Partial Evidence Research Articles

Changes in Male Behavior in Response to Female Chemical Stimulus in an Understudied Arthropod Model

ABSTRACTIntraspecific sexual communication, crucial in reproductive interactions, often involves the interchange of signals like vibrations, visual signals, and chemical compounds like sex chemical cues. Within the arachnids, solifuges (“camel spiders”) are an understudied group in terms of the detection of chemical compounds during mate searching and sexual interactions. In solifugids, the malleoli, chemoreceptor structures located on the ventral side of legs IV, are putative structures capable of capturing chemical signals. Our study focused on chemical male perception of female cues in Titanopuga salinarum (Ammotrechidae), examining associated behavioral modifications and the role of malleoli. We analyzed alterations in the motion pattern (activity pulse) and specific behaviors performed by males in association with female chemical stimuli. Using experimental arenas, we exposed males to female chemical cues stimuli similar to those available at the field. Stimuli comprised females (F) and cuticular extracts (CE), with corresponding controls. Males with intact malleoli (N = 26 with F, N = 20 with CE) were compared to those with malleoli removed (N = 21 with F, N = 17 with CE). We found partial evidence that males detect chemical cues of females deposited on the substrate. We observed no differences in the duration and number of the activity pulses spent in the zones with and without stimuli in any of the groups analyzed. However, the males exhibit significant changes in locomotion patterns in response to female chemical cues, suggesting a behavioral response to these stimuli. This finding suggests that the males of this species detect the female chemical cues and modify their behavior, and can quickly gather the necessary olfactory information where the stimulus is located. In addition, we found a possible condition‐dependent regime for the detection of female cues by males, which would be expected from life‐history characteristics of T. salinarum. Our findings prompt discussion from a sexual selection perspective, suggesting the importance of chemical communication in intraspecific interactions in this elusive but fascinating animal model.

On the Impossibility of Convergence of Mixed Strategies with Optimal No-Regret Learning

We study the limiting behavior of the mixed strategies that result from optimal no-regret learning in a repeated game setting where the stage game is any 2 × 2 competitive game. We consider optimal no-regret algorithms that are mean-based and monotonic in their argument. We show that for any such algorithm, the limiting mixed strategies of the players cannot converge almost surely to any Nash equilibrium. This negative result is also shown to hold under a broad relaxation of these assumptions, including popular variants of Follow-the-Regularized Leader with optimism or adaptive step sizes. Finally, we provide partial evidence that the monotonicity and mean-based assumptions can be removed or relaxed. Our results identify the inherent stochasticity in players’ realizations as a critical factor underlying this divergence, and demonstrate a crucial difference in outcomes between using the opponent’s mixtures and realizations to make updates. Funding: V. Muthukumar was supported by a Simons-Berkeley Research Fellowship, NSF awards IIS-2212182 and CCF-2239151, and generous gifts from Amazon, Adobe, and Google. S. Phade acknowledges the support of the NSF [Grants CNS-1527846 and CCF-1618145] and the NSF Science & Technology Center [Grant CCF-0939370 (Science of Information)]. A. Sahai acknowledges the support of the ML4Wireless center member companies and the NSF [Grants AST-144078 and ECCS-1343398].

Supporting the status quo is weakly associated with subjective well-being: A comparison of the palliative function of ideology across social status groups using a meta-analytic approach.

Research has suggested that the endorsement of ideologies supporting the status quo leads to higher subjective psychological well-being-an idea labeled as the palliative function of ideology within system justification theory. Furthermore, this approach has suggested that this association should be moderated by social status. Specifically, the association between the endorsement of ideologies supporting the status quo and well-being should be positive among high-status groups and negative among low-status groups-mainly as a function of the existence of a unique motivation to justify the status quo. Given contradictory evidence in previous studies, we conducted a meta-analysis to test these ideas. Across 1,627 studies and 1,856,940 participants, we observed a meta-analytic association between endorsement of ideologies supporting the status quo and well-being of r = .07, p < .001. Nonetheless, we did not find evidence supportive of the moderator role of social status. These results provide partial evidence supporting the main tenets of system justification theory, and they are inconsistent with the idea of the existence of a unique motivation to justify the status quo. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Examining conceptual generalisation after acquisition, extinction, and reinstatement in evaluative conditioning.

