Compensation Hypothesis Research Articles

The Enemy Within: How Does a Bacterium Inhibit the Foraging Aptitude and Risk Management Behavior of Allenby's Gerbils?

AbstractMicrobes inhabiting multicellular organisms have complex, often subtle effects on their hosts. Gerbillus andersoni allenbyi are commonly infected with Mycoplasma haemomuris-like bacteria, which may cause mild nutrient (choline, arginine) deficiencies. However, are there more serious ecological consequences of infection, such as effects on foraging aptitudes and risk management? We tested two alternatives: the nutrient compensation hypothesis (does nutrient deficiency induce infected gerbils to make up for the shortfall by foraging more and taking greater risks?) and (2) the lethargy hypothesis (do sick gerbils forage less, and are they compromised in their ability to detect predators or risky microhabitats?). We compared the foraging and risk management behavior of infected and noninfected gerbils. We experimentally infected gerbils with the bacteria, which allowed us to compare between noninfected, acutely infected (peak infection loads), and chronically infected (low infection loads) individuals. Our findings supported the lethargy hypothesis over the nutrient compensation hypothesis. Infected individuals incurred dramatically elevated foraging costs, including less efficient foraging, diminished "quality" of time spent vigilant, and increased owl predation. Interestingly, gerbils that were chronically infected (lower bacteria load) experienced larger ecological costs than acutely infected individuals (i.e., peak infection loads). This suggests that the debilitating effects of infection occur gradually, with a progressive decline in the quality of time gerbils allocated to foraging and managing risk. These increased long-term costs of infection demonstrate how small direct physiological costs of infection can lead to large indirect ecological costs. The indirect ecological costs of this parasite appear to be much greater than the direct physiological costs.

Coexistence of Tic Disorders and Combined Type of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Features of Specific Cognitive Deficit

The state of cognitive deficit in subjects with combination of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and tic hyperkinesis is among the least studied issues. Identification of the cognitive development features in children with these disorders comorbidity will help to develop and build an adequate model of rehabilitation.Purpose of the study.To study cognitive deficits in children with tic hyperkinesis (TH) in cases of comorbidity with the combined type of attention deficit disorder (ADHD).Materials and methods.404 children aged 6–10 years with a combined type of ADHD were divided into three subgroups according to the state of monoamine activity: 1st subgroup with a combination of hypofunction of dopaminergic and hyperfunction of noradrenergic systems — 120 people, 2nd subgroup with a combination of hyperfunction of noradrenergic system with a relative dopamine balance — 136 people, 3rd subgroup with indicators of monoamines within the reference values — 148 children. The control group comprised of 90 children (54 boys and 36 girls). To diagnose the level of intellectual development, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children was used. In each subgroup, with the known direction of monoamine activity, the Wexler test parameters were compared among ADHD groups, both with or without TG.Results.Subtests “Picture Arrangement”, “Picture Completion” and “Block Design” turned out to be sensitive to concomitant combined type of ADHD and tics in children, reflecting, respectively, enumeration, the ability to logical thinking, visual attention and hand-eye coordination. In a case of dopamine system hypofunction in children with ADHD, the addition of tics leads to the smoothing of the biochemical imbalance by increasing the activity of dopamine and thus, results in a more effective realization of logical thinking ability. The level of visual attention in children with ADHD with the addition of TH also increases, probably due to a growth of the intensity of serotonin system activity. Finally, hand-eye coordination improves with the addition of tics in cases of a shift in the balance of dopamine and noradrenergic systems.Conclusion.The data obtained are consistent with the “frontal lobe compensation hypothesis” in the part, which describes the presence of a compensatory process when tics emerge in children with combined type of ADHD. Besides, our results expand it, suggesting that not only the prefrontal cortex but also the parietal-occipital cortex participates in the adaptive process associated with spatial synthesis and analysis of information, as well as hand-eye coordination.

Is Social Media Use Socially Enhancing or Compensating?

Who benefits more from the use of social media—those who are already socialable and have a wide network of friends or those who do not and so seek to make up for their deficiency by going online? The social enhancement hypothesis says that extroverts benefit more through being able to enlarge their network of friends online more than introverts. The social compensation hypothesis, on the other hand, argues that social media use benefits introverts more; shy users who avoid face-to-face communication can communicate freely online. MANOVA analysis of the survey of 1,392 college students in a western state of India who are Facebook users found evidence predominantly for the social enhancement hypothesis.

