Sedentary antlion larvae (Neuroptera: Myrmeleontidae) use vibrational cues to modify their foraging strategies

Learning abilities are exhibited by many animals, including insects. However, sedentary species are typically believed to have low capacities and requirements for learning. Despite this view, recent studies show that even such inconspicuous organisms as larval antlions, which employ an ambush predation strategy, are capable of learning, although their learning abilities are rather simple, i.e., limited to the association of vibrational cues with the arrival of prey. This study demonstrates, for the first time, that antlion larvae can use vibrational cues for complex modifications of their foraging strategies. Specifically, antlion larvae rapidly learn to differentiate between the vibrational cues associated with prey of different sizes, and they save resources by ignoring smaller prey in favour of larger, more energetically profitable prey. Moreover, antlion larvae can learn to associate vibrational cues with the loss of their prey, and they respond by burying their victims under the sand more often and more rapidly than do individuals with no opportunities to form such associations. These findings provide not only new insights into the cognitive abilities of animals but also support for the optimal foraging strategy concept, suggesting the importance of maximizing fitness output by balancing the costs and benefits of alternative foraging strategies.     

The effect of imperfect memory recall on risk preferences

People often take on different levels of risk when deciding on future actions compared with when they take actions with immediate consequences. The presently reported research investigated how imperfect recall of previously chosen options influences temporal fluctuations in risk preferences. In two incentivized studies with a waiting time before decision resolution (a 4-week waiting period from an initial decision), we observed that errors in the recall of previous choices played a substantial role in constructing risk preferences for choices that are usually resolved after a delay. More specifically, in a first study, we found that after a waiting period (i.e., after participants waited for their risky choices to be resolved), participants perceived that they took less risk during their initial choices than they actually did. Importantly, when asked about whether they would change their initial choices, participants declared that they would take riskier choices. In a second study, we tested directly whether such a shift in initial choices could also be demonstrated behaviorally. Results revealed that after beliefs about past choices were induced, participants changed their risk preferences in line with the information presented during belief induction.     

Primary Progressive Aphasias and Their Contribution to the Contemporary Knowledge About the Brain-Language Relationship

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA), typically resulting from a neurodegenerative disease such as frontotemporal dementia/Pick Complex or Alzheimer’s disease, is a heterogeneous clinical condition characterized by a progressive loss of specific language functions with initial sparing of other cognitive domains. Based on the constellation of symptoms, PPA has been classified into a nonfluent, semantic, or logopenic variant. This review of the literature aims to characterize the speech and language impairment, cognition, neuroimaging, pathology, genetics, and epidemiology associated with each of these variants. Some therapeutic recommendations, theoretical implications, and directions for future research have been also provided.     

Distributive Full Lambek Calculus Has the Finite Model Property

We prove the Finite Model Property (FMP) for Distributive Full Lambek Calculus (DFL) whose algebraic semantics is the class of distributive residuated lattices (DRL). The problem was left open in [8, 5]. We use the method of nuclei and quasi–embedding in the style of [10, 1]. Presented by Daniele Mundici.     

Counting One’s Blessings Can Reduce the Impact of Daily Stress

Participants in the present study, adults living in the community, described their well-being and the stress they experienced each day for 2 weeks. Before completing these diaries each day, half of the participants described the things for which they felt grateful that day, and half completed the diaries without doing this. Multilevel modeling analyses found that daily feelings of gratitude were positively related to well-being at the within-person level, and lagged analyses suggested a causal link from well-being to gratitude. In addition, relationships between daily stress and daily well-being were weaker for people who had been asked to think about the things for which they were grateful than they were for those who had not been asked. These results suggest that counting one’s blessing can reduce the negative effects of daily stress, which in turn may have positive long-term effects on mental health.     

The chameleon effect,the temporal aspects of mimicry and their impact on service measurement

BackgroundIn an experiment conducted in a natural setting, we test the link between mimicry, the amount of time during which the mimicry behavior takes place, and its impact on service quality.MethodsCable TV clients (n = 120) were randomly assigned to six experimental conditions (2 mimicry conditions: verbal mimicry vs. no mimicry x 3 interaction time: 5 vs. 10 vs. 15 minutes). Perceived service quality served as the dependent measurement.ResultsA main effect of mimicry was found on service quality: a cable TV representative was perceived more favorably when he mimicked the customer. Importantly, it was shown that even small portions of mimicry are beneficial, meaning that practitioners do not have to mimic someone for a long time to achieve benefits.ConclusionThe paper shows new benefits for the mimicker: more positive judgments by the mimickee regarding the impact on several different levels of service quality.