In evaluative conditioning, a neutral conditional stimulus (CS) acquires the valence of a pleasant or unpleasant unconditional stimulus (US) after the CS and US are paired (acquisition). Valence acquired by the CS can generalise to other stimuli from the same category. Presenting the CS alone can reduce evaluative conditioning (extinction), but evaluations can return after the US is presented alone (reinstatement). The current research investigated whether extinction and reinstatement generalise to other category members (generalisation stimuli, GS). In Experiment 1, evaluations generalised in acquisition after conditioning with one category exemplar, but GS evaluations were unaffected by extinction and reinstatement. In Experiment 2, we aimed to enhance generalisation by presenting multiple category exemplars during conditioning. This strengthened the generalisation of evaluations in extinction but not reinstatement. In Experiment 3, conditioning with multiple exemplars caused explicit and implicit evaluations (measured using an affective priming task) to generalise in acquisition but not in extinction or reinstatement. The acquisition and extinction of US expectancy generalised in all experiments, but the reinstatement generalised in Experiment 3 only. Overall, we found partial evidence of evaluative generalisation during extinction (but not reinstatement) and demonstrated that the extinction and reinstatement of US expectancy generalises in evaluative conditioning.

Long‐term and landscape impacts of buffel grass on arid plant communities: Ecosystem shifts and acceleration by fire

AbstractPlant invasions drive biodiversity loss, transform ecosystems, and promote positive‐feedback cycles between invasion and fire. However, the long‐term impacts of invasive grasses across landscapes with diverse plant communities and interactions with fire are poorly known. Our objectives were to examine whether buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris), a globally significant plant invader, altered the abundance of understory and overstory plants, homogenized plant composition, and shifted ecosystems from woodlands to grassland and to explore interrelationships between invasion and fire. We combined two methodological approaches to assess invasion spread and impacts of buffel grass in the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands of arid central Australia: a before‐after‐control‐impact (BACI) experiment over 25 years at 15 sites and a paired‐plot (randomized‐block) experiment at 18 sites. Both experiments spanned two geographic regions and multiple vegetation communities situated on flat plains and rocky hills. We used generalized linear mixed models to analyze predictions about plant abundance and permutational multivariate ANOVA (PERMANOVA) and permutational multivariate analysis of dispersion (PERMDISP) to examine changes in community composition. Fire and invasion interactions were explored using fire history or the relative fire tolerance of plant species as covariates, predictors, or responses. Fire interacted with the invasion process in multiple ways. Invaded sites had burnt more frequently and recently than native sites in one region, and where propagules were present in 1995, buffel grass abundance increased most when fires ensued. Abundance of understory plant functional groups (native grasses, ferns, and vines) decreased with invasion, and understory shrubs decreased due to frequent fires in invaded sites. Overstory composition shifted from fire‐sensitive species toward fire‐tolerant species, but this was not directly attributable to invasion. Partial evidence for ecosystem regime shifts included homogenization of understory communities in invaded rocky hills, and an increase in woody shrub cover at native but not invaded sites over 25 years, resulting in a 5% cover difference by 2019. Impacts were detected across heterogeneous ecological communities at a scale not previously tested amongst high background community variability. Although invasion is not dependent on fire, the acceleration of invasion spread and impacts with fire is a critical consideration for future research and management of grass invaders.

Children’s Retrieval of Science Facts: The Role of Hints and Confidence

ABSTRACT The effortful process of retrieving information from memory has been established as an effective strategy for improving student learning. However, we have a limited understanding of the development of retrieval practice in children, including contexts that may scaffold its benefit. In the current pre-registered study, we examined whether the use of hints during retrieval practice improved free recall in an online science learning task in 8- to 13-years-olds (N = 77, N females = 36). We found partial evidence supporting the provision of hints as boosting the benefit of retrieval practice. Children’s long-term retention of science facts was higher when they received hints during an earlier practice test compared to restudying information, but not compared to a test only condition without hints. Furthermore, we found similar effects across both age and levels of confidence, suggesting that retrieval practice remains stable across these factors.

The Growth Effect of State Capacity Revisited

AbstractI provide new empirical estimates of the effect of state capacity on economic development across countries over the period 1960–2022. Specifically, I construct a comprehensive state capacity index based on six different dimensions of effective state institutions available in the Varieties of Democracy (V‐Dem) dataset. Then, I estimate heterogeneous parameter models under a common factor framework. My empirical strategy explicitly allows the growth effect of state capacity to differ across countries and accounts for unobserved common factors. My preferred estimates indicate that a one‐standard‐deviation increase in my V‐Dem‐based state capacity index predicts a rise in income per person by roughly 6%–7%. The magnitude of such impact equates to less than half of that implied by conventional estimates obtained under highly restrictive assumptions of slope homogeneity and cross‐sectional independence. Furthermore, I provide partial evidence suggesting that worldwide heterogeneity in the economic importance of state capacity is deeply rooted in prehistorically determined population diversity, state history, long‐term relatedness between countries, and interpersonal trust.