Personality and emerging adults' friend selection on social networking sites: A social network analysis perspective.

Personality affects how emerging adults select friends and how they are selected on social networking sites (SNSs). Big Five personality traits and frequency of contacts on SNSs were collected from 160 college freshmen (M = 18 years) under a round-robin design over 2 months. Using social network analyses, we examined how personality and dyadic similarity affect online friend selections among new acquaintances. Our results show that people with high extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness and low openness selected more friends, verifying both the social enhancement hypothesis and the social compensation hypothesis. People with low extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism and high openness were selected as online friends more often. Only openness dissimilarity had a salutary effect. We discuss the role of personality in social networking friend selection.

Why the cerebellar shutdown/clampdown hypothesis of vestibular compensation is inconsistent with neurophysiological evidence.

Vestibular compensation is the process by which the central nervous system (CNS) attempts to adapt to the loss of vestibular sensory inputs. As such, the compensation process is critically involved in the vestibular rehabilitation programs that are implemented by physical therapists for patients with vestibular disorders. One hypothesis regarding vestibular compensation, which has persisted in some of the published vestibular compensation literature and particularly on some vestibular and physical therapy websites, is the 'cerebellar shutdown' or 'cerebellar clampdown' hypothesis proposed by McCabe and Ryu in 1969. This hypothesis proposes that the cerebellum inhibits neuronal activity in the bilateral vestibular nuclei (VN) following unilateral vestibular loss (UVL), causing the VN contralateral to the UVL to be electrically silent during the early phases of vestibular compensation. Despite a wealth of evidence against this idea, it has gained traction amongst some physical therapists and has implications for vestibular rehabilitation early in the compensation process. In this paper it is argued that the 'cerebellar shutdown' or 'clampdown' hypothesis is inconsistent with well accepted neurophysiological and imaging evidence and that it is also logically flawed.

The fast and the curious II: performance, personality, and metabolism in Karoo bush rats

Personality traits (e.g. activity, exploration, boldness) are frequently correlated with each other and with various other traits of biological importance. According to the performance, allocation, and independent models of energy management, the relationship between personality traits and resting metabolic rate (RMR) is predicted to be either positive, negative, or nil. As for the relationship between personality traits and locomotor performance, the trait compensation and co-specialisation hypotheses respectively predict a positive and negative relationship. To test for associations between personality, metabolism, and performance, we studied a wild population of Karoo bush rat (Myotomys unisulcatus) in South Africa. During summer 2018, we captured 45 individuals (38 females and 7 males) a total of 293 times and repeatedly measured docility (time spent immobile during a bag test), exploration (distance moved in an open-field test), sprint speed, and RMR. We found a behavioural syndrome in our population, as more docile individuals covered less distance in the exploration test (r ± SE = − 0.74 ± 0.21). RMR was not correlated with any trait; therefore, the independent energy management model applies to this population. Fast sprinters were less explorative in the novel environment than slow sprinters (r ± SE = − 0.41 ± 0.21), going against the prediction of the phenotypic compensation hypothesis and suggesting co-specialisation of these traits. A similar result was previously observed in two other rodent species, suggesting that exploratory behaviour and locomotor performance may interact in an additive instead of compensatory way. Given the apparent complexity of the links between performance, behaviour, and metabolism, more studies are needed in order to understand their relationships. In this study, we test alternative energy management models and hypotheses predicting different relationships between behavioural, performance, and metabolic traits. Our results support the independent model of energy management, since resting metabolic rate was not correlated with either docility or exploration. The negative relationship between exploration and sprint speed is counter to the intuitive idea that more explorative individuals should be better equipped to deal with the increased risks of predation, but instead supports the co-specialisation hypothesis. Finally, we emphasise the importance of partitioning the variance in raw measurements as a way to better appreciate the variability in measurements of metabolic rate and locomotor performance. Such multilevel analyses provide an idea of the relative variability at among-individual level vs. other levels (tests, trials, and residuals), which might have important implications for the understanding of how factors like stress and motivation might potentially generate or obfuscate relationships between behavioural, performance, and metabolic traits.

