Naturalistic Environment Research Articles

Protocol to Study Spatial Subgoal Learning Using Escape Behavior in Mice.

Rodent spatial navigation is a key model system for studying mammalian cognition and its neural mechanisms. Of particular interest is how animals memorize the structure of their environments and compute multi-step routes to a goal. Previous work on multi-step spatial reasoning has generally involved placing rodents at the start of a maze until they learn to navigate to a reward without making wrong turns. It thus remains poorly understood how animals rapidly learn about the structure of naturalistic open environments with goals and obstacles. Here we present an assay in which mice spontaneously memorize two-step routes in an environment with a shelter and an obstacle. We allow the mice to explore this environment for 20 min, and then we remove the obstacle. We then present auditory threat stimuli, causing the mouse to escape to the shelter. Finally, we record each escape route and measure whether it targets the shelter directly (a 'homing-vector' escape) or instead targets the location where the obstacle edge was formerly located (an 'edge-vector' escape). Since the obstacle is no longer there, these obstacle-edge-directed escape routes provide evidence that the mouse has memorized a subgoal location, i.e., a waypoint targeted in order to efficiently get to the shelter in the presence of an obstacle. By taking advantage of instinctive escape responses, this assay probes a multi-step spatial memory that is learned in a single session without pretraining. The subgoal learning phenomenon it generates can be useful not only for researchers working on navigation and instinctive behavior, but also for neuroscientists studying the neural basis of multi-step spatial reasoning.

Connection between geographical environment and teenagers well being by the example of Raudondvaris eldershp

Lithuanian teenagers are considered to be the most unhappy in the Europien Union. Also when comparing with other countries in Europien Union, suicide rates of children and teenagers are one of the highest in Lithuania. The main goal of this article is contribute to psychology geography and to research one of the most vulnerable social groups in Lithuania. One of the factors that influence the emotional well being of teenagers is their geographical environment. This article reviews the research of children and teens well being in the world and in Lithuania, the definition of psychology geography is also analysed. First part of the article describes the geographical environment in Raudondvaris eldership, the main focus is on nature and social elements, which contribute to ones emotional well being. It is important to note that two types of environmental elements are described: material (nature, infrastructure and other) and nonmaterial (communities, activities in elderships organisations and other). Second part of the article describes the connection between the teenagers well being and their environment. This analyses is done by conducting a survey. Most respondents (89%) think highly of their geographical environment. Positive evaluation is seen in the center of the eldership and in the smaller villages. Emotional well being indicator was taken from the recommendations of the World Health Organisation. Most teenagers living in Raudondvaris eldeship had scored high in this indicator (only one forth scored low). These results are influeced by good naturalistic environment and semi active social lives, good connection with bigger cities near by, where teenagers can engage in services and free time activities. This research has revealed, that teenagers living further away from the elderships centre feel much better then those living in Raudondvaris village. This can be explained, that most of the elderships territory is a suburb of Kaunas city. In this case distance from the city centre does not impact emotional well being of teenagers in Raudondvaris eldership. Well developed infrustructure and Kaunas city allows teenagers to take adventage of services that Kaunas city has to offer. Keywords: well being, geographical environment, Raudondvaris eldership, psychology geography.

License Plate Image Analysis Empowered by Generative Adversarial Neural Networks (GANs)

Although the majority of existing License Plate (LP) recognition techniques have significant improvements in accuracy, they are still limited to ideal situations in which training data is correctly annotated with restricted scenarios. Moreover, images or videos are frequently used in monitoring systems that have Low Resolution (LR) quality. In this work, the problem of LP detection in digital images is addressed in the images of a naturalistic environment. Single-stage character segmentation and recognition are combined with adversarial Super-Resolution (SR) approaches to improve the quality of the LP by processing the LR images into High-Resolution (HR) images. This work proposes effective changes to the SRGAN network regarding the number of layers, an activation function, and the appropriate loss regularization using Total Variation (TV) loss. The main paper contribution can be summarized into presenting an end-to-end deep learning framework based on generative adversarial networks (GAN), which is able to generate realistic super-resolution images. Also, proposed adding a TV regularization to the loss function to help the model enhance the resolution of images. The proposed SRGAN can handle tiny <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$72\times 72$ </tex-math></inline-formula> images of LPs. The paper explores how SRGAN performed over different datasets from many aspects, such as visual analysis, PSNR, SSIM, and Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The experiments demonstrate that the suggested SRGAN can generate high-resolution images that improve the accuracy of the license plate recognition stage compared to other systems.

