Salient Information Research Articles

Eye tracking evidence for the reinstatement of emotionally negative and neutral memories.

Recent eye tracking studies have linked gaze reinstatement-when eye movements from encoding are reinstated during retrieval-with memory performance. In this study, we investigated whether gaze reinstatement is influenced by the affective salience of information stored in memory, using an adaptation of the emotion-induced memory trade-off paradigm. Participants learned word-scene pairs, where scenes were composed of negative or neutral objects located on the left or right side of neutral backgrounds. This allowed us to measure gaze reinstatement during scene memory tests based on whether people looked at the side of the screen where the object had been located. Across two experiments, we behaviorally replicated the emotion-induced memory trade-off effect, in that negative object memory was better than neutral object memory at the expense of background memory. Furthermore, we found evidence that gaze reinstatement was related to recognition memory for the object and background scene components. This effect was generally comparable for negative and neutral memories, although the effects of valence varied somewhat between the two experiments. Together, these findings suggest that gaze reinstatement occurs independently of the processes contributing to the emotion-induced memory trade-off effect.

Sleep spindles consolidate declarative memory with tags: A meta-analysis of adult data

Tags are attached to salient information during the wake period, which can preferentially determine what information can be consolidated during sleep. Previous studies demonstrated that spindles during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep give priority to strengthening memory representations with tags, indicating a privileged reactivation of tagged information. The current meta-analysis investigated whether and how spindles can capture different tags to consolidate declarative memory. This study searched the Web of Science, Google Scholar, PubMed, PsycINFO, and OATD databases for studies that spindles consolidate declarative memory with tags. A meta-analysis using a random-effects model was performed. Based on 19 datasets from 18 studies (N = 388), spindles had a medium effect on the consolidation of declarative memory with tags ( r = 0.519). In addition, spindles derived from whole-night sleep and nap studies were positively related to the consolidation of memory representations with tags. These findings reveal the shared mechanism that spindles are actively involved in the prefrontal-hippocampus circuits to consolidate memory with tags.

LFA-YOLO: Detection of Lychee Fruit Anthracnose Based on UAV Images and Deep Learning

HighlightsMulti-path coordinated attention mechanism incorporating salient information is proposed.LeanNet, a backbone network based on depth-separable convolution, is proposed.Channel grouping multiscale fusion convolution is proposed and applied in C2f and detection head.Deployed LFA-YOLO in edge devices for real-time applications.Abstract. Anthracnose is a communicable agricultural disease with a high incidence and significant damage, posing as a major threat to litchi production. In this article, we propose a lightweight target detection method called LFA-YOLO to address the problem of leakage and misdetection in the detection of lychee fruit anthracnose due to the complexity of the agricultural environment. Our method incorporates a Multipath Coordinate Attention (MCA) mechanism into the YOLOv8 algorithm to mitigate detection errors caused by mutual occlusion between fruits. Additionally, in order to reduce the number of model parameters, we utilize the more efficient LeanNet to replace the backbone network of the baseline model. Moreover, we propose a more efficient channel grouping multi-scale fusion convolution (CGMF convolution) and apply it to the C2f module and decoupled detection head. Experimental results on the lychee fruit anthracnose (LFA) dataset demonstrate that the proposed LFA-YOLO model achieves a mAP50 of 88.61, with precision and recall rates of 90.18 and 82.77, respectively. Furthermore, the number of model parameters and floating-point operations (FLOPs) of the new method decreases to 61% and 48% of that of the baseline network, while the frames per second (FPS) improves to 90.3. Finally, we deploy the proposed LFA-YOLO on the NVIDIA Jetson Nano edge computing device to provide vision support for agricultural unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Keywords: Attention mechanism, Lychee fruit anthracnose, Object detection, YOLOv8.

Teacher Caring and Perceptions of In-School Play

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to elicit salient information from K–5 teachers regarding their perceptions of in-school play. Play is not goal-focused and can be structured or unstructured, includes high or low physical activity, or utilizes gross or fine motor skills, and children participate in play for enjoyment. Method: K–5 teachers (n = 27) were asked questions based on the Theory of Planned Behavior during focus groups. Theory of Planned Behavior and Caring Theory themes were identified within and across groups with 34 codes across nine themes identified. Results: Teachers thought positively about in-school play. Play supported caring teaching, as relationships could develop and strengthen during playtime. The lack of administrative support and time was discussed as play barriers. Discussion/Conclusion: Perceptions of and desires to provide play conflict with the current educational models. An issue impacting the provision of effective, caring education has been identified. Studies on factors influencing teacher play practices are needed.

