Antipredator behavior of Swiss-Webster mice in a visible burrow system

Swiss-Webster mice living in a visible burrow system (VBS) reacted to presentation of a live cat in the surface area of the VBS by retreat to the burrows and reductions in nondefensive behaviors such as eating and drinking. Live eat-exposed subjects remained in the burrows 14 hr or more, while subjects exposed to a toy (plush) cat prior to live cat exposure reemerged almost immediately and made many contacts with the toy cat. However, subjects exposed first to the cat and later to a toy cat showed intermediate surface reemergence times and cat contacts during toy cat tests, indicating strong sensitization effects of prior live cat exposure. Previous studies indicated that rats in this situation show retreat to the burrows, surface avoidance, and reduction in nondefensive behaviors. The mouse pattern was similar, with the notable exception that in the first 5min block after cat presentation, mice rapidly alternated retreat to the burrow chambers with reappearance in the tunnel segment near the surface, to scan the surface visually and sniff. Movement during this time block involved a stretch attend posture characteristic also of risk assessment activities in rats. Such visual and olfactory inspection of the cat is not seen in rats in the VBS. This difference may be related to the finding that rats, but not mice, emit ultrasonic “alarm cries” during and after cat exposure. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Offensive and defensive bite-target topographies in attacks by lactating rats

The attacks by resident lactating Wistar rats on sexually naive conspecifics of both sexes were examined. Male and female intruders were equally attacked in terms of frequency and number of bites, but the topographies of biting seen in these encounters were different. Similarly to male-male agonistic interactions, females were attacked in a fashion which avoided bites to the head and snout (“offensive” attack), whereas males were frequently bitten on such vulnerable regions (“defensive” attack). This dichotomy in bite pattern suggests that different motivations and functions underlay maternal aggression in these situations. The defensive attack on males may be a deterrent to infanticide since only male intruders counterattack lactating females and kill their pups. The attack on females may be concerned with resource competition.     

Different patterns of biting attack employed by lactating female mice (Mus domesticus) in encounters with male and female conspecific intruders

Attacks by resident lactating female mice were examined in a variety of situations. Relatively few attack bites to vulnerable body regions were seen when pairs of unfamiliar lactating females fought, establishing social status prior to communal nesting. Sexually naive male and female intruders were equally prone to attack by lactating females, but patterns of bite attack generated by them were very different; males received the more damaging attacks. More signs of "fear" were seen in the lactating females' responses to male rather than female intruders. Varied motivations may underlie attacks by lactating females directed to conspecific intruders. Defensive patterns of biting by lactating females are more consistently directed towards males, intruders that are more likely to harm or destroy the litter. Although attacks by females rarely thwarted infanticide by male intruders, the behavior may acutely protect parental investment.     

Stereotypes in Persuasive Communication: Influence Exerted by a Disapproved Source

The present paper examines how someone's use of stereotypes can exert influence over others' judgments. In the 2 studies reported here, participants were presented with messages containing information provided by a source. In Study 1, the source was an in-group member. The messages were manipulated in a between-subjects design so that participants were either given stereotypical or counterstereotypical information. After being given a hint regarding the source's estimate, participants were asked to provide their own estimates about a number of points displayed on a computer screen. Results indicate that participants tended to use as an anchor the estimate provided by the source that made use of stereotypes. In Study 2, an out-group member provided participants with information that was either stereotypical or neutral. Again, results indicate that participants were influenced by the source making use of stereotypes.     

On the Concept of Psychological

The idea that certain mental phenomena (e.g. emotions, depression, anxiety) can represent risk factors for certain somatic diseases runs through common thinking on the subject and through a large part of biomedical science. This idea still lies at the focus of the research tradition in psychosomatic medicine and in certain interdisciplinary approaches that followed it, such as psychoneuroimmunology. Nevertheless, the inclusion in the scientific literature of specifically mental phenomena in the list of risk factors pertaining to a specific pathological condition would seem, to say the least, problematic when not completely absent, unlike what happens for certain behavioural factors, such as smoking, sedentary life, and alcohol abuse. It is also significant that insurance companies and health and welfare services do not pay for interventions and treatment for states of anxiety, disorders of mood and of the personality, alexithymia and stress reduction, as means of prevention or treatment of somatic diseases, as instead they do for the treatment of tobacco addiction. However, as I shall endeavour to argue here, there are numerous and well grounded reasons why this different consideration of psychic conditions compared with behaviours is valid and must be maintained in the evaluation of pathogenetic risk factors.     

Plant neurobiology: from sensory biology,via plant communication,to social plant behavior

In plants, numerous parameters of both biotic and abiotic environments are continuously monitored. Specialized cells are evolutionary-optimized for effective translation of sensory input into developmental and motoric output. Importantly, diverse physical forces, influences, and insults induce immediate electric responses in plants. Recent advances in plant cell biology, molecular biology, and sensory ecology will be discussed in the framework of recently initiated new discipline of plant sciences, namely plant neurobiology.     

A Temporal Semantics for Basic Logic

In the context of truth-functional propositional many-valued logics, Hájek’s Basic Fuzzy Logic BL [14] plays a major rôle. The completeness theorem proved in [7] shows that BL is the logic of all continuous t-norms and their residua. This result, however, does not directly yield any meaningful interpretation of the truth values in BL per se. In an attempt to address this issue, in this paper we introduce a complete temporal semantics for BL. Specifically, we show that BL formulas can be interpreted as modal formulas over a flow of time, where the logic of each instant is ?ukasiewicz, with a finite or infinite number of truth values. As a main result, we obtain validity with respect to all flows of times that are non-branching to the future, and completeness with respect to all finite linear flows of time, or to an appropriate single infinite linear flow of time. It may be argued that this reduces the problem of establishing a meaningful interpretation of the truth values in BL logic to the analogous problem for ?ukasiewicz logic.