Mind the attention gap: how does digital advertising impact choice under low attention?

PurposeThis study aims to investigate whether digital advertising can be effective despite consumer inattention and how certain common combinations of ad characteristics increase or decrease ad effectiveness under conditions of low attention.Design/methodology/approachUsing two online experiments in naturalistic environment, the authors compare ad effects under focussed, divided and incidental attention, for certain ad characteristics, namely, appeal type and (mis)matching between appeal and brand type. The results are analysed using logistic regression.FindingsAd exposure under low attention does increase brand consideration and choice. The greatest uplift in impact occurs when moving from non-exposure to incidental attention. Under incidental attention, emotive advertising was more effective than rational advertising, as was matching rather than mismatching an emotional appeal to a hedonic brand. Conversely, under divided attention, rational advertising and mismatching a rational appeal to a hedonic brand were more effective.Research limitations/implicationsThis research explores the effectiveness of Twitter ads with an emotional or a rational appeal and the (mis)matching between appeal and utilitarian or hedonic brand type. Future research can examine other formats and creative elements of digital advertising that can affect the low-attention processing and the effects that occur.Practical implicationsIntrusive, attention-getting advertising strategies may not be necessary. Certain common creative devices can increase advertising effectiveness despite low attention, so marketers can ensure consumer-centric marketing communication.Originality/valueThere has previously been limited understanding of low-attention mechanisms in advertising and little evidence of ad effectiveness under conditions of low attention. The research also demonstrates that certain ad characteristics, linked to common creative devices, enhance the impact of advertising despite low attention.

Trajectories of state impulsivity domains before and after alcohol consumption in the naturalistic environment

Background and AimsStudies have demonstrated that ecological momentary assessment (EMA) can effectively capture within-person variations in impulsive states and that this relates to alcohol use. The current study aimed to examine the daily trajectories of five facets of impulsivity prior to and following drinking initiation. Additionally, we explored how race, sex, baseline trait impulsivity facets, and ADHD may moderate this relation. Design and SettingEMA was used to collect real-time data at 6 semi-random time points and self-initiated reports of drinking onset throughout the day over a 10-day periodMeasurementsFive state and trait impulsivity facets were assessed via the UPPS-P. Naturalistic alcohol use, ADHD history, and demographic characteristics were also assessed ParticipantsParticipants were 135 adult drinkers from a larger study examining alcohol response for Black and White adults with and without a history of childhood ADHD FindingsGeneralized estimating equations showed that the linear trajectory of negative urgency significantly increased prior to drinking. Following drinking initiation, the linear trajectory of sensation seeking significantly decreased. There was not significant change in the trajectories of positive urgency, lack of premeditation and lack of perseverance before or after drinking initiation. Additionally, race and ADHD history moderated the trajectory of sensation seeking and race moderated the trajectory of lack of planning. ConclusionsFindings highlight the possibility of identifying proximal changes in impulsivity facets prior to and after initiation of drinking. Results can be used to inform real-time interventions that target risk periods to ultimately decrease alcohol use

Functional Subdivisions of the Cerebellum in Naturalistic Paradigm Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Compelling evidence has suggested that the human cerebellum is engaged in a wide range of cognitive tasks besides traditional opinions of motor control, and it is organized into a set of distinct functional subregions. The existing model-driven cerebellum parcellations through resting-state functional MRI (rsfMRI) and task-fMRI are relatively coarse, introducing challenges in resolving the functions of the cerebellum especially when the brain is exposed to naturalistic environments. The current study took the advantages of the naturalistic paradigm (i.e., movie viewing) fMRI (nfMRI) to derive fine parcellations via a data-driven dual-regression-like sparse representation framework. The parcellations were quantitatively evaluated by functional homogeneity, and global and local boundary confidence. In addition, the differences of cerebellum–cerebrum functional connectivities between rsfMRI and nfMRI for some exemplar parcellations were compared to provide qualitatively functional validations. Our experimental results demonstrated that the proposed study successfully identified distinct subregions of the cerebellum. This fine parcellation may serve as a complementary solution to existing cerebellum parcellations, providing an alternative template for exploring neural activities of the cerebellum in naturalistic environments.

Momentary associations between stress and alcohol craving in the naturalistic environment: differential associations for Black and White young adults.

