Gender-specific associations of depression and anxiety symptoms with mental rotation.

Background: Men score higher on mental rotation tasks compared to women and suffer from depression and anxiety at half the rate of women. The objective of this study was to confirm the gender-specific effects of depression and anxiety on mental rotation performance.

Methods: We collected data in non-experimental conditions from 325 university students at three universities.

Behavior modulation of rats to a robotic rat in multi-rat interaction.

In this paper, we study the behavioral response of rats to a robotic rat during multi-rat interaction. Experiments are conducted in an open-field where a robotic rat called WR-5 is put together with three laboratory rats. WR-5 is following one rat (target), while avoiding the other two rats (outside observers) during interaction.

Modulation of rat behaviour by using a rat-like robot.

In this paper, we study the response of a rat to a rat-like robot capable of generating different types of behaviour (stressful, friendly, neutral). Experiments are conducted in an open-field where a rat-like robot called WR-4 is put together with live rats. The activity level of each rat subject is evaluated by scoring its locomotor activity and frequencies of performing rearing (rising up on its hind limbs) and body grooming (body cuddling and head curling) actions, whereas the degree of preference of that is indicated by the robot-rat distance and the frequency of contacting WR-4.