Supplemental Material for Secondary Capture: Salience Information Persistently Drives Attentional Selection

Supplemental Material for Secondary Capture: Salience Information Persistently Drives Attentional Selection

Convolutional LSTM-Attention Based Encoder–Decoder Neural Network for Prediction of Chaotic Vibrations of Multi-Dimensional Dynamic Systems

The present research proposes a convolutional long-short term memory (ConvLSTM) with an attention mechanism (AM) model, termed as ConvLSTM-AM, to conduct prediction of chaotic vibrations of multi-dimensional dynamic systems. The proposed data-driven model is based on an encoder–decoder architecture where the lengths of inputs and outputs are variable. Different from other conventional benchmarks which consider the temporal correlation solely to deal with the chaotic sequences, this research work takes the spatial information into account. In this sense, the ConvLSTM is adopted as an encoder to acquire useful chaotic spatiotemporal patterns and retain long-term successive dependencies. LSTM and AM in this research are taken as the main structures of the procedure in decoding, in which the LSTM is used as the further temporal processor and AM is stacked on the top to exploit more salient information of the historical data. Among that, a residual connection between the outputs of LSTM and the information of attention is considered in AM to prevent gradient vanishment. Two datasets of chaotic vibrations of multi-dimensional systems are employed to adequately illustrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed model. Besides, five conventional benchmarks are built to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed model in terms of both training and generalization performance. As found in the research, the training time is reduced with lower testing loss in comparing with the other five counterparts, as the spatial information introduced expedites the training convergence. The present research provides a useful guidance for predicting and analysing chaotic vibrations of multi-dimensional dynamic systems.

Current Status and Principles for the Treatment and Prevention of Diabetic Foot Ulcers in the Cardiovascular Patient Population: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association.

Despite the known higher risk of cardiovascular disease in individuals with type 2 diabetes, the pathophysiology and optimal management of diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs), a leading complication associated with diabetes, is complex and continues to evolve. Complications of type 2 diabetes, such as DFUs, are a major cause of morbidity and mortality and the leading cause of major lower extremity amputation in the United States. There has recently been a strong focus on the prevention and early treatment of DFUs, leading to the development of multidisciplinary diabetic wound and amputation prevention clinics across the country. Mounting evidence has shown that, despite these efforts, amputations associated with DFUs continue to increase. Furthermore, due to increasing patient complexity of management secondary to comorbid conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, the management of peripheral artery disease associated with DFUs has become increasingly difficult, and care delivery is often episodic and fragmented. Although structured, process-specific approaches exist at individual institutions for the management of DFUs in the cardiovascular patient population, there is insufficient awareness of these principles in the general medicine communities. Furthermore, there is growing interest in better understanding the mechanistic underpinnings of DFUs to better define personalized medicine to improve outcomes. The goals of this scientific statement are to provide salient background information on the complex pathogenesis and current management of DFUs in cardiovascular patients, to guide therapeutic and preventive strategies and future research directions, and to inform public policy makers on health disparities and other barriers to improving and advancing care in this expanding patient population.

Do voters differentially punish transnational corruption?

AbstractA large literature studies whether, and under what circumstances, voters will electorally punish corrupt politicians. Yet this literature has to date neglected the empirical prevalence of transnational dimensions to real‐world corruption allegations, even as corruption studies undergo a ‘transnational turn’. We use a survey experiment in the United Kingdom in 2020 to investigate whether voters differentially punish politicians associated with transnational corruption and test four different potential mechanisms: information salience, country‐based discrimination, economic nationalism and expected representation. We find evidence suggesting that voters indeed differentially punish transnational corruption, but only when it involves countries perceived negatively by the public (i.e. a ‘Moscow‐based firm’). This is most consistent with a mechanism of country‐based discrimination, while we find no evidence consistent with any other mechanism. These results suggest that existing experimental studies might understate the potential for electoral accountability by neglecting real‐world corruption allegations’ frequent transnational dimension.

“Ever since I knew I was trans I knew I wanted hormone therapy”: a qualitative exploration into the journey of Australian trans individuals accessing feminizing gender-affirming hormone therapy

Background:For many trans folks, gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) is a desired affirming procedure that has been linked with positive health outcomes, however literature has had little focus on the journeys of trans people as they access GAHT.Aim:To understand trans people’s journey of accessing GAHT to delineate supports necessary to better engage trans individuals into gender-affirming care.Method:This study conducted semi-structured interviews with a sample of 15 Australian trans adults who participated in a larger study investigating the effects of a cyproterone acetate titration protocol.Findings:A four-factor thematic structure was created from the data. Theme one describes early cognizance of being trans and the pivotal moments in their trans realization. The second theme explores the rapid engagement with community to begin accessing information and affirming healthcare, including GAHT. The third theme explores barriers to engaging in GAHT and theme four reflects on advice participants have for other trans people who are considering GAHT.Conclusion:Findings from this study emphasize the importance of providing support to young trans people to help reconcile their gender identity and assist them to engage into care as early as possible. It also highlights the key role that community plays in providing links to affirming information and providers of GAHT – but also emphasizes the importance of considering how to engage with community who may be missed. The experience of accessing GAHT is personal and contextual, but signaling of affirming safe spaces and access to salient information may be key strategies to better support trans people choosing to access GAHT.