Black drinkers compared with White drinkers experience more alcohol-related problems. Examination of social determinants of inequities in alcohol problems is needed. The current study measured (1) associations between acute stress and alcohol craving in the naturalistic environment for self-identified Black and White individuals who drink alcohol and (2) whether a history of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) moderated these associations. Observational study using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to collect data from participants at six semi-random time-points throughout the day during a 10-day period. A series of three-level multi-level models examined between- and within-person associations for stress and alcohol and tested if these associations differed for Black and White adults. Participants were 229 adult drinkers (aged 21-35 years) who completed a larger study examining alcohol response for Black and White adults with and without a history of childhood ADHD. Momentary stress and alcohol craving, ADHD history and socio-demographic characteristics (i.e. racial identity, sex, age, current education level, household income) were assessed. Participants were required to self-identify as either 'African American or Black' or 'European American or White'. Significant racial identity × stress interactions indicated that associations between stress and craving were stronger for Black compared with White adults across the 10-day period (between-person: B= 0.14, P= 0.007), concurrently within a given EMA time-point (within-person: B= 0.04, P= 0.001) and prospectively from time-point to time-point (within-person: B= 0.05, P= 0.001). Results remained while accounting for income × stress interactions. Acute stress appears to be more strongly related to alcohol craving in self-identified Black compared with self-identified White individuals. This provides support for policy changes to eliminate structural inequities that increase stress exposure and the development of just-in-time culturally responsive interventions focused on coping with acute stress for Black individuals.

Feasibility and acceptability of ecological momentary assessment in a fully online study of community-based adults at high risk for suicide.

Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) has increasingly been used to examine suicidality in naturalistic environments. Despite its potential to yield clinically relevant information, no EMA study has used an anonymous, fully online, design. This study reports on the feasibility and acceptability of real-time monitoring of suicide risk among 237 high-risk, anonymous, community-based adults (N = 237, 61.6% female, Mage = 27.12 years) who responded to six daily EMA prompts for 2 weeks. A subset (N = 69) completed a poststudy feedback survey to provide information on the acceptability of the study protocol. Response rates to EMA prompts (69.1%) demonstrated the feasibility of this design. Suicidal ideation was reported in 21.5% of prompts and by 86.1% of participants. Participants reported that their overall experience was positive, and that they would be willing to participate in a similar study again. Specific strengths and limitations of the study design were discussed in response to open-ended items. Finally, participants who created an alias email to ensure anonymity were less likely to report a suicide attempt (SA) history and more likely to complete the study. Overall, intensive EMA designs are feasible and acceptable when delivered online and to anonymous participants. Specific recommendations are provided for managing safety within these study designs, and for refinements in future work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

A multi-step blind source separation approach for the attenuation of artifacts in mobile high-density electroencephalography data

Objective. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a widely used technique to address research questions about brain functioning, from controlled laboratorial conditions to naturalistic environments. However, EEG data are affected by biological (e.g. ocular, myogenic) and non-biological (e.g. movement-related) artifacts, which—depending on their extent—may limit the interpretability of the study results. Blind source separation (BSS) approaches have demonstrated to be particularly promising for the attenuation of artifacts in high-density EEG (hdEEG) data. Previous EEG artifact removal studies suggested that it may not be optimal to use the same BSS method for different kinds of artifacts. Approach. In this study, we developed a novel multi-step BSS approach to optimize the attenuation of ocular, movement-related and myogenic artifacts from hdEEG data. For validation purposes, we used hdEEG data collected in a group of healthy participants in standing, slow-walking and fast-walking conditions. During part of the experiment, a series of tone bursts were used to evoke auditory responses. We quantified event-related potentials (ERPs) using hdEEG signals collected during an auditory stimulation, as well as the event-related desynchronization (ERD) by contrasting hdEEG signals collected in walking and standing conditions, without auditory stimulation. We compared the results obtained in terms of auditory ERP and motor-related ERD using the proposed multi-step BSS approach, with respect to two classically used single-step BSS approaches. Main results. The use of our approach yielded the lowest residual noise in the hdEEG data, and permitted to retrieve stronger and more reliable modulations of neural activity than alternative solutions. Overall, our study confirmed that the performance of BSS-based artifact removal can be improved by using specific BSS methods and parameters for different kinds of artifacts. Significance. Our technological solution supports a wider use of hdEEG-based source imaging in movement and rehabilitation studies, and contributes to the further development of mobile brain/body imaging applications.

A naturalistic environment to study visual cognition in unrestrained monkeys.