Cognitive labor shapes the desire for social and monetary compensation

When do people want something back for their mental labor? Based on equity theory, we propose that conscious experiences of success and effort—which emerge during cognitive work—shape people’s subsequent desire for social and monetary rewards. We examined this idea in a series of experiments, in which participants carried out a cognitive task, in which we manipulated task difficulty (easy vs. difficult) and performance feedback (high vs. low) within subjects. After each trial of this task, we probed people’s desire for compensation, in terms of social appreciation or money. Findings were in line with the entitlement hypothesis, which assumes that the experience of success can cause people to feel entitled to money. However, we found only indirect support for the effort compensation hypothesis, which assumes that the feeling of effort increases the subsequent desire for compensation, and no support for the intrinsic reward hypothesis, which assumes that people desire less social appreciation after already having experienced success. When considered together, our results suggest that labor-related feelings (of success and effort) shape people’s subsequent desire for money and social appreciation in several ways. These findings have potential implications for the effective use of performance feedback in work contexts.

The connection and background mechanisms of social fears and problematic social networking site use: A structural equation modeling analysis

Previous research warned that internet and social media use could have a negative effect on the social lives of excessive users. Based on the social compensation hypothesis, however, factors related to social fears could lead to problematic social networking site (SNS) use because individuals try to compensate for their offline popularity. It was shown that individuals with higher levels of social fears tend to prefer computer-mediated (CMC) instead of face to face (FTF) communication. Here, we aimed to create a model that shows the direct and indirect effects of social anxiety and self-esteem on problematic SNS use. A total of 215 participants filled out our survey including measures of social anxiety, self-esteem, fear of negative evaluation, social media and Internet addiction. Using structural equation modeling we tested the indirect and direct effects between the variables. Our results indicated that social anxiety and lower self-esteem could lead to favoring CMC over FTF communication, which may result in problematic internet (PIU) and SNS use as a compensatory behavior to cope with fear of negative evaluation. The indirect pathways might highlight relevant differences behind the motivation of PIU – anonymity – and problematic SNS use – control. Theoretical as well as practical implications are discussed.

Compensation or cosmopolitan attitudes: Explaining leisure travel of Nordic urbanites

Inner cities have been recently linked to a higher volume of long-distance travel for leisure purposes of their residents when compared to suburban and rural areas. The compensation hypothesis proposes that this difference results from urban residents’ tendency to travel away to compensate for poor access to green spaces or to escape urban stressors. This paper tests two versions of this hypothesis using two softGIS surveys of young adults living in the capital regions: Helsinki in Finland and Reykjavik in Iceland. We also examine an alternative hypothesis of cosmopolitan attitude as the explaining factor. We consider the levels of consonance or dissonance between the residential preferences and the GIS-measured characteristics of residential environments, attitudes towards travel, and socio-demographic and lifestyle characteristics of respondents. We found weak and contextual support for the compensation hypothesis: neighborhood greenness was related to the number of trips in Helsinki, but not in Reykjavik. In both cities, the trend of increasing trip numbers along with the distance to the city center was explained mainly by the spatial clustering of cosmopolitan attitudes in the city centres. Private car ownership and summer cottage access were also significant predictors of domestic trips frequency. Overall the results suggest that the compensation effect is neither exclusive nor the most plausible explanation for differences in travel patterns between urban dwellers. Still, it might be at play in some circumstances. The results do not challenge compact city policies but suggest paying attention to additional travel demand due to the inadequacies of urban environments.

055 Assessment of fidelity to the desmoglein compensation hypothesis in a large pemphigus cohort

Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) and pemphigus foliaceus (PF) are autoimmune blistering diseases characterized by oral or mucosal lesions in the presence of autoantibodies (autoAb) targeting the cell-adhesion proteins desmoglein (Dsg)3 and Dsg1. Lesion location has been elegantly explained by the Desmoglein Compensation Hypothesis (DCH), which utilizes the epidermal distribution of Dsg subtypes as well as autoAb profiles. According to this theory, PF presents with subcorneal lesions in the presence of anti-Dsg1 Abs only, while lesions in PV are suprabasilar and accompanied by anti-Dsg3 only in mucosal PV, or anti-Dsg1 and -Dsg3 in mucocutaneous PV.

It's not you, it's me - disgust sensitivity towards body odor in deaf and blind individuals.

