Characteristics Of Human Behavior Research Articles

WiFi-Enabled User Authentication through Deep Learning in Daily Activities

User authentication is a critical process in both corporate and home environments due to the ever-growing security and privacy concerns. With the advancement of smart cities and home environments, the concept of user authentication is evolved with a broader implication by not only preventing unauthorized users from accessing confidential information but also providing the opportunities for customized services corresponding to a specific user. Traditional approaches of user authentication either require specialized device installation or inconvenient wearable sensor attachment. This article supports the extended concept of user authentication with a device-free approach by leveraging the prevalent WiFi signals made available by IoT devices, such as smart refrigerator, smart TV, and smart thermostat, and so on. The proposed system utilizes the WiFi signals to capture unique human physiological and behavioral characteristics inherited from their daily activities, including both walking and stationary ones. Particularly, we extract representative features from channel state information (CSI) measurements of WiFi signals, and develop a deep-learning-based user authentication scheme to accurately identify each individual user. To mitigate the signal distortion caused by surrounding people’s movements, our deep learning model exploits a CNN-based architecture that constructively combines features from multiple receiving antennas and derives more reliable feature abstractions. Furthermore, a transfer-learning-based mechanism is developed to reduce the training cost for new users and environments. Extensive experiments in various indoor environments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed authentication system. In particular, our system can achieve over 94% authentication accuracy with 11 subjects through different activities.

Genesis of Antibiotic Resistance LXV: Clinically Congruent Vaccine Campaign Assuage Infectious Diseases Pandemic (R 0 is <1) ‐ An Enactment in Unison for Empowering en masse at Its Best

From late February of 2020 onwards SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic engraved a memorable impasse on humanity. It is a wishful thinking that such history should not be repeated as long as the sun and moon shall endure. In view of an aforesaid conundrum, here we present a rationale for withering away a plausible Antibiotic‐Resistant Bacterial Pathogen (ARBP) elicited pandemic. Herd immunity is defined as when ~70% to 90% of a population is immune to an infectious disease providing indirect protection to those who are immunocompetent (herd protection) and to those who are not immune to that specific pandemic event(disease(s)). R0 is an estimate of contagiousness which is derived from human behavior and biological characteristics of pathogens and time. However, it is not a measure of the severity of an infectious disease or dissemination of a pathogen's spread through a population. R0 value(s) for the same disease from the past endemic or epidemic or pandemic events is not valid for a current event(s) as aforesaid metrics are subject to time, location, population metrics and genotype/phenotype of the pathogen(s), modes of transmission, and sessional variations. Also, the etiologic the potential of the infectious agent(s) being passed from infected patient to other uninfected and/or infected human/animal host (contagiousness, the transmissibility of pathogens) (PMID: 30560777). An outbreak of infectious disease is expected to prevail if R0 is >1 and ebb if R0 is<1 (J Math Biol. 1990; 28:365). The primary factors that define R0 value are: a. the time duration of contagiousness (transmissibility of the diseases by direct or indirect contact with an infected person) after an individual is infected, b. the likelihood of infection per contact between a susceptible person and c. the rate of contact (number of times of an infectious person or vector (a live organism(s) or inanimate object as a tool to transfer the pathogen) with another person (St. Meth. Med Res. 1993;2:23). Other contributing factors for determining the R0 values could be, the etiologic agent, host, environmental factors (temperature, drought, long winters, adverse weather patterns such as a hurricane), public health resources(availability toilets vs open defecation, portable water vs water reservoirs, water wells, slums, open drainage, lack of sewage treatment plant, lack of water processing facility for potable water supply, heavy metals, arsenic, fluoride contamination in water supply, the policy environment (absence decision‐making authorities / absence of civic bodies‐elected) the contact rate, including population density, social organization (e.g., integrated vs. segregated), seasonality, human social behavior, organizational behavior(s), and innate genetic & biol char (L‐phase/form bacteria), of specific pathogens. (Vaccine. 1992; 10:928). The ultimate goal of vaccination campaigns are to minimize the percentage of the population susceptible and/or at risk for that specific infectious disease(s) where the R to <1, and achieve immunity for the uninfected or infected but asymptomatic the patient which is otherwise referred to as “Herd Immunity” or “Head Protection”.