Attentional mediators of the effect of interest on comprehension

BackgroundWhile text reading is still a preferred form of learning, topic interest can be considered an important predictor of reading comprehension. However, the nature of the relationship between interest and comprehension is not yet fully understood. AimsThe present study investigates whether topic interest is related to comprehension when measured in advance and whether two indicators of attention (i.e., mind wandering and cognitive coupling) mediate this relation. SampleParticipants were 238 university students. MethodsParticipants rated their interest in three different topics. One week later, they read one text on each of these topics. The texts’ levels of difficulty were manipulated to change during reading. Measured variables during reading were the individual adaptation of the reading speed to the text difficulty (cognitive coupling) and the frequency of mind wandering. In addition, comprehension was measured after reading each text. ResultsPreliminary assessed topic interest was found to be indirectly but not directly associated with reading comprehension. Specifically, topic interest negatively predicted mind wandering during reading, while mind wandering was, in turn, negatively associated with reading comprehension. In addition, partial evidence was found for the mediating role of cognitive coupling. ConclusionsThe present study adds to the research by showing that topic interest can predict future mind wandering and one type of cognitive coupling. Because mind wandering was, in turn, negatively related to reading comprehension, the study's findings further suggest that topic interest should be encouraged to minimize harmful mind wandering, promote adaption to text properties, and thus improve comprehension.

Reassessing the role of language dominance in n-2 language repetition costs as a marker of inhibition in multilingual language switching.

Speaking two or more languages shows bilingual flexibility, but flexible switching requires language control and often incurs performance costs. We examined inhibitory control assessing n-2 repetition costs when switching three languages (L1 [German], L2 [English], L3 [French]). These costs denote worse performance in n-2 repetitions (e.g., L2-L3-L2) than in n-2 nonrepetitions (e.g., L1-L3-L2), indicating persisting inhibition. In two experiments (n = 28 in Experiment 1; n = 44 in Experiment 2), n-2 repetition costs were observed, but only for L2. Looking into L2 trials specifically, we found n-2 repetition costs when switching back to L2 from the still weaker L3 but not when returning from the stronger L1, suggesting that L2 is a strong competitor for L3 (requiring L2 inhibition) but less so for L1. Finding n-2 repetition costs supports an inhibitory account of language control in general, but our study shows only partial evidence for the theoretically assumed more specific relation between language dominance and language inhibition (i.e., only for dominance relations with respect to L1 and L3 when switching back to L2). Taken together, the findings thus suggest the need for further refinement of the concept of language dominance and its relation to inhibition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Standing-up against moral violations: The predicting role of attribution, kinship, and severity.

Witnesses of moral violations stand up for their moral principles, despite facing substantial costs for intervening. Notwithstanding its importance, little is known whether responsibility attributions and the relation between the victim and a witness (i.e., kinship) have different effects on the intention to intervene in situations of different severity (e.g., moral courage situations). We predict an interaction between the situation's severity and the victims' responsibility for their plight. In less-severe situations, witnesses would be less willing to help when they perceive the victim to be responsible for their plight. However, those who are not seen as responsible would receive more help. For more-severe situations, responsibility is predicted to have no effect. Opposite effects are predicted for the relationship between the helper and the victim. We further predict that perceived costs for helping mediates witnesses' willingness to intervene. Two studies showed that people are more willing to help individuals who are perceived as being innocent, but only in less-severe situations. In more-severe situations, people's willingness to intervene increases, regardless of responsibility attributions. We did not observe effects for kinship. Moreover, we provide partial evidence that witnesses of more-severe situations indeed accept higher costs for intervention.

On the partial impact of uncertainties on the nexus between macroeconomic fundamentals in West Africa

We investigate the degree of interconnectedness between stock returns and exchange rate returns, and the influence of some selected global uncertainty indices on such a relationship within a time-frequency domain in West Africa through the bi and partial wavelet approaches. The analysis was based on monthly observations from February 2013 to June 2023. The results highlight a negative correlation between stock return and exchange rates. The partial wavelet analysis evidence a significant effect of the global economic policy uncertainty, the implied oil market volatility, and the United States volatility index in driving the co-movements observed in the currency and stock markets. We also find a significant impact of the stock market on the currency market, underscoring the need for robust stock market policies. It is recommended that policymakers prioritize strategies aimed at boosting stock market stability and depth which can positively affect the currency markets. The significant influence of global uncertainties or shocks should not be disregarded in the formulation of policies regarding exchange rates and stock return integration at various investment horizons.