Using Spontaneous Speech Recognition as a Biomarker to Distinguish Dementia Patients

AbstractBackgroundDigital biomarkers such as individual speech recordings, are a cost‐effective tool for assessing cognitive status using linguistic and acoustic content. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods and audio feature extraction can distinguish spontaneous speech outputs in dementia patients from a healthy population.Method240 audio samples and transcripts of clinician‐participant dialogues involving the Cookie‐Theft visual description were acquired from the DementiaBank Pitt corpus (Dementia group (DG) n = 169; healthy controls (CG) n = 71). Lexical variety, syntactic complexity, salience of information, disfluency patterns, and sentiment analysis were evaluated. Sound synthesis and an acoustic R analysis package were used to filter and examine acoustic properties of recorded audio such as silence and speech segmentation, pitch tracking, and frequency modulation of vibrato or jitter. DG and CG were compared using non‐parametric Kruskal‐Wallis tests, Dunn’s multiple comparison, and Mann‐Whitney U‐test in the statistical analysis. In comparison to CG, we hypothesized that DG would differ in levels of lexical diversity, grammatical complexity, and overall salience.ResultOverall, text analysis showed no variations in disfluencies between groups, but there were significant differences in lexical diversity, syntactic complexity and reference rate to reality (p<0.0001). Additionally, there were no appreciable differences in the frequency of salient information between the two groups, however the frequency of non‐salient information and disfluencies was considerably higher in the DG (p<0.05). Analysis of acoustic features revealed that DG had longer average speech duration and speech segment durations compared to CG (p<0.001).. On the other hand, the rate of change of acoustic characteristics including pitch, mean entropy, and harmonics‐to‐noise ratios did not significantly differ between DG and CG.ConclusionIn conclusion, this paradigm reveals that, in comparison to healthy controls, dementia patients exhibited increased lexical diversity yet lower linguistic complexity, and a shift towards characterizing non‐salient objects in given stimuli, as well as longer segments of speech. Further examination of the rhythmic and acoustic characteristics of speech may provide a comprehensive framework towards defining speech as a potential digital biomarker for dementia risk, and provide applications to regions experiencing increasing socioeconomic disparities.

Modified CMIS Factors Predicting Chinese Women's Mental Health Information Seeking in Douyin

The popularity of Douyin (known as TikTok overseas) could provide additional mental health information services to Chinese women. However, the factors that influence women to seek mental health information services in Douyin are still understudied. The study applied the Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking (CMIS) to Chinese women's mental health information seeking behaviors on Douyin to examine this. The study used a questionnaire (N=505), and the data analysis was conducted using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). SmartPLS 4.0 was the primary data analysis technology. Results showed that direct experience, beliefs, salience, and characteristics of mental health information could significantly affect the utility of mental health information on Douyin. In addition, utility, social support, and characteristics directly affect Chinese women's mental health information seeking. Moreover, utility partially mediates the relationship between direct experience, beliefs, salience, characteristics, and mental health information seeking. Rather than targeting specific diseases or pan-health information, this study demonstrates the possibility of applying CMIS to mental health information seeking. This insight could contribute to Douyin and government health interventions to better meet the mental health information needs of Chinese women.

Re-abstraction and perturbing support pair network for few-shot fine-grained image classification

The goal of few-shot fine-grained image classification (FSFGIC) is to distinguish subordinate-level categories with subtle visual differences such as the species of bird and models of car with only a few samples. In this work, we argue that a designed network that has the ability to better distinguish feature descriptors of different categories will effectively improve the performance of FSFGIC. We propose a re-abstraction and perturbing support pair network (RaPSPNet) for FSFGIC. Specifically, we first design a feature re-abstraction embedding (FRaE) module which can not only effectively amplify the difference between the feature information from different categories but also better extract the feature information from images. Furthermore, a novel perturbing support pair (PSP) based similarity measure module is designed which evaluates the relationships of feature information among a query image and two different categories of support images (a support pair) at the same time for guiding the designed FRaE module to find salient feature information from the same category of query and support images and find distinguishable feature information from the different categories of query and support images. Extensive experiments on FSFGIC tasks demonstrate the superiority of the proposed methods over state-of-the-art benchmarks.