Adaptive Cruise Control System Evaluation According to Human Driving Behavior Characteristics

With the rapid and wide implementation of adaptive cruise control system (ACC), the testing and evaluation method becomes an important question. Based on the human driver behavior characteristics extracted from naturalistic driving studies (NDS), this paper proposed the testing and evaluation method for ACC systems, which considers safety and human-like at the same time. Firstly, usage scenarios of ACC systems are defined and test scenarios are extracted and categorized as safety test scenarios and human-like test scenarios according to the collision likelihood. Then, the characteristic of human driving behavior is analyzed in terms of time to collision and acceleration distribution extracted from NDS. According to the dynamic parameters distribution probability, the driving behavior is divided into safe, critical, and dangerous behavior regarding safety and aggressive and normal behavior regarding human-like according to different quantiles. Then, the baselines for evaluation are designed and the weights of different scenarios are determined according to exposure frequency, resulting in a comprehensive evaluation method. Finally, an ACC system is tested in the selected test scenarios and evaluated with the proposed method. The tested vehicle finally got a safety score of 0.9496 (full score: 1) and a human-like score as fail. The results revealed the tested vehicle has a remarkably different driving pattern to human drivers, which may lead to uncomfortable ride experience and user-distrust of the system.

Study on the exit-selecting behavior in underground indoor space with fire using a virtual experiment

The fires in underground indoor space often result in limited field of vision, thus revealing the characteristic of exit-selecting behavior under the influence of fire and limited view is the basis for optimizing exit layout and emergency evacuation strategies for the underground spaces. In this study, an interactive virtual environment is presented and using which an evacuation experiment is carried out to test human exit-selecting behavior in fire scenario. The results show that when the view is limited, more exits and arranging the exits evenly are helpful to shorten the time of seeking the available exits. If there is congestion in front, as long as the information on the exits is sufficient, some people (more than 20%) will re-select the other exits. Furthermore, people prefer to spend more movement time reducing queuing time. When the dynamic temperature field is used to show the participants a spreading fire, the virtual fire plays a certain threat, so most of subjects (96.7%) prefer the exit away from the fire source. Moreover, if there are other pedestrians, the evacuation decision-making process of personnel is the game process among selecting the fastest path, keeping away from the exits near the fire source and avoiding high temperature field. The results also show that individual age has an obvious correlation with the participants’ ability of escaping in the virtual evacuation environment. Specifically, the ability tends to become weaker as the age increased. This study will be useful to understand the human exit-selecting behavior and movement characteristics in the influence of fire and limited view by using a cheap and safe method.

RETRACTED: Based on spatio-temporal graph convolution networks with residual connection for intelligence behavior recognition

In the era of intelligent education, human behavior recognition based on computer vision is an important branch of pattern recognition. Human behavior recognition is a basic technology in the fields of intelligent monitoring and human-computer interaction in education. The dynamic changes of human skeleton provide important information for the recognition of educational behavior. Traditional methods usually use manual information to label or traverse rules only, resulting in limited representation capabilities and poor generalization performance of the model. In this paper, a kind of dynamic skeleton model with residual is adopted—a spatio-temporal graph convolutional network based on residual connections, which not only overcomes the limitations of previous methods, but also can learn the spatio-temporal model from the skeleton data. In the big bone NTU-RGB + D dataset, the network model not only improved the representation ability of human behavior characteristics, but also improved the generalization ability, and achieved better recognition effect than the existing model. In addition, this paper also compares the results of behavior recognition on subsets of different joint points, and finds that spatial structure division have better effects.