Macaque monkeys are widely used to study vision. In the traditional approach, monkeys are brought into a lab to perform visual tasks while they are restrained to obtain stable eye tracking and neural recordings. Here, we describe a novel environment to study visual cognition in a more natural setting as well as other natural and social behaviors. We designed a naturalistic environment with an integrated touchscreen workstation that enables high-quality eye tracking in unrestrained monkeys. We used this environment to train monkeys on a challenging same-different task. We also show that this environment can reveal interesting novel social behaviors. As proof of concept, we show that two naive monkeys were able to learn this complex task through a combination of socially observing trained monkeys and solo trial-and-error. We propose that such naturalistic environments can be used to rigorously study visual cognition as well as other natural and social behaviors in freely moving monkeys.

Quantifying determinants of social conformity in an online debating website

Social conformity is the act of individuals adjusting their personal opinions to agree with an opposing majority. Previous work has identified multiple determinants of social conformity in controlled laboratory studies, but they remain largely untested in naturalistic online environments. For this study, we developed a realistic debating website, which 48 participants used for one week. We deployed four versions of the website using a 2 (high vs. low social presence) x 2 (high vs. low emphasis on majority–minority group composition) between-subjects factorial design. We found that participants were significantly more likely to conform when the platform promotes high social presence, despite its emphasis on group composition. Our qualitative findings further reveal how different aspects of social presence embedded in platform design (i.e., user representation, interactivity, and response visibility) contribute to heightened conformity behaviour. Our results provide evidence of the organic manifestation of conformity in online groups discussing subjective content and confirm the effect of platform design on online conformity behaviour. We conclude with a discussion on the implications of our findings on how future online platforms can be designed accounting for conformity influences.

EEG and behavioral correlates of attentional processing while walking and navigating naturalistic environments

The capacity to regulate one’s attention in accordance with fluctuating task demands and environmental contexts is an essential feature of adaptive behavior. Although the electrophysiological correlates of attentional processing have been extensively studied in the laboratory, relatively little is known about the way they unfold under more variable, ecologically-valid conditions. Accordingly, this study employed a ‘real-world’ EEG design to investigate how attentional processing varies under increasing cognitive, motor, and environmental demands. Forty-four participants were exposed to an auditory oddball task while (1) sitting in a quiet room inside the lab, (2) walking around a sports field, and (3) wayfinding across a university campus. In each condition, participants were instructed to either count or ignore oddball stimuli. While behavioral performance was similar across the lab and field conditions, oddball count accuracy was significantly reduced in the campus condition. Moreover, event-related potential components (mismatch negativity and P3) elicited in both ‘real-world’ settings differed significantly from those obtained under laboratory conditions. These findings demonstrate the impact of environmental factors on attentional processing during simultaneously-performed motor and cognitive tasks, highlighting the value of incorporating dynamic and unpredictable contexts within naturalistic designs.

Costs and benefits of living in a vegetated, compared with non-vegetated, enclosure in male Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata).

Improving captive environments for primates has been an important tool to enhance animal welfare. One method has been to provide primates with naturalistic vegetated enclosures to promote species-specific behaviors, enhancing interactions with their social and natural environment, such as an increase in feeding, foraging, and positive social behaviors such as play. To investigate the benefits in which living in naturalistic environments promote general animal well-being, we observed immature and adult males living in two outdoor housed groups of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) in the Kyoto University Primate Research Institute (KUPRI), Inuyama, Japan, from June of 2015 until June 2016. One enclosure was naturally vegetated and the other was not. We recorded male activity budgets, affiliative (groom, play) behaviors, and rates of agonistic interactions. To examine health status, we recorded and compared coat conditions for both groups. We found that males in the vegetated enclosure spent more time in social play than males in the non-vegetated enclosure, while males in the non-vegetated enclosure displayed more stereotypic behaviors and agonistic interactions. We recorded better coat conditions in the vegetated enclosure males while rates of social grooming or self-grooming were no different between males in the two enclosures. The males in the vegetated enclosure did not have activity budgets more similar to their wild counterparts; but they spent more time in feeding-related activities and less time resting, which was more similar to their wild counterparts than males in the non-vegetated enclosure. Our findings suggest that individuals housed in naturalistic environments have significantly greater behavioral and physical markers of wellbeing than those housed in unnatural, large outdoor enclosures. Although we found that males in both types of enclosures overall had similar time budgets to males in the wild, the detailed behavioral and health results suggest that the welfare benefits to males were greater in the vegetated enclosure, compared with non-vegetated enclosures. Efforts to mimic more natural environments should promote the well-being of primates.

Move more, move better: A narrative review of wearable technologies and their application to precision health.