Impact of Deceased-donor Acute Kidney Injury on Kidney Transplantation.

Even as record numbers of deceased donors are undergoing organ recovery, the global transplant community continues to struggle with a shortage of donor organs and a high organ discard rate. Acute kidney injury (AKI) occurs in many hospitalized patients, including up to 25% of patients in critical condition. Registry studies have shown a significant increase in nonrecovery or organ discard rates in AKI donors, despite most studies reporting similar clinical outcomes compared with non-AKI donors. This review aims to capture the salient information learned from these studies and to summarize the efforts that have been made to gain a more granular understanding of how kidneys from donors with AKI behave posttransplant. In particular, we reviewed the studies that analyzed the clinical outcomes in different stages of AKI and AKI in marginal donors, such as kidney donor profile index of >85%, older donors, and donation after circulatory death donors. We summarized studies investigating molecular biomarkers, transcriptomics, and possible future therapeutic targets for postdonation AKI.

Fractionation of neural reward processing into independent components by novel decoding principle

How to retrieve latent neurobehavioural processes from complex neurobiological signals is an important yet unresolved challenge. Here, we develop a novel approach, orthogonal-Decoding multi-Cognitive Processes (DeCoP), to reveal underlying latent neurobehavioural processing and show that its performance is superior to traditional non-orthogonal decoding in terms of both false inference and robustness. Processing value and salience information are two fundamental but mutually confounded pathways of reward reinforcement essential for decision making. During reward/punishment anticipation, we applied DeCoP to decode brain-wide responses into spatially overlapping, yet functionally independent, evaluation and readiness processes, which are modulated differentially by meso‑limbic vs nigro-striatal dopamine systems. Using DeCoP, we further demonstrated that most brain regions only encoded abstract information but not the exact input, except for dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and insula. Furthermore, we anticipate our novel analytical principle to be applied generally in decoding multiple latent neurobehavioral processes and thus advance both the design and hypothesis testing for cognitive tasks.

An Investigation on Multimodal Brain Image Fusion in the Time–Frequency Domain using Wavelet Transforms

Image fusion is a process of merging or combining two or more images into a single image. This process helps to provide more information by retaining salient information from the source images. In recent years, image fusion research has extended promptly as imaging technologies are advanced. The rapid advancement of imaging modalities, particularly in the medical field, has resulted in the creation of an increasing number of fusion algorithms. Wavelets are the most applied transforms as they provide spatial and spectral representations. The performance of each wavelet family differs in the fusion with respect to its characteristics. To determine the best family of wavelet-based fusion algorithms, it is suggested to use an analytical technique to compare various wavelets used in brain image fusion. In this study, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computer Tomography (CT) images are used to create fused images. In which, Magnetic Resonance (MR) images have higher spatial resolution and better soft tissue characterization, CT images emphasize three-dimensional imaging and have minimal scan times and high imaging resolutions. It is proposed to find the best-performing wavelet filter bank to support hybrid fusion framework. A total of 87 CT and MR images are collected from different sources, and wavelet transform is applied to them to fuse. The performance of each wavelet family is evaluated on the basis of the Standard Deviation (SD) and Entropy (Epy).

Iranian scientists and French showers: collaborative fact-checking of identity-salient online information.

In this study, we investigate what leads people to fact-check online information, how they fact-check such information in practice, how fact-checking affects their judgments about the information's credibility, and how each of the above processes is affected by the salience of the information to readers' cultural identities. Eight pairs of adult participants were recruited from diverse cultural backgrounds to participate online in joint fact-checking of suspect Tweets. To examine their collaborative deliberations we developed a novel experimental design and analytical model. Our analyses indicate that the salience of online information to people's cultural identities influences their decision to fact-check it, that fact-checking deliberations are often non-linear and iterative, that collaborative fact-checking leads people to revise their initial judgments about the credibility of online information, and that when online information is highly salient to people's cultural identities, they apply different standards of credibility when fact-checking it. In conclusion, we propose that cultural identity is an important factor in the fact-checking of online information, and that joint fact-checking of online information by people from diverse cultural backgrounds may have significant potential as an educational tool to reduce people's susceptibility to misinformation.

DNA methylation of the oxytocin receptor interacts with age to impact neural response to social stimuli.