УЧАСТЬ ГРОМАДЯН У ДІЯЛЬНОСТІ НЕДЕРЖАВНИХ ПЕНСІЙНИХ ФОНДІВ: ПРОБЛЕМИ І МОТИВАЦІЯ

Анотація. Метою статті є ґрунтовний аналіз сучасного стану ринку недержавного пенсійного страхування України, характеристика основних підходів біхевіористичної теорії фінансів і пропозиції щодо їх використання у вітчизняній практиці. Розвиток національної пенсійної системи є можливим лише за умови залучення широкого кола громадян до участі в діяльності НПФ, які в багатьох країнах є основою пенсійних систем. Безперечно, обсяги залучення НПФ як третього рівня пенсійної системи України є значно меншими, ніж у зарубіжних країнах, проте можна стверджувати, що останні роки стали для НПФ одними з найбільш продуктивних і результативних, а це означає, що існує розуміння, в якому напрямі можлива розбудова системи приватних пенсій, а отже, обсягу залучення приватних осіб до ще більшого забезпечення їх при досягненні пенсійного віку. На думку вчених, доцільно застосувати для цього підходи, які ґрунтуються на використанні біхевіористичної теорії фінансів, котра набула своєї особливої активізації після глобальної фінансової кризи. В останні роки вчені, що працюють у сфері біхевіористичної теорії фінансів, виявили, що хоча люди намагаються максимізувати своє особисте благополуччя, існують певні фактори, які значно обмежують їхній вибір. Визнання існувань цих обмежень суттєво змінило розуміння сучасної науки про процес ухвалення окремих економічних і фінансових рішень, особливо тих, що стосуються довгострокового споживання і заощаджень, зокрема таких, як акумуляція і декумуляція активів у пенсійних схемах. Таким чином, такі особливості поведінки людини успішно використовуються у світі при розробленні пенсійних програм, для посилення довгострокових пенсійних заощаджень. У статті свого розвитку дістали науково-методичні підходи щодо підвищення мотивації громадян до пенсійних заощаджень у недержавних пенсійних фондах на основі біхевіористичної теорії фінансів, що, у свою чергу, дозволяє обґрунтувати ефективні програми розвитку третього рівня пенсійної системи України. Результатом проведеного аналізу сучасного стану ринку недержавного пенсійного страхування України має стати розуміння того, що за сучасних економічних умов головні зусилля уряду щодо подальшого реформування вітчизняної пенсійної системи мають бути зосереджені на підтримці третього рівня, основу якого в Україні становлять недержавні пенсійні фонди (НПФ), що діють за пенсійними схемами з визначеними внесками. Головна перевага участі недержавних пенсійних фондів у системі пенсійного забезпечення полягає в тому, що вони дозволяють розподілити між трьома її складовими ризики, пов’язані зі змінами в демографічній ситуації (до яких найбільш чутливою є солідарна система) і з коливаннями в економіці й на ринку капіталів (що найбільшим чином впливає на накопичувальну систему). Такий розподіл ризиків дозволяє зробити пенсійну систему більш фінансово збалансованою і стійкою, що є обов’язковою умовою для ефективного її функціонування усієї системи соціального страхування України. Ключові слова: недержавні пенсійні фонди, пенсійні нагромадження, біхевіористична теорія фінансів, акумуляція активів, декумуляція активів. Формул: 0; рис.: 0; табл.: 1; бібл.: 12.

A multibiometric system based on the fusion of fingerprint, finger-vein, and finger-knuckle-print

Authentication systems play an essential role in our lives today. Human biological, behavioral, and morphological characteristics are usually used in an authentication system in a vast scope of applications ranging from unlocking consumer devices to surveillance and forensic analysis and offered an alternative to credit cards, ID cards, passports, driving licenses, etc. Unibiometric systems, which use a single biometric modality, suffer from some drawbacks such as low protection of user’s privacy against attacks. Multibiometric systems, which fuse features of biometric characteristics, can cope with unibiometric systems’ drawbacks and improve security and recognition accuracy. However, some main questions such as ‘what is the optimal number of biometric modalities?’, ‘how much accuracy do we need for our system?’, and ‘how much money do we want to invest for our system?’ have to be considered and answered before designing and implementing a multibiometric system. Unfortunately, the existing multibiometric systems have not considered and responded to all questions. Furthermore, identification mode for multibiometric systems is a challenging task and almost all of them have focused on verification mode. In this paper, we only consider a finger and employ the maximum possible modalities of the finger, i.e., fingerprint, finger-vein, and finger-knuckle-print, to increase user-friendliness and reducing the cost of implementation of the system. The proposed system only uses three cameras to capture all contactless fingerprint, finger-vein, and finger-knuckle images. Also, we propose an algorithm that makes enable the system to work in identification mode. The experiments on established databases exhibit that our proposed algorithm significantly increases recognition accuracy.

