Male vocal competition is dynamic and strongly affected by social contexts in music frogs

Male–male vocal competition in anuran species is critical for mating success; however, it is also highly time-consuming, energetically demanding and likely to increase predation risks. Thus, we hypothesized that changes in the social context would cause male vocal competition to change in real time in order to minimize the costs and maximize the benefits of competition. To test this hypothesis, we assessed the effect of repeating playbacks of either white noise (WN) or male advertisement calls on male call production in the Emei music frog (Babina daunchina), a species in which males build mud-retuse burrows and call from within these nests. Previous studies have shown that calls produced from inside burrows are highly sexually attractive (HSA) to females while those produced outside nests are of low sexual attractiveness (LSA). Results showed that most subjects called responsively after the end of WN playbacks but before the onset of conspecific call stimuli although call numbers were similar, indicating that while males adjusted competitive patterns according to the biological significance of signals, their competitive motivation did not change. Furthermore, these data indicate that the frogs had evolved the ability of interval timing. Moreover, when the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) between playbacks was varied, the subjects preferentially competed with HSA calls when the ISI was short (<4 s) but responded equally to HSA and LSA calls if the ISI was long (≥4 s), suggesting that males allocate competitive efforts depending on both the perceived sexual attractiveness of rivals and the time available for calling. Notably, approximately two-thirds of male calls occurred in response to HSA calls, a preference rate comparable to that previously found for females in phonotaxis experiments and consistent with the idea that the mechanisms underlying both the male’s competitive responses to rivals and the female’s preferences toward potential mates coevolved under the same selective pressure.     

Using robots at work during the COVID-19 crisis evokes passion decay: Evidence from field and experimental studies

The growing trend of introducing robots into employees' work lives has become increasingly salient during the global COVID-19 pandemic. In light of this pandemic, it is likely that organisational decision-makers are seeing value in coupling employees with robots for both efficiency- and health-related reasons. An unintended consequence of this coupling, however, may be an increased level of work routinisation and standardisation. We draw primarily from the model of passion decay from the relationship and clinical psychology literature to develop theory and test a model arguing that passion decays as employees increasingly interact with robots for their work activities. We demonstrate that this passion decay leads to an increase of withdrawal behaviour from both the domains of work and family. Drawing further from the model of passion decay, we reveal that employees higher in openness to experience are less likely to suffer from passion decay upon more frequent interactions with robots in the course of work. Across a multi-source, multi-wave field study conducted in Hong Kong (Study 1) and a simulation-based experiment conducted in the United States (Study 2), our hypotheses received support. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Family Caregiver’s Positive,Negative, and Ambivalent Feelings Towards Stroke Survivors: Association with Psychological Well-Being

Applied Research in Quality of Life - Ambivalence is the simultaneous experience of positive and negative feelings toward a specific person. Recent research suggested ambivalence is negatively...     

Episodic Future Thinking Reduces Delay Discounting of Gains and Losses: The Role of Regulatory Focus1,2

We examined the moderating effect of regulatory foci on the efficacy of episodic future thinking in reducing delay discounting. We hypothesized that the impact of imagining positive future events (vs. recent positive events) on delay discounting of gains would be stronger for individuals with a high promotion focus than for those with a high prevention focus (Hypothesis 1). Conversely, the effects of imagining adverse future events (vs. recent negative events) on delay discounting of losses would be stronger for individuals with a high prevention focus than for those with a high promotion focus (Hypothesis 2). We conducted two experiments in which participants, randomly allocated to episodic future thinking (EFT) or episodic recent thinking (ERT) groups, completed a delayed discounting task of gain (Experiment 1) or loss (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 (N = 73) weakly supported Hypothesis 1; Experiment 2 (N = 99) did not support Hypothesis 2. Our findings suggest positive EFT is particularly effective for individuals with a high promotion focus compared to individuals with a high prevention focus, which further reveals how EFT attenuates delay discounting.     

经济发展方式转变障碍与制度创新

本文运用经济学原理阐述经济发展方式转变为什么困难及其破解途径。文中指出了经济发展方式转变的背景及其重要意义,进而分析了当前我国经济发展方式转变所面临的主要障碍或转变成本:经济结构不合理、资源稀缺、利益冲突、沉淀成本,随后探索了克服转变障碍的根本路径在于制度创新,最后从市场、政府、企业三个层面提出加快经济发展方式转变的对策建议。     

国外军事心理学研究现状分析

为了解国外军事心理学研究的动态和研究领域,本文对1980年至2009年国际军事测量学会（IMTA）发表的论文进行了系统分析。结果显示,军人心理选拔等七个领域的文献数量占总数的85.7%;在近30年的文献中,关键词训练与教育、工作绩效、选拔、工作分析等出现频率最高,超过文献总数的58.0%;在近10年的文献中,关键词选拔、领导力、工作分析、工作绩效、离职和人因素等前8项出现频率最高,合计达70.2%。军人心理选拔、军事领导和组织行为、军事临床心理等方面越来越受到军事心理学研究者的重视。     

不同视觉区域OUP效应的眼动研究

摘 要 采用眼动方法,通过两个实验考察了不同视觉区域的OUP效应。结果显示：（1）当刺激材料分别平行呈现于左侧视觉区域和右侧视觉区域时,在右侧视觉区域产生了OUP效应,而在左侧视觉区域没有OUP效应,我们假设是由于左侧视觉区域首字母距离中央凹的不利位置影响了OUP效应的产生。（2）当垂直方向呈现刺激时,在两侧视觉区域均产生了明显的OUP效应,表明首字母距离中央凹处于有利位置时不会影响OUP效应的产生。实验结果支持了大脑左半球和右半球在词汇识别时的策略为系列加工,对左半球平行加工右半球系列加工的结论提出了质疑。     

Bayesian estimation of semiparametric nonlinear dynamic factor analysis models using the Dirichlet process prior

Parameters in time series and other dynamic models often show complex range restrictions and their distributions may deviate substantially from multivariate normal or other standard parametric distributions. We use the truncated Dirichlet process (DP) as a non‐parametric prior for such dynamic parameters in a novel nonlinear Bayesian dynamic factor analysis model. This is equivalent to specifying the prior distribution to be a mixture distribution composed of an unknown number of discrete point masses (or clusters). The stick‐breaking prior and the blocked Gibbs sampler are used to enable efficient simulation of posterior samples. Using a series of empirical and simulation examples, we illustrate the flexibility of the proposed approach in approximating distributions of very diverse shapes.     

预期背离下奖励与惩罚的ERPs研究

采用Flanker范式,通过事件相关电位(ERPs)技术,探讨预期背离情境下的脑电反应及与敏感性个体的关系。选取17名被试,采取2×2组内设计刺激类型（奖励vs.惩罚）和预期受挫（是vs.否）;结果表明（1）预期受挫情境引发更高的FRN;（2）惩罚刺激引发更高的FRN,奖励刺激引发更高的P3;（3）惩罚敏感与惩罚、无奖励情境引发FRN相关。本实验结果表明（1）FRN既反应对反馈效价的加工,也可能是预期背离的一种表现;（2）无奖励刺激受惩罚系统调节;无惩罚刺激受奖励系统调节。