Disgust might be elicited by various sensory channels, including the sense of smell. It has been previously demonstrated that unpleasant odors emitted by an external source are more disgusting than those emitted by oneself (the source effect). As disgust's main purpose is to help organisms avoid potentially dangerous, contaminating objects, individuals with visual or hearing sensory impairment (thus, with an impeded ability to detect cues indicating pathogen threat) might have developed an increased levels of olfactory disgust sensitivity (modality compensation in disgust sensitivity). We set out to investigate disgust sensitivity in olfaction using the Body Odor Disgust Scale (BODS) on a large sample of 74 deaf and 98 blind participants, with comparison to control groups without sensory impairment (N = 199 in total). The results did not support the hypothesis of modality compensation in disgust sensitivity. Contrary to previous research, neither sex nor age influenced the outcomes. Evidence for the source effect was found. Acquired data are interpreted in the light of social desirability. The emphasis put on the olfaction by blind and deaf individuals is discussed.

Females compensate for moult‐associated male nest desertion in Hooded Warblers

Uniparental offspring desertion occurs in a wide variety of avian taxa and usually reflects sexual conflict over parental care. In many species, desertion yields immediate reproductive benefits for deserters if they can re‐mate and breed again during the same nesting season; in such cases desertion may be selectively advantageous even if it significantly reduces the fitness of the current brood. However, in many other species, parents desert late‐season offspring when opportunities to re‐nest are absent. In these cases, any reproductive benefits of desertion are delayed, and desertion is unlikely to be advantageous unless the deserted parent can compensate for the loss of its partner and minimize costs to the current brood. We tested this parental compensation hypothesis in Hooded Warblers Setophaga citrina, a species in which males regularly desert late‐season nestlings and fledglings during moult. Females from deserted nests effectively doubled their provisioning efforts, and nestlings from deserted nests received just as much food, gained mass at the same rate, and were no more likely to die from either complete nest predation or brood reduction as young from biparental nests. The female provisioning response, however, was significantly related to nestling age; females undercompensated for male desertion when the nestlings were young, but overcompensated as nestlings approached fledging age, probably because of time constraints that brooding imposed on females with young nestlings. Overall, our results indicate that female Hooded Warblers completely compensate for male moult‐associated nest desertion, and that deserting males pay no reproductive cost for desertion, at least up to the point of fledging. Along with other studies, our findings support the general conclusion that late‐season offspring desertion is likely to evolve only when parental compensation by the deserted partner can minimize costs to the current brood.

Lower cognitive baseline scores predict cognitive training success after 6 months in healthy older adults: Results of an online RCT.

Identifying predictors for general cognitive training (GCT) success in healthy older adults has many potential uses, including aiding intervention and improving individual dementia risk prediction, which are of high importance in health care. However, the factors that predict training improvements and the temporal course of predictors (eg, do the same prognostic factors predict training success after a short training period, such as 6 weeks, as well as after a longer training period, such as 6 months?) are largely unknown. Data (N = 4,184 healthy older individuals) from two arms (GCT vs. control) of a three-arm randomized controlled trial were reanalyzed to investigate predictors of GCT success in five cognitive tasks (grammatical reasoning, spatial working memory, digit vigilance, paired association learning, and verbal learning) at three time points (after 6 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months of training). Possible investigated predictors were sociodemographic variables, depressive symptoms, number of training sessions, cognitive baseline values, and all interaction terms (group*predictor). Being female was predictive for improvement in grammatical reasoning at 6 weeks in the GCT group, and lower cognitive baseline scores were predictive for improvement in spatial working memory and verbal learning at 6 months. Our data indicate that predictors seem to change over time; remarkably, lower baseline performance at study entry is only a significant predictor at 6 months training. Possible reasons for these results are discussed in relation to the compensation hypothesis. J Am Geriatr Soc 68:-, 2020.

Parental care in the Small Tree Finch Camarhynchus parvulus in relation to parasitism and environmental factors.