Вихрь в демонологических представлениях украинцев

The article deals the beliefs about the whirlwind in Ukrainian demonology. On the basis of the empiric materials the аuthor considered the features of human behavior at a meeting with whirlwind and consequent after contact’s with him; retraces whirlwind’s connection with other mythological characters – a devil, a sorcerer, a witch, self-murderer spirits and others.

Human Behavior During Emergency Evacuation: Cell Transmission Model

This paper presents an extended cell transmission model to simulate an emergency evacuation of crowd in a supermarket scenario. The supermarket scenario with a daily shopping, an emergency exit and multiple parallel shelves is discretized into a set of regular hexagonal cells. First, we verify the validity of the model by comparing the results of the model with actual data obtained from a reported pedestrian evacuation experiment. To improve the realism of the simulation, we then include three characteristics of human behavior, the unadventurous effect, inertial effect, and panic psychology, in the model as parameters and apply the extended model to the supermarket scenario. By analyzing the pedestrian density distribution, fundamental diagrams, route choice, and total evacuation time, we determine that the parameters have a significant influence on the evacuation process. By establishing a minimization model, we confirm that the total evacuation time is the least when the pedestrians’ familiarity with the emergency exit is close to the ratio of the width of the emergency exit to the total width of the two exits. Moreover, by comparing two different methods to choose exits, we can conclude that the approach, by which all pedestrians choose the closer exit, is not always the most efficient evacuation strategy. This study is conducive to devise evacuation plans and design exit layouts in facilities similar to supermarkets.

Analysis of Body Behavior Characteristics after Sports Training Based on Convolution Neural Network.

The use of artificial intelligence technology to analyze human behavior is one of the key research topics in the world. In order to detect and analyze the characteristics of human body behavior after training, a detection model combined with a convolutional neural network (CNN) is proposed. Firstly, the human skeleton suggestion model is established to analyze the driving mode of the human body in motion. Secondly, the number of layers and neurons in CNN are set according to the skeleton feature map. Then, the output information is classified according to the fatigue degree according to the body state after exercise. Finally, the training and performance test of the model are carried out, and the effect of the body behavior feature detection model in use is analyzed. The results show that the CNN designed in the study shows high accuracy and low loss rate in training and testing and also has high accuracy in the practical application of fatigue degree recognition after human training. According to the subjective evaluation of volunteers, the overall average evaluation is more than 9 points. The above results show that the designed convolution neural network-based detection model of body behavior characteristics after training has good performance and is feasible and practical, which has guiding significance for the design of sports training and training schemes.

Robustness for Authentication of the Human Using Face, Ear, and Gait Multimodal Biometric System

Biometrics is the science that deals with personal human physiological and behavioral characteristics such as fingerprints, handprints, iris, voice, face recognition, signature recognition, ear recognition, and gait recognition. Recognition using a single trait has several problems and multimodal biometrics system is one of the solutions. In this work, the novel and imperative biometric feature gait is fused with face and ear biometric features for authentication and to overcome problems of the unimodal biometric recognition system. The authors have also applied various normalization methods to sort out the best solution for such a challenge. The feature fusion of the proposed multimodal biometric system has been tested using Min-Max and Z-score techniques. The computed results demonstrate that Z-Score outperforms the Min-Max technique. It is deduced that the Z-score is a promising method that generates a high recognition rate of 95% and a false acceptance rate of 10%.