Recent technological and methodological advances have seen a rapid increase in the development and use of wearable technologies, advancing the study and practice of precision health for individuals across real-world contexts and health statuses. This narrative review highlights the recent scientific advances and emerging challenges of wearable technologies. We first review the advantages of monitoring physical activity using wearable technologies over self-reports and examine commercially available devices' reliability and validity. Next, we point to the utility of wearable technologies in naturalistic environments to examine temporal associations between physical activity with other health behaviors, psychological processes, and ambulatory markers of disease that can inform the clinical practice of precision health. We further identify studies that use wearable technologies to facilitate behavior change across different populations, highlighting the need to adapt interventions for different individuals, contexts, and disorders. Balanced against these opportunities, we also highlight several challenges facing the field of precision monitoring. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Decoding Happiness from Neural and Video Recordings for Better Insight Into Emotional Processing in the Brain.

Gaining a better understanding of which brain regions are responsible for emotional processing is crucial for the development of novel treatments for neuropsychiatric disorders. Current approaches rely on sparse assessments of subjects' emotional states, rarely reaching more than a hundred per patient. Additionally, data are usually obtained in a task solving scenario, possibly influencing their emotions by study design. Here, we utilize several days worth of near-continuous neural and video recordings of subjects in a naturalistic environment to predict the emotional state of happiness from neural data. We are able to obtain high-frequency and high-volume happiness labels for this task by first predicting happiness from video data in an intermediary step, achieving good results (F1 = .75) and providing us with more than 6 million happiness assessments per patient, on average. We then utilize these labels for a classifier on neural data (F1 = .71). Our findings provide a potential pathway for future work on emotional processing that circumvents the mentioned restrictions.

Affect, Support, and Personal Factors: Multimodal Causal Models of One-on-one Coaching

Human one-on-one coaching involves complex multimodal interactions. Successful coaching requires teachers to closely monitor students' cognitive-affective states and provide support of optimal type, timing, and amount. However, most of the existing human tutoring studies focus primarily on verbal interactions and have yet to incorporate the rich aspects of multimodal cognitive-affective experiences. Meanwhile, the research community lacks principled methods to fully exploit complex multimodal data to uncover the causal relationships between coaching supports, students' cognitive-affective experiences, and their stable individual factors. We explore an analytical framework that is explainable and amenable to incorporating domain knowledge. The proposed framework combines statistical approaches in Sparse Multiple Canonical Correlation, causal discovery, and inference methods for observations. We demonstrate this framework using a multimodal one-on-one math problem-solving coaching dataset collected in naturalistic home environments involving parents and young children. The insights derived from our analyses may inform the design of effective technology-inspired interventions that are personalized and adaptive.

Prediction of upcoming speech under fluent and disfluent conditions: eye tracking evidence from immersive virtual reality

ABSTRACT Traditional experiments indicate that prediction is important for efficient speech processing. In three virtual reality visual world paradigm experiments, we tested whether such findings hold in naturalistic settings (Experiment 1) and provided novel insights into whether disfluencies in speech (repairs/hesitations) inform one’s predictions in rich environments (Experiments 2–3). Experiment 1 supports that listeners predict upcoming speech in naturalistic environments, with higher proportions of anticipatory target fixations in predictable compared to unpredictable trials. In Experiments 2–3, disfluencies reduced anticipatory fixations towards predicted referents, compared to conjunction (Experiment 2) and fluent (Experiment 3) sentences. Unexpectedly, Experiment 2 provided no evidence that participants made new predictions from a repaired verb. Experiment 3 provided novel findings that fixations towards the speaker increase upon hearing a hesitation, supporting current theories of how hesitations influence sentence processing. Together, these findings unpack listeners’ use of visual (objects/speaker) and auditory (speech/disfluencies) information when predicting upcoming words.

Roaming in a Land of Milk and Honey: Life Trajectories and Metabolic Rate of Female Inbred Mice Living in a Semi Naturalistic Environment.

