Sleep deprivation effects on object discrimination task in zebrafish (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Danio rerio</Emphasis>)

The zebrafish is an ideal vertebrate model for neurobehavioral studies with translational relevance to humans. Many aspects of sleep have been studied, but we still do not understand how and why sleep deprivation alters behavioral and physiological processes. A number of hypotheses suggest its role in memory consolidation. In this respect, the aim of this study was to analyze the effects of sleep deprivation on memory in zebrafish (Danio rerio), using an object discrimination paradigm. Four treatments were tested: control, partial sleep deprivation, total sleep deprivation by light pulses, and total sleep deprivation by extended light. The control group explored the new object more than the known object, indicating clear discrimination. The partially sleep-deprived group explored the new object more than the other object in the discrimination phase, suggesting a certain degree of discriminative performance. By contrast, both total sleep deprivation groups equally explored all objects, regardless of their novelty. It seems that only one night of sleep deprivation is enough to affect discriminative response in zebrafish, indicating its negative impact on cognitive processes. We suggest that this study could be a useful screening tool for cognitive dysfunction and a better understanding of the effect of sleep-wake cycles on cognition.     

Music to my eyes: cross-modal interactions in the perception of emotions in musical performance

We investigate non-verbal communication through expressive body movement and musical sound, to reveal higher cognitive processes involved in the integration of emotion from multiple sensory modalities. Participants heard, saw, or both heard and saw recordings of a Stravinsky solo clarinet piece, performed with three distinct expressive styles: restrained, standard, and exaggerated intention. Participants used a 5-point Likert scale to rate each performance on 19 different emotional qualities. The data analysis revealed that variations in expressive intention had their greatest impact when the performances could be seen; the ratings from participants who could only hear the performances were the same across the three expressive styles. Evidence was also found for an interaction effect leading to an emergent property, intensity of positive emotion, when participants both heard and saw the musical performances. An exploratory factor analysis revealed orthogonal dimensions for positive and negative emotions, which may account for the subjective experience that many listeners report of having multi-valent or complex reactions to music, such as “bittersweet.”     

Adaptation of Marketing Activities to Cultural and Social Context: Gender Role Portrayals and Sexism in Spanish Commercials

This study was designed to examine the portrayal of men and women in a sample of 370 Spanish television commercials. The general objective was to compare and contrast the plurality and similarities between men and women as regards both gender role portrayals and sexism levels and also product stereotyping as the association of certain kinds of products with gender. In addition, we examined the type of social relationship held by the main actor/actress in the commercial. Applying content analysis methodology, the results highlight a feminine culture and a social reality moving steadily toward gender equality and complementariness between genders, albeit still within the framework of the traditional family model, which characterizes women as homemakers and mothers. Impact of Cultural and Social Reality on Marketing Activities: Gender Role Portrayals and Sexism in Spanish Commercials.     

ACCULTURATION INDICES AS A MEANS OF CONFIRMING CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

The acculturation of subjects from culture A to culture B can take three forms: the more acculturated subjects may make responses that are similar to the responses made by subjects from culture B (accommodation), they may go beyond B's position (overshooting), and they may move in the opposite direction from the position of the members of culture B (ethnic affirmation). The paper presents three sets of data concerning elements of subjective culture (role perceptions, behavioral intentions, and stereotypes), with subjects speaking Spanish and residing in the U.S. who are at three levels of acculturation. The data show that role perceptions and behavioral intentions are characterized mostly by accommodation, while stereotypes are characterized mostly by ethnic affirmation. A theoretical explanation of this pattern of results is that elements of subjective culture are linked to overt behavior both directly and indirectly. As members of culture A acculturate to culture B, their behavior becomes similar to the behavior of members of culture B. Those elements of subjective culture that are directly linked with this behavior change; however, those elements that are not directly linked do not change or even show ethnic affirmation. Testing of this theoretical formulation will require additional research. L'acculturation de sujets d'une culture A à une culture B peut prendre trois formes: Les sujets les plus acculturés peuvent donner des réponses qui sont semblables aux réponses données par des sujets de la culture B (accommodation), ils peuvent aller au-delà de la position de la culture B (surpassement) et ils peuvent aller dans une direction opposée de celle des membres de la culture B (affirmation ethnique). Cet article présente trois groupes de données qui concernent des éléments de culture subjective (perception des rôles, intentions comportementales et stéréotypes), avec des sujets hispanophones résidant aux Etats-Unis et des trois niveaux d'acculturation. Les données montrent que les perceptions de rôle et les intentions comportementales sont caractérisées surtout par l'accommodation tandis que les stéréotypes sont caractérisées surtout par l'affirmation ethnique. Une explication possible de ces résultats est que des éléments de culture subjective sont liés directement et indirectement au comportement ouvert. Le comportement de membres d'une culture A acculturés à une culture B devient similaire au comportement des membres de cette culture B. Les éléments de culture subjective qui sont directement liés à ce comportement changent; cependant les éléments qui ne lui sont pas liés restent inchangés ou présentent měme une affirmation ethnique. Des recherches supplémentaires seront nécessaires pour tester cette formulation théorique.     

Transgenic mice expressing a truncated form of CREB-binding protein (CBP) exhibit deficits in hippocampal synaptic plasticity and memory storage

Deletions, translocations, or point mutations in the CREB-binding protein (CBP) gene have been associated with Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome; a human developmental disorder characterized by retarded growth and reduced mental function. To examine the role of CBP in memory, transgenic mice were generated in which the CaMKII alpha promoter drives expression of an inhibitory truncated CBP protein in forebrain neurons. Examination of hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP), a form of synaptic plasticity thought to underlie memory storage, revealed significantly reduced late-phase LTP induced by dopamine-regulated potentiation in hippocampal slices from CBP transgenic mice. However, four-train induced late-phase LTP is normal. Behaviorally, CBP transgenic mice exhibited memory deficits in spatial learning in the Morris water maze and deficits in long-term memory for contextual fear conditioning, two hippocampus-dependent tasks. Together, these results demonstrate that CBP is involved in specific forms of hippocampal synaptic plasticity and hippocampus-dependent long-term memory formation.     

Cross-modal interactions in the perception of musical performance

We investigate the dynamics of sensory integration for perceiving musical performance, a complex natural behavior. Thirty musically trained participants saw, heard, or both saw and heard, performances by two clarinetists. All participants used a sliding potentiometer to make continuous judgments of tension (a measure correlated with emotional response) and continuous judgments of phrasing (a measure correlated with perceived musical structure) as performances were presented. The data analysis sought to reveal relations between the sensory modalities (vision and audition) and to quantify the effect of seeing the performances on participants' overall subjective experience of the music. In addition to traditional statistics, functional data analysis techniques were employed to analyze time-varying aspects of the data. The auditory and visual channels were found to convey similar experiences of phrasing but different experiences of tension through much of the performances. We found that visual information served both to augment and to reduce the experience of tension at different points in the musical piece (as revealed by functional linear modeling and functional significance testing). In addition, the musicians' movements served to extend the sense of phrasing, to cue the beginning of new phrases, to indicate musical interpretation, and to anticipate changes in emotional content. Evidence for an interaction effect suggests that there may exist an emergent quality when musical performances are both seen and heard. The investigation augments knowledge of human communicative processes spanning language and music, and involving multiple modalities of emotion and information transfer.