Бездействие в гражданском праве: определение понятия

The article is devoted to the identification of signs of such form of civil law behavior as inaction. Based on these signs the author formulates the definition of inaction in civil law. The need for a definition of this concept is due to the absence of the study of this civil law behavior form, as well as its generally accepted interpretation, in the civil doctrine. The author studies general signs of behavior, allocated in the sciences that study human behavior, the study of signs of legal behavior, allocated in the legal science, attempts to interpret these signs in relation to the concept of inaction in civil law, as well as identifies the specifics of such inaction. It is proved that the opinion generally accepted in the legal doctrine, that inaction is a manifestation of passivity, is not confirmed by psychological characteristics of human behavior, and the absence of observable acts of behavior does not indicate the lack of such behavior activity. The stage character of choosing the form of external manifestation of behavioral model is considered and the stages of the process of formation of inaction mechanism in civil law are determined. Following the results of the study the definition of inaction in civil law has been given.

Human Behavior Feature Representation and Recognition Based on Depth Video

With the continuous development of computer artificial intelligence technology, various applications based on artificial intelligence emerge in an endless stream, among which video image recognition technology is the most widely used in life. This article starts from the process of image recognition, based on the composite characteristics of artificial intelligence and video images, to discuss human gesture recognition technology.This article uses the feature extraction algorithm for image composite feature extraction as a method, and conducts human body movement collection experiments, analyzes the database and The gesture recognition step. This paper mainly introduces the extraction method of image composite features and the basic requirements of gesture recognition, and through the algorithm calculation of feature extraction, the function of human gesture recognition video and image composite features is completed, and the human action collection experiment is carried out to confirm. The results of images and data show the advantages of the algorithm support used in this article. We will Dmti. MsHOG is compared with other methods in the three subsets. In terms of the accuracy of all tests, our method performs better than other methods. The results show that the MSHOG (Multi-scale Histogram of Oriented Gradients) descriptor can represent the unique characteristics of human behavior, reflecting the effectiveness of our proposed method. In particular, this method achieved 100% recognition accuracy in Test, with an average recognition accuracy of 94.91%, which is significantly better than existing methods.

EXPLORING SPATIAL PARAMETERS TO EVALUATE HUMAN WALKING ACCESSIBILITY OF URBAN GREEN SPACE

Abstract. With the growth of urban population and the increasing urban density, urban green space has become a kind of precious and limited resources. It not only has a positive impact on the health of urban residents with high work-life pressure but also offers opportunities as part of blue-green solutions for sustainable urban water management. Therefore, to effectively utilise the limited green spaces, experts are exploring a way of organising the green space layout to balance human needs and other urban developing requirements (e.g., in this case, urban stormwater management) within the certain common area. With this target, translating the space accessibility to human and other urban developments on green space into space parameter is a critical step to organize space model for the multi-functional green space. Although there are plenty of existing spatial parameters developed for evaluating human accessibility (such as travel distance, land-use, spatial connectivity etc.), there isn’t a way to organize them to satisfy the diverse evaluation needs from different research purposes. Besides, most of them are suitable for analyzing space on a city scale or at least a precinct scale in a 2D model. To the accurate design on a micro-scale, it is still a big challenge. The reason is some parameters for city analysis don’t work on a micro-scale, and some parameters should be reorganised in the evaluation algorithm or should include more micro-scale factors. Thus, this paper, based on the characteristics of human behaviour, redefines the complex concept- accessibility and develop measurable parameters with feasible factors on micro-scale. Overall, this paper presents: (1) a new definition of walking accessibility of green space; (2) evaluation criteria (3) parameters (depth and Integration) reflecting connectivity criteria (4) Parameters (travel time and speed, slope, direction changes) relating travel distance criteria with updated evaluation algorithm and factors. This paper aims at useful spatial parameters and evaluation measures that are applicable to integrate human needs within multi-functional green space design, especially green stormwater management design.