The parental food compensation hypothesis suggests that parents may compensate for the negative effects of parasites on chicks by increased food provisioning. However, this ability differs widely among host species and may also depend on ecological factors such as adverse weather conditions and habitat quality. Although weed management can improve habitat quality, management measures can bring about a temporary decrease in food availability and thus may reduce parents’ ability to provide their nestlings with enough energy. In our study we investigated the interaction of parasitism and weed management, and the influence of climate on feeding rates in a Darwin’s tree finch species, which is negatively impacted by two invasive species. The larvae of the invasive parasitic fly Philornis downsi ingest the blood and body tissues of tree finch nestlings, and the invasive Blackberry Rubus niveus affects one of the main habitats of Darwin’s tree finches. We compared parental food provisioning of the Small Tree Finch Camarhynchus parvulus in parasitized and parasite‐free nests in three different areas, which differed in invasive weed management (no management, short‐term and long‐term management). In a parasite reduction experiment, we investigated whether the Small Tree Finch increases food provisioning rates to nestlings when parasitized and whether this ability depends on weed management conditions and precipitation. Our results provide no evidence that Small Tree Finches can compensate with additional food provisioning when parasitized with P. downsi. However, we found an increase in male effort in the short‐term management area, which might indicate that males compensate for lower food quality with increased provisioning effort. Furthermore, parental food provisioning was lower during rainfall, which provides an explanation for the negative influence of rain on breeding success found in earlier studies. Like other Darwin’s finches, the Small Tree Finch seems to lack the ability to compensate for the negative effects of P. downsi parasitism, which is one explanation for why this invasive parasite has such a devastating effect on this host species.

Companion Dogs as Surrogate Family Members and the Compensation Hypothesis

The belief that bonding with companion animals seeks to substitute for human relationships has been widely held as common knowledge, receiving partial support even by scientific literature. This study aimed to assess the effect of compensation of lacking human bonds (i.e., partner and children) through bonding with companion dogs. For this, 425 adults living in Buenos Aires, who own a companion dog, filled out a form about Perceived Emotional Closeness and another one about anthropomorphism towards dogs. The fact of having children, regardless of the cohabitation with them and the guardian’s marital status, was linked to lower scores of emotional closeness; however, there were no differences in terms of the levels of dog’s anthropomorphism between guardians who lived with a couple or not, between those who had children or not, neither between those who lived with their children or not. Furthermore, among parent guardians, there was no difference in the levels of Anthropomorphism and Perceived Emotional Closeness in relationship with their children’s age. We concluded that dogs seem to have their own particular role within their guardian’s close circle of relationships, instead of competing with human family roles. Guardians who consider their dog as a child would not imply the substitution for absent children. For these guardians, this consideration would be rather related to their affection towards the dog. The differences in the emotional closeness among guardians with or without children are discussed according to a possible attitudinal change, after parenthood, that would lead to a lower interspecies affective permeability. Considering the particular role of dogs in the guardian’s emotional circle can lead us to the appraisal of the differential aspects of this interspecies relationship with positive consequences for both, humans and dogs.

Couple relationship quality and the infant home language environment: Gender-specific findings.

Couple relationship quality is known to drop significantly across the transition to parenthood (Ahlborg & Strandmark, 2001; Doss, Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2009), yet individual differences in the amount of parent-to-infant talk have rarely been studied in relation to variation in couple relationship quality. Addressing this gap, the current study of 93 first-time parents with 4-month-old infants included multimeasure reports of couple relationship quality from both mothers and fathers and examined associations between couple relationship quality and the home language environment, assessed via the Language Environment Analysis (LENA), when infants were approximately 7 months old. LENA consists of a wearable talk pedometer that records a full day of naturalistic parent-infant talk and is coupled to software that provides automated analysis. Given the covariation between depression and both couple relationship quality and parental infant-directed talk, both maternal and paternal depression were controlled for in all analyses. Results showed that, for mothers of sons, frequency of infant-directed talk was inversely related to couple relationship quality. Consistent with family systems theory, this finding provides partial support for the compensation hypothesis. However, variation in couple relationship quality was unrelated to infant-directed speech in fathers or in mothers of daughters. Together, these findings demonstrate that the gender composition of the parent-infant dyads plays a moderating role on the association between couple relationship quality and parent-infant talk.