Drowning in the ripple effect: identifying a syndemic network of health experience (with modifiable health behaviours) using the UK Biobank.

A Syndemic model of health experience in severe mental illness (SMI) involving modifiable health behaviour contributors has been theorised but has not yet been investigated. Over the next 10 years mental ill-health and suicidal behaviours have been predicted to increase which will decrease health experience and increase hospitalisation and associated costs. This paper investigated a Syndemic model of health experience in people with SMI informed by physical activity levels, exposure to nature, personal resilience levels, drugs related (tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption), and sleep behaviours using UK Biobank data. Results implementing SEM indicate partial evidence for a Syndemic model, with personal resilience being at its centre. Contrary to previous findings, drugs related behaviours did not play an important role in the model. Implementing a Syndemic framework approach to current health care strategies could be beneficial in the development of self-management strategies for people with SMI. This is the first paper using SEM analyses to investigate SMI under the Syndemic theory paradigm.

Vladimir Putin on Channel One, 2000–2022

ABSTRACT Drawing on transcripts from the television network Channel One, a popular news source in Russia, this article addresses the question: “How was Vladimir Putin covered by state-controlled media while the regime became increasingly centralized?” The literature on the subject is scarce and inconclusive. Dictators create different images of themselves, and the portrayals of present-day spin dictators — those who primarily rely on the power of propaganda to persuade rather than dominate — are understudied. While some analysts point to Putin’s omnipresence in mass media, others uncover the lack of media personalization and relatively neutral coverage. Using 385,981 news transcripts from 2000–2022 and relying on techniques from natural language processing, I examine how a present-day autocrat attempts to optimize the intensity of state-controlled propaganda. I uncover three main tendencies. First, during all the years in power, the ruler has been more frequently referred to through positive stories. Second, there is only partial evidence that the relative references to Putin on Channel One have significantly increased over time. Third, during all his years in power, Putin has been more frequently mentioned in domestic news rather than in stories about foreign affairs. However, I also demonstrate that the share of news about foreign affairs and events abroad that mentions the ruler has been increasing every year since 2013. By focusing on the supply side of propaganda, this article contributes to the literature on autocratic resilience and spin dictators.

How does recall bias in farm labor impact separability tests?

In the agricultural household literature, empirical tests of separability between production and consumption decisions commonly exploit theoretical predictions of household labor allocation. Many of these studies rely on data that asks respondents to recall labor usage over the entire growing season. Two recent field experiments in Tanzania and Ghana show that such labor use data, collected at the end of the growing season, is a systematically unreliable measure of actual labor allocation. In this study, we examine how inaccurate measures of labor influence the reliability of market failure tests based on separability. In Ghana, we find no statistical evidence that recall bias influences the reliability of the separability test. In Tanzania, we find that recall bias increases the probability that such tests fail to reject separability. Thus, we find partial evidence that classic tests based on typical household survey labor data may erroneously conclude that markets are adequately functioning.

Social Media, Sentiments and Political Discourse ? An Exploratory Study of the 2021 Canadian Federal Election

Social media are widely used for online political discourse. Opinions shared on social media have different sentiments associated with them. Given the very high adoption rates of Twitter (now X) among adults, those who share their opinions on Twitter (X) not only represent a sizable segment of the society, but also influence (through emotion contagion) an even larger segment who are passive (non-contributing) users of the platform. Further, the discourse that is initiated on Twitter (X) typically spreads to other more traditional media. As a result, Twitter (X) is influential, which makes it useful to understand the factors related to the sentiments expressed in tweets. Such understanding can help policymakers to take actions that align with public needs and priorities. This research focuses on identifying the drivers (keywords) of sentiments associated with political discourse on Twitter (X). We also explore virality, i.e., how much a message (the tweet) spreads, and the relationship between sentiments and virality. Finally, we explore whether the clustering of tweets among sentiment and virality groups can improve the potential of social media content for predicting election results. Sentiment Analysis of 764,000 tweets related to the 2021 Canadian Federal election was followed by text clustering to identify sentiment-driving topics. We found some keywords predominantly present within a positive or negative sentiment that are suggestive of entities or ideas to invest in or mitigate by political decision makers. We were also able to find partial evidence for “negativity bias” by detecting a negative relationship between sentiment (positivity) and virality (number of retweets). Finally, we demonstrated that high positivity on the political discourse does not reflect election outcomes and examining Twitter (X) content in more neutral groups can improve predictive power. Our findings have implications for political decision makers and social media analytics researchers.

Physiological state matching in a pair bonded poison frog.