The Economics of Hypergamy

Partner selection is a vital feature of human behavior with important consequences for indi-viduals, families, and society. Hypergamy occurs when a husband's earning capacity system-atically exceeds that of his wife. We provide a theoretical framework that rationalizes hy-pergamy even in the absence of gender differences in the distribution of earnings capacity. Using parental earnings rank, a predetermined measure of earnings capacity that solves the simultaneity problem of matching affecting earnings outcomes, we show that hypergamy is an important feature of Norwegian mating patterns. A vignette experiment identifies gender differences in preferences that can explain the observed patterns.

Azure-winged magpies\u2019 decisions to share food are contingent on the presence or absence of food for the recipient

Helping others is a key feature of human behavior. However, recent studies render this feature not uniquely human, and describe discoveries of prosocial behavior in non-human primates, other social mammals, and most recently in some bird species. Nevertheless, the cognitive underpinnings of this prosociality; i.e., whether animals take others’ need for help into account, often remain obscured. In this study, we take a first step in investigating prosociality in azure-winged magpies by presenting them with the opportunity to share highly desired food with their conspecifics i) in a situation in which these conspecifics had no such food, ii) in a situation in which they too had access to that highly desired food, and iii) in an open, base-line, situation where all had equal access to the same food and could move around freely. We find that azure-winged magpies regularly share high-value food items, preferably with, but not restricted to, members of the opposite sex. Most notably, we find that these birds, and specifically the females, seem to differentiate between whether others have food or do not have food, and subsequently cater to that lack. Begging calls by those without food seem to function as cues that elicit the food-sharing, but the response to that begging is condition-dependent. Moreover, analyses on a restricted dataset that excluded those events in which there was begging showed exactly the same patterns, raising the possibility that the azure-winged magpies might truly notice when others have access to fewer resources (even in the absence of vocal cues). This sharing behavior could indicate a high level of social awareness and prosociality that should be further investigated. Further studies are needed to establish the order of intentionality at play in this system, and whether azure-winged magpies might be able to attribute desire states to their conspecifics.

Chronic Maternal Tobacco Smoke Exposure and/or Alpha-Lipoic Acid Treatment Causes Long-Term Deterioration of Testis and Sexual Behavior in Adult Male Rats

BackgroundTobacco use during pregnancy is known to have several negative effects on the offspring's reproductive health in the long term. The use of alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) as a dietary supplement during pregnancy has increased greatly in recent years and has been known to have positive effects on various pregnancy outcomes including miscarriage, diabetic embryopathy, preterm delivery, and congenital malformations. AimTo evaluate the effects of tobacco smoke exposure (TSE) on sexual behavior, reproductive parameters, and testicles in adult male rats and to reveal the possible role of ALA administration on these parameters. MethodsPregnant rats (n = 7 per group) were treated with tobacco smoke (TS), ALA (20 mg/kg), and TS + ALA for a total of 11 weeks. The following parameters were compared with 8 control rats: puberty parameters, sexual behavior; levels of serum gonadotropins and testosterone, total antioxidant status, and total oxidant status; the expression of the apoptotic protease-activating factor-1 and caspase 9 mRNA levels in the testis; and assessment of immunohistochemistry and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling assay of testis. Main Outcome MeasureSexual behavior, changes in puberty parameters, and hormonal and genetic alterations were the outcomes analyzed in this study. ResultsMaternal TSE caused a significant decrease in the number of intromissions compared to the control group. Similarly, ALA decreased erectile function in sexual behavior by decreasing the number of intromissions and intromission ratio in the ALA group compared to the control group. In addition, TSE and ALA treatment caused an impairment of some consummatory sexual behaviors. Also, in parallel with this inhibitory effect, the age of pubertal onset was significantly delayed in the TS + ALA group compared to other groups. Also, histopathological changes in testicular tissue, oxidative stress markers, apoptotic index, and mRNA levels of apoptosis-related genes increased in all treatment groups. Clinical ImplicationsThe use of ALA and/or tobacco products during pregnancy may adversely affect the reproductive health of male newborns in the long term. Strengths & LimitationsTo the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to show the effects of maternal ALA treatment and/or TSE on the sexual behavior and reproductive parameters in male rats; however, the study is based on an animal model, and the present findings partially reflect the characteristics of human sexual behavior. ConclusionMaternal TSE and/or ALA treatment may impair sexual behavior in adulthood in male rats because of testicular damage caused by oxidative stress during gonadal development.Yardimci A, Akkoc RF, Tektemur A, et al. Chronic Maternal Tobacco Smoke Exposure and/or Alpha-Lipoic Acid Treatment Causes Long-Term Deterioration of Testis and Sexual Behavior in Adult Male Rats. J Sex Med 2020;17:1835–1847.