Simple SummaryDifferent forms of environmental enrichment are used to increase the wellbeing of laboratory animals. These forms include extending the available cage space, housing a large group of animals within the same unit and adding stimulating physical objects. The semi naturalistic environment (SNE) used in this study implements all of these enhancements. However, there is debate as to whether such variation in housing standards increases the variability of experimental data. Indeed, it has been shown that mice living in the SNE developed individual differences in activity and behavioral parameters. Here, we investigated whether housing in the SNE enhances individual differences in aged animals and whether these differences are reflected in certain physiological parameters. These aspects were considered to assess the suitability of the SNE as a reference system in future studies. We found that the individual-level activity patterns of the animals stabilized during the housing period in the SNE. These behavioral characteristics did not correlate with the measured physiological parameters. Considering the variance of the measured data, which is comparable to the literature, the SNE seems to be a suitable system for studies comparing different housing systems in terms of animal welfare.Despite tremendous efforts at standardization, the results of scientific studies can vary greatly, especially when considering animal research. It is important to emphasize that consistent different personality-like traits emerge and accumulate over time in laboratory mice despite genetic and environmental standardization. To understand to what extent variability can unfold over time, we conducted a long-term study using inbred mice living in an exceptionally complex environment comprising an area of 4.6 m2 spread over five levels. In this semi-naturalistic environment (SNE) the activity and spatial distribution of 20 female C57Bl/6J was recorded by radio-frequency identification (RFID). All individuals were monitored from an age of 11 months to 22 months and their individual pattern of spatial movement in time is described as roaming entropy. Overall, we detected an increase of diversification in roaming behavior over time with stabilizing activity patterns at the individual level. However, spontaneous behavior of the animals as well as physiological parameters did not correlate with cumulative roaming entropy. Moreover, the amount of variability did not exceed the literature data derived from mice living in restricted conventional laboratory conditions. We conclude that even taking quantum leaps towards improving animal welfare does not inevitably mean a setback in terms of data quality.

Natural Habitat Design for Zoo-Housed Elasmobranch and Teleost Fish Species Improves Behavioural Repertoire and Space Use in a Visitor Facing Exhibit.

Simple SummaryStudies investigating whether a captive environment is meeting the needs of the species housed are relatively common among captive mammals. However, studies exploring fish behaviour in captive display enclosures are far less common in the scientific literature. Focusing on a small group of sharks, rays and smaller fish within a single display, our objectives were to; assess whether the behaviours of a select number of individual fishes within a single display are altered after the environment is enriched to enhance environmental complexity and visitor exposure is reduced, and also to increase our understanding of captive fish behaviour to improve capacity for evidence-based management decisions. In summary, increased environmental complexity and reduced visitor interaction showed correlations with increased expression of natural behaviours in all fish studied, including increased space use and decreased abnormal repetitive behaviours in some species. These results reflect a change toward more natural wild behavioural time budgets. Studying behaviour change in fish in different environmental conditions provides a good basis for evidence-based decision making.This study investigated the behaviour of two Elasmobranch species; Southern fiddler ray (Trygonorrhina dumerilii, n = 1) and Port Jackson shark (Heterodontus portusjacksoni, n = 4) and two teleost species; moonlighter (Tilodon sexfasciatus, n = 1) and banded morwong (Cheilodactylus spectabilis, n = 1) living within a single enclosure. For this study, two treatments were compared, the original enclosure design, and then after the enclosure had been renovated to more closely represent the species natural habitats, with a raised front viewing glass to prevent visitor interaction. Behaviours such as resting, swimming and abnormal behaviours such as surface and perimeter swimming (elasmobranchs only) were recorded as well as location within the enclosure, for 10 days pre and 10 days post renovation. The Port Jackson sharks significantly reduced the performance of abnormal behaviours after renovation, and significantly increased the time spent near the exhibit front. The Southern fiddler ray increased resting post renovation, while the teleost species also spent more time near the exhibit front. Although a small sample size was used, the results suggest that a more naturalistic environment with multiple micro-habitats and effective visitor barriers allows for a greater proportion of the day spent exhibiting natural behaviours, greater space use and reduced stereotypes.

Opportunities and Limitations of Mobile Neuroimaging Technologies in Educational Neuroscience.

ABSTRACTAs the field of educational neuroscience continues to grow, questions have emerged regarding the ecological validity and applicability of this research to educational practice. Recent advances in mobile neuroimaging technologies have made it possible to conduct neuroscientific studies directly in naturalistic learning environments. We propose that embedding mobile neuroimaging research in a cycle (Matusz, Dikker, Huth, & Perrodin, 2019), involving lab‐based, seminaturalistic, and fully naturalistic experiments, is well suited for addressing educational questions. With this review, we take a cautious approach, by discussing the valuable insights that can be gained from mobile neuroimaging technology, including electroencephalography and functional near‐infrared spectroscopy, as well as the challenges posed by bringing neuroscientific methods into the classroom. Research paradigms used alongside mobile neuroimaging technology vary considerably. To illustrate this point, studies are discussed with increasingly naturalistic designs. We conclude with several ethical considerations that should be taken into account in this unique area of research.