More than a century ago, Charles Darwin hypothesized that theempathy-like phenotype is a phylogenetically widespread phenomenon. This idea remains contentious, due to the challenges of empirically examining emotions, and few investigations among non-mammalian vertebrates. We provide support for Darwin's hypothesis by discovering partial evidence for the most ancestral form of empathy, emotional contagion (i.e. matching another individual's emotional state), in the pair bonding mimetic poison frog, Ranitomeya imitator. We found that male corticosterone, a physiological biomarker of stress, positively correlates with female partners in experimental and semi-natural conditions. This does not appear to coincide with behavioural state-matching. However, it is specific to female partners relative to familiar female non-partners, and is independent of effects that commonly confound studies on emotional contagion. Furthermore, this physiological state-matching is irrespective of partnership longevity or lifetime reproductive output. These results physiologically indicate socially selective emotional contagion in a monogamous amphibian, and paradigms that elicit coinciding neural and behavioural indicators and morphogenic co-variation are needed for further corroboration. Further studies on ancestral forms of empathy in non-mammalian vertebrates are warranted.

Does generation benefit learning for narrative and expository texts? A direct replication attempt

AbstractGenerated information is better recognized and recalled than information that is read. This generation effect has been replicated several times for different types of material, including texts. Perhaps the most influential demonstration is by McDaniel, Einstein, Dunay, and Cobb (Journal of Memory and Language, 1986, 25(6), 645–656; henceforth MEDC). This group tested whether the generation effect occurs only if the generation task stimulates cognitive processes not already stimulated by the text. Numerous studies, however, report difficulties replicating this text by generation‐task interaction, which suggests that the effect might only be found under conditions closer to the original method of MEDC. To test this assumption, the present study closely replicated MEDC's Experiment 2 in two separate German and English‐speaking samples. The present study provided partial evidence in favor of the expected interaction, which ultimately depended on successful completion of the generation task (with near‐to‐perfect accuracy). Moreover, it indicates that sentence unscrambling might enhance learning across genres.

Distance and grid-like codes support the navigation of abstract social space in the human brain.

People form impressions about others during daily social encounters and infer personality traits from others' behaviors. Such trait inference is thought to rely on two universal dimensions: competence and warmth. These two dimensions can be used to construct a 'social cognitive map' organizing massive information obtained from social encounters efficiently. Originating from spatial cognition, the neural codes supporting the representation and navigation of spatial cognitive maps have been widely studied. Recent studies suggest similar neural mechanism subserves the map-like architecture in social cognition as well. Here we investigated how spatial codes operate beyond the physical environment and support the representation and navigation of social cognitive map. We designed a social value space defined by two dimensions of competence and warmth. Behaviorally, participants were able to navigate to a learned location from random starting locations in this abstract social space. At the neural level, we identified the representation of distance in the precuneus, fusiform gyrus, and middle occipital gyrus. We also found partial evidence of grid-like representation patterns in the medial prefrontal cortex and entorhinal cortex. Moreover, the intensity of grid-like response scaled with the performance of navigating in social space and social avoidance trait scores. Our findings suggest a neurocognitive mechanism by which social information can be organized into a structured representation, namely cognitive map and its relevance to social well-being.

Measuring the quality of a match

The quality of an employment match is a central concept in labor economics. It is relevant for evaluating the welfare impact of labor market policies, and for our understanding of labor market dynamics. This paper reviews the challenges associated with measuring match quality. We first review measures commonly used in the literature, their advantages, and drawbacks. We then present novel evidence from a survey sample of US employees where alternative measures were collected simultaneously. We show that while some of these measures correlate well, others do not. Finally, we present additional partial evidence on the correlations between measures based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), a substantially larger and nationally representative survey. The takeaway message is a word of caution regarding the interpretation of some of these measures and specific concerns regarding using wages and tenure as indicators of match quality.

Reactive religiosity? The longitudinal relationship between ethnic harassment, religious identity and wellbeing in the UK

ABSTRACT Ethnic harassment is a common experience among ethnic and religious minorities in the UK and can reduce wellbeing. However, previous research on ethnic minorities suggests that experiences of harassment could increase identification with religious minority groups, and that a strong religious identity may buffer against some of the negative effects of harassment. Using panel data from the UK Household Longitudinal Survey (2009–2021), we investigate whether people who experience ethnic harassment have a subsequent increase in religious identification or practice, and to what extent this affects their wellbeing. We find evidence for a religious buffering effect which reduces distress following ethnic harassment for Christians. Similarly, we observe an increase in religiosity among Christians, but not other religious groups following ethnic harassment. Finally, we examine whether stronger religious identification would increase the likelihood of harassment experiences, and find only partial evidence for this reverse effect.