Dissociable Neural Systems Support the Learning and Transfer of Hierarchical Control Structure.

Humans can draw insight from previous experiences to quickly adapt to novel environments that share a common underlying structure. Here we combine functional imaging and computational modeling to identify the neural systems that support the discovery and transfer of hierarchical task structure. Human subjects (male and female) completed multiple blocks of a reinforcement learning task that contained a global hierarchical structure governing stimulus-response action mapping. First, behavioral and computational evidence showed that humans successfully discover and transfer the hierarchical rule structure embedded within the task. Next, analysis of fMRI BOLD data revealed activity across a frontoparietal network that was specifically associated with the discovery of this embedded structure. Finally, activity throughout a cingulo-opercular network supported the transfer and implementation of this discovered structure. Together, these results reveal a division of labor in which dissociable neural systems support the learning and transfer of abstract control structures.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT A fundamental and defining feature of human behavior is the ability to generalize knowledge from the past to support future action. Although the neural circuits underlying more direct forms of learning have been well established over the last century, we still lack a solid framework from which to investigate more abstract, higher-order human learning and knowledge generalization. We designed a novel behavioral paradigm to specifically isolate a learning process in which previous knowledge, rather than directly indicating the correct action, instead guides the search for the correct action. Moreover, we identify that this learning process is achieved via the coordinated and temporally specific activity of two prominent cognitive control brain networks.

The influence of human behavioral characteristics on soundscape perception in urban parks: Subjective and observational approaches

With an emphasis on the role of parks in urban environments, studies on soundscape, which assess sound quality, have focused on human perception. In particular, various studies have been conducted on the relationship between human behavioral characteristics and their sound environment. However, there is still insufficient research on human behavioral characteristics in the context of urban parks. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of human behavioral characteristics on perceptions of soundscapes in urban parks. Participants were asked to subjectively evaluate the soundscapes of three parks in Paris, France, using three cognitive stages: indicators (perceived audio and visual elements), emotions (semantic expression), and cognition (overall quality of the park’s soundscape). The human behavioral characteristics that the participants witnessed were categorized into whether there was social interaction, whether people remained in the park or were passing through, and what kind of activities took place. To secure high ecological validity, audio-visual information was provided to the participants using virtual reality equipment. The results demonstrated that sounds made by other people decreased the perceived tranquility or peacefulness while the experience of the park as being dynamic and lively increased. We also found that the primary determinant of park preferences was not the type of human activities but the presence or absence of people.

Human movement characteristics during emergency evacuations in a virtual environment

This study presents an evacuation experiment to test individual behavior in an interactive virtual environment. A total of 68 test scenarios were established, and 122 participants were recruited to take part in all the test scenarios. The results show that individual attributes, such as sex, education background, age, and evacuation experience, have a correlation with the participants’ ability of escaping in the virtual evacuation environment. Specifically, younger men with higher education level and evacuation experience may have a better ability of escaping. The comparison of the evacuation paths, directions, and times among 8 scenarios with different sets reveals that people prefer to select the shortest route, but keep away from the fire source as much as possible if a fire happens. On the other hand, other people compete with the individual for the available evacuation resources, but when the exit location is unknown, other people may help individuals find the exit. In addition, the visibility decreases in case of fire, which is the most difficult condition for escaping with the longest movement distance and most evacuation time. This study will be useful to understand the human behavior and movement characteristics during evacuation by using a cheap and safe method.