Social isolation is one of the strongest predictors of increased risk of mortality in older adulthood. The ability to form and maintain the social relationships that mitigate this risk is partially regulated by the oxytocinergic system and one's ability to attend to and process social information. We have previously shown that an epigenetic change to the DNA of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR methylation) affects the salience of social information in young adults. Little is known about how the oxytocinergic system ages and what effect this aging system has on social cognitive abilities throughout the lifespan. Here we explored age-related differences in the association between neural response during selective social attention and OXTR DNA methylation in young (age 18-31) and older (age 58-81) adults. Participants underwent fMRI during a selective social attention task and provided a DNA sample for the assessment of OXTR methylation. We found that older adults activated diffuse areas of visual cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during selective social attention, consistent with the dedifferentiation and compensatory neural activation commonly reported in aging. We found a significant age-by-OXTR methylation interaction on neural response when attending to social stimuli in a complex display; young adults displayed a positive association between OXTR methylation and neural activation, replicating our prior finding that young adults with presumed diminished endogenous access to oxytocin recruit regions of the attentional cortex to a greater extent. This association did not hold for older adults. Instead, perceived social support interacted with OXTR methylation to influence neural response during selective social attention. These data suggest that environmental factors like social support moderate biological processes in aging and highlight the importance of a lifespan perspective for understanding associations between individual differences in the oxytocinergic system, neural function, and social behavior.

A closer look at geographical indicators: how food labels influence product values, authenticity and willingness to pay premium prices

PurposeThe effects of country-of-origin (COO) cues on product evaluations are well documented. However, research on the relative effects of COO compared to other geographical indicators, such as region-of-origin (ROO), on food purchases is still limited. This study investigates how geographical origin labels influence consumers' perceptions of product value and authenticity of foreign food, as well as subsequent purchase intention (PI) and willingness to pay premium prices (WTPPP). The moderating role of health consciousness on these relationships is also examined due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a between-subjects experimental design conducted with 300 middle- and high-income Chinese consumers aged between 25 and 50 years. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling.FindingsWhilst under both COO and ROO cues, all five product values positively influenced consumers' WTPPP, only functional, economic and novelty values influenced PI. The ROO cue performed significantly better than the COO cue in eliciting functional, economic and novelty value perceptions, which triggered stronger PI and willingness to pay a premium price. These relationships were mediated by product authenticity (PA) and moderated by consumers' health consciousness (HC).Practical implicationsBecause food labels provide salient product information that facilitates consumers' evaluation of products, marketers should assess which product value perceptions they wish to enhance and then choose the appropriate geographical indicators for their labelling strategies.Originality/valueThis study identifies the effects of COO and ROO cues on product values, authenticity, PI and WTPPP. It also provides valuable insights into the role of HC on consumers' purchase decisions, which also aids in understanding the impact of global crises on food purchases.

Americans weigh an attended emotion more than Koreans in overall mood judgments

Face ensemble coding is the perceptual ability to create a quick and overall impression of a group of faces, triggering social and behavioral motivations towards other people (approaching friendly people or avoiding an angry mob). Cultural differences in this ability have been reported, such that Easterners are better at face ensemble coding than Westerners are. The underlying mechanism has been attributed to differences in processing styles, with Easterners allocating attention globally, and Westerners focusing on local parts. However, the remaining question is how such default attention mode is influenced by salient information during ensemble perception. We created visual displays that resembled a real-world social setting in which one individual in a crowd of different faces drew the viewer's attention while the viewer judged the overall emotion of the crowd. In each trial, one face in the crowd was highlighted by a salient cue, capturing spatial attention before the participants viewed the entire group. American participants’ judgment of group emotion more strongly weighed the attended individual face than Korean participants, suggesting a greater influence of local information on global perception. Our results showed that different attentional modes between cultural groups modulate social-emotional processing underlying people’s perceptions and attributions.

Equity Crowdfunding and Offering Page Disclosure

ABSTRACT This paper provides descriptive evidence about how startup firms communicate with investors on their Regulation Crowdfunding offering page. I find evidence, consistent with prior theory about processing costs and information salience, that a firm’s prior revenues relate strongly to the discussion of financial information on its offering page. This runs counter to indications from Reg CF founders that they think financial information is of less importance to these investors than other information about the company. Consistent with founder beliefs that investors place little weight on firm financials, I find no consistent relation between financial disclosure and a firm meeting its offering goal. Offering success appears more closely related to other elements of disclosure that tell the “story” of the company. The results of this paper can help inform future research in the crowdfunding space, as well as contribute to the literature on how investors process information and disclosure. Data Availability: Publicly available from Regulation Crowdfunding filings on SEC Edgar. JEL Classifications: G23; G24; M13; M41.