcR because both ligand-binding and signaling capacity are found in the alpha chain. Within the cytoplasmic tails of Fc gamma RIIa and FcR gamma-chain similar, but not identical, activatory motifs (ITAMs) have been defined, in which tyrosines play an important role.