Exploring Parenting Influences: Married African American Fathers’ Perspectives

This qualitative study sought to understand married, resident African American fathers’ perceptions about parenting influences. Specifically, this study explored fathers’ perceptions about sources and/or experiences that informed their approaches and attitudes about parenting. Social learning theory, the modeling and compensation hypothesis, as well as literature on the intergenerational transmission of parenting served as theoretical frameworks. Eight fathers participated in semi-structured interviews. One main theme and four subthemes emerged from the data. Findings indicated that a number of influences including but not limited to experiences from their family of origin informed current parenting approaches and attitudes.

3Ms of 3G: Testing three mechanisms of three-generational educational mobility in the U. S

Following Mare’s (2011) presidential address to the Population Association of America, much research has examined the dynamics of intergenerational mobility and socioeconomic inequality. However, this research is starkly divided on the existence of multigenerational effects and pathways. In this article, we examine educational attainment across three generations using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We test three key hypothesized mechanisms of grandparent educational advantage transmission that have been documented in international samples: compensation and augmentation, grandparent lifespan, and genetic transmission. To further interrogate how these mechanisms function across social contexts, we also race-stratify all analyses. As a more stringent test, we also test all hypotheses using cousin fixed effects models. We find no evidence in favor of the compensation hypothesis, but do find descriptive support for the augmentation hypothesis, as well as some limited support among whites for college graduation outcomes in cousin fixed effects models. Findings on the lifespan overlap and genetic transmission hypotheses are highly race-stratified. Overall, our findings support the importance of investigating the mechanisms of three-generation processes of educational attainment across contexts and sub-groups.

Who travels more, and why? A mixed-method study of urban dwellers’ leisure travel

This study examined domestic and international long-distance travel patterns of Reykjavik residents. We applied a mixed-methods approach with data triangulation to three datasets, two quantitative and one qualitative. Quantitative analyses included bivariate statistics, spatial statistics, and regression, and qualitative analysis included an explanatory interpretation of semi-structured interviews. The study found a higher number of international trips made by people residing close to the main city centre, particularly among younger adults. Following previous literature, we studied five potential groups of explanations of these patterns: 1) socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, 2) monetary rebound effects, 3) compensation or escape hypothesis, 4) lifestyles and other socio-psychological characteristics, and 5) dispersion of social networks. We found that all these aspects explain the travel activity to some extent, but inconsistently across the different datasets except for the well-known impact of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. However, above all else, a cosmopolitan attitude in travel and language skill level were found to be the most influential predictors of international travel activity, and access to a summer house was an important predictor of domestic travel activity. Broad social networks were also found to play an important role. Despite geographical trends, the study did not find any strong causal relationship between urban form and long-distance travel that would influence the aggregate patterns. Thus, the results do not challenge the urban planning policies of densification on the premise of causing an unintended increase in emissions from long-distance travel.

Crustal thickness beneath Atlas region from gravity, topographic, sediment and seismic data

The Atlas region in northwest Africa is characterized by the Quaternary volcanism and elevated topography with past complex tectonic mitigation between the African and European plates. Geodynamics of this atypical region has left indubitably imprints in crustal architectonics, mainly regarding the crustal thickness as well as the crustal density structure. The knowledge of crustal thickness variations is of a significant interest, since it provides a crucial constraint to geodynamic and geophysical modelling of this region. In this study, we use gravity, topographic, bathymetric and sediment data together with results of seismic surveys to image the Moho topography beneath the Atlas region. The Bouguer gravity anomalies used for a gravimetric Moho recovery are obtained from the free-air gravity anomalies after subtracting the gravitational contributions of topography, bathymetry and sediments. The regional gravimetric Moho inversion constrained on seismic data is carried out by applying a regularized inversion technique based on Gauss-Newton's formulation of improved Bott's method, while adopting Earth's spherical approximation. The numerical result reveals relatively significant Moho depth variations in the Moroccan Atlas, with minima of approximately 24 km along continental margins of the Mediterranean Sea and maxima exceeding 51 km beneath the Rif Cordillera. The Moho depth beneath the West African Craton varies from 32 km in its southern margin to 45 km beneath the Middle Atlas. The Tell Atlas is characterized by the shallow Moho depth of approximately 22 km and further deepening to 42 km towards the northern edge of the Aures Mountains. Our findings indicate a limited tectonic shortening of the High Atlas with the crustal thickness mostly within 36–42 km. Topographic discrepancies between the Rif Cordillera and the Atlas Mountains suggest that the hypothesis of isostatic compensation cannot be fully established.